In today’s newsletter: They spent weeks bracing the country for ‘tough decisions’, but in Labour’s first budget in 14 years, the chancellor adopted a slightly more optimistic tone
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Good morning. It was Labour’s first budget in 14 years; it was the first budget ever to be delivered by a female chancellor; and, as a share of GDP, it takes taxes to their highest level since comparable records began. As heavily trailed as Rachel Reeves’s appearance at the dispatch box yesterday was, it was still a monumental political moment, and one that is likely to set the course of the country for many years to come.
After weeks of paving the way for a rough budget by blaming her Conservative predecessors for the economic legacy she inherited, Reeves largely struck a more optimistic tone in her delivery. And, by some measures, she has successfully charted a course that will increase growth and balance the books without increasing the burden on those endlessly-discussed “working people” as heavily as had been expected.
UK news | Keir Starmer has warned Tory leadership contenders Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch against undermining the police investigation into the Southport attack. Jenrick said information about the attack was “concealed”, while Badenoch said that the government and police “have questions to answer”.
Spain | At least 95 people were dead after torrential rains in southern and eastern Spain on Tuesday brought flash floods that raged through towns and cut off roads and railway lines.
UK news | The Blur drummer, Dave Rowntree, has attacked the UK law on assisted dying as “psychopathic” as he spoke out for the first time about the choice of his terminally ill ex-wife to take her own life at Dignitas in Switzerland.
India | The Canadian government has publicly alleged that India’s home affairs minister, Amit Shah – closest political ally of the prime minister, Narendra Modi – was behind a recent series of plots to murder and intimidate Sikh separatists on Canadian soil.
US election | Donald Trump dressed as a sanitation worker and appeared in the cab of a garbage truck in Wisconsin as he sought to capitalise on a gaffe by Joe Biden. Biden appeared to call Trump supporters “garbage” but later said he was referring to a comedian’s “hateful rhetoric” about Puerto Rico at a Trump rally.
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