Did the government make it harder for graduates to pay off student loans?

Should the government consider implementing a graduate tax to make the tuition repayment system fairer? What did Jim Ratcliffe get wrong about immigration in the UK? And do we need to get serious about carbon capturing? Giles Whittell is joined by The Observer’s Andrew Butler, Ada Barumé and James Tapper as they battle it out to see who can pitch the story that should lead the news.Join us at the next The News Meeting Live on Thursday, the 26th of February: https://observer.co.uk/our-events/the-news-meeting-live-8 **We want to hear what you think! Email us at: [email protected] Follow us on Social Media: @ObserverUK on X @theobserveruk on Instagram and [email protected]‬ on bluesky Host: Giles Whittell Producer: Casey Magloire Executive Producer: Matt Russell and Jasper Corbett To find out more about The Observer:Subscribe to TheObserver+ on Apple Podcasts for early access and ad-free contentHead to our website observer.co.uk Download the Observer app – for a listening experience curated by our journalists Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode metadata supplied by the publisher feed · Published Feb 12, 2026

What this episode covers

Should the government consider implementing a graduate tax to make the tuition repayment system fairer? What did Jim Ratcliffe get wrong about immigration in the UK? And do we need to get serious about carbon capturing? Giles Whittell is joined by The Observer’s Andrew Butler, Ada Barumé and James Tapper as they battle it out to see who can pitch the story that should lead the news.Join us at the next The News Meeting Live on Thursday, the 26th of February: https://observer.co.uk/our-events/the-news-meeting-live-8 **We want to hear what you think! Email us at: [email protected] Follow us on Social Media: @ObserverUK on X @theobserveruk on Instagram and [email protected]‬ on bluesky Host: Giles Whittell Producer: Casey Magloire Executive Producer: Matt Russell and Jasper Corbett To find out more about The Observer:Subscribe to TheObserver+ on Apple Podcasts for early access and ad-free contentHead to our website observer.co.uk Download the Observer app – for a listening experience curated by our journalists Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

PodParley-generated summary based on available episode metadata and transcript content.