This is the cost-of-living Budget. That is the number one issue facing working class people across the country – and this Government needs to find answers.

Energy bills have risen in October and are forecast to rise sharply in January. Inflation has risen to 3.5% and is expected to rise further. Private rents are forecast to increase by 4-5% over the next year and mortgage costs look likely to go up again too.

People can see this tsunami heading towards them and they need a Government that is on their side.

So what should John Healey do on Wednesday? The first thing to do would be to boost pay. The Chancellor is directly responsible for the pay of millions of public sector workers – many of whom have suffered real terms cuts in their incomes since 2010.

You cannot deliver growth in every postcode ifworkers don’t have disposable income. Peopleare cutting back on what they spend in the shops, having a meal out in a restaurant, or a night in the pub because their pay has gone down and their costs have gone up.

PCS commissioned research that proved that increasing the pay of civil servants – especially at the lower end – more than paid for itself in the long run. It does this in three ways:

1. Firstly, a major part of any increase in public sector pay is recouped in higher tax and national insurance payments. There will also be a reduced entitlement to in-work benefits for some workers, saving the Government money.
2. Secondly, lower paid workers have a greater propensity to spend and so, if their pay increases, they spend more in their local economy – boosting local businesses. This money spent in a local community recirculates locally instead of leaking out, and this contributes to economic growth and higher tax revenues.
3. Thirdly, there’s the ratchet effect. A better pay rise in the public sector results in upward pressure in the private sector on pay, as businesses compete for workers. This results in higher tax and national insurance receipts.

The reality is that you cannot deliver a thriving economy without rising real wages. For more than a decade, workers in the public and private sectors have suffered real terms cuts in their incomes, and economic growth has been sluggish.

The academic research we have commissioned demonstrates it clearly. If you boost pay, especially low pay, you grow the economy. That economic growth brings increased tax revenues that outweigh the cost of boosting pay.

So what the Chancellor needs to set out in the Budget is a long-term policy of pay restoration to improve living standards and economic growth.

Boosting household incomes and economic growth are inextricably linked. So the Chancellor should use the Budget to set a new target of increasing disposable incomes for lower and middle earners to help strengthen economic growth, and ask the OBR to report annually on progress.

This would act as a benchmark to measure Government delivery against a far more meaningful measure of economic performance than GDP. It would also act as a guide for future policy interventions, as the OBR report could analyse the pressures on household incomes.

But income only represents one side of the ledger for households. On the other side there is the rising cost-of-living. Recent political history is strewn with the failed careers of short-lived Chancellors and Prime Ministers who didn’t get to grips with this issue.

People are fed up with politicians sitting idly by while they are being ripped by landlords jacking up rent, banks putting up mortgages, and energy and water companies hiking their bills.

When Andy Burnham was Mayor of Greater Manchester he called for a rent freeze and rent controls. Now he is Prime Minister he needs to put that into action, and make clear that profiteering from the British public must come to an end – whether that’s by banks, landlords, energy companies, water companies or supermarkets.

The post-war Churchill government in the early 1950s implemented an excess profits levy in the 1952 Budget under Rab Butler, who told the House of Commons, “we are not prepared to see excessive profits being made”, announcing “it is our intention that an Excess Profits Tax should operate from 1 January of this year”. The Conservative Chancellor declared he was “redistributing public money to those in need”.

If an Excess Profits Levy to fund redistribution was good enough for Churchill’s government, it is good enough for a Labour government today – especially one that is committed to “ending 40 years of neoliberalism” and delivering “growth in every postcode.”

If the Chancellor fails to grip this issue, millions of people face a very tough year and, less importantly, he faces joining the scrapheap of ex-Chancellors who failed to tackle the cost-of-living crisis.

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Cottrell, whose nickname is “Posh George”, has denied holding an executive role at Montenegro-based gambling company, saying he was “merely a customer” of the firm.

Documents obtained by Democracy for Sale journalists and shared with The Times raise fresh questions about how the company secured a gambling licence in Curaçao, a Caribbean island where many online gambling businesses are registered.

While a Curaçao licence would not have permitted UK gambling, but would allow users logging in via VPNs remotely to appear as though they were gambling in Curaçao.

A previous Sunday Times investigation found that Tether.Bet may have broken the law by accepting payments for bets through UK companies despite not holding a UK gambling licence.

The documents obtained by Democracy for Sale show that Tether.Bet’s owner, Malaysian accountant Hon Kong Yong, submitted paperwork relating to the sale of a £3.75 million property in Kensington, London, as evidence that he had enough money to fund the business.

However, Land Registry records show that while a sale of the property took place in May 2020, Yong, a friend of Cottrell’s, was not the seller.

The sellers, a retired French couple, told The Times they had never met or heard of Yong. A Swiss banker named as the buyer also told Democracy for Sale that they did not know who Yong was.

According to Democracy for Sale, documents from the registry suggest that the property transaction played a key role in securing the licence for Tether.Bet.

In his submission to the Curaçaon licensing authorities, Yong said Tether.Bet would be funded by shareholder or third-party loans and that he would personally contribute $350,000 to the project.

Internal documents show that officials had noted Yong had failed to provide evidence of the loans he said would fund the business. However, they concluded that he had sufficient wealth to finance the operation.

In his April 2024 “source of funds” submission to Curaçaon licensing authorities, Yong claimed his salary was £40,000 per year, but that he had a net worth of £8 million.

Yong said his wealth was derived from “diligent” saving, investments in cryptocurrencies, his accountancy business, salary and pension income, as well as property sales.

In 2016, Yong was declared bankrupt. 

Cottrell and Yong are closely associated, with Yong listed as the owner of Salon Privé, a private members club in Tivat, Montenegro, which Cottrell goes to.

Cottrell’s lawyers told Democracy for Sale that Cottrell “has no interest in Tether.bet” and that he is not “a shareholder” or “a director, employee or consultant”. 

“His relationship with Tether.bet has been limited to that of a customer, in addition to which he knows and is friends with its owner,” his lawyers said. 

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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The debate on Wednesday was tabled by Reform Senedd member, Jason O’Connell, despite the Senedd having no powers to ban face coverings.

While O’Connell began by speaking about crime and referring to “balaclava-clad young men” on illegal e-bikes, he soon shifted to talking about Muslim women wearing face coverings.

The Reform politician prefaced his comments by saying “We have no issue or problem with Islam or Muslims”.

O’Connell then added: “We do have an issue with people living amongst our communities hiding their identities,” which was met with heckles.

Fellow Reform MS Francesca O’Brien told the Senedd that face coverings, including the burka, were “anti-British”.

“Not all cultures are equal,” she said. “We cannot continue to import alien cultures into this country and expect integration.

As reported by ICNN Senedd reporter Ella Groves, Deputy First Minister Sioned Williams called the Reform debate “shameful” and warned that the party’s rhetoric was increasingly normalising Islamophobia. 

“Who is the arbiter of Britishness or Welshness? Who decides a woman who wears a face covering is less British or less Welsh?,” Williams asked. 

Carrie Harper, another Plaid Cymru MS, dismissed claims that the motion was about crime, calling it a “thinly veiled attack on the religious rights of women.”

Kiera Marshall, another Plaid MS shared that a Muslim woman had been attacked in her constituency for wearing a headscarf. 

She said: “This is exactly what the rhetoric that Reform is peddling is doing.”

In a post on Instagram on Wednesday, Marshall wrote: “Tonight, Reform put forward a debate on face coverings. This was nothing more than a dogwhistle and an attempt to sow hatred.”

On the steps of the Senedd, campaigners from Stand Up to Racism and other groups protested against the debate.

The Reform member’s comments come after Reform MP Sarah Pochin previously asked then prime minister Keir Starmer to ban the burqa during PMQs.

Reform’s Zia Yusuf called Pochin’s intervention “dumb” and then quit his role as party chair before returning to Reform two days later.

Nigel Farage did not condemn Pochin’s comments, but rather said that Pochin had sparked a “relevant debate”. Fellow Reform MP Lee Anderson said he backed Pochin’s call to ban the burqa.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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Raheem Kassam, a former chief of staff to Farage when he was UKIP leader, was accused by Conservative party chair Kevin Hollinrake of “launching racist slurs” at Badenoch.

In one post on X, Kas­sam wrote of Badenoch: “How are people still fall­ing for this Nigerian scam­mer? Don’t give her your credit card num­ber and bank account details!”.

In oth­ers he said: “So Kemi, tell us the truth. Are you a walk­ing gaffe or an illegal immig­rant?’ and poin­tedly used her full name – Olukemi Olu­funto Ade­goke Badenoch.”

On the Daily T podcast yesterday, Telegraph columnist Tim Stanley asked Kruger what he thought about Kassam calling the Tory leader “a Nigerian scammer”, and added: “Why won’t the party distance itself from this man?”.

The Tory turned Reform MP downplayed Kassam’s comments, stating: “Raheem Kassam is not a party spokesman and he’s free to say what he likes.”

He added: “You know, a bit of rumbustious debate online, I think is part of our politics and so I’ve got nothing to say to that.”

Stanley pressed Kruger on his failure to condemn Kassam’s comments. 

“The very fact that you won’t on this podcast when hearing that someone has described Kemi Badenoch as ‘a Nigerian scammer’ you won’t just instinctively say ‘that’s disgusting. I don’t like that,’” Stanley said.

“Instead, you call it rambunctious. That raises questions. I’m uncomfortable with that.” he added.

“Why not just call it out for what it is, which is a disgusting and unnecessary slur?,” Stanley asked.

Kruger suggested that Stanley was inviting him to get involved in “fratricidal conflict within the Reform family” and said he didn’t want to do that.

Kruger said he wanted to focus on “the real challenges the country faces” instead. 

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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The general secretary of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), Laura Davison, described the party’s announcement that it has reported ITV to the police and will take legal action against the channel as “the latest in a series of attacks against journalists by Reform UK”.

An ITV documentary published last week showed multiple Reform councillors making racist and sexist remarks.

Some examples uncovered in the investigation included Alan Feeney, a then Reform councillor in Solihull, saying that the area had been “infested” with Asian families, who he referred to as “absolute parasites”.

Feeney also said of Asian people: “Drag them out of their homes, stick them on planes and f*** them off to Pakistan.”

Chris Whelan, another former Reform councillor in Solihull, said of a female Reform candidate: “If she was my daughter, it would still be bath night on a Thursday. I’ll wash you properly this time.”

In a six minute long video shared on his X account yesterday, Reform’s Zia Yusuf set out a series of allegations against ITV’s undercover reporting.

Yusuf said “I will lay out how we believe ITV journalists have committed multiple criminal offences, some carrying up to ten years in prison.”

Reform’s home affairs spokesperson also claimed that ITV had “psychologically damaged innocent and decent Reform staff and members who were not featured in any documentary”.

Speaking about the practice of undercover reporting, Yusuf said: “Journalists are supposed to report the news, these ones set out to create it.”

Yusuf alleged that the undercover reporter had committed a crime by “digitally manipulating” her passport in order to pass pre-employment checks and obtain a job in Reform’s press team “under false pretenses”.

The Reform figure said: “Making or possessing a false identity document with the intention of using it to establish who you are is a criminal offence under section four of the Identity Documents Act 2010.”

“It carries a maximum sentence of ten years in prison,” he added.

Yusuf also claimed that the investigation “was designed to demoralise, to inject paranoia into our volunteers, our activists, and our employees, and to make ordinary people afraid to take part in politics”.

It is not clear which police force, or forces, Reform has made the report to.

In a statement provided to LFF, Laura Davison, NUJ general secretary, said: “The NUJ strongly condemns attempts to subdue scrutiny and investigative reporting. This is the latest in a series of attacks against journalists by Reform UK – from council leaders in Derbyshire refusing to engage with a Local Democracy Reporter, to Reform Wales intimidating journalists working in the Senedd, and the leader of Reform UK sharing a journalist’s NUJ Press Card on social media.”

Davison added: “Journalists have a right to report without fear on matters in the public interest – including the behaviour and beliefs of people standing for elected office.”

On the matter of undercover reporting, Davison said: “The NUJ’s Code of Conduct states that journalists must obtain material by honest, straightforward and open means, but makes clear the exception for investigations that are both overwhelmingly in the public interest and involve evidence that cannot be obtained by straightforward means.”

“We urge Reform UK and all political parties to respect freedom of expression and freedom of the press. We also call on the government to urgently introduce universal anti-SLAPP legislation containing early dismissal mechanisms that would enable courts to throw out meritless claims designed to prevent publication of stories and investigations in the public interest.” 

Reacting to the revelation that Reform claims to have reported ITV to the police, Jim Pickard, deputy political editor at Financial Times wrote on Bluesky: “Fascinating that Reform’s priority seems to be going to war with ITV over its documentary rather than cracking down on the root problem.”

A spokesman for ITV said: “ITV stands by its journalism. Should the police get in touch, we would fully cooperate.”

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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Jack Ross who is also a member of the Bow Group, a Conservative thinktank that lists him as a research fellow, was filmed telling an undercover Al-Jazeera jounrnalist ‘What do you want done?” before listing the type of violent options that could be bought.’

He told the Al-Jazeera journalist: “They can just kick the fuck out of someone. That’s a certain amount. They can start cutting people’s faces up, that’s another amount. And they can stab someone. They can shoot someone. They can kill someone.”

Ross is the chief executive of Turning Point UK, a spin-off from the campaign group founded by the murdered US Republican commentator Charlie Kirk.

He has been pictured as a Tory activist outside Downing Street as well as with Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.

The Guardian reports: “Ross was reported by Al Jazeera to have introduced an undercover reporter to a violent criminal from Glasgow with links to the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force, who offers to have people killed for money.”

The undercover reporter approached Ross with a fictitious problem where an uncle’s business was at risk of being taken over by a gang, whose members were supposedly warned they would “get fucked” if anything happened.

Al Jazeera has since reported that Ross has been suspended from the Conservative Party.

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Speaking in a Westminster Hall debate on House of Lords reform earlier this week, Rosindell spoke against democratising the Lords, which he said “there is no requirement to abolish”. 

The Reform MP said: “What we do not want is another elected chamber to rival the House of Commons.”

He said the Lords should instead remain unelected and “be a house of experts or elders”, adding that “continuity is the foundation of the success of this nation”.

Rosindell argued that having two elected chambers would create “rivalry” between the two sets of politicians and would weaken “the primacy of the elected House of Commons”.

As Labour MP Simon Opher pointed out, Rosindell’s comments contradict Reform’s manifesto commitment to modernise the Lords.

Opher said: “I thought that, in Reform’s manifesto, it was going to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a much smaller, more democratic second Chamber.”

Rosindell responded to Opher’s intervention by saying that he didn’t stand as an MP on that manifesto, adding: “I joined Reform UK after that manifesto”. 

The Reform MP also complained multiple times during the debate about the fact that Reform does not have any peers. 

Rosindell claimed that based on the votes that Reform won at the last election “there certainly need to be a number of Reform UK Members of the House of Lords”.

Reform UK elected five MPs at the 2024 general election, and under First-Past-the-Post the number of votes they won doesn’t determine how many MPs they elect or automatically translate into representation in the House of Lords. 

The Reform politician said: “It cannot be right that a political party that came third at the last general election has zero representation in the House of Lords. There are 80 Lib Dem peers, yet their party received 600,000 fewer votes than Reform UK.”

In comments directed at Lib Dem MP Mike Martin, Rosindell complained again about Reform’s lack of representation in the Lords.

He said: “Well, where was the invitation for the leader of Reform UK to nominate a number of Reform UK Members of the House of Lords? 

“The hon. Member must surely accept that that is very wrong when we consider that Reform UK was the third largest party in terms of votes at the last election.”

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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Jenkyns arrived at The Great Exhibition of Lincolnshire, a business and innovation event which she set up, on an automated bus filled with smoke, wearing a spacesuit and holding a helmet. 

There were also speaking and dancing robots at the event. 

The Lincoln and District Trades Union Council has called on Jenkyns to disclose how much the event cost.

The 2025 event cost approximately £69,000, with £28,000 of private and in-kind sponsorship.

Prior to the event, the exhibition had been accused of lacking political balance, with Liz Truss, Zia Yusuf and Robert Jenrick MP listed as speakers. 

A Texan Republican state representative and a former representative also spoke at the event.

Reacting to Jenkyns’ entrance at the event, one social media user wrote on X: “I’m sick and tired of Andrea Jenkyns embarrassing our county in front of the nation. When she’s not playing dress-up, she’s subjecting us to her unsolicited warbling. 

“Lincolnshire isn’t a joke and deserves better than an attention seeker who doesn’t even want to live here.”

Jenkyns’s eligibility to stand as the Reform candidate for Greater Lincolnshire mayor came under questioning last year, when a member of the Independent candidate Marianne Overton’s team highlighted that she was living in Yorkshire.

During the mayoral election campaign, Jenkyns promised to sell her house in Yorkshire and move to Lincolnshire if she was elected mayor.

An investigation by LFF in July found that Jenkyns’ house in Yorkshire, which was previously up for sale on Rightmove had been removed from the website and was listed for rent as a holiday home. 

LFF also spoke to local sources who said they do not believe she has relocated to Lincolnshire. 

At yesterday’s Great Exhibition event, Jenkyns also used an interview with an ITV journalist to advocate for fracking in Lincolnshire.

Jenkyns said that she thinks “the dial is changing on fracking” and that “all these lobby groups trying to make out it’s bad but how come America’s doing it, how come other countries are doing it and it’s perfectly safe?”.

An article by the Guardian from earlier this year revealed that Jenkyns had met with US-based company Edgon Resources four times to discuss how the firm could frack for gas in the county.

Fracking was banned in England under the Conservative government in 2019, when Jenkyns was a Tory MP, because of concerns that it can trigger earthquakes.

Fracking has also been banned by previous governments since 2011.

Photo credit: ITV/ Fred Dimbleby

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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Yet once again it’s worth highlighting just what kind of party Reform are.

It’s been revealed by anti-extremism campaign group Hope not Hate that Sarah Wood who became leader of Kirklees Council in July, has peddled conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 pandemic and Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat on social media.

Using a since-deleted Twitter account, in November 2020 – when Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the US presidential election – Wood responded, “Fraudulent,” to a post asking: “Describe the ‘election results’ in one word.”

Hope not Hate goes on to add: “She continued spouting conspiracy theories on 6 January 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters attacked the US Capitol Building in Washington DC.

“That day, Wood claimed that those who “stormed the Capitol were Antifa not Trump supporters”; suggested that police opened the gates and let “the Antifa protestors dressed up as Trump supporters in”; and wrote: “Democrats using the breach of congress by antifa to attempt to expel the republicans who objected to the electoral college vote #corruption plain and simple”.

On 5 December 2020, she also criticised the government for its measures during the pandemic, calling it #CovidLies”. Later that month, she wrote: “Long Covid Is not a thing. It was made up by the media. Get a grip.” In January, she said lockdown was “NOT about a virus”; posted that “Whatever this is it’s NOT about the virus AND it’s global”

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The Department of Health and Social Care sued PPE Medpro over claims the medical gowns it supplied did not comply with relevant healthcare standards.

The High Court ruled Medpro failed to prove whether or not its surgical gowns, which were to be used by NHS workers, had undergone a validated sterilisation process.

PPE Medpro was recommended for a government contract during the Covid pandemic as a result of Baroness Mone referring it through the VIP lane. The company was owned by Mone’s husband Doug Barrowman. The “VIP lane” was an expedited procurement process which fast-tracked (PPE) offers from suppliers recommended by government ministers, MPs, peers, and senior officials.

A high share of the companies routed through the system had direct ties to the Conservative Party or political figures, drawing widespread accusations of cronyism.

Having previously denied gaining directly from the contracts, Baroness Mone, a former Conservative peer and lingerie tycoon, admitted in December 2023 that she stood to benefit from tens of millions of pounds of profit.

Not a single penny has been covered following the scandal with PPE Medpro and now a petition has been organised to recover the money for the NHS.

The petition from the Organise team adds: “The day before the court ruled against them, PPE Medpro ‘went bust’. Mone is still a member of the House of Lords, while PPE Medpro’s millions went into offshore trusts linked to her husband, Doug Barrowman. 

“That’s our money – money that should be going into A&E, hospital beds and NHS staff.”

You can support the petition on the link here.

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