'Revolution not evolution' for Preston

Preston North End chairman Craig Hemmings has reiterated the club's intention to significantly overhaul the playing squad during this summer transfer window.The Lilywhites lost 10 players at the end of the season, with six released upon expiration of their contracts, including Emil Riis, Freddie Woodman and Ryan Ledson.Meanwhile, loanees Kaine Kesler-Hayden, Jayden Meghoma, Ryan Porteous and Sam Greenwood all returned to their parent clubs.Chief executive Peter Ridsdale previously said Preston would likely need at least eight signings.The club have already made four, with goalkeeper Daniel Iverson, defenders Pol Valentin and Thierry Small and midfielder Jordan Thompson arriving.Hemmings has suggested more players will be brought in between now and the start of the Championship campaign in August."This transfer window more than any other in my tenure as chairman is about revolution and not evolution," Hemmings told the club website, external."Paul Heckingbottom and his coaching staff have a significant opportunity to reshape the football squad into the team and style of play they believe needed to compete for the play-off places."Plans have long been made and player targets identified for the summer transfer window."We believe our scouting infrastructure, analytics focus, and efficient decision-making processes will enable us to move quickly to land some hidden gems, both from the UK and internationally."

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Telegraph

29 minutes ago

• Telegraph

How Rachel Reeves prioritised growth over Britain's pension savers

When Labour swept to power last year, around half a million pensioners held their breath. Members of the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) and the Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS) had spent years fighting for their full pension entitlement. Months earlier, the Tories had indicated they might finally be restored. The PPF and the FAS step in to pay people's pensions when their defined benefit schemes can no longer afford to, often because a firm has gone bust and cannot afford to keep it running. The increasing costs of such schemes, partly due to increased life expectancy, have also put them under pressure. Over the past 20 years, more than 2,000 schemes have been bailed out. However, the payments members receive are rarely the same as the entitlements they had built up – for some, it isn't even close. Strict rules mean that when a scheme goes bust, anyone who is not already drawing their pension will only be entitled to 90pc of it when they retire. Crucially, payments for any years built up before 1997 also won't rise with inflation, while any after that are capped at just 2.5pc. As a result, some members' pensions never increase, while others fall as low as 50pc of what they should have been. Savers were hoping a Tory intervention would rescue them from retirement poverty while others could have seen six-figure losses reversed as they finally received the full pensions they'd worked decades for. In July 2024, the power to change lives fell into the hands of the Labour party, bringing fresh hope that a battle stretching across two decades could finally be won. Yet 12 months on, Chancellor Rachel Reeves continues to ignore their plight, instead choosing to hand a major financial boost to pension providers in her relentless pursuit of growth. A fortnight ago, she announced plans to tweak rules that would mean they no longer have to pay a multi-million pound levy to sustain the scheme, which has raised £10bn over two decades. Those whose pensions rely on the PPF and FAS called the decision 'shameful', 'morally corrupt' and 'pandering to the industry' as they continue fighting for their full payments. After years of lobbying, campaign groups are animatedly pointing to the £13.7bn in reserves that the PPF now holds. It would cost just £10.1bn to restore the pensions of its 293,000 members, including awarding inflationary increases of up to 5pc and repaying arrears. However, the fund is powerless without a change in legislation. After the election, with hopes growing that Labour would make that change, eyes were keenly trained on the Pension Schemes Bill. When it was published earlier this month, it did contain a major legislative change – but for pension schemes, not members. The Bill gives the PPF greater powers, but only to reduce the levy that pension schemes pay to sustain it. First collected in 2006-07, it has already fallen significantly since its record level of £720m in 2010-11. It now sits at just £45m, and the PPF will soon be able to reduce it to zero. The levy can be reintroduced again if needed. The move will give schemes extra cash at a time when they are being pushed into increasing their UK investment by the Chancellor's recent Mansion House reforms. Saving wealthy pension schemes money when individuals are struggling doesn't sit well with Maurice Alphandary, 70, from Abingdon, near Oxfordshire. He worked as a chemical engineer for AEA Technology, the commercial arm of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, which was privatised before going bust. He now runs the AEA Technology Pensions Campaign, which has spent 13 years fighting to restore pensions. The current PPF rules will cost him around £100,000. He said: 'It just shows how toothless the PPF is in protecting the interests of its members against the Government. The Government can just ride roughshod over them. 'On the one hand, the Government says, 'We really care about our pensioners', but they don't. They're just pandering to the industry and it's a way of just running down the surplus instead of giving to the people who have suffered. There's enough money to compensate us.' His former colleague, 73-year-old Andrew Turner from Abingdon, receives just £18,000 per year from a pension that should pay £29,000. He said: 'For a Labour government who are supposedly focused on those who are less well off, this seems to be exactly the opposite of what they should be doing. 'The question is why should pension companies be rewarded when we're being penalised. If the Government or the PPF had any moral responsibility, it's those who are in greatest need should have first call on this surplus.' The Bill contained no news for the 140,000 FAS members either. With no levy, any changes would be funded by the public purse. David Page, 73, lives in Chelmsford and worked for Bradstock Group, a commercial insurer that went bust in 2003. He only receives around half of the pension he paid for, and is not confident of any progress. He said: 'It still hurts. It's typical of governments. They don't want to spend money. This one will be the world's worst. It's morally corrupt, but morals don't count do they?' Terry Monk, 81, from Camberley in Surrey, also worked for Bradstock. He said the Government's decision to pursue growth with members' money was 'shameful'. He said: 'What they're forgetting, or choosing to ignore, is how that surplus has arisen in the first place and it was a combination of schemes' assets and members' contributions. 'They're trying to get money that they don't own to fund projects. I'm suspicious of the people we have in power at the moment.' For its part, the Government is expected to address retirement poverty in part two of its pensions review. It has already given £1.5bn back to retired miners and is considering handing over £2.3bn more. Ministers have also met with PPF and FAS members to hear their concerns, and accepted it was an 'important issue'. A Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) spokesman said: 'The Government is continuing to consider what we have heard from the PPF and FAS members on this issue.' A PPF spokesman said it welcomed the fresh consideration that the DWP was giving to compensation levels. They added: 'Given our financial strength, we think it's the right time to reduce costs for levy paying schemes and their employers and to consider the levels of indexation we pay our members.'

The Independent

35 minutes ago

• The Independent

Whitehall isn't working – here's how the PM can fix it

It never rains but it pours for Keir Starmer. He is fighting to stop the Iran crisis wrecking his one success as prime minister – a solid performance on foreign affairs in which he somehow maintains a productive relationship with Donald Trump. Insiders tell me Starmer's efforts are aimed at persuading Iran to enter meaningful talks on its nuclear programme and then convincing a highly sceptical US president that Iran is serious about negotiations. But if Trump goes ahead with his threat to bomb Iran, Starmer's special relationship with him could conceivably be stretched to breaking point. The prime minister can't escape his woes on domestic matters. His intense diplomacy was interrupted on Thursday by the unwelcome news that Vicky Foxcroft had resigned as a whip in protest at the government's cuts to disability benefits. She might not be the last to quit a government post before the crunch vote on £5bn of welfare cuts on 1 July, when Starmer faces the biggest Labour revolt of his premiership. Some parliamentary aides to ministers are on resignation watch. The government's robotic response to Foxcroft's departure, which failed to acknowledge her respected work as shadow disabilities minister before last year's election, angered some Labour MPs. Many will rebel with a heavy heart. They accept the need to reduce the ballooning welfare budget, but think the panicky cuts ahead of Rachel Reeves's spring statement symbolise how the government repeatedly reacts to events – in this case, living from hand to mouth to stick within the chancellor's fiscal rules – instead of having a long-term reform strategy. For some Whitehall-watchers, Starmer will not improve matters unless he reforms the centre of government. Critics think the relationship between No 10 and the Cabinet Office isn't working, leaving the other side of the triangle, the Treasury, to call the shots. The result: the winter fuel allowance catastrophe and now the welfare rebellion. Even some in Downing Street admit privately a shake-up is needed. Sam Freedman, a former special adviser and author of an excellent book, Failed State, suggests loosening the Treasury's grip by forming an Office of Budget Management, run jointly by the Treasury and Downing Street, which would oversee future spending reviews to ensure they reflect the PM's priorities. Freedman believes Starmer should consider a change Tony Blair introduced in his second term, which improved public service delivery. To prevent the whole operation being sucked into reacting to events, three units focused on different timescales: a policy unit on day-to-day oversight of Whitehall departments; a delivery unit on a small number of the PM's priorities (in Starmer's case, that would be his five missions); and a strategy unit on difficult long-term challenges. This ensured a more strategic state. One problem today is that the 'missions delivery unit' is based in the Cabinet Office rather than No 10. The Institute for Government (IFG) think tank has made a sensible proposal to abolish the Cabinet Office and set up an expanded 'Office of the Prime Minister', which would then take charge of the missions. Do such structures really matter? Yes. They are even more important when a PM makes a virtue out of his pragmatism and lack of ideology, as Starmer does. Like many predecessors, Starmer complains the Whitehall machine is slow to crank into life when he demands action. Often fair – but civil servants also have a point when they grumble that this government does not give them clear enough marching orders. For example, the government's own commitment to Starmer's missions – later relaunched as six milestones in his 'plan for change' – is now being questioned in Whitehall. Ministers promised the missions would be the 'guiding star' of the government-wide spending review unveiled by Reeves last week, and that cabinet ministers would collaborate on cross-departmental working and budgets. Only one problem: there was little money to go round. So the review again became a trial of strength between the Treasury and individual ministers trying to protect their departments. Starmer's 'mission-driven government' was caught in the crossfire and some Whitehall officials think the idea suffered serious damage. The IFG calculates that two of the missions – on economic growth and clean energy – did well out of the spending review, but the other three – on health, safer streets and opportunity – look difficult to achieve. Another reason why the missions matter is that this government doesn't have the option of pumping in extra cash to secure the improvements to public services voters want, as Blair and Gordon Brown enjoyed. Although Reeves won headlines for her big boost to building projects, her squeeze on day-to-day budgets is viewed in Whitehall as a 'standstill settlement'. So reform and efficiency savings will be needed to secure tangible improvements – not least in the NHS. The missions can play a part in prioritising these goals. With many public services still struggling in the voters' eyes, standing still will not win Labour a second term.

The Sun

an hour ago

• The Sun

Galal Yafai reveals beatdowns he took from his older champion brothers knocked him into the fighter he is today

GALAL YAFAI reveals the beatdowns he took from his champion older brothers knocked him into the fighter he is today. Yafai grew up as the youngest boxer in the household and admits it was constant civil war at home older siblings Gamal and Kal. 4 4 4 He told SunSport: "My mum would come in screaming and shouting, we'd always end up fighting but I knew my place when you're like ten years old or nine years old. "Two-three years is a big difference. When they were 13-14 years old and I'm only just 10, it's a big jump. So yeah, I knew my position. I used to get beaten up on a little bit!" Despite taking his fair share of brotherly blows, Yafai admits the real wars came between Kal and Gamal. He said: "They were closer in age and I think they felt sorry for me a little bit because I was a little bit smaller than them. "They had the real big fights and my mum used to come out shouting and it was kind of like hillbilly style. It kind of helped us to get where we got to. "Kal was always better than me, Gamal was always bigger and better so I don't think I ever got the better of everyone really. "I could hold my own, well I could hold my own when I got a bit older, but I think they took it easy on me. "But they always helped me anyway, it helped in my career." Yafai trained as a teenager and watched his older brothers become amateur champions - later replicating that success in the professional ranks. The youngest of the pack only began boxing again at 18 but by 2021 he was on the Olympic champion after packing in his job working in a Land Rover factory. Boxing icon Tyson Fury spotted posing topless in Scots town as he chats with locals Now he is undefeated and 9-0 as a pro - meanwhile ex-world champ Kal, 36, is retired and Gamal, 33, now coaches the younger generation. But Yafai - who returns on Saturday against Francisco Rodriguez Jr in a bid to earn a shot at WBC and WBO champ Kenshiro Teraji - doubts brother Gamal will be part of his corner team - preferring he remains just a fan for now. He said: "My coach Rob McCracken sorts all that out and I just like my brothers being there. They help me just being there and showing me support and having my back. "My brother Kal's been in my corner before as like a second in America. But as long as Rob's in my corner and my brothers are there supporting me, yeah, I'm happy." 4