Category Archives: UK news

London exhibition explores design based on needs of nature and animals

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Curator of Design Museum show says ‘human-centric’ approach to design needs overhaul amid climate crisis

Designers need to “fundamentally rethink our relationship with the natural world”, according to the curator of a new exhibition which argues the needs of nature and animals should be considered when creating homes, buildings and products.

Justin McGuirk, the curator of the upcoming More Than Human exhibition at the Design Museum in London, said our current “human-centric” approach to design needs to be radically overhauled as the world adapts to the climate crisis.

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VE Day 2025: Tower of London poppies to return to mark 80th anniversary

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Four days of events planned in Britain to commemorate eight decades since end of second world war in Europe

For the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day the Cenotaph will be draped in union flags and there will be a military procession and flypast as well as a new installation of about 30,000 ceramic poppies at the Tower of London, it has been announced.

Four days of commemorations will begin on the bank holiday Monday of 5 May in tribute to the millions of people across the UK and Commonwealth who served in the second world war.

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Boy, 16, dies after being shot in south London

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Metropolitan police officers working to identify teenager and contact next of kin after killing in Stockwell

A 16-year-old boy has died after being shot in south London on Tuesday afternoon, the Metropolitan police have said.

Police were called at 3.21pm to reports of a shooting on Paradise Road near Stockwell tube station. Paramedics from the London ambulance service and the air ambulance travelled to the scene but the boy was pronounced dead.

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Woman charged with murder of her two-year-old daughter in Hampshire

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Alice Mackey, 42, remanded in custody over death of Annabel Mackey, who was found in a pond in 2023

A 42-year-old woman has been charged with the murder of her two-year-old daughter who died after being found in a pond.

Police were sent to a report that Annabel Mackey had gone missing from her home in Kingsley near Bordon, Hampshire, on 10 September 2023.

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Starmer welcomes Zelenskyy’s offer to work with Trump on Ukraine peace deal – as it happened

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PM says any deal must be ‘lasting and secure’ following fiery Trump-Zelenskyy meeting last week and UK weekend summit. This live blog is closed

Lisa O’Carroll is the Guardian’s acting Ireland correspondent.

Michelle O’Neill, Northern Ireland’s first minister, has described a decision to build thousands of lightweight missiles for Ukraine in a Belfast factory as “incredulous”.

I find it really incredulous that at a time when public services are being cut left, right and centre.

At a time when we have endured 14 years of austerity ... I think at a time like that, rather than buying weapons of war, I would rather see the money invested in public services.

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Rachel Reeves vows to use defence spending to support UK’s ‘left behind’ industrial towns

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Chancellor says increased military spending should support ‘British jobs and British industries’

Rachel Reeves has said UK companies and jobs will be prioritised under the government’s plans for a significant increase in defence spending, with an aim to support “left behind” industrial towns and the economy at large.

Announced by Keir Starmer last week amid growing fears over Donald Trump’s commitment to European security, the government will increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 – worth an additional £6bn a year.

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British activist Jagtar Singh Johal acquitted in India terror trial

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Human rights campaigner still faces threat of death penalty if found guilty of further charges

Jagtar Singh Johal, the British human rights activist accused of terrorism has been acquitted on all charges in a case in Punjab, after a court rejected the allegations against him made by Indian authorities.

Johal has been held in detention for seven years awaiting judgment, but must remain in prison since he is facing eight essentially duplicate cases brought by India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) based on the same alleged confession.

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UK ban on zero-hours contracts ‘to include agency workers’

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Government to expand coverage of employment rights bill, according to report

Agency workers will reportedly be included in a ban on “exploitative” zero-hours contracts as part of changes to the UK government’s employment bill.

Under the new rules, employers will have to offer agency workers a contract that guarantees a minimum number of hours every week, the BBC reported.

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Leader of UK’s black police officers under investigation over tweet

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Exclusive: Andy George says misconduct inquiry over tweet about Chris Kaba case officer ‘stifles free speech’

The leader of Britain’s black and Asian police officers has been placed under investigation over a tweet.

Ch Insp Andy George, the president of the National Black Police Association, said the decision to place him under a misconduct investigation “sends a chilling message” and “stifles free speech”.

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Swab test could help UK women avoid invasive checks for womb cancer

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New method reported to cut number of false positives by 87% has been registered with regulator for approval

A new swab test could help hundreds of thousands of women a year in the UK who may have womb cancer avoid having an often painful invasive procedure to detect the disease.

About 800,000 women annually go to see a GP because they are suffering from abnormal bleeding from their uterus and then undergo uncomfortable and stressful investigations to identify the cause.

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Most school leaders in England, Wales and NI say pupils’ parents have abused them

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Parents banned from school sites after leaders spat at and trolled, poll finds

Four in five school leaders in England, Wales and Northern Ireland say they have suffered abuse from pupils’ parents in the past year, according to a poll that found they had been spat at, trolled on social media and even physically attacked.

The problem has become so serious that more than two out of five (42%) of those who took part in the survey said they had been forced to ban parents from the school site in the last year. Nearly a third (32%) have reported parents to the police and almost three-quarters (72%) have issued a warning letter or email.

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Bog standard? Study seeks most effective toilet training methods

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UCL team is inviting parents to share their experiences, as age at which children in west acquire the skill rises

Storybooks about potties, underpants featuring superheroes, rewards for doing a wee: toilet training is a rite of passage for any child. But with the average age of toilet training steadily creeping upwards, scientists are now hoping to crack the question of which methods are most effective.

A team at University College London is inviting people from across the world to share their experiences and techniques as part of the Big Toilet Project. The ultimate aim is to uncover evidence that could help parents toilet train children earlier and reduce the massive contribution that disposable nappies make to landfill waste.

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King Charles ‘determined to play part’ in diplomacy as he welcomes Trudeau

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Monarch keen to put his soft power to use amid Trump’s incendiary rhetoric on Canada and tension over Ukraine

King Charles is “very conscious” of his global responsibility and unique diplomatic role, and is determined to put that to use, a royal source said, after his meeting with the Canadian prime minister on Monday.

Charles met Justin Trudeau at his Sandringham estate in Norfolk, a day after he received the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

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Britain is back: did Ukraine crisis talks create a post-Brexit turning point?

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Keir Starmer won praise for taking the UK ‘back to the heart of Europe’ at the weekend, but will it be a long-term move?

Britain is back. That was the concise verdict of Eléonore Caroit, the vice-chair of the French national assembly’s foreign affairs committee. And the optics of Sunday’s crisis talks on Ukraine bore this out, with Keir Starmer at the very centre of the leaders’ joint photo.

“You are back on the scene, of the leadership in Europe,” Caroit told the BBC on Monday morning. James MacClearly, the Liberal Democrat MP who speaks for the party on Europe, was equally adamant, praising the prime minister for taking this chance “to bring us back to the heart of Europe where we belong”.

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Trump commitment to peace in Ukraine sincere, Starmer says, but minerals deal not enough to provide US security guarantee – live

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Prime minister says UK must strengthen relationship with US for security

As Jakub Krupa and Martin Belam report on our Europe live blog, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, is floating proposals for a month-long ceasefire in Ukraine covering air, sea and attacks on critical infrastructure.

In interviews this morning, Luke Pollard, the defence minister, played down reports that this is a plan that Britain is formally backing. Asked about French government claims to this effect, he replied:

No agreement has been made on what a truce looks like, and so I don’t recognise the precise part you mentioned there. But we are working together with France and our European allies to look at what is the path to how … we create a lasting and durable peace in Ukraine.

You wouldn’t expect me to get into the details of what that plan looks like, because at the moment, the only person that would benefit from those details being put in the public domain before any plan is agreed would be President Putin.

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UK rail passengers may lose patience as problems take years to fix, says minister

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Lord Hendy says important changes are happening but they follow ‘six years of torpor’

Passengers may lose patience with the government before it can make the changes needed to fix the railway, the rail minister, Lord Hendy, admitted, as he promised that action was coming after “years of torpor”.

The government is midway through a consultation on plans for a reformed, integrated Great British Railways (GBR), with legislation to enact it coming later in 2025, Hendy said.

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Channel migrant dinghy tragedy ‘entirely predictable’, inquiry hears

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The Cranston inquiry has begun hearing evidence into the biggest ever loss of life in a Channel migrant crossing

An inquiry into the biggest ever loss of life in a migrant dinghy in the Channel has heard that it was ‘entirely predictable’ that a catastrophic event involving mass casualties would occur.

On Monday the Cranston inquiry began hearing evidence into the drownings of at least 27 people on 24 November 2021 in the narrow stretch of water separating the UK from France.

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Tories compare Nigel Farage to Jeremy Corbyn over Ukraine war

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Reform leader accused of ‘equivocating over Russia’s illegal war’ after criticising Volodymyr Zelenskyy

The Conservatives have compared Nigel Farage to Jeremy Corbyn after the Reform UK leader said Volodymyr Zelenskyy had been “rude” to Donald Trump, as well as criticising the Ukrainian president for not wearing a suit to the Oval Office.

The Liberal Democrats accused Farage of parroting White House talking points after Farage denied that Elon Musk and Steve Bannon had given Nazi salutes, saying their gestures were “out to the side and not in front”.

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Oscar winner’s shoutout for London music venue Cafe Oto stuns owner

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The Brutalist composer Daniel Blumberg mentioned the experimental music space in his acceptance speech

The co-owner of a cafe in east London that doubles up as a venue for creative new music in the evenings said he was stunned that an Oscar winner mentioned it during his acceptance speech.

Hamish Dunbar, of Cafe Oto in Dalston, woke up on Monday to find the 150-capacity venue had received the shoutout at the Oscars from Daniel Blumberg, the composer of The Brutalist score.

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