Latest news with #Britain
Telegraph
23 minutes ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
‘Dynamic pricing' is coming to top tables, says leading restaurateur
'Dynamic pricing' is coming to British restaurants, Jeremy King has warned. The renowned restaurateur, whose establishments have included Le Caprice and The Wolseley, said he was 'really uncomfortable' with the idea of charging more for a steak on a Saturday than a Monday. However, he did say it was 'fair' for restaurants to sell tables to customers willing to spend a certain amount to stop people ordering the 'absolute minimum' and spending the entire time taking pictures for social media. Dynamic pricing, commonly used for concerts and theatre shows, means the cost of something changes according to demand, with tickets for popular events shooting up the moment as go on sale and the public rushes to buy one. The practice came under fire when it was applied to fans trying to get tickets for the upcoming Oasis reunion. Speaking on the Go To Food podcast, Mr King, 71, said: 'I don't begrudge the restaurants, for instance, which are using the apps to sell tables in advance because they've got fed up with people who book months in advance and then spend the entire meal taking photographs of themselves and of the food, ordering the absolute minimum they can just so they can put it on social media. 'So hold the tables back and those restaurants that say if you're willing to pay £200 we have a table for you on a Saturday, I think that's fair. 'I don't like the encroaching dynamic pricing whereby your steak is going to cost more on a Saturday night than it is on a Monday night, that makes me really uncomfortable but that's coming through. 'We've already seen it in the theatre, it widens the rich prosper and the poor are deprived.' Earlier this year, King himself introduced a 25 per cent discount at his two restaurants, Arlington and The Park, for diners eating after 9pm to encourage the public to 're-acquaint' themselves with eating late.
The Sun
38 minutes ago
- Business
- The Sun
Keir Starmer's latest U-turn on benefits is the worst of all worlds and leaves PM at a major crossroads
Country first? KEIR Starmer's capitulation to his own party is the worst of all worlds. No meaningful reform of the out-of-control benefits system will happen and most of Labour's planned £5billion savings won't be made. 1 Whacking tax rises to fill the black hole now look inevitable. It has also sent a signal that the PM — despite his huge majority — can't deliver any serious public spending cuts. After this debacle, how will he reform the NHS or slash the civil service Blob? His rebels will now demand an end to the two-child benefit cap, too. As for taking on ludicrous wage demands from doctors and other public sector workers — forget it. The PM has now made major U-turns on winter fuel payments, grooming gangs and benefits. Presumably under pressure from his leftie comrades, Sir Keir yesterday also said he now deeply regrets his previous claim on mass immigration that it risked Britain becoming 'an island of strangers'. Except that it was probably one of the few occasions where most ordinary folk AGREED with him. After just 12 months, the PM is at a major crossroads. Elected on his promise to put country before party, he has this week done the complete opposite. Appeasing his virtue-signalling MPs may get him through difficult days in Westminster. But for the rest of us it spells very bad news indeed. Petty crime JUST last month chief constables begged for more cash. Without it, they warned, the country would be overwhelmed by criminals. Really? As we reveal today, they have plenty of time and money to investigate absurd 'hate crimes' — from singing Flower of Scotland at an English railway station, to questioning if a person's designer clothes are fake. Can we suggest senior cops and the Government stop hitting up the taxpayer, and instead save cash by scrapping inquiries into so-called non-crime hate incidents. It might even free them up to catch a shoplifter or two. Booze & cheers That would have dealt a savage blow to struggling horse-racing venues and lower league football clubs — and punished punters. Ditch the Nanny-state plan to outlaw booze adverts, too.
The Independent
an hour ago
- Business
- The Independent
What can Rachel Reeves do to pay for Starmer's welfare U-turn?
Taken together, the cost to the public finances of recent reversals on welfare payments is estimated to be around £4.5bn. Restoration of the pensioners ' winter fuel payment for most recipients will cost some £1.2bn, while keeping the present arrangements on personal independence payment and the health element of universal credit will mean the chancellor loses some £2.1bn and £1.1bn, respectively. While these aren't catastrophic changes in a total public spending universe of about £1.3 trillion, Rachel Reeves allowed herself very little fiscal headroom. So she'll be looking to make up for the cost of the recent U-turns. Given that she's only just delivered a spending review that set out plans for the next three years, including tighter budgets for many government departments, she is reportedly more willing to consider tax hikes. The uncertain outlook for economic growth will make her even more cautious. Despite constraints, she has some options… What won't Rachel Reeves do? All the signs are that she won't make any further changes that could be interpreted as a direct contravention of the 2024 general election manifesto promise: 'We will ensure taxes on working people are kept as low as possible. Labour will not increase taxes on working people, which is why we will not increase national insurance, the basic, higher, or additional rates of income tax, or VAT.' The 2 per cent hike in employers' national insurance at the last Budget hit smaller businesses quite hard, and will affect wage rises, so it was very close to the letter of that pledge. She's not going to go there again. But bear in mind that the freeze on tax thresholds will remain in place until 2028 – a hidden rise in income tax for many. Is anything else ruled out? Lots: there's a whole herd of sacred cattle that she can't touch, politically. These include the rate of corporation tax, about which the manifesto says: ' Labour will cap corporation tax at the current level of 25 per cent, the lowest in the G7, for the entire parliament'. Slapping VAT on zero-rated items is effectively ruled out, as are increases in most other business taxes. There's zero chance of any further capital gains tax being applied to homeowners, which would make eminent economic sense but would be electoral suicide. Reeves may also have run out of scope for squeezing rich non-doms – for fear of ending up with lower tax revenues due to flight and increased avoidance. Council tax procedures are being tweaked, but there is little chance of any thorough reform of the eccentric system of local government finance; memories of the imposition of the poll tax remain raw, almost four decades on. The big picture here is that the UK tax base is artificially narrow, for historical and political reasons. For example, personal taxation in the UK is still low by international standards, even when the overall tax burden is near a post-Second World War high, but UK business rates are correspondingly high and uncompetitive. Wealth is taxed marginally and haphazardly. This is bad for long-term growth, and every year means taxes are loaded too high onto a too-narrow base. What is an easy hit? Capital gains tax, as usual, but again Reeves will need to be careful not to go too far and risk discouraging savings and encouraging avoidance. The same goes for changing the rules on personal pensions: higher-rate tax relief on contributions and reducing the tax-free allowance for a cash withdrawal from a pension pot. Given the need for orderly retirement planning, radical changes would be undesirable and unpopular. But there could be adjustments. Will petrol go up? It certainly should. Unbelievably, fuel duty has been frozen since 2011, at 57.95p per litre, with an additional 5p per litre 'temporary' cut in 2022 to ease the cost of living crisis. Technically, this is due to be ended next year, with the duty now scheduled to rise. For Reeves to raise more than planned she'd have to up it by, say, 10p per litre. It would raise enough to pay for the U-turns, but would attract the scorn of the motorist and 'white van man'. The wider problem here is that the switch to electric vehicles is already depressing fuel duties. Sin taxes? Alcohol and tobacco are mostly maxed out, but there's still some scope with online gambling and duties on sugary and fatty foods. The sugary drinks levy worked very well on health grounds alone, but any 'tax on food' has always been anathema to the British public (albeit VAT is levied on confectionery). Reeves will also be mindful of the great 'pasty tax' fiasco of 2012 when George Osborne tried to make some rational changes to the VAT regime, including on 'ambient' takeaway food. His 'omnishambles' Budget soon collapsed, and Greggs customers have steadily got flabbier in the succeeding years. Rachel will be steering clear. What does the Labour left want? A wealth tax: a 2 per cent levy for those with assets in excess of £10m. No chance. What about a tax on interest the Bank of England pays the banks on deposits? That does crop up as a suggestion. It's very abstruse stuff, but this basically boils down to another tax on the commercial banks. It isn't paid by 'rich bankers' as such (though it might dent some bonuses) but by the banks themselves. Other things being equal, it would mean lower returns for savers, less availability of business finance and mortgages, and a less resilient banking system. The Bank of England says it could make managing monetary policy more difficult. But it could reduce the cost of borrowing to the Treasury by maybe £10bn a year. The chancellor may find the temptation irresistible.
BBC News
an hour ago
- Sport
- BBC News
In-form Fritz reaches fourth Eastbourne final
World number five Taylor Fritz continued his fine form in the run-up to Wimbledon by reaching his fourth Eastbourne final with a battling defending champion defeated Spanish world number 28 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 6-3 3-6 6-1 to set up a final with fellow American Jenson Brooksby on Saturday.A lucky loser, Brooksby is on a fairytale run at Eastbourne having lost in the second round of world number 149 came from a set down to defeat French fourth seed Ugo Humbert 6-3 3-6 7-5 earlier on who beat world number three Alexander Zverev in the Stuttgart Open final 12 days ago, is among the favourites for the Wimbledon title.A quarter-finalist last year, he will start his Wimbledon campaign against French world number 36 Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard on Monday. In recent years, Fritz has made the Eastbourne men's singles title his own, winning three of the past five Thursday, he won two matches in one day after bad light had postponed his second-round tie the day before."I always feel like things are going to work out for me because they always do for some reason here," said Fritz in his on-court interview."Just showing up here and being on site and playing on centre court. I do that have that bit of confidence." Britons Cash and Glasspool crowned doubles champion Elsewhere at Eastbourne, British pair Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool won the men's doubles title by defeating Uruguayan-Belgian duo Ariel Behar and Joran Vliegen 6-4 7-6 (7-5).It is the pair's fifth title since they partnered up in October, 2024 and comes just five days after they lifted a historic Queen's doubles crown also reached the final of the Rosmalen Grass Court Championships earlier this month in the and Glasspool are seeded fifth at Wimbledon and have been drawn against Dutch duo Tallon Griekspoor and Botic van de Zandschulp in the first round.
The Sun
an hour ago
- Politics
- The Sun
Starmer is a clueless, cowardly windsock whose deceit has taken him from loveless landslide to landfill
FOR what it is worth, I am neither surprised nor disappointed by Sir Keir Starmer's calamitous first year as Prime Minister. Sir Shifty was always going to be a dud in Downing Street just as he was in opposition. What has really shocked me — along with millions of Sun readers — is his swift and spiteful attack on the social fabric which binds our nation and our trust in democracy. On July 4 last year, Britain carelessly elected an activist regime, whose sole but unstated objective is to unravel everything that makes us British. In the blink of an eye we have been divided by a narrow socialist cult against an overwhelming majority of decent, fair-minded law-abiding citizens. We are being routinely lied to, ordered to believe the unbelievable and threatened with jail if we refuse. For all his fine words to Nato and to Parliament, Starmer and his socialist rabble are intent on attacking the foundations of our democracy — the rule of law and the defence of the nation. Left-wing zealots Thin-skinned Starmer is not just clueless as a political leader. He is a coward who runs like a yellow streak from every tough decision that crosses his desk. Indeed, our windsock PM has just surrendere d even the pretence of leadership. This week, he became the publicly humiliated hostage of the Corbynite left he once boasted of defeating. Close to collapse, Downing Street has abjectly surrendered over a piffling £5billion cut in the bloated welfare bill. This places Starmer at the mercy of Jeremy's loony left. Two-Tier Keir might continue to strut the world stage as an international statesman. But this emperor has no clothes. If he cannot cut a few quid off the handouts to nine million people on employment-related benefits, how can he persuade left-wing zealots to cough up billions for defence? Or to cut illegal immigration and 'smash the gangs'? The people smugglers backed by the Kremlin's Vladimir Putin — as The Sun revealed this week — will keep sending us tens of thousands of bearded young men of fighting age. Corbynites do not believe in borders. Nor do they believe in crime and punishment — unless there is a Tory in the dock. Sir Shifty stubbornly defied calls for a proper inquiry into the rape of thousands of white teenage girls by mainly Pakistani gangs in mainly Labour-controlled authorities. Cabinet ministers were licensed to smear protesters as 'far right dog-whistlers'. A backlash was inevitable. Thousands of angry voters fled from Labour. Along with Tory defectors, they swelled the ranks of Reform UK and turned insurgent Nigel Farage into the man most likely to be our next PM. Now, in a screeching U-turn, there will be a national grooming gang inquiry after all. So, landslide to landfill in a single year. Farage is entitled to celebrate. He has reaped the whirlwind from the collapse of two-party politics. Still, Reform has only five MPs and virtually nobody in the House of Lords. Nor is it any consolation that Labour's Pyrrhic victory last July was entirely due to 14 years of dismal Tory failure. David Cameron, George Osborne, Theresa May, Liz Truss and — not least — Boris Johnson have much to answer for. 4 Along with Rishi Sunak, Boris hammered the final nails into the Tory coffin with Covid lockdowns and one million new migrants in a single year. The result was a great Fourth of July belch of anti-Tory revulsion, which handed Labour class warriors their 'loveless landslide' and absolute power for five years. We know now that it was a victory based on lies. Deceit runs through Starmer's brand of politics like 'Brighton' through a stick of rock. Deceit is more than telling blatant porkies, such as promising not to raise tax or National Insurance. It means concealing the truth, like Labour's plan to axe the Winter Fuel Allowance. It involves gaslighting — coercing people to believe in fairytales, such as green energy, bending the knee to Black Lives Matter or claiming women can have a penis. And there are petty deceits, such as the gifts to our multi-millionaire PM of free suits and specs, and designer frocks for Lady Starmer, from an ambitious party donor. Sir Shifty stubbornly defied calls for a proper inquiry into the rape of thousands of white teenage girls by mainly Pakistani gangs in mainly Labour-controlled authorities. Starmer's Labour was deep in such tacky mire before last year's election, and it has continued in that style since. We were told porkies about £20billion 'black holes' in Britain's genuinely improving economy. We were promised the 'adults were back in charge', only to see Chancellor Rachel Reeves send borrowing into orbit while trashing our reputation as a magnet for foreign investment. We were told lies about gifting the strategically vital Chagos islands to China's military ally, Mauritius, with the true cost to the taxpayer being in excess of £30BILLION over 99 years. Starmer promised Labour would repair the sacred NHS, only for Health Secretary Wes Streeting to admit it is getting worse. But if there is one single issue that sums up the cant, hypocrisy and contempt for voters by both major parties, it is the flood of uncontrolled mass immigration. 4 4 Labour's traditional working class supporters, many in Red Wall seats, were shamed and silenced after Gordon Brown opened the floodgates to cheap imported labour. Those daring to protest are slandered as 'racist' or 'Islamophobic'. Yet the UK population has boomed by millions since, with a dire impact on the wages and living standards of voters Labour took for granted. Rightly or wrongly — rightly in my view — voters believe this inevitable clash of cultures has led to dangerous divisions in cities and major towns. It remains shocking that police failed to act against Pakistani grooming gangs for fear of stoking 'community tensions'. Growing anger Last year's Southport riots, stridently denounced by Starmer, were blamed on police silence over the racial background of the man who fatally stabbed three schoolgirls at a Taylor Swift dance class. There is growing anger over Labour's plans to create new blasphemy laws, meaning criticism of Islam would be a criminal offence, while police turn a blind eye to intimidation by pro-Palestinian protesters. Keir Starmer is a lifelong pro-Palestinian. His party and his government are beholden to Muslims who vote Labour. Labour lives in fear of moves by Muslim hardliners to set up their own party in Parliament with enough MPs to dictate coalition terms. The question now is whether Starmer can cling on for four more years as Prime Minister. Can his Labour government survive in power? More to the point, how do we as a country escape from the vicious cocktail of tension, deceit and distrust created not just by Sir Shifty's Labour, but by every government since Tony Blair took office in 1997? People want to feel change so speed up delivery. There is still time to turn it around By David Blunkett, Former Home Secretary IF I wrote here that everything had gone well in the last year in politics, you would stop reading. So this is an honest appraisal of how I think the Government, which I support, has fared since winning the election on July 4. The first big decision, which was intended to secure the confidence of the international bond markets, created a major political hit. Namely, the now-reversed decision on Winter Fuel Allowance, affecting up to 10million people in retirement. The intention was to offer economic rectitude and stability, but the consequence was an immediate collapse in popularity. This was matched by the 'miserabilist' messages that they were picking up the pieces from years of chaos. It was true that there were major gaps in public finances, which somehow had to be filled if services weren't to fall apart. But the electorate had already got that message. That's why, across the whole of the country, the Conservatives lost so badly. What people wanted was hope, and what they got was downbeat at best, doom and gloom at worst. Steadying the ship and balancing the books is worthy, but in a world of political turmoil, of populists and chancers, the electorate were looking for precisely what Keir Starmer had promised — 'change'. The truth is, there has been genuine action to put things right. Enormous cash for the NHS; a commitment to a dramatic housebuilding target; and investment in transport, clean energy and education to bring success in the long term. The problem is that they are 'long term' at a moment when so many people are looking for dramatic improvement in the here and now. That is why the opinion polls are so devastating for the two traditional mainstream political parties. As with American President Donald Trump, the audacious, bizarre, sometimes off-the-wall and completely incredible catch people's attention. The 'same old' of tinkering and ticking along feels like business as usual. But it is 'business as usual' that many people just do not want. So, if the first 12 months have been a learning curve, what are the lessons for the years ahead? Quite simply, build on what you've done best. 'The best' includes Britain's standing on the world stage. Dealing with world security and defence; alliances to tackle conflict across the world; reaching trade deals and even managing to square the circle of relationships with the US President. All of this in the last six months has been both impressive and vitally necessary. More of this decisiveness, and grasping of nettles here at home, would make all the difference. For instance, stop using phrases like 'working at pace' and actually get on with the job. One of the features of the last year, and long before that, is a kind of inertia. I'm sure that civil servants genuinely believe they're working hard. I'm sure that ministers believe they have joined up policies and that, when they pull a lever, something is happening on the ground. For millions of voters, however, nothing has changed. That is why action in the pipeline now needs to be accelerated. That is why relentless focus on delivery at local level is so vital, and tangible change in the lives of men and women who can only watch on as global conflict and turmoil unfold. However — and it has to be said — not everything is down to government. The lousy service you receive (public or private), gross incompetence and indifference to the wellbeing of others is as likely to be the fault of someone living down your street as it is elected politicians. This government has three years to demonstrate that they can really make a difference. Three years in which to stop Reform UK leader Nigel Farage deluding the nation into believing there are simple and easy answers to the greatest questions of our time. Failure to live up to those expectations or get it wrong, the consequences will be felt for generations to come. Self-evidently, I didn't get everything right in my time in government. So, learning from mistakes and shifting up a gear is the way forward for Keir Starmer and his ministerial team. There is still time to turn this around.
