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The woman who is odds-on to be the next chancellor has recently been painting a bleak picture of the state of Britain.

In her keynote Mais lecture last month, Rachel Reeves described Britain as gripped by “recurrent crises”, and a state of decline comparable to the turmoil of the 1970s.

The Conservatives, she has claimed, have left the NHS “on its knees” and pursued a “scorched earth” approach to public services by making an unfunded commitment to cut National Insurance.

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But as the election nears, the scrutiny is increasing on Labour’s proposed remedies and whether they go anywhere near answering the fundamental questions they have posed.

Today, visiting the Manchester Royal Infirmary, Ms Reeves set out how Labour would fund their promises of breakfast clubs in all primary schools, hundreds of thousands more dentist appointments, and two million more NHS operations, scans and appointments a year.

They had planned to find the £2bn-a-year by scrapping non-domiciled status – in other words forcing people not permanently resident in the UK to pay tax on foreign income – until the current Chancellor Jeremy Hunt came along and nicked the policy.

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Ms Reeves told me she’d been through the costings; and found that £2.6bn over five years could be brought in through closing loopholes in the non-dom policy – although the Institute of Fiscal Studies warns that some non-doms, who currently pay £6bn a year in UK tax too, could move abroad.

Funding HMRC to hire new compliance officers and use better technology to bring in more money from tax evaders would, Labour says, yield £5bn in five years’ time. Governments, both Labour and the Coalition, have managed to close the so-called tax gap, but the exact numbers cannot be guaranteed.

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And is this just tinkering? The OBR forecasts at the last budget show that just to maintain the current levels of day-to-day spending over five years, the next government of whatever stripe will need to find £20bn – just to stand still.

That doesn’t include capital spending on infrastructure, which would be about the same again, or any increases Labour may wish to announce.

Ms Reeves insisted to me that she has no plans to look again at the triple lock on pensions – which currently accounts for 11% of government spending and rising. Or raise personal taxes, currently at their highest for 70 years.

She insisted today’s announcements are not small change, or a drop in the ocean. With the election date uncertain, they are understandably wary of announcing more policies the Conservatives may steal.

But Labour’s dilemma is that to turn around the bleak picture they’ve painted will demand difficult choices on tax or borrowing – and we haven’t really heard what they are yet.

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Why Boris’s best mate is off to Reform

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Why Boris's best mate is off to Reform

👉Listen to Politics at Sam and Anne’s on your podcast app👈       

Former Conservative chairman and friend of Boris Johnson – Sir Jake Berry – is defecting to Reform UK, causing more problems for Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.

On today’s episode, Sky News’ Sam Coates and Politico’s Anne McElvoy discuss if his defection will divide parts of Reform policy.

Elsewhere, the Anglo-French summit gets under way, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer hoping to announce a migration deal with French President Emmanuel Macron to deter small boat crossings.

Plus, chatter around Whitehall that No10 are considering a pre-summer reshuffle, but will it have any value?

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Australia to test CBDCs, stablecoins in next stage of crypto play

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Australia to test CBDCs, stablecoins in next stage of crypto play

Australia to test CBDCs, stablecoins in next stage of crypto play

The trial is part of Project Acacia, an initiative from the RBA exploring how digital money and tokenization could support financial markets in Australia.

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Starmer and Macron agree need for ‘new deterrent’ to stop small boat crossings

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Starmer and Macron agree need for 'new deterrent' to stop small boat crossings

Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron have agreed the need for a “new deterrent” to deter small boats crossings in the Channel, Downing Street has said.

The prime minister met Mr Macron this afternoon as part of the French president’s state visit to the UK, which began on Tuesday.

High up the agenda for the two leaders is the need to tackle small boat crossings in the Channel, which Mr Macron said yesterday was a “burden” for both the UK and France.

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The small boats crisis is a pressing issue for the prime minister, given that more than 20,000 migrants crossed the English Channel to the UK in the first six months of this year – a rise of almost 50% on the number crossing in 2024.

Sir Keir is hoping he can reach a deal for a one-in one-out return treaty with France, ahead of the UK-France summit on Thursday, which will involve ministerial teams from both nations.

The deal would see those crossing the Channel illegally sent back to France in exchange for Britain taking in any asylum seeker with a family connection in the UK.

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However, it is understood the deal is still in the balance, with some EU countries unhappy about France and the UK agreeing on a bilateral deal.

French newspaper Le Monde reports that up to 50 small boat migrants could be sent back to France each week, starting from August, as part of an agreement between Sir Keir and Mr Macron.

A statement from Downing Street said: “The prime minister met the French President Emmanuel Macron in Downing Street this afternoon.

“They reflected on the state visit of the president so far, agreeing that it had been an important representation of the deep ties between our two countries.

“Moving on to discuss joint working, they shared their desire to deepen our partnership further – from joint leadership in support of Ukraine to strengthening our defence collaboration and increasing bilateral trade and investment.”

It added: “The leaders agreed tackling the threat of irregular migration and small boat crossings is a shared priority that requires shared solutions.

“The prime minister spoke of his government’s toughening of the system in the past year to ensure rules are respected and enforced, including a massive surge in illegal working arrests to end the false promise of jobs that are used to sell spaces on boats.

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“The two leaders agreed on the need to go further and make progress on new and innovative solutions, including a new deterrent to break the business model of these gangs.”

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, seized on the statement to criticise Labour for scrapping the Conservatives’ Rwanda plan, which the Tories claim would have sent asylum seekers “entering the UK illegally” to Rwanda.

He said in an online post: “We had a deterrent ready to go, where every single illegal immigrant arriving over the Channel would be sent to Rwanda.

“But Starmer cancelled this before it had a chance to start.

“Now, a year later, he’s realised he made a massive mistake. That’s why numbers have surged and this year so far has been the worst in history for illegal channel crossings.

“Starmer is weak and incompetent and he’s lost control of our borders.”

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