In the upstairs bar of a slick new brewery, the cheese-lovers of Halifax are paying “homage to fromage”.

It is one of the first events in the historic West Yorkshire town’s further monthly cheese club and there is a decent turn-out.

Discussion of Wednesday’s budget is not as popular as an accompaniment to the cheese as the selection of wines. But no one holds back on what is required of the chancellor.

Natalie Rogers, who runs her own small business with her partner, said there needs to be focus.

“I think investing in small businesses, investing in these northern towns, where at one time we were making all the money for the country, can we not get back to that? We’re not investing in local industries.”

At the next table, with a group of friends, Ali Fletcher said there needs to be bigger targets.

“I think wealth inequality is a major problem. The divide is getting wider. For me, a wealth tax is absolutely critical. We need to address this question of ‘Is there any money left?’. There’s plenty of money, it’s all about choices that government make.”

The evening’s cheese tasting was being marshalled by Lisa Kempster. “The impression I get from talking to people is there’s a lot of uncertainty, but when you ask them what they’re uncertain about, they’re not really sure, there’s just a general feeling of uncertainty and being cautious.”

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This corner of Halifax, close to the town’s historic Piece Hall, is buzzing with clubs, bars and restaurants, trying hard to defy the crunch in the night-time economy. It is a useful measure of how the landscapes of our town and cities has changed.

“Whenever there’s a budget, for a few days afterwards, there’s a drop off in trade,” said Michael Ainsworth, owner of the Graystone Unity, a bar and music venue in the town.

“I accept the government needs to raise money but, in this day and age, there’s better ways to go about doing that, like closing tax loopholes for the huge businesses to operate up with banking arrangements outside the UK.”

In the bar, a folk singer is going through a quirky and caustic set. In the basement, a punk band called Edward Molby is considerably louder.

On a sofa in the main bar, recent graduates Josh Kinsella and Ruby Firth, newly arrived in Halifax because of its more affordable housing, pinpoint what they want on Wednesday.

“Can we stop triple-locking the pensions, please? Stop giving pensioners everything. For God’s sake, I know they have hard times in the 70s and the 80s, but it just feels like we’re now paying for everyone else.”

Ben Randm is a familiar face at the bar and well known on the music scene with his band, Silver Tongued Rascals.

“Everyday people are seen as statistics, we’re always the afterthought. When the cuts are done, we’re always impeded and the ramifications that has for people’s livelihoods, for people’s mental health, for people’s passion and drive… it’s such a struggle.”

He, like many in the night-time economy sector, wants extra help for hospitality and venues that, he says, provide a vital community link.

David Van Gestel chose Halifax to open the third branch of MAMIL, a bar in jokey honour of those cycling “middle-aged men in Lycra”. On a busy quiz night, he said venues had to provide something different to get people out of their homes.

“I think the government needs to start putting some initiatives in place. They talk about growth but the reality is that the only thing we’re seeing grow is our costs.”

Eight men have been arrested in connection with the attempted murder of a couple in Newcastle, police have said.

A man and a woman in their 60s were found with serious injuries inside a property in Durham Street in the city’s Elswick area at around 6.45pm on Friday.

The woman sustained serious head injuries and remains in hospital in a critical condition, while the man is in a stable condition.

A man in his 30s was initially arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, Northumbria Police said on Saturday, before announcing seven further arrests on Sunday. All eight men remain in custody.

Five of the men – two in their 20s, two in their 30s, and one in his 40s – have been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.

A man in his 50s has been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder, while two other men – one in his 40s and one in his 60s – have been arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender.

Detective Chief Inspector Mark Atherton, the senior investigating officer in the case, said: “Eight suspects are now in custody being questioned, and I would like to reassure our communities extensive inquiries into this serious incident have already been carried out.”

Police are urging anyone with information to come forward and have issued an appeal for people who saw a red Renault Twingo car, which was allegedly stolen.

The vehicle is believed to have been parked in the West End of Newcastle between 6.30pm and 8pm on Friday before being found in the Longbenton area on Saturday morning.

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“We would like to thank everyone who has already come forward and as part of our investigation we are keen to hear from anyone who may have seen the Renault Twingo,” DCI Atherton said.

“Any information – no matter how insignificant it may seem – could prove vital to establishing exactly what happened that evening.”

Former prime minister Lord Cameron has revealed he has been treated for prostate cancer.

The former Tory leader, who was PM from 2010 until 2016, and foreign secretary from November 2023 until last year’s general election, went public in an interview with The Times.

The 59-year-old joins Olympic cycling champion Sir Chris Hoy, ex-Sky News presenter Dermot Murnaghan and another former PM, Rishi Sunak, in campaigning for better diagnosis and treatment.

He has now had the all clear and is cancer-free.

Lord Cameron went to the GP for a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test – which looks for proteins associated with prostate cancer – after his wife Samantha urged him to make an appointment. His result showed his numbers were worryingly high.

Recalling the moment when, after a follow-up biopsy, he was told he had cancer, Lord Cameron said: “You always dread hearing those words.

“And then literally as they’re coming out of the doctor’s mouth you’re thinking, ‘Oh, no, he’s going to say it. He’s going to say it. Oh God, he said it’. Then came the next decision. Do you get treatment? Or do you watch and wait?”

Lord Cameron said his older brother Alexander died of pancreatic cancer at the same age he is now. “It focuses the mind,” he said. “I decided quite quickly. I wanted to move ahead and that’s what I did.”

The former prime minister opted to have focal therapy, a treatment which delivers electric pulses via needles to destroy the cancerous cells.

He was given a post-treatment MRI scan around the time the US struck a nuclear plant in Iran last year. “It was the same week as Donald Trump was talking about the bomb damage assessment… I got my own bomb damage assessment,” he quipped.

Explaining why he has shared his diagnosis, Lord Cameron said: “I’ve got a platform. This is something we’ve really got to think about, talk about, and if necessary, act on.

“I want to, as it were, come out. I want to add my name to the long list of people calling for a targeted screening programme.”

Lord Cameron is backing a call by the charity Prostate Cancer Research for the introduction of screening for men at high risk of the disease.

“I don’t particularly like discussing my personal intimate health issues, but I feel I ought to,” he continued. “Let’s be honest. Men are not very good at talking about their health. We tend to put things off.

“We’re embarrassed to talk about something like the prostate, because it’s so intricately connected with sexual health and everything else. I sort of thought, well, this has happened to you, and you should lend your voice to it.

“I would feel bad if I didn’t come forward and say that I’ve had this experience. I had a scan. It helped me discover something that was wrong. It gave me the chance to deal with it.”

Approximately 12,000 men in the UK die from prostate cancer every year, making it the country’s biggest male cancer.

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An ongoing trial is looking at how healthcare professionals could use PSA tests with other assessments to improve screening.

Lord Cameron’s interview comes ahead of a meeting on Thursday, which could see the National Screening Committee give the green light for the first NHS screening programme for prostate cancer.