Category Archives: UK news

Johnson dodges LBC radio host’s questions about his children

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PM refuses to comment when asked how involved he is in his children’s lives

Boris Johnson has refused to disclose how many children he has or whether he is involved in their lives, in an appearance on a radio phone-in show during which he was questioned over past comments about single mothers.

Answering listeners’ questions on LBC, Johnson was challenged by one caller about an article he wrote in 1995 in which he blamed single mothers for “producing a generation of ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate children.”

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Healthy coral sounds lure fish back to abandoned reefs, study finds

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With global heating damaging corals worldwide, experts find potential tool in ‘acoustic enrichment’ to recolonise reefs

Playing sounds of a healthy coral reef can attract fish back to reefs that have become degraded and abandoned, researchers have found.

Global heating together with factors such as pollution are causing widespread damage to coral and harming delicate reef ecosystems.

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EU risks splits over Brexit trade talks, says new council chief

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Charles Michel, who replaces Donald Tusk, says bloc has to work hard to keep unity

The EU is ready for the next phase of Brexit but risks greater internal divisions over trade talks with the UK, one of its incoming leaders has said.

In one of his first interviews since being nominated president of the European council, Charles Michel said Brexit may have played an important role in bringing the EU together.

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Gary Rhodes died of head injury, family confirms

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TV celebrity chef collapsed in his residence in Dubai after day of filming new programme

The TV chef Gary Rhodes died from bleeding between the skull and the brain, according to a statement from his family.

They said they wanted to end “painful speculation” about his death, after he died in Dubai on Tuesday.

The 59-year-old had been working on a new TV series and was reported to be in a happy mood when he came home from filming. He later collapsed and was rushed to hospital.

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Revealed: Tory candidates issued with attack manuals on how to smear rivals

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Party’s dossier contains dubious and outdated claims about Lib Dems and Labour

Conservative candidates in the general election have been issued with a detailed dossier on how to attack Labour and Liberal Democrat rivals which contains numerous rehashed and potentially misleading claims, the Guardian can reveal.

The documents accuse the Liberal Democrats of pushing “pro-pimp” policies and sex work as a career for schoolchildren.

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Grenfell cladding firm has spent £30m defending its role in disaster

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Arconic’s outlay on lawyers dwarfs amount spent on panels found to be main cause of fire spread

The Grenfell Tower cladding manufacturer has spent £30m on lawyers and advisers defending its role in the disaster in an outlay that dwarfs the amount spent on the panels a public inquiry has determined were the main cause of fire spread.

Arconic has been spending at a rate of up to £50,000 a day on lawyers and other advisers, according to corporate filings in the US seen by the Guardian. As well as the public inquiry, it is embroiled in a criminal investigation in the UK with detectives investigating possible corporate manslaughter and manslaughter cases, a civil suit in the US for wrongful death brought by survivors and a consumer protection inquiry in France, where the subsidiary that supplied the Grenfell panels is based.

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Clive James, writer, broadcaster and TV critic, dies aged 80

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James died at his home in Cambridge on Sunday almost 10 years after his first terminal diagnosis

Clive James, the broadcaster, poet and television critic, has died aged 80 after a long illness.

The Australian died at his home in Cambridge on Sunday, his agent confirmed. A private funeral attended by family and close friends took place in the chapel at Pembroke College, Cambridge, on Wednesday afternoon.

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Sir Jonathan Miller, writer and director, dies aged 85

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Theatre director also had career in medicine and was member of Beyond the Fringe

Sir Jonathan Miller, the writer, theatre and opera director, and member of the Beyond the Fringe comedy team, has died at the age of 85.

In a statement his family said Miller died “peacefully at home following a long battle with Alzheimer’s”.

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Bronze cockerel to be returned to Nigeria by Cambridge college

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Benin bronze statue at Jesus College to be repatriated after 1897 theft by British forces

A bronze cockerel taken by British colonial forces and donated to Jesus College Cambridge is to be returned to Nigeria in an unprecedented step that adds momentum to the growing repatriations movement.

The Okukor, described by the college as a “royal ancestral heirloom”, will be one of the first Benin bronzes to be returned to Nigeria by a major British institution since the punitive expedition in 1897 when thousands of bronzes were stolen from Benin City by British forces.

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Jeremy Corbyn reveals dossier ‘proving NHS up for sale’

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Labour leader says documents leave Boris Johnson’s denials on post-Brexit US trade deal ‘in tatters’

Labour has obtained official documents showing that the US is demanding that the NHS will be “on the table” in talks on a post-Brexit trade deal, Jeremy Corbyn has said.

The Labour leader said the uncensored papers gave the lie to Boris Johnson’s claims that the NHS would not be part of any trade talks, and revealed that the US wanted “total market access” after the UK leaves the EU.

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Revealed: how UK technology fuelled Turkey’s rise to global drone power

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UK-based manufacturer supplied crucial missile component to Turkish drone-maker during development stage

Turkey was able to circumvent a US export ban on killer drones with the help of a missile component first developed in the UK, allowing Ankara to become an emerging power in the lethal technology, which experts warn is dangerously proliferating.

The vital assistance from a factory in Brighton has helped Turkey on its way to become the second biggest user of armed drones in the world – one of a number of countries emulating methods first used by the US in its “war on terror”.

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‘My son has finally arrived’: first of Essex lorry bodies returned to Vietnam

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Sixteen of the 39 deceased flown to Hanoi, with the rest to be repatriated later, say officials and media

The first 16 bodies of 39 Vietnamese people found dead in the back of a refrigerated lorry in Britain have been repatriated to Vietnam, according to a local official and Vietnamese media.

“Sixteen bodies including five from Nghe An province have arrived in Vietnam,” said a senior official of the province. The bodies arrived at Noi Bai airport in Hanoi early on Wednesday, online newspaper VnExpress reported, and would be taken by ambulances to homes in Nghe An, Ha Tinh and Quang Binh provinces. The remaining bodies would be repatriated later, VnExpress said.

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Corbyn resists calls to apologise to British Jews after rabbi’s claims

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Labour leader denies antisemitism in the party has increased under his leadership

Jeremy Corbyn has insisted antisemitism in Labour has not risen under his leadership and resisted calls to apologise to Britain’s Jews, after the country’s chief rabbi claimed he had let poison take root in the party.

In an interview with the BBC’s Andrew Neil, the Labour leader declined four opportunities to apologise for the party’s approach to dealing with antisemitism, which has led a string of Labour MPs to resign and the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to launch an investigation.

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Antisemitism is vile, says Corbyn after rabbi’s criticism

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Labour leader says there is no place for antisemitism in party and it will not be tolerated

Jeremy Corbyn has reiterated his belief that there is no place in Labour for antisemitism and vowed it would not be tolerated following claims from the chief rabbi that he has allowed the Labour party to become poisoned with antisemitism.

Ephraim Mirvis on Tuesday accused the Labour leader of allowing a “poison sanctioned from the top” to take root in Labour, saying Jews were justifiably anxious about the prospect of the party forming the next government.

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£105m EuroMillions winner looking forward to ‘a good Christmas’

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Steve Thomson says priority is to buy house and that he will be ‘sensibly generous’ with cash

A builder who won a £105m EuroMillions jackpot has said “it’s going to be a good Christmas”, but added that he would not give up his job.

Steve Thomson said he felt like he was having a heart attack when he realised he had the winning numbers on his Lucky Dip ticket to claim the £105,100,701.90 prize.

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Man arrested in east London over Essex lorry deaths case

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Thirty-six-year-old arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to traffic people

A 36-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter following the deaths of 39 Vietnamese people in a lorry trailer found in Grays, Essex.

The man, from Purfleet in the same county, was arrested on Monday morning at a property in Dalston, east London, Essex police said. He was also arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to traffic people and conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration. He remains in custody for questioning.

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Spain’s far-right Vox blocks violence against women declaration

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Vox refusal to sign joint all-party statement outrages civil rights groups and embarrasses allies

Spain’s far-right Vox party has refused to sign an all-party declaration condemning violence against women, drawing outrage from civil rights groups and embarrassing its allies in the conservative People’s party.

Vox’s refusal to sign the declaration by Madrid city council on Monday meant that for the first time since a landmark 2004 law on gender violence, local authorities in the Spanish capital were unable to issue a joint all-party statement.

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UK calls for UN access to Chinese detention camps in Xinjiang

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Foreign Office responds after leaked China cables appear to confirm brainwashing centres

The UK has urged China to give United Nations observers “immediate and unfettered access” to detention camps in Xinjiang, where more than a million people from the Uighur community and other muslim minorities are being held without trial.

The call from the Foreign Office was in response to the China cables, a leak of classified documents from within the Communist party which appear to provide the first official confirmation that the camps were designed by Beijing as brainwashing internment centres.

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UK development bank accused of failure to safeguard Congolese workers

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British-backed plantation firm vows to address claims that underpaid palm oil workers have been exposed to toxic chemicals

The UK development bank has been accused of failing to protect workers from exposure to dangerous pesticides and paying “extreme poverty” wages on palm oil plantations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Human Rights Watch said the CDC group, along with three other European development banks, had failed to properly oversee its investments in Feronia, one of Africa’s largest palm oil companies.

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