A familiar tension sits at the heart of many modern planning decisions: the clash between local opposition and national priorities. The proposed battery energy storage system near Spittal is a clear example of how that tension is resolved not in favour of unanimity, but in favour of policy.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has looked carefully at the party manifestos. We make no comments on any of them but they do look closely at the range of policies.
The UK pension system is built on a false idea: that savings and financial assets can guarantee security in old age. In this video, I argue that pensions do not ultimately depend on money saved in the past, but on the productive capacity of those still at work in the present.
Over the past decade, Universal Credit has grown from a flagship reform into one of the central pillars of the UK’s economic and social landscape. With more than eight million claimants and an estimated 15 million people living in households that receive it, the system now reaches far beyond its original scope.
The latest labour market figures from the Office for National Statistics offer a picture that is easy to misread at first glance. There is no dramatic spike in unemployment, no sudden collapse in employment, no single figure that signals crisis.
The latest earnings figures from the Office for National Statistics tell a story that will feel familiar to many households across the UK. Pay is still rising, but the momentum has gone.
The latest regional labour market figures from the Office for National Statistics paint a picture that is easy to misunderstand at first glance. On the surface, the UK jobs market looks stable and employment remains broadly steady, unemployment is not surging, and there is no sign of a dramatic downturn.
The latest Families and Households in the UK - 2025 report from the Office for National Statistics reveals a country whose living arrangements are gradually but steadily changing. While the overall structure of British households still leans towards traditional family units, long-term shifts in how people live together or alone continue to reshape the social fabric.
The latest labour market update from the Scottish Government presents a picture that is, on the surface, reassuringly stable. Employment levels remain broadly steady, unemployment is relatively low by historical standards, and there are no dramatic swings in the headline figures.
Families across the country will be better protected from energy crises, as government moves to break link between gas and electricity prices. New plans include long‑term fixed‑price contracts for renewables, protecting families when gas prices spike. Immediate action to tax excess profits through the Electricity Generator Levy by raising the rate from 45% to 55%, ensuring an increased proportion of the extraordinary revenue generated when the gas price spikes is available to government to support businesses and households with the cost-of-living.
The spring of 2026 has brought an unusual and unsettling reality to UK households that rely on heating oil. What is normally a period of falling prices and calmer markets has instead become a season defined by volatility, geopolitical tension, and unprecedented uncertainty.
For years, Scotland’s political debate has been dominated by big, dramatic issues such as independence, budgets, NHS waiting times, teacher shortages. But while the spotlight was elsewhere, something quieter and more fundamental was happening in the background Scotland’s health visitor workforce was shrinking.
Across Europe, governments are facing a contradiction that is becoming harder to ignore. Economies need workers urgently.
Most people think of the NHS as a proudly British institution that was built here, staffed here, sustained here. But the truth is far more uncomfortable in that the NHS depends on foreign‑trained nurses, doctors, carers, and imported medicines to keep its doors open.
Most people in the UK have heard of Brent crude, the North Sea oil price that appears in the news whenever petrol or heating‑oil costs rise. But there is another benchmark far less known, far less understood, and right now far more important that is quietly shaping global oil markets and pushing up the cost of fuel everywhere from Aberdeen to Asia.
The global oil market has once again been thrust into volatility following a dramatic escalation in the Gulf of Oman, where U.S. forces fired upon and damaged an Iranian‑flagged vessel.
The Deloitte Consumer Tracker published today 20 April 2026 showed overall UK consumer confidence declined by three percentage points from -11.1% to -14.1% to reach its lowest level since 2023. Five of the six confidence measures fell, including a 7.2 percentage point decline in sentiment towards household disposable income.
As governments around the world search for reliable, low-carbon energy, nuclear power has returned to the centre of policy debates. Yet the approaches being taken reveal a striking divide.
The UK economy is increasingly defined not by a single crisis, but by a set of overlapping pressures that are creating a sense of fragility without tipping clearly into recession. Households, businesses, and investors are all behaving more cautiously, yet the overall system is still functioning.
The EY ITEM Club’s most recent forecasts paint a portrait of a UK economy entering 2026 with a mixture of cautious optimism and persistent fragility. After several years of turbulence from global supply shocks to domestic policy tightening the economy stands at a delicate crossroads.