Fire engulfs main stage at Tomorrowland two days before festival

The main stage at Tomorrowland festival in Belgium has been “severely damaged” in a huge fire.

The annual festival in the town of Boom, north of Brussels, which is scheduled to start on Friday, draws tens of thousands of visitors from around Europe.

Images shared on local news sites and social media showed flames and plumes of black smoke engulfing the stage and spreading to nearby woodland. Nearby residents had been urged to close all windows and doors until the fire was under control.

One employee at the site described “an apocalyptic scene” after the fire engulfed the stage.

“We suddenly heard bangs and saw fire near the stage, a huge amount of fire,” the unnamed individual told Het Nieuwsblad newspaper.

“We were just putting the finishing touches on it. One more day and it would be finished. Four weeks of work… gone in half an hour.”

At least three-quarters of the spectacular stage is believed to have been damaged.

“Due to a serious incident and fire on the Tomorrowland main stage, our beloved main stage has been severely damaged,” the organisers posted on the event’s website.

“We can confirm that no one was injured during the incident.”

The statement said the focus is now on “finding solutions” for the festival weekend. The cause of the fire has not yet been confirmed.

“We can announce that, DreamVille will open tomorrow as planned and will be ready for all DreamVille visitors,” they added.

“All Global Journey [travel package] activities in Brussels and Antwerp will take place as planned.”

Dozens of emergency teams were seen rushing through the festival grounds just after 6pm in an attempt to extinguish the flames and evacuate those inside the grounds.

There were no members of the public present at the time, but around 1,000 staff members were working on site.

Some of the world’s most popular DJs are due to appear on the stage over the weekend, including Martin Garrix, David Guetta, Fisher, Swedish House Mafia and Steve Aoki.

Back in 2017, the festival had to evacuate over 22,000 people after a major fire. The crowds at Barcelona’s Tomorrowland Unite were forced to flee just hours before Steve Aoki was due to headline the event.

IVF technique using DNA from three people sees eight babies born

A groundbreaking three-person IVF technique to prevent devastating disease has led to the birth of eight babies in the UK.

The scientific method, known as mitochondrial donation treatment, is designed to prevent children from being born with devastating mitochondrial diseases that are passed down from their mothers.

These illnesses can be fatal and often cause devastating damage to organs, including the brain, muscle, liver, heart and kidney.

Four boys and four girls, including one set of identical twins, have been delivered and are all doing well, and one other woman is currently pregnant.

It follows treatment by a team in Newcastle, who pioneered the technique.

Of the eight babies born, three are now aged under six months, two are aged six to 12 months, one is 12 to 18 months old, one is aged 18 to 24 months and another child is aged over two.

All the babies are healthy and are meeting their milestones, according to the team from Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Newcastle University and Newcastle Fertility Centre.

None of the eight babies shows signs of having mitochondrial DNA disease, which tends to affect around one in 5,000 births.

The scientists said disease-causing mitochondrial DNA mutations, picked up in three of the children, are either undetectable or present at levels that are very unlikely to cause disease.

The main lab method used by the team, known as pronuclear transfer (PNT), involves taking the egg from an affected mother, sperm from her partner and an egg from a donor who is free from disease.

The mother of a baby girl born through mitochondrial donation said: “As parents, all we ever wanted was to give our child a healthy start in life.

“Mitochondrial donation IVF made that possible. After years of uncertainty, this treatment gave us hope – and then it gave us our baby.

“We look at them now, full of life and possibility, and we’re overwhelmed with gratitude. Science gave us a chance.”

The mother of a baby boy added: “We are now proud parents to a healthy baby, a true mitochondrial replacement success. This breakthrough has lifted the heavy cloud of fear that once loomed over us.

“Thanks to this incredible advancement and the support we received, our little family is complete.

“The emotional burden of mitochondrial disease has been lifted, and in its place is hope, joy, and deep gratitude.”

Professor Sir Doug Turnbull, from Newcastle University and part of the team of researchers, said: “Mitochondrial disease can have a devastating impact on families.

“Today’s news offers fresh hope to many more women at risk of passing on this condition who now have the chance to have children growing up without this terrible disease.”

In all the cases, the Newcastle team used the PNT technique after the egg was fertilised.

For this, scientists transplanted the nuclear genome (which contains all the genes essential for a person’s characteristics, such as hair colour and height) from the egg carrying the mitochondrial DNA mutation into an egg donated by an unaffected woman that had had its nuclear genome removed.

Thanks to the procedure, the resulting baby inherits its parents’ nuclear DNA, but the mitochondrial DNA is mainly inherited from the donated egg.

Scientific progress in this area led parliament to change the law in 2015 to permit mitochondrial donation treatment.

Two years later, the Newcastle clinic became the first and only national centre licensed to perform it, with the first cases approved in 2018.

Approval is given on a case-by-case basis by the UK’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (Hfea).

The new findings on the eight births, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, show that all the babies are developing normally.

Aged 18 months, tests are carried out in areas such as gross motor skills, fine motor skills, cognitive and social development and language skills to check the babies are hitting milestones.

The researchers will also check the children when they are five.

Professor Bobby McFarland, director of the NHS Highly Specialised Service for Rare Mitochondrial Disorders, said he was confident the children would carry on developing normally.

He added: “If we’re not picking up subtle signs of problems at five, then we’re really very clear that is not going to be a problem.”

He added: “In my work… I see children in intensive care units up and down this country and that’s not pleasant.

“It’s very difficult for families to deal with these diseases, they are devastating…

“To see babies born at the end of this is just amazing, really.”

Mary Herbert, professor of reproductive biology at Newcastle University, added: “PNT happens in the small hours of the morning – those long nights. And it has paid off.

“It’s fair to say it’s rewarding. In science though, periods of joy are fleeting and brief because you’re always thinking, what is the next challenge? How do we optimise it further?”

She said the slight DNA mutations seen in three of the children are “way, way below the threshold that would cause disease”.

Peter Thompson, chief executive of the Hfea, said: “Ten years ago, the UK was the first country in the world to licence mitochondrial donation treatment to avoid passing the condition to children.

“For the first time, families with severe inherited mitochondrial illness have the possibility of a healthy child.

“Although it’s still early days, it is wonderful news that mitochondrial donation treatment has led to eight babies being born.

“Only people who are at a very high risk of passing a serious mitochondrial disease onto their children are eligible for this treatment in the UK, and every application for mitochondrial donation treatment is individually assessed in accordance with the law.”

Dr Andy Greenfield, from the University of Oxford, said: “It is a triumph of scientific innovation in the IVF clinic – a world first that shows that the UK is an excellent environment in which to push boundaries in IVF; a tour de force by the embryologists who painstakingly developed and optimised the micromanipulation methods; an example of the value of clinical expertise, developed over decades of working with children and adults suffering from these devastating diseases, being used to support a new intervention and subsequent follow-up, potentially for many years.”

Beth Thompson, executive director for policy and partnerships at Wellcome, said: “This is a remarkable scientific achievement, which has been years in the making.

“The pioneering work behind mitochondrial donation is a powerful example of how discovery research can change lives.”

Professor Dagan Wells, from the University of Oxford, said the study showed established methods for avoiding mitochondrial DNA diseases, such as preimplantation genetic testing, perform well and will be suitable for most women at risk of having an affected child.

“A minority of patients are unable to produce any embryos free of mitochondrial disease, and for those women the study provides hope that they may be able to have healthy children in the future,” he added.

Addictive nicotine pouches can legally be sold to children in shops

Nicotine pouches with eye-catching packaging and sweet flavours are available for children to buy because the product falls between regulatory gaps, Trading Standards has warned.

No law in place currently restricts the age of sale for nicotine pouches, meaning a child could enter a shop and be sold these addictive products, the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) has said.

Nicotine pouches are small sachets designed to be placed between the upper lip and gums. Unlike other products, such as snus, these pouches do not contain tobacco and just release nicotine slowly. Just like vapes, they come in flavours including mango, berry and cherry ice.

Pouches can contain between 1.5mg and 20mg of nicotine, similar to a vape, but they are not regulated as a specific tobacco or nicotine product.

Data from Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) published last month revealed that in 2024, just 38 per cent of 11- to 17-year-olds knew what a nicotine pouch was. Now that figure has shot up to 43 per cent.

While only 4 per cent of 11- to 17-year-olds use nicotine pouches, the watchdog fears this will increase without an age restriction on the product.

The warning comes as trading standards visits businesses to ensure they are no longer selling single-use vapes, which are now illegal to supply in the UK.

During visits, Trading Standards has seen nicotine pouches displayed in plain sight at the front of the check-out areas in stores, sparking concern over the rise in popularity of these products among school-aged children.

The watchdog warns that this nicotine product is discreet and could easily go undetected by teachers and parents.

“It very much feels like a game of whack-a-mole – just as one product is dealt with, another emerges – the availability of potentially harmful products being promoted and sold to our children seems never-ending,” said Duncan Stephenson, policy and external affairs director at CTSI.

“Nicotine pouches are the latest example, with slick marketing, sweet flavours and colourful packaging that risk appealing to young people, whether intended or not,” he added.

Nicotine is a highly addictive substance, and in high doses it can cause headaches, a racing heart, nausea and stomach cramps.

“While they are likely to be very much less harmful than smoking, they contain nicotine which is addictive, and the long-term health impacts are not known,” said Hazel Cheeseman, chief executive at ASH.

The Tobacco and Vapes Bill, currently making its way through parliament, makes the sale of these nicotine products illegal to anyone under the age of 18.

It will also introduce powers to restrict the use of child-appealing flavours, packaging and advertising, as well as dictate where they can be placed in shops.

“Strong, proactive regulation is essential to protect children and stop these products from slipping through the cracks,” Mr Stephenson added.

Trading Standards is calling for the Tobacco and Vapes Bill to be moved up the parliamentary timetable to ensure a swift implementation. It wants nicotine pouches out of the reach of children and to make sure business owners don’t exploit this age restriction loophole.

Kate Pike, CTSI Lead Officer for Tobacco and Vapes, said: “We are getting increasing reports from concerned parents and teachers that shops are marketing and selling nicotine pouches to children. It is incredibly frustrating that there is nothing we can currently do to prevent them.

“We have been asking for an age of sale on nicotine pouches for some time and were delighted when this measure was included in the Tobacco and Vapes Bill.”

Where might the UK’s fourth heatwave of the summer hit?

Hot spots in the east and southeast of England may record a heatwave in the coming days – potentially spelling the fourth this summer for some, forecasters are warning.

Days after the Met Office confirmed that extremes of temperature and rainfall are becoming the norm, experts say the mercury could show 28C or 29C in those regions on Thursday and Friday, and it will be humid.

At the weekend, record-breaking temperatures exceeded 30C in several parts of the country, as the third heatwave of 2025 swept the UK. A high of 33C was recorded in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, and Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales recorded their warmest days of the year so far.

Much of the UK enjoyed a brief reprieve from the hot weather on Tuesday, then on Wednesday temperatures started creeping up again into the high 20s Celsius.

Meteorologist Tom Morgan said: “From a technical point of view, there is the potential for some places to reach heatwave status.

“But it’s not going to be anything like the most recent heatwave, which saw temperatures reach the high 20s or low 30s.

“Currently, we’re expecting temperatures of 29C in southeast England on Thursday and Friday, then it might well be 28C or similar on Saturday.

“Most likely, it’s a few individual weather stations that reach the criteria for a heatwave… but that won’t be for everyone, it will be a small minority of places where there is a technical heatwave.”

Definitions of a heatwave vary by county. Weather counts as a heatwave when a place has at least three days in a row when temperatures meet or exceed the heatwave temperature threshold for that place.

In areas from Cambridgeshire to West Berkshire to Surrey, the threshold is 29C. In much of northern England, Scotland and Wales, it’s 25C.

As records continue to be set this year, England had its warmest ever June, and the UK overall experienced its second-warmest since the series began in 1884, according to provisional Met Office statistics.

Forecasters say the rest of July and early August are likely to be changeable. But towards mid-August, there are tentative signs that high pressure may become more dominant, the Met Office says, which would bring more dry, settled weather.

“Temperatures are expected to continue to run above average overall, with a greater likelihood, compared to the preceding couple of weeks, of very warm or hot spells to develop by mid-August, especially further south and east.”

After the UK’s driest spring since 1893, nearly seven million people are facing hosepipe bans.

The Southern Water restrictions affecting Hampshire and the Isle of Wight will begin on Monday, while Thames Water announced a ban that will begin on Tuesday for customers in Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, most of Wiltshire and some parts of Berkshire.

South East Water has also said 1.4 million customers in Kent and Sussex will also be banned from using hosepipes.

The first ban, across Yorkshire, came into effect on Friday after a “drought” was declared in the region.

The Environment Agency has warned that without substantial rain, more bans will follow.

The West and East Midlands have been declared as suffering from drought, as have Cumbria and Lancashire, Yorkshire and Greater Manchester, and Merseyside and Cheshire.

Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, East Anglia and the Thames areas have been designated as in “prolonged dry weather” status.

However, in the west of England on Thursday, forecasters say there will be outbreaks of rain, some of them intense, and thundery downpours are possible.

Stella Creasy thanks passengers for intervening after she was ‘hassled’ on Tube

A Labour MP has thanked London Underground passengers for rushing to her defence as she was hassled by a man.

Stella Creasy was on the Victoria Line when she began to be harassed by the male passenger in an incident she is planning to report to the police.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the Walthamstow MP said: “If you were one of the passengers on the victoria line just now who intervened to stop a man hassling me thank you from the bottom of my heart.

“Please get in touch with my office if you are prepared to be a witness as maybe the police might listen to you about him now!”

The Independent contacted Ms Creasy to ask for more details. TFL was contacted for comment.

Ms Creasy has been repeatedly targeted with abuse, lashing out last year at the crusade of harassment launched against her by anti-abortion activists, an issue on which she has campaigned.

In a moving interview with The Independent, Ms Creasy said she was facing “a bonfire of abuse” from anti-abortion ideologues on social media in punishment for campaigning on abortion rights.

And in 2013, a man was arrested after launching a torrent of violent abuse on social media at Ms Creasy.

Peter Nunn, a blogger from Bristol, was sentenced to 18 weeks imprisonment in September 2014 for sending messages to Ms Creasy calling her a witch and retweeting rape threats.

She and other feminist campaigners were harassed after expressing support for the image of author Jane Austen to be placed on a banknote.

After the incident, Ms Creasy was forced to have a panic button installed in her home.

Ms Creasy’s latest incident comes months after a cross-party inquiry warned that democracy is being undermined by the scale of abuse, threats and intimidation facing MPs.

A survey by the Speaker’s Conference revealed about half of MPs said threatening behaviour had caused anxiety or depression (49 per cent), with a similar share feeling unsafe as a result (52 per cent).

The inquiry concluded that electoral law is “not fit for purpose” in relation to tackling abuse of political candidates in elections and called for a Government review to assess security and electoral integrity.

This phase of the Conference was established in 2024 to help ensure that elections to Parliament are conducted freely and fairly, without threats or violence.

It also seeks to enable candidates to campaign safely and support elected representatives to do their job securely.

Commenting on the findings, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Commons Speaker and chairman of the Speaker’s Conference, said: “Participating in free and fair democratic processes – as a candidate or a Member of Parliament – is a privilege, and we expect that to come with robust political discourse and debate.

“But abuse, threats and intimidation should never be part of this job. It threatens the health of our democracy, and forces people to choose between the public good and their own safety and wellbeing.

“I am grateful to members, their staff and the witnesses we have heard from to date for sharing their experiences with us and look forward to working with colleagues on the next phase of the Conference’s work.”

When my friends were facing cancer, a community of people stepped up

When I was younger, I used to worry incessantly about my parents getting cancer. I’d lay awake at night, ruminating on what would happen to my brother and I if they did. Who would support us? Thankfully, both are still cancer-free, well into their seventies.

However, now that I’m a parent myself, I worry about my children. Many people believe that cancer only really happens to people in old age, but that’s just not true. One beloved friend’s daughter died of leukaemia in 2020, aged just five; an unthinkable horror that changed the lives of everyone who knew her and her family.

And with Macmillan Cancer Support reporting that almost 3.5 million people in the UK are living with cancer, I also worry about my friends – parents themselves, their lives touched by cancer. One friend sat me down in our favourite local café, our toddlers playing at our feet, to break the news that she was about to undergo a double mastectomy. We cried together.

Another friend, Sarah, a single parent to two teenage girls, was diagnosed with breast cancer the day before we heard that King Charles had cancer, and a month before the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, announced her own diagnosis in March last year. It seemed like cancer was everywhere.

As a result, Sarah put 2024 on hold – she missed her daughter’s last sports day and last concert at primary school and had to find a whole new way of co-ordinating family life.

“I’m lucky in some ways that my children are teenagers, so they are able to look after themselves to some degree – but I’m also a single parent, so there are some things that they can’t do, or struggle with, due to their age,” she tells me.

“I have even set up multiple alarms on our Alexa reminding them to put their packed lunches in their bags or leave for school, just in case I can’t get up.”

Sarah says she thought she knew quite a lot about cancer prior to her diagnosis, but now admits she “really didn’t”. She explains: “There are so many terms and procedures to understand – stages and grades, not to mention over 100 different chemotherapy drugs.”

Sarah tells me about the exhausting cumulative effect of chemotherapy, which she endured every three weeks during her cancer treatment: “After the very first lot, I slept for a few hours and felt much better pretty quickly. For my last rounds, I slept for 48 hours solid and even days later, I needed to have a nap in the middle of the day and was in bed by 8pm.”

Sarah’s now finished chemotherapy and, a year on from her diagnosis, is turning 50. She’s throwing a huge party to celebrate not only the birthday milestone, but getting over this “annus horriblis” – a year she couldn’t have gotten through without the people around her.

“People can do so much for us when we are unwell – and I am forever grateful,” she says. “I’ve been really overwhelmed by the support that my friends have given me; from ferrying around my children to and from after-school events and sleepovers when things get bad, to my 75-year-old neighbour mowing the lawn. One friend popped round with a huge pot of pasta sauce and I even had a gift box from a recruiter at work.”

What talking to my strong, resilient friends about their cancer journeys has made me realise most, is the power of community: for when we receive the worst news imaginable, what we need is people around us to see us through. A community of other women: friends, school mums, neighbours.

They had people willing to make them food, pick up their children, go shopping for them or to just sit with them and listen. They had support when they decided to raise money for cancer support charities, when they did fundraisers such as hosting a Macmillan Coffee Morning.

It takes a village to raise a child – and that village will be with you every step of the way when you need them most.

Find out how you can help raise vital funds by hosting a Macmillan Coffee Morning. Sign up now on the Macmillan website

Macmillan Cancer Support, registered charity in England and Wales (261017), Scotland (SC039907) and the Isle of Man (604). Also operating in Northern Ireland.

Acid attacks skyrocket by 10% with rise in violence against women

An alarming rise in acid attacks has been recorded across the UK, with women and girls now accounting for a third of all victims.

Data from police forces show 498 physical attacks involving corrosives were recorded in 2024, a 10 per cent increase from the 454 incidents reported in 2023.

Research carried out by the charity Acid Survivors Trust International (ASTI) found that such attacks not only have devastating impacts on the victims, but result in a considerable cost to the economy.

On average, a single attack can cost £63,000 in medical and psychological support, meaning that the overall average cost of these physical attacks in 2024 would be in the regions of £31m.

While historically, acid attacks have been associated with male-on-male violence and gang activity, data from police forces revealed that 74 victims out of 224 physical attacks, where gender data was provided, were female.

In addition, women made up 62 per cent of victims when there had been a threat of an acid attack made against them, an increase from 59 per cent in 2023. This involves the threat of a corrosive attack as a tool of coercion or intimidation alongside other serious crimes such as rape or robbery.

Despite the population served by Northumbria Police making up just two per cent of the country’s population, 24 per cent of all acid attacks were recorded in the region, followed by the Metropolitan Police in London.

Jaf Shah, Executive Director at ASTI, said: “Our new data shows that acid violence remains prevalent in the UK. The rise in physical acid attacks is deeply concerning – particularly the sharp increase in Northumbria, even as numbers fall in London.

“Tackling this issue means addressing the wider challenges of socio-economic inequality, deprivation, and gang involvement, while also holding retailers to account.

“It’s vital we address how easily offenders are able to access corrosive substances in the first place. We urgently need stricter controls on sales, especially from online retailers, alongside better reporting and more investment in prevention to stop corrosive substances being weaponised.”

The analysis from ASTI found that almost a quarter (24 per cent) of acid attacks were recorded by Northumbria Police, despite the region only holding two per cent of the UK’s population.

The West Midlands has also seen an 82 per cent increase in the number of physical attacks between 2023 and 2024, with the charity noting that attacks frequently occur in areas that have been impacted by economic deprivation and high levels of poverty.

Professor Francisco C Figueiredo, MD, PhD, FRCOphth, Professor of Ophthalmology at Newcastle University, said: “Corrosive substance attack (CSA) to the eye is a serious injury that can cause substantial damage, potentially leading to significant visual loss/blindness.

“In our data, the most serious injuries tend to be on victims of attack, often young white male. The evidence also indicates that most of the attacks take place in deprived areas.

“Further building on the information released by ASTI, our data has also shown an alarming rise in the Northeast of England in the incidence of CSA over the last few years. In our region, the most common corrosive substance used in attacks is ammonia, which tends to cause significant damage to the surface of the eye, penetrating deeper into the tissue, consequently causing more severe damage.

“In view of this new data, there is an urgent need to create a strong partnership between multiple public health agencies which can work together towards a shared goal by setting up an elimination programme with clear targets. It is time to make elimination of corrosive substance attack our goal.”

What does rising inflation mean for interest rates – and the Budget?

Inflation is up again – prices are 3.6 per cent higher than a year ago, worse than the forecast 3.4 per cent – while the economy shrank by 0.1 per cent in May.

This news isn’t helping the government build a reputation for economic competence, and it adds to a rather depressing backdrop to the next Budget in late October, widely expected to be another with substantial tax rises. As we all know, elections tend to be won or lost on the economy.

Why is inflation up?

Partly for technical reasons related to how the consumer price index works: fuel and energy prices fell substantially around this time last year, pushing inflation down to the 2 per cent official target; and while they’re not rising much now, there is that arithmetic effect.

More substantially, and worryingly for ministers and the Bank of England, the figures suggest that core (or underlying) inflation – much of it attached to growth in wages – remains too strong for the Bank to be confident about trend inflation coming down markedly. That means an even slower downward path for interest rates.

For the chancellor, it seems some but not all of the increase in employers’ national insurance that came into force in April is being passed on in price rises, the rest being met by lower wage settlements and pruning of profit margins. The minimum wage increase has also increased labour costs. These have certainly given the opposition some ammunition.

As the governor, Andrew Bailey, sometimes remarks, the last yards of this marathon race to get inflation down are the hardest.

What will happen to interest rates?

It’s nuanced. The consensus seems to be that the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee will cut rates at its meeting next month by another 0.25 percentage points, to 4 per cent – which the government would greet with enormous relief. Inflation trends aren’t bad enough to warrant postponing such a cut, which would in any case surprise and disappoint the City. However, inflation is still “sticky” and stubborn enough to mean that future cuts will be glacially slow in arriving. So mortgage holders and businesses won’t be as well off as they might be or as previously hoped.

Are these figures politically significant?

One month’s data rarely is, but Kemi Badenoch made the most of the mildly bad news at Prime Minister’s Questions, telling the prime minister that Britain now has the fastest rising prices among the G7 major economies. Aside from the prospective cut in interest rates in a few weeks, the short-term outlook is gloomy and that feeds through to the opinion polls.

The cost of living crisis is still on, and the next Budget will probably make things tougher for the middle classes. Labour’s rhetoric about “working people” and the chancellor’s boasts about putting more money in people’s pockets carry a little less credibility when inflation is poised to exceed four per cent later in the year and she seems so keen on cutting social security. More than that, there seems little short-term prospect of an improvement in the public finances or the wider economy. Heavy losses for Labour in next year’s local government, Scottish and Welsh elections look certain.

Are we in stagflation?

Arguable. It’s true that a variety of long-term factors, including Brexit and labour shortages, have conspired to reduce the ability of the UK economy to grow strongly without triggering inflationary pressures, especially in the labour market (which is why forthcoming jobs data will be closely examined by the Bank). However, inflation should gradually trend lower over the medium term, even if the prospects for growth will remain mixed – Trump’s tariffs being a major risk factor, notwithstanding the recent US-UK deal.

Reeves’ programme of structural reforms – planning, financial deregulation, air and rail projects, housing – will take years to make much impression on growth. By then some other party might well be in power to reap the dividends of her investments, but who ever thought politics was fair?