United Kingdom

    More than 300,000 poorer children will be hit by a new benefit cap coming in next week, a new study warns with some families set to lose more than £100 a week. The Government is being urged to rethink a dramatic lowering of the controversial household limit on social security payments, or face a devastating surge in poverty and homelessness. The lower cap £23,000 in London and £20,000 outside the capital was announced by George Osborne last year, but will not come into force until next Monday, just weeks before Christmas. Now research by the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) has found the numbers who will be affected is significantly higher than the Government expects. Pressing ahead will fly in the face of Theresa May’s promise, in her Conservative conference speech la...

    Day break has revealed devastating scenes at the site of the country's oldest hotel today after fire ripped through it yesterday leaving it a shell. More than 24 hours after the blaze broke out in a next door fine art gallery, more than 100 firefighters are still in attendance at the scene in Exeter, Devon. Reports are coming in this morning that a gas main has now ruptured underneath The Royal Clarence Hotel - and engineers are trying to isolate the point of the leak. Senior police officers have asked people to stay away from city centre unless absolutely necessary. It's clear though The Royal Clarence Hotel - which was built in 1769 and credited as the first hotel in England - has been utterly destroyed. Video shot on a police drone yesterday showed huge plumes of white ...

    David Cameron’s general election pledge of a law banning the Government from putting up income tax before 2020 was devised on the hoof, one of his advisers has said. Ameet Gill, who was responsible for events planning in No 10 under Mr Cameron, said the so-called five-year “tax lock” was “probably the dumbest economic policy” possible. He told BBC Radio 4’s Week In Westminster: “Sometimes when a vacuum is there, it makes the government do some stupid things. When I was in government, we made some announcements on the hoof just to fill that vacuum. Ameet Gill, left, was an advisor to David Cameron (Stefan Rousseau/PA) “Towards the end of the general election campaign in 2015, we did the five-year tax lock. It’s when we committed to put in legislation that we would not incre...

    Voters must be given the chance to change their minds on Brexit, Labour former prime minister Tony Blair has insisted. Mr Blair said people need to be allowed to give their view on any Brexit divorce deal with the EU, either through a referendum, or general election. "There is absolutely no reason why we should close off any options. You can't change this decision, unless it becomes clear in one way or another, that the British people have had a change of mind because they have seen the reality of the alternative. "We are entitled to carry on scrutinising, and, yes, if necessary, to change our minds, because it seems sensible to us to do so. This is not about an elite over-ruling the people. "If it becomes clear that this is either a deal that doesn't make it worth our whi...

    The UK economy grew by 0.5% in the three months after the Brexit vote, the Office for National Statistics has said. The figure for July to September was down from the 0.7% growth recorded in the second quarter of 2016 - the months before Britain voted to leave the European Union. But it is more robust than many economists had expected - and stronger than the 0.2% forecast last month by the Bank of England (BoE). Sky's Economics Editor Ed Conway said: "These are relatively punchy numbers. I think these numbers will be something of a surprise to the City and they will be reassuring to many people who thought that Brexit decision was going to hit confidence, spending and activity in the economy." The higher-than-expected GDP figure was driven by the services sector - which ac...

    PM Theresa May has come under intense criticism from politicians across the UK and Europe after it emerged that she had warned of the dangers of Brexit in a private talk at Goldman Sachs a month before the referendum vote. The prime minister was accused by a string of MPs, headed by Jeremy Corbyn, of ignoring her own concerns about the risks of leaving the single market, as revealed in her remarks to City bankers that were leaked to the Guardian on Tuesday night. In Germany, politicians from both governing parties accused May of failing to show leadership. They said her remarks demonstrated that it would be impossible to leave the European Union without economic consequences. Corbyn attacked May for failing to set out her plan for Brexit to the British people as clearly as...