Gaby Hinsliff's Blog, page 4

Rachel Reeves set to confirm extra money to spend on areas outside south-east – as it happened

The chancellor will announce billions in regional spending after rewriting Treasury investment rules

Andrew Bailey has urged the UK government to deepen ties with the EU, as he warned a breakdown in global trade would make it harder for the Bank of England to control inflation.

In a speech in Dublin on Thursday, the Bank’s governor said a stronger relationship between London and Brussels could “minimise negative effects” of Brexit on trade.

As of now, provided you are an eligible UK donor … we are the first political party in Britain that can accept donations in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

My message to the British public, and my message particularly to young people, is to help us to help you bring our country properly into the 21st century.

Let’s recognise that crypto and digital assets are here to stay.

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Rachel Reeves set to confirm extra money to spend on areas outside south-east – UK politics live

The chancellor will announce billions in regional spending after rewriting Treasury investment rules

Andrew Bailey has urged the UK government to deepen ties with the EU, as he warned a breakdown in global trade would make it harder for the Bank of England to control inflation.

In a speech in Dublin on Thursday, the Bank’s governor said a stronger relationship between London and Brussels could “minimise negative effects” of Brexit on trade.

As of now, provided you are an eligible UK donor … we are the first political party in Britain that can accept donations in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

My message to the British public, and my message particularly to young people, is to help us to help you bring our country properly into the 21st century.

Let’s recognise that crypto and digital assets are here to stay.

Continue reading...

Prime Minister Farage? He’s serious about that – it’s time the country was too | Gaby Hinsliff

His tax-and-spending maths may be bonkers, but while Labour dithers, the Reform leader knows just what his voters want

If Nigel Farage has a secret weapon, it is his seeming refusal to take things seriously.

His habit of repairing to the pub at any opportunity – though in private, he’s said to barely drink now – and the cheerfully unabashed amateurishness of his operation have long made other politicians look stuffy by comparison. But the chaos is also, as it was for Boris Johnson, a means of defence.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

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Is Labour being outflanked on the left by Nigel Farage? – Politics Weekly UK

Nigel Farage seems to have upstaged the Labour government, pledging to scrap the controversial two-child benefit cap and reverse the cuts to the winter fuel allowance. So why hasn’t the government – after almost a year in power – done more to end child poverty? Gaby Hinsliff, in for John Harris, speaks to the Labour MP Stella Creasy and columnist Polly Toynbee

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White men are apparently terrified of doing the wrong thing at work. I have some advice | Gaby Hinsliff

Fears of being sacked or saying something unwise are near-universal. What’s striking is that men in this new polling can’t see that

Are you living in a pit of worry at work, frightened of getting fired for doing the tiniest thing wrong? Do you fear that your kids will be worse off than you? Have you ever suspected that you’ve been denied a promotion at work because of who you are, not what you can do?

Well, join the club. Or maybe not, because this particular club was apparently founded for white men and white men only. “Millions of men are walking around on eggshells at work too scared to speak freely, while knowing that being male can now be a disaster for your career,” according to Tim Samuels, a former BBC documentary-maker turned presenter of a YouTube show called White Men Can’t Work!, which launches this week.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please .

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Maga’s ‘DEI hire’ taunt is an age-old grievance reignited. And it’s spreading | Gaby Hinsliff

In this new climate, having an enviable job, while not being a straight white man, is grounds for suspicion

Wayne Brown was a trailblazer, a man who made his own small piece of history by becoming Britain’s first black fire chief.

He worked his way up as a young firefighter, rising through the ranks, serving the public through dark times including the 2005 London terror attacks and the Grenfell fire.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please .

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Republican Texas is a surprising model for solving the UK’s prison crisis – but it just might work | Gaby Hinsliff

Jails in England and Wales are in overcrowded meltdown, but justice secretary Shabana Mahmood has a rare chance to flip the script. She should

What should become of the two idiots who took a chainsaw to the beloved Sycamore Gap tree? Obviously it was thuggish, a pointless desecration of something that gave countless people joy, judging by the outpouring of unexpectedly deep emotion that followed. Landscapes work their way into the soul. But so does the thought of two children whose father is about to be jailed for what the judge warned would be a “lengthy period”. Though a line obviously has to be drawn, is this really the best way we can think of to punish a heartless act that nonetheless posed no danger to human life?

Now is the perfect time to wrestle with questions such as this, about whom we send to prison and why, and whether doing it differently would lead to a more humane but more effective prison system and ultimately cut crime. For this government is – shock, horror – finally about to do something liberals might actually like. Next week the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, is due to publish a review of sentencing commissioned from one of her Tory predecessors, David Gauke, expected among other things to recommend that inmates be allowed to earn freedom after serving only a third of their sentences by good behaviour, or by engaging with work and education that will help them get jobs on release. It’s something progressives have wanted for years but which government after government has nervously backed away from, fearful of being branded soft on crime – though the inspiration was tough, Republican-governed Texas, where reoffending rates have fallen by nearly a third since similar reforms were introduced. Unfortunately, a crisis left by the last government means this one now looks as if it’s not exactly acting out of choice.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

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Starmer’s migrant rhetoric: a squalid chapter? – Politics Weekly UK

Keir Starmer has defended the language he used in a speech on immigration this week. But many Labour MPs have criticised his choice of words, with some even claiming the prime minister’s language echoed that of Enoch Powell. John Harris speaks to the Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy about why she and others are so concerned.

Plus, who is writing the script, literally and figuratively? The Guardian’s Gaby Hinsliff and Kiran Stacey discuss

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We told young people that degrees were their ticket to a better life. It’s become a great betrayal | Gaby Hinsliff

With the labour market declining and AI a threat to entry-level jobs, graduates have been sold a lie. It’s no wonder they’re angry

It’s boomerang season again. Or to put it another way, the time of year when adult children you imagined might be flying the nest come home instead to roost, a ritual that seems to happen earlier every year.

Though the university year isn’t formally finished yet, so many institutions are dumping written exams in favour of dissertations or online assessments (cheaper to run, apparently) that third years have started cutting their losses and their food bills by heading home not long after Easter. In a worrying number of cases, they’re leaving with no job to go to.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

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Britain hasn’t agreed a trade deal with the US – it’s ended a hostage negotiation | Gaby Hinsliff

There will be relief for carmakers but not much else to celebrate: Trump’s whims still hang over the UK – and the world – economy

Hang out the bunting and let the church bells ring. A VE Day trade deal with Donald Trump is done, and in the car plants of the West Midlands as much as in the backrooms of No 10, there will be understandable relief that, for now at least, America’s phoney war on them is over.

It’s true that the easing of arbitrary tariffs on cars, steel and aluminium that didn’t even exist until eight weeks ago falls far short of being an actual trade deal, not least because the president could rip it up again tomorrow if he felt like it. But the terms agreed between London and Washington could save thousands of jobs, which isn’t to be sniffed at, even if they’re jobs that need never have been at risk in the first place had Trump not suddenly chosen to threaten them. More surprisingly, Rachel Reeves seems to have managed to hang on to her digital services tax on (mostly US) tech companies, while for all the president’s bluster about “dramatic” new access for cattle ranchers to British markets it could have been infinitely worse for British farming: no chlorine-washed chicken, hormone-injected beef or flooding of the market with heavily subsidised US meat at prices British farmers just couldn’t afford to match.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please .

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