Category Archives: UK news

Interest rate cut fuels immediate upturn in UK property market

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Figures from Rightmove show inquiries to estate agents since 1 August up 19% compared with a year ago

The first Bank of England rate cut in four years has triggered an immediate upturn in the UK property market, as cheaper mortgages prompt interest among buyers and drive up house prices.

Figures from the property website Rightmove show the number of potential buyers contacting estate agents about homes for sale since 1 August jumped by 19% compared with the same time a year ago. Contacts in July were up 11% on the previous year.

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Black children in England and Wales four times more likely to be strip-searched, figures show

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Children’s commissioner finds wide disparity with white counterparts in year to June 2023, with 88% of searches aimed at finding drugs

Black children are four times more likely to be strip-searched by police officers across England and Wales than their white counterparts, according to the latest nationwide figures disclosed by a watchdog.

The children’s commissioner also found that children under the age of 15 are a bigger proportion of those subjected to intimate searches, official figures from the year to June 2023 showed. Fewer than half of all searches of children in that year (45%) were conducted in the presence of an appropriate adult.

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Crisis measures to tackle English prison overcrowding imminent, says union

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POA chair says ministers could declare as soon as Monday that Operation Early Dawn is coming into force

The launch of an emergency plan to avoid prison overcrowding in England could be announced as soon as Monday, the Prison Officers’ Association has said.

The longstanding measure, known as Operation Early Dawn, would allow defendants to be held in police cells until prison beds became available and could mean their court dates are delayed or adjourned at short notice.

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Man arrested on suspicion of murder of woman found stabbed in Sussex car park

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Twenty-six-year-old suspect in incident, which happened on Sunday morning in Crawley, remains in custody

A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a woman was found stabbed in a car park on Sunday morning, Sussex police have said.

Officers were called to a report of an altercation between a man and woman at about 7.10am on Station Way in Crawley, West Sussex. The area was searched and a woman was found in a nearby car park “with stab injuries”, the force said.

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Final artwork in Banksy animal series removed by London Zoo

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Staff replaced stencil art of gorilla helping animals to escape with reproduction to preserve ‘significant moment’ for zoo

Stencilled on a shutter at the entrance to London Zoo, the mural showed a powerful gorilla lifting up the metal barrier and creating a dark hole just big enough for other animals to use to make a speedy getaway.

Now, Banksy’s ninth and final artwork in his animal-themed London series has itself escaped, removed in an attempt by the 196-year-old zoo to “properly preserve” a “significant moment” in its history.

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Foreign Office official quits over UK refusal to ban arms exports to Israel

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Mark Smith says evidence of Gaza war crimes is clear, but that his complaints were brushed aside

A Foreign Office official has resigned over the UK’s refusal to ban arms exports to Israel because of alleged breaches of international law.

Mark Smith, a counter-terrorism official based at the British embassy in Dublin, said he had resigned after making numerous internal complaints, including through an official whistleblowing mechanism, but receiving nothing but pro-forma responses.

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UK sperm donations being exported despite 10-family limit

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Exclusive: Legal loophole means there is no restriction on making sperm or eggs available for additional fertility treatments abroad

Sperm donated in the UK is being exported and can be used to create large numbers of children across multiple countries, contradicting a strict 10-family limit that applies in the UK, experts warn.

A legal loophole means that, while a single donor can be used to create no more than 10 families in UK fertility clinics, there are no restrictions on companies making sperm or eggs available for additional fertility treatments abroad.

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‘It’s wanton vandalism’: the unwanted consequences of owning a Banksy

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The artist’s subversive work draws crowds and criminals alike, and owning an original is fraught with logistical problems

The picture of a pair of masked men in south London this month making off with a ladder and a satellite dish, newly decorated by Banksy, made one thing clear: people want Banksy’s art and believe it is extremely valuable. The culprits in Peckham Rye were photographed and filmed in action, so took a big risk, and two arrests were made later that day.

But if an original sprayed ­stencil appears overnight on the side of your home or business, it would pose problems. After all, Banksy’s team issue no manual of instructions on how to protect and maintain the artworks. In fact, the artist is understood to feel that whatever happens to his sub­versive images is all part of the initial ­creative intervention.

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‘Share government data to boost economy’, says UK statistics watchdog chief

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The UK Statistics Authority’s chair says linking data sets from departments could aid growth and improve services

• We need to make data sharing across government the rule

Ministers could find ways to boost the economy and improve public services by combining data from separate government departments, according to the head of the UK’s statistics watchdog.

Sir Robert Chote, the chair of the UK Statistics Authority, said that too often government data was “siloed” because departments and other bodies were worried that people may uncover weaknesses in the data or even reach inconvenient conclusions.

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Rachel Reeves’ pension plan could damage the north, says ex-minister

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Lord Jim O’Neill says small businesses could lose out from merger of local government schemes to create large fund

Government plans to create one of the largest pension schemes in the world from a merger of 87 local authority retirement funds could undermine investment in groundbreaking businesses across the north of England, according to former Treasury adviser Lord Jim O’Neill.

Innovative startup businesses, many of them spun out of universities in Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield, could lose out if the Treasury creates a big fund interested only in backing large companies, he said.

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Public approves response to riots but Starmer’s appeal fades, new poll shows

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Most think Labour handled unrest well and agree with pursuit of those inciting racial hatred online

Voters have given broad approval to the government’s handling of the social unrest that broke out this summer, including its pursuit of those inciting racial hatred and violence online, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer.

However, the significant boost Keir Starmer enjoyed in his personal approval ratings immediately after his election win has dissipated, falling back to the levels he recorded during the election campaign.

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Male UK university students are ‘less macho’ when sharing flats with women

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Researchers have found the competitiveness of men living in mixed flats on UK campuses significantly decreased

Living with female flatmates at university makes male students less “macho”, new research from Essex University and Australia’s University of Technology Sydney has found.

The study, which followed a cohort of students at a UK university living in campus halls of residence over a one-year period, revealed that men living in mixed flats with female flatmates exhibited a significant decrease in competitiveness. There was no effect on women.

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Vets extend strike in first industrial action to hit Britain’s pet-care sector

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Staff at a practice in Wales have accused its private-equity-backed owner of poor pay and overcharging customers

Staff working at a chain of commercial vet surgeries have extended their strike, accusing their private-equity-backed owner of underpaying workers and overcharging pet owners as part of the first industrial action to hit the veterinary sector in the UK.

Unionised vets, nurses and support staff at Valley Vets in south Wales, which is owned by one of the largest veterinary corporations in the country, VetPartners, decided last week to stay out until the end of the month, in the latest move in an increasingly bitter dispute.

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David Lammy warns of rising risk of full-scale regional war in Middle East

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The UK foreign secretary and his French counterpart write in the Observer about their fears over Israel’s escalating tensions with Iran

• It’s never too late for peace in the Middle East – we must break the cycle of violence

There is a rising risk of “full-scale regional war” in the Middle East, the foreign secretary, David Lammy, has warned, amid frantic international efforts to calm tensions with Iran and reach a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.

With the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, flying into Israel this weekend to push for a deal, Lammy has joined forces with his French counterpart, Stéphane Séjourné, to warn that now is a “perilous moment” for the region in the midst of widespread fears of escalation involving Tehran and allied militias in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

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UK launches its first Earth-imaging military satellite

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Satellite named Tyche to support armed forces operations as well as monitor natural disasters and impact of climate change

The UK has launched its first military satellite able to capture daytime images and videos of the Earth’s surface.

The satellite, named Tyche, will support British armed forces operations as well as monitor natural disasters, help map information development and track the impact of climate change globally, the Ministry of Defence said.

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Former Sunak adviser urges Labour to introduce wealth tax on housing

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The economist behind the Covid furlough scheme has called for ‘unfair’ council tax and stamp duty to be axed

Council tax and stamp duty are “unfair and unpopular” taxes that should be abolished, says the economist who devised the Covid furlough scheme.

Tim Leunig, who has advised a series of cabinet ministers, including Rishi Sunak during his prime ministership, said it was time for a new and radical approach that would axe the two taxes and replace them with proportional levies.

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Labour must raise GP funding to end ‘8am scramble’, says doctors’ group

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General practices forced to ‘do more and more with less and less’, says Doctors’ Association UK

Labour’s promise to “end the 8am scramble” for medical appointments will be impossible without increasing core funding for GPs, according to a leading medical association.

The health secretary, Wes Streeting, pledged during the general election campaign that Labour would “end the 8am scramble by allowing patients to easily book appointments to see the doctor they want, in the manner they choose”.

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Ambulances called to Amazon’s UK warehouses 1,400 times in five years

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GMB union urges Health and Safety Executive to investigate ‘shocking’ figures revealed by the Observer

Ambulances have been called out to Amazon warehouses more than 1,400 times in the past five years, the Observer can reveal. The figures, which were described as shocking by the GMB trade union, raise fresh questions about safety at the American giant’s UK workplaces.

Amazon centres in Dunfermline and Bristol had the most ambulance callouts in Britain, listing 161 and 125 across the period respectively.

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‘Kafkaesque’: bank blocks cash transfer, saying it could be an AI scam

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Starling’s fraud team repeatedly refused to allow UK man to send £12,800 to friend in Austria, then froze account

An Edinburgh academic has accused Starling bank’s fraud team of behaving like officers in a police state after they repeatedly refused to allow him to send a €15,000 (£12,800) payment to a friend in Austria, then froze his account when he complained about their “absurd demands”.

John MacInnes, a professor emeritus of sociology and statistics, says he has been left astonished by his treatment by staff at the challenger bank.

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London City airport: 54% of journeys take under six hours by train, data shows

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Exclusive: Most popular routes can be reached quickly by train, as government mulls expansion proposal

More than half of the journeys taken from London City airport last year can be reached in six hours or less by train, data reveals.

The Labour government is preparing to make the final call on the airport’s application to significantly increase its passenger numbers. The airport wants to increase capacity from 6.5 million to 9 million passengers a year by putting on more weekend and early morning flights.

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