Labour must back delivery drivers sacked by DPD, former cabinet minister says Louise Haigh criticises delivery company over treatment of workers who spoke out against pay cuts
A make-or-break budget: inside the Treasury before Labour’s crucial day From the outside, the run-up to Rachel Reeves’s announcement has looked chaotic, and many see the future of the chancellor and PM in the balance
Will pay-per-mile raise Reeves money or drive people away from electric vehicles? Need for new road taxes is clear – but there are concerns that pricing plan could stall transition away from petrol
Voters could abandon centrist parties if budget fails, warns former cabinet secretary Simon Case says voters will look elsewhere if chancellor cannot find solutions to tax, spending and debt problems
UK government borrows more than expected in setback before budget October figures represent final snapshot of public finances before Rachel Reeves’s tax and spending statement
Rachel Reeves sick of people ‘mansplaining’ how to be chancellor As she prepares to deliver her budget next week, Reeves speaks of pressure of being UK’s first female chancellor
‘Devastating to think of lives that could have been saved under different PM’, say Covid bereaved – as it happened Findings of inquiry into handling of pandemic by Boris Johnson’s government paint picture of delay and inaction
Reeves urged to ‘grasp the nettle’ with wholesale reset of council tax Experts say chancellor should go further than rumoured plan to update value of homes in top three bands
What does the left want? A wealth tax. What will that accomplish? Very little Imposing a 1% levy on the super-rich isn’t a policy, it’s pantomime. Tackling inequality in Britain will require much more far-reaching changes, says Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty
Microsoft has ‘ripped off the NHS’, says MP amid call for contracts with British firms Samantha Niblett highlighted government’s multi-billion-pound deals with Microsoft and ‘getting locked in’
Fall in UK inflation looks like turning point that heralds interest rate cut Rachel Reeves hints there will be budget measures to push down prices and Bank of England is likely to act
Launch of East West Rail services to be delayed in row over guards on trains Trains between Oxford and Milton Keynes put back to 2026 partly due to dispute, Chiltern Railways says
‘Out of touch’ hereditary peers criticised for voting against workers’ rights Lords look ‘undemocratic and firmly against interest of working people’, say senior trade union and Labour figures
Tories and Reform spout imaginary numbers as they fight for attention Back-of-an envelope calculations by Kemi Badenoch, Mel Stride and Nigel Farage are nothing but political fever dreams
Bond markets could force Rachel Reeves ‘to do a secondary budget’, City investor warns David Zahn of Franklin Templeton said bond yields could rise in response to chancellor’s fiscal plans and government would have to react