Category Archives: UK news

British man and his wife rescued from Philippine militants

Posted on by

Allan and Wilma Hyrons located in mountainous hinterlands of Sulu province, where they had been taken by an Islamic State-affiliated group

Philippine troops have rescued a British man and his Filipino wife who were abducted by gunmen at a southern beach resort last month and taken to the jungle hideouts of local militants allied with the Islamic State group.

Regional military commander Lt Gen Cirilito Sobejana said troops caught up with the Abu Sayyaf militant captors of Allan Hyrons and his wife, Wilma, in the mountainous hinterlands off Parang town in Sulu province and rescued the couple safely after a brief gunbattle.

Continue reading...

Prince Andrew to stand aside from all 230 of his patronages

Posted on by

Move follows BBC interview about association with sex offender Jeffery Epstein

Prince Andrew is to withdraw from scores of charities in a move that appeared designed to protect the monarchy from further humiliation over his association with Jeffrey Epstein.

Buckingham Palace confirmed on Sunday that the Duke of York was “standing back from all his patronages” but indicated he still hoped to return to a public role at some point by saying the move was only temporary.

Continue reading...

Police seize £10m of cocaine hidden in frozen fish cargo

Posted on by

Drug haul discovered in refrigerated van as it came off ferry at Newhaven, East Sussex

A driver has been charged after £10m worth of cocaine was found hidden in a load of frozen fish.

The haul was discovered in the back of a refrigerated van when the vehicle was searched as it came off a ferry at Newhaven port, in East Sussex, in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Continue reading...

Johnson tax pledge to ‘put money back in pockets’

Posted on by

At launch of manifesto, PM says he will not raise income tax, VAT or national insurance for five years

Boris Johnson will commit a Tory government to not raise income tax, VAT or national insurance for five years as he promises to “put more money back in people’s pockets” after Brexit.

Launching the Conservatives’ general election manifesto on Sunday, the prime minister will also pledge to protect the value of state pensions, boost spending by £1bn on childcare during school terms and holidays, and cut energy bills by up to £750 a year for those in social housing.

Continue reading...

Rescue of all 60 children of the ‘caliphate’ urged as winter nears

Posted on by
Relatives and councils offer sanctuary to get children home before winter closes in

Homes for all the 60 British children still stranded in north-east Syria have been found in the UK as councils and relatives of the minors step forward to offer sanctuary, sources have revealed.

So far, three British orphans have arrived home and are understood to have been made temporary wards of court, but will not be placed into care after UK relatives contacted the Foreign Office and said that they wanted to house them.

Continue reading...

Labour pledges £58bn for women caught in pension trap

Posted on by
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell says party ‘owes debt of honour’ to 3 million over changes in retirement age

More than 3 million women who believe they have been left thousands of pounds out of pocket after steep increases to the state pension age are being promised compensation by Labour as part of a £58bn scheme designed to end a “historic injustice”.

Related: ‘The Tories stole my state pension when I was 60, now I want it back’

Continue reading...

Prince Andrew and the royal crisis: How the Firm lost its grip

Posted on by
The Duke of York’s interview has exposed a leadership vacuum within the House of Windsor

Future historians may conclude that Prince Andrew’s defining achievement was to gift the nation a new verb.

Following a tumultuous week when his car-crash interview shook the House of Windsor so vigorously it seemed its palaces were in danger of losing their crenellations, the Duke of York now finds himself banished from duties. His fate is the 21st-century equivalent of that which befell the difficult minor royals of previous eras who were locked up in asylums, away from the public gaze.

Continue reading...

Met faces new questions over ‘trafficked’ teen in Epstein case

Posted on by
Victims’ tsar to query Force’s decision not to act over Prince Andrew claims

The Victims’ Commissioner is demanding that the Metropolitan Police explain its decision not to pursue a full investigation into claims a teenager was trafficked to the UK to have sex with Prince Andrew.

The Observer understands that Dame Vera Baird QC, a former solicitor general and chair of the Board of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, has taken a close interest in the allegations, first examined by Scotland Yard in 2015.

Continue reading...

Conservatives open up 19-point lead with 47% share of the vote

Posted on by
Latest Opinium/Observer poll shows Tories capitalising on retreat of Brexit party as manifesto is unveiled

The Conservatives have taken a commanding 19-point lead over Labour with less than three weeks to go before voters head to the polls, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer.

Related: Poll models fail to spot voting variation in similar seats

Continue reading...

Windrush victim forced to sleep in London bin shed

Posted on by

Roy Harrison, who came to Britain from Jamaica aged six, fighting deportation notice

A man caught in the Windrush scandal has resorted to sleeping in a freezing bin shed because the Home Office has not regularised his status and is trying to deport him.

Roy Harrison, 44, arrived in the UK as a six-year-old. He had been abandoned as a newborn in Jamaica by his mother and left on his grandmother’s doorstep.

Continue reading...

Driver fined £100 at BP for taking too long

Posted on by

Motorist filled up, popped into the attached M&S, used the car wash, then received a parking charge

First it was retail parks, then came station car parks. Now drivers who fill their car up at garages, or use the car wash are being hit with £100 demands from private parking companies for staying too long.

Both BP and Shell have been quietly signing up parking firms to install CCTV cameras at the entrances and exits to petrol stations, which are then used to enforce a maximum stay limit – which can be 30 minutes at a BP station and as little as 20 minutes at a Shell station. Fail to comply, and you’ll face £100 demands and the threat of debt collectors.

Continue reading...

Corbyn ‘neutral’ on Brexit as Johnson attacked on trust

Posted on by

Labour leader would negotiate new deal with EU, which would be put to a public vote alongside remain

Jeremy Corbyn would take a “neutral stance” in a future Brexit referendum, he has announced, after facing mounting pressure in recent days to pick a side.

Appearing in a special BBC Question Time programme, in which Boris Johnson was attacked over racism and Jo Swinson found herself on the back foot over Brexit, Corbyn confirmed for the first time he would not campaign either for leave or remain.

Continue reading...

Concern grows over ‘rough sex gone wrong’ defence in courts

Posted on by

UK lawyers and activists demand action as researchers find tenfold rise in usage

Senior lawyers and women’s organisations have condemned the increasing use of “rough sex gone wrong” as a courtroom defence to the murder of women and called for a change to the law in the UK.

In the wake of the conviction of British backpacker Grace Millane’s killer in New Zealand, researchers have revealed a tenfold rise over the past two decades in the number of times similar claims have been made in UK courts.

Continue reading...

No more orphans expected to be returned to UK from Syria

Posted on by

Home Office unhappy with Foreign Office for potentially opening door to more Isis returnees

No other British children are expected to be repatriated from Syria in the foreseeable future, despite the announcement from the foreign secretary on Thursday that a small number of orphans who had been caught up in the conflict with Islamic State had been brought home.

Home Office officials view the repatriation of the children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, as highly exceptional – and there is unhappiness with the Foreign Office for potentially opening the door to more Islamic State returnees.

Continue reading...

Prince Andrew’s private secretary steps down after Newsnight interview

Posted on by

Amanda Thirsk will run mentoring initiative, as Barclays becomes latest organisation to sever ties with the prince

Barclays has become the latest among a growing number of organisations to sever ties with Prince Andrew, as it emerged that the aide who orchestrated the beleaguered royal’s disastrous interview about his links to convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is no longer his private secretary.

Amanda Thirsk, who was said to have played a key role in persuading him to agree to the BBC interview, has reportedly moved on to run his business mentoring initiative, Pitch@Palace.

Continue reading...

Labour would return Chagos Islands, says Jeremy Corbyn

Posted on by

UK criticised for defying UN deadline to hand over control of Indian Ocean territory

Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to renounce British sovereignty of the remote Chagos Islands and respect a UN vote calling for the archipelago to be handed back to Mauritius.

In comments that appear to commit Labour to return the Indian Ocean islands, the party’s leader said on Friday he intended to “right one of the wrongs of history”.

Continue reading...

British hotels accused of ‘lack of effort’ on forced labour and sexual exploitation

Posted on by

Government urged to bolster anti-slavery legislation after damning review accuses firms of failure to protect workers

The British government has been urged to strengthen modern slavery legislation after hotels were accused of a “lack of effort” in preventing forced labour and sexual exploitation.

In a damning report published this week, human rights group Walk Free said three out of four hotels in the UK failed to comply with basic legal measures intended to protect workers from debt bondage and other forms of modern-day slavery.

Continue reading...

Grace Millane trial: New Zealand man found guilty of murdering British backpacker

Posted on by

A jury in Auckland has decided a 27-year-old, whose name has been suppressed, knowingly killed the British tourist

A jury in New Zealand has found a 27-year-old man guilty of murdering British backpacker Grace Millane.

Her parents David and Gillian, who had sat through the three-week trial in Auckland’s high court, sobbed at the verdict.

Continue reading...

Jeremy Corbyn urges public to vote for ‘manifesto of hope’

Posted on by

‘Investment blitz’ promised as experts taken aback by scale of Labour’s tax and spend plans

Jeremy Corbyn has urged the public to vote for his “manifesto of hope” as he unveiled plans for the most dramatic increase in tax and spending in more than half a century if Labour wins power next month’s general election.

In an upbeat launch event at Birmingham City University, the Labour leader said he welcomed the hostility of the billionaires, bad bosses and dodgy landlords who would lose out from his policies.

Continue reading...