Accessible screening tool piloted by NHS England includes braille instructions and a better guide for stool sample
Thousands of blind or partly sighted people could find it easier to participate in bowel cancer screening from home owing to a new NHS tool aiding accessibility.
The standard test used to screen for bowel cancer requires an at-home stool sample in a tube, which is sent off and examined for any possible cancer signs.
Continue reading...Labour leader to promise to divert £75m to fund specialist force against smugglers using counter-terror powers
Keir Starmer will promise to rip up the government’s Rwanda scheme and divert £75m to fund hundreds of new specialist officers to tackle people-smuggling with new counter-terror powers.
At a speech on Friday in Dover – the home of Natalie Elphicke, who defected to Labour this week after criticising Tory failures on border security – the Labour leader will call the government’s plan “an insult to anyone’s intelligence” and say “the gangs that run this sick trade are not easily fooled”.
Create a new post of border security commander to oversee the unit, working across Europe and with multiple agencies on enforcement and intelligence.
Recruit hundreds of additional special investigators, intelligence agents and cross-border police officers.
Expand stop and search powers for use against those suspected of people-smuggling.
Use Serious Crime Prevention Orders, enforced on terrorists pre-conviction, to shut off the bank accounts and internet access of suspected smugglers.
Extend seizure warrant powers normally reserved for terrorism to include organised immigration crime.
Continue reading...Plans for head of border security with access to home secretary will not satisfy all critics of Labour’s immigration policies
Keir Starmer’s border plans, announced after a giddy week of political triumphs, attempt to address some of the deep structural problems within the Home Office.
Paid for with £75m from the existing budget for the Rwanda scheme, the plans echo recommendations handed to Priti Patel two years ago: employ a single border security head who is given direct access to the home secretary.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Operation Safeguard confirmed by Ministry of Justice after damning report on conditions in one of UK’s biggest jails
The government has formally triggered a crisis measure to ease prison overcrowding by using police cells to house inmates.
The confirmation of Operation Safeguard by the Ministry of Justice follows a decision to consider releasing some prisoners 70 days before their sentences were due to end.
Continue reading...Bestselling author of Lace and Superwoman turned her attention to helping people overcome anxiety about maths
Shirley Conran, the author of Lace and Superwoman, has died aged 91, her son the designer Jasper Conran has announced.
The bestselling “queen of the bonkbuster” was also the founder of the Maths Anxiety Trust, a not-for-profit organisation that aims to help people who experience anxiety or fear when faced with maths problems. Last week Conran was awarded a damehood in her bed in Charing Cross hospital in London for her services to mathematics education.
Continue reading...Woman died of wounds in street after stabbing in broad daylight on Burnt Oak Broadway, Edgware
Detectives have arrested a man on suspicion of murder after a woman in her 60s was stabbed to death in broad daylight in a north London street.
The Metropolitan police said they were called at about 11.50am to Burnt Oak Broadway, Edgware, to reports of a stabbing and found a woman wounded in the street near a bus stop.
Continue reading...Foreign secretary says British weapons position different to US, but UK does not support Rafah invasion without civilian protection plan
David Cameron has said the UK will not be withholding arms sales to Israel, saying its position is not comparable with that of the US, which has paused the delivery of a weapons shipment, since the UK is not a large state-to-state arms supplier to Israel.
The foreign secretary added that the UK did not support a large-scale invasion of Rafah unless it saw a plan that protects civilians, a position the UK has repeated for the past month.
Continue reading...Marius Gustavson, 46, was involved in procedures that were ‘little short of human butchery’, UK court heard
The leader of a “grisly and gruesome” extreme body modification network who streamed mutilations on his “eunuch maker” website has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 22 years.
Marius Gustavson, 46, was the “arch manipulator” of vulnerable victims and was said to have been involved in at least 29 procedures, which were “little short of human butchery”, the Old Bailey in London heard.
Continue reading...Fears of biggest UK outbreak in two decades as 2,793 cases confirmed in first quarter of 2024
The UK may be experiencing its biggest outbreak of whooping cough in two decades, with five deaths reported among infants who developed the disease in England between January and March.
According to the latest data published by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) on Thursday, cases of whooping cough continue to increase, with 1,319 confirmed in March. This brings the total number of confirmed cases during the first quarter of 2024 to 2,793. The true number of cases is likely to be much higher though, because mild cases are easily confused with other respiratory illnesses in the early stages when the infection can be tested for.
Continue reading...Tees Valley mayor hailed by PM after re-election says route to Tory electoral recovery is ‘getting narrower by the day’
Having seen a fuller version of what Ben Houchen, the Conservative Tees Valley mayor, said on BBC Radio Tees this morning, I have beefed up the post at 10.16am and changed the headline. Houchen did says Rishi Sunak ultimately had to take the blame for the state of “chaos” the Tory party is in.
Victoria Prentis, the attorney general, told the Commons that Britain continues to view its arms sales to Israel as legal a day after US president Joe Biden warned he would pause the delivery of bombs because they had been previously used to kill Palestinian civilians.
I can say that the foreign secretary has reviewed the most recent advice from the IHL cell, and that has informed his decision that there isn’t a clear risk that the items exported from the UK might be used to commit or to facilitate a serious violation of IHL. That leaves our position on export licences unchanged, but that position is kept under review.
Continue reading...Move intended to boost standards and attract recruits from private sector criticised as ‘tinkering’ by FDA union
Senior civil servants are to have their pay linked to their performance in a move criticised as divisive by a leading union.
John Glen, the Cabinet Office minister, announced the trial of performance-related pay for some senior civil servants to come in by the summer, which he said would improve standards.
Continue reading...Policymakers say they want to see more evidence that price pressures are easing before cutting rates
The Bank of England has signalled it could start cutting interest rates as early as June after inflation was found to be “moving in the right direction”, as it kept borrowing costs on hold at 5.25% for the sixth time in a row.
Alongside the decision to keep rates on hold, the Bank said inflation was already on course to hit its target of 2% and would fall to just 1.6% in two years, opening the door to future cuts in interests.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Man who spent 17 years in prison after wrongly being convicted of rape says he will ‘shout from the rooftops’ for UK law reform
Andrew Malkinson says he could have been spared “20 years of darkness and despair” if the jury system had not been changed to allow majority verdicts.
Malkinson was exonerated of rape last summer, two decades after a jury wrongly convicted him by a majority of 10 to 2.
Continue reading...Former foreign secretary to call for next government to seek much closer ties with bloc on foreign policy and defence issues
David Miliband will on Wednesday urge British ministers to forge closer links with the EU and condemn the “absurd” lack of cooperation between London and Brussels on foreign and defence issues.
The former foreign secretary will give a speech at the Irish embassy in London in which he will criticise the Conservatives for their attitude towards the EU and call on the next government to seek much closer ties.
Continue reading...Auriol Grey, who waved and shouted at Celia Ward, should never have been charged over Cambridgeshire incident, her lawyers said
A woman who shouted and waved at a cyclist, causing her to fall into the path of a moving car, has had her manslaughter conviction overturned.
Auriol Grey, 50, was seen on CCTV shouting at the 77-year-old cyclist, Celia Ward, to “get off the fucking pavement” as she approached her in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, in October 2020.
Continue reading...Natalie Elphicke said she was defecting to Labour due to ‘broken promises of Rishi Sunak’s tired and chaotic government’
PMQs starts in just over 20 minutes, and today there will be particular interest in the mood on the Conservative benches. Rishi Sunak has actively embraced the theory that the local election results show Labour is not on course to win an overall majority, but this is based on a projection that has been widely dismissed as unrealistic.
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
It’s an issue of humanity and I think you’ve got to show equivalence. I condemn unequivocally the actions of Hamas on Oct 7; those 134 hostages must be released. At the same time I condemn unequivocally the actions of the IDF and Netanyahu; 34,000 people have perished including 14,000 children.
It’s utterly wrong and an insult to those victims to equate the brutality of Hamas to the legitimate military measures that Israel is taking in defence of its people and nation.
Continue reading...Dover MP, who claimed her now former husband’s seat in 2019, has been criticised in the past by Labour
Natalie Elphicke, who has become Labour’s newest MP after her shock defection from the Conservatives, has a track record that places her firmly on the right of British politics.
A lawyer who specialised in housing policy, she succeeded her now former husband – the disgraced former Tory Charlie Elphicke – as the MP for Dover. He was convicted and jailed for sexual assault in 2020.
Continue reading...Three people charged under Public Order Act in relation to slow march in west London last year
Three Just Stop Oil supporters have appeared in what is thought to be the first trial brought under wide-ranging powers introduced last year to curb protest.
Phoebe Plummer, Chiara Sarti and Daniel Hall were charged with breach of section 7 of the Public Order Act 2023 after taking part in a slow march blocking traffic in west London in November.
Continue reading...Activists call move ‘absurd’, as Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, son of President Museveni, is accused of torture and abusing critics
Senior British government officials have congratulated the newly appointed head of the Ugandan army, a man accused of torture, in a move that has been called “absurd” and “disappointing”.
Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Uganda’s new chief of defence forces and son of President Yoweri Museveni, received a congratulatory letter from Britain’s most senior military officer, Adm Sir Tony Radakin, at a meeting with the British high commissioner, Kate Airey, and the British defence attache.
Continue reading...Home secretary announces closure of Russian diplomatic premises after pattern of ‘malign activity’ in Britain and Europe
Russia’s defence attache is an “undeclared military intelligence officer” who will be expelled from the UK amid an escalation of sanctions, the home secretary has said.
James Cleverly also announced on Wednesday the removal of diplomatic status for several Russian-owned premises and told MPs the moves followed a pattern of “malign activity” across Britain and Europe.
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