As much as 40mm of rain could fall in an hour in some places on Monday, forecasters say
Thunderstorm warnings are still in place in the UK, parts of which could see as much as three inches of rain on Monday.
The yellow warning began in the early hours of Sunday and will be in place until Tuesday, covering most of England, the east of Wales and the east of Scotland.
Continue reading...Lack of funding, resources and rehabilitation leads to ‘bored and angry’ prisoners, Wendy Sinclair-Gieben says
The prison system is “broken”, with inmates returning to the community “bored and angry” and “set up to fail”, according to Scotland’s outgoing chief inspector.
Wendy Sinclair-Gieben highlighted a succession of failings in a service she described as “the underdog of the criminal justice system”, as she stands down as HM chief inspector of prisons for Scotland at the end of August.
Continue reading...Stella Creasy says she wants to put school and hospital debts and impact of trade deals ‘on nation’s books’
A senior Labour backbencher is seeking to have liabilities from schools and hospitals built under private finance initiative (PFI) deals scrutinised under a new budget responsibility bill.
Stella Creasy, who has tabled two amendments to the bill, said this would help highlight the scale of debt incurred. She also wants trade deals such as the post-Brexit arrangement with the EU to fall under its remit, arguing these can have an even greater fiscal impact.
Continue reading...As the final report on the fatal London blaze looms, many developers have not begun safety work
• Rowan Moore: The Grenfell inquiry is exposing a culture of contempt that has run deep in Britain
Grenfell was an avoidable tragedy, the inquiry’s counsel said on the final day of hearings. Yet with the report into the blaze that claimed 72 lives due this week, residents of other tower blocks fear that not enough has been done to prevent another catastrophe.
One of them is Gemma Lindfield. The 45-year-old barrister is still waiting for flammable cladding to be removed from her eight-storey apartment block in east London. It took three years before anyone even realised there was a problem. The following four years have been mired in indecision and wrangling about exactly who will pay to fix it.
Continue reading...Covid’s world of masks and remote health visits has created a generation at risk of social and emotional difficulties
Babies born in 2020 started life in the strange world of lockdown in a small bubble of people with faces hidden behind masks. Social experiences, such as seeing extended family, trips to the playground or mother and baby groups, could not happen. And struggling public services meant infants were likely to miss out on face-to-face appointments with a health visitor who might have been able to spot developmental difficulties early.
Those babies are now four years old, and in England are arriving at school for the first time this week. Experts say teachers should be braced to encounter – and tackle – problems ranging from poor speech and language development to social and emotional difficulties.
Continue reading...Former UK prime minister praises Labour leader’s handling of riots and advises him not to put off the ‘hard decisions’
Tony Blair has urged Keir Starmer to ignore “vicious” social media platforms during his time as prime minister, saying that poring over the inevitable criticism that will rain down on him will trigger psychological problems.
“You know, you start scrolling through social media that’s written about you, it’s going to do your head in,” Blair says in an interview with the Observer’s chief political commentator, Andrew Rawnsley, about his new book, On Leadership, Lessons for the 21st century.
Continue reading...Lidded vessel is star object in rich Galloway Hoard and came from silver mine in what is now Iran
It is a star object of the Galloway Hoard, the richest collection of Viking-age objects ever found in Britain or Ireland, buried in AD900 and unearthed in a field in Scotland. Now a lidded silver vessel has been identified as being of west Asian origin, transported halfway around the world more than 1,000 years ago.
When it emerged from the ground a decade ago, the vessel was still wrapped in its ancient textiles, whose survival is extremely rare. Its surface could be seen only through X-ray scans. Since then, the textiles have been partially removed and preserved and the vessel has had laser cleaning to remove green corrosion over much of its silver surface. It has also undergone scientific analysis.
Continue reading...Police believes no third party involved in incident after bodies found in Staines-Upon-Thames
Three children and a man have been found dead in a house in Surrey.
Police discovered their bodies in a property in Bremer Road, Staines-Upon-Thames, at about 1.15pm on Saturday.
Continue reading...Peter Doig says ‘crazy prices’ on the secondary market must be reined in to protect young artists
Peter Doig became the most expensive living painter in Europe in 2007, when White Canoe, his atmospheric painting of a a moonlit lagoon, sold for £5.7m.
The Scot then saw his auction record broken in 2017 and in 2021 respectively, when Rosedale, his depiction of a house in a snow storm, and Swamped, another enigmatic painting of a canoe, sold for the eye-watering prices of £21m and nearly £30m respectively.
Continue reading...High demand crashes ticket-selling websites amid scramble to secure place on 14-date tour
Did Oasis sell out yesterday? Definitely in Dublin. Maybe in Manchester. It was hard to tell.
Fans struggled to buy the million or so tickets that went on sale at 9am yesterday morning for the Manchester band’s 17-date comeback tour. Tickets had been expected to be snapped up in minutes, but instead many waited in online queues for hours, frustration mounting, only to be kicked off booking websites.
Continue reading...Joseph Rowntree Foundation points to ‘critical shift in expectations’ and says the public now budget for many routine services
Most people in the UK now believe they will have to spend their own money on private healthcare for routine services such as dentistry, physiotherapy and counselling because they won’t be able to get them quickly on the NHS, pioneering new research has found.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation says its findings, based on extensive focus group analysis, is evidence that Britons have undergone a “critical shift in expectations” about the health service’s capacity to meet their needs.
Continue reading...Keir Starmer struggling to sell his remedies for the problems facing Britain after Tory mess
The prime minister is struggling to communicate how his government will address the significant problems facing the UK. While the public readily accepts that the last government left a mess, selling Labour’s remedies as necessary or fair is proving more challenging.
The incoming government’s first job was to assign blame for the country’s current woes. This proved relatively easy, given the last government’s unpopularity and the Conservatives’ poor campaign.
Continue reading...The Children’s Society urges schools and government to ensure ‘undue financial strain’ is not placed on families
Parents are routinely paying more than double the price for branded school uniforms compared with similar items offered by supermarkets and high-street stores, an analysis by the Observer reveals.
Despite government guidance to reduce costs, the analysis shows that parents who are required by state schools to buy clothing featuring official school logos are still paying significantly more than for unbranded blazers, jumpers, ties and sports kit.
Continue reading...Jas Athwal, the Ilford South MP, ‘shocked’ by allegations and ‘profoundly sorry’ for condition of his properties
A newly elected Labour MP has been accused of renting out flats with black mould and ant infestations.
Jas Athwal, the MP for Ilford South, owns 15 rental flats, according to a report by the BBC.
Continue reading...Official tickets are priced at between £73 and £151, but some resellers are charging in the thousands for them
Oasis have issued a warning to people against reselling tickets for their reunion tour – or buying those resold tickets – on the secondary market at vastly inflated prices.
The band said tickets “sold in breach of the terms and conditions will be cancelled by the promoters”.
Continue reading...A new report lays down a challenge to Keir Starmer to take on vested interests of food, drink and tobacco companies
Illness, disease and death can be the result of bad luck, genetic factors or people’s lifestyles – whether someone smokes, drinks a lot or consumes a lot of junk food, for example.
The role of lifestyle in explaining why the UK is an increasingly sick country, and the growing pressures on the NHS, is often underappreciated. Experts tend to cite the growing and, especially, ageing population, which are both key factors.
Continue reading...Health groups challenge Starmer to ban ‘unhealthy products’ firms from lobbying MPs by giving them gifts
MPs are being urged to stop accepting freebies to sports and cultural events from tobacco, alcohol and junk food firms because their products cause so much illness and death.
More than 100 health groups are urging Britain’s lawmakers to reject offers of gifts and hospitality from “unhealthy products industries” because they use an array of underhand tactics to disguise the harm they create in order to protect their sales.
Continue reading...Health minister at Stormont was sole candidate to replace Doug Beattie when nominations closed
The former television news presenter Mike Nesbitt is to become the leader of the Ulster Unionist party for the second time, succeeding Doug Beattie who quit last week.
Nesbitt, 67, who led the UUP between 2012 and 2017, was the only declared candidate when nominations closed on Friday evening. He is expected to be formally ratified as leader at an extraordinary general meeting of the party on 14 September.
Continue reading...Announcement follows questions over exceptional appointments of Labour donor and former thinktank staffer
The civil service appointments watchdog has launched a review of exceptional appointments to official jobs after a row about alleged cronyism, following a Labour donor and a former thinktank staffer being given roles.
Gisela Stuart, the first civil service commissioner, has written to the heads of all government departments asking for details of any appointments since 1 July that were made without going through the normal civil service recruitment processes.
Continue reading...Jacqui Smith says Labour hopes to ‘make it much more likely’ that smokers will want to give up
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has said the UK is “deeply worried” by the “methods Israel has employed” in an IDF military operation in the occupied West Bank.
In a statement on Friday morning, an FCDO spokesperson said:
The UK is deeply concerned by the ongoing IDF military operation in the occupied West Bank.
We recognise Israel’s need to defend itself against security threats, but we are deeply worried by the methods Israel has employed and by reports of civilian casualties and the destruction of civilian infrastructure.
We inherited a Tory housing crisis.
Too few homes have been built.
Continue reading...