|  | | Thursday, 30 October | | | Were officials right to give Hadush Kebatu £500 to speed up his deportation? | | | | The decision by officials to give Hadush Kebatu - the asylum seeker convicted of sexual assault and wrongly released earlier this month - £500 in cash as an incentive for him to leave the UK without disrupting his deportation flight has proved controversial, with Tory leader Kemi Badenoch calling it an “outrageous waste of taxpayers’ money”. | |
| | But Britons tend to feel the decision was preferable to his deportation being delayed and likely costing more, with 42% backing the officials’ path of action, relative to 23% who would rather he had received no cash directly, even if it had meant he spent longer in the UK. Another 20% would prefer that “something else” was done in relation to the case | |
| | Around half of Labour (51%), Lib Dem (50%) and Conservative (47%) voters believe it was preferable to give Kebatu £500 to ensure he was deported quickly, while Reform UK voters are nearly evenly split three ways over which course of action was right. | |
| | | | | | | | Keir Starmer yesterday declined to reiterate Labour’s manifesto commitments not to raise taxes at next month’s budget, with the Conservatives saying Labour was “too weak” to control spending instead. | |
| | But Britons tend to feel it is better for a government to do what they believe is the national interest at that time than to keep previous manifesto promises by a margin of 45% to 33%. | |
| | Labour voters themselves feel governing in the national interest is preferable to keeping pledges by 59% to 26%, while Conservatives are split 39% to 44% and Reform UK voters favour governments sticking to promises by 53% to 31%. | |
| | | | | | | | Last night’s episode of The Celebrity Traitors featured a major turning point in the series. If you’ve not seen the episode, we won’t spoil it for you. Several national newspapers, on the other hand, were happy to splash the twist across this morning’s frontpages. | |
| | Nearly half of Britons (48%) feel that it’s unacceptable for newspapers to reveal the outcome of episodes of popular TV shows on the front page the day after they air, compared to 32% feeling this is fair game. | |
| | Perhaps, though, this is newspapers getting their own back for TV channels revealing their frontpages the night before! | |
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