Category Archives: UK news

Vodafone terminates contracts of 12 franchisees who joined £120m lawsuit

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Telecoms group says it strongly refutes claim by 62 franchisees that it ‘unjustly enriched’ itself at their expense

Vodafone has terminated the contracts of 12 franchisees who have continued running the brand’s high street stores while also being part of a £120m high court claim against the telecoms group.

The legal case was launched in December, when 62 franchisees claimed Vodafone had “unjustly enriched” itself at the expense of scores of vulnerable small business owners by slashing commissions to franchisees operating the mobile phone company’s retail outlets.

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KGB defector turned to Britain only after US rejected him several times, book reveals

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Vasili Mitrokhin defected in 1992 after spending years copying top-secret documents on Soviet spies and operations

One of the most consequential Russian defectors in history was turned away several times by the US before he was eventually accepted by Britain and exfiltrated with his family from Russia, according to revelations in a new book.

Vasili Mitrokhin, a KGB archivist who spent years copying top-secret documents on some of the most sensitive Soviet spies and operations, was brought out of Russia in 1992 by MI6. His archive of copied documents was exfiltrated separately. But London got hold of his trove only after Mitrokhin gave up trying to get the US to take him seriously.

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Workers in UK need to embrace AI or risk being left behind, minister says

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Peter Kyle calls on employees and businesses to act now to get to grips with technology amid forecasts of job losses

Workers in the UK should turn their trepidation over AI into “exhilaration” by giving it a try or they risk being left behind by those who have, the technology secretary has said.

Peter Kyle called on employees and businesses to “act now” on getting to grips with the tech, with the generational gap in usage needing only two and a half hours of training to bridge.

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Pulp top UK charts for the first time since 1998 with new album More

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Sheffield band were last at the top with This Is Hardcore, while Sabrina Carpenter is at No 1 in the singles chart and breaks an album chart record

Pulp have topped the UK album chart for the first time since 1998, with the release of their new album More.

The Sheffield band, fronted by Jarvis Cocker, were last at the top with 1998’s This Is Hardcore, the follow-up to the similarly chart-topping Different Class in 1995.

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Two men jailed over theft of £4.75m gold toilet from Blenheim Palace

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James Sheen given four-year term and Michael Jones 27 months after theft of toilet during exhibition in Oxfordshire

Two men have been jailed for their roles in the “bold and brazen” theft of a £4.75m gold toilet from an art exhibition at Blenheim Palace.

James Sheen, 40, and Michael Jones, 39, were sentenced at Oxford crown court for their roles as part of a gang who planned and carried out the burglary at the Oxfordshire stately home, receiving a four-year prison sentence and a 27-month prison sentence respectively.

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Former Tory MP to face trial on general election gambling charges

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Craig Williams and 14 others appear in court over allegations of cheating by betting on 2024 election date

A former Conservative MP and 14 other people facing allegations of cheating by gambling on the date of last year’s general election are to go on trial.

Craig Williams, who was the MP for Montgomeryshire and a senior aide to the then prime minister, Rishi Sunak, appeared in the dock at Westminster magistrates court on Friday after charges were brought by the Gambling Commission.

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Credit Suisse was ‘warned’ about Greensill three years before firm collapsed

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Anonymous messages questioned judgment of senior managers in dealing with Greensill, says Swiss regulator

Bosses at Credit Suisse were warned against dealing with the Australian financier Lex Greensill’s eponymous company three years before the collapse of his Greensill Capital, which once employed the former UK prime minister David Cameron as an adviser.

The “character judgment” of senior Credit Suisse managers was challenged in anonymous messages they received as early as 2018, which raised concerns over the Swiss bank’s dealings with Greensill, according to a report by the Swiss regulator Finma, released under a London court order after a request by the Guardian and other media.

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Sickle cell patients to have quicker and more accessible treatment in England

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Government announces £9m funding to make specialist blood machines more widely available across NHS

People living with sickle cell disease in England are to benefit from quicker and more accessible treatment due to a £9m investment, the government has announced.

Apheresis services, which are a type of treatment that removes harmful components from a patient’s blood, are to improve across England through the funding of more specialist treatment centres. The funding will ensure the wider availability of machines that remove a patient’s sickled red blood cells and replace them with healthy donor cells.

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Michelle O’Neill accuses DUP minister of inflaming racial tensions on social media

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Gordon Lyons rejects calls to resign after posting information about leisure centre hours before it was set on fire

Northern Ireland’s first minister has accused a DUP politician of inflaming tensions after a leisure centre in Larne was set on fire.

Gordon Lyons, the communities minister, should “consider his position”, Michelle O’Neill said. Hours before the centre was set on fire by a mob of masked youths on Wednesday, Lyons had posted on social media that the building was being used to accommodate several people who had fled from Ballymena, about 20 miles (32km) away.

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Gibraltar agrees 15% sales tax on goods in post-Brexit settlement with Spain

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Transaction tax ‘acceptable’ to EU is part of deal to allow greater freedom of movement and link with customs union

Gibraltar will apply a 15% sales tax on goods to avoid unfair competition with Spain, as a result of the agreement on the post-Brexit future of the British overseas territory, it has emerged.

The territory has agreed to ensure a 15% minimum “transaction tax” on goods within three years of the ratification of the agreement, according to a senior European official.

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‘Panic and sadness’: British Gujaratis in Harrow gather to mourn Air India dead

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At community centre in north-west London, dozens share names of flight AI171 victims they knew, from relatives to dignitaries

In Harrow, north-west London, home to a large community of British Gujaratis, there was a sense of shock and profound sadness as people gathered at a community centre to mourn those who had been killed in the Air India flight.

Everyone’s phones had been buzzing all day on Thursday, said Aneka Shah-Levy, a local Labour councillor, as friends and family members across the world anxiously checked in on each other, and shared rumours and snippets of what information they knew.

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Ministers to offer olive branch on welfare plans to avert Labour rebellion

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Exclusive: Liz Kendall pledges sick and disabled people will be protected but MPs are pushing for more substantial changes to bill

Ministers are to offer mutinous Labour MPs an olive branch on the government’s welfare plans to help avert a major rebellion in a crucial vote early next month.

Liz Kendall, the welfare secretary, wants to reassure angry MPs who have threatened to rebel over fears that sick and disabled people will be hardest hit.

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BYD launches cheapest UK model in bid to overtake Tesla as biggest electric carmaker

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Dolphin Surf will start at £18,650 – among the cheapest new vehicles on sale in Britain

The Chinese manufacturer BYD has launched its cheapest model in the UK, in the latest stage of its efforts to overtake Tesla as the world’s biggest electric carmaker.

The Dolphin Surf will start at £18,650, a price that puts it among the cheapest new vehicles on sale in Britain.

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Stormzy takes first acting role as he launches film production company

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After music, publishing, sports and philanthropy, rapper expands into film-making with lead role in Big Man, a short film premiering on YouTube

After conquering the charts, Glastonbury’s Pyramid stage and launching his own publishing imprint, Stormzy is taking his first steps into the world of movies with starring in a short film about the travails of an ex-rapper.

Big Man will be made by the rap star’s own production company Merky Films in association with Apple, and feature Stormzy – in a sizable wig – as the lead character Tenzman, “a former rap star now navigating a restless and uncertain chapter of his life”.

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‘Dad strikes’ in London and Edinburgh demand better paternity leave

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Hundreds of fathers protest with children to call for two weeks’ statutory paternity leave to be increased

Hundreds of fathers took to the streets of London and Edinburgh on Wednesday to demand better paternity leave, in a protest that was billed as the world’s first dad strike.

They came with babies in papooses and pushchairs, as they brandished placards and dad jokes to call for an overhaul of the meanest paternity leave system in Europe.

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UK yet to commit to Nato plan for rise in defence spending to 3.5% of GDP

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Nato chief Mark Rutte wants members to agree to plan at summit this month but UK remains cautious

Britain has still not committed to an increase in defence spending to 3.5% of GDP by the mid-2030s at this month’s Nato summit in line with a proposal from the alliance’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, defence sources said.

Though Rutte visited Downing Street on Monday and expressed confidence afterwards that countries would sign up, senior insiders said Britain was dragging its heels.

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Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs ahead of government’s spending review – UK politics live

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Prime minister faces Conservative party leader as chancellor to reveal how government plans to spend almost £1.4tn in 2026-27

Green party MPs and activists staged a protest outside parliament today saying the government should use the spending review to announce a wealth tax. In a post on social media, Adrian Ramsay, the party’s co-leader, said:

We expect the Chancellor to take another axe to public spending today: decline by design from a govt that refuses to tax wealth to properly fund our overstretched public services & support the most vulnerable. We need to invest in a secure & fairer future. #TaxExtremeWealth

Senior SNP figures held a secret meeting on Monday night to discuss removing John Swinney as party leader, The Herald has learned, following last week’s defeat in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse byelection.

One of the 25 attendees said the first minister had two weeks to come up with a new strategy on independence — or risk facing a leadership challenge at the SNP conference in October.

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Two more Labour MPs suggest they could vote against assisted dying bill

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Andrew Gwynne and Paul Foster express concerns about safeguards as growing number of MPs change stance on bill

Two more Labour MPs have expressed significant doubts about the assisted dying bill, suggesting they would now oppose the legislation.

The former health minister Andrew Gwynne, who previously abstained, wrote to his constituents in Gorton and Denton to say: “To date I don’t think that the bill has been strengthened enough and that safeguards should go much further.”

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Competition watchdog to investigate Evri merger with DHL’s UK parcel arm

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CMA to decide whether deal will substantially lessen competition in delivery market

The UK’s competition watchdog has announced an investigation into the proposed merger of the delivery company Evri with DHL’s UK e-commerce business, a deal set to create one of the biggest parcel couriers in Britain.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said on Wednesday it was investigating Evri’s purchase of DHL eCommerce UK, as well as the parent company DHL Group’s acquisition of a minority stake in Evri.

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Reefs made from human ashes could revive British seabeds, says startup

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UK company offers alternative to land-based burials after success of memorials in Bali made from remains of pets

Death is killing our planet. That is the stark assessment of a new business offering an innovative alternative: having your loved one’s ashes made into a reef and anchored to the British seabed.

There are increasing concerns about the environmental cost of traditional funerals: a single burial generates 833kg of CO2, while a typical cremation has a footprint of about 400kg of CO2. In the US alone, 1.6m tonnes of concrete and 14,000 tonnes of steel is used each year for building graves. Chemicals from embalming processes seep into the soil.

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