In Britain, we are near the beginning of what feels like a long general election campaign, and so we are witnessing the electoral map shrink ever-more until there’s only one true political subject left: “hard-working families”.

Higher costs of living and housing wipe out disposable income, foreclose the possibility of owning a home, and force people who can to take on second jobs or freelance shifts.

It was back in 2005 that the BBC noted the ubiquity of the phrase “hard-working families” in New Labour rhetoric, and so it is no surprise that it has been revived in the current party’s tribute act to that era.

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Since going ahead, this incarnation of HS2 has been criticised by every reputable assessor, from Whitehall economists to the National Audit Office and the official , which last month formally labelled it “unachievable”.

Predecessors who lacked the guts to cancel or even control it, such as David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, have all lined up in its defence.

Keir Starmer and the Lib Dems are in favour, though to his credit, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones, has shown some scepticism.

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The fact that Hugh Grosvenor’s estate is held in a trust means that the lion’s share of his £9bn inheritance is likely to remain largely intact, thanks to a series of arrangements that it is fashionable to call “complicated”, which is accountant-speak for “not transparent”.

In order, then, to believe that Sunak’s family would ever have paid multiple millions in inheritance tax, we would have to believe them too naive or principled to use the loopholes with which the rest of their high-net-worth class are familiar.

There follows the obligatory discussion about why people would respond emotionally, to get rid of a tax they won’t have to pay, which brings in money from ranks they will never join, for the good of society they are living in: does this make them aspirational, as Sunak hopes?

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Every third-rate, idiotic idea he’d had while awake at five in the morning would be briefed to friendly hacks as potential government policy.

“I mean we’ve already canned the Leeds line, so let’s go the whole hog and cancel the leg from Birmingham to Manchester.

Lowering inflation wouldn’t give people more money: it would just mean prices went up more slowly.

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Nissan, which has 7,000 UK employees, will soon launch two new EVs in Europe – a successor to the “entry-level” Micra, and another vehicle, which will be built at its vast Sunderland plant as part of a £1bn project.

The increased competition from Chinese companiesin China and abroad also provided impetus for Nissan to complete a long-delayed deal to restructure its relationship with Renault earlier this year.

The troubled alliance between the global manufacturers had been a source of tension for decades, and risked collapse after the arrest in Japan of Carlos Ghosn, the former chair of both companies who had been pushing for a full potential merger, on charges of concealing income in 2018.

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Eight unions representing teachers and school workers, as well the body for governors, have written to Rishi Sunak demanding an extra £4.4bn annually to ensure buildings are safe for children in England.

While the lifespan of Raac was known for years, and the potential risks, the alert followed a series of sudden failures of Raac-built structures in recent months, which forced large numbers of headteachers and schools to make alternative arrangements.

“If these words are to become reality, we call on the government to invest at least an extra £4.4bn annually to upgrade school buildings at the upcoming autumn statement, bringing the total yearly spend to the £7bn your own officials have previously recommended.

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