News

Last week, the inevitable happened. The latest figures released by the Office of National Statistics showed that net migration to the UK now stands at 273,000 for the year to September, a massive drop of almost 50,000 from the previous year. In truth, these results should surprise no one. Given the result of the Brexit vote, the endless negative migration headlines in the press and the increasing levels of xenophobia, it’s fair to say that the UK isn’t exactly rolling...

There have been countless columns written about pollinators and their importance and impact on our daily lives and why they should not be underestimated. This topic has become more and more imperative as pollinator numbers have seen a dramatic decline. Over the past fifty years we have seen the localised disappearance of the large garden bumblebee, Bombus ruderatus from Devon, Dorset and Cornwall. The first of this year’s busy bees are beginning to emerge, so what can we do in...

A record number of people in the UK are on zero hours contracts, which are very controversial as they offer no guarantee of work, leading to income instability. These contracts are widely used by retailers, restaurants, leisure companies and hotels. These worrying figures follow on form a report we covered yesterday that over 5 million children will suffer child poverty by 2022 as households face a squeeze on wages. Now the number of workers who are on zero hours contracts...

Less than a week since SpaceX announced they will be sending two private citizens to the moon, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos has told The Washington Post he plans to set up Amazon-style delivery for "future human settlement" of the moon. Bezos said he wants to encourage NASA towards developing "incentives in the private sector to demonstrate a commercial lunar cargo delivery service" by 2020, essentially lining up an Earth to Moon equivalent of Amazon Prime. The billionaire boss already owns private space travel...

New research shows that schools and colleges are the most common route into social action activities such as volunteering, campaigning, and fundraising. Teachers were identified as having a particularly strong influence on young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, as results also showed that support from teachers, parents and friends to get involved is vital. Almost all young people who take part in regular social action receive some form of encouragement to do so, compared to less than half of those who...

More worrying economic news has emerged, this time from The Institute for Fiscal Studies. They believe that child poverty will reach 5.1 million by 2022 as households face a squeeze on wages. The think-tank believes that average pay rate won’t grow over the next two years. The analysis says households are suffering the worst slowdown in incomes for 60 years and if planned benefit cuts go ahead, and earnings growth slow, inequality will start to rise over the next five...

The Netherlands would vote 56 per cent in favour of leaving the EU if there was a referendum tomorrow, a new poll has shown. According to the Maurice de Hond poll the country would vote overwhelmingly to leave, with 44 per cent remaining compared to 48 per cent who voted the same in Britain. The poll shows that a majority of Dutch voters would prefer more self-government and are open to different options. For the Nexit supporters, this may mean looking...

If you had to say what is one thing you would never want to imagine, Theresa May and John Bercow showering together is probably top of my list. Well maybe just after Gary Barlow doing anything. Somehow this cropped up in today’s session, but more of that later, as I need to take my mind off it for a moment. See, a troubled mind can be much more serious than the thought of May wearing loofer mitts and gently exfoliating...

A recent report from the Trade Union Congress showed that unsecured borrowing increased sharply over 2016 to that point that, by the end of the year, each household owed an average of £12,887 - the highest amount on record. The Bank of England separately issued their own statistics, according to which the average amount of unsecured debt per household comes in rather lower, at £7,089 - but this is due to them not counting student loan debts towards the total....