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Civil servants warned ministers that they did not have enough time to properly assess some of the energy support packages that will together cost the taxpayer about £69 billion, an official report has found. The programmes were rushed through after ministers had held off announcing extra support because they were waiting for the Conservative leadership election to play out. It meant that civil servants only had three weeks to put […]

NHS leaders have warned the service is facing its worst day of disruption yet as tens of thousands of nurses and ambulance staff in England are set to walk out in support of pay claims. Monday’s industrial action – expected to be the biggest strike in the history of the NHS – marks the first time the two groups have staged stoppages on the same day during the current wave […]

Harry Kane’s record-breaking goal fired 10-man Tottenham to a 1-0 win over Manchester City to further dent the champions’ titles hopes. Kane slotted home after quarter of an hour to break the deadlock and move past Jimmy Greaves as Spurs’ all-time leading marksman, having gone level with the late forward against Fulham two weeks ago. It proved enough to keep up Tottenham’s excellent record against City, who could have gone […]

New manager Sean Dyche re-ignited the energy and tenacity missing for so long as Everton won their first match since October but warned there was much more required to drag the club out of danger. There was an echo of Walter Smith’s ‘Dogs of War’ of the mid-1990s in the 1-0 victory over Premier League leaders Arsenal, a result built on midfield aggression, defensive commitment and finished by James Tarkowski’s […]

A woman described as a “key witness” by police searching for missing mother Nicola Bulley has come forward, as the force warned against “totally unacceptable” speculation and abuse on social media. On Saturday, officers said they wanted to trace a person seen pushing a pram in the area near where the dog walker went missing. In an update on its Facebook page, Lancashire Police said the woman had come forward […]

Liz Truss has said she was never given a “realistic chance” to implement her radical tax-cutting agenda by her party and by a “powerful economic establishment”. In her first detailed comments since she was forced out of No 10, the former prime minister said she had not appreciated the strength of the resistance she would face to her plans. While she acknowledged that she was not “blameless” over the way […]

Nurses leaders have issued a direct appeal to Rishi Sunak to intervene in their pay dispute as the NHS faces its biggest day of industrial action in its history. In a letter to the Prime Minister, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) general secretary Pat Cullen said that a “meaningful” pay offer from the Government could still avert strike action. She drew a comparison with his swift action sacking Conservative […]

Boris Johnson has thrown his weight behind calls for tax cuts to kickstart growth and boost the Tories’ chances of winning the next general election. The former prime minister said he had “no doubt” the Government would start to get the tax burden down “when the time comes” and would reap the reward at the ballot box. Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt have been resisting demands from some Tory […]

The NHS will struggle to clear treatment backlogs and improve emergency care unless strikes by thousands of staff are brought to an end, health leaders have said. The NHS Confederation, which represents NHS organisations, said the Government must “show initiative” to end the dispute or risk patients suffering even longer waiting times than at present. Thousands of nurses and ambulance workers are due to strike on Monday in what many […]