Latest news with #politicalpressure
Reuters
a day ago
- Business
- Reuters
UK to restore winter fuel payments to millions of pensioners in major U-turn
LONDON, June 9 (Reuters) - Britain will make winter fuel payments to millions of older people this winter, in a major U-turn of deeply unpopular cuts after months of political pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Starmer's Labour government cut winter fuel payments soon after taking office last July as part of wider spending reductions which it said were necessary to fix a hole in the public finances left by the previous Conservative administration. Starmer and finance minister Rachel Reeves had faced opposition from dozens of Labour lawmakers on the move and the cuts were cited as one factor in the party losing ground to Nigel Farage's right-wing Reform UK party in recent local elections. Reform also leads in opinion polls nationally. Starmer signaled last month that he would reverse the cuts, telling parliament he recognised that older people were still feeling the pressure from a cost-of-living crisis. On Monday the finance ministry confirmed the details of that change, saying people in England and Wales aged over 66 with an annual income of 35,000 pounds ($47,495) or below would now be eligible for the payment, benefiting about 9 million people. The measure will cost the government 1.25 billion pounds and means-testing of the payment will save around 450 million pounds. The move would not lead to permanent additional borrowing, the Treasury said in a statement. Government ministers had previously argued that many of the payments - which subsidise winter heating bills for millions of older people and are worth 200-300 pounds - were received by wealthy people who did not need the help. The initial cut meant that around 85% of pensioner households that received the payments lost the benefit, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank. The cost of the change will be accounted for at the budget and incorporated into the next forecast of the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, the government said. ($1 = 0.7369 pounds)
New York Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Harvard's Battle Is Familiar to a University the Right Forced into Exile
In a former bank building, away from Vienna's palaces and opera houses, Central European University lives in exile. The school, founded by George Soros, was once an example of academia flourishing in post-Soviet Europe. Now, less than a decade after Hungary's right-wing government forced it to move out of Budapest, people there are sounding warnings as President Trump seeks to bring America's top universities to heel. 'It's like we keep screaming at the void, and no one is listening,' said Sepphora Llanes, a graduate student from Colorado. But some are. As the Trump administration escalates its pressure campaign, more people in American higher education — and in Vienna — believe the U.S. government is borrowing from a playbook refined in recent years by Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who used state power to menace a university he disdained, upend academic independence and strengthen his ideological grip on Hungary. 'At the abstract level, it's the same,' said Carsten Q. Schneider, a German scholar who has worked for C.E.U. for more than 20 years and will become its interim president and rector in August. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Fired US librarian of Congress details callous dismissal in new interview
The first woman and African American to serve as the US librarian of Congress before Donald Trump fired her in May has not heard from the president's administration beyond the 31-word email it sent her with word of her dismissal, she has revealed in her first interview since her ouster. 'No one has talked to me directly at all from the White House,' Carla Hayden says in an interview airing on the upcoming CBS News Sunday Morning. 'I've received no communication directly, except for that one email. 'That's the only communication.' Hayden's comments to the CBS national correspondent Robert Costa provide a first-hand glimpse at the unceremonious way she was fired from a post to which the US Senate confirmed her in 2016. She had been thrust under political pressure by a conservative advocacy group that had pledged to drive out anyone deemed to be standing in the way of the Trump White House's rightwing agenda. That organization, the American Accountability Foundation (AAF), leveled accusations against Hayden and other library leaders that they had promoted children's books with 'radical content' as well as literature by opponents of the president. Hayden then received an email on 8 May that read: 'Carla, on behalf of President Donald J Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as the Librarian of Congress is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service.' Asked by Acosta whether her tenure really ended 'with one missive that's electronic', Hayden replied: 'That was it.' She also remarked: 'I was never notified beforehand and after.' Hayden is one of numerous federal government officials whom Trump has dismissed upon having been convinced that they were not aligned with his second presidency's plans. Just hours before her firing became public, the AAF used its X account to insult her as 'woke' and 'anti-Trump'. 'It's time to get her OUT,' the AAF also said on X, in part. Congressional Democrats reacted with fury to Hayden's termination. New York's Chuck Schumer, the top US Senate Democrat, said Hayden was a 'trailblazer, a scholar and a public servant of the highest order'. The New York representative Joseph Morelle, the highest-ranking Democrat on the US House's administration committee, called Hayden 'an American hero'. 'Hayden has spent her entire career serving people – from helping kids learn to read to protecting some of our nation's most precious treasures,' said Morelle, whose committee oversees the congressional library. The Library of Congress sits across from the US Capitol in Washington DC. It holds a vast collection of the US's books and history, making it available to federal lawmakers as well as the public. It archives the papers of presidents and supreme court justices and has collections of rare books, images, music and artifacts. In 2022, Hayden arranged for the singer Lizzo to play one of those artifacts: a flute owned by James Madison, who was US president from 1809 to 1817.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Fired US librarian of Congress details callous dismissal in new interview
The first woman and African American to serve as the US librarian of Congress before Donald Trump fired her in May has not heard from the president's administration beyond the 31-word email it sent her with word of her dismissal, she has revealed in her first interview since her ouster. 'No one has talked to me directly at all from the White House,' Carla Hayden says in an interview airing on the upcoming CBS News Sunday Morning. 'I've received no communication directly, except for that one email. 'That's the only communication.' Hayden's comments to the CBS national correspondent Robert Costa provide a first-hand glimpse at the unceremonious way she was fired from a post to which the US Senate confirmed her in 2016. She had been thrust under political pressure by a conservative advocacy group that had pledged to drive out anyone deemed to be standing in the way of the Trump White House's rightwing agenda. That organization, the American Accountability Foundation (AAF), leveled accusations against Hayden and other library leaders that they had promoted children's books with 'radical content' as well as literature by opponents of the president. Hayden then received an email on 8 May that read: 'Carla, on behalf of President Donald J Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as the Librarian of Congress is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service.' Asked by Acosta whether her tenure really ended 'with one missive that's electronic', Hayden replied: 'That was it.' She also remarked: 'I was never notified beforehand and after.' Hayden is one of numerous federal government officials whom Trump has dismissed upon having been convinced that they were not aligned with his second presidency's plans. Just hours before her firing became public, the AAF used its X account to insult her as 'woke' and 'anti-Trump'. 'It's time to get her OUT,' the AAF also said on X, in part. Congressional Democrats reacted with fury to Hayden's termination. New York's Chuck Schumer, the top US Senate Democrat, said Hayden was a 'trailblazer, a scholar and a public servant of the highest order'. The New York representative Joseph Morelle, the highest-ranking Democrat on the US House's administration committee, called Hayden 'an American hero'. 'Hayden has spent her entire career serving people – from helping kids learn to read to protecting some of our nation's most precious treasures,' said Morelle, whose committee oversees the congressional library. The Library of Congress sits across from the US Capitol in Washington DC. It holds a vast collection of the US's books and history, making it available to federal lawmakers as well as the public. It archives the papers of presidents and supreme court justices and has collections of rare books, images, music and artifacts. In 2022, Hayden arranged for the singer Lizzo to play one of those artifacts: a flute owned by James Madison, who was US president from 1809 to 1817.
The Independent
21-05-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Labour to reverse winter fuel payment cuts - who will be eligible and what happens next?
Sir Keir Starmer has announced a major U-turn on his controversial cuts to winter fuel payments after mounting backlash from his own MPs and a devastating performance at the local elections. In July, the chancellor announced that pensioners not in receipt of pension credits or other means tested benefits would no longer receive winter fuel payments - a £300 payment to help with energy costs in the colder months. But asked about the policy at prime minister's questions on Wednesday, Sir Keir announced that he wants to ensure more pensioners are eligible – something he claimed has come as a result of an improving economic picture. But after spending months ruling out a U-turn, it looks likely that the decision has come as a result of intense political pressure amid poor approval ratings and the threat of rebellion from Labour backbenchers. Who is eligible for winter fuel allowance? Currently, those aged over 66 in receipt of pension credits or other means tested benefits are eligible for the payment - amounting to an income threshold of £11,500. In winter 2024/25, around 1.5m pensioners received the payment – a massive drop from the 10.8m pensioners who received it the year before. What was the controversy around the cuts? The cuts were deeply unpopular because they were seen as being disproportionately damaging to vulnerable people, and were criticised for leaving thousands of poorer pensions who were on the borderline missing out on the payment. In November, it was revealed that the government's own figures indicated the cuts would force 100,000 pensioners into poverty in 2026. The policy was partly blamed for Labour's poor performance at the local elections – which saw them lose two-thirds of the council seats they had in 2021– as well as the previously Labour-held Runcorn and Helsby parliamentary seat to Reform UK. There is also a growing sentiment among Labour MPs that the winter fuel cuts, combined with the £5bn welfare cuts and the party's decision to keep the two child benefit cap in place, has created an image of Labour as being the new 'nasty party'. What has Keir Starmer said about reversing the cuts? The prime minister and his chancellor Rachel Reeves have spent months denying that they are planning changes to the policy in the face of growing pressure on them to do so. Earlier this month, Sir Keir's official spokesperson defended the decision to introduce means testing for the payment as a difficult but necessary step to fix the economy. "The policy is set out. There will not be a change to the government policy, which set out the difficult decision we had to take to ensure economic stability, repair the public finances following the £22bn blackhole left by the previous government', Downing Street said. But addressing the Commons on Wednesday, Sir Keir said he recognises that 'people are still feeling the pressure of the cost-of-living crisis including pensioners'. 'As the economy improves, we want to make sure people feel those improvements in their days as their lives go forward. That is why we want to ensure that as we go forward more pensioners are eligible for winter fuel payments', he said. Who will be now be eligible and what is the timeframe? The policy is very thin on detail, with no indication of who might be eligible under the changes. It is likely to involve a change to the £11,500 threshold at which people become eligible for the payment. However, it is not yet known how much this could be increased by. There has also been limited information on when the changes will come into force, with Downing Street leaving the door open to many pensioners facing another winter without the payment. It is understood that the detail of the policy will be presented at the October budget, however the PM's spokesperson would not be drawn on whether the changes would come into force by this winter.
