Once again Andrew Neil bang on the detail and summarising the most important issues. If Starmer wasn't toast already- he is now. Backbenchers (or Reeves) needs to fund people who refuse to work is the priority - not the defence of the Realm. The winner - Putin

For years, the open border between Dublin and Belfast has been treated as an immigration loophole. People can enter the island through one jurisdiction, move quietly North, then plug into the British asylum and welfare system unchecked. That may be convenient for politicians who would rather not talk about the border. It is rather less convenient for communities in Northern Ireland now being asked to absorb the consequences. Consequences that we have now seen in Belfast.

The suspect in the Belfast attempted beheading arrived in Paris from Sudan before flying to Dublin at an unknown date - but was granted a right to remain in the UK in 2023. "This has to initiate some change in how we conduct our asylum system." @TVKev

Britain will over the coming months endure the biggest rise in unemployment of any major advanced economy. That was the conclusion of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) last week, when it warned that UK joblessness will soar from 4.8pc last year to 5.5pc by the end of 2026. When Labour took office in July 2024, unemployment was just 4.1pc. But the number of payrolled employees has since fallen in fourteen of the twenty-one subsequent months to April – with around 1.81 million now unemployed. It is unusual, when the population is rising, for the number of payrolled jobs across the economy to fall. But that pattern has been broken under Labour. 🧵1/8

Britain’s debt rising at fastest rate in the world – bar Botswana telegraph.co.uk/business/202…

The @Conservatives are the only party with a plan to tackle Britain’s debt 👇🏻

Labour risks being forced to seek emergency help from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as Britain lurches toward a debt crisis, leading economists are now warning. Former IMF chief economist Ken Rogoff says, in a new interview, that there is “more than 50:50 chance” of a major UK debt crisis before the end of this decade. He is joined by Sir Charlie Bean, a former senior official at both the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility, who says the need for an IMF bail-out is now a “material risk” for the British economy. I not only firmly agree with Ken Rogoff and Sir Charlie Bean – but have been repeatedly issuing the very same warnings for a very long time. Because the grave risk of a major fiscal meltdown has been apparent for at least the last two years – to anyone who combines serious knowledge of UK economics and politics and global debt markets with an open mind. The UK's public finances were already fragile when Labour took office back in July 2024. But this government's misguided, ideologically-driven statist policies have made a bad situation much worse, seriously increasing the danger of a deep fiscal crisis - which would cause a disastrous state funding shortfall and a very nasty inflation spike. That would result in Downing Street being forced to follow the orders of unelected technocrats flown in from Washington and elsewhere. It would be a very major national humiliation combined with a deep economic slump and an even more intense cost-of-living crisis – in which low-income households, as ever, would suffer the most. Yet those of us that have shown the brains and courage to point out these inconvenient truths over recent months and years have long been dismissed and derided for our trouble - not only by ignorant politicians and approval-seeking journalists but also the overwhelming majority of "leading economists". Ahead of the general election in mid-2024, with Labour on course to win, the conventional wisdom among the great sages of broadsheet journalism and the economics establishment was that "the adults would soon be back in charge" ... Labour would "get lucky with the economy" ... and "Britain would now enjoy an extended period of political and fiscal stability". I thought that was total nonsense – not least as I was well aware Labour's plans irresponsibly to increase borrowing and spending would be met with deep scepticism by the global pensions funds, insurance companies and other institutional investors that lend governments serious money. My weekly @Telegraph "Economic Agenda" column of 23rd June 2024, a fortnight ahead of the general election, was a total outlier. I recounted the disaster of 1976 – when Britain was forced to go "cap in hand" to the IMF for a bailout – and warned that "The Ghosts of the 1970s" would haunt Labour's (so-called) economic resurrection". Six months later, after the October 2024 "Hallowen" budget in which Chancellor Rachel Reeves did indeed sharply hike borrowing and spending, I assessed the market reaction then doubled-down – warning more assertively in my column of 12th January 2025 that "The UK risks a return to 1976 unless Reeves changes course". And then again on 20th July 2025, as Labour's policies raised the costs of doing business, translating into price pressures which pushed up government borrowing costs even more, I again cautioned that "Inflation risks are taking Britain to the debt-crisis cliff edge". "It’s now screamingly obvious that Labour’s crude Keynesianism – “pump priming” the economy by upping state borrowing and spending – isn’t working," I wrote in that column last July. "Worse than that, this Government’s actions are pushing Britain towards a budgetary crisis every bit as serious as that in 1976 – when the UK was forced to go “cap in hand” to the IMF for a bail-out". It's been a lonely task issuing these warnings. I've been hounded in public debates, slagged off by senior civil servants and often dismissed by "leading economists" as "alarmist". So what do these same "leading economists" now say to Rogoff (Harvard Professor, Former IMF Chief Economist) and Bean (LSE Professor and Former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England)? The "economics establishment" – with very few honourable exceptions, the brilliant @jagjit_chadha among them – has been and remains extremely reluctant to point out the deeply unsustainable nature of this government's addiction to ever more borrowing. The systemic fiscal dangers of evermore "tax and spend" – and the prospect of a serious spike in gilt yields and related fiscal meltdown – are now so real and present as to be completely undeniable. Yet the UK government is about to shift even further to the left, pushing up borrowing and spending even more under a new leader, in a bid to appease the massed ranks of economic illiterates among Labour's Parliamentary party and activist base – making those dangers even more acute. Yet, still, the silence among "public intellectual" economists is deafening. I'm glad the likes of Ken Rogoff and Charlie Bean are now issuing clear warnings. So where is the rest of the "economics establishment" - those who purport to understand fiscal management and financial markets, and often funded by taxpayers' money? Britain is now clearly in the crosshairs of a very serious danger. The government's creditors are increasingly fickle and based overseas – with no regulatory or cultural obligations to lend money to the UK government. Those holding UK gilts are increasingly "speculative" rather than "strategic" long-term investors – looking for quick returns, financing their government bond purchases with "leverage" (money borrowed from elsewhere), which will quickly be withdrawn when senitment decisively shifts, causing a plunge in gilt prices and a sharp additional surge in government borrowing costs, setting up a vicious circle. The UK government is very heavily indebted – and the global investors we rely on to bankroll a huge slice of our state spending are alarmed that of the £132bn the government borrowed last year, no less than £110bn was spent on debt interest – as I wrote in a column on 17th May 2026, "As Labour lurches further left, the markets are calling time". Global investors are alarmed the UK has consistently had the highest inflation in the G7 (which pushes up borrowing costs) and has easily the highest share of index-linked debt (which magnifies the burden of inflation on the state's balance sheet). And they are deeply, deeply alarmed that when Labour came to power in mid-2024, the Office for Budget Responsibility was forecasting additional state borrowing of £323bn by 2029, the scheduled end of this Parliament. But Labour’s runaway spending and growth-crushing tax rises mean that the same five-year borrowing forecast is now £583bn – 80pc higher. And still, the trade unions, MPs and Labour activists who will choose Starmer’s successor now want even more. It is not too late to pull the UK back from the fiscal brink, to avoid the extremely painful and deep, lingering damage of being forced to go to the IMF and perhaps other multi-lateral creditors for a bailout. It is not too late to avoid the inflation surge, the currency crash, the shocking blow to consumer and business confidence alongside the sky-high interest rates that will seriously whack our economy – or the perhaps even deeper damage of yet more of the British electorate losing faith in the ability of our establishment to manage the country in a manner that avoids imposing serious hardship on so many hard-working people simply trying to make their way. But our political and media class needs to start acknowledging the economic and financial truth – that the UK government is borrowing and spending too much, taxation is now so high that it's hammering growth and employment, and that trying to finally get the economy moving by "moving further left", borrowing and spending even more, will result in a fiscal collapse. Smart, experienced, high-profile economists need to start speaking out – as Rogoff and Bean just have – raising the alarm in a bid to force the broader establishment to face reality. Before it's too late. If you've read this far, you clearly think this analysis is worthwhile and important. So please like and share. And for more, read my "Economic Agenda" column in The Sunday Telegraph each week – and subscribe to "When The Facts Change: Economics and Politics in a fast-moving world, with Liam Halligan"

PAT MCFADDEN: EVERY MEETING I HAVE IS "WHO CAN WE TAX IN ORDER TO PAY BENEFITS TO OTHERS"

Incredibly, 90% of the new Labour MPs at the last election came from a trade union, charity or public-sector background. Barely 1/5th of the Cabinet has any private-sector experience. In the Shadow Cabinet, 3/4 of us do. That distinction matters. The skills Labour MPs have acquired are in lobbying for more funding, campaigning for more benefits or more red tape. Britain needs a new generation of politician. Only the Conservative Party can build a team for the economic war effort required after Burnham/Starmer have finished this catastrophic experiment. We will need to fix every aspect of our system at once. There will be no kicking decisions into the long grass, only rolling our sleeves up and getting to work. If you've ever thought about a career in politics but decided it was too risky or you wouldn’t fit in, now is your time.…We are looking for people from every walk of life who know how to get stuff done. In return, I will make politics work for you. Britain does not lack talent. It lacks a system that draws that talent into public life. Join my team and help us get Britain working again. My piece in the @Telegraph below👇

Four pubs a day are closing under Labour. Now, their 'nice pub tax' singles out rural village pubs for higher business rates simply because they are well-run, well-loved and well-located. It is punishing success. Our Back Our High Streets Bill would end this. telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/05…

Exactly right. The Starmer-Streeting-Burnham plan to align ever closer to the EU has already been achieved in one important respect — for the first time this century we now have European levels of youth unemployment. Indeed we’re above the average for EU and EZ. Congrats.

Tax in the UK is the highest it’s been since 1945. That’s well understood – but another trend has been largely missed: the number of taxes in the UK is at its highest since the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

Tony Blair’s essay this week highlighted the dismal hole Labour is in. My oped in the Mail today ⬇️ dailymail.com/debate/article…

Ahead of the Champions League final, we asked some former Spurs players for their thoughts... 18 GambleAware #UCLFinal

Britain is suffering from a collapse of consequences. If we’re going to fix it, we need to get tough.

The disastrous impact of Labour’s employment taxes laid bare: Chef Ravneet Gill expresses her “shock” at how expensive it is to employ people and why State-mandated pay for young people makes them unemployable. Labour has killed hospitality. Youth joblessness is on them

What we should really be asking about the price of going green? @Dieter_Helm breaks down the hidden system costs of the UK's energy transition. 🎧️ Listen here: ifs.org.uk/articles/why-uk-e…

The Labour leadership want to talk about inequality. Why? Because redistributing your money is easier than engaging with the trade-offs needed for growth. Cheap energy. Fix planning, the regulators and bad legislation. A smaller, more effective state. That would help everyone.

Arsene Wenger is not clowned enough for playing a defensive game in the UCL final and losing it, he thinks he's Jose Mourinho x.com/i/status/2060800434269…

Ed Miliband’s ideological shut-down of Scotland’s North Sea Oil & Gas Industry is going to hand Vladimir Putin £1 billion in oil revenue. Our own oil is right there, under the North Sea. All we need to do is drill it. Only the @Conservatives will get Britain drilling.