Show Notes
Prime Minister Andy Burnham joked on TikTok that demand from people trying to find out their council tax band crashed the government website. They wanted to know because Chancellor John Healey announced in his budget that households in England in bands A to D will receive a £100 cash payment to help with energy bills. Wales and Scotland said they planned to replicate the measure. Those bands were based on a property's value in 1991 as the council tax replaced the controversial poll tax. More than 30 years on, despite calls to update property values in the bands, no government has chosen to do it. Niall talks to Sky's business correspondent Paul Kelso about why it's never been tackled and whether this is the best way to help people with their bills. Have you got a question for Niall? Email us: [email protected]
More from This Is Why
The World and This Is Why join forces for a special episode on Israel's election - a contest that could have significant consequences for the Middle East and the wider world. Niall Paterson is joined live from Israel by Yalda Hakim and Richard Engel, asking why pollsters seem to have got it so wrong, why this might be the world's first AI election, and why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after 19 years, looks like he might continue to be the most powerful man in the country. Have you got a question for Niall? Email [email protected] You can email questions to Richard and Yalda at [email protected] You can watch our podcasts on the Sky News app and on our YouTube channel here.
Aged eight, Harry Kane risked being written off when he was released by Arsenal. But Kane persisted, and he was taken on by Tottenham Hotspur's academy. He went on to become the club's all-time top scorer, but his goals didn't result in any trophies for Spurs. His move to Bayern Munich changed that, with the striker having won the Bundesliga twice since moving to Germany. Also, under his captaincy, England achieved their best result at a World Cup since 1966 this summer. Niall talks to Rob Harris, Sky's sports correspondent, about how Kane, aged 33, became the first English player to win football's top individual prize in 25 years. Have you got a question for Niall? Email us: [email protected]
People are surviving on plants, have no power and hardly any water in Oleshky, a Ukrainian city occupied by Russia since the first days of the 2022 full-scale invasion.
There's been a rush to buy Sally Rooney's books after she said she can no longer sell them in the UK. Rooney, known for best-selling novels Normal People and Conversations with Friends, said the decision was made with her publisher over her support for the banned group Palestine Action A month after the group was proscribed by the UK government as a terrorist organisation, Rooney said she would donate the earnings from her UK work to them. The Irish author, seen as one of the most important writers of her generation, has been backed by hundreds of writers and public figures who have signed an open letter to the government. Mhari Aurora speaks to Helen Brown, who writes about culture for the Telegraph, about what is behind Rooney's decision.
PHP. The three little letters few people realised were so vital for most of the websites in the world. But a vulnerability in a piece of programming virtually all of us had never heard of has affected everyone from small businesses to major governments. Millions of cyberattacks have followed in the wake of the problem being made public. But the fact is, your personal information – from email addresses to bank details – was already at risk. AI is increasingly both poacher and gamekeeper – discovering the vulnerability in the first place but also playing a vital role in cybersecurity. So, is it time to rethink our online lives? Gareth Barlow speaks to Sky’s technology correspondent Rowland Manthorpe. Have you got a question for the show? Email us: [email protected]