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Voices

<p>Browder: ‘Anyone who has done business in Russia knows exactly how that ends. You’re welcomed with smiles and contracts; you leave defrauded, ruined or – if you’re unlucky – dead’</p>
Bill Browder

I have spent years waiting for Putin’s assassins to come for me

Make no mistake, says Bill Browder, Vladimir Putin is indeed an ‘active threat’ to the public, from the trenches of Ukraine and the streets of Salisbury, to my life and to yours. Fail to stop him now and he will strike again and again

<p>Meghan Markle and her father, Thomas, who is in gravely ill in hospital following amputation surgery</p>
Hannah Betts

I’m with you, Meghan – no one should lecture you on dealing with a problem parent

<p>‘Removing the defendant’s ability to overrule the court’s decision will not only save taxpayers’ money but will drastically reduce the number of cases needlessly clogging up crown courts’</p>
Linsey Farnsworth

The court backlog crisis needs bold solutions to put victims first

Frieda Hughes’

All I want for Christmas is... a tractor across two parking spaces

<p>On 30 October Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor gave the minimum 12 months’ notice that he would surrender Royal Lodge (Jordan Pettitt/PA)</p>
Flic Everett

Andrew’s last Christmas at Royal Lodge – how bad could it be?

<p>Keir Starmer and education secretary Bridget Phillipson visiting a primary school breakfast club</p>
Laurie Lee

Lifting the two-child benefit cap is laudable – but just a start

<p>‘The prospect of national service in some form was proposed by Rishi Sunak before the last election, and occasionally floats back into view’</p>
Mary Dejevsky

Rishi Sunak was right: Britain needs to bring back national service

<p>Last month, Keir Starmer visited the Welland Academy in Peterborough to highlight the government’s free school meal expansion</p>
The Independent View

Labour’s child poverty strategy is a great step forward

<p>British Airways is changing its Avios loyalty scheme, meaning frequent flyers using ‘air miles’ points should expect to spend more to travel</p>
James Moore

Would it kill BA to butter us up rather than battering our air miles?

<p>In ‘Nightbitch’, Amy Adams plays an artist who pauses her career to be a stay-at-home mum – before her nightly routine takes a surreal and horrifying turn</p>
Dear Vix

Everything in my life seems to have gone wrong at once

<p>‘The chorus of outrage that has greeted David Lammy’s plan to curb the right to trial by jury is predictable, but rather extreme’</p>
jonathan sumption

Who needs juries anyway?

<p>‘Streeting would apparently prefer that people just hide what was “wrong” with them and carry on regardless’ </p>
Kat Brown

Wes Streeting is punching down on young people with ADHD

<p>Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has denied reports he hopes to form an electoral pact with the Conservative Party, following reports, citing unnamed donors, that he believes such an agreement is ‘inevitable’</p>
Tim Bale

Even tactical voting will not help Labour survive a Tory-Reform pact

<p>Residents of Tunbridge Wells collect bottled water after a failure at a treatment site meant that the supply was shut off to the Kent town (Gareth Fuller/PA Wire)</p>
Neil Armstrong

How did Tunbridge Wells become the spa town that ran dry?

<p>‘When you’re carrying a baby, you become hypersensitive to touch, sound and every single ache and twist and lurch. You know each stage of the baby’s development intimately: from tiny sunflower seed to giant watermelon’</p>
Victoria Richards

Sienna Miller is busting the final pregnancy taboo in plain sight

<p>French police plan to use large nets to stop small boats crossing the English Channel</p>
Olivia Blake

Have we truly become a place that patrols its borders with large nets?

The ever-increasing hardening of the UK’s borders is a boon for the far right. By borrowing the language, logic and cruelty of Reform UK, ministers are not neutralising Nigel Farage’s views; they are legitimising them, says Labour MP Olivia Blake

<p>‘Spain, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Ireland – which is a joint record-holder for the most Eurovision wins – will now boycott the event unless Israel is excluded from the competition over the war in Gaza’</p>
Pablo O’Hana

I’m a fan, but it’s time the UK pulled out of Eurovision

<p>Photo taken in 1946 during the Nuremberg trials: L-R, first row, in the dock: Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel, Ernst Kaltenbrunner</p>
Rob Rinder

The Nazis on trial: The enduring lessons of Nuremberg, 80 years on

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<p>Reform leader Nigel Farage called the BBC’s Emma Barnett a ‘lower-grade presenter’</p>
UK Politics

Farage’s attack on Emma Barnett tells a worrying story

UK Politics

Farage’s attack on Emma Barnett tells a worrying story

Alan Rusbridger
<p>Reform leader Nigel Farage called the BBC’s Emma Barnett a ‘lower-grade presenter’</p>
<p>US President Donald Trump looks on during a meeting of his Cabinet in the Cabinet Room of the White House on December 02, 2025 in Washington, DC</p>
Voices

Donald Trump’s war on drugs is fraught with danger for the president

<p>The depressed permanent employment market was ‘exacerbated by Reeves’s shock hike in employers’ national insurance’ (Frank Augstein/PA)</p>
Comment

What the Budget has really done to the housing market

<p>Nigel Farage has insisted the Thai-based crypto billionaire who gave Reform a record £9m donation “wants nothing from me”</p>
UK Politics

‘Why is this allowed?’ Readers hit out after £9m Reform donation

<p>Readers slam energy bill hikes</p>
Home News

‘Just watch us get ripped off’: Readers slam energy bill hikes

<p>Readers slam energy bill hikes</p>
Home News

‘Just watch us get ripped off’: Readers slam energy bill hikes

The Independent View

It is unbelievable that so many people are in indefinite detention

<p>Despite evidence of a mental health crisis among men, there’s still a stigma attached to seeking help</p>
Health and Wellbeing

‘Therapy isn’t just about feelings’: Readers on why men fear help

Most commented

Trump has adopted racist conspiracy theories in his extraordinary attack on Europe

321 comments

Lammy says rejoining EU customs union could boost UK economy

381 comments

Labour voters want Starmer to rejoin EU customs union instead of raising taxes

439 comments

Ukraine war live: Team Trump admit Putin yet to show interest in peace ahead of talks

438 comments
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<p>Despite almost four years of tough talk about the Russian threat, countries like Britain have seen their firepower shrink since 2022</p>
Voices

Why a war with Europe has never looked so tempting to Putin

<p>‘I’m sad and angry about this choice. That anger would exist even if I didn’t have a child, and even if we weren’t involved with Girlguiding’</p>
Voices

Those banning trans girls from Girlguiding need to look at Brownie Law

4 December 2025
The Independent View

Why Vladimir Putin insists the war in Europe must go on

<p>As the gulf grows between the haves and the have-nots, feelings of discomfort around being rich can be a natural response</p>
Money

‘Shame is a waste of time’: Readers on wealth and philanthropy

<p>Sarah Everard was murdered by police officer Wayne Couzens</p>
Voices

The police have learned nothing from Sarah Everard’s murder

<p>One danger that David Lammy must reassure public and parliament about is any sense that jury trial as a democratic backstop is about to end</p>
The Independent View

The jury is still out on David Lammy’s ‘swift court’ reforms

<p>As the gulf grows between the haves and the have-nots, feelings of discomfort around being rich can be a natural response</p>
Money

‘Shame is a waste of time’: Readers on wealth and philanthropy

<p>Sarah Everard was murdered by police officer Wayne Couzens</p>
Voices

The police have learned nothing from Sarah Everard’s murder

<p>One danger that David Lammy must reassure public and parliament about is any sense that jury trial as a democratic backstop is about to end</p>
The Independent View

The jury is still out on David Lammy’s ‘swift court’ reforms

<p>As several MPs pointed out, if only 3 per cent of trials are heard in front of juries, reducing that number to, say, 1.5 per cent is hardly going to speed things up significantly</p>
Voices

David Lammy’s jury lay-offs aren’t swift justice – they’re a sellout

Voices

David Lammy’s jury lay-offs aren’t swift justice – they’re a sellout

John Rentoul
<p>As several MPs pointed out, if only 3 per cent of trials are heard in front of juries, reducing that number to, say, 1.5 per cent is hardly going to speed things up significantly</p>
<p>It is often the postie who spots that something is wrong with the elderly customers they say hello to. Or they might notice an unexpected build-up of unopened mail at a customer’s home. This is as much social service as it is business</p>
Voices

Denmark’s postal service is sending Royal Mail a chilling message...

<p>‘The average privately owned car spends 98 per cent of its life parked in the street – surely the maddest £10,000-£50,000 investment known to humanity’</p>
Voices

Who will mourn my beloved Zipcar?

<p>‘Like a consultant tracing symptoms back to their root cause, we need to step back and ask what truly lies behind the unrest. And though this might not fit neatly with what the British Medical Association wants to say, I don’t think it should focus on pay’ </p>
Voices

I’m a doctor – here’s how I feel about the strikes

<p>Andreas’s view was that his paper was to be positioned above the rest, in tone and quality.</p>
Comment

‘Anything threatening independence for monetary gain was off limits’

<p>Andreas’s view was that his paper was to be positioned above the rest, in tone and quality.</p>
Comment

‘Anything threatening independence for monetary gain was off limits’

<p>‘Kemi’s blistering and bombastic riposte at the despatch box last Wednesday was both strikingly effective and proof that she has finally found her footing’</p>
Voices

If Kemi Badenoch carries on like this she’ll be prime minister ...

<p>Andreas Whittam Smith at the 1986 launch of The Independent, Britain’s ‘first new quality broadsheet newspaper since early Victorian times’</p>
Voices

I count myself lucky to have worked for Andreas Whittam Smith

<p>‘Witkoff would also appear to share with Trump the ability – honed in business – to gauge how things might look from the other party’s perspective and tailor his approach accordingly. It’s a simple schtick but it works a treat’</p>
Voices

Trump’s man in Moscow: is Steve Witkoff about to seal a Ukraine deal?

<p>‘It is at least encouraging that the prime minister has tried to return to the growth agenda and welfare reform in his latest speech’</p>
The Independent View

This PM has changed the Labour Party once – he must now do so again

<p>Reeves wants more people to invest in British companies. They’re not going to do that if they think the game is rigged</p>
Voices

If Rachel Reeves was CEO of a company, she’d have been fired by now

<p>Chancellor Rachel Reeves has come under fire for her ‘misleading’ statements prior to last week’s Budget</p>
Voices

What are the charges made against Reeves in relation to the Budget?

<p>On World Aids Day, England launched an Action Plan to become the first country in the world to end new HIV cases</p>
Voices

Ending HIV in England shows the power of patient-centred healthcare

<p>Andreas Whittam Smith, the co-founder of The Independent, who had an ‘urbane style that disguised a steeliness that could be quite chilling’</p>
Voices

Andreas came over to the news desk and gave us a pay rise on the spot

<p>Jeremy Corbyn at the inaugural conference of Your Party in Liverpool</p>
Voices

Why Your Party will end up as no one’s party

<p>‘“We've got to come together and be united,” said Corbyn. Meanwhile, Sultana was furiously briefing the press outside the conference hall. May the left wing never change!’</p>
Voices

The revolution will not be organised: Your Party farce on day one

<p>Rachel Reeves told broadcasters on Sunday that a £4.2bn surplus against her fiscal rules would not have been enough</p>
The Independent View

A return to Budget ‘purdah’ would be no bad thing for Labour

The Independent View

A return to Budget ‘purdah’ would be no bad thing for Labour

Editorial
<p>Rachel Reeves told broadcasters on Sunday that a £4.2bn surplus against her fiscal rules would not have been enough</p>
<p>‘Adam Raine confided his darkest thoughts to the chatbot – but no emergency protocol was forthcoming. The faux-therapy speak it used to reply would be laughable were the outcome not so tragic’</p>
Voices

OpenAI says a suicidal teenager should’ve read their fine print

<p>‘“I do not know how I will survive this winter,” Osama told me. “The heavy rains have not arrived yet, but even so, rain is already falling inside the tent”’</p>
Voices

Winter in Gaza has washed away the memory of my childhood comforts

<p>‘While obviously it’s frustrating to learn that someone on a dating app isn’t ready to date, it seems like a kinder and more polite way of letting a person know they aren’t interested in seeing you again’</p>
Voices

Can’t handle rejection? You shouldn’t be dating, then

<p>Donald Trump meets with Vladimir Putin in Alaska in August</p>
The Independent View

When will Donald Trump see that Vladimir Putin wants this war?

<p>Donald Trump meets with Vladimir Putin in Alaska in August</p>
The Independent View

When will Donald Trump see that Vladimir Putin wants this war?

<p>Rachel Reeves faced a smaller-than-expected gap in her spending plans at the Budget, despite warnings the black hole could amount to more than £20 billion (James Manning/PA)</p>
Voices

Rachel Reeves is misleading people about her Budget choices

<p>Families of Covid victims protest in 2023 at the government response to the virus</p>
Voices

My daughter and I bear the cost of the inadequate Covid response

<p>One of George Orwell’s concepts in his futuristic novel ‘1984’ was writing machines</p>
Voices

Most novelists believe AI will replace them. Sadly, they’re right

<p>The government needs to start thinking of reasons why young people should stay in the UK</p>
Voices

Starmer has another problem – young people are fleeing Britain

<p>Starmer’s workers’ rights U-turn has provoked furious denunciations from MPs and trade unionists</p>
The Independent View

Starmer’s employment rights U-turn is a sharp move

<p>‘It’s the end of an era. McDonald’s has replaced it with a McFish Happy Meal. But it just doesn’t work for us. Many young children can’t bite through a bun’</p>
Voices

I’m a ‘McDonald’s mother’. How dare they come for our Happy Meals

<p>‘You don’t have to fancy women to feel that you’d really like to take a turn at being an average man, as Prince William himself put it, rather than being pushed into all the additional, relentless effort of being the “even better” wife’</p>
Voices

Every woman I know wants a wife to run the show

<p>‘Starmer clearly feels that having delighted his MPs with a “Labour Budget” he can capitalise on their approval’</p>
Voices

Why Starmer thinks he’s got Rayner and the left on the run

<p>‘I moved to Sydney a month after my 31st birthday last September, one of tens of thousands of Brits to take advantage of the Aussie government upping the British working holiday visa age limit to 35. Turns out I’m hardly an outlier’</p>
Voices

Can you blame young people like me for fleeing Britain?

<p>‘Watch the web: over the next few days: you’re going to see stories about the old couple who had their bank accounts cleaned out or the carer whose kids aren’t going to get any Christmas pressies despite their diligent saving’</p>
Voices

How AI turned Black Friday into a bonanza for scammers

<p>Grace Richardson, who, in winning Miss England, has been described as the first ‘openly lesbian’ contestant to do so</p>
Voices

Are we really still describing people as ‘openly’ gay?

Voices

Are we really still describing people as ‘openly’ gay?

Lotte Jeffs
<p>Grace Richardson, who, in winning Miss England, has been described as the first ‘openly lesbian’ contestant to do so</p>
<p>Frieda Hughes feels she can momentarily watch the birds as she shifts from one artistic endeavour to another</p>
Voices

As one project ends, the next looms large

The Independent View

Is this the ‘change’ that Britain voted for?

<p>‘This is our money we’re talking about. We have a stake in what they do and what they pay their CEOs. We have an interest in whether they are misusing our funds’</p>
Voices

Who will save the critically endangered big City fatcat?

<p>The chancellor doubled down on pensioners’ triple lock in her statement on Wednesday</p>
Money

‘We used to be working people’: Pensioners defend triple lock

<p>The chancellor doubled down on pensioners’ triple lock in her statement on Wednesday</p>
Money

‘We used to be working people’: Pensioners defend triple lock

<p>‘Almost the whole point of New Labour was to combine wealth-creation and compassion, on the basis that the first paid for the second. It was about getting people off welfare and into work’</p>
Voices

This cowardly Budget marks the death of New Labour

<p>‘Just as Starmer sacrificed prudent financial management on the altar of Labour ideology with his ditching of welfare reform, so did Reeves’</p>
Voices

Get ready for the brutal benefit bill that will bankrupt Britain

<p>Amol Rajan’s enthusiasm for analysis is delightful, but the question is, if you are clever, should you show it off?</p>
Voices

Amol Rajan is certifiably clever. Does he need to let everybody know?

<p>Wang Fuk Court’s eight residential blocks lit up like tinderboxes</p>
Voices

Hong Kong’s devastating fire must spell the end of bamboo scaffolding

<p>Nice for some: The average state pension will rise by £575 next year</p>
Voices

Why are pensioners treated as such a special case? It’s getting silly

27 November 2025
The Independent View

This Budget will squeeze working people until it hurts

<p>‘My daughter is begging to be allowed to have the whole group – boys included – sleep over for her 14th birthday. And I’m conflicted...’</p>
Voices

My daughter wants to go to a sleepover with boys. Should I let her?

<p>‘In her display of contempt for Reeves, Badenoch effectively told her own tribe: It’s fine to speak to women with disdain’</p>
Voices

Am I the only woman who found Badenoch’s attack on Reeves chilling?

<p>‘Rachel-speak is now a language of evasion and inventive obfuscation. Her line that everyone would “make a contribution” to national well-being sounded like one of those office leaving do whip-rounds no one really wants, but few get out of either’</p>
Voices

Reeves’s Budget was the office whip-round nobody could quite avoid

<p>‘No presentational tricks could conceal the reality, which is that Reeves has chosen party before country. She and Keir Starmer have put saving their careers before the national interest’</p>
Voices

Reeves has put party before country – and people will hate her for it

<p>The chancellor has unveiled £26bn worth of tax rises in the Commons as she attempts to plug a multi-billion pound gap in Britain’s ailing public finances</p>
UK Politics

‘Kick in the teeth’: Readers say Budget ‘punishes responsibility’

UK Politics

‘Kick in the teeth’: Readers say Budget ‘punishes responsibility’

Independent
<p>The chancellor has unveiled £26bn worth of tax rises in the Commons as she attempts to plug a multi-billion pound gap in Britain’s ailing public finances</p>
<p>‘Whether Rachel Reeves will ever last long enough in the Treasury to see the step change upwards in the UK’s trend growth rate is doubtful – the impact will be felt at full force in about a decade’</p>
Voices

OBR leak brings Reeves’s sloppy Budget to a fittingly messy end

<p>Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Budget risks becoming the most hated in history</p>
Voices

Leaks and lateness have made this Budget the most hated in history

<p>Prime Minister Keir Starmer showed his playful side during a school visit in Peterborough</p>
Voices

Keir Starmer’s ‘6-7’ gag shows he does have a human side after all!

<p>‘Misogyny still exists in politics in the sense that you can’t act naturally. For women to make an impact, they have to talk big’</p>
Voices

Is Rachel Reeves now having ‘mansplaining’ mansplained to her?

<p>‘Misogyny still exists in politics in the sense that you can’t act naturally. For women to make an impact, they have to talk big’</p>
Voices

Is Rachel Reeves now having ‘mansplaining’ mansplained to her?

<p>Images of the prime minister and chancellor putting the final touches to the 2025 Budget were released by 10 Downing Street</p>
The Independent View

This make-or-break Budget must match the chancellor’s fighting talk

<p>‘Though he cannot himself see it, Gibb’s conflicts of interest are so glaring as to be visible from outer space’</p>
Voices

Why are the BBC’s fiercest critics suddenly in retreat?

<p>The Reform UK leader has been accused of making racist and antisemitic comments while at Dulwich College by more than a dozen of his former classmates</p>
Voices

We were all idiots at school. But we weren’t all racist, Mr Farage

<p>The government has launched plan to tackle physical and mental health challenges faced by men and boyys </p>
Health

‘I had to lie for a test’: Men on prostate cancer diagnosis struggles

<p>Strangers or friends you haven't met yet?</p>
Lifestyle

Readers warn solo-drinker ban would worsen UK’s ‘loneliness epidemic’

<p>‘Today’s burgeoning class of shock-jock politicos, egged on by their namesakes on TV and radio talk shows, ignore decorum, established rules, and even the law, to appeal to people’s baser instincts’</p>
Voices

Australia’s burqa stunt shows shock-jock politics is on the rise

<p>‘Whatever you think of his politics, here is a man saying plainly: I got checked, it probably saved me, and you should do the same. That voice cuts through the fog of embarrassment far more effectively than any government leaflet’</p>
Voices

I was diagnosed with cancer at 26. Men don’t expect things to go wrong

<p>‘The tragedy is the failure to project confidence and communicate those changes have left them feeling uncertain. But if we do not act to increase business confidence, then we will be stuck in the doom loop of speculation, timidity and short-termism that holds our economy back’</p>
Voices

Labour must deliver a Budget that people can believe in

<p>‘Today’s burgeoning class of shock-jock politicos, egged on by their namesakes on TV and radio talk shows, ignore decorum, established rules, and even the law, to appeal to people’s baser instincts’</p>
Voices

Australia’s burqa stunt shows shock-jock politics is on the rise

<p>‘Whatever you think of his politics, here is a man saying plainly: I got checked, it probably saved me, and you should do the same. That voice cuts through the fog of embarrassment far more effectively than any government leaflet’</p>
Voices

I was diagnosed with cancer at 26. Men don’t expect things to go wrong

<p>‘The tragedy is the failure to project confidence and communicate those changes have left them feeling uncertain. But if we do not act to increase business confidence, then we will be stuck in the doom loop of speculation, timidity and short-termism that holds our economy back’</p>
Voices

Labour must deliver a Budget that people can believe in

<p>Chancellor Rachel Reeves is to deliver her second Budget on Wednesday</p>
The Independent View

Reeves must prove she has a plan to free us from this ‘growth crisis’

<p>‘Right now, we are in a golden age only for regulators, fudge, cost and political cowardice’</p>
Voices

Welcome to ‘Groundhog Britain’, where nothing ever gets done

<p>In October, the energy price cap was increased by 2 per cent by regulator Ofgem</p>
Home News

‘A national disgrace’: Readers on energy poverty this winter

<p>President Trump’s Ukraine peace plan must be rejected by Europe</p>
Voices

Why Europe must reject Trump’s Moscow-approved Ukraine peace plan

<p>Chancellor Rachel Reeves is set to lift the two-child cap on child benefit in the Budget</p>
Voices

Why the public won’t like Reeves’s £15bn child benefit ‘giveaway’

<p>Chancellor Rachel Reeves should tax society’s annoyances in the Budget</p>
Voices

Want a Budget millennials won’t hate? Start by taxing life’s nuisances

<p>‘I’m not condoning severe absence rates. But the odd day off? What is wrong with giving your child a bit of TLC and space away from school politics?’</p>
Voices

I give my kids duvet days whenever they want for their mental health

<p>Keir Starmer in Johannesburg on Saturday during the G20 summit </p>
The Independent View

On Ukraine, Starmer sees what Trump doesn’t: appeasement never works

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