The ONS blunders. Again
'The ONS apologises for any inconvenience caused' is becoming an all-too-familiar refrain from Britain's statisticians. The latest mea culpa came after a blunder involving vehicle tax data led the Office for National Statistics to overstate April's inflation figure. Initially reported as 3.5 per cent, the true figure was 3.4 per cent – only revealed once the Department for Transport corrected its own error on the number of cars subject to increased vehicle taxes.
While civil servants at the DfT are to blame, it raises serious questions about the ONS's quality assurance process. Robert Wood, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said it was obvious there had been an error as soon as the figures were published last month.
When asked by The Spectator this morning at an event to relaunch the Conservatives' economic policy, shadow chancellor Mel Stride called the mistake 'thoroughly reprehensible'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mirror
22 minutes ago
- Daily Mirror
Trade unions join forces to demand end to ban on 'sympathy strikes'
Secondary industrial action - where a trade union asks its members to take action against their employer in solidarity with workers elsewhere who are in dispute - has been banned since the early 1990s Trade unions have joined together to call for laws banning 'sympathy strikes' to be scrapped. Secondary industrial action - where a trade union asks its members to take action against their employer in solidarity with workers elsewhere who are in dispute - has been banned since the early 1990s. Now the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), the British Medical Association (BMA) and other unions have signed a joint statement in support of a proposed change to the Employment Rights Bill, currently going through the House of Lords. The statement reads: "For too long, the current legal restrictions have served to isolate disputes, weaken solidarity and limit workers' ability to collectively challenge unfair conditions - particularly in an increasingly fragmented and outsourced employment landscape.' Fire Brigades Union general secretary Steve Wright said: 'It's time for the government to finally overturn anti-worker laws brought in by the Conservatives to attack pay and conditions. 'The ban on workers supporting strikes across sectors is a Tory relic from the nineties. 'The aim has always been to isolate and limit workers' ability to stand up against employers threatening pay cuts and worsening conditions. 'These undemocratic restrictions are part of the UK being one of the worst countries for workers' rights in Europe. We urge all members of the House of Lords to support this amendment and restore this basic democratic right.'
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
NHS to get £30bn boost over three years at expense of other services
The NHS is set to receive a £30bn funding boost in the spending review next week, at the expense of other public services. The Department of Health is expected to emerge as the biggest winner on Wednesday with a 2.8% increase to its day-to-day spending budget over a three-year period, amounting to a £30bn rise by 2028. This amounts to a £17bn real-terms increase according to the Times, which first reported the figure. The cash injection will come at the expense of other public services such as policing and local councils, which are facing real-terms cuts in the spending review. Ministers are planning to put the increase in health spending, as well as plans for over £100bn in capital investment, at the centre of their pitch to the public this week. Keir Starmer has pledged that by the next election, 92% of patients in England waiting for planned treatment will be seen within 18 weeks of being referred. NHS data suggests about 60% of people are currently seen within this time. NHS figures released last month showed the overall number of patients on waiting lists had risen slightly from 6.24 million to 6.25 million. Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has acknowledged that she had been forced to rebuff requests for funding from some departments because of the tight economic situation. She has insisted the blame lies with Conservatives and has declined to reassess her self-imposed rules on borrowing and spending. Speaking in Manchester this week, the chancellor said despite a £190bn increase in funding over the spending review period 'not every department will get everything that they want next week and I have had to say no to things that I want to do too'. The Foreign Office and Department for Culture, Media and Sport are thought to be facing some of the deepest cuts. Economists have warned that the chancellor faces 'unavoidably' tough choices when she sets out the departmental spending plans. The Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank has said defence and the NHS will dominate on 11 June. The Home Office has been lobbying heavily for more funding, with Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, warning that cuts threaten progress towards two of the prime minister's 'missions' — halving knife crime and halving violence against women and girls. Police chiefs including Mark Rowley, the head of the Metropolitan police service, warned Starmer directly in a letter this week that they would face 'stark choices' about which crimes they investigate if the Treasury pushes ahead with cuts. One of the areas in which the Home Office has sought to cut spending is on hotels to temporarily house asylum seekers in the UK. But according to figures published on Saturday, the department plans to spend about £2.2bn of foreign aid to support asylum seekers this financial year. This is only marginally less than the £2.3bn spent in 2024-2025. Asylum seekers and their families are housed in temporary accommodation if they are waiting for the outcome of a claim or an appeal and have been assessed as not being able to support themselves independently. International rules allow countries to count first-year costs of supporting refugees as overseas development assistance. A total of 32,345 asylum seekers were being housed temporarily in UK hotels at the end of March this year, down 15% from the end of December. The Home Office said it was 'urgently taking action to restore order and reduce costs', which would cut the amount spent to support asylum seekers and refugees in the UK.
BreakingNews.ie
3 hours ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Kemi Badenoch refuses to kick Liz Truss out of Conservative Party
Kemi Badenoch has refused to kick former UK prime minister Liz Truss out of the Conservative Party. The Tory leader suggested such a move would be 'neither here nor there' for voters' perception of the party. Advertisement In a speech on Thursday, shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride sought to distance the Conservatives from Ms Truss' mini-budget, saying the party needed to show 'contrition' to restore its economic credibility. In a furious response, Ms Truss accused Mr Stride of having 'kowtowed to the failed Treasury orthodoxy' and being 'set on undermining my plan for growth'. Asked by the BBC on Friday whether she would consider throwing former prime minister Ms Truss out of the Conservatives in a symbolic break with her short-lived, turbulent time in No 10, Mrs Badenoch replied: 'Is she still in the party?' Ms Truss, the former Conservative MP for South West Norfolk, is understood to be a Tory party member still. Advertisement Speaking to the BBC, Mrs Badenoch said: 'What is really important is what Mel was saying yesterday. What he was saying was that the mini-budget did not balance. It wasn't tax cuts, it was the … £150 billion of spending increases on energy bills that did not make sense.' Pressed whether she believed the mini-budget had damaged the Conservative brand, Mrs Badenoch said: 'Well, look at what happened, people didn't understand why we had done that, and so our reputation for economic competence was damaged.' Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said the party needed to 'focus on how we're going to get this country back on track' (Stefan Rousseau/PA) When asked again why she would not consider kicking Ms Truss out of the party, the Tory leader said: 'It is not about any particular individual. I don't want to be commenting on previous prime ministers. 'They've had their time. What am I going to do now? Removing people from a political party is neither here nor there in terms of what it is your viewers want to see.' Advertisement After insisting Ms Truss was not in Parliament anymore, Mrs Badenoch said her party needed to 'focus on how we're going to get this country back on track'. 'What we have right now is a Labour Government, it's Keir Starmer. We need to stop talking about several prime ministers ago and talk about the Prime Minister we've got now and what he's doing to the country,' the Tory leader said. Ms Truss this week appeared in a video to promote the Irish whiskey brand of bare-knuckle fighter Dougie Joyce, who was once jailed for attacking a 78-year-old man in a pub in 2022.
