Politics | kieransbrookholmes.claims

Would a gambling tax rise in the budget really shut shops and cost jobs?

The influential Social Market Foundation thinktank, the most vocal advocate for a rise in machine games duty (MGD), from 20% to 40%, thinks the measure could raise between £275m and £460m annually , on top of the roughly…

‘We need a national strategy to close the disability employment gap’

As co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Disability Employment, it’s an issue I care deeply about, and one I’ve been thinking about a great deal. In recent months we’ve heard a lot about the number of people…

Speed up EU health security prep, says NATO chief medic

It doesn’t mean not doing anything : “It would be dangerous not to act now, but then I think we need to find ways of working together,” he said. Eichwalder added that it was important that national deals — with industry…

How a failed attack in Leipzig revealed a wider Russian campaign

Almost two years earlier, on Aug. 20, 2024, police investigators arrived at a cemetery in Kaunas, Lithuania, with a bomb disposal team. They had received a highly sensitive tip from Poland concerning explosives and a…

Trumps Diesel-Drohung gegen Europa

Andernfalls droht ein US-Exportstopp, der auch in Europa einen Preisschock auslösen würde. Ob Brüssel der Erpressung nachgibt, beleuchtet diese Folge. Innenpolitisch bahnt sich der nächste Krach an, nachdem das…

Russia’s not-quite-war on Europe

They also discuss Braw’s new book, The Undersea War: The International Battle for Supremacy at the Bottom of the World , and the increasingly contested cables, pipelines and infrastructure hidden beneath the seabed —…

Conservative ex-mayor Andy Street out of the running for top railways job

Street has continued to make appearances around the region, including visiting the scene of wildfires outside Birmingham over summer. He also has a busy schedule at the Conservative Party Conference this weekend in the…

Burnham wants to change British elections. Voters think they’re fine already.

The same broad pattern was true of Reform voters. A man walks past a fallen placard as he exits a polling station after casting his vote in the local elections on May 7, 2026 in Surbiton, England. | Carl Court/Getty…

It’s the end of the world as we know it (and I feel an investment opportunity coming on)

As you will no doubt have marked in your calendars, the end of the world is scheduled for the spring of 2029 (exact timing TBC). It’s just a few weeks now since researcher Jacob Coxon announced his resignation from…

Europe war-games life after Merz

Another key policy area where the coalition struggled to agree a position was on whether children should be banned from social media, a flagship EU-wide proposal from von der Leyen. While Merz personally backed the idea…