Category Archives: UK news

Cash-strapped London council starts crowdfunding drive to pay for green upgrades

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Southwark asks residents to invest as little as £5 to help fund eco-projects such as cycle hangars and school upgrades

Deep cuts to government funding have led a council in south London to ask its residents to invest their own money, for a financial return, to build cycle hangars, new LED street lighting and green upgrades at schools and leisure centres.

In the midst of a financial crisis hitting town halls across England, councillors in Southwark have resorted to a crowdfunding scheme to raise £6m over the next six years to help fund climate-friendly projects.

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Deadly experiment? UK asylum sites criticised for ‘horrific’ level of despair

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Critics of the government’s mass housing plan say it won’t save public money and at worst put asylum seekers at risk of suicide

Twice in January, ambulances rushed to the former RAF airbase at Wethersfield in a remote part of Essex, now the Home Office’s biggest mass asylum accommodation site, to attend to suicide attempts. On each occasion, an asylum seeker was admitted to hospital. Both survived.

Acts of self-harm have been common since part of the 325-hectare (800-acre) site, which first opened in 1944, started to be used to house refugees in July 2023.

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Ethiopian government tries to stop UK auction of looted Maqdala shield

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Proposed sale of Abyssinian artefact taken during 1868 battle triggers appeal for restitution of ‘wrongfully acquired’ item

The Ethiopian government has called the auction of a looted colonial-era shield “inappropriate and immoral” as it attempts to stop its sale this week and prevent it from disappearing into a private collection.

The Anderson & Garland auction house, in Newcastle upon Tyne, was contacted by the Ethiopian National Heritage national restitution committee about the 19th-century Abyssinian shield, which it said should be removed from the auction set to take place on Thursday.

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Shein ‘considering London rather than New York IPO amid US scrutiny’

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Fast-fashion company believes it unlikely that SEC will approve US flotation, according to report

The fast-fashion company Shein is reportedly considering a stock market flotation in London rather than New York because of potential problems with a listing in the US, its preferred location.

Shein, which was founded in China but is now based in Singapore, is in the early stages of exploring an initial public offering in London because it believes it is unlikely that the US Securities and Exchange Commission would approve its initial public offering (IPO), Bloomberg reported.

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Prince William pulls out of godfather’s memorial service over personal matter

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Prince of Wales will not attend service for Constantine the former king of Greece at Windsor Castle

The Prince of Wales has pulled out of attending a memorial service at Windsor Castle for Constantine, the former king of Greece, due to a personal matter.

Kensington Palace would not elaborate further but said the Princess of Wales, who is recovering from abdominal surgery, continued to be doing well.

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Minister cut off during interview after refusing to say why Lee Anderson’s Sadiq Khan slur was wrong – UK politics live

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Illegal immigration minister Michael Tomlinson repeatedly refused to explain Anderson’s comments in LBC interview

Back at the business committee Andy McDonald (elected as a Labour MP, but currently sitting as an independent after having the whip withdrawn) complained about the amount of compensation being offered to post officer operators. He said what happend to them was “born of malice”. As a result, he said, compensation should not just cover loss of earnings, and other ways people were disadvantaged. He said there should be “aggravated and exemplary” damages to reflect the malice involved.

Sir Ross Cranston, the former Labour solicitor general who is now independent reviewer of the Post Office GLO scheme, said the scheme was operating on the basis that compensation should be “full and fair”. But that went beyond just paying people for what they lost, he said.

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UK grocery price inflation falls to two-year low amid supermarket price war

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Competition helped offset impact of Red Sea shipping crisis in February, says analyst Kantar

Grocery price inflation in the UK has slowed to a two-year low as fierce competition among supermarkets offset the impact of the Red Sea shipping crisis on goods prices.

In a boost to households, supermarket prices were 5.3% higher than a year earlier in February, the lowest rate since March 2022 and down from January’s 6.8%, according to the analyst Kantar. Grocery sales grew by 5.1% in the four weeks to 18 February.

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Women hold 42% of board seats at big UK firms, but just 10 are FTSE 100 bosses

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Burberry, M&S and Next fare best for female representation but too few women are in top roles, report says

Women occupy more than two in five seats on the boards of the UK’s biggest listed companies but there are still “too few” in top positions with just 10 female FTSE 100 chief executives, according to a report.

The proportion of board positions held by women in the FTSE 350 rose to a record high of 42% this year, according to the government-backed annual FTSE Women Leaders Review. This is up from 24.5% in 2017 when the report was launched.

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Labour would lift block on onshore windfarms, says Ed Miliband

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Tory government has ‘ducked’ difficult decisions, leading to higher bills, says shadow energy secretary

Labour has claimed a “culture of inertia and stasis” has blocked renewable energy projects under the Conservatives and says the party will overturn a de facto onshore wind ban “at the stroke of a pen” if it wins the general election.

The shadow energy secretary, Ed Miliband, told energy industry executives at a conference in London on Tuesday that Labour would immediately rip up a decade-long effective block on large onshore wind developments in England if elected.

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Tory supporters lash out at ‘snake’ Sunak over Lee Anderson suspension

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Exclusive: activists endorse Anderson’s comments and decry ‘threat of Islam’ in leaked messages

Grassroots Conservative supporters have called Rishi Sunak a “snake” over Lee Anderson’s suspension as MPs on the Tory right said he should be given a route back in.

In leaked WhatsApp messages obtained by the Guardian, members of the Conservative Democratic Organisation (CDO), which was founded by disgruntled Tories after Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss were ousted, attacked the prime minister for kicking Anderson out of the parliamentary party.

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‘Toxic culture of disbelief’ persists at top of Post Office, MPs told

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Committee releases minutes of board meeting before appearance by former Post Office chair Henry Staunton

Newly published documents show that a “toxic culture of disbelief” persists at the top of the Post Office when it comes to wronged post office operators, MPs have been told.

Post Office board members complained of being “tired and constantly distracted by historical issues, short-term crisis management and funding issues”, minutes of one of their meetings last year show.

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Stately house used in Saltburn plagued by trespassers and influencers, owner says

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Charles Stopford Sackville says he was unprepared for the intense interest in his home after the 700-year-old Drayton House was used in the film

The owner of the stately home used in the film Saltburn has revealed he has had to ask staff to patrol the grounds to stop trespassers trying to take photos and videos of themselves on the grounds.

Charles Stopford Sackville, the current owner of the 700-year-old Drayton House in Northamptonshire, told the Mail on Sunday he was unprepared for the intense attention Emerald Fennell’s film would bring with it.

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People in 20s more likely to be out of work because of poor mental health than those in early 40s

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Resolution Foundation report calls for action as number of young people experiencing poor mental health increases

Young people are more likely to be out of work because of ill health than people in their early 40s, a report calling for action on Britain’s mental wellbeing crisis has found.

People in their early 20s with mental health problems may have not had access to a steady education and can end up out of work or in low-paid jobs, the Resolution Foundation research revealed.

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SNP to push for another Commons vote on ceasefire in Gaza

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Move presents fresh challenge to speaker and Labour party after last week’s chaotic scenes in parliament

The Scottish National party will push for another vote on a Gaza ceasefire this week, creating a fresh challenge for the speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, and the Labour party after last Wednesday’s chaotic scenes in the Commons.

Hoyle faced calls to quit after his decision to break with precedent and allow Labour to table a vote during an SNP debate calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, which prompted a walkout by Conservative and Scottish Nationalist MPs.

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Government urged not to resurrect fees for UK employment tribunals

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Unions and workers’ groups say return of fees, scrapped in 2017, will send wrong message to employers

Unions and workers’ rights groups are urging the government to reconsider plans to reintroduce fees for employment tribunals amid fears it will encourage exploitation.

A coalition of 48 organisations, including the TUC, Citizens Advice, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Fawcett Society and Maternity Action, said bringing back fees, which were ditched in 2017, meant “bad employers are being given the go-ahead to undercut good ones”.

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Fund to hand out £4.7bn from axed HS2 northern section to smaller projects

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Ministers say smaller towns and cities in north of England and Midlands to benefit from scrapping of Leeds and Manchester lines

About £4.7bn that would have been spent bringing HS2 to Manchester and Leeds is to be reallocated to transport projects in smaller towns and cities in the north of England and Midlands, ministers have said.

The money is specifically for communities that are outside city regions, in places such as Blackpool, Hull and Leicester, as well as counties including Staffordshire and Lincolnshire, which don’t have directly elected metro mayors.

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UK’s enemies could use AI deepfakes to try to rig election, says James Cleverly

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Home secretary, who is due to meet US tech bosses, says states such as Russia and Iran could target other countries as well

Criminals and “malign actors” working on behalf of malicious states could use AI-generated “deepfakes” to hijack the general election, the home secretary has said.

James Cleverly was speaking before meetings with social media bosses and said the rapid advancement of technology could pose a serious threat to elections across the globe.

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Put aside differences to focus on growth across UK, Ed Balls tells politicians

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Former shadow chancellor is one of the authors of a new academic paper on how to bridge the regional divide

Britain needs a 20-year cross-party consensus to level up the economy and unleash the untapped potential of regions outside London and the south-east, the former Labour shadow chancellor Ed Balls has said.

Balls, one of five co-authors of an academic paper on bridging the UK’s regional divide, said it was vital that Labour and Conservative politicians put aside their differences in order to embed necessary funding and governance reforms.

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Sunak stands with net zero and climate conspiracy group at farming protest

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Demonstration against Welsh Labour policy included No Farmers No Food campaign calling for end to climate measures, and Welsh Tory leader

Rishi Sunak attended a protest alongside a group which has posted conspiracy theories about climate change, and which campaigns against net zero, the Observer can reveal.

The prime minister has been accused of “pandering to extremists” by farmers and wildlife groups, who have asked him to “listen to reason and logic” rather than conspiracy theories.

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Government U-turn on plans to double number of medical students in England

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Fears for impact on NHS workforce as leaked letter reveals ministers stall on aim to increase trainee doctors to 15,000 by 2031

Ministers have dramatically stalled plans to double the number of doctors being trained in England by 2031 in a move that has caused dismay across the NHS, as well in medical schools and universities, the Observer can reveal.

In June last year, ministers backed a long-term plan to expand the NHS workforce and pledged, amid great fanfare, to “double medical school places by 2031 from 7,500 today to 15,000, with more medical school places in areas with the greatest shortages to level up training and help address geographic inequity”. Labour is also committed to raising the number of doctors to 15,000 by 2031.

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