Category Archives: UK news

RAF grounds Spitfire fleet after death of pilot in Battle of Britain air display

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Announcement raises questions about aircraft’s participation in national D-day event in Portsmouth

The RAF has grounded a fleet of Spitfire planes after the death of a pilot over the weekend, raising the prospect of the legendary aircraft being absent from the 80th anniversary of the D-day landings next month.

Sqn Ldr Mark Long – a Typhoon pilot based at RAF Coningsby – was killed in a crash while flying a Spitfire belonging to the Battle of Britain Memorial Fleet as part of a memorial event.

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Rishi Sunak rejects claim he plans to move to California if he loses election – as it happened

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Prime minister dismisses speculation after Tory peer Zac Goldsmith became latest to hint at planned relocation

Starmer is now running through his six first step promises.

Starmer says he is fed up with hearing Rishi Sunak says the UK has “turned the corner”.

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Family of man who died after being deported blame Home Office delays

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Appeal allowed Sudharsan Ithayachandran to return to UK to be with his family, but he died in Sri Lanka while awaiting visa

The family of a man who died abroad after being wrongly deported by the UK Home Office have blamed the department for causing delays that stopped him being reunited with his children.

Sudharsan Ithayachandran, 41, was deported from the UK to Sri Lanka on 24 December 2019 – his wedding anniversary – after admitting to working illegally at Tesco and using false documents.

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Stephen Lawrence’s father says he has forgiven killers but not Met police

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Neville Lawrence writes of continuing fight for justice 31 years after murder of his son in south-east London

The father of Stephen Lawrence has said he has forgiven the racist killers of his son, but has yet to forgive the Metropolitan police for the failings that left them free.

In a comment piece for the Guardian, Neville Lawrence said his “grief has no ending” and told of his enduring pain to “identify the human cost” of the police’s failings.

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Toddlers ‘sold out’ to balance books of childcare bill, English nursery providers say

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Experts say government’s relaxation of rules on staff ratios for two-year-olds is putting children at undue risk

Toddlers have been “sold out” to balance the books of the government’s childcare bill, according to nursery providers, who say young children have been put at risk by changes in supervision rules.

The deaths of two babies in nurseries made headlines last week but frontline workers say they are also concerned for the safety of older toddlers after the government relaxed rules on staff ratios.

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‘No one would accept blame’: Carers highlight DWP failures over debt crisis

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Carers asked to repay sums as high as £20k say officials did not share eligibility information between departments

Carers put through the wringer of carer’s allowance overpayments raise the same question time and again: they weren’t aware they had infringed benefit rules but welfare officials were. Why were they not told, rather than overpayments being allowed to run on for months, landing them with debts of thousands of pounds?

For thousands of carers who unwittingly breached carer’s allowance earnings rules and are repaying sums as high as £20,000, this may have happened because officials failed to check earnings alerts. Had they done so, the problem may have been nipped in the bud, and the debt and misery of overpayments largely avoided.

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‘It feels like contempt’: DWP tells 85-year-old dementia patient to repay £13k

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Cypriot-born Sia Kasparis, who speaks limited English, was not told about disability premium overpayment for several years

Eighty-five-year-old Sia Kasparis was in her hospital bed in the living room of her small north London flat when there was a knock at the door.

The grandmother-of-five has been bedbound for the last two years, the result of a collapsed vertebra and a range of other health problems, including vascular dementia, heart failure and kidney disease.

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Lemur pups Nova and Evie born at Scottish safari park

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Female pair are third litter born at Blair Drummond under endangered species breeding programme

A Scottish safari park has announced the birth of two female lemur pups native to Madagascar.

Nova and Evie, who are living at Blair Drummond safari and adventure park, near Stirling, were born on 14 April, and the park has now publicly announced their birth.

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BBC presenter Martine Croxall returns to screen after bringing tribunal claim

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Croxall has sued corporation for discrimination along with three other female senior journalists

A BBC presenter who has brought a tribunal claim against the broadcaster has returned to the screen. Martine Croxall sued the corporation after being off air for more than a year following the merger of the BBC’s News and World News channels.

Croxall, 55, and three other senior female BBC journalists, Kasia Madera, Annita McVeigh and Karin Giannone, said they were taken off air after being snubbed for chief presenter roles.

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William and Kate lead tribute to RAF pilot killed in memorial event crash

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Airman died at the scene after second world war-era plane came down near RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire

The Prince and Princess of Wales have led tributes to an RAF pilot who was killed in a Spitfire crash while taking part in a Battle of Britain memorial event.

The airman, who has not yet been named by police, died at the scene from his injuries after the second world war-era plane came down near RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire at about 1.20pm on Saturday.

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Nigel Farage under fire after saying Muslims do not share British values

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Comments from former Ukip leader, who also said he will stand for parliament in the future, described as ‘outright Islamophobia’

Nigel Farage has come under fire for using his first election interview to “spout Islamophobia, hatred and divisive comments” after he said a growing number of Muslims do not share British values.

The honorary president of the Reform UK party drew heavy criticism on Sunday after claiming Rishi Sunak had allowed “more people into the country who are going to fight British values” than any UK leader before him.

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Goldman Sachs pay pot for bankers surges by more than 20%

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First-quarter earnings show £580m pool, reflecting increase in share price as bonus cap scrapped in UK

London bankers at Goldman Sachs have seen their pay pot jump by more than 20% so far this year, as the bank’s surging share price added to the prospect of bumper payouts after bonus caps were lifted in the UK.

Filings covering Goldman Sachs International’s (GSI) first-quarter earnings show that it built up a $735m (£580m) pay pool in the three months to March, averaging out at about $218,000 (£170,000) each for its 3,359 staff, the bulk of whom are based in London.

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NHS England spent £4.1bn over 11 years settling lawsuits over brain-damaged babies

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Exclusive: £3.6bn has been paid out in 1,307 cases, according to information obtained under freedom of information laws

The NHS has spent £4.1bn over the last 11 years settling lawsuits involving babies who suffered brain damage when being born, amid claims that maternity units are not learning from mistakes.

It paid out just under £3.6bn in damages in 1,307 cases in which parents were left to care for a baby with cerebral palsy or other forms of brain injury, NHS figures reveal.

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‘They’re out of control’: flock of 100 feral chickens torments village

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Residents of Snettisham, Norfolk, say birds are destroying their gardens, while food left out for them is attracting rats

The clucking nuisance of about 100 feral chickens has left residents of a Norfolk village spitting feathers, with locals claiming the birds destroy their gardens and keep them awake.

Dwellers in Snettisham, Norfolk, have said their life is being made “hell” as the chickens swarm in from a nearby wood. It is unclear who owns the land the chickens live on, but villagers believe numbers have soared recently.

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Nicki Minaj says sorry to fans as Manchester gig cancelled after arrest

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US rapper detained in Amsterdam on suspicion of ‘possessing soft drugs’ before being fined by Dutch police

Nicki Minaj has offered her “deepest and most sincere apologies” after her Manchester concert was cancelled at the last minute after she was arrested in Amsterdam.

The US rapper was detained for hours at Schiphol airport on suspicion of “possessing soft drugs” before being fined by Dutch police and allowed to continue her journey.

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World’s largest food awards move judging panel from UK to Ireland to avoid Brexit red tape

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Due to new import controls, a judging session for the Great Taste awards is being held outside the UK for the first time in 30 years

The Great Taste awards are a British success story – the world’s largest food awards, celebrating the best products on the planet. But new post-Brexit import controls have forced the organisers to hold a judging panel outside the UK for the first time in the awards’ 30-year history.

On Sunday, judges from the Guild of Fine Foods panel will travel to County Tipperary in Ireland to spend three days tasting products that have become much harder to bring to the UK.

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Sunak promises to bring back national service for 18-year-olds

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Labour lambasts youth policy as ‘desperate and unfunded’ and designed to make youngsters fix government-created problems

Rishi Sunak announced last night that a future Conservative government would bring back mandatory national service last night, as he attempted to reignite his election campaign after an error-strewn start.

Under the plan, which appeared to be his latest attempt to reduce Tory losses by winning over voters drifting to Reform UK, the prime minister said that every 18-year-old would have to spend time in a competitive, full-time military commission or spend one weekend a month volunteering in “civil resilience”.

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David Nicholls warns readers against trying to visit novel’s locations

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Bestselling writer says Lake District sites in new book You Are Here are ‘genuinely all made up’

David Nicholls has warned his fans not to attempt to visit the locations in his new novel. While those who loved the hit Netflix adaptation of Nicholls’ novel One Day have been able to visit locations from the series, such as the Lewisham pizza joint Bella Roma or Charlton Lido, the locations in You Are Here “are genuinely all made up”, the author said.

The novel, which was published last month and follows a midlife couple as they hike through the Lake District, contain a disclaimer from the author explaining that while he has “tried to describe the landscape as accurately as possible, the pubs, hotels and restaurants along the way are all entirely fictional”, and he has also “taken a few small liberties with the route”.

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British climber and Nepali guide feared dead after reaching Everest summit

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Dan Paterson and Pastenji Sherpa went missing during descent after landslide of snow and ice on mountain

A British man and his Nepali guide are believed to be dead after reaching the summit of Mount Everest on Tuesday, a guiding company said.

Dan Paterson, 40, and Pastenji Sherpa, 23, reached the peak just before 5am on Tuesday but have not been heard from since, according to Paterson’s partner, Becks Woodhead.

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