When WILL this serpentine creature now given such power by Starmer be forced to answer for his actions?: STEPHEN GLOVER
Who secretly brokered the recent controversial deal whereby Britain agreed to hand over £101million annually to Mauritius for 99 years in return for a lease on a base in the Chagos Islands, which a previous administration had already secured with a payment of £3million in 1968?
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The Independent
19 minutes ago
- The Independent
Minister insists fuel supplies not under threat despite oil refinery closure
An energy minister has insisted fuel supplies will not be under threat after no buyer was found for one of Britain's largest oil refineries. State Oil – the parent company of Prax Group, which owns the Lindsey refinery in North Lincolnshire – collapsed into administration last month, putting hundreds of jobs at risk. Michael Shanks pledged to support the workers who are facing redundancy, but said there is little action the Government can take to improve the statutory redundancy offer. Speaking in the Commons, he said: 'We have worked urgently to ensure the safety of the refinery site, the security of fuel supplies and to protect workers. 'This has also allowed time for bidders to express an interest in the site. 'Following a thorough process, the official receiver has rigorously assessed all the bids received and concluded that sale of the business as a whole is not a credible option.' He added: 'A package has been offered to all those directly employed at the refinery, which guarantees their jobs and pay over the coming months. 'And alongside the usual support that is offered to workforces in insolvency situations, the Government will also immediately fund a comprehensive training guarantee for those refinery workers to ensure they have the skills needed and the support to find jobs, for example, in the growing clean energy workforce.' The Lindsey site is one of only five large oil refineries remaining in the UK after the recent closure of the Grangemouth plant in Scotland. Prax Group is led by majority owner and chairman and chief executive Sanjeev Kumar Soosaipillai, who bought the Lindsey oil refinery from French firm Total in 2021. Shadow energy minister Andrew Bowie, who tabled the urgent question, claimed 625 jobs are at risk as he pressed the minister for an update on its investigation into the collapse of the company. He also asked: 'What, if any, assessment has been made into the UK's resilience given the steep reduction in our refining capacity over the past six months? 'What, if any, assessment has been made on the increased reliance on imports that will be necessary as a result of the reduction in British refining capacity?' Mr Shanks said fuel supplies had 'adjusted' in the past few weeks, adding: 'Our assessment suggests there isn't an immediate risk to fuel supplies locally or in the wider area, but we'll continue to monitor that.' On the investigation, he said: 'There is not much I can update the House on at the moment, because the insolvency service is carrying out that investigation.' Conservative MP Martin Vickers, whose Brigg and Immingham constituency includes the oil refinery, said he wanted to see 'the maximum support given to those workers'. Mr Shanks replied: 'We have looked and pushed and pushed to see if there is more action Government can take to change or to give any additional payments. 'It's not possible for Government to do that, not least because the insolvency service has to follow very specific rules in terms of creditors and what their parameters are to operate in the event of an insolvency. 'But I do think the owners of this company have profited from this business, and they should do the right thing by the workforce that delivered that for them.'
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Can no one silence Nigel Farage's latest populist dogwhistle?
Apparently, there's a debate going on in the upper echelons of the Labour government about what to do about Nigel Farage. Not a moment too soon, you might say. The choice, as it's been posited by Labour insiders, is whether to 'confront' or 'deflect' Reform UK. Farage's populist insurgency has picked up lots of local councils, won a by-election – just – and settled in the opinion polls around 25 to 30 per cent ahead of Labour. Not so long ago, it was an unthinkable situation. Something similar has been going on in the Conservative camp since they lost the general election, and, as we see, it seems the immediate answer to their version of the Farage-ist challenge is to reshuffle the shadow cabinet, bring back James Cleverly, and let Kemi Badenoch have some more time. They can't work out if they want to collaborate with Farage, or confront him. Both parties actually show signs of appeasing him and aping his policies, from welfare to refugees. It's not good. It's worth reminding the mainstream parties what happened last time they were too fastidious to take an ascendant Farage down, which was the Brexit referendum campaign. It was, as it still is, incredibly time-consuming and tiresome to have to fact-check every vague promise and extravagant claim Farage comes out with, and the easiest thing is just to call him an extremist/populist/fascist/xenophobe/racist or whatever and try to ignore him. Well, we all know what happens. As Farage himself might say: 'They're not laughing now!' Much the same – less forgivably – goes for the media. Not that it's an easy job trying to verify whatever casual claims Farage comes out with in real-time, but it means he tends to go unchallenged. Take his appearance on the Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show. He claimed, off the top of his head, that cancelling net zero – an amorphous concept, in any case – would save some £30bn a year, and said that 'even' the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), 'a tool of the Establishment,' said so. Kuenssberg had neither the time nor the evidence in front of her to cite Section 4 of the OBR report on long-term fiscal risks that showed that £20bn of the £30bn is due to the loss of fuel duty in the transition to electric cars. If some new levy on electric vehicles was introduce to replace the lost revenues in petrol and diesel sales, the additional cost to the taxpayer would be down to £10bn a year. The OBR has said in 2021 and apparently endorsed again now that 'the costs of failing to get climate change under control would be much larger than those of bringing emissions down to net zero.' Which happens to be true. I'm definitely not criticising Kuenssberg here, because no interviewer – even with a researcher in her earpiece – could counter that in time, nor make the argument about how the UK has indeed helped big polluters like China and India at least sign up to CO2 reduction targets – and China is now leading the world in green tech and electric vehicles. We had the same sort of thing at the press conference where Farage said he'd cut crime in half in five years. The £30bn net zero thing came up again, but the Q&A session wasn't well suited to pinning him down over it. Asked how he'd pay for his sketchily costed plans to hire another 30,000 police, build 'Nightingale prisons', new 'custody suites', restore the magistrates courts, send 'Britain's worst offenders' to jail in El Salvador, and bang up an unknown number of serious offenders for life, he tossed out a figure of £50bn to £70bn that could be found from scrapping HS2 – even though it's pretty much been run down and the money diverted to other road and rail projects by Rishi Sunak. No one thought to ask exactly how Farage would halve crime, how the plan would work in practice, and why, if he could achieve that improbable outcome, that he couldn't abolish crime completely in 10 years. When Farage does get cornered, as when Kuenssberg pressed him on whether he believes in climate science, and the antics of Reform UK councillors, he has some stock get-outs, and, like so much else he does, they're straight out of the Trump playbook. Tactic one is to say he doesn't know anything about some story so he can't answer and doesn't know if what's referred to is true. Second, he can just say that no party's numbers ever add up anyway – the 'experts' are always wrong and it's not worth bothering about. Third, is the superficially plausible line that if he gets more people 'with real business experience' into government they'll sort things out, just like Trump and Musk did in America – and Reform's pretend DOGE team is trying and thus far failing to do in Britain's skint county councils. Like Trump in the US, Farage is inviting a public more than usually disillusioned with politicians to turn to brilliant business people such as, erm, Zia Yusuf and Richard Tice, and perhaps even the former commodities trader: Farage himself. I suppose I'm just stating the obvious, really, which is that Farage's Trumpian brand of populism and its amplification in the right-wing client press and social media presents a challenge to the mainstream parties, and real independent journalism that they have not been able to cope with. A lot of that failure is, frankly, down to something like laziness, and a reluctance to do the hard graft of countering the lies and busting the myths about economics, immigration, crime and the rest that Reform constantly pump to 'flood the zone', as they say in the states. It is tedious to get your head around, say, carbon budgets and remember all the key crime stats for London, because no one carries that much stuff around in their heads. But our leaders could confront Farage a little harder and with a bit more effect than they've managed so far. We could, let's say, push him much harder on why getting the Royal Navy to take irregular migrants back to Calais is a violation of French sovereignty, and would threaten a Cold War with France and the rest of the European Union in retaliation, with huge damage to trade and the economy. He's been getting away with this sort of nonsense for far too long, and now it's getting dangerous. He needs to be confronted – but who is going to do it?
The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
How long you'll have to wait to get your state pension
MILLIONS of us may have to wait a little longer to get our state pension. The government has just kicked off a new review into the state pension age, which could mean the goalposts are about to shift. 2 Right now, the state pension age is 66. It's already planned to rise to 67 between 2026 and 2028, and then to 68 between 2044 and 2046. If you're 48 years and three months or younger, your state pension age will be 68. For those aged 64 to 65, the state pension age gradually increases from 66 to 67, depending on your exact age now. However, the latest review could mean the move to 68 happens sooner. Rachel Vahey, head of public policy at AJ Bell, said: "An increase to state pension age from 66 to 67 is already slated to happen between 2026 and 2028. "But it's less clear what will happen after that. "There is also an increase to age 68 pencilled in for 2046, but a faster increase is definitely on the cards. "The first two reviews of the state pension age advocated bringing this forward, but successive governments have treated the issue like a hot potato." So, what does this all mean for you and your retirement plans? How to track down lost pensions worth £1,000s Why is the state pension age being reviewed? The short answer is that we are, on average, living longer. Chancellor Rachel Reeves said a review is needed to keep the state pension system "sustainable and affordable" for everyone, now and in the future. The triple lock, which guarantees state pension increases in line with inflation, wages or 2.5%, has become increasingly expensive, with costs expected to hit £15.5billion by 2030. Experts warn this could make promises to maintain the policy unsustainable without raising the pension age. The government usually reviews the state pension age every six years, but this one is happening early to make sure the rules are fair and match up with how long people are living now. This is the third review of its kind and is set to be completed by March 2029. How is the state pension age changing? The state pension age is currently set to rise from 66 to 67, and this change is already written into law. The increase will be phased in between 2026 and 2028. If you were born before April 6 1960, your state pension age remains 66. This means anyone who is already 65 won't be affected and can start claiming their state pension when they turn 66 next year. If you were born between 6 April 1960 and 5 March 1961 and are now aged between 64 and 65, your state pension age will be 66 plus a few extra months, depending on your exact date of birth. For anyone born on or after March 6 1961, your state pension age will be 67. The state pension age is then planned to rise again from 67 to 68 between 2044 and 2046 under current law. Again, this affects people based on their date of birth. This schedule is now subject to review but, as of now, affects people based on their date of birth and current age. If you were born before April 6 1977, your state pension age will stay at 67. This means anyone older than 48 years and 3 months will still be able to claim their state pension at 67. But if you're younger than this, you'll have to wait until you're 68 to claim your state pension. You can easily find out when you'll get your state pension using our handy tool. Just enter your date of birth, and it will tell you. How will a higher state pension age affect my retirement? By James Flanders, Chief Consumer Reporter: Raising the state pension age means people will have to wait longer to get their government-funded pension, which can be tough for those who rely on it as their main source of income. It's especially challenging for people in physically demanding jobs or those with little in the way of savings, as they'll need to figure out how to cover the gap between stopping work and qualifying for the state pension. But the good news is that private pensions give you more choice. Right now, you can access private pensions from age 55, although this will increase to 57 in April 2028. If you've been saving into a workplace pension or a personal pension, you could retire earlier than the state pension age, depending on how much you've saved. You can take the money as a lump sum, set up regular payments, or even leave it invested to grow. For those with enough savings, this flexibility means you can plan retirement around what works for you. But if your private pension isn't enough, you might find yourself working longer and waiting for the state pension to kick in. It's a reminder of why starting to save early and keeping an eye on your pension pot is so important for creating options later in life. What could change in future? The big question is whether the move to a state pension age of 68 will be brought forward. An earlier government review, called the Cridland Review, recommended this rise should happen much sooner - between 2037 and 2039. If the Cridland Review proposals are adopted, you could end up waiting a lot longer to claim your state pension. If you were born before April 6 1970 and are now 55 years and three months old or older, your state pension age would stay at 67, so nothing would change for you. However, if you're older than this and were born between April 6 1970 and April 5 1971, your state pension age would fall somewhere between 67 and 68. For anyone born on or after 6 April 1971, the state pension age would be 68. This means if you're 54 years and 3 months old now, you wouldn't be able to claim your state pension until you turn 68. The big question is whether the state pension age will rise to 68 sooner than planned. The government has decided to do another review instead of following the Cridland Review. This new review, led by Dr Suzy Morrissey, will happen within the next two years. It will explore all options for raising the pension age to 68 but must give at least ten years' notice before making any changes. This means anyone retiring before 2037 won't be affected. How does the state pension work? AT the moment the current state pension is paid to both men and women from age 66 - but it's due to rise to 67 by 2028 and 68 by 2046. The state pension is a recurring payment from the government most Brits start getting when they reach State Pension age. But not everyone gets the same amount, and you are awarded depending on your National Insurance record. For most pensioners, it forms only part of their retirement income, as they could have other pots from a workplace pension, earning and savings. The new state pension is based on people's National Insurance records. Workers must have 35 qualifying years of National Insurance to get the maximum amount of the new state pension. You earn National Insurance qualifying years through work, or by getting credits, for instance when you are looking after children and claiming child benefit. If you have gaps, you can top up your record by paying in voluntary National Insurance contributions. To get the old, full basic state pension, you will need 30 years of contributions or credits. You will need at least 10 years on your NI record to get any state pension. 2
