Reeves Says Never Say Never on Forcing UK Pension Investment
By , Lizzy Burden, and Leonard Kehnscherper
Updated on
Save
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said she didn't rule out mandating pension funds to allocate money to UK assets, as the government seeks to channel more investment into the domestic economy.
'I'm never going to say never,' Reeves said in a Bloomberg TV interview on Tuesday, when asked if she was considering forcing funds to invest in British companies and infrastructure projects. 'But I don't think it's necessary. We don't need to mandate them if people are willing to sign a voluntary accord.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
UPI
3 hours ago
- UPI
'Black boxes' from jet crash in India found; sole survivor doing well
1 of 10 | India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits the site of an Air India plane crash near the airport in Ahmedabad, India, on Friday. Photo by Indian Press Information Bureau | License Photo June 13 (UPI) -- Both of the "black boxes" were recovered from the wreckage of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner in India after after all but one of the 242 people onboard died. The voice and data recorders may help investigators learn what caused the passenger jet to crash just minutes after it took off from Ahmedabad for London's Gatwick Airport on Thursday. "The Flight Data Recorder (Black Box) has been recovered within 28 hours from the accident site in Ahmedabad," Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu, the Indian Union Minister of Civil Aviation, said in a social media post. "This marks an important step forward in the investigation. This will significantly aid the enquiry into the incident." Hours later on Saturday morning local time, the voice recorder was found. The captain of the flight sent a distress call to air traffic control less a minute after take off, India's aviation authorities confirmed Saturday. The plane crashed just 33 minutes after takeoff. The recorders were recovered from on top of the medical college hostel where the jet crashed. Members of the U.S. Transportation Safety Board and British authorities are assisting with the investigation. More 50 of those killed from the plane are British nationals. The aircraft was made in the United States. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Thursday they haven't found any safety data that the plane model itself is unsafe. "They have to get on the ground and take a look. But again, right now it'd be way too premature," Duffy said at a news conference. "People are looking at videos and trying to assess what happened, which is never a strong, smart way to make decisions on what took place." It was the first fatal flight involving the 787-8. Boeing has manufactured 1,188 of the planes since they went into service in 2009. India's government is inspecting all Boeing 787s , the aviation minister just told reporters in a press briefing. Air India operates 33 Boeing 787s and rival airline IndiGo has one, according to data from Flightradar24. Rescue workers scoured the site for survivors and, miraculously, one man, British national Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, who had been in seat 11A on the Air India flight, right next to his brother. He walked away from the crash site with only minor injuries. The sole survivor is doing well in hospital but is "psychologically disturbed," according to the Civil Hospital medical director. The jet struck a hostel for B.J. Medical College and Civil Hospital students and relatives, a medical school. The total death toll is at least 290. The British national of Indian origin told the Hindustan Times it happened very fast. "Thirty seconds after takeoff, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed," Ramesh said. "I don't know how I'm alive, how I exited the plane." Ramesh added, "I don't know how I survived. I saw people dying in front of my eyes -- the air hostesses, and two people I saw near me. ... I walked out of the rubble." He was seated near a left-side window emergency exit in the economy section of the aircraft. He said he saw the exit, tried to get out through it and succeeded. Ramesh said he still can't believe he made it out alive. Prime Minister Narenda Modi visited him in the hospital. Modi said on X, "Met those injured in the aftermath of the tragic plane crash in Ahmedabad, including the lone survivor and assured them that we are with them and their families in this tough time. The entire nation is praying for their speedy recovery. A student said it was a "miracle" she missed the flight. Bhoomi Chauhan, 28, said she was angry after a traffic jam on the way to the airport meant she missed boarding the flight by just 10 minutes. Now she said is "numb" after learning a about the crash. In a statement on X Air India offered its deepest condolences to families of those killed and added, "The passengers comprised 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, 7 Portuguese nationals and 1 Canadian national. The FAIMA Doctors Association said on X that "The wife of one super-specialist doctor was found dead." Fifty MBBS students were hospitalized in stable condition while two or three were in critical condition and four or five students were missing. Three to four relatives of resident doctors also are missing, according to FAIMA.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
The Shame of Trump's Parade
The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Today—250 years since the Continental Army officially formed to fight for the independence of the American colonies against the British monarchy—marks a milestone in President Donald Trump's effort to politicize the U.S. military. Though they are rare, military parades have happened before in Washington, D.C. For the most part, these have been celebrations of military achievements, such as the end of a war. But today is also Trump's birthday, and what he and his supporters have planned is a celebration of Trump himself. A mark of a free society is that its public institutions, especially its military, represent the body politic and the freedom-enabling equal rights that structure civic life. If service members and the public begin to believe that the military is not neutral but is in fact the servant of MAGA, this will threaten the military's legitimacy and increase the likelihood of violent conflict between the military and the public. Today's events bring us one step closer to this disaster. [Read: Trump's un-American parade] I have seen the politicization of the military firsthand. Last month, I resigned my tenured position as a philosophy professor at West Point in protest of the dramatic changes the Trump administration is making to academic programs at military-service academies. Following an executive order from January, the Department of Defense banned most discussions of race and gender in the classroom. West Point applied this standard to faculty scholarship as well. As a result, my research agenda—I study the relationship between masculinity and war, among other things—was effectively off limits. I consider what the Trump administration is doing to the military-service academies as a profound violation of the military's political neutrality. That destructive ethos is the same one apparent in the parade scheduled for today. Before Trump was reelected, the Army had planned significant celebrations across the country to mark this day, including the release of a commemorative postage stamp and a visit to the International Space Station by an Army astronaut. But according to The New York Times, arrangements for today's D.C. event, unlike the other plans, began only this year. The day is scheduled to begin with a variety of family-friendly concerts, a meet and greet with NFL players, and military-fitness competitions, all on the National Mall. If all goes to plan, the celebrations will culminate with what organizers are calling a 'grand military parade' that starts near the Pentagon, crosses the Potomac River, and ends near the White House. The parade is anticipated to involve 6,700 active-duty soldiers and a massive display of Army equipment: dozens of M1A1 Abrams tanks and Stryker armored personnel carriers, along with more than 100 other land vehicles, 50 helicopters, and a B-25 bomber. Trump is scheduled to give remarks after the parade and receive a flag delivered from the air by the U.S. Army Parachute Team known as the Golden Knights. A fireworks show is set to follow later tonight. The organizers have made it abundantly clear that today's purpose is to directly laud Trump and his politics. In promotional materials, they tell us, 'Under President Trump's leadership, the Army has been restored to strength and readiness.' They credit his 'America First agenda' for military pay increases, enlarged weapons stockpiles, new technologies, and improvements in recruitment, declaring that he has 'ensured our soldiers have the tools and support they need to win on any battlefield.' Monica Crowley, the State Department's chief of protocol and a former Fox News host, went on Steve Bannon's podcast WarRoom to say that the concurrence of the U.S. Army's anniversary and Trump's birthday is 'providential.' She called it 'meant to be. Hand of God, for sure.' She added, 'It is really a gift, and we want to be sure that we celebrate in a manner that is fitting, not just of this extraordinary president but of our extraordinary country.' She also expressed hope that the crowd would serenade the president with 'Happy Birthday.' Clearly, Trump isn't merely the guest of honor; he is the reason for the party. During his first administration, members of Trump's own Cabinet often thwarted his efforts to corrupt the Pentagon. This time, Trump has appointed a secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, who is willing to tear down the boundaries separating politics and the management of national defense. Trump and Hegseth claim to be purging the military of politicization instilled by previous administrations and resetting the DOD around the nonpartisan matter of readiness for war. But in reality, they have used this rationale as a cover to insert an unprecedented level of political partisanship into the military. Other events in recent months have pointed in this same direction. For instance, in February, the administration fired the top lawyers for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The only meaningful justification given for the move was Hegseth's claim that the fired lawyers might be roadblocks to the president's agenda—a frightening admission. In January, the administration banned transgender people from serving in the military, not because they allegedly pose a threat to unit cohesion or because their medical treatment is unusually expensive, but because they are supposedly bad people ('not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member'). At present, transgender soldiers who have met all performance standards are being discharged simply because of the administration's bigotry against them. [Read: A parade of ignorance] The administration has also inserted its politics into all the military-service academies—the reason I left West Point last month. Trump and Hegseth have denied the validity of ideas that are taken seriously in a variety of disciplines and banned them from the classroom, including, as I noted above, matters pertaining to race and gender. Books and other works, most of which are by women and people of color, have been removed from the curriculum. The academic programs of the service academies are now structured around the Trump administration's ideological worldview. Faculty and cadets wonder if they are allowed to entertain perspectives inconsistent with the administration's politics. In May, Hegseth led an evangelical prayer service in the Pentagon's auditorium. Standing at a lectern with the Department of Defense seal, Hegseth led the audience in prayer to 'our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.' The main speaker at this service was Hegseth's pastor, Brooks Potteiger, of the Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. This church restricts all leadership positions to men, declares homosexuality immoral, and asserts that women should not serve in combat. Of course, there is nothing wrong with a secretary of defense acknowledging his religious faith. What's objectionable is the use of his authority to push his personal religious views on subordinates, especially as the director of a major institution of the secular state. The president now routinely speaks to uniformed service members in his red MAGA hat, using his trademark rhetoric centering himself and belittling, even demonizing, his critics. He openly suggests a special alliance between him and the military. At Fort Bragg on Tuesday, for instance, Trump encouraged uniformed soldiers to cheer his political agenda and boo his enemies. This is all extremely dangerous. Keeping the military a politically neutral servant of the constitutional order, not of the president or his political ideology, is vital to ensuring the security of civil society. Up until a week ago, the blurring of the boundaries between the administration's ideology and the military had not yet manifested as an attempt to employ the military directly on Trump's—or the Republican Party's—behalf. The steps taken until that point had been mostly symbolic. (The one possible exception was the deployment of the military at the southern border in what is essentially a law-enforcement matter.) But these symbolic expressions of military politicization have paved the way for that endgame—presidential orders that deploy the military for directly partisan ends. In just the past week, the Trump administration responded to protests against the enforcement of his immigration policies with military deployments. The likelihood that the administration will try to use the military against its political opponents is now very high. If that comes to pass, we will then learn just how successful Trump's efforts to politicize the military have been. Illustration Sources: RoyalFive / Getty; Tasos Katopodis / Getty; WoodysPhotos / Getty; gerenme / Getty; JohnnyPowell / Getty; Win McNamee / Getty. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Labour's insane economic policies are taking us back to the dark 1970s
We have been here before. The crisis that the country faces may be catastrophic but it is not unprecedented. Anyone old enough to remember life in 1970s Britain will recall an almost universal sense of utter hopelessness and resignation. Most people (but not all, as it turned out) seemed to be beyond any thought of constructive rebellion against apparently invincible forces. Decline was not just an alarming possibility: it was inevitable and crushing in its finality. The everyday business of life was not simply encumbered by incompetence and infuriatingly poor services as it is now. It was made virtually impossible: the lights were going out on a regular basis along with facilities like heating and cooking, which relied on electricity; the train service on which commuters depended (no working from home back then) was repeatedly withdrawn sometimes without warning; and essential supplies were obstructed, which caused desperate shortages of goods. It was often observed, with characteristic British irony, that it was like living through the war – only this time the enemy wasn't foreign. You know what happened next. The Thatcher Government broke the death grip of trade union power which had crippled the British economy, not just by new legislation that directly limited the unions' coercive practices but by dismantling the nationalised industries over which they had a monopolistic hold. Along with union hegemony, the suffocating grip of Left-wing councils was also brought down. I recall this particularly vividly because my family's life in the London Borough of Haringey had been turned into a class war nightmare by a vindictive Labour council whose rising star Jeremy Corbyn obligingly closed down the schools in solidarity with the striking caretakers. But the miraculous revolution did not happen overnight. The first attempt to beat the coal miners who were critical to this struggle failed because the deprivation that their prolonged strike caused was too great for the population to bear. It took the Government a year of stockpiling coal in a carefully planned strategy to survive another winter of strikes before the breakthrough came. There was no instant revelation on the political front either. The presentation of what soon became known as Thatcherism, with its transformational view of how wealth was created and distributed ('growing the pie' as opposed to simply dividing up the existing one into more equal pieces), was a major philosophical undertaking. This was no mere electoral strategy. It was a historic shift of paradigmatic social thinking: a systematic argument with the Marxist analysis that had dominated political discourse in its harder or softer forms for a century. It took philosophical thinkers like Friedrich Hayek and Nobel Prize-winning economic theorists like Milton Friedman, translated into practical action by an inspirational political adviser like Sir Keith Joseph, to create solutions that no one could have foreseen a generation before. Yes children, that was how it happened all those years ago that Britain emerged from what looked like an inevitable descent into domestic failure and global insignificance. But how can this be relevant now? After all, we have learnt the essential lessons about how to create economic growth and encourage the spread of it through society – haven't we? We know that private enterprise must be allowed to flourish if actual wealth is to increase, and that the state can only spend real money that markets produce if it is not to bankrupt the nation with debt. And, what is more, if the state inhibits or depresses the ability of private entrepreneurialism to flourish, there will be no possibility of it improving living conditions for anyone. Surely we know all this – don't we? The awareness of it must be embedded in the consciousness of every serious politician who aspires to power. (The unserious ones who are so ideologically purblind that they will not accept it are, I genuinely believe, unlikely ever to be more than a disruptive nuisance.) Blairite Labour had to demonstrate that it had been converted to the new truth before it could hope to be re-elected. It staged a ceremonial renunciation of the old dogma with the removal of its commitment to state ownership of the means of production and declared itself enthusiastically committed to capitalist free markets – so long as they were accompanied by 'social fairness' (which was, unfortunately, redistribution by another name). After all that, here we are. A new Old Labour Government is now restoring the suffocating employment rights which make the dynamism and flexibility of entrepreneurial business impossibly difficult. It promises enormous amounts of money that don't exist and cannot be produced, because of the restrictions it has put on private enterprise, to public services like the NHS designed on the old monopolistic model. It caves in, without a struggle, to the demands of every public sector union for all the world as if the 1980s had never happened. What is at the heart of this? To understand such retrograde thinking, you must listen to the rhetoric in which it is expressed. The Prime Minister and his hapless Chancellor speak of 'working people' as a homogeneous class whose communities are as conformist and predictable in their attitudes and loyalties as they were 50 years or more ago. Their lives are seen as inextricably bound up (and limited by) a single local industry which must be renewed or replaced by another industry or by a technological revolution into which the population can be inducted. There appears to be no understanding that what used to be a solid, passive working class which wanted nothing more than safe jobs for itself and its progeny was awakened by the 1980s to the possibility of social mobility. The working people to whom Labour is offering its expensive beneficence may now quite possibly be inclined to start up their own ventures and move on. Pouring government money into regional capital projects will mean taxing their new enterprises into the grave. The revelation of the Blair years was that there were lots of working (class) people who did not welcome the traditional, patronising Labour message. They may still be a minority, these brave individualists, but they are the future and they will not be ignored. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
