Thirty-five flood warnings in place across England after some areas get more than 100mm of rain in 48 hours
Commuters in parts of England are still facing travel issues despite a respite from heavy rain.
Parts of Bedfordshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire and Northamptonshire have had more than 100mm of rain in the past 48 hours, with Woburn in Bedfordshire recording 132mm, more than twice its September average rainfall, according to the Met Office.
Continue reading...Admission by doctor at Guy’s and St Thomas’ made during inquest into deaths of three babies infected
An NHS trust that gave four newborn babies contaminated feed has admitted that it was operating “an entirely unsafe system” at the time they became infected.
The admission came during evidence by a senior doctor at Guy’s and St Thomas’ trust (GSTT), who led its investigation into the outbreak, during an inquest into how one of the very premature babies died.
Continue reading...Exclusive: culture secretary says predecessors ‘vandalised’ the arts and pledges state funding for every community
The Conservatives’ “violent indifference” to the arts has resulted in communities across the country getting poor access to culture, Lisa Nandy has said ahead of a planned funding review.
The culture secretary accused her Tory predecessors of “vandalism” as she pledged to get state funding to every community and make sure that private philanthropy reached beyond the major cities.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Scholar names Henry Porter as likely co-author of 1604 play after linguistic clues in his surviving work
Scholars have long suggested that Christopher Marlowe had a collaborator for the comic scenes of his classic play Doctor Faustus, although his name alone is on the 1604 published edition. Now a largely forgotten dramatist, Henry Porter, has emerged as the likely co-author, based on comparative linguistic evidence that has been unearthed from his surviving play.
Doctor Faustus is a tragic story of vanity and greed, in which a scholar sells his soul to the devil in return for knowledge and power. The tragedy is mirrored by scenes of comic horseplay that are now thought to have been written by Porter, who was described by a contemporary as “the best for comedy amongst us”.
Continue reading...Report finds prison is failing to prepare inmates for release and hundreds of prisoners have substance abuse problems
HMP Brixton, the most overcrowded prison in the country for moderate-risk inmates, is failing to prepare prisoners for release, with nearly half saying it is easy to buy drugs, a watchdog has found.
Inspectors found that many of the 740 men held there had turned to drugs because they had nothing constructive to do. Two-thirds of the men were sharing cells designed for one person.
Continue reading...Alaa Abd el-Fattah is due to complete five-year sentence over social media post but family fear further charges
The family of Alaa Abd el-Fattah, a British activist and author imprisoned in Egypt, are calling on the UK government as well as the Egyptian authorities to ensure he walks free at the end of this month after five years in detention.
“Let’s remember that this is an innocent man who has committed no crime, but even so he will have served his time on 29 September,” said Abd el-Fattah’s sister, Sanaa Seif.
Continue reading...Enclosure older than Salisbury monument found under late novelist’s garden is given heritage protection
When the author Thomas Hardy was writing Tess of the D’Urbervilles in 1891, he chose to set the novel’s dramatic conclusion at Stonehenge, where Tess sleeps on one of the stones the night before she is arrested for murder.
What the author did not know, as he wrote in the study of his home, Max Gate in Dorchester, was that he was sitting right in the heart of a large henge-like enclosure that was even older than the famous monument on Salisbury Plain.
Continue reading...Some jewellery historians believe it features diamonds from infamous piece at centre of Marie Antoinette scandal
An antique diamond necklace worn at Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation and may be linked to a French scandal involving Marie Antoinette could fetch as much as £2m at auction.
The necklace, made of 300 carats, was also worn to King George VI’s coronation by members of the Marquess of Anglesey family, who owned the diamonds until the 1960s when they sold them.
Continue reading...Chancellor says £22bn gap in current spending budget and state pension rise meant she had to make decision on means-testing fuel payments
In interview this morning Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, defended her own decision to accept clothing donations worth £7,500 when she was in opposition.
Speaking on the Today programme, she said:
I can understand why people find it a little bit odd that politicians get support for things like buying clothes.
Now, when I was an opposition MP, when I was shadow chancellor of the exchequer, a friend of mine who I’ve known for years [Juliet Rosenfeld] – she’s a good personal friend – wanted to support me as shadow chancellor and the way she wanted to support me was to finance my office to be able to buy clothes for the campaign trail and for big events and speeches that I made as shadow chancellor.
It’s never something that I planned to do as a government minister, but it did help me in opposition.
It’s rightly the case that we don’t ask taxpayers to fund the bulk of the campaigning work and the research work that politicians do, but that does require, then, donations – from small donations, from party members and supporters, from larger contributions, from people who have been very successful in life and want to give something back.
We appreciate that support. It’s part of the reason why we are in government today, because we were able to do that research work, and we were able to do that campaigning.
Unite and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) have put forward motions which were due to be debated on Monday afternoon, with strong support expected from other unions.
Sources said unions were told late on Sunday that the debate is being moved to Wednesday morning.
Continue reading...Exclusive: store issues new statement as lawyers describe redress scheme it has set up as attempted ‘whitewash’
Harrods is investigating whether any of its current staff were “directly or indirectly involved” in the alleged sexual abuse of women by its former owner Mohamed Al Fayed.
With more than 100 women having come forward to allege being raped or assaulted by the Egyptian tycoon, the luxury store said it had launched a review and was in direct contact with Scotland Yard.
Continue reading...The chancellor beamed her way through a conference speech that offered hope at least but little of substance
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone. If you had thought that maybe today was the day when you made that call to Dignitas, then think again. Cancel that flight to Zurich. At least postpone it. Things might not be quite as bad as you had been led to believe. Or rather, they are that bad but there is some small flicker of hope if you can hold on long enough. There will be pain in the short and medium term. There’s no avoiding that. Try to think of it as character building. But possibly, just possibly, you might come through. We happy few. Blinking into the light of the promised land.
This was Rachel Reeves’s day. And she knew everything was going to be just fine the moment she woke up to find that Liz Truss had posted yet another cry for help on X. You can now follow the Trusster’s decline in real time on social media. It’s got so bad that she now films herself in front of a bookcase where everything is arranged by colour. The kindest explanation is that she thinks she’s filming a hostage video and the books are a coded message for “I’m being held against my will”.
Continue reading...Bodies responsible for monitoring accounting and legal sectors not doing enough to stop money laundering, watchdog says
A lack of proper oversight across the City of London’s network of lawyers, bookkeepers and accountants is hampering efforts to crack down on dirty money being funnelled through the UK, the City watchdog has warned.
The latest report by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) flagged concerns over the work of the UK’s 25 professional bodies – which oversee the accounting and legal sectors – and found that some were spending as little as £73 a year on anti-money laundering supervision or were outsourcing it entirely to third parties.
Continue reading...David Boulter, 60, killed Deborah, 53, at home despite no evidence of affair found by private investigator he hired
A man smothered his wife and then killed himself after hiring a private investigator to investigate unfounded fears she was having an affair, an inquest has concluded.
David Boulter, 60, killed his wife, Deborah, 53, at their home in Mapperley, Nottingham on 9 October 2023, after becoming convinced she was in a sexual relationship with a friend.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
Continue reading...Further devolution next year will bring allowance under Scottish control just months before Holyrood elections
Scottish Labour believes access to the winter fuel allowance could be widened in Scotland as it tries to fight off its opponents’ attacks before the next Holyrood election.
Scotland will be able to decide which pensioners get the allowance from October next year under further devolution of benefits to Holyrood, eight months before a Scottish parliamentary election that Labour sees as critical to its revival.
Continue reading...Company owned by Bamford family benefits from strong US sales offsetting end of exports to Russia
JCB has reported an increase in profits last year as strong US sales made up for its exports to Russia ending and faltering demand in the UK and Germany.
The company, one of the largest manufacturers in Britain, said that pre-tax profits rose 44% to £806m last year, up from £558m in 2022, according to a summary of its accounts published on Monday.
Continue reading...Move comes after weeks of uncertainty over reports of financial problems as green vehicle sector struggles
The Swedish batterymaker Northvolt is to cut 1,600 jobs, in response to “headwinds” blowing through the electric car industry.
The battery company announced redundancies across three of its sites on Monday, including 1,000 in Skellefteå, in northern Sweden, where it is suspending the expansion of Northvolt Ett, Europe’s first homegrown battery gigafactory.
Continue reading...Work of German-Jewish sculptor Fred Kormis, who fled Nazis in 1930s, is subject of exhibition in London
The work of an overlooked German-Jewish artist who created the UK’s first memorial to victims of Nazi persecution is to be the focus of an exhibition that shines light on the unreported aspects of his life.
Fred Kormis, who fled Germany in the 1930s and later became a British citizen, was described by the Wiener Holocaust Library in London as a forgotten émigré artist who played a unique role in Weimar culture and 20th-century British art.
Continue reading...Mark Rowley launches initiative that includes reset of stop and search, but acknowledges ‘there is still a lot to do’
Scotland Yard has launched its latest steps to try to rebuild trust with London’s black community, which the Met police commissioner acknowledged had been let down for many years.
Mark Rowley said “there remains a long way to go and there is a lot more work to do”, but that the force’s race action plan was a step in the right direction.
Continue reading...Health secretary shares light-hearted quip at party’s conference over embattled No 10 aide
Wes Streeting has joked that Keir Starmer’s embattled senior aide Sue Gray also “shot JFK” and was “hiding Lord Lucan” amid a continuing row over her salary.
The health secretary made light of suggestions of mounting acrimony at the heart of government as he spoke at an event on the sidelines of the Labour party conference in Liverpool.
Continue reading...Chancellor will confirm inquiries in conference speech as Labour tries to move on from donations scandal
Rachel Reeves will announce on Monday that she has ordered investigations into more than £600m worth of Covid contracts awarded under the Conservatives as Labour struggles to get back on the front foot over questions of ethics.
After days of bruising allegations over donations, the chancellor will confirm that she will refer more than half of contracts for material such as masks to the incoming Covid corruption commissioner, after the previous government recommended dropping any attempt to investigate them.
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