Closing summary
Time for a recap.
Jeremy Hunt is to cut national insurance by 2p in his budget on Wednesday, the Guardian understands, in a move designed to offer voters a pre-election giveaway but which could mean steeper spending cuts after the election.
The UK chancellor is preparing to announce the second big cut to employment taxes in a year, after his decision to cut national insurance rates by 2p at last year’s autumn statement.
Wednesday’s move should save the average earner £450 a year, which combined with last year’s cut will add up to £900. However, the chancellor has been looking at further public spending cuts after the election as one way to pay for the tax reduction, despite economists’ warnings that such a move would cause public services to buckle.
Hunt and the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, have spent the last few weeks looking for ways to offer a tax cut on the scale of that announced last year as a way to boost the Conservatives’ flagging poll ratings in their last budget before an election.
The chancellor is also expected to freeze fuel duty, again.
In other news..
A swathe of major tech platforms are experiencing problems today, with Facebook and Instagram experiencing severe issues and Google hit by login problems.
Bitcoin has climbed to a new alltime high, trading over $69,000 for the first time, before slipping back.
UK car sales were their highest for any February in 20 years last month, driven by increased sales to businesses.
And there are hopes that the UK economy has ‘turned a corner’ and is exiting recession, after a pick-up in private sector growth last month.
But retail sales were soggy last month, as bad weather kept consumers away from the shops.
Here’s the rest of today’s news:
Tech platforms hit by outages
In the tech world, users are reporting problems accessing a range of services including Meta‘s Facebook, Messenger and Instagram platforms.
Technical problems are preventing users worldwide from accessing the social media platforms.
Users are also reporting problems accessing Google services, such as YouTube, and also flagging problems with Microsoft’s Teams….
⚡️ Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X, Google services and other major services have experienced a global crash - Downdetector data pic.twitter.com/84NhZEUkcI
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) March 5, 2024
Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Google, Google Play and Whatsapp appear to be down for thousands of users.
— Kevin Nimmock (@KevinNimmock) March 5, 2024
