UK and Nvidia team up to power new 'AI talent pipeline' ...Tech & Science Daily podcast
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has opened London Tech Week 2025, announcing a new artificial intelligence skills programme, which will allow pupils to get the skills and tools needed to get AI-powered jobs.
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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
ALEX BRUMMER: If this is a fixed economy, I'd hate to see a broken one
Nearly half a century has passed since Margaret Thatcher skewered the incumbent PM James Callaghan at the 1979 election with her famous ' Labour Isn't Working' poster, which showed dole queues stretching across the horizon. We are not quite there yet. But after years of low unemployment in Britain, Rachel Reeves and Sir Keir Starmer have brought chaos – in just 11 months – to what was one of the strongest labour markets in Europe. Last October's Budget and its central and perhaps most hated policy – an increase in employers' National Insurance to 15 per cent – added no less than £23 billion to bosses' wage bills. And for all this Government's promise not to raise taxes on 'working people', it's now clear that this misguided and self-defeating pledge is having a vicious impact on jobs. Companies are proving reluctant to take on new workers, are deliberately not replacing colleagues who move on and are taking the opportunity to cut costs by making people redundant. The only silver lining is slowing wage increases, at least in the private sector, should make it possible for the Bank of England to lower interest rates by a further 0.25 per cent this summer to 4 per cent – making mortgages and borrowing cheaper. The public sector is another matter, of course, and has enjoyed lavish raises at the expense of the productive part of the economy – to say nothing of its far more generous gold-plated pensions, paid out of direct taxation. But overall the picture is dire. The National Insurance increase, along with a hugely generous rise in the minimum wage – now one of the highest on the planet – surging fuel costs and rising business rates, have shattered business confidence. Companies are shedding jobs at an alarming rate. Figures collected by HMRC show that 55,000 jobs were lost in April alone and numbers 'were notably weaker' than expected, according to bankers Goldman Sachs. Vacancies are tumbling, too – these stood at 736,000 in the three months to April, down from 760,000 in the previous period, and were at 1.4 million as recently as 2022. The unemployment rate, which was 3.6 per cent of the workforce prior to the pandemic, has now zipped up to 4.6 per cent. And the worst part? There's more to come. Businesses are steeling themselves for socialist firebrand Angela Rayner's beloved Employment Rights Bill, currently grinding its way through Parliament, which will make hiring new workers even more expensive. To peals of outrage (and a front-page Daily Mail headline: 'Deluded'), this week Sir Keir claimed to have 'fixed' our public finances, thus making possible his Government's U-turn on snatching the winter fuel allowance from millions of pensioners. Well, if this is what 'fixed' looks like, Sir Keir, I'd hate to see the economy 'broken'. Rising unemployment is a menace. It inevitably raises the cost of Britain's already gargantuan welfare bill – and it simultaneously reduces Government revenues due to lower income tax and National Insurance receipts. In 1979, unemployment stood at 5.3 per cent – and, despite the Iron Lady's famous poster, it rose to a staggering 11.9 per cent by 1984 on her watch. We are a long way from those days. Yet as I have said before, Ms Reeves – with last year's £40 billion tax-raising Budget, locked Britain into a doom loop of plummeting business confidence, rising unemployment and reduced job choices. Yesterday's multi-year public-spending review will splash the cash on investments in nuclear power, science and technology, roads and railways. As helpful as all that may be, it will mean more Government borrowing and debt that will take years to pay off. Expect unemployment to keep on rising until the Government changes course.
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Amazingly there are 12% of voters who think Rachel Reeves does a GOOD job! Survey gives damning insight into Chancellor's policy backlash
Barely one in ten voters believe that Chancellor Rachel Reeves is doing a good job, a poll has revealed. The YouGov survey, published on the eve of the Chancellor's spending review today, showed widespread disillusionment with her performance since taking office last year. Just 12 per cent of people said Ms Reeves is doing a good job, while 53 per cent said she is doing a bad job – giving her a net approval rating of minus 41. Ms Reeves even fared badly among Labour voters, with only 28 per cent voting in favour of her efforts, while 32 per cent condemned them. A separate poll by the think-tank More In Common found that confidence in Labour's ability to deliver on its promises has collapsed since the election. The survey also revealed that the public has become tired of Labour blaming the country's current problems on the previous Conservative government. Ms Reeves and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer have repeatedly blamed the Tories for their economic inheritance, including claims of facing a £22billion 'black hole' in the public finances on taking office. But the tactic seems to be wearing thin, with 54 per cent of voters saying Labour is wasting too much time blaming the Tories for its failures in office. The survey also found that 71 per cent of voters do not expect Labour to improve their lives, compared to just 29 per cent who do. When the same question was asked just days after last year's election, 54 per cent said they believed Labour would improve their lives, compared with 46 per cent who did not. In addition to this, the poll suggests just a third of Labour voters believe the changes announced by Ms Reeves in today's spending review will be good for the country. Among the wider public, that figure falls to just 15 per cent, compared with 26 per cent who believe the Chancellor's expected spending splurge will make little difference and 32 per cent who fear decisions announced in the spending review will be generally bad for the country. Civil Service hits 550,000 Civil Service headcount has hit a near 20-year high despite Labour vowing to crack down on numbers. Official figures show the workforce grew by 2,000 in the first three months of the year to 550,000. That was up from 544,000 in March 2024, and is the highest since 2006 when Tony Blair was in power. In March, the Chancellor promised running costs would be reduced by 15 per cent by the end of the decade. And in April ministers announced plans to squeeze numbers, including cutting 2,100 Cabinet Office staff.
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Hundreds of thousands of pensioners to face 'stealth raid' on winter fuel payouts
Hundreds of thousands of pensioners will face a stealth raid on their revived winter fuel payments, experts claim. Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a humiliating U-turn this week that will see the payment restored to nine million pensioners this winter. Only those with taxable incomes of more than £35,000 a year will lose out, under the new proposals. But neither Downing Street nor the Treasury would guarantee yesterday that the new threshold would rise in line with inflation in future years, meaning thousands more pensioners are likely to lose their annual payments as the state pension increases. The payments are worth £200 a year to most pensioner households or £300 where one person is over 80. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer (pictured) yesterday said cutting the winter fuel allowance last year had been 'the right thing' to do as the economy was 'broken' when Labour came to office, meaning 'difficult decisions' were needed to shore up the public finances Former pensions minister Sir Steve Webb, now a partner at the pension consultants LCP, said: 'The Government's own figures clearly suggest they expect the number of losers from the new policy to rise each year. 'With around two million pensioners currently over the £35,000 threshold, this number could easily rise by another half a million by 2030.' Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer yesterday said cutting the winter fuel allowance last year had been 'the right thing' to do as the economy was 'broken' when Labour came to office, meaning 'difficult decisions' were needed to shore up the public finances. He also claimed that the economy has since 'stabilised', allowing the decision to hand back the payments to more pensioners.
