Chancellor reveals halving of forecast UK growth this year and extra defence spending * Spring statement 2025: key points at a glance * Politics live – updates Rachel Reeves has confirmed deep cuts to welfare and public services offset by billions of pounds in long-term investment to grow the economy, as she delivered a spring statement to ensure her fiscal targets are still being met. In a statement to the Commons which revealed the UK growth forecasts for this year had been halved, the chancellor said her measures would ensure a predicted £4.1bn hole in the public finances within five years would be turned back into a £9.9bn surplus. Continue reading...

Pulp will be the first band to contribute to the LIVE Trust, where £1 from every ticket sold at their summer 2025 UK arena tour will be given to fund financial support to those working across live mus...

Angela Rayner meets bereaved to tell them west London block will ‘be carefully deconstructed’

Do you know your hot rodent boyfriends, which celebrity is selling feet pics on OnlyFans and who fell off a stage this year? Then this is the quiz for you Continue reading...

Investigation launched after late-night ‘trap and drag’ incident on Elizabeth line in which man was freed by staff An investigation has been launched after a rail passenger was forced to run several metres along the platform with his hand trapped inside…

Burt the crocodile, who starred alongside Paul Hogan in the 1986 Australian comedy Crocodile Dundee, has died aged 90.

The altar stone, which we now know is from Scotland, may have been a gift or marker of political alliance

Union says sale of Sunday paper to Tortoise would be a ‘betrayal of the Scott Trust’s commitment to the Observer’

Combs is the latest problematic artist to see his work break more ground on platforms such as Spotify and YouTube In the past few years, powerful men within the music industry – the singer R Kelly, the Def Jam founder Russell Simmons, and the Guns N’…