UK politics

UK politics

More than 300,000 children already living in the UK could be forced to wait 10 years for settled status under proposed changes to the Home Office's earned settlement policy, according to an analysis by a centre left thinktank. The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) found that nearly a quarter (23%) of the 1.35 million people already on routes to settlement are children, most of them dependants on their families' work visas.

Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

Britain is getting older and sicker, while a greater share of its population has a disability. While these trends affect the whole of society, they are starkest in the poorest half of working-age families across the country. While we talk a lot about the effects of ageing and ill-health, the implications on demand for unpaid care is largely absent from political debate.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

The Epstein files reveal not just a catastrophic breach of trust, but the final act in a long political psychodrama. Donald Macintyre reveals how a man so adept at managing risk came to take one that could destroy a government not to mention his own career and says the answers lie deep in a life shaped by a fatal attraction to wealth and influence

The council's leadership claimed it has found 100m in savings, 39.5m of which come from what it said was two net zero-related projects: 32m by scrapping a programme to make properties more environmentally friendly, and 7.5m by not making the council's fleet of vehicles electric by 2030. After Kemkaran announced these at a council meeting last July, Polly Billington, a Labour MP in Kent, requested details of the apparent savings via a freedom of information request, setting off a months-long battle with the council.

17 JANUARY 2026 I'm dying for a wee, Zack Polanski says as he gets off the train at Wakefield Westgate. Why didn't you go on the train, I ask? It was very busy and too many people recognised me on the way to the toilet. I knew I'd never get there for all the conversations, so I came back. When did it become hard for him to go to the toilet on a train?

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

If this was just a UK story it would be bad enough, but we are seeing it is a French story, it is a German story and a US story. All these countries are cutting. There will be a time lag but this will cost lives. We have a responsibility to protect these lives.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

Senior figures in Sir Keir Starmer's government are preparing to hand over tranches of their electronic communications with Lord Mandelson ahead of the release of evidence about his appointment as US ambassador. The deepening scandal prompted an apology on Wednesday from Sir Keir to the victims of Jeffrey Epstein for believing Lord Mandelson's "lies" and appointing him when the peer's friendship with the paedophile was already public knowledge.