Category Archives: UK news

UK eases airline penalties as jet fuel shortages threaten flights

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Carriers will retain airport slots if they cancel services as passengers are urged to continue with travel plans

Penalties on airlines that cancel UK flights because of jet fuel shortages have been eased, it has emerged, as the government issued fresh advice to reassure the public they can still fly and should stick to travel plans.

Airlines that cancel owing to a lack of fuel will not lose their rights to valuable takeoff and landing slots at busy airports, which can be forfeited when flights fail to operate over a period.

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Greta Thunberg, Sally Rooney and Brian Eno defy Palestine Action ban in letter to judges

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Exclusive: Scholars, writers and artists risk arrest with message of support for proscribed group before next week’s appeal hearing

Sally Rooney, Greta Thunberg and Brian Eno have written to the court of appeal in support of Palestine Action before next week’s hearing to determine the lawfulness of the ban on the direct action protest group.

The letter, composed of only seven words – “We oppose genocide, we support Palestine Action” – is signed by more than 130 people and is the first time that prominent scholars, writers and activists have come together to defy the ban.

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Trump says he will ‘probably put a big tariff on the UK’ if it doesn’t drop digital services tax

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US president accuses UK of thinking it can ‘make an easy buck’ from US tech companies, weeks after warning that UK–US trade deal can be changed

Donald Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on the UK if it does not drop its digital services tax on US social media firms.

The digital services tax, introduced in 2020, imposes a 2% levy on the revenues of several major US tech companies.

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Surrey police to close rape inquiry that sparked Epsom disorder

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Force says it is ‘confident there was no offence’ and condemns ‘shameful’ behaviour by protesters

The investigation into reports of a rape outside a church in Epsom that led to widespread public disorder will close as police are “confident there was no offence”.

Surrey police received a report on Saturday 11 April that a woman had been raped near a church in the early hours of the morning after leaving Labyrinth nightclub in Epsom.

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‘Toxic’ views of Reform UK candidates raise questions about party’s vetting

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Hope Not Hate campaign identifies election hopefuls calling for a ‘white Britain’ and complaining of ‘kowtowing to the black community’

A Reform UK candidate who called for a “white Britain” and said Keir Starmer should be shot is among a number of contenders fuelling doubts about the party’s claim to have tightened up its vetting.

The past comments of Linda McFarlane and other political hopefuls have been unearthed ahead of the 7 May elections, including one who complained about “constant kowtowing to the black community” and others who endorsed the far-right activist Tommy Robinson.

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UK prepared to deploy RAF Typhoons to keep strait of Hormuz open after Iran war

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Proposal at heart of offer made during a 30-country two-day meeting jointly organised by France

Britain is prepared to deploy a squadron of RAF Typhoons based in Qatar to patrol over the strait of Hormuz as part of a multinational mission to keep open the strategic waterway once the Iran war comes to an end.

The UK military also offered to deploy mine-hunting drones and specialist divers to help clear the strait mined by Iran – but no decision has been made on whether HMS Dragon or another warship would also be deployed.

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Cabinet Office officials delayed telling Starmer about Mandelson vetting recommendation for almost three weeks – UK politics live

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Permanent secretary Cat Little tells MPs that she sought legal advice before sharing the vetting information with the prime minister

Little says in March she had a meeting when she asked to see the Foreign Office’s documentation about the decision to grant Mandelson vetting. She said she was asking because this was documentation covered by the humble address. She said was told that “that information would not be forthcoming”.

In the middle of March, I have a meeting with Sir Olly and a senior member of his team, and this is after the point that I’ve been told that this summary document exists.

I specifically ask to see this document and any decision-making audit trail around those judgments at the time. It was made clear to me that that information would not be forthcoming.

I took the very unusual judgment that I should directly request the information from UK Security Vetting.

And I did that because I go back to my responsibilities, to discharge the humble address, which is a responsibility that is unique to me and I take very seriously.

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Dippy the injured axolotl rescued from Welsh river

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Family found creature under a bridge and are documenting its recovery in a fish tank on TikTok

An injured axolotl is on the road to recovery after being rescued from a river in Wales. “Dippy” was found under Dipping Bridge on the River Ogmore near Bridgend, south Wales, by a family who had stopped for a break while travelling on holiday last week.

Evie Hill, 10, told the BBC she lifted up a discarded mat in the shallows of the river, and nestled in the rocks was a 9in (22cm) axolotl, an aquatic salamander native to Mexico. It was pale in colour, with speckles, and had injuries to its tail and stomach believed to have been caused by a predator.

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Olly Robbins refused to give Mandelson vetting summary to Cabinet Office, says Cat Little

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In evidence to MPs, Cabinet Office top civil servant disputes that her department suggested vetting might not be needed

Olly Robbins refused to hand Peter Mandelson’s vetting summary to the Cabinet Office, the civil servant who leads the department has said.

The summary – which would have revealed that Robbins, the now-sacked Foreign Office head, had granted Mandelson clearance against the advice of security officials – was instead provided to Cat Little by UK Security Vetting, she said.

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‘This is not the country I moved to’: the British Indians showing support for Nigel Farage

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Savitha Prakash, a first-generation immigrant running in local elections in Harrow, says Reform UK aims to ‘put Britain first’

Savitha Prakash, an NHS doctor living in the London borough of Harrow, believes there are similarities between the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, and India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi. “He’s [Modi] one of those people, like Nigel, he walks the talk. He made [a] difference to the country,” said Prakash, who chairs Reform UK’s branch in Harrow.

In particular, the 47-year-old said Farage and Modi – who have each been accused by their critics of scapegoating marginalised communities – were focused on putting the needs of the majority first.

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Iran behind low-level ‘hybrid warfare’ attacks in UK and Europe, analysts say

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Iranian intelligence services apparently recruiting via intermediaries to mount attacks aimed at sowing chaos

Iranian intelligence services and Revolutionary Guards operatives are recruiting teenagers through criminal intermediaries to launch a wave of low-level “hybrid warfare” attacks in Europe and the UK, according to investigators, security officials, analysts and police documents.

A first wave of attacks was launched in early March, 10 days after the US and Israel began strikes on Iran, and targeted Jewish community sites in Belgium, the Netherlands and US banks. A second wave has focused on the UK, with a series of arson and attempted arson attacks on synagogues, a Jewish charity and the offices of an Iranian opposition TV network in London.

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Labour MP calls for Starmer’s resignation to end ‘psychodrama’ – UK politics live

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Jonathan Brash says ‘own goals’ are distracting from Labour’s achievements

UK inflation accelerated to 3.3% in March after the Iran war triggered the biggest jump in fuel prices for more than three years, Richard Partington reports.

Today the Liberal Democrats staged a photocall to publicise their line about this being “Trumpflation”. Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dem deputy leader and Treasury spokesperson, said:

People across our country have been struggling for years with a devastating cost-of-living crisis and Donald Trump’s idiotic war in Iran has added to it. The cost of fuel is soaring, mortgage rates are rising and fixed energy deals are already going up by hundreds of pounds.

But what is utterly inexcusable is that there are politicians in this country - Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch - who are happy to cheerlead Donald Trump as he hikes people’s bills. All the while this Labour government promised to fix the country but instead we’ve got political Groundhog Day: yet more sleaze and scandal.

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British woman died in Ghana trying to recoup money from scammers, inquest told

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Janet Fordham died in crash after travelling to see man who claimed he would help to recover money from earlier scams

A British woman who was scammed of up to £1m in a string of so-called romance frauds died in a road crash after travelling to west Africa to try to recoup some of her lost fortune, an inquest in Devon has heard.

Janet Fordham was cheated of her life savings and her home over a period of five years by fraudsters apparently based in the UK, Germany, the US and Ghana, the inquest in Exeter was told.

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Roman Abramovich takes Jersey to European human rights court over Chelsea sale proceeds

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Lawyers for oligarch claim freezing of £5.3bn of assets ‘unfair and abusive’ amid row over use of funds for Ukraine

Roman Abramovich has gone to the European court of human rights (ECHR), claiming that a criminal investigation into his financial affairs by the Jersey authorities has breached his human rights, according to reports.

The former owner of Chelsea FC, who is under UK sanctions over his links to Vladimir Putin, is being investigated in Jersey over allegations of corruption and money laundering.

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Four people arrested over suspected £44m UK home insulation scam

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Serious Fraud Office investigation relates to firms allegedly submitting false invoices for work they failed to carry out

The UK’s Serious Fraud Office has arrested four people on suspicion of a home insulation scam that may have cost energy companies as much as £44m.

The SFO and the National Crime Agency said on Wednesday that the unnamed people were arrested in coordinated dawn raids across England on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud.

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Britain’s military dependence on US ‘no longer tenable’, says former Nato chief

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George Robertson says diplomatic tone from White House is at ‘historic low’ and two allies are likely to keep diverging

Britain’s high military dependence on the US is “no longer tenable” and the UK has to become increasingly independent of the special relationship with Washington, a former Nato chief has said.

George Robertson, who last week accused British leaders of a “corrosive complacency” towards defence, said on Wednesday that the traditional allies were diverging over values – and that even after Donald Trump leaves the White House, the separation was likely to continue.

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Palestine Action activist who hit officer with sledgehammer ‘panicked’, court told

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Samuel Corner, 23, says he struck Sgt Kate Evans to protect co-defendant amid 2024 Elbit Systems raid near Oxford

A Palestine Action activist who struck a police officer with a sledgehammer during a protest at an Israeli-linked arms factory acted to protect a co-defendant he believed was being seriously hurt, a court has heard.

Samuel Corner, 23, is accused of causing grievous bodily harm with intent to Sgt Kate Evans during a raid on the Elbit Systems facility, in Filton, near Bristol, on 6 August 2024.

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Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff, to be questioned by MPs

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Exclusive: McSweeney summoned by foreign affairs select committee in rare step, as Mandelson vetting row continues

Morgan McSweeney, the prime minister’s former chief of staff, has been summoned before the foreign affairs select committee as the Peter Mandelson vetting row continues to undermine Keir Starmer’s premiership.

As MPs attempt to unravel the facts, McSweeney is to appear next Tuesday to respond to allegations that Downing Street put huge pressure on the civil service to approve his appointment as the UK’s ambassador to Washington.

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Black children in England and Wales almost eight times more likely to be strip-searched than white peers – report

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Demographic also overrepresented when police officers use force such as handcuffs, firearms or Tasers, says children’s commissioner

Black children across England and Wales are almost eight times more likely to be strip-searched by police than their white counterparts, a report has disclosed.

Rachel de Souza, the children’s commissioner for England, said Black children are also overrepresented when officers use force and were more likely to have their “size, gender or build” cited as justification.

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Olly Robbins’ account of Mandelson vetting piles pressure on Keir Starmer

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Sacked civil servant tells select committee of ‘pressure’ to give clearance and ‘dismissive’ attitude to vetting

The civil servant sacked by Keir Starmer has given a devastating account of his government, saying Downing Street put huge pressure on the civil service to approve the appointment of Peter Mandelson as Washington ambassador despite the concerns of vetting officials.

Olly Robbins, the former top official at the Foreign Office, said No 10 took a “dismissive” attitude to vetting, and Mandelson was given access to the Foreign Office building and to “higher-classification briefings” before he was granted security clearance.

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