Labour will sharply reduce funding for some of Britain’s most affluent councils and divert it to poorer areas, after Andy Burnham has promised to create “good growth in every postcode”. Councils in the vales and shires will lose £61m of grant funding from central government over the next three years, while urban areas will see an uplift of £2.9bn, according to ONS figures ⤵️ telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/10…

Thank you @nhsf_uk for your kind invite to The Forum to address the students on the auspicious occasion of #VijayaDashami. I was very happy to talk about #DurgaPuja. There are five Durga Pujas in Gr Manchester, please visit all next year. #Manchester #Navratri #Hinduism

Labour failed to be upfront with schools about fully funding pay rises. Their spin is unravelling - special schools have been cancelled, the high needs block has been frozen, a £2bn blackhole remains, schools are in the red, & now they are being left with difficult choices to cut SEND staff. Labour can put this right in the budget next week.

Official figures out this morning report that last month, the UK government borrowed £24.5 billion. But the fineprint shows that almost £11 billion of that extra borrowing went on debt interest payments. That's more than £400 per household on debt service costs, in September alone. So far during this financial year, from April to September, the government's debt interest payments amount to £61 billion. Now, this number will barely feature in UK newspapers and across our airwaves. It may be mentioned in passing in out-of-the-way business sections, or on the odd business bulletin. But this huge debt interest bill won't register with the vast majority of our political and media class, or impact the national debate. Let me explain why that's so wrong and so dangerous ... £61 billion is a massive amount of money. It's equivalent to the UK's entire annual defence budget – the money we're paying, increasingly to foreign creditors, simply to service our national debt for six months, not to pay any of it back. £61 billion is equivalent to the money you'd raise over a year from adding a whopping 7 pence to the basic rate of income tax. For £61 billion, you could build around 40 large, state-of-the-art hospitals, or employ more than 100 thousand extra nurses for ten years. £61 billion would pay for free-at-the-point of use social care for everyone who needs it in the UK, for an entire year – three times over. Again, this is the debt interest bill on Britain's spiralling national debt – now more than 3 trillion pounds – over the last six months alone. The UK's public finances are close to meltdown – yet so many MPs and journalists continue blithely to view ever more public spending and borrowing as the answer to every problem. Those who highlight the dangers post by our hugely precarious national accounts are dismissed as cranks, ideologues or worse. But basic arithmetic has no ideology. And there is nothing "progressive" or "kind" or "right-on" about driving the UK ever closer to the fiscal cliff edge, provoking a crisis that will make the "austerity" years of the 2010s feel like a picnic, a crisis in which poorer households will suffer the most. Yes, Britain's national debt is lower than that of France. But because our borrowing has been rising so sharply, and because we're so prone to inflation, our debt service costs are much higher. The UK is spending a disgraceful 3.6pc of GDP on public debt interest, while France spends less than 2.5pc. Endless airtime and column inches are devoted to spurious conversations about a billion or two of additional "fiscal headroom" we may or may not have in three years' time. And, of course, any "extra headroom" is immediately pledged in new spending – which means yet more borrowing. These conversations are a waste of time – and, in fact, are deeply counterproductive. Three-year fiscal forecasts, even one- and two-year forecasts, routinely turn out to be askew by tens of billions of pounds. I'm not saying we don't need fiscal rules - we do, but we need more immediate rules, which actually bite, acting as a meaningful constraint on out-of-control borrowing and spending. Instead, political and media sages present the nation with spuriously precise discussions about fictional fiscal outcomes way into the future – using rules which are deliberately designed to kick arithmetic realities into the long grass .... An increasingly expensive, over-bearing, out of control state is not the answer to Britain problems. But unless we change course, it will certainly be our downfall. Please like/share if you think what I'm saying is important – and if fiscal realities should feature more prominently in our national debate. And for more sharp, plain-speaking economic analysis subscribe to: "When The Facts Change - economic and politics in a fast-moving world, with Liam Halligan"

This from Labour Manchester City councillors is verging on misconduct in public office. They seem to have swindled residents out of around £86 million, on @theipaper’s calculations. The dodgy relationship, continued under Burnham, with the Abu Dhabi owners is beginning to stink.

Finally. Labour spent 2 years faffing about to make a decision which Conservatives had already approved 2 years ago. If they’d done this in the summer we’d have had that gas heating British homes this Christmas. An unnecessary waste of time and money by a party that puts its own interest above the country’s.

It has taken far too long for Government to implement common sense and apply the law. What matters is that NHS Trusts now follow the law without any more delay. Today’s news is down to groups like the Darlington Nurses. That’s why @KemiBadenoch highlighted them in her conference speech and why the Conservatives will always ensure safe, single sex spaces for women.

This is becoming farcical. Burnham says that the vague statement on Monday that he was a “guest of Manchester City at home matches on a small number of occasions” includes the two dinners he had with the club’s chairman. That statement released by GMCA made no reference to the dinners nor who he had met with. We only know of the dinners with Khaldoon Al Mubarak because @thomasgodfreyuk managed to access a **deleted** register of interests. Not deleted by Burnham but the GMCA - fair enough. He declared them at the time. But why then stand up in the Commons and talk of one “significant” meeting in 2021 and then stand by this doggedly despite the records showing otherwise?

This is the third time in three PMQs that Andy Burnham has had to correct what he’s said afterwards. This is now a recurring pattern where the PM spends all his time fixing his own gaffes, instead of sorting out welfare or finding the money to defend our country.

Traditional pollsters and @SamCoatesSky catching up. My poll during the Conservative Party Conference already showed Reform in third place…

“Welcome back, Tory party: you are conservative again, courtesy of Kemi Badenoch.” “You have rediscovered your soul, your philosophy, your people.” @AllisterHeath says Nigel Farage suddenly has formidable competition on the Right 👇 telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/10…

I’m the most disappointed & disgusted with ex sports women in positions of authority in sporting or women organisations throwing women & girls rights under the virtue signalling bus to protect their own positions; pulling the drawbridge up behind them! Shame on every one of you