A millionaires’ playground, Poole in Dorset boasts some of the most expensive properties in the UK, and has been called Britain’s Palm Beach.

Away from the yachts and the mansions of Sandbanks, however, Poole is also a beer drinkers’ paradise, with 58 pubs in the parliamentary constituency alone.

But now many of Dorset’s pub landlords have joined a bitter backlash against rises in business rates of up to £30,000 in Rachel Reeves’s November budget.

Across the UK, it is claimed up to 1,000 publicans have even banned Labour MPs from their pubs, after the chancellor axed a 40% rates discount, introduced during COVID, from next April.

The row over the rises, brewing since the budget, came to a head in a clash between Kemi Badenoch and Sir Keir Starmer in the final Prime Minister’s Questions of 2025.

“He gave his word that he would help pubs,” said the Tory leader.

“Yet they face a 15% rise in business rates because of his budget. Will he be honest and admit that his taxes are forcing pubs to close?”

The PM replied that the temporary relief introduced during COVID – a scheme the Conservatives put in place and Labour supported, he said – had come to an end.

“But it was always a temporary scheme coming to an end,” he said.

“We have now put in place a £4bn transitional relief.”

But in the Barking Cat Ale House in Poole, facing an increase in business rates of nearly £9,000 a year, the father and son co-landlords fear the rises could mean last orders for many pubs.

“We’re sort of in the average area at 157%, but we’ve got a lot of local pubs that are increasing by 600%, and another one by 800%,” Ambrose senior, Mark, told Sky News.

“It’s a pub destroyer. Pubs can’t survive these kinds of increases. It’s not viable. Most pubs are just about scraping by anyway. If you add these massive increases your profit margins are wiped out.

“We struggle as it is. You can’t have that kind of increase and expect businesses to succeed.

“Fortunately, the customers understand. But they still don’t want to have to spend an extra 30 or 50 pence a pint.”

Son Michael added: “It’s all back to front. It’s really these bigger pub companies and supermarkets that need to be facing increased taxes. We can’t handle them. They can.”

Michelle Smith, landlady of the Poole Arms, the oldest pub on the town’s quay, dating back to 1635, said: “Our rates per value is due to go up £9,000 in April, so it’s quite a deal.”

“And we had a rates increase just gone as well,” she added. “So our rates had already increased over £1,000 a month last April. So another hit is quite considerable really.

“Prices definitely have to go up with all the different price increases that we’ve got throughout: business rates, wage increases, the beer goes up from the breweries. Everything is going up.”

Backing the publicans, Neil Duncan-Jordan, who became Poole’s first ever Labour MP last year, has written to the chancellor demanding a rethink. He said he is prepared to vote against the tax rise in the Commons.

“They’ve got to listen,” he told Sky News.

“They’ve got to listen to the high street, to publicans, people who run social clubs and listen to problems that they’re facing and the impact that these changes have made.”

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Pint price rises to come unless govt make changes

Mr Duncan-Jordan said he was prepared to support an amendment to the Finance Bill, which turns the budget into law and had its second reading in the Commons last week.

Despite being suspended for four months for rebelling against welfare cuts earlier this year, he said: “I was discussing this with some MPs just this morning and I’ll be happy to support those. Sometimes you just have to say what you think is right.”

As chancellor, Ms Reeves has regularly raised a glass to pubs and promised to protect them from rising costs.

But Sir Keir has faced the wrath of a publican before, when he was thrown out of a pub in Bath during COVID by an anti-lockdown landlord.

This time, without a U-turn by the chancellor on the business rates increases, pub landlords fear the government has them over a barrel.

The UK could be set to have had its warmest year on record, according to forecasters.

The Met Office says 2025 is on track to become one of the UK’s warmest years, possibly surpassing 2022.

The average annual temperature is tracking at 10.05C – ahead of the previous record of 10.03C set in 2022.

A forecasted cold spell over Christmas means the final figure is not yet confirmed.

If it is confirmed, 2025 will be only the second year in observational records where the UK’s annual mean temperature has topped 10C.

Four of the last five years will then appear in the top five warmest years since records began in 1884. All of the top 10 warmest years will have occurred in the last two decades.

A new record has been previously set for the UK annual mean temperature five times this century – in 2002, 2003, 2006, 2014 and 2022.

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Has COP30 moved the climate dial at all?

‘Extraordinary times’

Mike Kendon, a senior scientist at the Met Office, said: “At this stage it looks more likely than not that 2025 will be confirmed as the warmest year on record for the UK.”

He added: “In terms of our climate, we are living in extraordinary times. The changes we are seeing are unprecedented in observational records back to the 19th century.”

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Professor of climate science Friederike Otto described the findings as “devastating and utterly unsurprising”, adding: “10C might not sound very warm, but it is an average and means much higher temperatures in the summer, high temperatures that would have never been possible are now common and that is not good news.”

Bob Ward, from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said: “This is further evidence of the impacts of climate change in the UK, and the urgent need for us to stop warming by leading the world in reaching net zero emissions of greenhouse gases as soon as possible.”

A man has been charged – alongside five other men – with carrying out sexual offences against his now former wife over a 13-year period.

Philip Young, 49, formerly of Swindon, has been charged with 56 sexual offences, including multiple counts of rape, against Joanne Young, 48, Wiltshire Police said.

He is also charged with administering a substance with the intent to stupefy or overpower to allow sexual activity, as well as voyeurism, possession of indecent images of children and possession of extreme images.

Five other men have also been charged with sexual offences against Ms Young and will appear in court tomorrow, Wiltshire Police said.

They are Norman Macksoni, 47, of Sharnbrook. He is a black British national and has been charged with one count of rape and possession of extreme images.

Dean Hamilton, 47, of no fixed abode. He is a white British national and has been charged with one count of rape and sexual assault by penetration and two counts of sexual touching.

Conner Sanderson Doyle, 31, of Swindon. He is a white British national and has been charged with sexual assault by penetration and sexual touching

Richard Wilkins, 61, of Swindon. He is a white British national and has been charged with one count of rape and sexual touching

Mohammed Hassan, 37, of Swindon. He is a British Asian male and has been charged with sexual touching.

Police say the offences took place between 2010 and 2023.

Geoff Smith, detective superintendent for Wiltshire Police, said: “This is a significant update in what is a complex and extensive investigation.

“The victim in this case, Joanne, has taken the decision to waive her automatic legal right to anonymity.

“She has been supported by specially trained officers from the beginning of the process and she has made the decision following multiple discussions with officers and support services.”

People who allege they are victims of rape have been automatically entitled to lifelong anonymity since the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act was passed in 1976.

This has since been extended to certain other sexual offences, though victims can waive the protection if they wish.

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