Rachel Reeves reveals Budget date as UK borrowing costs soar: Politics live – UK Times

The autumn Budget will take place on November 26, chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced.

Green Party leader Zack Polanski has apologised after a report resurfaced that while working as a hypnotherapist he claimed he could help women increase the size of their breasts, using his mind.

In 2013 it was reported that he made the claims while working as a hypnotherapist in Harley Street, London.

Asked if voters could trust him in light of the claims, Mr Polanksi told BBC Breakfast: “Well, it’s never for a politician to say ‘trust me’.

“But what I would say is, I apologise, well, I apologised for that 12 years ago, and one of my favourite politicians, Tony Benn, often said, ‘I don’t care where you came from, I care where you’re going’.

“Ultimately trust is a transactional relationship where you build trust based on the actions.”

He added: “The Labour Government, when they could have been talking about the inequality act, or the homeless people on the streets, or the fact that we’ve just spent £15 billion in nuclear weapons – we could have that discussion – but no, the Labour Party yesterday put out a press release about a silly article way before I was a politician from over a decade ago that I’ve already apologised for.

“That sounds to me like this is a Labour Government worrying, and they should do.”

Shadow housing secretary Sir James Cleverly has called the arrest of Father Ted creator Graham Linehan over anti-trans posts online an “overreach” and a “real over-reaction”.

Sir James told Times Radio: “From what I have seen, and I don’t have all the details, this does look like a real over-reaction to what was self-evidently a joke, and people can decide whether it was a funny joke or not a funny joke.

“I think he has himself said that it wasn’t a great joke, but to be arrested over something like that I think is an over-reach, and we’ve got to stop policing people because some people have taken offence.

“It was clearly, clearly not a serious incitement and I think there is an atmosphere that could just do with calming down a bit.”

It was put to him that policing similar incidents “grew under the Tory government”, and Sir James was asked if he was not “Conservative enough” in protecting “freedoms like non-crime hate incidents”, to which he responded: “Let’s be realistic about the about the scale of what’s going on here – this shouldn’t have happened. From what I can see, it should not have happened.”

The government’s borrowing is currently at a 27-year high, putting pressure on Chancellor Rachel Reeves to balance the books. But why is borrowing so high?

The yield on UK government bonds – also known as gilts – jumped to the highest level since 1998, at 5.698%, meaning it costs more for the government to borrow from financial markets.

Gilt yields move counter to the value of the bonds, meaning their prices fall when yields rise.

The pound also fell as the bond sell-off intensified, with sterling down 1 per cent to 1.34 US dollars and 0.6 per cent lower at 1.15 euros.

The higher gilt yields increase the cost of servicing the Government’s debt, putting the heat on the Chancellor to slash spending.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to announce plans to release the annual budget on November 26, according to a report from Bloomberg UK this morning.

Reeves is set to reveal the November date during an announcement on Wednesday, the report says, adding The Treasury and No 10 declined to comment.

Members of the public are “anxious” about “some of the cases” where people have been prosecuted for online posts, Wes Streeting has said.

Discussing the arrest of Graham Linehan over a series of social media posts, the Health Secretary told the BBC’s Today programme: “It’s complicated for legislators and it’s hard for the police sometimes, because they have to apply the law as it is written, not the law as sometimes it was intended.

“And honestly, this is why sometimes when we have debates in Parliament, it can be quite tricky when campaigners are saying: ‘Vote for this clause or that clause,’ because often people legislate with good intentions, but they also have to be mindful of unintended consequences.

“And I think we are all, let’s be honest, quite anxious about some of the cases we’ve seen in the media or proceed through the courts of what people have said online, where you think: ‘Was that really what Parliament intended when they passed these laws?’”

The Bell Hotel in Epping has been refused permission to appeal against a ruling allowing asylum seekers to continue to be housed at a hotel in the area.

It comes as a boost for the Home Office, who last week won a challenge in the Court of Appeal to allow them to keep using the hotel to house migrants.

The hotel has been the site of numerous protests over the summer after a resident asylum seeker was charged with sexually assaulting a teenage girl last month. He denies the charges.

Epping Forest District Council (EFDC) initially was granted an interim injunction to stop 138 asylum seekers being housed there.

But a judge ruled to overturn Epping Council’s temporary injunction barring asylum seekers from living there, saying it could lead to “further lawlessness”.

EFDC said “no reasons were given” following its unsuccessful application for permission to appeal the most recent judgment, with the council now open to ask the Supreme Court itself for the green light.

Newly elected Green Party leader Zack Polanski has been speaking on BBC Breakfast this morning.

When quizzed about immigration, Mr Polanski said the country “needs migrants” and insisted “migration is good for the country.

He said: “When we talk about migration we need to have an honest conversation in this country, that this country needs migrants – we have 150,000 vacancies in the National Health Service (NHS), we have an ageing population.

“Now, of course, we should be training British workers, and must train British workers, both for our care industries, for construction industries and all sorts of other jobs, but also the truth – and only the Green Party is willing to tell this truth right now – is actually migration is good for this country, migrants are paying more into our tax system than they’re taking out in benefits or social security.”

Asked if he is calling for “no limit on migration”, the newly-elected leader said: “Well, I think even that question about numbers is dehumanising, we are talking about human beings here.

“And actually the only reason why you would make a limit is because you would say there are not enough council homes, and our NHS is… crumbling, and I agree with those things, but the answer there is not to blame the migrants.

“The answer there is to stop austerity, the answer there is to build the council homes, (and) to invest in the National Health Service.”

He added: “The Green Party is saying the problem is not the small boats, the problem is the private jets and the private yachts.”

After Sir Keir Starmer’s mini reshuffle on Monday, The Independent’s chief political commentator, John Rentoul, asks if this signals Labour’s new budget.

Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives are “unlikely to win the election”, Liz Truss has said as she declined to rule out a bid to return to frontline politics.

Britain’s shortest serving prime minister told a podcast that her party’s refusal to “acknowledge” its failure to take on a “leftist establishment” meant it was destined for defeat at the next general election.

Speaking to The Master Investor Podcast with Wilfred Frost, Ms Truss said she would “never rule anything out” when it came to returning to politics, but refused to answer either way when asked whether this would be with the Tories or Reform UK.

Ms Truss has had a fractious relationship with her successor-but-one, previously accusing Mrs Badenoch of “repeating spurious narratives” after she said the former prime minister carried “quite a lot of” responsibility for the Conservatives’ record in office.

Asked whether she thought Reform’s Nigel Farage was “more likely to deliver” than Mrs Badenoch, Ms Truss said: “I think the way the Conservative Party is going, they’re unlikely to win the election.”

She added: “They’re not prepared to acknowledge what happened over the past 14 years and the failings to really take on what I would describe as the leftist establishment. So I don’t think she’s going to be prime minister at this stage.”