Category Archives: UK news

Assisted dying debate should come after end-of-life care reform, says Burnham

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Introducing the legislation would be ‘very challenging’ until care system improved, PM says

Andy Burnham has said the assisted dying debate needs to wait until palliative care and social care are fixed, as he set out his path to resolving one of the most intractable problems in British politics.

The prime minister said he was not opposed to having the debate on assisted dying, but told reporters it would be “very challenging” to introduce the controversial legislation until the care system was in a better place.

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Boy, seven, dies after Essex coast incident that killed cousin and aunt

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Musa Ahmed was being treated in intensive care in London hospital after being pulled from West Mersea sea

A seven-year-old boy has died a week after an incident off the Essex coast in which his teenage cousin and her mother died as they tried to rescue him.

Musa Ahmed was being treated for life-threatening injuries after being pulled from the sea near West Mersea beach on 22 July.

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GSK heads to Cambridge with long-awaited positive vibes | Nils Pratley

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Pharmaceutical company’s move to new £400m research centre accompanied by encouraging news for shareholders

“A vote of confidence in British business,” trumpeted Andy Burnham, seizing the political gift of GSK splashing out £400m on a shiny new research and development centre in Cambridge.

For positive vibes, it definitely beats the early pharma news his predecessor as prime minister received. That was the painful tale of how AstraZeneca, frustrated by indecision in the Treasury, cancelled its intended £450m expansion of a vaccine plant in Speke in Liverpool.

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UK politics: Tories’ Philp rejects French claim that shots fired from naval boat near him were training exercise – as it happened

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Shadow minister says there was no warning and ‘it looked and sounded like deliberate intimidation’

It is not just the Russians firing on Brits in the English Channel; Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, has accused a French warship of firing “warning shots” near him while he was on a boat in the Channel monitoring small boat crossings.

In a post on social media, he says:

On the channel today monitoring illegal migrant crossings … as I was being interviewed by the BBC just now a French warship approached close and fired 17 live rounds behind us. There was no notice or training exercise in place. Felt like warning shots or attempted intimidation

On the crisis in prison places, this has been a long time coming. We did some things, as I said [see 10.11am], it wasn’t enough, and I’m sorry about that.

But I can’t fix the past, but what I can do is come up with solutions for now, and for tomorrow.

This was something which we were doing in government. We had plans to rent prison places, just like Sweden has done with Estonia, so that we didn’t have to just release these sorts of violent criminals early. We could have put them in other countries.

If everybody says ‘no prison near me’, we won’t get these [prison places] built, so this is something the public can help with … We cannot say ‘no’ to every potential site for a prison.

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‘A control freak’: murderer James Desborough convicted of two further killings

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Man already serving life for killing his cellmate while awaiting trial also murdered and dismembered his friends Claudio Aquilino and Daniel Coleman

On a spring day last year, James Desborough marched up to Cornwall’s county hall in Truro and began bombarding the offices with dozens of eggs stolen from a supermarket.

It was a drug- and drink-addled protest at his plight – homeless, jobless and generally angry at the world. He expected to be arrested and messaged a friend: “If I’m going to get nicked, might as well round the charges up.”

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Tory MP accuses French navy of firing ‘warning’ shots near him in Channel

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Chris Philp says shots were ‘deliberate intimidation’ while he filmed interview on small boats crisis but France says it was training exercise

When Chris Philp heard a volley of shots on the high seas and spun round to see a French gunship, he believed he was the victim of naval aggression – and updated his social media feed accordingly.

The reality appears to be more mundane: it was, the French authorities said, a routine Channel training exercise by officers who had no idea that the shadow home affairs spokesperson was present, or who he was in the first place.

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World-class Jodrell Bank is under threat and UK risks a physics brain drain

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Funding crisis could lead to an exodus that would be a blow for British science and national growth

On a chilly day in December 1945, Bernard Lovell, a physicist at the University of Manchester, struck out for the Cheshire countryside to study cosmic rays, the streams of high-energy particles that crisscross the universe. Peering at the signals from his army surplus radar, he made an unexpected discovery: radio reflections from the ionised trails of shooting stars.

The work marked the birth of radio astronomy at Jodrell Bank. A year later, engineers at the site mounted a radar on the base of a searchlight, providing sweeping access to speeding meteors. When Sputnik launched in 1957, they had just completed the Lovell telescope, the largest radio telescope in the world, the only one capable of tracking the Soviet satellite.

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Blow to NHS as Royal Mail raises prices for bulk users by a third

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Average 25% increase for letters such as marketing, bills and medical appointment notices from 5 October

Royal Mail will increase the price of its wholesale postal service by as much as a third, in a multimillion-pound blow to the NHS and other large organisations.

The postal company has warned customers who use its wholesale postal service for mail including marketing letters, household bills and medical appointment notices that it is raising prices by an average of 25% from 5 October.

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Cottage pie and glass of red, anyone? Britons shun salad despite heat in ‘reverse comfort eating’

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Nostalgic foods like toad-in-the-hole also in demand at Waitrose as people pivot towards familiarity amid climatic and political upheaval

Forget a crisp salad and glass of chilled rosé. Enervated Britons are seemingly more likely to crave a rich cottage pie and a robust red in heatwaves.

In a trend termed “reverse comfort eating”, Waitrose’s cottage pie sales have soared 110% in the last month and South African red wine is up 68% compared with the same period last year. The surprise spike in demand for winter comfort foods also includes retro chicken, bacon and leek pie (up 41%), chicken korma (up 67%) and chicken and ham gratin (68%).

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Train drivers in Great Britain consider strike action over lack of toilets

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Unions say basic needs still not being met a year after regulator told operators to improve facilities

Train drivers are considering strike action over a lack of toilets, with unions saying basic needs are still not addressed a year after the rail regulator told operators to provide more facilities and breaks.

Aslef said it was “putting the industry on notice”. The train drivers’ union added that companies had failed to deliver adequate toilets and reduce maximum driving times without a toilet break.

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‘I knew what he had done to those boys’: murderer to stay in jail after journalist’s fight for justice

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Gibraltar-based Ros Astengo inspired four men to report sexual assaults carried out by Allan Grimson in 1990s

Ros Astengo, a journalist based in Gibraltar who usually focuses on politics and social issues, had qualms when she began investigating the case of the suspected serial killer Allan Grimson as he neared release from prison after serving more than 20 years.

She worried that she might reopen the scars of survivors of Grimson – but also that she could be putting herself in the “crosshairs” of a dangerous man who had sexually assaulted and battered two young men to death in the late 1990s when he was a Royal Navy petty officer.

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‘You say genocide, I say war’: Boy George releases pro-Israel song, We Will Dance Again

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Culture Club singer sings ‘I stand with the Jews / I don’t feel brave, I just need to behave like a human’, in song defending Israel’s response to Hamas attack

Boy George has released a new song entitled We Will Dance Again, which voices support for Israel’s military action in Palestine.

Posted on X and Instagram with the Hebrew title עוד נרקוד alongside its English translation, the song features a pop-reggae backing. The opening lyrics are: “You say genocide, I say war / When you’re attacked, that’s what the army’s for / Does it get ugly? You bet it does / When I know you wanna kill every last one of us.”

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Home Office blocking evacuation of dozens of women and children from Gaza

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Refugee family reunions in limbo, despite Foreign Office saying it is ready get people out of war-torn territory

The Home Office is blocking the evacuation of dozens of women and children from Gaza, despite the Foreign Office saying it is ready to get people out of the war-torn region.

Last September, the Home Office announced it was suspending refugee family reunion applications and that new, more restrictive rules would be announced in the spring. So far there has been no announcement and the process remains suspended.

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DCC, one of FTSE 100’s biggest energy firms, agrees £5.75bn takeover

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KKR and Energy Capital Partners poised to buy firm despite misgivings from founder and biggest shareholders

One of the biggest energy businesses listed on the London Stock Exchange has agreed a controversial £5.7bn takeover by private equity, adding to the growing exodus of companies from the UK market.

The US private equity groups KKR and Energy Capital Partners are poised to buy DCC Energy after the company’s board recommended the offer despite misgivings from its founder and biggest shareholders.

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Burnham says there are ‘big decisions’ ahead on making council tax fairer – UK politics live

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Labour’s 2024 manifesto did not include any specific commitments on council tax but two models are being floated

James Cleverly, the shadow housing secretary, has accused Andy Burnham of planning “more ways to tax Middle England”. Responding to reports that Burnham wants to change council tax (see 10.03am), Cleverly said:

Andy Burnham and Labour are just looking for more ways to tax Middle England, and raise taxes on people’s homes.

Replacing council tax and stamp duty with a new house price tax would not be a tax cut for hardworking families – quite the reverse: people across England would end up paying more.

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PM urged to uphold climate pledges made as mayor and ban new North Sea oil drilling

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Experts who helped Burnham draw up Manchester carbon neutral pledge say backtracking would send wrong message amid wildfires and heatwaves

Leading climate scientists who created Greater Manchester’s carbon neutral by 2038 commitment are urging Andy Burnham to unequivocally reject new drilling in the North Sea.

In a letter to the prime minister they said he, as mayor of Greater Manchester, had unveiled one of the UK’s most ambitious local climate programmes that tackled housing, green growth and public transport.

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Burnham to meet Zelenskyy at UK naval base in show of ‘unwavering’ support

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Ukrainian president will be first overseas visitor for new British prime minister

Volodymyr Zelenskyy will become Andy Burnham’s first overseas visitor as prime minister, in a visit that Burnham said underlined Britain’s “unwavering” backing for Ukraine.

Less than two weeks after Keir Starmer travelled to Kyiv for the final foreign visit of his prime ministership, the Ukrainian president will on Monday join Burnham at a naval base where Ukrainian forces have been receiving training.

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Industry star David Jonsson to play Black Panther in Marvel sequel

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Director Ryan Coogler announces British actor in lead role alongside co-stars Letitia Wright and Winston Duke

The British actor David Jonsson has been unveiled as the new Black Panther by the film’s director, Ryan Coogler.

Jonsson, 32, known for roles in Industry, The Long Walk and Alien: Romulus, will play the son of Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa in the third Black Panther movie.

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England’s north-south life expectancy gap grows despite record longevity

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King’s Fund report finds men and women live, on average, for 80 years and nearly 84 years, but gains are in south

The north-south divide in life expectancy in England has grown over the past decade, with people in northern regions facing more illnesses such as heart disease and cancer, but also suicides and deaths related to alcohol and drug misuse.

Provisional figures show life expectancy reached an all-time high in 2025, with men and women in England living, on average, for 80 years and nearly 84 years respectively, but the gains were overwhelmingly in the south, the King’s Fund said.

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Water supply failure leaves Gatwick airport without working toilets

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Airport’s bars and restaurants also unable to serve drinks to passengers because of lack of running water

A water supply failure at Gatwick left passengers without access to working toilets or bars and restaurants.

Passengers posted online that they were unable to get hot drinks, wash their hands or fill up water bottles at the airport in Sussex.

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