Money | The Guardian

Five key tax talking points before next week’s budget

Zoe Wood — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 07:00:26 GMT

As the chancellor prepares for 28 October, we unpack the facts and figures – and the implications any changes could mean for you

As John Healey prepares his first budget as chancellor, tax is the small word that is likely to cast a large shadow over next week’s big fiscal announcement.

In its election manifesto, Labour promised not to increase the “big three”: income tax, national insurance and VAT.

Can curry nights and canny advisers help Healey deliver a budget for everyday people?

Jessica Elgot and Heather Stewart — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 09:00:29 GMT

The chancellor has promised ‘breathing space’ for households and small businesses but global events cannot be ignored

You be the chancellor: play our budget game to see if you can balance the books

Every Sunday night, the chancellor, John Healey, slips next door to Andy Burnham’s Downing Street flat where they order a curry and chew over politics on the prime minister’s sofa.

An Indian takeaway is one of the totemic issues in British politics, a “treat” fewer people can afford, like a pint at the football or soft play for the kids.

Tinned food, loo roll and power banks: the Brits following advice to stockpile

Kevin Rawlinson — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 09:00:29 GMT

Government campaign recommends three days’ worth of stores for emergencies, but some are ahead of the game

Dried foods, bottled water, medicine stocks and backup power banks: it could be the props cupboard on a disaster movie, but instead it is precisely what some UK residents are stockpiling amid official warnings about Russian “state-sponsored terrorism” and the impact of the climate crisis.

The government launched a campaign on Thursday advising people to set aside three days’ worth of stores to deal with a whole range of eventualities, and some are already well under way.

UK consumer confidence falls at fastest rate since Brexit vote as cost of living bites

Richard Partington Senior economics correspondent — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 07:25:57 GMT

Economic fallout from war in Middle East adds to pressures on consumers and on chancellor before budget

Consumer confidence in the UK has fallen at the fastest rate outside the Covid pandemic since the 2016 Brexit vote as the escalating economic damage from the war in the Middle East hits Britain.

With less than a week before John Healey’s first budget, the latest barometer from the data company GfK indicated confidence plunged by 11 percentage points in October to -24 amid pressure on consumers from the rising cost of living.

UK government to make unprecedented intervention in setting of water bills

Jessica Elgot Deputy political editor — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 13:51:10 GMT

Exclusive: Angela Eagle tells utility bosses next price review ‘must focus on value for money for customers’

Ministers will make an unprecedented intervention in water bills and how companies prioritise investment, directing bosses to bring down costs and stop leaks and sewage overflows.

Angela Eagle, the environment secretary, has told suppliers in England and Wales she plans to intervene in the next price review – conducted by the water regulator, Ofwat.

Five homes in England to get sport lovers’ hearts racing – in pictures

Anna White — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 06:00:02 GMT

From recreation-rich pile in Devon to former coach house near Windermere, properties that energise

‘We’ve lost a basic sense of politeness’: UK readers reveal daily reality of public transport

Alfie Packham and Guardian readers — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 06:00:02 GMT

Regular users detail their frustrations – and question whether Andy Burnham’s crackdown on antisocial behaviour will actually work

Andy Burnham has announced a campaign against nuisance behaviour on public transport, including “headphone dodgers” who play loud music.

“We’ve all been on the train when someone starts blasting music or videos from their phone,” Burnham said in a statement. “It gets on your nerves and can quickly spoil the journey.”

Airbnb guests freed from chores involving ‘significant effort’ under new global rules

Catie McLeod Consumer affairs reporter — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 05:17:11 GMT

Accommodation platform acts after long-standing guest complaints over doing dishes, taking out rubbish and stripping beds

Airbnb hosts will no longer be able to ask guests to strip beds or wash dishes under the accommodation platform’s new rules.

The changes, which apply to Airbnb reservations covered by the platform’s global policy, will come into effect on 20 November and limit chores imposed on guests.

You be the chancellor: play our budget game to see if you can balance the books

Richard Partington and Seán Clarke — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 08:04:59 GMT

See if you can do a better job than John Healey at creating a budget that keeps MPs and the bond markets onside

On 28 October, John Healey will announce the autumn budget to parliament. As in all years, the chancellor has to strike a balance between the following:

Raising the money needed to fund the services that voters demand.

Keeping taxes at levels that are acceptable to voters.

Persuading the government’s creditors in the bond markets that it will continue to be able to pay its debts.

‘Wrong’ type of credit card wrecked my Enterprise car hire pickup

Anna Tims — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 06:00:22 GMT

Not having the right kind when picking up a vehicle can leave travellers scrambling to find alternative transport

If your children are on half-term holiday soon and you are planning to collect a hire car, make sure you have the right kind of credit card. These cautionary tales show the costly consequences if yours does not pass muster.

I hired a car for a family holiday from Enterprise Rent-A-Car in France. The collection desk at Carcassonne airport refused to hand over the keys when I presented the Visa credit card used for the booking because it was issued by First Direct. It told me it did not accept cards from online banks.

BT charged me for more than a year despite landline being dead

Anna Tims — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 06:00:18 GMT

It is billing £32.99 a month but I have had no functioning phone line since it switched me to Digital Voice

I’ve had no landline since May 2025 when BT switched it to Digital Voice. Weeks passed, and each call to BT involved at least an hour waiting on hold and answering security questions before being passed between departments.

Eventually, last December, two engineers were sent and discovered that a wire had been severed during the upgrade. They said they needed a cherry picker to reconnect it to its original location and would return. They did not.

Father was asked for DNA test to get a passport for his daughter

Anna Tims — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 06:00:47 GMT

New post-Brexit rules mean that dual nationals cannot enter the UK unless they have a British passport

My teenage daughter is unable to see her grandparents because of the UK’s new requirement for dual nationals to hold a UK passport.

I’m a UK citizen, married to a French national, and we live in France. Our two older children have both French and UK passports. Our third child was born while we were living in Zimbabwe and only has a French passport.

Holiday cottage company insisted on a death certificate to amend our break

Anna Tims — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 06:00:49 GMT

Sykes Holiday Cottages showed no empathy and insisted on paperwork we didn’t have so soon after my husband’s death

We booked a break with Sykes Holiday Cottages for 11 of us to celebrate my mum’s 80th birthday last February. The cost was £2,400, paid for by my 87-year-old dad, but it was my husband who made the booking.

In January, my husband was diagnosed with aggressive lymphoma, and he died 10 days before the trip. My parents and some other members of the party still planned to take the holiday, and my dad informed Sykes of the death, since my husband was their point of contact.

£3,500 and no work done: the offer to help that’s really a roofing scam

Shane Hickey — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 06:00:51 GMT

Citizens Advice warns of its No 1 scam as growing number of people are targeted by criminals posing as roofers

The builder who calls at your door says they are doing some work in the area and has spotted a loose tile on your roof. They offer to fix it for a good price that you agree to.

But when they go up on their ladder to inspect the problem, they see another problem. Rain has been splashing out of the gutters and the wood around them is getting damaged. The only solution, the builder says, is to have rigid PVC trays installed to divert the water.

‘You have a meeting’: the calendar phishing scam growing exponentially

Hilary Osborne — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 06:00:18 GMT

Appointment or renewal reminder appears in victims’ calendar to lure them into logging in to fake Google, Microsoft or PayPal page

You’re preparing for the week ahead and take a look at your Google calendar. There’s an entry for a meeting that you must have completely forgotten. The note that pops up when you click on it says you’ll be reviewing a project and includes a link to more details. Confused, you follow it to find out more; the website you land on asks for logon details, and you provide them.

Unfortunately, this was not a failure of your memory but a calendar phishing scam. You have handed your name and password to fraudsters who will sell it on in a batch with other people’s details, use it to break into your work email, or to persuade you that they are contacting you from your bank, or another institution.

‘They call every week’: the phishing attacks targeting past victims

Shane Hickey — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 06:00:20 GMT

Scammers reuse personal details harvested from fake Esta websites – and texts and calls can keep arriving for months

When the British actor Lisa Riley was preparing to travel to the US last year, she applied online for an Esta so she would not need a visa. After finding the site through a Google search she filled in her passport, bank and personal details and waited for the confirmation, which normally takes just under an hour.

When it failed to arrive, she emailed an address from the site where she had paid and got back a message unlike any she had seen before, with a link to a website that displayed a jumble of words and letters.

‘Mum, where did my Robux go?’ The Roblox scam targeting children

Shane Hickey — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 06:00:56 GMT

Criminals are trying to glean login details to harvest players’ in-game currency and personal data

Your 10-year-old son has started playing Roblox, when he realises all of his in-game currency, Robux, is gone.

When you try to find out what happened, he says he was recently promised extra Robux if he followed a link on YouTube. When he signed on at the site link, he was taken to the Roblox site as usual but there was no sign of the extra currency.

Apple Watch Ultra 4 review: longer battery life but still awaiting new features

Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 06:00:01 GMT

Biggest Apple smartwatch gets better health tracking and new readiness tools with a battery and chip boost in preparation for controversial audio AI

As the Ultra enters its fourth year as Apple’s biggest and beefiest smartwatch it gets the best kind of spec upgrade – longer battery life – while waiting for something potentially more transformative.

That’s because several of the key features announced as part of Apple’s new smartwatch lineup for 2026 have yet to be enabled, awaiting updates towards the end of this year. That leaves the £749 (€899/$799/A$1,349) Apple Watch Ultra 4 the top dog, but basically the same as last year’s model.

Case size: 49 x 44mm

Case thickness: 12mm

Weight: 63g

Processor: S11

Storage: 64GB

Operating system: watchOS 27

Water resistance: 100 metres (10ATM)

Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.3, wifi 4, 5G RedCap/4G, UWB

Sensors: HR, ECG, spO2, temp, depth, dual-band GPS, compass, altimeter

The best Kindles in the UK for every bookworm and budget – tested

Andrew Williams — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 14:00:20 GMT

Whether you want a colour screen, somewhere to scribble notes or a child-friendly model, here’s what we recommend from Amazon’s e-reader range

• The best e-readers

From that fresh paperback smell to the wrinkles in the spine, nothing beats a real book. But if you’re sick of the space they take up in your home, or the weight they steal from your holiday luggage allowance, it might be worth considering an Amazon Kindle. It can fit thousands of weighty reads into as little as 158g, and as tech goes, it’s almost immune to the sort of pathological time-wasting features that come with modern phones and tablets.

Amazon Kindles have been available in the UK for more than 15 years, so they’re an old-school gadget at this point. But in 2024, the biggest update yet arrived: colour, which added an important extra option to the existing Kindle lineup, alongside readers for children, for note-taking and for tighter budgets.

Googlebook review: Google’s new laptops are woefully underbaked

Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 06:00:18 GMT

Great hardware let down by software flaws on these pricey machines that combine ChromeOS with Android

Google’s attempt to create a new type of laptop to compete with Windows and macOS machines is finally here, combining the best of ChromeOS and Android into the new Googlebook. With advanced links to Android phones and the best of Google built in, can these Googlebooks really compete with a MacBook Air or Surface Laptop? I took two for a spin to find out.

For years, Chromebooks have been the boss of budget laptops, but Googlebooks take a different, far more premium approach. Made by a range of traditional PC makers, including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP and Lenovo, they start at £999 (€1,099/$899/A$2,299) – a far cry from the £160 Chromebooks.

Apple AirPods 5 review: the best open-fit earbuds yet

Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 06:00:15 GMT

Upgraded, cheaper AirPods have noise cancelling, sound and controls to rival many plugged-in buds but without tips

Apple’s latest AirPods set a new standard for open-fit buds with upgraded noise cancelling that now rivals many plugged-in designs of the same price.

The AirPods 5 have the same design the popular AirPods 4 offering an option for those that do not like silicone ear tips used by most noise cancelling earbuds. They come in two versions, with or without a wireless charging case and swipe controls, costing from £119 (€149/$129/A$219) – £10 cheaper than the launch price of their predecessors.

Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.3, SBC, AAC, H2 chip

Battery life: four or five hours with ANC (22 hours with case)

Water resistance: IP57 (up to 1 metre for 30 minutes)

Earbud dimensions: 30.2 x 18.3 x 18.1mm

Earbud weight: 4.3g each

Charging case dimensions: 46.2 x 50.1 x 21.2mm

Charging case weight: 32.3g/34.7g

Case charging: USB-C or wireless (Qi or Watch)

‘Outrageously good’: the best (and worst) supermarket ready-made custard, tasted and rated

Tom Hunt — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 12:00:33 GMT

Which supermarket pots are ambrosial heaven and which are a gummy disaster?

• The best supermarket double cream

It was only when I sat down to taste 10 custards that I realised this was a dangerous test to judge on my own. I tried a range of ready-made offerings, from cans to cartons to tubs of fresh custard from the supermarket chiller section, some of which I found hard not to drink by the pint.

I analysed each custard for aroma, texture and taste, and awarded extra points for minimal processing and the use of free-range eggs; I deducted points for the inclusion of palm oil, modified maize starches and colourings, all of which are often used to replace the colour, fat and thickening ability of eggs. It was, however, the long-life cartons that most provoked nostalgic memories of bananas and custard as a child.

Homes with striking interiors for sale in England – in pictures

Anna White — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 06:00:52 GMT

From a brick stable block renovated into an eco home to a Georgian townhouse painted in atmospheric shades of grey

New-build homes for first-time buyers in England – in pictures

Anna White — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 06:00:41 GMT

From a flat in a new urban village in London to a family-sized home in a rural village in Norfolk

Homes for sale in landmark towers in England and Scotland – in pictures

Anna White — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 06:00:12 GMT

From a neo-baronial country house with turrets in acres of grounds in Scotland to a modernist tower block in a bustling part of London

Homes for sale in foraging hotspots in England, Scotland and Wales – in pictures

Anna White — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 06:00:42 GMT

From a thatched cottage with a green-topped sweeping extension to a lodge-style home in a town that is heaven for foodies