Category Archives: UK news

Film and TV charity unveils landmark mental health principles for UK industry

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Move comes after 35% of sector workers surveyed described their mental health as ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’

The Film and TV charity has unveiled a landmark set of principles for safeguarding mental health in what’s been called a “watershed moment” for the UK creative sector’s duty of care to its production community.

The principles are the result of a collaboration between the charity and more than 45 industry organisations, including all the public service broadcasters, studios, leading streamers, production companies and trade unions.

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Mumsnet calls for under-16s social media ban with cigarette-style health warnings

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Resembling cigarette packet warnings, the ads highlight dangers and urge people to email MPs

Mumsnet has launched a campaign to introduce a ban on social media for under-16s featuring health warnings in the style of those on cigarette packets.

The deliberately provocative national advertising campaign calls for all social media to be banned for children under the age of 16. The images on billboards and social media make a number of stark statements related to health.

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Treasury calls in Blair thinktank to advise on using AI across public services

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Tech equity campaigners compare move to ‘inviting in foxes to consult on the future of the henhouse’

Ministers have called in Tony Blair’s thinktank and private tech companies to guide them on deploying AI across the UK government in a move campaigners compared to “inviting in foxes to consult on the future of the henhouse”.

James Murray, chief secretary to the Treasury, chaired a meeting on Wednesday with the director of AI at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), the chair of IBM and senior executives at AI companies including Faculty AI, now part of Accenture, and Dex Hunter-Torricke, a former communications adviser at Google, Facebook and Elon Musk’s Space X.

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UK ministers explore ways of easing burden of student loans

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Government reviews options for plan 2 loans, such as increasing repayment thresholds, amid growing pressure

Ministers are examining ways to ease the burden of student loans after weeks of pressure over a policy pulling more people into repayments, the Guardian understands.

The Treasury and the Department for Education are reviewing different options to offer relief to graduates with Plan 2 student loans, often paying tens of thousands more than their original loan amount.

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Foreign Office denies minister’s claim the Chagos Islands deal has been paused – UK politics live

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Minister told MPs the deal had been been paused, but that was immediately denied by the Foreign Office

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has published figures showing that local authorities in England dealt with 1.26m flytipping incidents in 2024/25 – 9% increase on the previous year.

And there was an 11% increase in incidents involving a “tipper lorry load” amount of rubbish. There were 52,000 of these, up from 47,000 in 2023/24. Defra said these alone cost councils £19.3m.

These figures show the equivalent of 142 monster landfills a day took place, confirming what communities across the country know all too well – our beautiful countryside is being used by criminal gangs as their personal landfill.

For far too long, waste gangs have pocketed millions in illegal earning, poisoning our environment and our health without consequence. The Liberal Democrats are demanding an end to this environmental vandalism.

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Confusion over Chagos Islands deal as Foreign Office denies handover ‘paused’

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Minister ‘misspoke’ by telling MPs UK was ‘pausing for discussions with our American counterparts’, officials say

Plans to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius are still on track, the UK government has insisted, after a minister caused confusion by telling MPs that the deal was “paused”.

Hamish Falconer, a Foreign Office minister and former diplomat, was speaking on Wednesday as the deal came under increasing pressure from opposition parties in the UK and from Donald Trump.

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Diageo slashes dividend and vows to address Guinness capacity constraints in London

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Drinks maker cuts annual sale and profit forecast for second time in four months amid weak demand in US and China

Diageo has slashed its dividend and cut its annual sales and profit forecast for the second time in four months, as the maker of Guinness warned of capacity constraints affecting drinkers of “the black stuff” in London pubs.

The world’s largest spirits maker – which owns brands including Smirnoff vodka, Johnnie Walker whisky and Don Julio tequila – reported weak demand in the US and China in the first results released under the new chief executive, Sir Dave Lewis.

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Disputes over Hamas disarmament stall Gaza peace plan progress

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Hamas to almost certainly reject plan described in Israeli press, say experts, as no guarantee Israel will withdraw on surrender of weapons

Progress in the Gaza peace plan has stalled over disagreements on how Hamas should be disarmed, with Israel threatening to go back to full-scale war if the condition is not carried out quickly.

The second phase of the US-brokered ceasefire, which Washington declared had begun in January, was meant to involve Hamas disarming, Israeli forces withdrawing, and a Palestinian interim administration moving into Gaza backed by a Palestinian police force and an international stabilisation force (ISF).

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Ineos said to be in talks to sell parts of business to tackle rising debt

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Talks reportedly focused on assets of owner Jim Ratcliffe’s vinyls business Inovyn as group scrambles to cut costs

The chemicals empire owned by the billionaire Jim Ratcliffe is in talks to sell parts of the business in the hope of raising hundreds of millions of pounds to tackle its rising debts, according to a report.

The talks are at an early stage but have focused on selling assets from Ratcliffe’s vinyls business, Ineos Inovyn, the Financial Times said, citing people familiar with the matter.

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Members of Iran’s elite accused of hypocrisy over children’s lives in west

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Opposition campaigners claim top figures in regime use state wealth to fund lifestyles counter to those they preach

Members of Iran’s ruling elite have been accused of brazen hypocrisy by allegedly using the state’s wealth to help to fund their adult children’s lives in the west while presiding over growing economic misery and repression at home.

Opposition campaigners made the accusation against some of the clerical regime’s most powerful figures as a military confrontation with the US appears increasingly likely. Donald Trump has deployed a vast armada in the Middle East and confirmed he is considering strikes.

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Half of Britons avoid calling GP when they are ill, survey finds

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Most believe they will struggle to get an appointment, with over a quarter choosing to manage ailment themselves

Almost half the public delay or avoid contacting their GP surgery when they are ill, mainly because they think they will struggle to get an appointment.

Overall 48% of people across the UK did not bother to ask their family doctor for help – either initially or at all – when they got sick over the past year, a survey found.

Faster access to GPs and A&E are the public’s top priorities for the NHS.

Only 32% believe the NHS provides a good service nationally.

42% think the standard of NHS care has worsened over the past year and only 12% think that it has improved.

47% fear NHS care will decline further over the next year and just 15% expect it to get better

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Royal Artillery under fire after denying access to looted Asante treasure

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‘Extraordinary’ golden lamb’s head pillaged in 1874 from what is now Ghana remains hidden in officers’ mess

The Royal Artillery is facing criticism after it emerged they are refusing public access to an “extraordinary object” looted by the British army in the 19th century from the Asante people in modern-day Ghana.

The glistening golden ram’s head would seemingly be worthy of any museum, but it remains hidden within the regiment’s mess at Larkhill in Wiltshire.

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David Lammy lifts cap on court sitting days in effort to cut backlog of cases

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Criminal barristers welcome justice secretary’s move to remove limit on hearing days at crown courts in England and Wales

A cap on court sitting days is to be lifted as the government seeks to ease the cases backlog, David Lammy has announced.

The justice secretary and deputy prime minister said every crown court in England and Wales would be funded to hear more cases in the next financial year.

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Inquiry into Andrew’s links to Jeffrey Epstein is matter for MPs, says No 10

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Prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand say they would not object to his removal from royal succession line

A parliamentary inquiry into Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s links to Jeffrey Epstein is a matter for MPs, Downing Street has said, as ministers faced a new push to uncover details about the former prince’s role as a trade envoy.

It comes as the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, wrote to Keir Starmer to say his country would have no objection to Mountbatten-Windsor being removed from the royal line of succession. Later, a spokesperson for New Zealand’s prime minister, Christopher Luxon, said his country would also support the proposals.

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Burberry is back on brand as a purveyor of the classic British coat

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Designer Daniel Lee’s trenchcoats and bomber jackets fizz with urban energy in collection that embraces bad weather

In a winter of record-breaking rain, Burberry – purveyor of the stalwart British coat – is back in the zeitgeist. A season of downpours has provided an apt backdrop for a return to form, as the brand re-entered the FTSE 100 last autumn after an ignominious year out of the charts.

The classic check scarf was ranked the fourth hottest fashion item in the last quarter of 2025 on the search, sales and social media metrics of the Lyst index, with overall demand for the brand up 239% year on year.

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Channel 4’s Dirty Business is a clarion call to nationalise the water industry

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As the drama shows, private firms no longer able to pollute the coast of England of Wales just switched to rivers instead

There is a moment in Channel 4’s drama Dirty Business when Julie Maughan holds the body of her dead child and lets out an anguished cry. It is as brutal as it is compelling.

Her eight-year-old daughter Heather had just died in hospital, two weeks after playing in the sea on the beach at Dawlish Warren in Devon, where she contracted E coli O157, a bug which comes from raw sewage. She became ill with diarrhoea and blood loss. Transferred to Bristol children’s hospital, her parents agreed to switch off her life-support machine after she suffered kidney failure and brain damage.

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Lovejoy episode helps antiques dealer identify stolen Napoleon III artefacts

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Repeat of BBC series gave clue to Paul Gostelow about 19th-century altar cards taken from crypt in Hampshire

Two priceless artefacts stolen more than a decade ago from the crypt of Napoleon III in England have been recovered after an antiques dealer realised he had them while watching a repeat of the comedy drama Lovejoy.

The wooden 19th-century altar cards were taken in a burglary at St Michael’s Abbey in Farnborough, Hampshire in February 2014 and were feared lost for ever.

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Phillipson says Send reforms needed ‘even if money were no object’ because current outcomes ‘not good enough’– UK politics live

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Education secretary says education, health and care plans (EHCPs) shouldn’t be the ‘only way’ for children to get help

Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has been speaking about the Send reforms at an event in Peterborough.

This is what she said about the need for inclusion.

Inclusion is a choice. It is an educational choice, and it is also a political choice because we could duck this challenge, ignore the injustice of a postcode lottery in life chances putting off fixing the Send system yet again.

The system works well for some at least.

We welcome the scale of vision contained in the white paper which has the potential to create an education system that fully values children and young people with additional needs and their families.

We also welcome the commitment to retain statutory education, health and care plans (EHCPs) for children and young people whose needs cannot be met through this new model. We know that many parents will welcome the legal requirement for schools to create individual support plans (ISPs) for all children with Send.

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Martin Lewis ambushes Badenoch on Good Morning Britain over student loans plan

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Finance campaigner marches on to set and tells Tory leader her policy to cut interest rates will only help top earners

Kemi Badenoch has faced what could be described as the stuff of nightmares for a UK politician being interviewed about a personal finance policy: being ambushed and contradicted live on air by Martin Lewis.

As the Conservative leader was being interviewed on ITV about her party’s plans to cut interest rates for some student loans, Lewis, a campaigner and finance expert, marched on to the set to announce that he completely disagreed.

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People with rare genetic conditions are ‘systematically ignored’ by NHS

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Exclusive: One in four wait at least three years for diagnosis and many face treatment ‘access lottery’, report finds

Millions of people living with rare genetic conditions across the UK are being “systematically ignored” by the NHS and facing inadequate care, according to a report.

Rare genetic conditions, such as Williams syndrome and Duchenne muscular dystrophy, affect more than 3.5 million people across the UK. One in 17 people are affected by a rare condition at some point during their lives.

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