Prime Minister Andy Burnham has made the politically risky decision to adjust the pensions triple lock from April 2030.
Speaking at this year’s Labour Party Conference, he said: “Some may not realise it but older people with nothing more than the state pension, or only a little more, can find themselves paying care charges today from that small income. Under my plan, this will no longer happen.”
An 'automotive city' near Tangier. laabiraid/ShutterstockChina now makes more than seven in ten of the world’s electric cars. In 2024 it produced over 12 million, 1.25 million of which were exported, mainly to Europe.
Rawpixel.com/ShutterstockThis autumn, the cost of gas and electricity for a typical UK household is expected to rise from £1,663 to £1,723 a year.
The change, due to higher wholesale gas prices, will be easy enough to spot on a household bill. But those rising costs can also affect people in less obvious ways, through the price of a coffee, for example, or a pub lunch or haircut.
Coolcation destinations include places like Loch Katrine in the Scottish Highlands. ABO PHOTOGRAPHY/ShutterstockRising numbers of visitors headed for destinations in northern Europe in the summer of 2026, seeking respite from the heat.
For years, summer holidays in Europe have followed a familiar pattern: head south in search of sunshine. But climate change is beginning to turn that logic on its head.
SpeedKingz/ShutterstockSince Labour won the 2024 general election, policy focused on children in the early years – from birth to school age – and their parents has moved sharply up the political agenda.
Andy Burnham, Everton fan and prime minister, has declared the ban on drinking pitch-side at football games to be discriminatory given that fans of other sports, even in the same ground, could happily enjoy a beer while watching a game.
On Pakistan’s Indus delta coast, a 350,000-hectare mangrove project is turning a growing forest into something that can be sold to companies thousands of miles away: carbon credits.
The UK’s pension triple lock has only been in place for 15 years. But it’s done the job it was brought in to do, and now it should be scrapped.
So the prime minister is right to want to change it. Because while it’s been widely treated as politically untouchable, the triple lock is very expensive.
That’s not to say it was unnecessary.
Fire services across the UK are now working out how much they can do over the winter to prepare for one of the country’s escalating dangers: wildfires.
Baroness Brown, the chairwoman of the UK’s Climate Change Committee, recently told the BBC that not enough action has been taken, given that the UK is predicted to face longer, drier summers due to global warming.
The Premier League has published the core findings of the independent commission investigating Manchester City Football Club. It finds the club guilty of all charges relating to serious financial breaches across nine seasons, from 2009-10 to 2017-18.
