Stephen Timms, social security and disability minister, says government is ‘fully supporting’ people who would always be unable to work
The Reform UK press conference is about to start. There is a live feed here.
Nigel Farage is going to announce that 29 councillors have defected to his party, according to the Guido Fawkes website.
Continue reading...Village joins continental network alongside nearby Knepp estate, as birds previously extinct in Britain flourish
The Saxons knew the West Sussex village of Storrington as Estorchestone, the “abode of the storks”.
But the graceful white birds disappeared from its skies more than 600 years ago, when they became extinct in Britain.
Continue reading...Outside St James’ Park and the Angel of the North, Magpies fans explain significance of Wembley victory
“After years and years of hurt, it was just glorious,” said 67-year-old Paul Wearmouth outside St James’ Park on the morning after the night before. “It was tremendous. I’ll be honest, I was crying. They were tears of jubilation.”
Wearmouth, a retired school caretaker, has been a fan of Newcastle United all his life and can tell you at length about how difficult a commitment that can be.
Continue reading...Ex-nurse says inquiry should be suspended until review of convictions has finished
Lucy Letby has called for the public inquiry into her crimes to be halted, arguing there is now “overwhelming and compelling” evidence undermining her baby murder convictions.
Lawyers for the former nurse took the extraordinary step of writing to Lady Justice Thirlwall on Monday to say that the inquiry – which is due to end on Wednesday – should be suspended immediately.
Continue reading...Charlie Bean says OBR forecasts are ‘flaky’ and cautions against trying to hit targets five years away
The former Bank of England deputy governor Charlie Bean has warned the chancellor against making kneejerk cuts in next week’s spring statement to try to hit fiscal targets that are five years away.
Rachel Reeves is preparing to slash spending, including on disability benefits, in response to weaker forecasts from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) – prompting a backlash from within her own party.
Continue reading...The Toxicator closed for about an hour on its first day after a burst pipe flooded the area nearby with sewage
A toxic waste-themed ride at Alton Towers had to be temporarily closed on its opening day – after a burst pipe flooded the nearby area with sewage.
Toxicator, the park’s newest ride, was shut for about an hour on Saturday after the area nearby was evacuated.
Continue reading...French president says France, UK and others could each deploy ‘a few thousand troops’ to key locations to show Ukraine ‘long-term support’
Emmanuel Macron has said France, the UK, and other nations providing security guarantees for Ukraine after any eventual ceasefire would not be aiming to deploy a “mass” of soldiers, but instead could send contingents of several thousand troops to key locations in Ukraine without needing Russia’s permission.
The French president told regional French newspapers, including Le Parisien and La Dépêche de Midi, that “several European countries, and indeed non-European ones” had “expressed their willingness” to join a possible deployment to Ukraine to secure a future peace agreement with Russia.
Continue reading...Peter Reynolds, who runs a business in Afghanistan, was held along with his wife last month and needs heart pills, says his daughter
The life of a 79-year-old British man imprisoned along with his wife by the Taliban is in serious danger, his family have warned.
Peter Reynolds and his wife, Barbie, 75, who run a training business in Afghanistan, were detained last month when they travelled to their home in Bamiyan province.
Continue reading...Some areas forecast to have warmer weather than Ibiza and Corfu on Thursday’s spring equinox
Parts of the UK are expected to be warmer than Ibiza and Corfu this week on the first official day of spring.
This Thursday marks the spring equinox and temperatures could reach 19C (66F) in the south of England. The Met Office meteorologist Becky Mitchell said that was 8C hotter than the average for the time of year.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Doctor Who writer says he feels ‘a wave of anger heading towards us’ and hostility in UK as well as US
Russell T Davies has said gay society is in the “greatest danger I have ever seen”, since the election of Donald Trump as US president in November.
Speaking to the Guardian at the Gaydio Pride awards in Manchester on Friday, the Doctor Who screenwriter said the rise in hostility was not limited to the US but “is here [in the UK] now”.
Continue reading...Adrian and Joanne Fenton hit with penalty after calling police when they found a boy hiding inside bike-rack cover
A couple who were fined £1,500 after reporting a boy who had stowed away on the back of their motorhome for their journey from France to Essex have had the penalty cancelled.
Adrian and Joanne Fenton from Heybridge were fined by the Home Office for “failing to check that no clandestine entrant was concealed” when they returned to their home across the Channel.
Continue reading...Pair recently met to discuss Donald Trump, Elon Musk and other political matters, Sunday Times says
Nigel Farage has reportedly met Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s adviser turned nemesis, after the Vote Leave founder suggested voters should back Reform UK at the local elections.
Cummings, who was once a sworn enemy of Farage during the EU referendum as he battled to keep control of the leave campaign, is reported to have met the Reform leader to discuss Whitehall changes, which allies said was the strongest sign yet that Farage was taking seriously the idea of becoming prime minister.
Continue reading...Health secretary says the scrapping of NHS England is ‘beginning, not end’ of bid to slash ‘bloated bureaucracy’
The health secretary has declared that scrapping NHS England is “the beginning, not the end” and has vowed to continue “slashing bloated bureaucracy”.
Wes Streeting suggested hundreds more quangos could be in the line of fire after the prime minister announced this week the end of the body overseeing the health service in England.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Streeting said: “The abolition of NHS England – the world’s largest quango – is the beginning, not the end.
“Patients and staff alike can see the inefficiency and waste in the health service. My team and I are going through budgets line by line, with a relentless focus on slashing bloated bureaucracy.”
NHS England has managed the health service since 2012, when it was established to cut down on political interference in the NHS – something Streeting described as an act of “backside-covering” to avoid blame for failures.
But on Thursday, Keir Starmer announced this would come to an end as he unexpectedly revealed the government would abolish NHS England in an effort to avoid “duplication”.
In his Sunday Telegraph article, Streeting suggested more was to come, saying the new NHS England chair, Penny Dash, had “identified hundreds of bodies cluttering the patient safety and regulatory landscape, leaving patients and staff alike lost in a labyrinth of paperwork and frustration”.
The move towards scrapping NHS England and other health-related quangos marks a change in direction for Streeting, who in January said he would not embark upon a reorganisation of the NHS.
He told the Health Service Journal he could spend “a hell of a lot of time” on reorganisation “and not make a single difference to the patient interest”, saying instead he would focus on trying to “eliminate waste and duplication”.
But in the Telegraph article, Streeting said he had heard former Conservative health ministers “bemoan” not abolishing NHS England, adding: “If we hadn’t acted this week, the transformational reform the NHS needs wouldn’t have been possible.”
The government expects scrapping NHS England will take two years and save “hundreds of millions of pounds” that can be spent on frontline services.
But during the week, Downing Street would not be drawn on how many people were facing redundancy as a result of the changes.
The Guardian reported on Friday that the jobs cull from the government’s radical restructuring of the NHS will be at least twice as big as previously thought.
The staff shakeout caused by NHS England’s abolition and unprecedented cost-cutting elsewhere will mean the number of lost posts will soar from the 10,000 expected to between 20,000 and 30,000.
Many thousands more people who work for the NHS’s 42 integrated care boards (ICBs) in England will see their roles axed, as well as the 10,000 working for NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) who have already been earmarked to go.
Sunday Times estimates the celebrity makeup artist, who founded her brand in 2013, has amassed £350m fortune
Charlotte Tilbury has topped a list of the top 30 richest beauty entrepreneurs in the UK.
The entries on the Sunday Times’s inaugural Beauty Rich List have built their wealth from a range of products and services including skincare, hair care, makeup, bath bombs and tanning shops.
Continue reading...One of those waiting for Labour’s announcement explains why he depends on personal independence payments
Adam Gabsi is unequivocal on the subject of his personal independence payment: “It really is an essential lifeline. I don’t feel that I would be able to function without it.”
Gabsi receives his Pip disability benefit for multiple sclerosis, with which he was diagnosed 18 years ago, when he was 21.
Continue reading...Controversial plans to cut personal independence payments (Pip) may be shelved after a tense cabinet meeting and backlash from Labour MPs
Ministers have left the door open to a humiliating U-turn on their highly contentious plans to cut benefits for disabled people, amid mounting uproar over the proposals across the Labour party.
Both Downing Street and the Department for Work and Pensions did not deny they were about to backtrack on plans to impose a real-terms cut to the personal independence payment (Pip) for disabled people, including those who cannot work, by cancelling an inflation-linked rise due to come into force next spring.
Continue reading...Michael Faraday’s illustrated notes that show how radical scientist began his theories at London’s Royal Institution to go online
He was a self-educated genius whose groundbreaking discoveries in the fields of physics and chemistry electrified the world of science and laid the foundations for Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity nearly a century later.
Now, the little-known notebooks of the Victorian scientist Michael Faraday have been unearthed from the archive of the Royal Institution and are to be digitised and made permanently accessible online for the first time.
Continue reading...London council’s policy of offering people homes far from the area led to England’s highest number of refusals
A Labour-run London council left more than 100 families homeless without support last year after they refused to be relocated outside the borough, the Observer can reveal.
Freedom of information data from about 80% of English councils shows that they ended their legal duties to 615 households who refused offers of housing outside the local authority area in 2024 – but this national total is heavily skewed.
Continue reading...Filipino national killed during collision between Vladimir Motin’s vessel and a US oil tanker in the North Sea
The captain of the Russian container ship that crashed into a US oil tanker in the North Sea, killing a crew member, has appeared in court.
Vladimir Motin of Primorsky, St Petersburg, in Russia was charged with gross negligence manslaughter over the collision earlier this week.
Continue reading...With regular teaching hours unavailable, agency tutors must compete for lessons
The British Council has been accused of exploiting hundreds of agency teachers on zero-hour contracts forced to compete for lessons in a “feeding frenzy” every week.
An open letter from teaching staff reveals the prestigious government-funded public body does not offer regular hours to tutors on its popular English Online platform, which provides lessons to more than 45,000 students worldwide.
Continue reading...