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Burnham gives mayors unlimited tourist tax powers

  Uncapped levy on hotel stays risks ‘jobs bloodbath’, hospitality industry warns Daily Telegraph 09/09/26 Andy Burnham is to hand mayors the power to impose unlimited taxes on tourists that could see families paying hundreds of pounds more to holiday in England. Officials stunned the hospitality industry late on Wednesday by announcing that English mayors and other local leaders will be able to impose an uncapped “overnight visitor levy” on anyone staying in hotels, holiday lets and bed and breakfasts. Bosses said they had been led to believe that the levy would be capped, as is the case in Wales. However, England will now follow the Scottish model, where there is technically no upper limit on what can be charged. The tax will apply to all overnight visitors to towns and cities that decide to impose the levy, applying to each night of the stay. British families going on staycations and professionals travelling for work will have to pay the fee. Funds from the tax will help to pro...
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Labour’s gross hypocrisy on Israel has just been exposed

  Sanctions could easily spiral out of control and become far more damaging than the British Government intends Daily Telegraph 08/09/26 It is all an act, apparently. That was the message that British diplomats reportedly gave to their American counterparts in advance of sanctions on the Jewish state . The moves are “largely symbolic and will have no material impact on the UK’s wider relationship with Israel on trade and security”, they murmured, according to reporting by Bloomberg . “Britain’s relationship with Israel will continue largely as it is.” So what was the point? Well, the upcoming by-election in Keir Starmer’s old seat of Holborn and St Pancras might have something to do with it. The Labour Government might be sitting on a working majority of 166, but if such a symbolic seat fell to the Greens, it would threaten to demoralise the troops and herald a domino effect. The problem is that this is a strategy of high risk. It’s all very well saying that we don’t mean what we ...
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How Polanski destroyed Green Party’s popularity

  Year of gaffes, controversy and accusations of anti-Semitism brings poll plunge for eco-Leftists Daily Telegraph  02/09/26 The Green Party ’s popularity has plunged to its lowest level ever recorded following Zack Polanski ’s first year as leader. A YouGov poll found the party’s net approval rating had fallen to -23, down 28 points from last August, the last poll before Mr Polanski took over as leader. Mr Polanski, who became leader on Sep 2, 2025, has overseen a tumultuous 12 months for the eco-populist party, which saw it win its first parliamentary by-election and face repeated accusations of anti-Semitism . As leader, Mr Polanski has tripled the party’s membership from 68,000 last September to 230,000 by shifting the party further towards the Left and targeting voters concerned about the conflict in Gaza . This strategy culminated in the party winning the Gorton and Denton by-election in February, where the Greens won over Muslim voters who were urged to “punish Labour ...
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Net Zero is leaving Britain defenceless

  Wars are won on the factory floor. Expensive, unreliable energy is a gift to our adversaries. Spiked 01/09/26 Russian threats to attack British factories producing drones and missile components for Ukraine are a reminder that the industrial base is once again becoming part of the battlefield. In a way, this has always been the case. In an attritional conflict, the ability to produce, replace and sustain military capability matters as much as the weapons a country starts with. Military power has always depended on productive force. It was Paul Kennedy who documented the relationship between economic power and military power across five centuries of great-power competition in his magnum opus, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers . In December 2024, John Bew, former chief foreign-policy adviser to No10, gave this logic a new name – ‘machinepolitik’. He argued we are returning to an era of ‘raw power’ in which the ability to harness productive force, from armaments to energy to tec...
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Burnham’s Budget is going to break Britain’s back

  The PM will keep plucking the goose until there are no feathers left Daily Telegraph 27/08/26 With ever-growing tedium, the forthcoming Budget once again seeks to extract more tax from the public. As Jean-Baptiste Colbert famously said: “The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible number of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.” Andy Burnham, it would seem, is deaf to the hissing. He appears determined to keep plucking, no matter the pain. But more tax is not just a threat to Britain’s   attractiveness for wealth creators and entrepreneurs   – it’s a direct attack on those who keep the economy alive. Nor should one be surprised that, when asked which taxes should go up, people always plump for the one they are unlikely to have to pay themselves. So, which taxes are being spoken about the most? The first is a wealth tax, which will be impossible to collect and will cost more to administer. Outside quoted invest...
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