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Labour plots £18bn council tax raid

  ‘Burnham premium’ predicted to increase average bill by £500 by 2030 Daily Telegraph 30/07/26 Labour is planning an £18bn tax raid on millions of families across England, it can be revealed. New figures, seen by The Telegraph, show that the national council tax take is set to increase by 43 per cent by 2030, netting £58.8bn. The rise would add another £500 to average council tax bills by the end of the decade, despite Andy Burnham’s pledge to make tackling the cost of living his number one priority. The Conservatives branded the tax raid – which would hit 25.6m homes in England – the “Burnham premium”, claiming it would increase bills “in every postcode” . Advertisement They claimed Mr Burnham’s plans to roll out fiscal devolution to mayors could push bills higher still. The Prime Minister is set to lay out his fiscal devolution plans, first revealed by The Telegraph , on Friday. Local authorities netted £41.2bn from council tax in 2024/2025, but a series of parliamentary quest...
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Andy Burnham has taken just nine days to betray his main principle

  The new Prime Minister only likes devolution when power is devolved to him Nigel Farage Daily Telegraph 29/07/26 Andy Burnham has taken just nine days to betray the principle he came to power championing. Instead of localism, he’s now proposing a giant new central government bureaucracy, which would raise your taxes, expand the state, and even potentially rip apart families. On July 20, standing outside Downing Street, he promised to “take power out of here and carry it into every postcode in the land.” Four days later, opening “No 10 North”, he spoke again of “putting power in every postcode” so that places could do more for themselves. By July 29, however, he was taking personal ownership of a National Care Service (NCS) integrated with the NHS. Even by Westminster standards, that is quite a turnaround. Advertisement The phrase “National Care Service” predates Burnham’s premiership, but he has chosen to accelerate the Casey Commission, make the issue a test of his leadership, a...

Cut welfare and we’ll rebel, Labour MPs warn Burnham

  Left-wingers threaten repeat of benefits revolt that undermined Starmer Daily Telegraph 28/07/26 Labour MPs have threatened to rebel if Andy Burnham makes “punitive” cuts to welfare. The Prime Minister is planning to strip young people of their benefits unless they agree to do training or voluntary work under proposals to reduce the £333bn welfare bill. However, backbenchers on the party’s Left have warned Mr Burnham against repeating the “failed politics of welfare cuts” and signalled that they would oppose such a move. Sir Keir Starmer suffered a revolt by more than 120 of his MPs last year when he sought to tighten the rules around disability benefits to make fewer people eligible. Kim Johnson, the MP for Liverpool Riverside, and John McDonnell , Jeremy Corbyn’s former shadow chancellor, have warned Pat McFadden , the Work and Pensions Secretary, and Mr Burnham against the sweeping cuts. Both MPs were among opponents of Sir Keir’s ill-fated attempt to cut the disability ben...

Fury as Labour tries to block report revealing migrant crimes by nationality

  The Ministry of Justice has launched legal action to prevent the publication of crime statistics by nationality. Daily Express 25/07/26 The Labour Government has been accused of trying to block a report on migrant crimes from being released. The Ministry of Justice has launched legal action to prevent the publication of crime statistics by nationality. The Information Commissioner’s Office has ordered the department to release conviction data from between 2018 and 2024, which the department is now appealing. The Centre of Migration Control (CMC), a think tank, requested data on violence, sexual offences, drugs, arson, criminal damage, weapons, theft, and robbery under the Freedom of Information Act. The Ministry of Justice has argued that the data would be too expensive, exceeding the £600 per request limit, and could risk identifying individuals, The Information Commissioner has rejected the reason cost, saying the department didn’t adequately justify this wirth a cost estimate....

Reform will fight Burnham’s universal death tax

  We must fix social care but the PM’s plan isn’t the answer Daily Telegraph 25/07/26 Few things matter more to people than their home and their savings. So millions of people will be in for a shock this week, as our new Prime Minister sets out his plan to raid what they’ve built up to “fund” his plans for social care. No one doubts the importance of social care reform. I certainly don’t. I’ve seen in my own family the toll that our broken social care system is taking on families. I know many Telegraph readers will have painful experiences too. We haven’t seen any sign of a plan to fix it from Mr Burnham, but in the past he’s supported a flat 10 per cent tax on everyone’s inheritance. In other words, a universal death tax. There would be no exemptions, no thresholds, just a catch-all raid. Inheritance tax is already one of the most hated taxes – even by the vast majority who do not expect to pay it. That’s why, in the past, parties like the Tories have promised to abolish it, only...