Category Archives: UK news

‘Worse than the Tories’: cultural figures question Labour plans for arts in schools

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Government must scrap English baccalaureate to make arts more accessible to working-class children, critics say

Leading cultural figures have expressed doubts about the government’s commitment to restoring the creative arts in English schools, with one warning that Labour has “lost the plot” and “the current signs are they are worse than the Tories”.

When Labour won the election, it promised to expand opportunities for working-class children by broadening the school curriculum to include more drama, art, music and sport alongside the core academic subjects.

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‘We’re taking it seriously’: how police in Manchester cut burglaries by third

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Officers in Operation Castle attend every reported break-in and no longer treat such crimes as ‘low level’

When Sean Edwards found his car and his neighbours’ houses had been broken into in Longsight, Greater Manchester, in 2022, he was not expecting much from the police based on previous experiences.

“I expected them to dust for prints and take statements, then give us a crime reference number and nothing else happen,” he said.

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TV nostalgia continues with new gameshow based on musical chairs

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Game of Chairs will have 10 contestants move around a circle who try to land on a seat when the music stops

A new TV show based on the children’s party game musical chairs is set to hit screens, tapping into viewers’ cravings for nostalgia and happy childhood memories.

The company behind Big Brother, Masterchef and Peaky Blinders is launching the elimination gameshow Game of Chairs – a series in which 10 contestants move around a circle of nine coloured chairs and aim to land on a seat when the music stops.

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Young adults increasingly struggling offline turn to ASMR videos, report finds

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Visceral videos of people playing with slime or braiding hair soothe those who feel overwhelmed by in-person contact

Younger adults are increasingly overwhelmed by in-person interaction and soothing themselves instead with sensory online content, according to a report on the wildly popular online content known as ASMR.

ASMR – autonomous sensory meridian response – describes a particular sensory phenomenon that is triggered by specific sights or sounds, which usually begins with a tingling sensation across the scalp and results in feelings of deep calm and relaxation.

47% of those aged 25-34 said they felt overwhelmed in noisy or busy places such as shopping centres or train stations, compared with 35% of those aged 55-64.

39% of those aged 18-24 felt the need to shut out noise, for example using noise-cancelling headphones in public, compared with only 21% of those age 45-54.

Younger age groups were also more likely to prefer chatting to people online rather than face to face and to prefer to work alone rather than around other people.

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‘I hate my school’: why are more British teenagers plotting shooting attacks?

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Experts say young men and boys ‘with strong sense of grievance’ are ‘idolising’ shooters involved in US massacres. They are also falling through the gaps of UK terrorism laws

On the morning of 13 September, 18-year-old Nicholas Prosper was arrested while walking on a residential road in Luton. Minutes before, he had murdered his mother, younger brother and sister, shooting them dead in their family home.

Neighbours called police after hearing gunfire coming from the flat in Leabank tower, on Luton’s Marsh Farm estate, and officers found Prosper shortly afterwards on Bramingham Road. Later that day, searches of the area uncovered a loaded shotgun and more than 30 cartridges hidden in a nearby bush.

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Hopeful or ‘hate-fuelled’? Film of controversial play about Israel gets London premiere

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Director says Seven Jewish Children by Caryl Churchill, which provoked fury at its first production in 2009, is a ‘family story’ at heart

The premiere of Caryl Churchill’s short play Seven Jewish Children at the Royal Court theatre 16 years ago proved to be one of British theatre’s most controversial opening nights.

Audiences were immediately divided by the British playwright’s deliberately stripped-back treatment of Jewish generational fear and Israel’s history of conflict.

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UK and France will work on own Ukraine peace plan, says Keir Starmer

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PM says he and Macron have agreed to begin talks as Europe scrambles to respond to White House disaster

Britain and France will work on their own peace plan for Ukraine, Keir Starmer has said, as European leaders scrambled to respond to Friday’s disastrous White House meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The prime minister told the BBC on Sunday that he and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, had agreed to begin negotiations separate to those between the US and Russia, after a series of hurried phone calls on Saturday evening.

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Starmer hosts Zelenskyy for ‘meaningful and warm’ talks

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Ukraine leader embraced in No 10 and given £2.26bn defence loan one day after his White House dressing down

Keir Starmer has described his meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “meaningful and warm”, according to Downing Street.

The British prime minister met the Ukrainian president on Saturday evening, just 24 hours after Zelenskyy’s meeting with the US president, Donald Trump, and vice-president, JD Vance, in Washington.

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Labour must target deprived areas or lose out to Reform, says former minister

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Peer argues that national ‘trickledown’ approach will fail to benefit those in most need

Keir Starmer’s government must strictly target the delivery of its core “missions” at areas of maximum deprivation or lose huge numbers of votes to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, an independent commission led by a former Labour cabinet minister will suggest this week.

The Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods (ICON), chaired by Labour peer Hilary Armstrong, a former party chief whip and housing minister, will say the government risks “wasting billions of pounds in higher public spending while failing to transform the places that need it most” unless it adopts the targeted approach.

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Three teenage girls charged with manslaughter over death of man, 75, in London

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Fredi Reviro was attacked in Islington on Thursday night, and died in hospital the following day

Three teenage girls, aged 14, 16 and 17, have been charged with manslaughter after a 75-year-old man died in north London.

The Metropolitan police said the man, named as Fredi Reviro, was attacked on Seven Sisters Road in Islington at about 11.35pm on Thursday, and died in hospital the following day.

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Former Brookside actor sentenced to jail over sham modelling agencies

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Philip Foster lives in Spain and was sentenced in his absence after defrauding more than 6,000 people

A former TV soap actor has been sentenced to eight and a half years in prison after masterminding a £13.6m fraud that targeted aspiring models.

Former Brookside actor Philip Foster, 49, ran an operation involving a network of sham modelling agencies for more than eight years.

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After the Trump-Zelenskyy spat, Starmer may not have many cards left to play on Ukraine

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As he attempts to repair relations, the prime minister is being forced closer to a choice between the US and Europe

As Keir Starmer surveys the wreckage of the US-Ukrainian relationship caused by the Oval Office bar-room fight, the UK prime minister is clearly intent on trying to repair the diplomatic damage, but it may be that the mood of mutual antagonism not just in the US, but in Europe, is too great.

It is not as if Starmer, to use Trump’s blunt phraseology, has many cards left to play. He had already played them, and his hand was not strong enough to prevent the US-Ukraine breakdown.

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English academy chain to improve conditions for Jamaican teachers after strike threat

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Union leader describes chain’s record on overseas-trained teachers as ‘Harris Federation’s Windrush’

The National Education Union has claimed a “resounding improvement” in workload and conditions for teachers from Jamaica and other countries at a leading academy chain, as part of a deal ending threats of strike action.

The Harris Federation of schools confirmed it will improve conditions for qualified teachers from Jamaica and others trained overseas, as part of a deal that eases the route for overseas-trained teachers to gain similar qualifications in England.

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Tickled pink: rhubarb growers see explosion in demand for Yorkshire crop

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Despite wet weather hitting yields, supermarkets are reporting a doubling in rhubarb sales compared to last year

It takes a while for the eyes to adjust to the darkness inside the shed. Slowly, the shapes of hundreds of pale stalks emerge from the gloom like an alien species, visible only by the glow cast by a handful of candles.

This candlelit ritual is the harvest of Yorkshire forced rhubarb, being carried out by growers Robert and Paula Tomlinson.

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Extreme online violence may be linked to rise of ‘0 to 100’ killers, experts say

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Criminal justice specialists call for new approach to identify emerging type of murderer with no prior convictions

The rise of “0 to 100” killers who go from watching torture, mutilation and beheading videos in their bedrooms to committing murder suggests there could be a link between extreme violence online and in real life, experts have said.

Criminal justice experts advocated a new approach, inspired by counter-terrorism, to identify an emerging type of murderer with no prior convictions, after cases such as Nicholas Prosper, who killed his mother and siblings and planned a primary school massacre.

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Starmer may have weaponised the Windsors, but soft power is the royals’ great asset

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Just as in the Oval Office this week, history shows the royals can be deployed to serve British interests – whether they like it or not

As Donald Trump waved his personal invitation from King Charles III to pay a second historic state visit in the Oval Office, there was no disguising his delight before the TV cameras.

Keir Starmer had retrieved the letter from his jacket pocket and handed it to the US president with the dramatic flourish of Neville Chamberlain’s “I have in my hand a piece of paper” moment.

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Cash Isas: pressure grows against rumoured move to £4,000 allowance

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Research shows strong support for keeping tax-free accounts in their current form with £20,000 annual limit

A campaign to “save” cash Isas gathered pace this week, with research published showing strong support for the savings accounts.

However, data was also issued that investment firms said showed UK savers were “paying the price” for playing it safe because putting money into the stock market can generate much higher returns.

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‘Rather fraught’: how Starmer’s team laid groundwork for positive Trump talks

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President’s warmth towards PM was apparent – but will No 10’s strategy prove successful longer-term?

“We’re feeling good, we’re very well prepared,” one senior UK official declared on the eve of Keir Starmer’s highly anticipated first meeting with Donald Trump at the White House. The prime minister had just landed in Washington DC and been driven straight to a glitzy reception at the UK ambassador’s opulent Edwin Lutyens-designed residence.

Under the sparkling crystal chandeliers and among the grand marble columns, his euphoric host, Peter Mandelson, introduced Starmer to guests including the new FBI director, Kush Patel. The Republican senator Lindsey Graham and the New York-based editor Tina Brown were also present.

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