The Scottish musician breaks health-related hiatus with gig in support of the suicide prevention charity Calm
Lewis Capaldi performed on stage for the first time in two years after making a surprise appearance at a charity gig in Edinburgh to raise funds for suicide prevention.
He appeared on Friday night at the concert – headlined by Tom Walker and Nina Nesbitt– at Edinburgh Assembly Halls, in aid of the charity Campaign Against Living Miserably (Calm).
Continue reading...Andrea Jenkyns says she wants a ‘lean, mean local government’ and says she is ‘up for a fight’ with unions
The Conservatives will come back from their poor results in the local elections but it will have to be a “slow and steady” effort, party leader Kemi Badenoch has said, PA reports.
She told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “I am sorry to all of those councillors who’ve lost their seat”.
Continue reading...Conservative leader’s remarks to BBC suggest she may develop policies that encourage women to have more children
People should be having more children rather than the UK relying on immigration to deal with an ageing population, Kemi Badenoch has suggested.
The Conservative leader said the UK needed to answer the question of how we “make sure we can deal with [an] ageing society, people not having enough children”.
Continue reading...Residents tell of their fear as raids carried out in London, Swindon and Greater Manchester amid rising concern about Iran-backed plots
An alleged terrorism plot was foiled by police after four Iranian men were arrested in armed raids amid growing concern about Tehran-backed plots in the UK.
Eight men, including seven Iranian nationals, were detained in two separate counter-terrorism operations across England on Saturday.
Continue reading...Cancer 360 will help collate patient information from spreadsheets, emails and records into single digital system
Millions of cancer patients have been promised faster diagnosis and treatment, with the rollout of a new technology across the NHS in England.
The tool, called Cancer 360, is designed to bring cancer patients’ data into one central system in order that doctors and nurses can prioritise those most in need and see them more quickly.
Continue reading...Three girls and 11 boys, all aged 11-14, arrested by Northumbria police on suspicion of manslaughter
Fourteen children aged between 11 and 14 have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter after the death of a boy following a fire in Gateshead, Northumbria police said on Saturday.
The children – 11 boys and three girls – were all under arrest and in custody, police said.
Anyone who has information that could help the investigation has been urged to contact Northumbria police by sending a direct message on social media or by using the “live chat” or “report” functions on the force’s website.
Continue reading...Actor joins four days of national events including concerts, church services and a military procession in London
Eighty years after Winston Churchill addressed the nation from Downing Street with the words “This is your victory!” a recitation of his famous VE Day speech will be broadcast as the nation commemorates the day the Allies formally accepted Germany’s surrender in 1945.
Events across four days of national UK commemorations include a military procession through central London on Monday, with tens of thousands expected to line the route from Parliament Square to Buckingham Palace, and a service at Westminster Abbey on the 8 May anniversary on Thursday.
Continue reading...Man detained on suspicion of attempted murder following two incidents about two miles apart
A driver has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after four people were injured in two separate collisions in Rochdale, police have said.
A woman was airlifted to hospital with potentially life-threatening injuries after she was hit by a car in Whitworth Road and three pedestrians, including a child, were injured in Woodgate Avenue, about two miles away.
Continue reading...Labour’s Luke Charters says allowing alcohol in the top five tiers of the men’s game would be the ‘modern approach’
A Labour MP has called for trials to assess the impact of lifting a decades-long ban on drinking alcohol in football stands.
York Outer MP Luke Charters said football needs to take a “modern approach” to the issue in a debate on the football governance bill earlier this week.
Continue reading...The Reform UK leader has somehow dodged responsibility for the economic damage of Brexit and is winning over disaffected Labour voters
There was a time when any election campaign featuring the name Nigel Farage would have featured the word “Brexit” just as prominently.
And yet, almost a decade after Farage orchestrated Britain’s great EU schism, and with the Reform leader emerging as a bigger political threat than ever, at this week’s local elections Brexit was not a word on the lips of voters.
Continue reading...Over five-year period Oksana Shahar – who cares for her son – was paid a small amount more than carer’s allowance earnings limits allow
It was three weeks after Christmas when the bombshell letter arrived. Guy Shahar and his wife, Oksana, looked at each other in stunned disbelief.
They had followed the Guardian’s investigation into the carer’s allowance scandal that has left thousands of families with crippling debts and criminal records. Not once did they think they would join them.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Ministers understood to be drafting white paper this month in move to reduce legal migration
Ministers will crack down on international students applying for asylum in the UK in a move designed to tackle migration figures, after a series of bruising losses to Reform in the local elections.
An immigration white paper setting out the proposed reforms in mid-May will include measures to bring down the numbers of UK student visa holders who make asylum claims, the Guardian understands.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Treasury threat an example of ‘scare tactics’ to help force through private sector deal, sources suggest
Whitehall officials have been at loggerheads over the fate of Thames Water since the Treasury told the environment department that it would have to meet the cost of a multibillion pound temporary nationalisation.
Britain’s biggest water company recently came within days of running out of money. Thames is in a desperate race to find a buyer willing to inject cash, with the US private equity firm KKR in pole position.
Continue reading...Soaad Al Shawa had been barred from spending final days with her family, who fled Damascus to settle in Glasgow
A Syrian grandmother who is dying of cancer has been given permission to come to the UK to spend her final days with the grandchildren she has never met, after a Home Office U-turn.
The government had wanted to bar Soaad Al Shawa, who has liver cancer and has been given just weeks to live by doctors, from travelling to spend her last days with her daughter Ola Al Hamwi, son-in-law Mostafa Amonajid and their three children aged seven, five and one. Al Shawa has only been able to communicate with her grandchildren on video calls.
Continue reading...Duke of Sussex’s team had argued he was ‘singled out’ for ‘inferior treatment’ when security was downgraded in 2020
The Duke of Sussex has lost a legal challenge over the level of taxpayer-funded security he is entitled to while in the UK, allowing the government to proceed with a “bespoke”, and cheaper, level of protection for his family.
Three senior judges at the court of appeal rejected Prince Harry’s claim that he had been “singled out” for “inferior treatment” and that his safety and life were “at stake” after a change in security arrangements that occurred when he stepped down as a working royal and moved abroad.
Continue reading...Labour-Conservative dominance challenged by Nigel Farage’s Trump-aligned party, which has control of at least six county councils
Britain’s anti-immigrant and Trump-aligned Reform UK party has made sweeping gains in English local elections, challenging the traditional political dominance of the country’s two main parties, Labour and the Conservatives.
Nigel Farage, the Reform leader, claimed his party had overtaken the Tories as the UK’s main opposition after Reform won control of at least six county councils, one mayoralty, and narrowly defeated the governing Labour party in a parliamentary byelection in what had been considered a safe seat.
Continue reading...Farage’s party has benefited this time as voters flee the main parties, but there are faultlines within its own coalition too
Fragmentation in British politics is not new. Disillusionment with the choices on offer is not new. The two-party share of the vote has been below 70% in four of the last six elections. Six months before the 2019 general election the Brexit party topped the EU election results with the Liberal Democrats in second. The 2024 general election had the lowest two-party share in the modern-party system.
What is driving this change? Political scientists talk about the demand and supply sides of electoral politics. The voters are the demand side, what types of parties and positions they want to vote for. They do not always get their wish. Who appears on the ballot paper is the supply side of the electoral equation. Increasingly, it is everyone.
Professor Paula Surridge is deputy director at UK in a Changing Europe and professor of political sociology at the University of Bristol
Continue reading...Slicker presentation, a shift away from two-party politics and now hundreds of new councillors mean Reform is likely here to stay
In May 2014, Nigel Farage stood in front of the television cameras and declared his party’s victory in the European elections was “about the most extraordinary result that has been seen in British politics for 100 years”.
A year later, the Conservatives won an unexpected majority at the general election, restricting Ukip to just a single seat, with Farage failing in his attempt to win South Thanet.
Continue reading...Liberal PM will also meet with US president on Tuesday amid tensions over threatened annexation and tariffs
King Charles has accepted an invitation to open Canada’s parliament on 27 May, in “an historic honour that matches the weight of our times”, the country’s prime minister, Mark Carney, said on Friday.
In his first news conference since an election dominated by Donald Trump’s threats to Canada’s sovereignty, the prime minister also confirmed he would meet the US president at the White House on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Creatures make up the bulk of seabirds’ diet but are fished for commercial pig food
A ban on fishing for sand eels in UK waters will remain in place despite a legal challenge from the EU.
The small, silvery eels make up the bulk of the diet of seabirds, but they are fished for commercial pig food. A lack of sand eels means seabirds such as puffins can starve to death.
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