Latest news with #RichardTice
Times
16 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Cracks show in PM's team over best gags
Pity the prime minister's joke writers. For a start, they could be a team of Barry Cryers and they'd still be at the mercy of Sir Keir Starmer's delivery, but they also feel that their man doesn't give them enough credit for all his memorable jokes (yes — all of them). Chris Ward, the PM's PPS, told Five Live that Starmer will 'disown' a joke in rehearsals before finding it does well in the Commons. 'Then you'll bump into MPs and Keir's been going round saying 'I wrote this fabulous joke', ' Ward said. 'Which annoys all of us.' Ward added this is 'the right of the PM' — but Starmer will need to keep his allies on side, lest they decide they want to have the last laugh. Reform are trumpeting every win they get, so, at business questions, their MP Richard Tice raised Nigel Farage's victory in a poll of Britain's sexiest politicians by the adulterous dating website Illicit Encounters. He also acknowledged that Labour's Angela Rayner topped the female category and suggested to Commons Leader Lucy Powell that the pair celebrate by having dinner together. Powell said this would not be possible. 'I'm sure the deputy prime minister has a very full diary,' she said, 'washing her hair and the like.' While up in the International Space Station, the astronaut Tim Peake briefly thought he'd made contact with alien life. He tells All in the Mind that he looked out of the ISS's window and saw unexpected lights. The sun obscures the stars, so the appearance of three lights could only be an approaching spaceship. With no human visit scheduled, Peake thought he was about to meet ET … until his Russian colleague came in and said the lavatory was leaking. Peake explained: 'The 'spaceship' turned out to be urine that was freezing and crystallising and reflecting the light back from the sun.' So not first contact but a close encounter of the number-one kind. The bastions of the establishment are turning their backs on dress codes as we all wilt in the heat. The MCC even relaxed theirs at Lord's on Wednesday, lest men fry in their egg-and-bacon jackets. Not all places are as compromising. At Henley Royal Regatta, during a heatwave one year, an announcement was made: 'Members may remove their jackets — gentlemen will prefer not to.' The Rev Richard Coles's Radio 4 persona made him Britain's most famous parish priest, but he has unclerical tales to tell of his pre-frocked life as a member of the Communards. These include a multi-month blowout on Ibiza involving ecstasy, acid and paying for increasingly audacious forms of transport. 'We got barred from Avis for life because we got through a lot of vehicles,' he tells How to be in Love. 'Also, I bought a speedboat, and I don't know where it is. It's still there as far as I know.' Fortunately, the band were barred from buying a light aircraft. 'We went to the airport,' he recalled, 'but they wouldn't let us in because we'd forgotten to put our shirts on.'
The Sun
a day ago
- Business
- The Sun
Cigarette taxes blow £1.4BILLION black hole in Treasury coffers – as smokers turn to black market
PUNITIVE tobacco taxes have blown a £1.4 billion black hole in Treasury coffers, as smokers turn to black market cigs. A whopping £3.1bn in excise tax from a range of goods was lost last year to smugglers, counterfeiters, and illegal sellers as Brits ditch official shops for cheap, dodgy goods. That's enough cash to pay the wages of over 60,000 nurses or hand out Winter Fuel Payments to every pensioner in the UK. The biggest tax gap came from fags, followed by beer, which had hole of £700m. Stephen Rooney from Imperial Brands said: "These concerning figures expose the size and scale of Britain's growing, illegal tobacco black market, which is now depriving the Treasury of billions in lost tax every year. " Smoking rates are not falling, and ever increasing duties are instead pushing customers to the lawless black market, which doesn't pay a penny in tax.' One in four fags in the UK now comes from the black market, where a pack can cost as little as £5, over three times cheaper than a legal pack of Marlboro Gold in British supermarkets. In just three years, duty-paid cigarette sales have plunged nearly 45 per cent, from 23.6 billion in 2021 to just 13.2 billion now. Rolling tobacco sales have also been slashed almost in half. Yet smoking rates aren't falling and have instead crept up in some parts of England for the first time in nearly 20 years, according to University College London research. Reform Deputy Leader Richard Tice said: 'Hard working Brits, feeling the squeeze in their pockets, are turning to under the counter options, and who can blame them? 'The government's tax policy is pricing them out of legitimate goods. 'Labour chooses not to partner with above board businesses, but with organised criminal gangs instead.'
South Wales Argus
3 days ago
- Politics
- South Wales Argus
Councillor Anthony Hunt on working with not against staff
In our NHS looking after patients. In our emergency services responding to calls. In our schools helping our young people learn. In social care helping keep young and old people in need of care safe and well. Collecting our bins, looking after our local environment, running vital community services like libraries, and so much more. As a leader, my firm belief is that you get the best services by working with these dedicated staff, not against them. By helping equip them to deliver better services, not by grinding them down. Which is why I was so alarmed by the language coming out of Reform's Nigel Farage and Richard Tice recently. After they took control of some English councils in May, Farage said staff working from home, on climate change or diversity initiatives should start 'seeking alternative careers very, very quickly'. Then his deputy, Richard Tice, announced that new employees at councils controlled by Reform UK will get less generous pensions, and called defined benefit pension schemes 'an outrage'. Now, I get that many people in other jobs have had it tough recently. Pay hasn't kept up with rising costs, so people feel the pinch. But dividing private and public sector workers won't help anyone. To start with, the idea that local government staff have had it easy just doesn't ring true. They've seen their pay eroded by 20 per cent in real terms in the past 15 years, and each of them is having to do more work thanks to cuts and rising demand. Several areas are encountering recruitment difficulties. These people are not bureaucrats and pen pushers – they're people who work hands-on in our communities, keeping vital local services afloat. An 'X' site called 'DOGE Wales' has been set up, which seeks to further these attacks – as if the ineffective and destructive policies of Trump and Musk are a good example for us to emulate. This took aim at one of our staff in Torfaen – someone who works in our schools with Gypsy Traveller children to help them engage and achieve. It asked if the cost of this work was value for money. I'd say that staff member is worth their weight in gold, just like other members of staff in our schools who help children, from the high achievers to those with disabilities or additional needs. We need more of these local stars in our communities, not less. So I reject these divisive attacks – they may grab cheap attention, but they are no way to run sustainable local services. We need to build our public services and back those who work in them, not attack them. Councillor Anthony Hunt is leader of Torfaen County Borough Council.
Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- Times
Tice condemns Scottish plan to send 600,000 tonnes of rubbish to England
England should reject Scotland's rubbish, Richard Tice has said, after it emerged that up to 100 truckloads a day are to be sent over the border. The Reform UK deputy leader said it would be 'fair' for Scotland to 'sort its own rubbish' and manage the impact of the SNP's ban on landfill. Scots would be 'furious' at a situation in which large quantities of English waste had to be shipped north, he said. It emerged this week that a Scottish government ban on domestic black bin bag waste being sent to landfill from next year would result in about 600,000 tonnes of rubbish being shipped southwards from next year. Scotland does not have enough incinerators to cope with the surge in demand that the policy will cause. New incinerators and 'energy from waste' facilities that are still being built will not be ready in time. Scottish councils and commercial waste companies have approached firms in England to negotiate 'bridging contracts'. However, as there is also pressure on incinerator capacity there, much of Scotland's excess rubbish is expected to go to landfill in England instead. Experts have said that the equivalent of 80 to 100 trucks a day, seven days a week, will be needed to take the waste to England or even farther afield. Some lorries may have to travel for three days, it has been claimed, as there is particular pressure on sites in northern England. Tice, the Boston and Skegness MP, said: 'Scots would be furious if they were told to take English rubbish. The reverse is also true. Scotland should sort its own rubbish. Fair is fair.' The SNP government introduced the ban to protect the environment and deliver a 'net-zero society'. However, critics have pointed to the emissions which are set to be caused as a result of taking waste large distances — it cannot be disposed of in Scotland. The UK government also wants to eliminate biodegradable waste from landfill. It announced a consultation earlier this year, but there is no firm policy in place south of the border. Thomas Kerr, the Glasgow councillor who defected from the Conservatives to Reform in January, also said England would be within its rights to refuse to take Scottish waste. 'Like the SNP's disastrous deposit return scheme, this rushed-out policy is unworkable and will put huge pressure on English landfill,' Kerr said. 'At the very least, the SNP should wait till our national incinerator capacity is ready. Otherwise English landfills would be well within their rights to refuse to take this, and every day Scots will be left with the mess.' It had been hoped that the landfill ban, which was initially due to come into force in 2021 but was delayed due to the Covid pandemic, would coincide with an increase in recycling rates. However, these have barely shifted in a decade, with Scottish homes recycling 41.6 per cent of their waste in 2013, rising to 43.5 per cent in 2023. Kim Pratt, the senior circular economy campaigner at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: 'By failing to prepare properly for the upcoming landfill ban, the Scottish government has missed an opportunity to move away from the current throwaway society. 'Without immediate action, Scotland will end up burning and exporting much of its waste. 'The solution is for the Scottish government to invest more in reuse and repair, provide better access to recycling services and close the loopholes in its incineration ban as soon as possible.' Gillian Martin, the SNP's climate action and energy secretary, blamed an 'incineration gap' on 'outside factors' such as inflation and the cost of building new facilities. The SNP government introduced an effective ban on new incinerators in 2022 but said existing plans for 11 sites could still proceed. Martin said: 'We've got plans for more incinerators, with energy from waste schemes, to come on in the next year and over the next three years — so it is a temporary situation.' She added that 'the positive environmental impact of stopping landfills' outweighed the impact of temporary measures to export the rubbish over the border.
BBC News
3 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
MP Richard Tice outlines plans to revive Boston bypass scheme
The MP for Boston and Skegness has outlined plans to improve transport links and ease congestion in the UK's Richard Tice told a news conference at Boston Rugby Club he wanted to see a new relief road for Boston, turn the A16 to Peterborough into a dual carriageway and deliver various local rail improvements."I recognise that people have been talking about a bypass for 20 years - but just because it hasn't been done before doesn't mean it can't be done," he said the region had previously had "a bit of a rum deal" in terms of infrastructure spending. "If you don't have a vision you are not going to make progress - that's how we grow," he to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the combined cost of the projects would be in the region of £ addition to the bypass and the A16 scheme, the plans include two new stations with park-and-ride facilities north and south of Boston, as well as a reconnection of the Spalding and Peterborough railway line."We're putting our case here to the mayor and to the county council. I'm saying these are opportunities for small pieces of funding to do the detailed analysis. You do it step by step - and if you get through the first step, then you justify getting to the next step," Tice said. 'Rain on his parade' The idea of a Boston relief road has been a hot local topic for years and helped the Boston Bypass Independents take control of the borough council in leader of the borough council, Anne Dorrian, earlier praised the MP's ambition but questioned how deliverable the projects were."If he is successful in achieving what he set out here today then the prospects for the residents of Boston are limitless, so I wish him every success in his endeavour," she said."I don't want to rain on his parade but what he set out today is hugely ambitious and there has got to be a big question mark over whether it's all achievable and deliverable." Listen to highlights from Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here.
