What happened
The government will raise the planned inheritance tax relief threshold for farmers “following months of furious backlash” from rural communities, said The Independent. Plans for a 20% tax on inherited agricultural assets worth more than £1 million were announced last year, but this “tractor tax” threshold has now been “substantially raised” to £2.5 million.

Who said what
“The surprise about-turn comes in the wake of a growing rebellion from Labour MPs in rural constituencies, with dozens abstaining on a crunch vote earlier this month,” said The Telegraph.

Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds said the government had “listened closely to farmers” and the new threshold would “protect more ordinary family farms”.

While this will come as an “enormous relief” to thousands of farms, said Gavin Lane, president of the Country Land and Business Association, the announcement “only limits the damage – it doesn’t eradicate it entirely”.

What next?
The tax is set to come into force on 6 April 2026. The government stressed that lifting the threshold did not change the “core principle” that agricultural assets “should not receive unlimited relief”.

What happened
A British man has appeared in court accused of drugging and raping his then wife over a 13-year period. Five other men aged between 31 and 61 have also been charged with offences against her.

Philip Young (pictured, right, in the court sketch above), a former Conservative councillor, is charged with 56 sexual offences against Joanne Young, who has waived her legal right to anonymity, as well as “administering a substance with intent to stupefy his former spouse”, said the BBC.

Who said what
Wiltshire Police’s investigation has been “complex and extensive”, said the force’s Detective Superintendent Geoff Smith. Victims of sexual offences are “automatically entitled to lifelong anonymity” unless they explicitly choose to forgo it, said Sky News. But Smith said the victim had chosen to waive her right to anonymity “following multiple discussions with officers and support services”.

What next?
Young, 49, did not enter a plea when he appeared in court yesterday alongside the five other accused men. He has been remanded in custody until his next appearance at Swindon Crown Court on 23 January.

India’s “quick commerce” bubble may be about to burst, according to the CEO of Blinkit, an app that promises delivery of orders within 10 minutes.

Albinder Dhindsa’s company launched in 2013 as Grofers, but rebranded in 2021 as Blinkit, invoking the idea that service will happen “in the blink of an eye”. Acquired by the country’s food delivery giant Zomato in 2022, it’s now active in many cities across India, delivering “everything from eggs to iPhones” to a client base of millions. But, it has yet to turn a profit, hampered by “capital costs and supply chain complexity” as it pursues further expansion, including into rural areas, said Bloomberg.

“The pendulum has already swung once from scepticism to exuberance,” said Dhindsa. He believes his company will thrive but he expects a sector reset. “Whether the correction comes in three months or six months or next week, I do not know, but it will come.”

To achieve its speedy turnaround, Blinkit relies on a network of “dark stores” – retail spaces that act as dedicated hubs for fulfilling online orders, rather than in-person shopping. It forms part of India’s rapidly growing quick commerce sector, funded by investors attracted by the country’s “dense cities, lower cost of labour and ubiquitous digital payments”.

But there is a human cost, said The Independent. More than 150 Blinkit workers in the city of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, went on a two-day strike in April to protest “unsafe working conditions, falling earnings, and retaliatory ID suspensions”, when gig platforms deactivate workers’ accounts without due process or a means of redress.

This was a “flashpoint” but not the last in what is becoming a “growing struggle” between “speed-driven platforms” and the workers holding up a gig economy that’s forecast to employ over 23 million Indians by 2029.