Rishi Sunak started this term with a moment to mark his 100 days in office. That event saw the launch of his five pledges and was met with mixed reactions — both that the pledges were "soooo easy" and "impossible" and everything in between. Now as this parliamentary term closes, Bloomberg's editorial team is more complimentary: "Common sense" they write, " may be making a comeback to British politics". UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak Photographer: WPA Pool/Getty Images Europe To be sure, they list "still daunting" challenges lined up in front of the no-longer-so-new premier: A divided Conservative Party; the costs of Brexit to the UK economy; strikes and lacklustre productivity but, in their eyes, the approach to tackling them has become pragmatic and is a welcome change. "To put it mildly, surging optimism over Britain's future would be premature… Still, for the first time in years, British politics seems to care about competence more than grandstanding. It's a start."
But if boring being the new MO is too pedestrian for you, have a look north where, this morning, police have dramatically raided the house of Nicola Sturgeon and in so doing also potentially affected the wider UK balance of power. Nicola Sturgeon's husband has been arrested in connection with an ongoing investigation into the funding and finances of the pro-independence Scottish National Party. The developments follow 18 months of Police Scotland looking into whether £600,000 of donations to the SNP for independence campaigning may have been used for other purposes. Just a week ago Humza Yousaf won a contest to replace Nicola Sturgeon as head of the SNP and now, rather than plot a path forward towards independence, he faces allegations of the party's past tarnishing any fresh attempt. But it won't stop there. As Bloomberg's reporters put it, this could have wider reaching consequences: "Falling SNP support is seen as a boon for Labour, and every seat it picks up north of the border changes the calculus as it seeks to win power from the Tories in Westminster." Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell Photographer: ANDY BUCHANAN/AFP The average woman working in the UK finance industry earns around 26% less than her male counterpart, reports Irina Anghel. That's a number that has fallen less than three percentage points after five years of UK companies reporting their gender pay gap. And it compares with an average wage gap across the whole UK workforce of 13%, based on the latest dataset. |
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