Category Archives: UK news

MPs think they may have been targets of ‘disinformation’ over Bangladesh inquiry

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Group received emails about Ahsan Mansur, the central bank official investigating money laundering allegations

British MPs believe they may have been targeted by a “disinformation” campaign aimed at discrediting the man leading efforts to trace funds allegedly laundered from Bangladesh into the UK.

MPs raised the alarm after receiving emails about Ahsan Mansur, who was installed as the central bank governor of Bangladesh last year, after a student-led revolution swept away the autocratic government of Sheikh Hasina.

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German blacklisted and unable to get job after London criminal steals ID

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Rami Battikh, 24, got caught up in five-year nightmare after stolen ID card was used in string of crimes

A young German citizen has told how his life has been destroyed after a London criminal used his ID to rack up a string of convictions that now appear on the German database against his name.

The phantom record has left the 24-year-old in despair, effectively blacklisted and unable to get a job for the past four years in his native Bonn, stymying a budding career and the start of his adult life.

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Starmer is warned against ‘appeasing’ Trump with tax cut for US tech firms

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Labour MP and Lib Dem leader express concern social media companies could be let off hook just as benefits are cut

Keir Starmer has been warned against “appeasing” Donald Trump as he considers reducing a major tax for US tech companies while cutting disability benefits and public sector jobs.

His chancellor, Rachel Reeves, confirmed on Sunday that there were “ongoing” discussions about the UK’s £1bn-a-year digital services tax that affects companies including Meta and Amazon.

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Education secretary orders inquiry into allegations of student loan fraud

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Bridget Phillipson instructs Public Sector Fraud Authority to look into whether millions of pounds falsely claimed

Fraud experts will investigate the university loans system amid concerns that students are falsely claiming millions of pounds without intending to study, the education secretary has announced.

Bridget Phillipson has instructed the Public Sector Fraud Authority to coordinate the response to allegations that individuals with no genuine academic intent are enrolling in degree courses to secure loans.

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Service at Heathrow airport returns to normal two days after forced closure

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More than a thousand flights were cancelled on Friday after a fire at an electrical substation caused a power cut

Heathrow airport has returned to normal business two days after it was forced to close when a fire at an electrical substation caused a power cut.

Europe’s busiest airport had more than 1,000 flights cancelled on Friday after the fire at the substation in Hayes, west London.

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Labour must involve whole country if it wants to achieve its goals, report warns

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Age of ‘command and control’ is over, says Demos, with work needed from business, charities, unions and public

Labour’s missions are at risk of failing unless the government does more to involve the whole country from businesses to the wider public, as the age of “command and control” is over, a report from Demos has warned.

The thinktank called on the government to embrace “mass mobilisation” for businesses, charities, unions and the wider public to drive its flagship missions, which promise growth, clean energy, cutting crime, rebuilding the NHS and reforming education.

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Andy Peebles, former Radio 1 DJ and presenter, dies aged 76

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Host of Top of the Pops and My Top Twelve among other shows was one of last people to interview John Lennon

Andy Peebles, the former Radio 1 DJ and presenter who was one of the last people to interview John Lennon, has died aged 76, his family has confirmed.

Peebles began his radio career in Manchester in 1973 and joined Radio 1 in 1978, where he was a familiar voice for 14 years.

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Labour mayoral candidate on race to stop Reform – and ‘Doge Lincolnshire’

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Jason Stockwood, ex-chair of Grimsby Town FC, has plan for keeping rival Andrea Jenkyns from implementing US-style cuts

Labour can beat Reform UK by focusing relentlessly on the cost of living, the party’s mayoral candidate for Greater Lincolnshire, who is taking on the Conservative defector Andrea Jenkyns, has said.

Jason Stockwood, the former chair of Grimsby Town football club, is standing for Labour in the most high-profile mayoral race of the local elections.

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Keir Starmer says he ‘likes and respects’ Donald Trump

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PM agrees with US president that Europe must bear greater burden for its collective self-defence

Keir Starmer has spoken of how he personally “likes and respects” the US president, Donald Trump, and understands what he is trying to achieve.

The prime minister made the comments in an interview with the New York Times, saying: “President Trump has a point when he says there needs to be a greater burden borne by European countries for the collective self-defence of Europe.”

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Civil service to be told to slash more than £2bn a year from budget by 2030

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Departments will be asked next week to reduce spending by 10% by 2028-29, says Cabinet Office source

The civil service will be told to slash more than £2bn a year from its budget by the end of the decade as part of the government’s spending review, with unions warning of significant job losses, the Guardian understands.

The Cabinet Office will tell departments to cut their administrative budgets by 15%, which is expected to save £2.2bn a year by 2029-30.

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All UK families ‘to be worse off by 2030’ as poor bear the brunt, new data warns

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Keir Starmer has been dealt a fresh blow to his living standards pledge in advance of the spring statement

Living standards for all UK families are set to fall by 2030, with those on the lowest incomes declining twice as fast as middle and high earners, according to new data that raises serious questions about Keir Starmer’s pledge to make working people better off.

The grim economic analysis, produced by the respected Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), comes before the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, makes her spring statement on Wednesday in which she will announce new cuts to public spending rather than increase borrowing or raise taxes, so as to keep within the government’s “iron clad” fiscal rules.

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‘Wake-up call’: ministers launch urgent investigation into Heathrow shutdown

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Government says lessons need to be learned after the substation fire that caused chaos for 300,000 passengers

The government has launched an urgent investigation into the power shutdown that crippled Heathrow airport, with experts warning it was a “wake-up call” about vulnerabilities in the nation’s critical infrastructure.

The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, has commissioned the independent National Energy System Operator (Neso) to investigate the incident and assess the UK’s energy resilience. The regulator Ofgem warned it would “not hesitate” to take action if there were any breaches of standards or licence obligations.

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‘A clever agent’: notes from ‘watchers’ of spy Kim Philby made public for first time

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A new exhibition at the National Archives in London will reveal the extent of MI5 operation to expose the British double agent who was also Observer reporter

Secret surveillance of Britain’s ­notorious double agent, Kim Philby, made public for the first time in archived documents, reveals how keenly the Security Service wanted to confirm or disprove early suspicions of his high-level treachery.

In daily bulletins submitted to MI5 in November 1951, undercover operatives describe how Philby, codenamed Peach, moved about London.

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The Sex Pistols rock London with first gig at 100 Club in 50 years

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Band members were joined on stage by former Gallows frontman Frank Carter as stars and fans welcomed their return

There was anticipation on Oxford Street in London as the Sex Pistols rocked the 100 Club for the first time in more than half a century, playing classic tunes for a crowd of creaking punks.

In a hot and sweaty venue, which harkened back to the band’s glory days, they darted on stage like squaddies on a march, to roars from the audience. They were celebrated by stars and superfans such as Noel Gallagher, Bobby Gillespie and the Jam frontman, Paul Weller.

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Heathrow boss defends running of airport after criticism of shutdown

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Thomas Woldbye says most other airports operate similar back-up power systems to Heathrow, as Ed Miliband announces investigation

The chief executive of Heathrow has defended the running of the airport after a fire at an electrical substation stopped about 1,300 planes and disrupted the journeys of hundreds of thousands of global passengers.

It comes after Willie Walsh, the International Air Transport Association’s director general, criticised Heathrow for the disruption, while the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, has now ordered the National Energy System Operator to “urgently investigate” the outage.

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‘I was raped at the age of 10’: sexual abuse and harassment reported at 1,664 UK primary schools

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Experiences of harassment, groping, inappropriate touching and rape anonymously reported

  • Warning: contains content some readers may find distressing

Children and adults have anonymously reported testimonies of sexual abuse and harassment at 1,664 primary schools in the UK through a website for survivors, which has called for age-appropriate sex education to be taught to children under the age of nine.

Experiences of sexual harassment, groping, inappropriate touching and even forced penetration have been anonymously reported on the site everyonesinvited.uk, with at least one testimonial relating to an incident that took place when the victim was as young as five.

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Dozens evacuated from St Leonards after explosive chemicals found

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Man, 28, arrested in East Sussex on suspicion of producing illegal substances in incident not believed to be terror-related

More than 70 people evacuated from an East Sussex town have not yet been able to return to their seafront homes after the discovery of explosive chemicals in a property.

A 28-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of producing illegal substances and making an explosive substance for an unlawful purpose after police were called to the A259 Marina in St Leonards on Thursday.

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US tourism industry faces drop-off as immigration agenda deters travellers

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Westerners increasingly hesitant to travel to US out of fear of arrests and detentions as Trump enforces crackdown

A string of high-profile arrests and detentions of travellers is likely to cause a major downturn in tourism to the US, with latest figures already showing a serious drop-off, tourist experts said.

Several western travellers have recently been rejected at the US border on increasingly flimsy grounds under Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, some of them shackled and held in detention centers in poor conditions for weeks.

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Reeves to raise spectre of Liz Truss to persuade Labour MPs to accept cuts

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Chancellor to tell party she is making steep cuts to avoid similar fallout to that which followed 2022 mini-budget

Rachel Reeves will raise the spectre of Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget in the lead-up to next week’s spring statement as she tries to persuade her Labour colleagues to accept the steepest departmental cuts since austerity.

The chancellor will tell her fractious party she has decided to cut public spending rather than increasing borrowing because of the risk of a similar fallout to that which followed the then prime minister’s disastrous fiscal statement in 2022.

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Falconer ‘extremely close’ to catching hawk attacking Hertfordshire villagers

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Bird of prey’s violent reign in Flamstead could soon come to an end, according to parish council

It stole two woolly hats from the head of a 91-year-old pensioner. It clawed a jogger’s scalp and left him reeling. It is said to swoop in from behind without making a sound, has a penchant for tall men’s heads and – so far – has evaded capture.

But the violent reign of the Flamstead hawk, which has made men in the Hertfordshire village of Flamstead afraid to go out without covering their heads, may soon be at an end.

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