Will Reeves' spending review turbocharge or tank UK economy?

Rachel Reeves has unveiled her long-awaited spending review, with the NHS and defence seeing the most gains while many other departments face cuts – so, is this the kind of spending programme that will transform the UK economy and help Keir Starmer see off the threat of Nigel Farage's Reform UK?
In this special episode of The Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy is joined by our Economics Correspondent Helia Ebrahimi and Luke Tryl, the director of the More in Common polling company.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Daily Mirror

3 hours ago

• Daily Mirror

Full list of requirements to be eligible for Warm Homes Discount

6 million households are due to receive the £150 discount this winter This winter, millions more individuals will be eligible for the Warm Home Discount, a £150 reduction on their electricity bills. This is due to new eligibility criteria released this month, although the benefit is only set to start being distributed around October. Eligibility for the benefit falls into one of two categories. Previously, these were:. ‌ People receiving the Guarantee element of Pension Credit - Core Group 1. People with low income and high energy costs - Core Group 2. People in Scotland identified by their supplier as at risk of fuel poverty - Broader Group. ‌ However, the recent update has made it so that people in core group 2 no longer need to have high energy costs to qualify. Simply claiming one of the qualifying benefits will be enough to receive the discount this winter. The current full list of qualifying benefits includes: Housing Benefit. Income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA). Income Support. The 'Savings Credit' part of Pension Credit. Universal Credit. If you receive Child Tax Credit or Working Tax Credit, you may also be eligible, provided your household income falls below a certain threshold. ‌ To qualify, the person receiving the qualifying benefit must be named on the energy bill. The money is not paid to you like cash in hand; instead, it is applied to your bill by your electricity supplier. If you're on a prepayment meter, you might find a voucher arriving via post or email instead. Those residing in Scotland are encouraged to get in touch with their energy supplier if they think they may qualify under the core or broader groups. Official statistics suggest that over 6 million households will benefit from the scheme this year, marking an increase of 2.7 million. Among these, 900,000 are families with children and 1.8 million are homes experiencing fuel poverty. ‌ Prime Minister Keir Starmer commented: "I know families are still struggling with the cost of living, and I know the fear that comes with not being able to afford your next bill. "Providing security and peace of mind for working people is deeply personal to me as Prime Minister and foundational for the Plan for Change. "I have no doubt that, like rolling out free school meals, breakfast clubs and childcare support, extending this £150 energy bills support to millions more families will make a real difference." While this is a major update for the seasonal benefit. A bigger announcement is expected later this year as the scheme in its current form expires in March 2026, although it has been extended in the past.

BBC News

5 hours ago

• BBC News

'Noses out of joint': Colleagues reveal what Reform's Zia Yusuf is like to work for

On a cloudy Tuesday in September last year, Gawain Towler, a veteran press chief for Nigel Farage's various political parties, was working in Reform UK's central London offices when his phone went calling him into a meeting. He was being given the decision had been made by Zia Yusuf, the then newly-appointed Reform UK chairman with a mandate to professionalise the although multimillionaire businessman Yusuf was sitting close to Towler in the party's office, it was delegated to Reform's chief operations officer to ring him and then deliver the news in an adjoining 20 years working for Eurosceptic causes, he was given just a few minutes to clear his desk and leave. "My nose was a bit out of joint for a few hours," Towler told BBC News. "It was a surprising way of doing it."He wasn't the only Reform employee or supporter who found themselves at odds with Yusuf's way of doing business during the 38-year-old's 11 months in Yusuf abruptly quit as party chairman last week, Farage acknowledged that the former banker's "Goldman Sachs-like mentality" meant some people found it difficult to work with him."Zia worked very hard but struggled with relationships and people," wrote Arron Banks, a former Reform mayoral candidate and ally of Farage, in a post on X."Quite often businessmen come into politics and they assume that politics works the same way as business and you can work people really hard in business because you're paying them well," Towler said.A lot of those in Reform, however, were volunteers. Others were veterans of Eurosceptic politics who were used to being left to do their work without having to "constantly" report back to now ex-chairman acted with a "brutality that a volunteer organisation which is based on personal relationships sometimes finds difficult," Towler added."And there were a lot of people's noses [which] were put out of joint. We give up our free time, we do all this and we're still treated like dirt."There was drive and commitment and passion. But there was very little empathy and sympathy and you need that too."Yusuf denies this and says that his success as Reform chairman has led to people bearing grudges. Before he was Reform's chairman, Yusuf was the co-founder and chief executive of a luxury concierge business offering travel bookings and once-in-a-lifetime experiences to a wealthy business, Velocity Black, was sold for a reported $300m (£221m) to a US bank in 2023, giving Yusuf the riches which allowed him to donate a six-figure sum to Reform and work as party chairman on an unpaid former employees of Velocity Black speaking to the BBC have said some of the issues - his controlling, sometimes domineering behaviour, a lack of empathy and harsh sackings of staff - had direct echoes of how he behaved running the concierge abrupt departure - and two days later, return as head of Reform's council spending-scrutinising 'Doge' unit - even had parallels with a break, and swifter-than-expected return, as CEO of Velocity, concerns included his unpredictable behaviour which meant people "lived in fear", a complaint from a female ex-employee alleging inappropriate conduct, and a failure to take others into account, epitomised by unhygienic office conditions caused by Yusuf allowing his dog to defecate on the questioned whether Reform had asked questions about Yusuf's time running Velocity Black and whether his issues with people could have been foreseen."We were all in complete disbelief [that he went into politics]," one ex-employee said. Like others in this article, they didn't want to be named publicly because they still work in related industries."It is the most absurd thing to see…a person with that history choose to be on the public stage.""I was frankly quite shocked," another said. "How does one make the jump from being a very kind of gauche CEO of a ridiculous concept ultimately to being incredibly high up in a major political party in one of the biggest democracies in the world. That seemed like a major jump." Demanding boss With its sale to Capital One in 2023, Velocity Black earned tens of millions of pounds for investors and shareholders and became a glittering success story for its two founders, Yusuf and former school friend Alex many tech start-ups, however, its journey there was rocky at business started as a mobile payment app, driving diners to restaurants and allowing them to pay the bill from their a couple of years, it had pivoted to offering travel bookings and experiences like swimming with orcas and dining in the Egyptian of those who worked with Yusuf saw him as a "visionary" and an "absolute force of nature" who was particularly adept at raising money from more than half a dozen former Velocity employees told BBC News that Yusuf was difficult to work for and lacked leadership paint a picture of a flawed character who could be extremely demanding, even by the exacting standards of a fledgling tech start-up. As they would be when he was running Reform, firings were frequent and brutal."Zia is one of the most challenging people I've ever worked for," one said."Everyone was on edge constantly, he was very curt," a second ex-employee said. "He led from fear.""He had zero empathy," they added. "It was a pretty toxic environment." A third employee who worked closely with him said he pushed people "to the absolute limits"."People were emotionally and psychologically affected but it wasn't always the workload, it was the sheer unpredictability of Zia's behaviour and people lived in fear of him," they would lambast employees in the office and sometimes in front of wealthy members of the business's concierge service at Velocity Black least one employee said they never received a formal written employment contract and many left just months after joining the company."He doesn't interact with people in a 'regular' way and he doesn't understand 'regular' interaction," another pointed to an online review of Velocity as reflective of their own experiences. It states that "at the beginning you truly believe you have joined the next Tesla… It is quite simply the worst company I have ever worked in".One employee said Yusuf was an "excellent salesman" who recruited her on a premise which turned out to be far from the reality."He courted me [for the role]. Took me out to dinners. It was all very exciting."But when she started it wasn't what she thought she had signed up for."It very quickly became apparent the façade, the charismatic salesperson, was no longer there."He just seemed very go go go go go and money was no object. He would get angry if things didn't work out the way he wanted them to work out."As he would as Reform chairman, Yusuf worked punishing hours, seemingly to the point of 2017, Velocity's board agreed that he could go on a break and employees weren't sure if he would return. In the end, he returned a few days former employee disliked Yusuf's approach to business so intently he said he didn't exercise his stock options and had no regrets about doing so, despite missing out on a potentially six-figure profit."It left such a bad taste," they said. "The moral culture, [Zia's] lack of empathy."It showed bad people can win."While several former employees were highly critical of Yusuf, others were more positive about their experience of working with him or some of his described him as a "brilliant boss" from whom they had learnt a lot. Another said he was an "absolute powerhouse" who was always respectful. Several employees who criticised his conduct acknowledged he was a powerful and persuasive speaker who was adept at securing multiple rounds of investment in the his hard taskmaster approach, "likeability was important to him", one former employee was a small company where employees told us they were reluctant to raise formal complaints because they feared they would invariably make their way back to the chief 2018, a female employee told colleagues she received a series of late night phone calls from Yusuf which she did not answer. She told them they had made her uncomfortable and she raised them with Yusuf's co-founder, Macdonald, the next day, asking if she could work from home because of the "Zia issue".Macdonald said his co-founder had explained that the phone calls were in error and he had been trying to call someone else. Yusuf said he does not recall this, and that the company ran a 24/7 customer service operation so it was not unusual for employees to be called at June 2019, several months after her departure, the same woman wrote to Macdonald to complain that Yusuf was repeatedly trying to follow her personal Instagram account, despite her rejecting the request each time. She said she had already blocked him on the messaging service warned she would take it further if it continued and suggested others had been contacted in the same News has seen messages between employees suggesting that another woman who had recently left Velocity Black said they had experienced similar requests on social lawyers, Yusuf said the accusation was false and that he had employed someone to manage his social media accounts during that man was put in touch with a BBC reporter by Yusuf's lawyers. He said Yusuf paid him to post content and occasionally follow people through the accounts, all at Yusuf's direction and with his approval. He said he was not employed by Velocity Black, didn't know anyone else at the company, and did the work as a paid hobby. He said any repeat requests would have been inadvertent and claimed that while Yusuf had retained access to his accounts during this time, he did not use them. Celebrity-studded parties Velocity Black had offices in Mayfair in London and in several American the early period after the company's US launch, Yusuf moved to New York. He lived in a five-bedroom double-height loft apartment owned by Sir Winston Churchill's cost $8,000 a month, paid for by Velocity Black with the board's on its grandeur, one former staffer recalled how "this place had columns". Yusuf said it was also used as an office by Velocity employees said they thought the spending was excessive and a bad look for a cash-strapped start-up trying to build a viable company spent lavishly on celebrity-studded parties designed to build the brand. In 2017, it flew several supermodels for a party at a private villa in Mykonos, with other events including a Halloween party at the Mandrake Hotel in London and pool parties in Coachella, California in one senior source said Yusuf disliked the events and found them very stressful, others thought that being in the same room as stars was important to him."He was very enamoured by celebrity, very enamoured by being seen, being the guy, being viewed as cool," one ex-employee liked to dress in designer clothing and owned a number of sports cars including a Porsche and a Ferrari. For months, these were kept in a car park at Westfield shopping centre in west London, with Yusuf racking up significant fines in the process, staff said; he said he had no recollection of this and denied living a lavish joining the company were struck by how attractive staff members were, to the extent it appeared to them to be a recruitment strategy, something Yusuf denied."Everyone looked like a model but that made sense as a high-end concierge company. It was never written that you had to be ridiculously attractive," a former staff member could be a chaotic boss. He worked long hours meaning at times he was "basically living in the office"."The environment was like a playground without any real senior people - fun but without a real structure," one ex-staffer said. Yusuf's actions sometimes betrayed a lack of regard for those around day in 2018, he bought a husky puppy called Apollo. He would bring it in the office and leave other staff to deal with it, on one occasion leaving it there dog was untrained and would run around the office and defecate on the carpet, with Yusuf seemingly unwilling to pick up the faeces, ex-employees told BBC staff members found it so unpleasant they wrote about it on Glassdoor, an online website which allows employees to anonymously review their employers. At least one post on the site about it appears subsequently to have been taken wrote: "Dog faeces in the office every day, it is unsanitary and smells disgusting."Under a section headlined "advice" they wrote: "Ban the dog, get the office cleaned."Eventually a small office was turned into a room for dogs, including those other employees were then allowed to bring own flat near Paddington "smelt of dog poo" according to two sources who visited. They could see dog faeces left on the carpet in the indicate that on one occasion in September 2018 his dog was left in an outdoor space at his London flat for several hours and sounded distressed, raising concern among his disputes this and said that his dog was occasionally in the office, but it would be taken outside. He denied that he left it there overnight. Entering politics By 2021, Velocity Black was growing fast. That year, it was listed as the 18th fastest growing company in Europe in the Financial fact, as BBC News has discovered, this was based on the wrong revenue figures being given to the statistical company compiling the list, meaning it appeared to have grown twice as fast as it actually company, Statista, said Yusuf had signed off the figures himself and had supplied gross revenue figures rather than the net revenue numbers they had asked the figures were corrected, the company fell to 32nd in the said the process would have been led by the company's finance team, not him and the revenue figures they had provided were, to the best of their knowledge, CEO's co-founder Macdonald took a step back from the company in 2022, moving to non-executive chairman so he could focus on founding another business. As it turned out, Capital One tabled an offer for Velocity Black two months later and the business was sold in 2023. Yusuf used some of the money he made from the deal as a springboard into politics, donating to Reform the following days after his resignation as chairman last week, he returned to Reform in a new role. He now focuses on leading its 'Doge' taskforce - which is modelled on US President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, working on policy and making media appearances.A new chairman, David Bull, has been appointed in his a press conference marking the change, Yusuf was self-depreciating."What we need now in a chairman is someone who's an incredible communicator, someone who is loved universally across the party. Loved by the volunteers. Someone who is going to do a better job than me in energising the volunteers on the frontline, he's going to have more time to do it," he he added: "I think you'll probably agree he's a more affable and charming man than I am."He said tweets he had sent criticising the party's only female MP as "stupid" for raising the issue of whether Britain should ban the burka had been misjudged and that he had been "exhausted"."There was general relief in the professional and voluntary party when he resigned. However, when he came back with a specific task he was given there was great support as well," Towler said. Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to read top political analysis, gain insight from across the UK and stay up to speed with the big moments. It'll be delivered straight to your inbox every weekday. If you have any information on stories you would like to share with the BBC Politics Investigations team, please get in touch at politicsinvestigations@

Times

7 hours ago

• Times

What war in the Middle East means for your money

The conflict between Israel and Iran is the latest geopolitical shock set to hamper the outlook for the UK economy — and, ultimately, your bank balance. Since the attacks began on June 12, the price of oil has risen to a six-month high. Hopes for interest rate cuts have been dashed, fears of rising inflation have been amplified, and any respite from stock market turmoil appears to have been short-lived. • Read more money advice and tips on investing from our experts This week the prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, said: 'I'm always concerned about the effect of international issues on people back at home. You saw with Ukraine the direct impact it had on energy bills. Equally, with this conflict, you can see the effect it's having on the economy, particularly on the price of energy.' From petrol prices to pension pots, here's what you need to know: Iran is the third-largest oil producer among the 12 members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), and there are worries about how a wider regional war could affect the transport of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, which accounts for about 25 per cent of seaborne crude oil transportation, according to the consultancy Capital Economics. The price of a barrel of Brent crude hit a six-month high of about $78 after Israeli attacks on Iran began, up from about $65 at the start of this month. That is bound to have a knock-on effect on motorists, said David Oxley from Capital Economics: 'A rough rule of thumb is that a $10 rise in the oil price will add about 7p to the price at the pump.' It normally takes about two weeks for oil prices to feed into pump prices, Oxley said. Motorists have, however, had some recent respite from the cost of living crisis as petrol and diesel prices hit their lowest in almost four years. Petrol cost an average of 132p a litre last month, the lowest since July 2021, while diesel was at 138p, the lowest since September 2021, according to the motoring organisation the RAC. While prices are likely to rise, they are not expected to reach the high of March 2022, when Russia's invasion of Ukraine caused the oil price to reach $127 per barrel. The price in sterling peaked in July of that year at more than £100 with pump prices hitting 192p per litre for petrol and 199p per litre for diesel. More than a million homeowners whose fixed deals come to an end this year may have their hopes of further interest rate cuts dashed. The lowest two-year fix was 3.72 per cent last month, but rates are starting to tick up again, according to the property portal Rightmove. The lowest two-year deal is now 3.82 per cent from Lloyds Bank for those with a Club Lloyds account. The lowest five-year fixed rate has gone from 3.78 per cent to 3.88 per cent, also from Lloyds. Lenders had been cutting mortgage rates to compete for business, but changed tack after inflation went from 2.6 per cent for the year to March to 3.5 per cent in April. This makes cuts to the Bank of England base rate less likely — the Bank generally keeps the rate high when inflation is above its target of 2 per cent. The Consumer Prices Index inflation figure for the year to May, released this week, was 3.4 per cent. Uncertainty around President Trump's trade tariffs and conflict in the Middle East has also dampened hopes of further base rate cuts. The Bank held rates at 4.25 per cent this week, which, although a lot higher than the sub 2 per cent rates many mortgage holders will have fixed at three or five years ago, is down from the peak of 5.25 per cent in August last year. Fixed mortgage rates are based on swap rates (the rates at which banks lend to each other, which are in turn based on forecasts of where Bank rate is expected to be in the future), which have edged up over the past week or so, suggesting that mortgage rates could follow. Homeowners who want certainty can lock in a new deal up to six months before theirs ends yet still swap if a cheaper deal comes along. Rising oil prices could also cause other expenses to creep up, particularly if the Iran conflict continues or escalates. Lotanna Emediegwu, an economics lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, said that prolonged conflict could drive up energy bills. The price cap that limits how much suppliers can charge customers on standard variable tariffs will work out at an average bill of £1,720 a year for gas and electricity from July 1 (down 7 per cent from today's cap). At the moment analysts expect the cap to go up 2 to 3 per cent in October, but this could change dramatically. He said: 'Until recently, fuel prices had been rising less than other things, so actually mitigating some inflationary pressures. The recent conflict is expected to reverse this trend. 'The financial repercussions extend beyond immediate energy costs into transportation and logistics. Transport expenses are particularly vulnerable to fluctuations in fuel prices. This affects everything from airline fares to shipping costs for products, ultimately hitting consumer prices.' Before June 12, when Israel launched strikes on Iran, inflation had been expected to rise to 3.5 per cent by the autumn — now it could go further. A sustained $10 per barrel rise in the oil price typically pushes up annual inflation by 0.1 to 0.2 percentage points, according to The Economist, meaning that it could be closer to 3.7 per cent by September. Emediegwu said a prolonged blockade of the Strait of Hormuz shipping route could add a further 0.5 to 1 percentage points, which could take it close to 5 per cent. So far the stock market has been fairly resilient to the conflict in the Middle East. The UK's FTSE 100 is down about 0.77 per cent since the turmoil started, while the US's S&P 500 is down about 1.06 per cent. If a sustained conflict leads to an increase in the price of oil, stock valuations may fall — this is because higher oil prices lead to higher inflation, which means interest rates are likely to stay higher for longer, which makes it more expensive for companies to borrow money to grow and often curbs investors' risk appetite. Losers are likely to include airline and travel stocks, as well as so-called growth stocks, which include technology and healthcare companies. Many investors will have exposure to the US 'Magnificent Seven' tech stocks of Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Tesla, Amazon, Meta and Nvidia. These companies are often valued on their future earnings potential, which means their stock price can be volatile if company results or wider economic conditions point towards a slowdown of earnings. The good news is that Iran and Israel are a very limited part of the global stock market, so direct exposure for most UK investors will be immaterial. However, Michael Field from the research firm Morningstar said that the risk is that wider markets get jittery about the potential for the conflict to escalate further. Investors should avoid making any kneejerk changes to their portfolio. Ultimately, while geopolitical tensions may create short-term turmoil, historically markets have been resilient in the long term. Jacob Falkencrone from the investment bank Saxo said: 'As an investor, your greatest tool is a disciplined approach — staying informed, remaining calm and focusing on your long-term investment goals rather than reacting impulsively to temporary shocks.'