Category Archives: UK news

Fortnum & Mason apologises for party snub to UK Paralympians

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Olympians and Paralympians attended a Buckingham Palace reception, but only the former were asked to a following event hosted by the luxury food retailer

Fortnum & Mason has apologised for a “failure of communication” to Paralympians who were not invited to a party which Olympians attended, after the Paris medallists met the king at Buckingham Palace.

Team GB and ParalympicsGB athletes were hosted at a reception at the royal residence on Thursday 7 November to celebrate Britain’s success this summer.

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Child in Surrey dies after being struck by a branch that fell from a tree

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The incident happened in Banstead and was attended by police, the fire brigade and the London ambulance service

A child has died after being struck by a branch that fell from a tree in Surrey.

Emergency services were called to Grove Place near the junction with Carshalton Road, Banstead, shortly after 4pm on Saturday, the Metropolitan police said.

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Tory former energy secretary facing conflict of interest claim over JCB owner links

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Shadow cabinet secretary Claire Coutinho accepted donation from Lord Bamford while overseeing millions awarded to his family businesses in green grants

A Conservative former cabinet ­minister who took donations from the billionaire boss of the JCB digger dynasty – including a £7,000 trip on his VIP private helicopter – oversaw decisions to award his family’s business empire millions in taxpayer-funded green energy grants.

Claire Coutinho also posed for ­pictures promoting Lord Bamford’s personal £100m hydrogen engine project and accepted a £7,500 donation from JCB to her local election campaign while she was the energy secretary in Rishi Sunak’s government.

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Queen Camilla to miss remembrance events due to chest infection

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Doctors advise queen not to attend Remembrance Day activities to ensure full recovery from seasonal illness

Queen Camilla will not attend Remembrance Day events this weekend as she recovers from a chest infection, Buckingham Palace has said.

Camilla was due to attend the Royal British Legion festival of remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday evening, and to honour the war dead at the Remembrance Sunday ceremony on Whitehall.

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NHS in ‘last-chance saloon’, says former health secretary Alan Milburn

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Milburn set to take senior health department role and says crisis is ‘million times worse’ than when he was in office

The NHS is “drinking in the last-chance saloon” and needs to change, the former health secretary Alan Milburn has said as he prepares to take up a senior role in the Department of Health.

Milburn, who brought about radical changes, such as the introduction of NHS foundation trusts, when he was a minister for Tony Blair, called for “cultural change” in the health service and said “big reforms will be needed to make it fit for the future”.

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Woman who fell to her death from Hackney council flat ‘was trying to fix drainpipe’

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Coroner’s report finds Sarah McGreevy died after climbing on box on sixth floor balcony to unblock pipe repaired with tape

A woman who accidentally fell to her death from the sixth floor balcony of a Hackney council block was trying to fix a blocked drainpipe that had been repaired using “heavy duty tape”, a coroner has found.

Sarah McGreevy, 37, died on 16 June after climbing on to a wooden box on the balcony to manually unblock the pipe, a common practice among residents of the fifth and sixth floors of the building after heavy rainfall, according to the coroner’s report.

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Boost UK defence spending to win Trump’s support, former navy chief urges Starmer

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Lord West says Republican victory is chance to show Britain is willing to prioritise military by allocating 3% of GDP

Keir Starmer is being urged to consider an emergency cash injection into defence and to accelerate Britain’s planned review of its military capabilities before Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Senior defence figures are now assessing how Trump’s victory will shape a strategic defence review (SDR) that was already under way in Whitehall, whose findings are due to be reported in the spring. The SDR comes alongside a crucial review of public spending.

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UK momentum on Ukraine has dropped under Labour, Ben Wallace says

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Former Tory defence minister says leadership of Sunak era is lacking and bureaucracy is holding up equipment

Momentum on Ukraine has “dropped back” since Labour took office, according to the ex-Tory defence minister and former army officer Sir Ben Wallace.

Responding to recent comments by Kyiv officials that Ukraine’s relationship with the UK has “got worse” since Keir Starmer was elected prime minister, Wallace said that was because “the leadership that Britain showed right from the start has started to drop back into the pack”.

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Spurs fans to call for release of last British hostage held by Hamas

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  • Emily Damari, 28, was kidnapped during 7 October attack
  • Fans will gather before Sunday’s game against Ipswich

Tottenham fans will gather before their team’s game against Ipswich on Sunday to call for the release of Emily Damari, the last remaining British hostage held by Hamas in Gaza.

Damari, a Spurs supporter, has been in captivity for more than a year after being taken from her home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza during the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas. Stop The Hate UK, an activist group based in London, has been raising awareness about the 28-year-old, who is one of about 100 hostages in Gaza, and about 70 campaigners held a rally for her outside the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium before Spurs faced Aston Villa last Sunday.

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UK student invents repairable kettle that anyone can fix

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Gabriel Kay hopes his design can help tackle the problems caused by discarded electrical goods

Gabriel Kay really understands his target audience. As a student of industrial and product design at De Montfort University, he focused on the kettle.

“Everyone can relate to a kettle, right?” says the 22-year-old graduate. “It’s easy to understand and associated with comfort. It’s a friendly introduction to design.”

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Ed Davey urges Starmer to ‘Trump-proof’ UK with closer European ties

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Lib Dem leader says government should work with Trump but be prepared for him to act on security and trade threats

Ed Davey has urged Keir Starmer to “Trump-proof” the UK by urgently seeking closer European cooperation over military aid for Ukraine and economic ties, after the US president-elect’s threats about security and trade wars.

The Liberal Democrat leader, whose party is the third biggest in the House of Commons, argued that while the UK government should seek to work with a Donald Trump administration, it should also be as prepared as possible if he were to abandon Ukraine or impose sweeping tariffs.

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Jamie Oliver apologises after his children’s book is criticised for ‘stereotyping’ First Nations Australians

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Exclusive: Publisher takes responsibility for the failure to consult Indigenous groups, who say the fantasy novel trivialises complex and painful histories

Jamie Oliver says he is “devastated” by the offence he has caused to First Nations people and has issued an apology, after calls by Australia’s peak body for Indigenous education for the British celebrity chef to withdraw his children’s book from sale.

Oliver is in Australia promoting his latest cookbook, Simply Jamie, but it is his decision to join a growing flock of celebrity children’s book authors with a 400-page fantasy novel for primary school-age children that has come under fire.

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Downing Street to appoint new US ambassador within days

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David Miliband, Peter Mandelson and Cathy Ashton thought to be on shortlist for diplomatic role

A decision on a new US ambassador is likely to be taken within days, with David Miliband, Peter Mandelson and Cathy Ashton all on the shortlist, the Guardian understands.

Whitehall sources said Downing Street is determined to press ahead with the appointment of a new US ambassador now that Donald Trump has been confirmed as the new president.

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‘Anticyclonic gloom’ blamed as English village sees no sunshine since October

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UK has had average of just three hours of sun over past week, but skies should start to clear from Sunday

An “anticyclonic gloom” has been blamed for cloudy weather across parts of England, with one village receiving absolutely no sunshine since October.

Odiham, in Hampshire, has reportedly recorded zero minutes of sunshine since October, but forecasters are predicting that the fog, drizzle and low cloud should start clearing from Sunday.

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The Cure score first UK No 1 album in 32 years with Songs of a Lost World

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Robert Smith says getting first chart-topper since 1992’s Wish is ‘enormously uplifting’ and ‘genuinely heartwarming’

The Cure have scored their first UK No 1 album in 32 years, with Songs of a Lost World.

The band’s frontman Robert Smith said: “It is enormously uplifting, genuinely heartwarming to experience such a wonderful reaction to the release of the new Cure album. To everyone who has bought it, listened to it, loved it, believed in us over the years – thank you!”

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Tony Blair’s former chief of staff appointed PM’s national security adviser

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Jonathan Powell led talks on Chagos Islands in September and played key role in Good Friday agreement

Jonathan Powell, the former chief of staff to Tony Blair, has been appointed as Keir Starmer’s national security adviser in a further sign that leading figures from the New Labour era are returning to the government.

The veteran former diplomat, who played a significant role in the Northern Ireland peace deal struck in 1998 and served Blair for a decade, will be responsible for advising on the UK’s approach to the war in Ukraine and the international implications of Donald Trump’s presidency.

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Relationship between UK and Ukraine ‘has worsened since Labour won election’

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Exclusive: Official in Zelenskyy administration expresses frustration with Starmer over lack of missiles

Ukraine’s relationship with the UK has “got worse” since the Labour government took power in July, officials in Kyiv have told the Guardian, voicing frustration over Britain’s failure to supply additional long-range missiles.

The UK prime minister is yet to visit Ukraine four months after taking office and a frustrated Kyiv has said that a trip would be worthless unless Keir Starmer committed to replenishing stocks of the sought after long-range Storm Shadow system.

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British voters do not like Trump ‘because they don’t really know him’, Farage claims – as it happened

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Keir Starmer has hosted veterans and charities at Downing Street with defence secretary John Healey in the lead-up to Remembrance Day, PA Media reports. PA says:

The informal reception was held after Starmer pledged £3.5m in support for veterans facing homelessness.

Peter Kent, 99, the oldest veteran at the event, said he was pleased by the increase in funding and described Starmer as a “good guy”.

State visits take a while to organise. So in the next year, I’ve got to tell you, I think that would be a bit of a tall order. But [Trump] was genuine in his respect and his affection for the royal family.

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Father of Sara Sharif tells court of his daughter’s final moments

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Taxi driver among three on trial over death of 10-year-old says she briefly opened her eyes and asked for water before dying in his arms

The father of Sara Sharif wept as he told how his limp daughter briefly opened her eyes and asked for water before dying in his arms, a court has heard.

Urfan Sharif said his wife, Beinash Batool, did not call an ambulance in Sara’s final moments, but had said the 10-year-old was being “dramatic and pretending”.

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