Politics

• The GuardianUK losing up to £6.5bn a year in EU trade due to mismatched product rules

  IPPR finds failure to align testing standards has forced companies to abandon exporting to EU and is costing costing 0.18% of national incomeThe UK is losing out on annual exports to the EU that could be worth as much as £6.5bn without a deal with Brussels that allows manufacturers to jettison duplicate product testing.In the latest attempt to calculate the loss of trade with the EU after Brexit, the IPPR thinktank said many companies have given up selling goods to the EU or set up subsidiaries inside the trade bloc after successive governments failed to secure a mutual recognition agreement that would avoid the extra administration costs.Motor vehicle and part exports would have been between £2.48bn and £3.42bn higher each year.Electronic exports could have been between £1.17bn and £1.67bn higher.Pharmaceutical exports would have had an estimated annual uplift of between £740m and £820m. Continue reading...

  09/24/2026
• The GuardianLabour’s last chance? The people shaping Andy Burnham’s grand plans for Britain

  The new prime minister has declared he wants to end 40 years of neoliberalism. But is he really prepared to be that radical?In May 2025, when Keir Starmer was still prime minister, Labour politicians, campaigners and journalists gathered at the Ministry of Sound in London to watch a series of panel talks and presentations illuminated by the lucid glow of club lights. The day-long event was organised by a campaign group called Compass, and the subjects included child poverty, the Murdoch-owned media and the rise of the radical right.“We felt as though the Labour government was failing, and needed to be pulled into the 21st century,” Neal Lawson, the founder of Compass, told me. The Starmer government’s support for the Conservatives’ two-child benefit cap, its equivocating stance on Gaza and its emulation of far-right rhetoric – crystallised in a speech on immigration, during which the prime minister suggested Britain risked becoming an “island of strangers” – were causing Labour supporters to rapidly desert their party. “The Starmer project was so obviously intellectually bankrupt. He was personally so disinterested in ideas and big thinking that I thought, this is never going to fly,” Lawson said. Continue reading...

  09/24/2026
• The GuardianTony Blair says Britain should work towards rejoining EU in next 10 years

  Andy Burnham under pressure to revisit Brexit as poll suggests pledge to rejoin could boost Labour’s electoral chancesBritain should work towards rejoining the EU in the next decade, Tony Blair has said, adding to growing pressure on Andy Burnham to abandon Labour’s reluctance to revisit the 2016 referendum.The former prime minister has urged Burnham to use his 10-year plan in November to put the country’s membership of the union back on the table, a decade after it voted to leave. Continue reading...

  09/23/2026
• BBCTeenagers to be offered new vocational GCSE subjects in school

  New GCSE subjects could include child development and building and construction as vocational courses are being introduced.

  09/23/2026
• The GuardianTories target universal credit claimants in plan condemned as ‘fast track to poverty’

  Proposals aim to push people into work, but charities say families are still paying price of austerity cuts and rise in cost of livingPeople claiming universal credit (UC) would have their payments cut by a third if they have not paid enough national insurance, under a Conservative plan condemned by one charity as “a fast track to increased poverty”.Under the proposals, those who receive this “subsistence allowance” would have it paid into a dedicated debit card that would prevent from them buying alcohol or tobacco, based on an Australian system that was scrapped after trials found limited evidence it changed behaviour. Continue reading...

  09/23/2026
• The GuardianPupils to be offered vocational GCSEs in radical shake-up of system in England

  Courses such as finance and construction form part of PM’s push for education ‘that offers a path for everybody’Teenagers are to be offered a range of new vocational GCSEs under a radical shake-up of the school system in England designed to tackle a crisis that has left nearly a million young people out of work or training.From 2029, pupils will be able to supplement compulsory GCSE subjects such as English, maths and sciences with courses such as construction, creative media production and child development, marking the biggest changes to the qualification for more than a decade. Continue reading...

  09/23/2026
• The GuardianUK shares findings of damning climate crisis national security report suppressed under Starmer

  El Niño poses critical threat to nations’ defences, says Ed Miliband in presentation to global foreign ministersThe UK has warned countries around the world that the climate and nature crises and the coming El Niño threaten their national security and defence, presenting foreign ministries with the findings of an explosive report suppressed under Keir Starmer.Ed Miliband, the UK’s foreign secretary, made a presentation to the foreign ministers of the EU as well as Kenya and other countries on Wednesday night at a private meeting during the UN general assembly in New York, based on the report by the UK’s spy chiefs that found the collapse of natural systems around the world would lead to conflict, migration and food shortages. Continue reading...

  09/23/2026
• NPRResults are in from the newest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll

  People say they are more likely to choose a Democrat to represent them in Congress, and feel Democrats would be better at tackling top issues like the economy and foreign policy.

  09/23/2026
• BBCTories would prevent long-term jobless spending benefits on alcohol and cigarettes

  The proposals would also see benefits cut for people who are able to work but have failed to hold down a job.

  09/23/2026
• BBCBurnham brands ban on football fans drinking alcohol in stands as 'discrimination'

  The prime minister opposes the law - in place since 1985 - and believes there is a case to remove it.

  09/23/2026
• The GuardianUK defence contractors to offer 40,000 apprenticeships, placements and jobs

  Wes Streeting says he leads a ‘ministry for growth’ as Labour seeks to show more defence spending will create UK jobs Defence contractors have promised to create 40,000 apprenticeships, work experience placements and jobs for young people each year, as Wes Streeting claimed to be overseeing a “ministry for growth”.Labour is keen to demonstrate that the rapid increase in defence spending planned for the coming years, which may necessitate tax rises, will result in jobs in the UK. Continue reading...

  09/23/2026
• The GuardianMilei threatens at UN that Argentina will take ‘matters into our own hands’ on Falklands

  Argentinian president accuses United Nations of being filled with ‘parasites’ in bellicose general assembly speechJavier Milei has condemned the UN as he warned that Argentina would take “matters into our own hands” in its dispute with Britain over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands.In a caustic speech at the general assembly in New York, the Argentinian president criticised the UN for being ineffective when it came to the long-running tensions over the British overseas territory in the south Atlantic known in Argentina as the Malvinas. Continue reading...

  09/23/2026

Headlines aggregated from major international newsrooms (BBC, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, NPR, France 24, Fox News) and linked back to the publishers.