This is wildly wrong: Britain’s “increasingly complex” tax system is costing businesses £15.4bn a year just to comply with, the public spending watchdog has warned.

Recently, Tim Worstall wrote for the Adam Smith Institute a short article titled ‘Privatise the NHS!’ He writes: ‘Our suggestion here would be that The Guardian undertake that difficult task of trying to employ that mythical beast - the journalist with a grasp of numbers.’

The Prime Minister has announced support for the building of several small modular reactors (SMRs) to boost the UK’s supply of nuclear energy.

What was striking was that it also split along another fissure: Collins’s possible motives. It was OK, some felt, to use a surrogate if you have infertility problems. But not in order to keep your figure, help your career, or because pregnancy is taxing and you are rich enough to outsource it.

Apparently people are building houses where houses are not sensible to build: More than 100,000 new homes will be built on the highest-risk flood zones in England in the next five years as part of the government’s push for 1.5m extra properties by the end of this parliament, Guardian analysis suggests.

Last week, the US Senate confirmed Scott Bessent as Donald Trump’s new Treasury Secretary. Trump — never one to resist a good tag line — was reportedly sold on Bessent after hearing about his economic strategy, dubbed “3-3-3”.

Here’s Polly Toynbee bemoaning Margaret Thatcher: The one that most upends her claims to a grocer’s daughter’s thrift is her squandering of North Sea oil proceeds that came onstream just as she arrived in No 10.

A study has found that most people are happier in the morning.

Using survey data from 49,218 adults between March 2020 and March 2022, the researchers found people generally woke up "feeling best" but were "feeling worst" by midnight.

Lord Mandelson has his agrément. Once he presents his credentials, his central objective will be to avoid new US tariffs. He will rely on US figures which show a surplus in their trade with us of $15bn, aiming off ours which show the reverse, a surplus in our favour of £67bn.

How dare they, eh? How very dare they! McDonald’s has thwarted attempts to stop it opening new outlets by stressing that it sells salad, promotes “healthier lifestyles” and sponsors local children’s football teams.

Possibly just a little oddity of how the world works out but it’s possible that cars in Britain are about to get significantly cheaper: