Exclusive: MP apologised for saying on eve of Holocaust Memorial Day that Gaza should be remembered as a genocide
Kate Osamor has had the Labour whip restored after an internal investigation was conducted into her comments on Holocaust Memorial Day.
The MP for Edmonton apologised for sending her local party members a message saying Gaza should be remembered as a genocide on the eve of the memorial day.
Continue reading...Aberdeen-based firm listed on FTSE 250 knocked back unsolicited approach from Dubai-based Sidara
The British oil services company John Wood Group has rejected a £1.4bn takeover offer from a Dubai-based rival, Sidara, which “fundamentally undervalued” the company.
Aberdeen-based Wood is the latest British company on the London Stock Exchange to face takeover speculation amid deepening concerns that UK-listed stocks are undervalued compared with other markets.
Continue reading...The hairless cats live on average for just 6.8 years, while a Burmese could survive to be 14, according to research
They may sound ancient but you should avoid a sphynx cat if you want a pet to grow old with, research suggests.
Experts have revealed how many years on average domestic cats in the UK have left to live based on their current age.
Continue reading...Treasury committee says ‘debanking’ and use of personal guarantees for loans is putting small businesses at risk
Unfair banking practices and “damaging” financial regulators are harming small businesses and putting innovation and growth at risk, parliament’s Treasury committee has warned.
A report from the committee’s inquiry into access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) said a lack of supportive policies were compounding problems for firms that had survived a “torrid” five years, which included the global pandemic and energy crisis.
“Confidence amongst SMEs in accessing finance has fallen and acceptance rates for business credit has lowered significantly,” the report said.
Continue reading...Issue was not existence of men-only clubs but uniqueness of Garrick’s powerful membership list casting unflattering spotlight on British establishment
Who cares that an elite organisation full of mostly elderly white men has decided to allow women to join them in a small central London private members’ club?
Such was the reaction of many of the club’s members who had responded with extreme ill-temper to the Guardian’s recent decision to publish the names of about 60 of the Garrick Club’s most influential members. There has been an orgy of mansplaining in newspaper comment pieces. The Garrick’s rules prohibit networking or even working inside the building, these members say, so it would be very wrong-headed and silly to believe that anything of any consequence ever happens within the club’s four walls. The Garrick is merely a spot for friendly relaxation.
Continue reading...Payroll data at risk includes names, bank details and addresses of current and former force members, government sources suggest
An estimated 270,000 payroll records belonging to nearly all members of Britain’s armed forces have been exposed to Chinese hackers in a breach at a third-party contractor that was discovered a few days ago.
The data at risk includes names and bank details for full-time military personnel, part-time reservists, including at least one MP, and veterans who left after January 2018. It was managed by a private contractor, SSCL.
Continue reading...Mothin Ali has not been suspended from city council despite proclaiming ‘Allahu Akbar’ and other remarks causing offence
A Green party councillor at the centre of an antisemitism row has apologised “for the upset caused” by his remarks but hit back at “Islamophobic” attacks against him.
The Green party has launched an investigation into Mothin Ali, who was elected to Leeds city council last week, but has declined to suspend him.
Continue reading...Members back dropping men-only rule in place for 193 years, after Guardian revealed details of membership list
The men-only Garrick Club has finally voted to allow women to become members, 193 years after the London institution first opened its doors.
The vote was passed with 59.98% of votes in favour at the end of a private meeting where several hundred members spent two hours debating whether to permit women to join.
Continue reading...Andrew Mitchell says military action on city will not eradicate Hamas and priority is to secure a permanent ceasefire
An Israeli military offensive on the city of Rafah would break international humanitarian law and not lead to the eradication of Hamas, Andrew Mitchell, the UK’s deputy foreign minister, said on Tuesday, but he held back from spelling out any planned British consequences if a full-scale invasion goes ahead.
The line, agreed with the US, is aimed at limiting the options of the Israeli government so that it will accept a version of the three-stage peace deal adopted by Hamas. The UK said its aim was to secure a permanent and sustained ceasefire, and the removal of Hamas from the future governance of Gaza.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Audience had ‘vitriolic reaction’ to European tone of musical, forced to close early
Rufus Wainwright has defended his musical Opening Night, which was forced to close early after mixed reviews, saying West End audiences lack “curiosity” after Brexit and the British press had turned on the project because it was “too European”.
Opening Night was Wainwright’s first musical and is an adaptation of John Cassavetes’ 1977 film about an actor struggling to cope, who is played by Sheridan Smith. Directed by Ivo van Hove, it opened in March at the Gielgud theatre but a month later announced it would be closing two months early.
Continue reading...Line of Duty actor will oversee classic plays as well as new pieces inspired by the Irish author in Beckett: Unbound 2024
Adrian Dunbar is to curate a festival in Liverpool dedicated to the work of Samuel Beckett. The programme includes four specially commissioned productions, one involving prisoners at HMP Liverpool.
The Line of Duty actor said of Beckett: Unbound 2024: “Engaging with Beckett makes you think about the fundamentals of life. Those fundamentals are sometimes hard to engage with, but at the end, when he drives everything to a conclusion, he also makes you feel something that is liberating.”
Beckett: Unbound, Liverpool and Paris, 30 May–7 June
Continue reading...Bob Olley’s unsettling vision of clash between miners and police is part of 40th anniversary show in Bishop Auckland
Bob Olley was there 40 years ago at the “battle of Orgreave”. “I saw the violence,” he said, shaking his head. “I thought I was in a foreign country when I saw what the police did. It is hard to believe it happened in this country.”
The brutality he and others witnessed on 18 June 1984 as striking miners met 6,000 police officers on horses or wielding batons on foot will stay in the memory. It was in his head as, some years later, he embarked on his response to one of the world’s greatest artworks, Picasso’s Guernica.
Continue reading...Charities fear ‘increasing risks of destitution and exploitation’ of refugees as they go into hiding
The Home Office is dealing with growing fallout from the high-profile round-ups of asylum seekers it wants to send to Rwanda, as some have gone into hiding while others have fled across the border to Ireland.
Officials began rounding up asylum seekers to detain them for the Rwanda scheme a week ago, with at least one now on hunger strike and another threatening suicide.
Continue reading...Price rise for mass-market types expected as global production falls to lowest level in more than 10 years
Olive oil prices are set to climb further this year – heading to more than £16 a litre for a bottle of extra virgin – amid a drop in global production to the lowest level in more than a decade.
Lower production in Greece, Morocco and Turkey as part of the natural cycle of olive growth is expected to offset an improving situation in Spain and Italy, where trees have suffered from extreme heat and drought in recent years as the climate crisis wreaks havoc on harvests.
Continue reading...Fish welfare campaigners say Defra decision facilitates greenwashing and will mislead consumers
Animal welfare campaigners are challenging the decision to allow producers of Scottish salmon to drop the word “farmed” from labelling.
An application by the industry body claimed changing the protected name wording on the front of packaging from “Scottish farmed salmon” to “Scottish salmon” made sense because wild salmon was no longer sold in supermarkets, which consumers were aware of.
Continue reading...Commuter routes in and out of London hit as train drivers begin three days of rolling strikes amid six-day overtime ban
Most trains will not run in south-east England on Tuesday – including on key commuter routes in and out of London – after train drivers embarked on three days of rolling strikes at national rail operators.
Drivers in the Aslef union are striking for 24 hours at each English operator between Tuesday and Thursday, while continuing a week-long nationwide overtime ban that started on Monday, as part of a long-running pay dispute.
Continue reading...Shadow chancellor will highlight Labour’s plans to boost economy and say Conservatives are ‘out of touch’
Rachel Reeves will draw the economic battle lines for the next general election on Tuesday, challenging the government’s claims that the economy is turning a corner when millions are still struggling with the cost of living.
The shadow chancellor will accuse Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt of “gaslighting” the public with over-optimistic statements about the UK economy that are “out of touch” with most people’s lives.
Continue reading...The protesters in encampments at Oxford, Cambridge, Liverpool, Edinburgh and Soas are demanding institutions end ties to Israel
Students at five UK universities have become the latest protesters to stage occupations to pressure their institutions into divesting funds from and ending partnerships with Israel.
Students set up encampments at the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas) and at Oxford, Cambridge, Liverpool and Edinburgh universities. They are the latest in a global student uprising that is expected to build over the coming week across European campuses after starting at universities in the US, where hundreds of students and staff have been arrested for their involvement.
Continue reading...Vladimir Putin responds to recent statements from David Cameron and Emmanuel Macron over Ukraine war
Russia has threatened to strike British military facilities and ordered its military to hold battlefield nuclear weapons drills in a move the Kremlin described as a response to comments from the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on western troops fighting in Ukraine and from the British foreign secretary, David Cameron, on using British-supplied weapons against Russia.
The Russian defence ministry said in a statement that troops from the southern military district would “practise the issues of preparation and use of non-strategic nuclear weapons … in response to provocative statements and threats by certain western officials against the Russian Federation.”
Continue reading...Swinney may be only candidate after withdrawal of Graeme McCormick
Labour has marked the anniversary of the Conservatives re-entering government at the 2010 election by launching a what the opposition have called “Conflix” website [geddit?] that mockingly tells the story of “14 years of Tory chaos”
The party’s chair, Anneliese Dodds, was challenged about the site on Sky News this morning and whether the party was relying on “stunts” rather than policy proposals. She insisted that the “detail of policy” was there, in the form of initiatives like GB Energy.
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