Category Archives: UK news

Heatmaps show UK homebuyers look most at artwork and furniture before making decision

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Zoopla puts average viewing time at 49 minutes, as eye tracking study shows focus on mirrors and plants, not floors and walls

A fifth of homebuyers spend less than 20 minutes looking at a home before deciding to make an offer, with viewers more likely to focus on artwork and furniture than structural features, research suggests.

The average time for looking around a property before settling on buying it was about 49 minutes, according to a survey of people who have attended viewings in the past five years.

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Reform UK chair was member of Conservatives until last week

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Exclusive: Zia Yusuf’s membership remained active until last week, when it was revoked after being pointed out by the Guardian

The chair of Reform UK, Zia Yusuf, was a member of the Conservatives until last week when party officials were approached by the Guardian.

Richard Fuller, the Conservative party chair, emailed Yusuf to tell him his membership had been revoked last Friday afternoon, after the Guardian asked the party whether it was still active.

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Jobs market and pay growth are cooling off, large UK employers and recruiters warn

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Survey reveals net fall in permanent jobs last month amid lengthening slowdown in employment market

The UK’s largest employers have warned the jobs market is cooling amid a slowdown in wage growth in July and a fall in vacancies, extending an almost two-year downturn in hiring demand for permanent staff.

Figures from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and the accountancy firm KPMG showed a fall in permanent staff placements in July as large employers made more redundancies and hired fewer new starters.

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Robert Jenrick criticised for saying people shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ should be arrested

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Critics call Tory leadership candidate’s comments around far-right protests ‘nasty divisive rhetoric’

Robert Jenrick has been criticised by a rival for the Conservative leadership and Muslim parliamentarians for saying police should “immediately arrest” any protesters shouting “Allahu Akbar”, the Arabic phrase that means God is great.

The former immigration minister was speaking on Sky News about the accusations that police have been treating far-right marches and violence more harshly than other protests.

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UK riots live: rioters jailed over Merseyside disorder as police brace for more far-right unrest

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Police said 120 people have been charged so far while 428 arrests have been made during the riots

Chief executive of Conversation Over Borders, a national charity supporting refugees and asylum seekers, is calling for people to send in welcoming notes which will be delivered to asylum seekers staying at initial hotel accommodation, PA Media reports.

Colette Batten-Turner said since putting the call out the charity received 150 messages by the next day, adding: “We are getting more and more messages come in by the second.”

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Businesses in England board up amid fears of far-right violence

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Shops close early, with more than 100 rallies planned to take place across country

Businesses have boarded up, closed or plan to close early amid fears about potential violence as more than 100 far-right rallies across England were planned for Wednesday night.

Employers across the country also told employees who felt vulnerable that they could work from home.

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MI5’s posthumous discovery of Stakeknife files alarms inquiry chief

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Release of intelligence year after death ‘casts doubt’ on security service’s previous claims about British spy in IRA accused of murders

The police chief investigating murders allegedly carried out by Freddie Scappaticci, a British agent in the IRA known as Stakeknife, has expressed alarm that hundreds of pages of files providing “new investigative leads” have been found by MI5 a year after Scappaticci’s death.

Sir Iain Thomas Livingstone, a former head of Police Scotland who leads Operation Kenova, has written to the Northern Ireland secretary of state to highlight the troubling timing and warn that the new intelligence raises questions about MI5’s previous claims of knowledge about Stakeknife.

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Banksy reveals third London animal mural in three days

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Three monkeys painted swinging across bridge over Brick Lane, as fans speculate over meaning of ‘London zoo’ series

Banksy has revealed his third animal-themed artwork in London since Monday, this time showcasing a trio of monkeys swinging across the bridge of an east London train station.

On Tuesday the Bristol-based artist produced a mural of two elephant silhouettes on the side of a house in Edith Terrace in Chelsea.

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Ofcom receives 8,000 complaints over Ed Balls interviews on Good Morning Britain

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Complaints followed Balls’ interview with his wife, Yvette Cooper, and Labour MP Zarah Sultana on Monday

The media regulator Ofcom has received more than 8,000 complaints after an episode of Good Morning Britain in which the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, was interviewed by her husband, Ed Balls.

Balls, a former Labour cabinet minister and a regular presenter on the ITV breakfast programme, questioned his wife’s response to far-right riots during Monday’s edition of the programme.

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Investors push Glencore to scrap spin-off of heavily polluting coal division

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More than 95% of investors urged commodities firm to keep highly profitable fossil fuel arm to help maximise shareholder cash

Glencore has scrapped plans to spin off its coal business after shareholders urged the commodities company to hold on to the highly profitable but heavily polluting division.

The FTSE 100 company said that an overwhelming majority of its shareholders favoured retaining the coal business over its plan to list the division as a separate company on the New York stock exchange.

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‘We’re all scared’: NHS doctor reveals impact of far-right riots on staff

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Hospital worker from Egypt expresses safety fears, doubts about staying in UK and sense of being unappreciated

As far-right riots broke out across parts of the UK this week, the chief executive of NHS England, Amanda Pritchard, warned in an email to NHS leaders that “for many NHS workers, seeing this flare-up of racism will leave them feeling afraid and unwelcome”.

The Guardian spoke to Samir, 32, an NHS hospital doctor in south-west England, who shared his views.

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UK police monitoring TikTok for evidence of criminality at far-right riots

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Footage of disorder can reach hundreds of thousands of viewers and often shows faces of those committing crimes

Police officers are watching TikTok in an attempt to catch far-right demonstrators livestreaming self-incriminating footage of their illegal behaviour.

TikTok’s Live function has become one of the defining outlets for coverage of this summer’s riots, with hundreds of thousands of viewers watching live streams of rioting over the last week in cities such as Stoke, Leeds, Hull and Nottingham.

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Royal Mint opens factory in south Wales to recover gold from e-waste

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‘Pioneering’ facility will extract precious metal from up to 4,000 tonnes of scrap circuit boards a year

The Royal Mint has unveiled a “pioneering” factory that will recover gold from electronic waste, creating a more sustainable source of the precious metal for the coin manufacturer’s luxury jewellery line.

The factory in south Wales, which has been under construction since March 2022, is designed to extract gold from up to 4,000 tonnes a year of circuit boards sourced in the UK from electronics including phones, laptops and TVs.

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UK failing to monitor apparently falling wasp populations, expert warns

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Gardeners and pest controllers say wasps, important predators and pollinators, appear to be in sharp decline

The UK is not doing enough to track wasp populations as numbers appear to plummet, a leading expert has warned.

While there were national monitoring schemes for some invertebrates, including bees and butterflies, there was no such programme in place for wasps, said Dr Gavin Broad, principal curator of wasps at the Natural History Museum.

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Ditching two-child benefit cap would cut deaths and A&E admissions, study says

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England research shows huge benefits with resulting savings for NHS and councils

Curbing child poverty by scrapping the two-child benefit cap would save hundreds of lives a year and avoid thousands of admissions to hospital, the largest study of its kind suggests.

Keir Starmer has faced repeated demands from within Labour ranks and opposition leaders to abolish the policy, which was announced in 2015 by George Osborne, then chancellor. Almost half of all children in some towns and cities now live below the breadline.

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UK recovery ‘will accelerate and force Bank to keep interest rates higher for longer’

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Niesr forecasts raise doubts over chance of further cuts by Bank of England before end of year

The UK’s economic recovery will accelerate over the next year, forcing the Bank of England to keep interest rates higher for longer, according to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr).

Signalling that bets on further interest rate cuts before the end of the year could be misplaced, the thinktank said a modest economic recovery and the threat from persistent inflationary trends should make the central bank more cautious about reducing the cost of borrowing.

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Global markets partly recover but analysts fear ‘we’re not out of woods’

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Shares on Wall Street and in Asia and Europe start to recover after Monday’s rout

Shares on Wall Street rose and many Asian and European markets staged a recovery after this week’s global stock market rout, but analysts warned: “We might not be out of the woods.”

The FTSE 100 index in London rose 18 points, or 0.2%, on Tuesday to close at 8,026.69, after losing 166 points, or 2%, on Monday, its biggest one-day points drop in more than a year.

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UK riots live: arrests pass 400 as police prepare for further riots; man in serious condition after suspected hate crime

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More than 400 people arrested in connection with riots and disorder; man hospitalised in Belfast

The UK’s National Union of Students has offered a statement of support to communities affected by far-right rioting and violence, including students from Muslim and migrant backgrounds, following a week of far-right violence across England and in Belfast.

“At NUS, we stand in solidarity with the migrants, racialised and Muslim communities that have faced xenophobic, racist, and Islamophobic violence in the last week,” the NUS statement said.

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Unions welcome scrapping of Tories’ ‘spiteful’ minimum service law

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Senior figures praise repeal of law but privately some want full workers’ rights overhaul implemented without delay

Unions have welcomed the government’s move to formally scrap a “draconian” anti-strike law that would have ensured a minimum level of service during industrial action as the legislation had restricted workers’ rights.

The deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, and the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, have written to government departments with sectors that were most affected by the strikes to give a “clear message” the measures will be repealed and have urged all metro mayors to start engaging with local employers on the change.

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Liverpool library torched by far-right rioters raises repair funds

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Appeal for donations to repair fire damage caused to Spellow Hub library has raised more than £120,000 in two days

A fundraising campaign has raised more than £120,000 to help repair a Liverpool library and community hub that suffered severe fire damage after being targeted by rioters on Saturday night.

Nigella Lawson and children’s laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce are among those who have donated to the gofundme page, which was set up on Sunday afternoon in aid of Spellow Hub library.

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