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There are two questions about our welfare system that are going to become more pertinent as Labour’s forthcoming reforms unfold: what is the difference between a benefit and an entitlement? And how should politicians decide who should receive state support?
When it comes to childcare, parents crossing a £100,000 income threshold by just £1 can end up tens of thousands of pounds worse off because they lose their entitlement to free childcare hours at nursery.
This cliff edge means it is no longer only the poorest and most vulnerable people in society who are looking to the state for support, but people who earn good wages – and it has become a political problem.
The types of cancer with ‘concerning’ rise among under 50s
The number of people getting cancer before the age of 50 has risen, according to the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF).
While most cancers are still diagnosed in older adults, the charity said that the trajectory is “concerning”.
Increase in cancer rates
There have been increases in rates of , , , , , and cancers among adults under 50, the WCRF said.
It comes as figures from Cancer Research UK show that between the , in 25 to 49-year-olds in the UK .
Cancer trends
The WCRF analysis of NHS data in England compared the rates of diagnoses among people in 2001 and 2023, finding:
- Rise in number of prostate cancer diagnoses in men under 50, from 158 to 640 between 2001 and 2023.
- Bowel cancer cases among younger adults increased from 1,289 in 2001 to 2,989 in 2023.
- In 2023, 1,065 adults under 50 were diagnosed with kidney cancer, compared to 510 adults in 2001.
- Women aged under 50 diagnosed with womb cancer rose from 1.8 per 100,000 in 2001 to 3.9 per 100,000 in 2023.
- Meanwhile, women diagnosed with breast cancer in this age bracket rose from 6,886 in 2001 to 8,507 in 2023.
Expert opinion
“While is much more common in older people, it can strike at any age.”
NHS England national medical director Professor Frankie Swords urged people to see a GP for possible symptoms like a lump, unusual bleeding or unexplained weight loss. “Don’t put off a simple check-up because you think you’re too young, it could save your life,” she said.
Five theories about staggering rise of cancer in under-50s
By and large, the rising trend of young-onset cancers is a mystery, one which oncologists around the world are scrambling to try and understand. But when it comes to bowel cancer, at least, a handful of clues are starting to emerge.
Labour polling at 21-month high as Tories gain on Reform
Labour is polling at their highest rate since January 2025, according to a YouGov poll.
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New voting intention poll
The latest YouGov voting intention poll for and found Labour is taking a strong lead with voters, followed by Reform UK and the Conservatives.
What does the poll show
- 1Labour is experiencing a 21-month high at 27 per cent (+3)
- 2 is still second, but saw some losses at 22 per cent (-3)
- 3 gained on Reform, with 20 per cent (+1)
- 4 have seen small losses at 11 per cent (-1)
- 5 remain fifth, sitting at 11 per cent (no change)
Changes from the last poll
Another YouGov poll surveying 17,000 voters between 23 August and 18 September indicated a similar trend to this latest one.
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Asos hack fears after ‘compromised’ alert – what we know
Thousands of Asos customers have been sent a phone alert saying the retailer has been hacked.
Here’s everything we know so far…
What happened?
Phone alert
Thousands of customers received a mobile app notification on Tuesday.
The notification, titled “Asos hacked”, directed users to a Telegram account.
Shares drop
Asos shares plummeted by more than 10 per cent on Tuesday as a result.
What did the message say?
The message read: “Dear Asos DPO and IT, we have fully compromised the Snowflake instance. Engage with us, or we will leak it.”
DPO refers to the data protection officer, the role in a company responsible for customer information safeguarding.
Snowflake is an online data platform used by a wide array of companies, but it is not yet known whether Asos – which is yet to comment on the incident – is one of those.
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The notification
Latest hacking incident
Asos, which owns brands including Topshop and Miss Selfridge, has 17 million customers globally. The UK is its largest market, making up 49 per cent of revenues in the first half of the latest financial year.
Snowflake has been the reported subject of a number of data breaches in recent years, including an attack on Ticketmaster which saw customer details stolen. It comes after a raft of UK retailers were targeted by cyber attackers over the past two years, including Marks & Spencer and Harrods.
Brits pick greatest ‘driving anthems’ of all time
British motorists have voted to decide on the best driving anthem of all time.
Here are the results…
New research
Drivers vote
A new poll of 2,000 UK drivers, commissioned by Isuzu UK, has unveiled British motorists’ favourite driving anthem.
The tunes
Bruce Springsteen, Miley Cyrus and Bon Jovi were among the artists attributed with providing the best highway tracks. But did they come out on top?
Top five driving anthems
- 1Hotel California – The Eagles. The 70s hit saw 27 per cent of those surveyed name the 1977 classic rock song as the ultimate driving anthem.
- 2Born in the USA – Bruce Springsteen. The 1984 hit just missed top spot, with 24 per cent.
- 3. The 2023 hit from the American pop star came in third with 22 per cent.
- 4Boys of Summer – Don Henley. Another from 1984, the song placed fourth with 21 per cent.
- 5Livin’ on a Prayer – Bon Jovi. The 1986 power ballad took 18 per cent of the votes.
What else are drivers saying?
Meanwhile, 40 per cent of drivers polled admitted to singing along to tunes in the car around seven times a week, despite a third (33 per cent) admitting they have startled passengers with their “enthusiastic” vocals.
Three in 10 (31 per cent) agreed that certain songs bring back fond childhood memories of family holidays and day trips.
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Who was ex-MP and ‘master storyteller’ Jeffrey Archer?
The bestselling author and former politician has died at the age of 86.
But who was Jeffrey Archer?
Archer passes away ‘suddenly’
Jeffrey Archer, renowned novelist and former Conservative MP, died “suddenly and peacefully at home between writing sessions” on Monday, his publisher HarperCollins said in a statement.
Alongside his political career, Archer was a wildly successful novelist, during his five-decade career and being made a in 1992.
Early life
Archer was born an only child in Weston-super-Mare on 15 April, 1940. After completing his education at Wellington School in Somerset, Archer attended the University of Oxford in October 1963.
He went for a one-year course, a diploma in education, but ended up staying for three years, just as though he were a typical undergraduate.
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Political career
- Archer was first elected MP for the Lincolnshire constituency of Louth in 1969.
- In 1985, Margaret Thatcher appointed him deputy chairman of the Conservative Party.
- The same year, Archer also set up his own PR firm, Archer Enterprises, and in 1992 was created a life peer.
- At the turn of the century, he was the Tory candidate to be mayor of London; then scandal struck.
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Time in jail
- Archer’s political career was paused in 2001 when he was jailed for four years for perjury and perverting the course of justice.
- A jury found he lied in a libel action he had brought against newspaper, in which he was awarded £500,000 in damages.
- Archer was released early in 2003 and returned to the House of Lords until he retired in 2024.
Archer the novelist
- Archer wrote his first novel, Not A Penny More, Not A Penny Less, in 1974, after almost going bankrupt.
- An instant bestseller, it sparked a prolific career as an author which ultimately made him a millionaire.
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It has been one of the great privileges of my publishing life to have been Jeffrey Archer’s editor. He was the master storyteller and an editor’s dream – phenomenally hard-working, utterly committed to completing draft after draft to get every word as perfect as possible, and a true champion of the ‘team’ nature of great publishing
kate elton, harpercollins uk chief executive
Final act
Everybody would like to run their last 100 metres at the Olympics and win the gold medal, but there’s always a time. I think the clever thing in life is when to get out
Archer declared in an interview just last week that he “shall not be retiring”. His final novel, a Second World War-era historical fiction was published Tuesday, hours after his death was announced.
‘Irrepressible life force’ – Camilla
The Queen has joined those paying tribute to Lord Archer, from her position as founder of the Queen’s Reading Room charity which was supported by the author. “While he was not without flaw, his friends will recall him as an irrepressible life force through all the many differing chapters of his life,” Camilla said. “My sympathies go to [Archer’s wife] Mary and the family at this time of sorrow.”
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Badenoch pays tribute
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said she was “incredibly saddened” to hear of Archer’s passing. “He had sent me a lovely message just this morning and was always a great source of encouragement to me personally,” she added on Monday.
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UK POLITICS
Tories pledge ‘Britannia Shield’ – how would it work?
The Conservatives have pledged to invest £10bn in a British missile defence system which has drawn comparisons to Israel’s elaborate “Iron Dome”.
Here’s how it could work, and how much the experts think it might really cost.
What is the ‘Britannia Shield’?
Air defence system
The Tories have promised to build a new UK air defence system if voted into power.
How will it work?
The “Britannia Shield” would provide systems to detect and stop incoming threats using interceptor missiles.
British ‘Iron Dome’?
But Kemi Badenoch has pushed back on comparisons to Israel’s Iron Dome system.
We are not building the Iron Dome. We are doing what other European countries are doing: Greece, Benelux countries, Belgium, and the Netherlands and Germany. We are designing something specific for the kind of threat that we face here
conservative party leader kemi badenoch
How much will it cost?
The Conservatives have estimated the system will cost £10bn to set up, but previous estimates place the cost at £80bn.
The programme, the Tories say, would be funded through the party’s plans to increase defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP by 2030 by slashing Britain’s welfare bill.
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Current levels of protection
- The UK has some existing protection in the form of RAF Typhoons which could shoot down hostile drones, but the jets cannot track or intercept ballistic missiles.
- The Royal Navy’s Type 45 Destroyers, equipped with Sea Viper air defence systems, can intercept missiles, but must be in UK waters to be fully effective.
- Britain could rely on its Nato allies, to some extent, in the event of a strike by Russia, but military experts have long warned the country needs a full Iron Dome-style missile defence shield.
Expert opinion
“This is a well overdue commitment to fill the void in defending Britain as global security deteriorates”
Former Tory defence minister Tobias Ellwood said: “It’s only a matter of time before a military base or a corner of our critical national infrastructure is targeted and currently, we have no air defence.”
At the Conservative Party conference this week, Leader of the Opposition, Kemi Badenoch, vowed to scrap this contentious childcare cliff edge in the tax system and made benefits her big-ticket topic. She also hit back at Andy Burnham’s decision to end the state pension triple lock, and promised to clamp down on people “cheating” the benefits system.
Coming up in this week’s newsletter:
- Let’s look at why I think Badenoch is not only right about the childcare tax trap but is playing smart politics with it.
- Plus, detail on a new policy from the Department for Work and Pensions which will mean that homeless families are no longer forced to stop working to qualify for support (yes, that was really happening).
In theory the welfare state is, like the NHS, meant to be there for all of us – no matter what – when our hour of need comes. It is that philosophical basis of contribution that underwrites the consent we give to politicians to take our money via taxes. And more than that, the knowledge that if you pay into the taxation system you will get services out, incentivises people to work and contribute to society.
Last year, the Government expanded free childcare so that working families with children aged under three were able to claim 30 hours of government-funded childcare a week on top of the tax-free childcare scheme.
Britain has some of the most expensive childcare in Europe, with costs swallowing up more of parents’ wages than they do in Germany or France.
The average cost of full-time nursery (50 hours per week) for a child under two in England, or a child aged three or four years old has gone up despite the expansion of government support, according to the 2025 Childcare Survey by children’s charity Coram.
But if one parent’s adjusted net income tips over £100,000 a year, even by £1, the entire entitlement to this support is lost. Earning £100,000 presents a steep cliff edge because it is at this income that you also start to lose your personal tax allowance of £12,570.
Families who are not eligible for free hours pay the full price: an average of £188.75 a week for 25 hours part-time in a nursery, or £155.28 with a childminder. That figure has risen 4.6 per cent in a year, and it is now the highest it has ever been in the 25 years the survey has run, and equates to nearly £10,000 a year.
Without any funded entitlement, the same full-time 50-hour place costs £372.06 a week or nearly £20,000 a year.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has described this system as “absolutely insane”. It estimates that a parent with two children would need to earn £137,000 a year outside of London, or £149,000 in the capital, to be as well off in cash terms after childcare costs as they would have been if they earned £99,000 and had kept the entitlement to free hours.
Badenoch claims, because of this cliff edge, if you are a parent earning between £100,000 and £150,000 (or thereabouts), work simply doesn’t pay as much as it should.
Her critics have argued that people earning £100,000 or more are wealthy and do not need state support. It’s certainly true that some very rich people could benefit from removing the threshold entirely. However, a taper system could be much, much fairer.
Earning £100,000 puts you in the top 4-5 per cent of UK earners but, unless you have inherited family wealth, particularly in London and the South East, it doesn’t necessarily make you wealthy.
A household income of £100,000 or more is now necessary if you want to buy even an average-priced family-sized home, for instance.
According to Rightmove, the average house price in London is £652,242. With a £150,000 deposit, you’d still need a hefty household income to be able to borrow enough to buy a home at this value, let alone pay for a mortgage and childcare.
Someone with a Plan 2 student loan who earns this much could also face repayments on their tuition fee debt of more than £500 a month.
Indeed, because real wages were stagnant for a long time in the 2010s but have recently begun to rise in response to inflation, HMRC data shows about 2.06 million workers now earn over £100,000, up from roughly 1.2 million in 2021–22.
Many of them will be the younger, early-middle-aged workers who Labour needs to remain invested in both work and funding the welfare state in order to make the creation of a National Care Service and sustaining the state pension with a double lock possible.
Meanwhile, our birth rate is falling. This is going to be a problem in years to come. So, why not give younger parents a break? Why not encourage them to ascend at work and accept pay rises with a few years of free childcare even once their earnings pass £100,000?
The £100,000 threshold for childcare support was introduced in 2017 when the rollout of free childcare first began under the Tories, and it has never been increased. As “fiscal drag” carries more taxpayers over it, parents are finding that a small pay rise can leave them seriously worse off.
Indeed, I have had The i Paper readers contact me to tell me they are avoiding pay rises, dropping down from five days a week to four and upping their pension contributions to avoid ending up in this situation. That is no good for them, for the economy or, in the case of the women I’ve spoken to, for gender equality in the workplace.
Labour is the eponymous party of work, and this is one policy where Badenoch could back them into a corner, by suggesting that Labour is not as serious about supporting young people who are earning well but still struggling to pay for having a family as it is about helping those in the most desperate situations.
For our welfare state – and the taxation system that funds it – to survive, politicians have to speak to both groups and the system has to feel fair.
Having a child under four years old who needs to be in nursery is, by definition, a temporary situation. It can only last for a few years after they are born. Providing parents, particularly women, with childcare support during this period helps to keep them in the workforce and has a direct economic benefit.
Andy Burnham faces a very difficult Budget in a few weeks. All roads which will lead him and his Chancellor, John Healey, to meeting the government’s fiscal rules, are rocky and painful. They must tread carefully. The number of Britons who believe the state now taxes and spends too much has risen to 42 per cent, one of the highest levels the pollsters at YouGov have ever recorded.
Indeed, more polling from the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) contains a warning for the Government: younger people have moved broadly to the left, but are not keen on higher taxes.
The question of who should be entitled to benefits is going to define our politics in the coming months. Scrapping the triple lock to pay for better care for older people was bold, but Labour must not take younger higher-earning workers for granted.
Housing crisis watch
As I outlined in my first book , the way that the benefits system interacts with the reality of becoming homeless is often nothing short of dystopian.
In the book, I tell the story of Limarra, who, after becoming homeless because she couldn’t afford to pay a rise in rent on a flat let out by a private landlord in Peckham, was told by her local council that the best thing she could do was “stop working” in her job as a manager at Nando’s so that she would qualify for more housing support.
This week, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) are acting to sort this out.
More than 325,000 people living in supported housing and temporary accommodation will no longer be forced to face a drop in income if they increase their working hours, under new rules coming into force this week.
Under the old system, people like Limarra, who were living in supported housing (this is housing for people who have been homeless and have complex needs) or temporary accommodation, usually received help from the state with their day-to-day living costs through universal credit. But support for their rent was paid separately through housing benefit.
The problem arose because the two systems had different rules about how much someone could earn before their benefits started to be reduced, and for people receiving housing benefit, the allowances were less generous than for people whose support was provided entirely through universal credit.
So if someone, like Limarra, was working or wanted to work more, there was a risk that their housing benefit would be reduced quickly, leaving them worse off despite earning more. In some cases, the fear of losing support with housing costs acted as a disincentive to take on work or, as in the case I reported, meant people who had become homeless were actively discouraged from working. This created a cliff edge that trapped people on benefits rather than supporting them to stay in work or return to it.
This is good news for the thousands of people who become homeless through no fault of their own and then find themselves in impossible situations.
Vicky’s pick
- I have started watching season two of A24’s series, . It is a satire which skewers wealth and class set at an elite Californian country club, which, honestly, are the only ingredients you need for a completely perfect TV show.