Category Archives: UK news

Heather Mills to reopen former crisp factory as vegan food plant

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Animal rights activist says she will create up to 500 jobs in County Durham

A former crisp factory in the north-east of England will be turned into Britain’s biggest vegan food producer, creating up to 500 jobs in the area, according to its owner, the former model Heather Mills.

VBites in County Durham will take over the former Walkers factory and turn protein from seaweed, peas and other plants into substitutes for beef, chicken, pork, salmon and tuna, according to Mills, who told the BBC the factory would be the biggest of its kind in the UK.

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Europe ‘coming apart before our eyes’, say 30 top intellectuals

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Group of historians and writers publish manifesto warning against rise of populism

Liberal values in Europe face a challenge “not seen since the 1930s”, leading intellectuals from 21 countries have said, as the UK lurches towards Brexit and nationalists look set to make sweeping gains in EU parliamentary elections.

The group of 30 writers, historians and Nobel laureates declared in a manifesto published in several newspapers, including the Guardian, that Europe as an idea was “coming apart before our eyes”.

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UK to attend US summit on Iran on condition of Yemen talks

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Jeremy Hunt is first senior European minister to agree to attend controversial meeting

The foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has agreed to attend a summit organised by the US in Warsaw originally billed as an alliance to confront Iranian aggression, but only on the condition that the US secretary of state hosts a meeting on Yemen on the summit’s margins.

Hunt is the first senior European minister to declare that he will attend the summit, which starts on 13 February. European diplomats have been reluctant to attend, suspecting that the event is part of a US drive to undermine Europe’s support for the Iran nuclear deal signed in 2015.

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Jeremy Corbyn ally dents Labour hopes of push for second referendum

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Ian Lavery says rerun could damage relationship between politicians and public

A senior ally of Jeremy Corbyn has said holding a second EU referendum could badly affect the relationship between politicians and the public, as a series of Labour backbenchers tabled new amendments seeking such an option.

Ian Lavery, a Labour MP who is also the party’s national campaigns coordinator, said that while the possibility of a second referendum should be maintained as a way to end an otherwise intractable Brexit impasse, he was worried about the consequences.

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Does the Home Office really think the migration crisis is a laughing matter? | Rod Austin

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In a giggle-strewn radio interview, MP Victoria Atkins struggled to explain Britain’s inaction over people arriving by boat

When is a crisis not a crisis? Perhaps when no one takes it seriously. The minister for crime, safeguarding and vulnerability, Victoria Atkins, fumbled for words in an interview when asked to explain the Home Office’s inability to tackle the rise in people using dinghies in an a bid to reach Britain from France.

The lack of clarity in Atkins’ response as to why border force boats were still in their respective ports three weeks after the crisis began was peppered with bouts of nervous laughter as she announced: “They are on their way!”

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Thai film-maker wins UK contemporary art prize Artes Mundi

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Apichatpong Weerasethakul to receive £40,000 for his political artwork Invisibility

The Palme d’Or winning film director and artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul has won one of the UK’s most important and lucrative contemporary art prizes.

On Thursday evening, Weerasethakul was named winner of the eighth edition of the Artes Mundi prize, a biennial competition rewarding political art from across the world. It comes with a prize of £40,000, the largest visual art prize in Britain.

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Emiliano Sala’s sister begs rescuers to restart search for missing footballer

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Romina Sala says she believes he is still alive after plane vanished over Channel Islands

The family of the footballer Emiliano Sala have pleaded for rescuers to continue searching for the player and a pilot after their light aircraft went missing over the Channel Islands.

Sala’s sister, Romina Sala, speaking after the search was called off, said she believed the Argentinian striker and the pilot Dave Ibbotson, from Lincolnshire, were still alive and in the Channel three days after their plane vanished.

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Philip Hammond urges business leaders to accept Brexit result

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Speaking in Davos, chancellor says changes such as end to free movement are on the way

Philip Hammond has told business leaders they need to accept the result of Britain’s EU referendum and warned that a failure to implement it would damage the country’s political stability.

The chancellor told increasingly restless business leaders that he was working for a deal that safeguarded the economy, and said he understood their frustration but companies had to accept that changes were coming – such as an end to the free movement of people and business models built on a supply of cheap labour.

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‘I’ve absolutely had enough’: Tory MP embarks on anti-austerity tour

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Heidi Allen joins former Labour MP Frank Field on mission to highlight the poverty caused by her party’s policies

Heidi Allen and Frank Field make an odd partnership at first glance. Allen, 44, the Conservative MP for one of Britain’s richest constituencies, and Field, 76, a Labour MP for 39 years until he resigned over antisemitism in the party, have bonded across the Commons over a shared outrage at poverty. Now they have embarked on a nationwide tour in search of the “other England” shaped by the austerity policies pioneered by Allen’s party. It is proving emotional.

Visits to the poorest corners of Newcastle, Glasgow, Morecambe and Cornwall beckon, but they have started in London and Leicester, where on Thursday they heard stories of an illiterate man sanctioned so often under universal credit that he lives on £5 a week; a man so poor he sold all but the clothes he was wearing; and someone being told to walk 44 miles to attend a job interview, despite having had a stroke, to save the state the cost of a £15 bus ticket.

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Alex Salmond charged with sexual assault and attempted rape

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Scotland’s former first minister says he is innocent as he is accused of 14 offences

Alex Salmond, the former first minister of Scotland, has been charged with multiple counts of sexual assault and two of attempted rape.

Salmond, who appeared at Edinburgh sheriff court for a private hearing on Thursday afternoon, was charged with 14 offences: nine charges of sexual assault, two of attempted rape, two of indecent assault and one of breach of the peace.

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No-deal Brexit ‘poses threat to global stability’ – CBI head

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Carolyn Fairbairn warns bosses at Davos that damage caused by disorderly exit could spread far beyond the UK

Fears are growing internationally that a no-deal Brexit poses a threat to the stability of the global economy, the head of Britain’s leading business body has warned.

Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general of the CBI, said the failure to sort out Britain’s departure from the European Union was damaging Britain’s brand abroad and had joined a list of systemic risks to the world economy.

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Man who killed woman in speedboat crash arrested in Georgia

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Jack Shepherd, convicted of killing Charlotte Brown, had been on the run for six months

A fugitive who was convicted of killing a woman in a speedboat crash on the Thames has been arrested in Georgia.

Jack Shepherd, 31, was sentenced in his absence to a six-year jail term for the manslaughter by gross negligence of 24-year-old Charlotte Brown. Police issued an arrest warrant after he failed to attend his trial at the Old Bailey in July.

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Michel Barnier says opposing no-deal Brexit will not stop it in March

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EU’s chief negotiator warns UK will crash out unless ‘positive majority’ of MPs agree on new vision

Michel Barnier has warned that the move led by Labour MP Yvette Cooper to block the prime minister from delivering a no-deal Brexit is doomed to fail unless a majority for an alternative agreement is found.

The EU’s chief negotiator, in a speech in Brussels, said the “default” for the UK was still crashing out if MPs could not coalesce around a new vision of its future outside the bloc.

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Davos 2019: Mental health in focus; Abe, Merkel and Qishan speak – live

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Rolling coverage of the second day of the World Economic Forum, as Shinzo Abe, Angela Merkel and Wang Qishan all speak, and Prince William discusses mental health

At the Sustainable Development panel, Bono says capitalism has lifted people out of poverty, but warns:

“It is a wild beast. If it is not tamed it can chew up a lot of people along the way.”

@Lagarde says to close the development gap and achieve the SDGs, we need growth first. Secondly, domestic revenue mobilisation needs to increase, and thirdly there can be no white elephants and no corruption, which put off investors. #wef19

Just in: UK chancellor Philip Hammond has dropped off a Davos panel scheduled for Friday morning, on the state of the global economy, we hear.

He’s no longer listed as a speaker for the “Global Economy in Transition: Shaping a New Architecture” session, alongside the World Bank’s Kristalina Georgieva, South African central bank governor Lesetja Kganyago, economics professor Mariana Mazzucato, IMF chief Christine Lagarde and Haruhiko Kuroda of the Bank of Japan.

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Emiliano Sala: search resumes for lost plane carrying Cardiff player

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Voicemail message revealed as police say chances of finding footballer alive are ‘slim’

The search for the plane carrying the Cardiff City footballer Emiliano Sala that went missing over the English Channel has resumed, amid only “slim” hopes he survived.

The aircraft, carrying Sala and the pilot, disappeared off Alderney in the Channel Islands on Monday night.

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Celebrity social media influencers pledge to change way they post

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Clampdown on stars being paid for endorsing products without disclosing firm rewards them

More than a dozen celebrities, including Alexa Chung and Ellie Goulding, have pledged to change the way they label social media posts after Britain’s competition watchdog clamped down on the practice of stars being paid for endorsing products without disclosing they were being rewarded by the company.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it had secured formal commitments from 16 celebrities to state clearly if they have been paid or received any gifts or loans of products which they endorse.

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MPs pass counter-terror bill amendments to protect aid workers

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Move follows calls to exempt people working in conflict zones from bill that would make it an offence to visit terror hotspots

MPs have passed amendments to the government’s latest counter-terrorism bill to try to protect British aid workers and journalists from facing criminal charges in conflict zones.

The controversial draft bill, aimed at tackling Isis fighters travelling abroad, allows the home secretary to declare somewhere a “designated area” and make it an offence for UK nationals and residents to be there. The bill orginally allowed individuals – including humanitarian workers, journalists and academics – to be investigated by the police and ultimately face 10 years in prison.

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Tory hardliners reconsider May deal amid fears that Brexit could be blocked

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Revised deal – including backstop concessions – could win support to see off ‘Europhile kamikaze MPs’

Tory Brexit supporters alarmed by the prospect of a delay have hinted they could be won over in the coming weeks – if Theresa May can produce a serious concession from Brussels on the Irish backstop.

The numbers may not be enough for May to win support for her deal, given continued opposition from a hardcore of Brexiters who also object to the £39bn financial settlement, those with personal grudges against the prime minister and Tory remainers hoping for a second referendum. However, some Brexiter MPs or those in seats which voted leave have suggested in recent days that there is a path to win their support.

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