Esyasoft to acquire UK company, which supplies renewable power to about 245,000 households and businesses
A British green electricity supplier, Good Energy, has agreed a near-£100m takeover by a company controlled by a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family.
The retail energy company said on Monday it had agreed a deal with the Dubai-headquartered Esyasoft for a cash offer of £4.90 a share, valuing it at £99.4m.
Continue reading...Archaeologists hail discovery of very rare hoard featuring 44 gold coins bearing name of Celtic king Cunobelinus
A hoard of British coins bearing the inscription of King Cunobelin and found in a Dutch field have been identified as very likely to be the spoils of war of a Roman soldier from the conquest of Britain.
The 44 gold coins, known as staters, were discovered alongside 360 Roman coins, by two amateur archaeologists with metal detectors in a field in Bunnik, near Utrecht. The coins are believed to have been given as military pay.
Continue reading...Simon Vickers, 50, had claimed his daughter, Scarlett, died in a freak accident, but prosecutors said he stabbed her
A father who claimed his 14-year-old daughter died in a freak accident after innocent horseplay has been found guilty of murdering her by stabbing her in the heart with a kitchen knife.
Simon Vickers, 50, claimed he did not know precisely how his daughter, Scarlett Vickers, came to be killed in the family kitchen on a Friday night in July last year.
Continue reading...Seven people, whom the judge said had plumbed ‘the depths of human depravity’, will be monitored for life
Seven people convicted of being part of a Scottish child abuse ring that plumbed “the depths of human depravity” have been jailed for terms ranging eight from 20 years.
The two women and five men will be monitored for life after being convicted of gang-raping a child and abusing other children in a drugs den in Glasgow where heroin and crack cocaine were used.
Continue reading...CBI says businesses plan to cut jobs and raise prices while debt charity says millions are ‘facing worries’
The government is under growing pressure to get momentum back into the economy amid warnings that businesses plan to cut jobs and raise prices, while millions of families believe their finances will worsen this year.
Before a major speech this week by the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, designed to restate Labour’s commitment to improving the economy, the CBI said private sector firms were urgently assessing their budgets to offset measures announced in last October’s budget.
Continue reading...Survey for patient watchdog finds over half of those who made complaint were not satisfied with process or outcome
A quarter of people in England experienced poor NHS care over the last year but fewer than one in 10 of them complained about it, a report by the patient watchdog has revealed.
When people did complain, more than half were not satisfied with either the process involved or the outcome, Healthwatch England said. Complaints take many months to resolve.
24% of patients had received poor care in that time – the equivalent of 10.7 million people in England.
56% took no action – and only 9% made a complaint.
20% were scared that complaining would affect their treatment.
34% did not trust the NHS to use a complaint they made to improve services.
Continue reading...Journalists and bloggers to have greater access under ‘open reporting provisions’ after pilot scheme launched in 2023
A scheme allowing journalists increased access to family courts is being rolled out in an effort to improve transparency.
The initiative permits accredited journalists and legal bloggers to report on cases as they unfold, as they would in criminal courts, provided the families and certain professionals involved remain anonymous.
Continue reading...The missing 73-year-old set off his distress beacon during stormy weather on Saturday afternoon
A 73-year-old British sailor is lost at sea and his yacht has been found “eviscerated” off the French coast in stormy weather.
A French air force helicopter was dispatched to find the man after he set off his distress beacon at 3pm on Saturday, approximately 50 miles (80km) west of Lacanau in south-west France.
Continue reading...A lifeboat had to make four trips to recover seven people from Worms Head island due to very challenging conditions
It turned out to be a dangerous trip to a tidal island in Wales that, thanks to the RNLI, seven American students will never forget.
The group had to be rescued by the lifeboat service after the incoming tide cut Worms Head island off from the Gower coast on Saturday morning.
Continue reading...Chancellor expected to unveil new building projects and revise planning rules to stimulate UK economy
Rachel Reeves has given her strongest hint yet that she will back a third runway at Heathrow airport, arguing that she is willing to make difficult decisions while pursuing economic growth.
The chancellor is poised to make a significant speech this week where she will outline her plans to boost the British economy by radically altering planning rules and accelerating building projects.
Continue reading...Lack of knowledge about Holocaust identified as well as level of denial and disinformation seen on social media
A third of young adults in the UK are unable to name Auschwitz or any of the other concentration camps and ghettoes where the crimes of the Holocaust were committed, according to a study.
Other growing gaps in knowledge – especially among those aged 18-29 – were also identified, as part of a major international survey in countries including the US and UK.
Continue reading...Paul Butler, 53, charged over death of Claire Chick, 48, who was found seriously injured on Wednesday
A 53-year-old man has been charged with the murder of a nurse and university lecturer who was found injured in the street in Plymouth.
Officers were called to West Hoe Road at 8.55pm on Wednesday after reports that a woman had been seriously injured.
Continue reading...Labour’s James Frith and Conservative Caroline Nokes gifted tickets by Paddy Power worth up to £1,000 each
Two MPs received VIP tickets for the sold-out World Darts Championships courtesy of a betting company – weeks after a national outcry over politicians accepting freebies.
Labour MP James Frith, who has campaigned for safer gambling, and Conservative MP Caroline Nokes, the deputy speaker of the House of Commons, were gifted “platinum” hospitality tickets by Paddy Power worth up to £1,000 each.
Continue reading...Chancellor says runway would mean fewer planes circling London, and points to moves towards sustainable flying
Rachel Reeves has indicated her support for building a third runway at Heathrow airport, arguing that it would have environmental benefits such as fewer planes circling London.
Ahead of a major speech on economic growth this coming week, the chancellor made the case for Heathrow expansion and said there was “huge investment” in more sustainable aviation.
Continue reading...In two actions, migrant workers claim exploitation while farmers demonstrate against inheritance tax plan
This is a tale of two countrysides. One was featured prominently on Saturday by broadcasters as farmers held demonstrations throughout the UK against inheritance tax plans they believe will cripple family farms.
A smaller protest staged a day earlier outside the Home Office received almost no attention. A small band of fruit and vegetable pickers, mainly from Latin America, were highlighting their battle against what they call the exploitation of migrant workers.
Continue reading...Danish drug giant found to have failed to accurately report spending even after admitting to errors
The pharmaceutical watchdog has reprimanded Wegovy maker Novo Nordisk for failing to correctly disclose dozens of payments to the UK health sector as it sought to boost sales of its slimming drugs.
The Danish drug giant – Europe’s most valuable listed company – systematically misreported, under-reported or did not disclose funding given over seven years to pharmacy firms, obesity charities, training providers, professional bodies and patient groups.
Continue reading...David Armitage, resident in Thailand since 2004 death of Lamduan Armitage, detained by immigration officials
The British husband of Lamduan Armitage, a Thai woman whose body was found in a stream in the Yorkshire Dales in 2004, has been detained by police in Thailand.
David Armitage, a university lecturer, has been detained in Bangkok by immigration officials after an investigation into his visa.
According to the BBC, Armitage, who has a resident visa, was detained at his house in Kanchanaburi on Thursday before being transferred to the Bangkok immigration detention centre while the country’s authorities prepare to revoke his visa.
Lamduan, originally from Udon Thani province in north-east Thailand, was found by a group of walkers on the Pennine Way, between Pen-y-ghent and Horton in Ribblesdale, in September 2004.
Detectives initially believed she had died of natural causes but a cold case team announced in 2018 that Lamduan was murdered.
Armitage, who has been living in Thailand since her death, did not report his wife missing and has not managed to be interviewed by Thai or British police about her whereabouts.
The victim’s family in Thailand came forward to say they had not heard from her since 2004 after seeing an e-fit that resembled her issued by North Yorkshire police.
They said she had married a British man in 1991 and moved to north-west England four years later.
The investigation into Lamduan’s death is being conducted by North Yorkshire police.
A spokesperson for the force told the BBC it was aware of Armitage’s detention and added: “We understand it relates to his visa status and residence in Thailand and is entirely a matter for the immigration service of the Royal Thai police.
“Should Mr Armitage be deported, we understand that he will have a choice as to where he goes, which will include return to the UK.
“Should that occur, we will again make every effort to speak to him about the investigation.”
Armitage previously told the Sun newspaper he was not involved in his wife’s death.
Steve Reed says plans for 1km curved structure to protect bats from high-speed railway are ‘batshit crazy’
A bat shelter costing more than £100m near HS2 has been described by the environment secretary as “batshit crazy”.
HS2 Ltd is spending the sum on the protection structure in Buckinghamshire, it emerged last year. All bats are legally protected in the UK.
The curved structure, which has been described by the HS2 Ltd chair, Sir Jon Thompson, as a “shed”, will run for about 1km alongside Sheephouse Wood to create a barrier allowing the creatures to cross above the high-speed railway without being affected by passing trains.
But Steve Reed has criticised the plans and told the Fabian Society’s new year conference: “I mean, (to spend) that vast amount of money on a tunnel for bats when there were so many other public services crying out for funding – it’s batshit crazy.
“And it happened because the previous government didn’t have a grip on the public finances, didn’t have a grip on infrastructure projects, and didn’t really have a grip on what was happening to nature either.”
Asked about the potential for tension between prioritising wildlife and the environment and pushing through planning projects, as the government has promised to do to boost economic growth, Reed said both could be achieved.
“It’s not either or, it’s not growth or nature or the environment. We can do the two together,” he said.
Reed also suggested any plans to build a third runway at Heathrow airport would be subject to a “proper consultation” to ensure “mitigations” were in place to make it work.
Asked about the prospect of expanding the airport, which reports suggest the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will back, the MP for Streatham and Croydon North in London said: “Of course, it’s speculation that you’re talking about … but if there were any proposal like that, then there would be a proper consultation, hopefully not lasting decades as it has done previously, because you don’t have to take that amount of time to get to good decisions.
“But it would take into account all of those factors, mitigations, what we will need to do to make sure that it could work.
“Since you mentioned my voting record on that one, I voted against expanding Heathrow last time because I was in favour of expanding Gatwick because it would provide economic growth that would benefit south London, where my constituency is. So I see the link.”
Pressure growing on Labour to improve trade with EU as Rachel Reeves admits Brexit damaged UK
Keir Starmer is under growing pressure to forge closer economic links with Europe five years on from Brexit, as a major new poll shows voters clearly favour prioritising more trade with the EU over the US.
The MRP survey of almost 15,000 people by YouGov for the Best for Britain thinktank shows more people in every constituency in England, Scotland and Wales back closer arrangements with the EU rather than more transatlantic trade with Washington. MRP polls use large data samples to estimate opinion at a local level
Continue reading...Environmentalists say new course could be delayed until 2030 because it is viewed as Conservative party initiative
Leading environmentalists have called on the government to introduce a natural history GCSE immediately, amid fears it could be postponed until 2030.
The previous Conservative administration had supported creating the GCSE, which would teach pupils how to observe, identify and classify plants and animals.
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