Category Archives: UK news

Ignore ‘vicious’ social media criticism, Blair tells Starmer

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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.

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‘Amazing’ Viking-age treasure travelled half the world to Scotland, analysis finds

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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.

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‘My work sells for millions but only a fraction of that came to me,’ says Scottish painter

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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.

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Oasis fans frustrated by technical issues in battle to nab reunion show tickets

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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.

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NHS queues mean most Britons expect to pay for healthcare, says report

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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.

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Voters believe Labour on UK’s woes, but not on its proposed fixes

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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.

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Branded UK school uniforms cost more than double high-street prices, analysis reveals

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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.

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Labour MP accused of renting out ant-infested flats with black mould

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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.

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Oasis warn that gig tickets resold at inflated prices will be cancelled

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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”.

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Will Labour resist the ‘killer tactics’ of industry’s enemies of public health?

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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.

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UK MPs urged to give up freebies from tobacco, alcohol and junk food firms

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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.

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Ex-TV news presenter Mike Nesbitt to return as Ulster Unionists’ leader

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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.

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Watchdog launches review after UK civil service ‘cronyism’ row

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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.

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Government seeking to make ‘fewer places where you can smoke’ – UK politics live

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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.

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Thames Water lobbied Whitehall to press Ofwat on allowing higher bills

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Exclusive: Debt-ridden company also warned officials of ‘chilling effect’ of any renationalisation

Thames Water has lobbied the government to intervene with the regulator to allow it to charge far higher bills, the Guardian can reveal.

Advisers and board members of the beleaguered water company are understood to have met Whitehall officials in recent weeks to say that allowing it to be temporarily renationalised would have a “chilling effect” on the entire UK’s appeal to international investors, sources familiar with the discussions told the Guardian.

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‘The race is wide open’: MPs’ vote looms for six Tory leadership hopefuls

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Badenoch and Jenrick are the bookies’ favourites but the party’s reduced ranks make the numbers extremely tight

When the Conservative MPs who remain return to Westminster, they will briefly seem like some of the most popular people in SW1. With the party so reduced in numbers, over the next few days there will be a furious wooing of those who have not yet declared for one of the six leadership candidates.

“The race is wide open,” one senior Tory said. “There are barely any public endorsements so no one can tell who is the favourite. The public polling has been all over the place. Often they seem to be just based on who has paid for it.”

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The lady’s not for returning – but where has No 10’s Thatcher portrait gone?

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Painting that hung in former PM’s study since 2009 no longer there – but aides are tightlipped as to whereabouts

In a summer punctuated by an election and then riots there has not really been a “silly season”, the traditional news-light period when holidaying MPs become worked up about trivialities. That is until now – thanks to a row about a portrait of Margaret Thatcher.

What is known is that the slightly austere painting of the former prime minister by the artist Richard Stone has been moved from the Downing Street study where it had hung since 2009, when Gordon Brown commissioned it.

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Housing market at its strongest since Truss mini-budget aftermath

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House prices grew at annual rate of 2.4% in August, the fastest since December 2022, Nationwide figures show

The UK housing market is at its strongest since the aftermath of Liz Truss’s infamous mini-budget that sent borrowing costs soaring, according to the latest figures.

Nationwide said house prices grew at an annual rate of 2.4% in August, up from 2.1% in July and the fastest rate since December 2022.

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Who are the six leadership candidates to be voted on by Conservative MPs?

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Tory MPs will vote next week in a series of ballots to narrow the field down to four candidates

Conservative MPs will start whittling down the leadership candidates to four next week, the first stage in a long contest from which a winner will not emerge until 2 November. Here are the six candidates in the running to replace Rishi Sunak.

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