Category Archives: UK news

Labour will aim to reveal new town sites within first year in power

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Angela Rayner to promise party will build homes on sites by end of its first term and support private developers

A Labour government would aim to announce the sites for a series of new towns within a year of taking office, with the promise that homes would be built in them by the end of a first term, Angela Rayner is to say in a speech.

Giving more detail to a plan first outlined in Keir Starmer’s party conference speech in October, Rayner will tell a housing conference that Labour will strongly support private developers who create high-quality and affordable housing.

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Bedfordshire man charged after explosives discovered near Luton

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Harry Whittaker, 31, arrested after ‘very small traces of radiological material’ found at property in Caddington

A man has been charged with possessing explosives after “very small traces of radiological material” were found at a Bedfordshire property during a counter-terrorism investigation.

Specialist Metropolitan police officers have been searching a house in Caddington, near Luton, after suspicious substances were found earlier this month.

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Woman killed by her two XL bully dogs at home in east London

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Victim, who was in her 50s, pronounced dead at scene in Hornchurch and the animals seized

A woman has been fatally attacked by her two XL bully dogs at her home in east London.

The woman, who was in her 50s, was pronounced dead at the scene in Cornwall Close, Hornchurch, and the two registered dogs were safely seized having been contained inside a room, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan police said.

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UK cannot afford to give ‘cold shoulder’ to China, says City minister

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Bim Afolami’s comments distance British government from protectionist moves by US

The UK cannot afford to give the “cold shoulder” to China, the City minister said on Monday, in comments that will distance the British government from the Biden administration’s protectionist crackdown.

Addressing financial services bosses at the City Week conference in London’s Guildhall, Bim Afolami said it was “crucial” to engage with strategic competitors such as Beijing, and that the UK risked losing control of its economic future if it failed to find common ground.

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Scientists make potential breast cancer breakthrough after preserving tissue in gel

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Ability to preserve tissue in a special gel solution for at least a week will help doctors identify most effective drug treatments

Scientists say they have a made a potentially “gamechanging” breakthrough in breast cancer research after discovering how to preserve breast tissue outside the body for at least a week.

The study, which was funded by the Prevent Breast Cancer charity, found tissue could be preserved in a special gel solution, which will help scientists identify the most effective drug treatments for patients.

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Average British house price hits record high of £375,000

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Pent-up demand from would-be buyers pausing their plans last year has led to price rise despite mortgage rates remaining elevated

The average British house price reached a record high of £375,131 in May, according to Rightmove. The average prices of properties coming to market rose 0.8%, or £2,807, month on month.

Pent-up demand from would-be buyers who paused their plans last year is a key driver behind increased home mover activity despite mortgage rates remaining elevated for longer than anticipated, the property website’s report said.

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Man in his 30s dies in custody at police station in Swindon

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Police at Gablecross police station declared detainee dead early on Sunday and have referred incident to police watchdog

A man in his 30s has died while in custody at a police station in Swindon, Wiltshire police said. He had been in custody at Gablecross police station since Saturday morning, and became unwell on Sunday morning.

He was declared dead at about 9am on Sunday, the force added. The incident has been referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).

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Next government must make hard university funding decisions, fast

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Labour sees no electoral gain in flagging sector’s funding crisis – but losses cannot be sustained much longer

Why are universities in such financial dire straits? According to one sector leader, it’s because they are losing money on two of their three income streams, while their third source is under attack by the government.

“We are already in a state where teaching home students operates at a loss, doing research operates at a loss, and the international student market has been diminished by the government’s rhetoric and policy. And those are the three areas where universities get their income,” said Rachel Hewitt, chief executive of the MillionPlus association of modern universities that includes Bath Spa, Wolverhampton and Sunderland.

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Ex-ministers warn UK universities will go bust without higher fees or funding

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Exclusive: Vice-chancellors suggest fee rise of £2,000 to £3,500 a year, but others say that is ‘politically impossible’

Vice-chancellors and former ministers are warning that the cash crisis facing universities is so serious that the next government will have to urgently raise tuition fees or increase funding to avoid bankruptcies within two years.

They said the state of university finances was more dire than revealed in last week’s report by the Office for Students, which forecast 40% of England’s universities would end this year in the red.

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Starmer tries to curry favour with electorate through Sunday Brunch tandoori

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Labour leader’s appearance on chatshow reflects politicians’ more general move away from hard news outlets to cosier, more niche settings

When Keir Starmer appeared on Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch to cook his favourite tandoori salmon recipe, host Tim Lovejoy had a question: “What on earth are you doing here? You should be on the BBC with Laura Kuenssberg.”

“This is so much nicer!” replied the Labour leader.

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Rwanda denies entry to senior human rights researcher

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Human Rights Watch says Clementine De Montjoye’s case raises fresh questions about UK’s asylum seeker scheme

The Rwandan government has barred a senior human rights researcher from entering the country, prompting accusations that officials are seeking to dodge independent scrutiny just weeks before the UK government is due to send asylum seekers there for the first time.

Rwandan immigration authorities denied entry to Clementine de Montjoye, a senior researcher in Human Rights Watch’s Africa division, when she arrived at Kigali International Airport on 13 May.

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How Bridgerton’s real life Lady Whistledown scandalised 18th-century society

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The subversive work of Eliza Haywood, the feminist forerunner of the TV show’s gossip columnist, is about to be republished

She is the real-life Lady Whistledown, an eyebrow-raising female writer who penned a salacious anonymous gossip sheet that skewered 18th-century London society.

Like the fictional pamphlet from Netflix hit Bridgerton, which returned for a third series last week, Eliza Haywood’s The Parrot, published in 1746, has a distinctive, mocking voice that punches up and “speaks truth to power”. Now, a new book will republish Haywood’s funny, subversive periodical, which she wrote from the perspective of an angry green parrot, and seek to raise awareness of her groundbreaking work.

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Greater Manchester police chief defends decision to investigate Angela Rayner

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Stephen Watson says process will be carried out ‘fairly and impartially’ in his most extensive public comments on the claims

The chief constable of the police force examining claims against Angela Rayner has defended the decision to investigate the Labour party deputy leader, vowing it would be done “fairly and impartially” and would establish whether “culpability is proven or otherwise”.

Stephen Watson, who leads Greater Manchester police (GMP), gave his most extensive public comments so far on the investigation, which was triggered by a complaint from a senior Conservative.

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Tata agrees Port Talbot deal with National Grid despite union criticism

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New furnaces will be powered by electricity from 2027 but up to 2,800 workers will be made redundant

Tata Steel has reached a deal with the UK’s electricity grid to start supplying the energy for new furnaces in south Wales from 2027, as the company moves ahead with its plan despite union opposition.

The agreement with the National Grid’s electricity supply operator (ESO), the company that controls how energy is moved around Great Britain, will provide hundreds of millions of megawatts of power to a new electric arc furnace at the steelworks in Port Talbot.

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Zarah Sultana: the Labour MP taking on the Tories, and her own party, over Gaza

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Coventry MP, whose antipathy for David Cameron sparked her interest in politics, has largest TikTok following in parliament

When the UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, sat in the BBC TV studio last Sunday morning, he clearly had no idea of the identity of the woman sitting on the panel opposite him, simply referring to her as “the Labour MP”.

By contrast, Zarah Sultana, the MP for Coventry South, knows everything about Lord Cameron, telling the Guardian that it was her hatred of him as prime minister that first brought her into politics as a young, leftwing, Muslim woman. Her whole political outlook has been shaped by Cameron: the trebling of tuition fees and austerity.

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Wes Streeting praises archbishop over call for Labour to scrap two-child benefit cap

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Shadow minister says it is Justin Welby’s job to speak out but Labour could not commit to scrapping policy

The shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, has praised the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, for calling on Labour to scrap the two-child benefit cap, saying it was “literally his job” to speak out on such matters.

Streeting said he did not like the cap, which campaigners say has pushed hundreds of thousands of families into poverty, but that the party could not commit to ending it until it knew how this would be financed.

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Viagogo ‘mistakenly’ listed resale of England football match tickets

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Website blames human error for the advert, now removed, for about 100 seats when practice is illegal in UK

The ticket trading website Viagogo has apologised for “mistakenly” advertising tickets to an upcoming England football match, despite the fact that the resale of football tickets is illegal in the UK.

Cris Miller, the managing director of Viagogo,has previously said the company does not resell football tickets. But Viagogo was advertising about 100 seats at Wembley for England’s 7 June friendly against Iceland, a warm-up for this summer’s Euro 2024 tournament in Germany.

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Home Office in threat to deport disabled man to Nigeria after 38 years in UK

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Anthony Olubunmi George, 61, has been refused leave to remain despite living most of his adult life in Britain

A disabled man who has lived in the UK for 38 years has been threatened with removal from the UK by the Home Office.

Anthony Olubunmi George, 61, came to the UK at the age of 24 in 1986 from Nigeria. He has not left the UK since and has no criminal convictions. In 2019, he had two strokes, which left him with problems with speech and mobility.

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German star at Cannes condemns ‘madness’ of protective culture for UK child actors

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Cast member of Palme d’Or contender shot in Kent says the high number of chaperones and intimacy coordinators on set was over the top

Is Britain leading the way in protecting young people and children from the potential traumas of working on a film set, or has it all gone far too far? Two of the most prominent European stars attending the Cannes film festival, both with high-profile premieres, have very different views.

Franz Rogowski, the acclaimed German actor who plays a key role in Bird, British director Andrea Arnold’s contender for the top Palme d’Or prize, said this weekend that the proliferation of chaperones and intimacy coordinators that had been required on the shoot on location in Kent qualified as well-intended “madness”.

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Eurostar reverses wheelchair policy that left user stranded, after Observer campaign

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Passengers were left abandoned and humiliated after operator banned staff from providing assistance

Eurostar has reversed a new accessibility policy that left a wheelchair user stranded and has retrained its London staff following pressure from the Observer.

Travellers with disabilities claimed that they would be barred from Eurostar services after the company banned its London staff from pushing passenger wheelchairs. Those who require assistance were told they must travel with a companion or cancel their ticket if they were unable to access services unaided, according to passengers who contacted the Observer.

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