as he claimed on a number of occasions that the number on payrolls was higher than before the pandemic. but that was because a lot of the self employed people gave up self employment during the pandemic or afterwards and became employees on payrolls instead. the letter from the director general having had no impact, the chair of the uk statistics authority, that then chair wrote to the prime minister on the 24th of february 2022. dear prime minister, he wrote. it is wrong to claim that there are no more people and work than before the pandemic began. the increase in the number of people who are on payrolls is more than offset by the reduction in the number of people who are self employed. so at the liaison committee in march, i asked the prime minister whether he accepted that correction in sir david s letter. his reply wasn t straightforward, but the transcript of that meeting does show that mr johnson understood fully and clearly what had happened in the labour market. he d
as he hailed what he called productive talks with his political rivals. this as the clock ticks towards a deadline to avoid missing a payment on the us government s loans. the government is set to hit its borrowing limit of $31.4 trillion next week, raising fears it could run out of money to pay its bills without a deal to increase the debt ceiling . joining me now is danni hewson, head of financial analysis at aj bell. do you think investors are happy to take president biden at his word that no matter how difficult these negotiations get, no matter how much they go down to the wire he will somehow ensure there is no default? i think investors are increasingly nervous as we get further down to the wire and we have seen markets lose about 2% this week as that clock counts down. at the moment i think investors do assume that politicians will not want to tank the us economy. there is some kind of agreement will be reached before it reaches a point of defaulting on debt becaus
trade-offs debate to come, and crucially the trade offs leaders here have to grapple trade offs leaders here have to grapple with. and also coming up on tonight s programme. the capitol hill riots in washington a far right leader gets 18 years in jail, the longest sentence yet. bakhmut in ukraine as it was before the current battle. ..and now we ve been looking at the images that tell a story of war. sancho. finished off by anthony martial. and manchester united secure a place in next season s champions league with a comfortable win over chelsea. and our newsnight at 1030, we will go deeper behind headlines and speak live to key players on today s big story. plus, a big look at tomorrow s front pages. good evening. the prime minister has said the government has not lost control of immigration after official figures released today showed levels hitting a new record high. in total, the number of people who arrived in the uk last year was 1.2 million. about 500,000 p