Burnham hosts Ireland’s taoiseach as he bids for UK exemptions from EU’s ‘Made in Europe’ plan – UK politics live

It is the first time the PM has used No 10 North to host an overseas visit

Kemi Badenoch says the Conservative party has “instructed lawyers” to challenge government cuts to a Tory-run London council, which they say amounts to 40%.

These cuts are forcing Wandsworth to increase its council tax by 94%, the Tory leader says.

I think it is outrageous that Wandsworth council is having to put up council tax. But they’re not doing it because they want to.

It is because the government has taken away 40% of their funding. So we have actually instructed lawyers, as the Conservative party, to see if we can challenge the government on this decision.

I’m terrifically excited to be joining the young Palantir team who make the tools that public service workers need to transform how they serve the British people.

Whether that means reducing the time it takes to be diagnosed, treated and discharged from hospital, helping our military personnel keep us safe and secure, or enabling our police to crack crimes and root out corruption, Palantir software can transform the country’s public services.

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Retail sales bounce back in Great Britain amid brighter signs for economy

Latest data to defy economic gloom shows 0.5% rise boosted by purchases of sports items, aircon units and fans during heatwaves

Retail sales across Great Britain unexpectedly rose last month, the latest economic indicator to defy gloomy forecasts as the chancellor, John Healey, prepares to present next month’s budget.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the volume of goods sold rose 0.5% month on month in August, defying analyst expectations of a 0.2% fall.

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Twenty women had breasts removed unnecessarily during NHS cancer care

Patients among hundreds who suffered harm at County Durham and Darlington foundation trust’s breast unit

Twenty women had their breasts removed unnecessarily while being treated for cancer at an NHS trust in north-east England.

The County Durham and Darlington foundation trust (CDDFT) told the BBC that the women were among hundreds of patients who came to harm during treatment at its breast unit.

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‘Outright racist’ Daniel Thomas will face full force of law over any crimes, says home secretary

Shabana Mahmood says she wants to distinguish between far-right extremism and legitimate local concerns over asylum sites

Shabana Mahmood has described the anti-asylum activist Daniel Thomas as “a far-right and outright racist” who will feel “the full force of the law” if his organisation commits crimes near contested asylum sites such as Piddington.

In an interview with the Guardian, the home secretary also “wanted to reassure” concerned villagers that asylum seekers due to move in to a neighbouring former defence site would not put pressure on local resources because they would be given self-contained facilities.

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Khan addresses Polanski in Urdu at London assembly, mocking Green leader’s byelection video – UK politics live

It comes after the Green leader, who is standing as a candidate in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection, recorded a campaign video in Urdu

Andrew Griffith has delivered his speech, and he is now taking questions.

Q: You want the government to pause the making tax digital programme. Is that an admission that the last government got this wrong when it introduced it?

It is an admission that despite [good] intentions, the execution of that has left a lot to be desired.

In fact, coming to parliament from business, I can confess the law that we pass the most often is the law of unintended consequences. And I think making tax digital is a good example of that.

The truth is that Burnham and Miliband ignored the advice they were given – which was that if they were determined to sanction Israel, they should not do so before the Israeli election on 27 October.

It may not be surprising that this was the message from the Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, when Miliband called him on 11 August to warn sanctions were imminent. ‘He said postpone it until after the elections,’ a diplomatic source confirms. It was also the message the Israeli embassy in London – and its new chargé d’affaires Chris Cantor – was relaying to the Foreign Office. ‘Their message was clear: why do it now? Wait until after the elections, because something might change,’ a senior Labour figure says.

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As Charles refutes Earl Spencer’s claim about Diana, how royal statements give a glimpse behind palace doors

From ‘there were three of us in this marriage’ to ‘recollections may vary’, a lot can be conveyed with a carefully worded phrase

As denials go, King Charles’s response to Earl Spencer’s allegations that Charles said after Diana’s death, “We’ll forget her soon enough”, was a masterclass in the diplomatic royal rebuke.

Rarely has Buckingham Palace responded to claims in countless books on royalty. But it was straight out of the block on this one.

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Meta ordered to remove UK deepfakes as oversight board criticises ‘inadequate’ safeguards

Facebook told it was wrong in leaving up AI-generated videos of a Labour councillor and Muslim campaigner, amid calls to curb fakes

Meta’s “supreme court” has ordered the tech company to take down deepfake videos of a UK politician and a young Muslim woman from Facebook and do more to tackle AI-generated fake imagery.

A fake video showing a Labour party councillor in Scotland making inflammatory comments about refugees should not have been left up by Facebook, the board said. It also ruled that an AI-generated video of a Muslim campaign volunteer should have been removed after it falsely depicted her offering health advice while carrying out absurd exercises or eating junk food.

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Nicholas Brandram’s family deny he was ‘Putney pusher’ and say Met police pressure led to his death

Banker, 44, was arrested in connection with 2017 incident but family say ‘no credible evidence’ he was involved

The family of Nicholas Brandram have denied he was the so-called “Putney pusher” and said he “took his own life after months of immense pressure caused by a Metropolitan police investigation”.

Brandram, 44, was found unresponsive at a property in Chiswick, west London, believed to be his home, on Tuesday evening.

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Baby found wrapped in 1910 newspaper was killed with twine, UK inquest concludes

‘Terrible thing’ happened to infant boy found under the floorboards at a house in Bishop Auckland, says coroner

A baby boy who was found with twine looped and knotted round his neck and wrapped in a 116-year-old newspaper was unlawfully killed, a coroner has concluded.

Crispin Oliver on Thursday said the child, known only as Baby Auckland, had been garotted by an unknown person.

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Trump threatens to stop trading with EU over ‘laughable’ membership offer to Canada

US president responds as Mark Carney seeks to move closer to Europe and diversify defence ties

Donald Trump has threatened the EU with “serious tariffs” and a halt to trade after the bloc proposed making Canada its first ever associate member – an idea he derided as “laughable”.

The US president said that if the EU moved forward with the plan, Washington could impose “very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe”. He added: “If it’s a good intention, that’s fine. If it’s a bad intention, we’ll put very heavy tariffs on Europe.”

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English far-right extremist who discussed killing Jews, Muslims and migrants is jailed

Ivan Jennings, 46, sentenced to five years after pleading guilty to encouraging terrorism on social media

A rightwing extremist who discussed poisoning Jews and Muslims and called for the killing of migrants and minority communities has been jailed.

Ivan Jennings, 46, called for the murder of hundreds of people he labelled “subhumans”, saying it was “justified and actually needed”, in extreme far-right groups over a period of three months in 2024.

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Nato leader warns of ‘most dangerous and complex security environment in a generation’

Mark Rutte asks UK and Europe to ‘provide hard power Nato needs’ in face of geopolitical uncertainty

Nato needs “more UK and more Europe” to deal with the most dangerous security environment faced by the west in a generation, the secretary general of the 32-country military alliance said this afternoon on a visit to the UK.

Mark Rutte praised Britain for promising to increase defence spending in line with US demands after a meeting prime minister Andy Burnham – but argued that the military and financial effort must continue into the future.

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Prisoners to ‘double up’ in one-person prefab cells, leaked documents show

Exclusive: Ten category C prisons in England and Wales asked to add second beds, in breach of safe occupancy limits

The Prison Service has drawn up plans to “double up” hundreds of prisoners in temporary prefabricated cells built for one person, at the request of the Ministry of Justice, leaked documents show.

Amid an ongoing overcrowding crisis in England and Wales, governors of 10 category C prisons have been asked to sign off the installation of second beds in “rapid deployment cells [RDCs]”.

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Planning permission for new Scottish AI datacentres suspended for up to a year

MSPs vote for strict environmental impact assessments and will delay decisions until national strategy is developed

Holyrood has voted to pause planning applications for all new AI datacentres for up to a year until the Scottish government has developed a national strategy.

On Wednesday, MSPs backed a Scottish Labour motion to halt new schemes for up to 12 months while rules on hyperscale datacentres are developed in what could be a blow to the British government’s AI strategy.

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Airlines should pay for CO2 removal if Heathrow expands, say climate advisers

Climate Change Committee says government cannot expand airport without requiring aviation industry to clean up its emissions

Heathrow airport should be allowed to expand only if airlines pay for the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the government’s climate advisers have said.

Building a third runway and new terminals, as some in government want to do, would breach the UK’s carbon budgets and make reaching net zero by 2050 impossible, on current policies, according to the Climate Change Committee.

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About 1,500 Britons a day quitting their jobs to become unpaid carers

More than a million people have left work to look after loved ones in the past two years, Carers UK says

About 1,500 Britons a day are quitting their jobs to become unpaid carers, as they try to balance their vulnerable relatives’ growing care needs with declining access to state-funded social care services.

Research estimates that more than a million people have left the workplace to look after ageing, ill and disabled loved ones in the past two years, highlighting the social challenges caused by UK’s rapidly changing demographic profile.

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Thirlwall inquiry has left biggest questions around the Letby case unanswered

Decision not to pause proceedings means £18m report does not engage with concerns over former nurse’s conviction

Just two months before Lady Justice Kathryn Thirlwall opened her inquiry into events at the Countess of Chester hospital and the crimes of Lucy Letby, a report by Chris Henley KC was published into the “atrocious” wrongful conviction of Andrew Malkinson for rape.

Henley prefaced that report with a plea for the legal establishment to recognise that the criminal courts produce miscarriages of justice. Right up to top judges in the court of appeal, Henley wrote, the system has “a deep-seated … cultural reluctance” to accept it “will on occasion make mistakes” and that “entirely innocent defendants will sometimes be convicted”.

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Thirlwall inquiry has left biggest questions around the Letby case unanswered

Decision not to pause proceedings means £18m report does not engage with concerns over former nurse’s conviction

Just two months before Lady Justice Kathryn Thirlwall opened her inquiry into events at the Countess of Chester hospital and the crimes of Lucy Letby, a report by Chris Henley KC was published into the “atrocious” wrongful conviction of Andrew Malkinson for rape.

Henley prefaced that report with a plea for the legal establishment to recognise that the criminal courts produce miscarriages of justice. Right up to top judges in the court of appeal, Henley wrote, the system has “a deep-seated … cultural reluctance” to accept it “will on occasion make mistakes” and that “entirely innocent defendants will sometimes be convicted”.

Continue reading...

Thirlwall inquiry has left biggest questions around the Letby case unanswered

Decision not to pause proceedings means £18m report does not engage with concerns over former nurse’s conviction

Just two months before Lady Justice Kathryn Thirlwall opened her inquiry into events at the Countess of Chester hospital and the crimes of Lucy Letby, a report by Chris Henley KC was published into the “atrocious” wrongful conviction of Andrew Malkinson for rape.

Henley prefaced that report with a plea for the legal establishment to recognise that the criminal courts produce miscarriages of justice. Right up to top judges in the court of appeal, Henley wrote, the system has “a deep-seated … cultural reluctance” to accept it “will on occasion make mistakes” and that “entirely innocent defendants will sometimes be convicted”.

Continue reading...

Thirlwall inquiry has left biggest questions around the Letby case unanswered

Decision not to pause proceedings means £18m report does not engage with concerns over former nurse’s conviction

Just two months before Lady Justice Kathryn Thirlwall opened her inquiry into events at the Countess of Chester hospital and the crimes of Lucy Letby, a report by Chris Henley KC was published into the “atrocious” wrongful conviction of Andrew Malkinson for rape.

Henley prefaced that report with a plea for the legal establishment to recognise that the criminal courts produce miscarriages of justice. Right up to top judges in the court of appeal, Henley wrote, the system has “a deep-seated … cultural reluctance” to accept it “will on occasion make mistakes” and that “entirely innocent defendants will sometimes be convicted”.

Continue reading...