Second, something way too often missed by commentators: the UK is doing more than anyone else in G7 to strengthen our public finances. We are delivering the fastest fiscal consolidation in the G7 and forecast to have the smallest deficit in 2031

New IMF forecasts tell you 2 things about UK economy. Firstly, the British economy has proved resilient in face of the Iran conflict: IMF have UK growth as joint second fastest in G7 this year (forget forecasts, in hard data we’ve seen the fastest growth in G7 so far this year)

Heading back to Westminster on Monday mornings is all the easier after a brilliant weekend. I'm out door knocking every week with the Swansea West Labour team - great to speak to residents of Uplands about what's going on in the neighbourhood, well caffeinated via Sloth coffee.

Mewslade - but round by Rhossili also looks fine this afternoon (here’s towards Worms Head)

Saturday swim

Of course, the fiscal incontinence problem is on top of the “it’s a stupid policy that would stuff up the housing market” one

Tories totally unfunded tax cut for the wealthiest latest: they’ve hugely underestimated the cost of their policy and therefore the borrowing splurge their plans would cause. This is absolutely mad approach to economic policy making - totally giving up on fiscal credibility

Of course promising huge tax cuts hasn’t just historically trashed the public finances - often it also manages to trash public services. At a time when we need to rescue our NHS can anyone remember when the Tories last had anything to say about it?

The UK is currently delivering the fastest reduction in borrowing levels in the G7. That is the right approach. The Tories aren’t just opposing the measures that are making that happen, their proposals are to put it sharply into reverse

History is very clear that promising this scale of tax cuts ends one way: trashing your public finances. The party that gave us Liz Truss, then £20bn of totally unfunded tax cuts pre-election in 2024 is now… returning to the scene of their crime.

So what this week has taught us is that the Conservative offer is to: - prioritise the wealthiest - blow up the public finances

What you need to know about changes to the state pension 👇 The most important one: it will keep rising every single year.

To provide the clarity that there will be a meaningful rise each year - this is a longstanding feature of our pensions system

This is a great explanation. The proposal is to move from a Triple Lock to an Adjusted Triple Lock.

No - that would be a terrible policy, undermining both parts of our dual pension system - directly scrapping a universal state pension and removing the incentive for people to save for their own retirement