JAYNE FISHER on why the government’s latest amendments to the Crime & Policing Bill, which returns to the Commons on Tuesday, is a serious threat to our freedoms
LAST month, Welsh poverty and inequality think tank the Bevan Foundation noted that the value of social security benefits is now at its lowest levels in decades.
This, at a time when levels of in-work poverty and inflation are at their highest, is driving many into desperate circumstances if they aren’t already there. Amid high costs and low temperatures, these are the despairingly loose threads of support to which people are clinging.
The Welsh government has been among the myriad voices contributing to the conversation around uplifts to various forms of social security. In October, along with the Scottish government, it called for a £25 weekly uplift to all means-tested benefits, including legacy benefits.
Almost half of universities face deficits, merger mania is taking hold, and massive fee hikes that will lock out working-class students are on the horizon, write RUBEN BRETT, PAUL WHITEHOUSE and DAN GRACE



