Budget troubles mount for Healey as election speculation persists
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Chancellor John Healey is finding the nation’s accounts in a state that colleagues describe as irreparable, a discovery that has revived talk of an early general election. Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues to deny he will call a vote, though his own week has been complicated by the appearance of a photograph that raises questions about his ties to Manchester City.
The opposition’s alternative vision for the country has proved no less contentious. Kemi Badenoch’s proposed £10bn 'Britannia Shield' defence system was dismissed by military experts this morning for lacking detail, costings and, potentially, effectiveness. In Westminster, a plan that costs billions is usually called a strategy; outside it, experts are calling this one a fantasy.
A more immediate security threat was reported at an RAF base, where two men were arrested in a terrorism plot hours after a tip-off about Russian sabotage. For those seeking an escape from the news cycle, the Queen provided one in a new documentary, recalling how she once hid a copy of the formerly banned Lady Chatterley’s Lover under her pillow.