Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Jump to content
Sign up to our newsletters
Independent
More
Voices
Best
TV

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in

Voices

<p>Chancellor Rachel Reeves has come under fire for her ‘misleading’ statements prior to last week’s Budget</p>
Chris Blackhurst

What are the charges made against Reeves in relation to the Budget?

The chancellor may be hapless, desperately unpopular, and in danger of dragging down the entire government – but she has one thing on her side, says Chris Blackhurst

<p>Andreas Whittam Smith at the 1986 launch of The Independent, Britain’s ‘first new quality broadsheet newspaper since early Victorian times’</p>
Andrew Marr

I count myself lucky to have worked for Andreas Whittam Smith

<p>Jeremy Corbyn at the inaugural conference of Your Party in Liverpool</p>
Sean O'Grady

Why Your Party will end up as no one’s party

<p>‘Kemi’s blistering and bombastic riposte at the despatch box last Wednesday was both strikingly effective and proof that she has finally found her footing’</p>
Emily Sheffield

If Kemi Badenoch carries on like this she’ll be elected prime minister

<p>‘Adam Raine confided his darkest thoughts to the chatbot – but no emergency protocol was forthcoming. The faux-therapy speak it used to reply would be laughable were the outcome not so tragic’</p>
Liam Murphy-Robledo

OpenAI says a suicidal teenager should’ve read their fine print

<p>‘While obviously it’s frustrating to learn that someone on a dating app isn’t ready to date, it seems like a kinder and more polite way of letting a person know they aren’t interested in seeing you again’</p>
Olivia Petter

Can’t handle rejection? You shouldn’t be dating, then

<p>Donald Trump meets with Vladimir Putin in Alaska in August</p>
The Independent View

When will Donald Trump see that Vladimir Putin wants this war?

<p>Families of Covid victims protest in 2023 at the government response to the virus</p>
Emma Charlesworth

My daughter and I bear the cost of the inadequate Covid response

<p>‘“I do not know how I will survive this winter,” Osama told me. “The heavy rains have not arrived yet, but even so, rain is already falling inside the tent”’</p>
Khaled Al-Qershali

Winter in Gaza has washed away the memory of my childhood comforts

<p>Andreas Whittam Smith was this title’s pioneering first editor </p>
Obituaries

The biggest risk Whittam Smith ever took was founding this newspaper

<p>One of George Orwell’s concepts in his futuristic novel ‘1984’ was writing machines</p>
Jonathan Margolis

Most novelists believe AI will replace them. Sadly, they’re right

<p>Rachel Reeves faced a smaller-than-expected gap in her spending plans at the Budget, despite warnings the black hole could amount to more than £20 billion (James Manning/PA)</p>
John Rentoul

Rachel Reeves is misleading people about her Budget choices

<p>Grace Richardson, who, in winning Miss England, has been described as the first ‘openly lesbian’ contestant to do so</p>
Lotte Jeffs

Are we really still describing people as ‘openly’ gay?

<p>‘I moved to Sydney a month after my 31st birthday last September, one of tens of thousands of Brits to take advantage of the Aussie government upping the British working holiday visa age limit to 35. Turns out I’m hardly an outlier’</p>
Katie Strick

Can you blame young people like me for fleeing Britain?

<p>‘It’s the end of an era. McDonald’s has replaced it with a McFish Happy Meal. But it just doesn’t work for us. Many young children can’t bite through a bun’</p>
Charlotte Cripps

I’m a ‘McDonald’s mother’. How dare they come for our Happy Meals

<p>French police plan to use large nets to stop small boats crossing the English Channel</p>
Olivia Blake

Have we truly become a place that patrols its borders with large nets?

The ever-increasing hardening of the UK’s borders is a boon for the far right. By borrowing the language, logic and cruelty of Reform UK, ministers are not neutralising Nigel Farage’s views; they are legitimising them, says Labour MP Olivia Blake

<p>‘These shadows are what haunt those who are left behind. Is our loved one all right? Did we do something wrong? What will it take to bring them back?’</p>
Ian Rankin

What I learned about real-life missing person cases when writing Rebus

<p>Photo taken in 1946 during the Nuremberg trials: L-R, first row, in the dock: Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel, Ernst Kaltenbrunner</p>
Rob Rinder

The Nazis on trial: The enduring lessons of Nuremberg, 80 years on

Explore news for you

More Voices

<p>‘It is at least encouraging that the prime minister has tried to return to the growth agenda and welfare reform in his latest speech’</p>
The Independent View

This PM has changed the Labour Party once – he must now do so again

The Independent View

This PM has changed the Labour Party once – he must now do so again

Editorial
<p>‘It is at least encouraging that the prime minister has tried to return to the growth agenda and welfare reform in his latest speech’</p>
<p>Reeves wants more people to invest in British companies. They’re not going to do that if they think the game is rigged</p>
Voices

If Rachel Reeves was CEO of a company, she’d have been fired by now

<p>Andreas’s view was that his paper was to be positioned above the rest, in tone and quality.</p>
Comment

‘Anything threatening independence for monetary gain was off limits’

<p>On World Aids Day, England launched an Action Plan to become the first country in the world to end new HIV cases</p>
Voices

Ending HIV in England shows the power of patient-centred healthcare

<p>Andreas Whittam Smith, the co-founder of The Independent, who had an ‘urbane style that disguised a steeliness that could be quite chilling’</p>
Voices

Andreas came over to the news desk and gave us a pay rise on the spot

<p>Andreas Whittam Smith, the co-founder of The Independent, who had an ‘urbane style that disguised a steeliness that could be quite chilling’</p>
Voices

Andreas came over to the news desk and gave us a pay rise on the spot

<p>‘“We've got to come together and be united,” said Corbyn. Meanwhile, Sultana was furiously briefing the press outside the conference hall. May the left wing never change!’</p>
Voices

The revolution will not be organised: Your Party farce on day one

<p>Rachel Reeves told broadcasters on Sunday that a £4.2bn surplus against her fiscal rules would not have been enough</p>
The Independent View

A return to Budget ‘purdah’ would be no bad thing for Labour

Most commented

White House defends Hegseth’s ‘legal’ Venezuela drug boat strikes: Live

144 comments

Ukraine-Russia war latest: Zelensky responds to ‘better’ Trump peace plan after talks

213 comments

OBR chairman resigns after damning report into leak of Reeves’ Budget - latest

220 comments

Three former Tory MPs defect to Farage’s Reform

242 comments
Join the Conversation

More Voices

<p>The government needs to start thinking of reasons why young people should stay in the UK</p>
Voices

Starmer has another problem – young people are fleeing Britain

<p>Starmer’s workers’ rights U-turn has provoked furious denunciations from MPs and trade unionists</p>
The Independent View

Starmer’s employment rights U-turn is a sharp move

<p>‘You don’t have to fancy women to feel that you’d really like to take a turn at being an average man, as Prince William himself put it, rather than being pushed into all the additional, relentless effort of being the “even better” wife’</p>
Voices

Every woman I know wants a wife to run the show

<p>‘Starmer clearly feels that having delighted his MPs with a “Labour Budget” he can capitalise on their approval’</p>
Voices

Why Starmer thinks he’s got Rayner and the left on the run

<p>‘Watch the web: over the next few days: you’re going to see stories about the old couple who had their bank accounts cleaned out or the carer whose kids aren’t going to get any Christmas pressies despite their diligent saving’</p>
Voices

How AI turned Black Friday into a bonanza for scammers

<p>Frieda Hughes feels she can momentarily watch the birds as she shifts from one artistic endeavour to another</p>
Voices

As one project ends, the next looms large

<p>‘Starmer clearly feels that having delighted his MPs with a “Labour Budget” he can capitalise on their approval’</p>
Voices

Why Starmer thinks he’s got Rayner and the left on the run

<p>‘Watch the web: over the next few days: you’re going to see stories about the old couple who had their bank accounts cleaned out or the carer whose kids aren’t going to get any Christmas pressies despite their diligent saving’</p>
Voices

How AI turned Black Friday into a bonanza for scammers

<p>Frieda Hughes feels she can momentarily watch the birds as she shifts from one artistic endeavour to another</p>
Voices

As one project ends, the next looms large

The Independent View

Is this the ‘change’ that Britain voted for?

The Independent View

Is this the ‘change’ that Britain voted for?

Editorial
<p>‘This is our money we’re talking about. We have a stake in what they do and what they pay their CEOs. We have an interest in whether they are misusing our funds’</p>
Voices

Who will save the critically endangered big City fatcat?

<p>The chancellor doubled down on pensioners’ triple lock in her statement on Wednesday</p>
Money

‘We used to be working people’: Pensioners defend triple lock

<p>‘Almost the whole point of New Labour was to combine wealth-creation and compassion, on the basis that the first paid for the second. It was about getting people off welfare and into work’</p>
Voices

This cowardly Budget marks the death of New Labour

<p>‘Just as Starmer sacrificed prudent financial management on the altar of Labour ideology with his ditching of welfare reform, so did Reeves’</p>
Voices

Get ready for the brutal benefit bill that will bankrupt Britain

<p>‘Just as Starmer sacrificed prudent financial management on the altar of Labour ideology with his ditching of welfare reform, so did Reeves’</p>
Voices

Get ready for the brutal benefit bill that will bankrupt Britain

<p>Amol Rajan’s enthusiasm for analysis is delightful, but the question is, if you are clever, should you show it off?</p>
Voices

Amol Rajan is certifiably clever. Does he need to let everybody know?

<p>Wang Fuk Court’s eight residential blocks lit up like tinderboxes</p>
Voices

Hong Kong’s devastating fire must spell the end of bamboo scaffolding

<p>‘Witkoff would also appear to share with Trump the ability – honed in business – to gauge how things might look from the other party’s perspective and tailor his approach accordingly. It’s a simple schtick but it works a treat’</p>
Voices

Everyone says Steve Witkoff is a Russian stooge. I think he’s a genius

<p>Nice for some: The average state pension will rise by £575 next year</p>
Voices

Why are pensioners treated as such a special case? It’s getting silly

DJ Fearless Pirate Radio Hackney London
Voices

How Black Britain changed the face of UK radio

27 November 2025
The Independent View

This Budget will squeeze working people until it hurts

<p>‘My daughter is begging to be allowed to have the whole group – boys included – sleep over for her 14th birthday. And I’m conflicted...’</p>
Voices

My daughter wants to go to a sleepover with boys. Should I let her?

<p>‘In her display of contempt for Reeves, Badenoch effectively told her own tribe: It’s fine to speak to women with disdain’</p>
Voices

Am I the only woman who found Badenoch’s attack on Reeves chilling?

<p>‘Rachel-speak is now a language of evasion and inventive obfuscation. Her line that everyone would “make a contribution” to national well-being sounded like one of those office leaving do whip-rounds no one really wants, but few get out of either’</p>
Voices

Reeves’s Budget was the office whip-round nobody could quite avoid

<p>‘No presentational tricks could conceal the reality, which is that Reeves has chosen party before country. She and Keir Starmer have put saving their careers before the national interest’</p>
Voices

Reeves has put party before country – and people will hate her for it

<p>The chancellor has unveiled £26bn worth of tax rises in the Commons as she attempts to plug a multi-billion pound gap in Britain’s ailing public finances</p>
UK Politics

‘Kick in the teeth’: Readers say Budget ‘punishes responsibility’

UK Politics

‘Kick in the teeth’: Readers say Budget ‘punishes responsibility’

Independent
<p>The chancellor has unveiled £26bn worth of tax rises in the Commons as she attempts to plug a multi-billion pound gap in Britain’s ailing public finances</p>
<p>‘Whether Rachel Reeves will ever last long enough in the Treasury to see the step change upwards in the UK’s trend growth rate is doubtful – the impact will be felt at full force in about a decade’</p>
Voices

OBR leak brings Reeves’s sloppy Budget to a fittingly messy end

<p>Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Budget risks becoming the most hated in history</p>
Voices

Leaks and lateness have made this Budget the most hated in history

<p>Prime Minister Keir Starmer showed his playful side during a school visit in Peterborough</p>
Voices

Keir Starmer’s ‘6-7’ gag shows he does have a human side after all!

<p>‘Misogyny still exists in politics in the sense that you can’t act naturally. For women to make an impact, they have to talk big’</p>
Voices

Is Rachel Reeves now having ‘mansplaining’ mansplained to her?

<p>‘Misogyny still exists in politics in the sense that you can’t act naturally. For women to make an impact, they have to talk big’</p>
Voices

Is Rachel Reeves now having ‘mansplaining’ mansplained to her?

<p>Images of the prime minister and chancellor putting the final touches to the 2025 Budget were released by 10 Downing Street</p>
The Independent View

This make-or-break Budget must match the chancellor’s fighting talk

<p>‘Though he cannot himself see it, Gibb’s conflicts of interest are so glaring as to be visible from outer space’</p>
Voices

Why are the BBC’s fiercest critics suddenly in retreat?

<p>The Reform UK leader has been accused of making racist and antisemitic comments while at Dulwich College by more than a dozen of his former classmates</p>
Voices

We were all idiots at school. But we weren’t all racist, Mr Farage

<p>The government has launched plan to tackle physical and mental health challenges faced by men and boyys </p>
Health

‘I had to lie for a test’: Men on prostate cancer diagnosis struggles

<p>Strangers or friends you haven't met yet?</p>
Lifestyle

Readers warn solo-drinker ban would worsen UK’s ‘loneliness epidemic’

<p>‘Today’s burgeoning class of shock-jock politicos, egged on by their namesakes on TV and radio talk shows, ignore decorum, established rules, and even the law, to appeal to people’s baser instincts’</p>
Voices

Australia’s burqa stunt shows shock-jock politics is on the rise

<p>‘Whatever you think of his politics, here is a man saying plainly: I got checked, it probably saved me, and you should do the same. That voice cuts through the fog of embarrassment far more effectively than any government leaflet’</p>
Voices

I was diagnosed with cancer at 26. Men don’t expect things to go wrong

<p>‘The tragedy is the failure to project confidence and communicate those changes have left them feeling uncertain. But if we do not act to increase business confidence, then we will be stuck in the doom loop of speculation, timidity and short-termism that holds our economy back’</p>
Voices

Labour must deliver a Budget that people can believe in

<p>Chancellor Rachel Reeves is to deliver her second Budget on Wednesday</p>
The Independent View

Reeves must prove she has a plan to free us from this ‘growth crisis’

<p>‘Right now, we are in a golden age only for regulators, fudge, cost and political cowardice’</p>
Voices

Welcome to ‘Groundhog Britain’, where nothing ever gets done

<p>In October, the energy price cap was increased by 2 per cent by regulator Ofgem</p>
Home News

‘A national disgrace’: Readers on energy poverty this winter

Home News

‘A national disgrace’: Readers on energy poverty this winter

Independent
<p>In October, the energy price cap was increased by 2 per cent by regulator Ofgem</p>
<p>President Trump’s Ukraine peace plan must be rejected by Europe</p>
Voices

Why Europe must reject Trump’s Moscow-approved Ukraine peace plan

<p>Chancellor Rachel Reeves is set to lift the two-child cap on child benefit in the Budget</p>
Voices

Why the public won’t like Reeves’s £15bn child benefit ‘giveaway’

<p>Chancellor Rachel Reeves should tax society’s annoyances in the Budget</p>
Voices

Want a Budget millennials won’t hate? Start by taxing life’s nuisances

<p>Rachel Reeves has limited options with which to raise money as economic growth is sluggish and there is a manifesto pledge not to tax ‘working people’ </p>
Voices

Reeves’s Budget will target the rich but hit working people hardest

<p>Rachel Reeves has limited options with which to raise money as economic growth is sluggish and there is a manifesto pledge not to tax ‘working people’ </p>
Voices

Reeves’s Budget will target the rich but hit working people hardest

<p>‘I’m not condoning severe absence rates. But the odd day off? What is wrong with giving your child a bit of TLC and space away from school politics?’</p>
Voices

I give my kids duvet days whenever they want for their mental health

<p>Keir Starmer in Johannesburg on Saturday during the G20 summit </p>
The Independent View

On Ukraine, Starmer sees what Trump doesn’t: appeasement never works

<p>‘All this inevitably left us feeling vulnerable, even violated. Just getting in the car and plonking myself down where the thieves had sat was weirdly unpleasant’</p>
Voices

Thieves stole my keyless car – but I had an ace up my sleeve

<p>Rachel Reeves will deliver her autumn Budget on Wednesday</p>
The Independent View

After the confusion, Reeves’ Budget must deliver clarity and direction

<p>‘Theatre has ever been part of diplomacy with China. So too has espionage’</p>
Voices

China’s embassy nears approval but MI5 spy alert hands UK leverage

<p>Leaders: ‘Women at the heart of growth don’t just build businesses, they build futures’</p>
Voices

Women are the UK’s economic engine – why are they an afterthought?

<p>Jeffrey Epstein appears in court in West Palm Beach in July 2008</p>
Voices

The Epstein story is making us forget about the true horror of abuse

<p>Home secretary Shabana Mahmood’s immigration policy could decide the fate of her party and the Conservatives</p>
Voices

Shabana Mahmood holds the future of Labour and the Tories in her hands

<p>The Telegraph Media Group is set to be sold to the Daily Mail and General Trust</p>
Voices

The Mail’s £500m Telegraph takeover exposes a digital power dilemma

<p>‘A much better way to deliver control, maintain compassion and secure public confidence is to expand controlled routes at scale so there is a queue to join’</p>
Voices

Do we really want to win the ‘League of Least Welcoming Nations’?

<p>US President Donald Trump host New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in the Oval Office</p>
Voices

Behind the smiles, Trump fears Zohran Mamdani reshaping US politics

Voices

Behind the smiles, Trump fears Zohran Mamdani reshaping US politics

Michael Day
<p>US President Donald Trump host New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in the Oval Office</p>
<p>The chancellor admitted the government has ‘made a couple of unforced errors’ but insisted it is ‘fighting to win’</p>
Women

‘Calling her Rachel from accounts is sexist’: Readers defend Reeves

<p>Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman on 18 November 2025</p>
Voices

Trump’s in trouble – and it’s not just Epstein tearing Maga apart

<p>Former chancellor George Osborne</p>
Voices

The one good reason George Osborne shouldn’t be put in charge of HSBC

The Independent View

Conservatives must apologise for their disastrous handling of Covid

The Independent View

Conservatives must apologise for their disastrous handling of Covid

Voices

Labour promised cheaper energy bills. So why are they still going up?

<p>Rachel Reeves: ‘I’m sick of people mansplaining how to be chancellor to me’</p>
Voices

Rachel Reeves knows better than to dismiss criticism as ‘mansplaining’

<p>Boris Johnson could face legal action over pandemic failings </p>
UK Politics

‘We need leaders to lead’: Readers on UK’s delayed Covid response

<p>What does the Labour Party need? And who is actually likely to win in any contest? Unfortunately for Labour, the answers to these questions pull in different directions</p>
Voices

Keir hunters: Will it be Angela, Andy or Wes who pulls the trigger?

<p>Gwynnie, right, before she was sold to her new owner</p>
Voices

Selling a painting feels like getting rid of a best friend

<p>Andy Burnham refused to rule out challenging Starmer as PM</p>
Voices

Andy Burnham may be King in the North, but could he rule No 10?

<p>A fish rots from the head, and from Boris the bounder, the busker, the ultimate booster, the government took its cue</p>
Voices

The true cost of Boris Johnson’s Covid incompetence is now clear

<p>Boris Johnson himself was almost killed by the coronavirus but this did not heighten his sense of its potency</p>
The Independent View

This shameful Covid report leaves no way back for Boris Johnson

<p>Andy Burnham refused to rule out challenging Starmer as PM</p>
Voices

Andy Burnham may be King in the North, but could he rule No 10?

<p>A fish rots from the head, and from Boris the bounder, the busker, the ultimate booster, the government took its cue</p>
Voices

The true cost of Boris Johnson’s Covid incompetence is now clear

<p>Boris Johnson himself was almost killed by the coronavirus but this did not heighten his sense of its potency</p>
The Independent View

This shameful Covid report leaves no way back for Boris Johnson

<p>Christian Bale as hedge-fund investor Michael Burry in ‘The Big Short’ </p>
Voices

What does Big Short investor Michael Burry know about AI?

<p>Imagine this: on a dank November morning, Dutch air defence radar warns that a swarm of military drones or subsonic cruise missiles is heading towards the Thames Estuary and central London</p>
Voices

Defenceless Britain is a sitting duck – when Ukraine falls, we’re next

<p>US president Donald Trump greets Russian president Vladimir Putin on the tarmac after their arrival at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, in August </p>
Voices

Sorry, Donald, but there is no Nobel Peace Prize for appeasement

<p>‘Around one-fifth of the aid budget is now consumed by in-donor refugee costs, predominantly asylum hotels, rather than reaching the world's poorest. Next year, that proportion is projected to rise to one-third’</p>
Voices

Yes, we must invest in defence – but not at the expense of soft power

<p>Polling shows the public thinks Brexit has harmed the country </p>
UK Politics

‘I never looked back’: Why readers chose a life abroad after Brexit

<p>Love Island popularised the phrase ‘the ick’</p>
Voices

The moment someone asks me out, I lose respect for them

<p>An inflation fall is a timely boost for Britain’s beleaguered chancellor, Rachel Reeves</p>
Voices

My four-point plan to get the tiger of inflation back in its cage

<p>Asylum seekers leaving Gravelines in northern France</p>
The Independent View

Let us try safe, legal routes before putting up nets to stop the boats

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in