Category Archives: UK news

Peter Mandelson asked Foreign Office for £500k severance payment, files show

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Ex-peer sacked as US ambassador over Epstein links was offered £75,000, documents released by Cabinet Office show

Peter Mandelson was offered a severance payment of £75,000 after initially asking the Foreign Office to pay him more than £500,000 upon his sacking as US ambassador, newly released documents reveal.

Exchanges in the documents released by the Cabinet Office suggested that officials did “well to get this settlement down this low with minimal fuss”, after Mandelson was forced to resign as ambassador to the US because of newly disclosed details about his long friendship with the disgraced financier Jeffery Epstein.

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Teenage boy arrested after girl allegedly stabbed at Norwich school

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Police say 16-year-old being questioned and teenage girl taken to hospital with minor injuries

A 16-year-old boy has been arrested after a teenage girl was allegedly stabbed at a school in Norwich.

Police were called to the school in Thorpe St Andrew, in the east of the city, at 10.24am after reports that a teenage girl had been stabbed. Emergency services attended the scene, including firefighters and paramedics.

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Thousands of pets being abandoned in Dubai as owners flee over Iran war

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RSPCA say animals could become ‘hidden victims’ of conflict as charities in Gulf city report being overwhelmed

Thousands of pets are being abandoned in Dubai as their owners flee the Middle East because of the Iran war, animal charities have said.

The RSPCA said pets of fleeing UK nationals could become “hidden victims” of the conflict as people who had relocated to the Gulf city scramble for an exit and struggle to bring their animals.

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Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea FC sale cash may be under investigation as ‘proceeds of crime’

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Documents filed at Companies House over 2022 deal could complicate row with UK over how money will be used

Jersey authorities may be investigating whether cash raised by Roman Abramovich’s 2022 sale of Chelsea FC amounts to the proceeds of crime, according to documents filed at Companies House on Wednesday, potentially complicating a row with the UK government over how the money will be used.

Accounts for Fordstam Ltd, the company through which the billionaire Russian oligarch owned Chelsea, show that the proceeds of the sale – currently frozen and gathering interest in a Barclays Bank account – have risen to £2.4bn.

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Royal Navy’s HMS Dragon sails for eastern Mediterranean

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Destroyer leaves Portsmouth a week after deployment was announced following drone attack on RAF base in Cyprus

The Royal Navy destroyer HMS Dragon departed Portsmouth on Tuesday afternoon for the eastern Mediterranean after six days of hasty preparation and a week after its deployment was announced by the prime minister.

The warship is expected to take between five and seven days to arrive off the coast of Cyprus, where it will be able to defend against drone and missile attacks from Iran or its proxies in Lebanon or Iraq.

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Met accused of insulting black people with shake-up of anti-racism strategy

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Academic Shereen Daniels says plan by Mark Rowley to absorb police’s race policies into broader anti-discrimination programme is backward step

The Metropolitan police has been accused of insulting black people and mocking the pain it has caused them after revealing it wants to absorb its anti-racism strategy into a broader anti-discrimination scheme.

The Met said the scheme, also including gender and sexual orientation, will increase its chance of success in better serving groups it has failed in the past.

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Former IRA bomber says Gerry Adams was senior figure in organisation

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Former Sinn Féin leader being sued by three men injured in IRA bombings in 1976 and 1996

A convicted IRA bomber has told a court that Gerry Adams was a senior figure in the organisation despite the former Sinn Féin leader’s claims to the contrary.

Adams, 77, is being sued for symbolic “vindicatory” damages of £1 each by John Clark, Jonathan Ganesh and Barry Laycock, who were injured respectively in the 1973 Old Bailey bombing, and the London Docklands and Manchester bombings in 1996.

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Iranians living in UK tell Starmer that war will only strengthen Tehran regime

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Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe among more than 100 signatories to letter urging PM not to get drawn further into the conflict

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is among three of Iran’s former political prisoners and more than 100 Iranians living in the UK who have urged the British prime minister not to get drawn further into the Iran conflict.

They are all signatories in a letter to Keir Starmer saying the way the war is being conducted is strengthening the regime in Tehran.

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Cathay Pacific offers £20,000 Sydney-London flight amid disruption in Gulf

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Hong Kong-based airline has business-class return listed at A$39,577, as travellers seek routes avoiding Middle East

The Hong Kong-based airline Cathay Pacific is selling seats from Sydney to London for more than £20,000 in April, as passengers search for scarce long-haul flights without changing in the Middle East.

The tickets, listed at A$39,577 in business class for returns departing in mid-April, far outstrip the usual fares charged even in the first-class cabin.

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Black people up to 48 times more likely to be stopped and searched in richest areas of London

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Research found extreme disproportion in use of police power in districts such as Richmond-upon-Thames

Black people are up to 48 times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched by police in some of London’s best-off areas, a new report has found.

The study found that the reasons given by officers for subjecting black people to the controversial power were more likely to be vague, with examples including that a black person gave a “furtive glance”.

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MPs reject ban on social media for under-16s

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Ban could still be introduced in future after Commons back government bid to give extra powers to secretary of state

A proposed ban on social media for under-16s has been rejected by MPs.

Parliamentarians voted 307 to 173, majority 134, against the proposed change to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill, which was brought forward by Conservative peer and former minister John Nash.

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Definition of anti-Muslim hate will not harm free speech, says Steve Reed

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Communities secretary tells MPs that government has to act against record levels of hate crimes

A new definition of anti-Muslim hate will not restrict freedom of speech, the communities secretary has pledged, as he said that “clear expectations” will still be set for new arrivals and existing communities in Britain to learn English.

MPs were told by Steve Reed that the government had a duty to act against record levels of hate crime against Muslims, but that “you can’t tackle a problem if you can’t describe it”.

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So Badenoch, Farage and Blair think the Iran war is a great idea? Hmm … | John Crace

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Kemi may be all in favour, but at least economic realpolitik is forcing her to take a slightly different tack

There have been any number of opportunities for people to decide they wanted no part of America’s war with Iran. The first was after the US had launched its first wave of strikes. To be fair, this was the moment Keir Starmer and most of the UK reckoned enough was enough and that our involvement would be limited to defensive strikes only.

You couldn’t really fault the logic. Did the UK really want to be part of a war that was illegal in most versions of international law and for which the Americans had no clear vision of how it might end? Other than Donald Trump gets bored and lets everyone else clear up his mess. Like a baby. Nor was the UK’s track record of wars in the 21st century any source of pride. Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya had all been in chaos. Iran was shaping up the same way. So Starmer decided to sit this one out. Applying the doctor’s principle of “first, do no harm”.

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X suspends 800m accounts in one year amid ‘massive’ scale of manipulation attempts

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Social media company tells MPs of continual fight against state-backed efforts, with Russia being most prolific

Elon Musk’s X said it had suspended 800m accounts over a 12-month period as it fights the “massive” scale of attempts to manipulate the platform.

The social media company told MPs it was continually fighting state-backed attempts to hijack the agenda on its network, with Russia the most prolific state actor, followed by Iran and China.

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Roman Abramovich ready to fight UK government over proceeds from £2.5bn Chelsea sale

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Russian oligarch says money is his to allocate despite international sanctions imposed on his assets

The Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich has stepped up his row with the British government over the £2.5bn proceeds of his sale of Chelsea FC, insisting that the money is his to allocate despite the international sanctions imposed on his assets.

The UK and EU imposed sanctions on Abramovich in 2022, freezing his assets in response to Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, citing his ties to Vladimir Putin’s regime.

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Yorkshire Water receives fresh funding despite sewage fines and pay row

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Private equity group EQT to take 42% stake as supplier faces scrutiny over environmental record and CEO’s pay

A leading European investor will pump fresh funding into Yorkshire Water including helping to cover a £600m loan, despite recent heavy sewage fines and a scandal over executive pay at the utility company.

EQT, a Swedish private equity group, said on Monday it would take a 42% stake in Kelda Holdings, the Jersey-registered parent company of Yorkshire Water, which has 5.7 million customers across Yorkshire and parts of the East Midlands and Lincolnshire.

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Average UK office attendance ‘settling’ at highest level since before Covid

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Figure above 40% every week since early January as report says situation ‘no longer in freefall nor in recovery’

Workers are heading back to offices across the UK in droves, pushing office occupancy to the highest since before the Covid-19 pandemic, as an expert described the numbers as “no longer in freefall nor in recovery mode but settling”.

Investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chasehave led the push with strict return-to-office mandates despite anger among many employees about being ordered back to the office five days a week. Companies in other sectors have also increased days in the office but many businesses, including law and accounting firms, still allow staff to work remotely two days a week.

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Major rail disruptions after large fire near Glasgow Central station

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Network Rail said Scotland’s busiest station would remain closed ‘until further notice’

Travel disruption is expected to last throughout Monday after a large fire broke out near Glasgow Central station on Sunday.

National Rail said that the station would remain closed with “no estimate on when the station will reopen” after the blaze at a vape shop in Union Street.

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NHS England pauses new referrals for masculinising or feminising hormone treatment in under-18s

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Review finds evidence does not back use of treatment for 16 and 17-year-olds with gender incongruence or dysphoria

The NHS is pausing new referrals for masculinising or feminising hormone treatment for 16 and 17-year-olds after an in-depth review found there was insufficient evidence to support its continued use.

Prescriptions for hormones had been available in England for under-18s with a diagnosis of gender incongruence or dysphoria who met certain criteria.

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Great Britain has only two days of gas stored, while Iran war threatens to disrupt supplies

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National Gas insists storage broadly in line with levels for time of year despite disruption for tankers carrying LNG

Great Britain has only two days of fossil gas stored after a decline in energy reserves, as more tankers carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG) are diverted from their course to Europe towards Asia because of the Iran war.

Great Britain had 6,999 gigawatt hours (GWh) of fossil gas stored on Saturday, according to figures from National Gas, which owns and operates the gas national transmission system. This compares with 9,105 GWh a year earlier.

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