Category Archives: UK news

Salmond accused of trying to force official to re-enact painting kiss

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Civil servant says Scotland’s former first minister grabbed her wrists in attempt to re-enact Jack Vettriano work

A female civil servant has accused Alex Salmond of trying to force her to re-enact a painting of an older man kissing a “scantily clad” woman by the Scottish painter Jack Vettriano.

The senior official, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said Salmond repeatedly grasped her wrists and refused to let go as he pulled her towards him, after an evening meeting at Bute House, the first minister’s residence in Edinburgh.

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Airlines make dramatic cuts to services and call for state bailouts

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Aviation consultancy warns that international industry could collapse within months


Major airlines including British Airways, Ryanair, easyJet and Virgin Atlantic announced a dramatic scaling-back of their operations on Monday, including plans to cancel the majority of their flights and ground thousands of planes, with experts and industry executives calling for government bailouts to avoid bankruptcies.

The moves came as an aviation consultancy warned that the international airline industry will collapse within months, with the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, unless states worldwide inject billions of dollars of emergency funding to see it through the coronavirus “catastrophe”.

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Essex lorry deaths: fifth charged over deaths of 39 Vietnamese people

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Valentin Calota is accused of conspiring to smuggle non-EU nationals into the UK

A fifth person has been charged by police in connection with the investigation into the deaths of 39 Vietnamese people in a refrigerated lorry in Essex last year. Valentin Calota appeared at Basildon magistrates court on charges of facilitating illegal immigration between May 2018 and October 2019.

Ten teenagers were among the 39 people who were found dead in the lorry container on an industrial estate in Grays in Essex. The youngest of the dead were two 15-year-old boys.

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Iran’s ambassador to UK reveals bilateral talks over £400m debt

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Envoy says Britain is taking a new approach to the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe without acknowledging any link to the debt

The Iranian ambassador to the UK says the British government is taking a new approach to the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, adding bilateral talks were taking place over the payment of an outstanding £400m debt owed by the UK to Iran.

Hamid Baeidinejad said the two sides were looking at novel ways for the debt to be paid.

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Panic buying sweeps stores despite appeal for responsible shopping

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Empty shelves and complaints of inconsiderate stockpiling as public prepares for self-isolation amid coronavirus crisis

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Panic buying continued to sweep parts of the country over the weekend, with many shoppers buying many everyday essentials in excess as they prepared for periods of isolation during the coronavirus crisis.

Despite the highly unusual move of all major operators signing up to a letter urging customers to shop responsibly and ensure supplies are shared out fairly, some customers continued to stockpile.

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Coronavirus: more than 100 million Europeans on lockdown – video report

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More than 100 million Europeans are living under lockdown after Spain joined Italy in imposing a national quarantine to combat coronavirus, with a wave of further restrictions on travel coming into effect worldwide.

The World Health Organization announced that Europe was the new centre of the Covid-19 outbreak, with hundreds of thousands of cases. The UK is yet to impose the level of restrictions seen in the rest of Europe but the health secretary, Matt Hancock, has said new measures will be announced in the coming weeks

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UK ministers will no longer claim ‘no successful examples’ of Russian interference

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Change of official line is first admission that Kremlin may have distorted UK elections

Ministers have been told they can no longer say there have been “no successful examples” of Russian disinformation affecting UK elections, after the apparent hacking of an NHS dossier seized on by Labour during the last campaign.

The dropping of the old line is the first official admission of the impact of Kremlin efforts to distort Britain’s political processes, and comes after three years of the government’s refusal to engage publicly with the threat.

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Narnia to Wonderland: Oxford’s Story Museum brings kids’ books to life

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In a district once ranked bottom for reading, the revamped attraction aims to awaken children to the joy of storytelling

For fans of children’s literature, it is an unmissable sight: Philip Pullman’s own alethiometer, a detailed realisation of the magical symbol reader described in Northern Lights, gleaming with secrets – or possibly even particles of “Dust” – on display at the new Story Museum in Oxford.

An unforgettable peek at the mysterious compass-like device is just one of the unique literary experiences on offer when the children’s museum reopens next month, after a £6m redevelopment.

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Coronavirus latest updates: all arrivals in Australia must self-isolate for 14 days, says PM

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Trump tests negative while Spanish PM’s wife tests positive; France and Israel announce partial closure of country; scientists condemn UK ‘herd immunity’ strategy. Follow live news

The US city of Hoboken, across the Hudson River from New York City, has announced a night curfew starting 16 March and ordered bars and restaurants to conduct only delivery services amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

An Uzbek citizen has tested positive for coronavirus after returning from France, Uzbekistan’s Healthcare Ministry said on Sunday, marking the first infection from the virus in the Central Asian country of 34 million.

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Coronavirus latest updates: Trump gives briefing as Ohio and Illinois go into lockdown

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Number of UK deaths rises to 35 while other countries introduce stricter new measures

Here comes Donald Trump.

Speaking of which:

California governor Gavin Newsom announces that the state's bars, nightclubs, breweries and wineries be closed.

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US expands travel ban to UK and Ireland amid Coronavirus outbreak – video

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All travel between the United States and the UK and Ireland will be suspended from midnight EST on Monday. Vice-president Mike Pence announced the new measure at a coronavirus task force news briefing on Saturday.

A top medical official Anthony Fauci said the move could change the course of coronavirus's spread across the country, which he said 'has not yet reached its peak'.

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Brexit threatens UK’s ability to respond to a future pandemic

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The coronavirus should remind us of just why international cooperation is so important in reducing the threat of infectious disease
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Brexit threatens the UK’s ability to respond to the novel coronavirus and future pandemics

The coronavirus pandemic could not have come at a worse time for the UK and its citizens. Just as UK government ministers are digging in for the really difficult part of Brexit, the negotiations on future relationships with the EU and the rest of the world, a new virus comes out of China that reminds us of just why international co-operation is so important.

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We can’t be squeamish about death. We need to confront our worst fears

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Patients, their families and their doctors need to be open about the inevitable as the virus sweeps through our population
• Coronavirus – latest updates
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As the coronavirus spreads through the British population, there is one fact we can all agree on. Whether we like it or not, society’s greatest taboo – death and dying – has been thrust unequivocally centre stage.

How could it not, when government strategy is to allow the virus to infect huge swathes of the country in the hope of building sufficient “herd immunity” to protect from future harm? The virus has killed an estimated 3.4% of those it has infected, according to the World Health Organization, although this figure is expected to decline as the true number of people infected becomes apparent. Herd immunity, according to Downing Street’s chief scientific adviser, requires a minimum infection rate of 60% of the population. Thus we may face a potential early and unexpected death toll of hundreds of thousands of Britons.

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Met police concedes forcing woman to remove hijab at airport was wrong

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Critics say female Muslim travellers have been targeted. An out-of-court settlement suggests they are right

Police have admitted that forcing Muslim women to remove their headscarves at UK airports could be unlawful, a practice likened by one victim to being made “to remove her top”.

In an out-of-court settlement, the Metropolitan Police has conceded that when it coerced a woman to take off her hijab so officers could photograph her, it was a breach of her human rights and violated the woman’s right to religious observance.

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Varadkar and Foster discuss cross-border coronavirus approach

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Republic of Ireland’s caretaker taoiseach and Northern Ireland’s first minister meet in Armagh

Leo Varadkar and Arlene Foster are meet to discuss a cross-border approach to combatting coronavirus.

With mass gatherings including sporting events and concerts to be banned across the UK from next weekend, pressure was growing on Northern Irish leaders to close schools in line with the move south of the border.

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Fed bids to shore up confidence after worst week in 12 years

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Pledges of help from EU, China and Germany plus declaration of US emergency produce mild rally after torrid week

The world’s most powerful central bank, the US Federal Reserve, is preparing a fresh attempt to shore up investor confidence despite a late rally on Wall Street on Friday that ended a torrid week for stock markets on a more positive note.

Fresh pledges of help from China, Germany and the European commission combined with Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency over coronavirus to reassure investors after an ordeal for equities on both sides of the Atlantic that echoed the depths of the banking crisis.

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Queen forced to cancel engagements for first time because of Covid-19

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Cancellations of public events are radical departure for the monarch. Even Trooping the Colour is in doubt

The Queen has cancelled her public engagements due to a national crisis for the first time in her 68-year-reign.

Royal watchers said it was unprecedented for the Queen to call off her two public engagements later this month and to review future diary commitments. The move came as the government formally moved from the “contain” to the “delay” stage of the coronavirus “battle plan”.

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Herd immunity: will the UK’s coronavirus strategy work?

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Ministers look to have given up on containment in favour of a novel approach some experts are wary of

Herd immunity is a phrase normally used when large numbers of children have been vaccinated against a disease like measles, reducing the chances that others will get it. As a tactic in fighting a pandemic for which there is no vaccine, it is novel – and some say alarming.

It relies on people getting the disease – in this case Covid-19 – and becoming immune as a result. Generally it is thought that those who recover will be immune, at least for now, so they won’t get it twice.

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Local elections and London mayoral race postponed for a year

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Elections delayed after officials said coronavirus crisis would affect campaigning and voting

Local elections and the London mayoral election have been postponed for a year to deal with the coronavirus outbreak. The government made the decision to push back the 7 May elections after the Electoral Commission said the health crisis would have an impact on campaigning and voting.

“We will bring forward legislation to postpone local, mayoral and police and crime commissioner elections until May next year,” a government spokesman said.

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Emiliano Sala: pilot was not licensed to fly plane that crashed

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David Ibbotson had not completed night-flying training and was not allowed to be paid for carrying passengers, report finds

The pilot of the plane carrying the professional footballer Emiliano Sala was not licensed to fly the aircraft that plunged into the sea, killing both of them, an official report has concluded.

David Ibbotson had not completed night-flying training or recently practised instrument flying, a vital skill when piloting a plane on a dark night in poor weather, and the aircraft was travelling far faster than it should have been just before the accident.

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