UK government’s apologies so far have had a distinct lack of candour about what it is apologising for
Surviving victims and relatives of those who died as a result of receiving infected blood and blood products from the NHS in the 1970s and 80s will gather in a few weeks at the Methodist Central Hall in Westminster.
After six years of taking evidence, Sir Brian Langstaff’s public inquiry will finally unveil its report there on 20 May.
Continue reading...Exclusive: contaminated blood campaigners say internal 1976 Immuno AG document proves British government negligence
The British government was willing to risk infecting NHS patients to get “lower-priced” blood products, according to a document that campaigners claim proves state and corporate guilt in one of the country’s worst ever scandals.
A public inquiry into the deaths of an estimated 2,900 people infected with conditions such as HIV and hepatitis will publish its final report in May, four decades after the NHS started prescribing blood and blood products – including from drug users, prisoners and sex workers – sourced from the US.
Continue reading...Labour deputy leader being investigated over whether she gave false information a decade ago
Angela Rayner has handled the controversy over her living arrangements “in the right way”, Yvette Cooper has insisted after a former aide contradicted Rayner’s account.
The shadow home secretary said Rayner was “very keen to be able to provide the facts to the relevant authorities”.
Continue reading...The boss of the broadcast regulator has expressed concern about how the chase for audience ratings is harming the industry
Television has become more “exploitative and cruel”, according to Michael Grade, the chair of the broadcasting regulator, Ofcom.
“The exploitation dial has been switched up more and more for ratings,” said the peer and former chair of the BBC board. “It makes me mad. I really don’t like it or enjoy it.
Continue reading...Supermodel says her hand got ‘jammed’ in a machine at Brighton station for an hour and a half
With her famous nickname, you might think Twiggy is the perfect person to call on if your sweets get stuck in a vending machine.
But the supermodel has told how she once became stuck at Brighton railway station as she tried to retrieve a chocolate bar.
Continue reading...More than 250 people join group action claiming security service failed to take steps that could have prevented 2017 bombing
Hundreds of the Manchester Arena bombing survivors, along with relatives of the victims, have launched legal action against MI5, claiming it failed to take action that could have stopped the attack.
More than 250 people have joined the group action against MI5 and have submitted their claim to the investigatory powers tribunal, which hears complaints against the intelligence services.
Continue reading...UK hospitality industry hit by crisis as thousands of young Italians are forced out by latest round of rules and cost-of-living crisis
Emanuela Reccia has lived in London for almost a decade. She was a teenager when she left her home city of Naples to become a waitress in the UK, bringing her expertise and love of Italian cuisine to the capital.
But the 27-year-old, like thousands of other Italians working in the UK hospitality industry, now feels she has no option but to leave and return to Europe after the latest round of post-Brexit rules.
Continue reading...Despite his lack of faith, the author believes ‘something happened that was not supposed to happen’ on the day he was attacked
Salman Rushdie has revealed an abiding sense that his survival after a brutal knife attack two years ago was a miracle, in spite of his lack of spiritual faith. “I do feel that something happened that was not supposed to happen and I have no explanation for it,” Rushdie said this weekend before the publication of Knife, his account of the incident.
“I certainly don’t feel that some hand reached down from the sky and guarded me,” but it still presents a contradiction, he admits, “for one who doesn’t believe.”
Continue reading...Observer investigation finds that private companies made £105m despite not being registered with Ofsted
Hundreds of extremely vulnerable school-age children in England are being sent to illegal, unregulated homes every year because of a chronic shortage of places in secure local authority units.
An Observer investigation has established that councils placed 706 children, the majority of them under the age of 16, in their care in homes that were not registered with Ofsted, the children’s social care watchdog, in 2022-23.
Continue reading...Leading barrister warns that the kit – used to support gender-questioning children – is likely to be in breach of equality laws and could violate pupils’ rights
Schools in England and Wales have been warned by one of the country’s leading equality and human rights barristers that the “toolkit” many of them use to support gender-questioning children is unlawful.
The toolkit, introduced by Brighton and Hove council in 2021 and subsequently replicated by a number of other local authorities, says schools should “respect” a child’s request to change their name and pronoun as a “pivotal” part of supporting their identity, as well as other changes such as switching to wearing trousers or a skirt.
Continue reading...At least six people lock themselves in Grade II-listed York and Albany next to Regent’s Park and post notice
Squatters have taken over a pub in London leased by Gordon Ramsay that is up for sale with a guide price of £13m.
A group of at least six people locked themselves inside the Grade II-listed York and Albany hotel and gastropub, next to Regent’s Park, boarding up the windows and putting up a “legal warning” defending their takeover, the Sun reported.
Continue reading...Rules due to come in this month will impose new handling fees – and experts say small suppliers are already being driven away
Ministers’ decision to impose Brexit import checks on 30 April will lead to shortages of some foods, flowers and herbs, industry leaders have warned.
In the week after the government was accused of blindsiding the British food industry by giving 27 days’ notice that every consignment of items such as camembert, steak, tulips and chives would be subject to fees of up to £145, small retailers such as delis and farm shops have been scrambling to make sure they still have products to sell.
Continue reading...Stephen Whittle talks about life for young trans people in the 1970s and now, and the influence of ‘anti-trans’ views today
When Stephen Whittle transitioned as a teenager in 1975, he was one of only a handful of young people in the UK to be offered hormone treatment and, later, surgery.
Almost half a century later – much of it spent fighting for trans rights – he said there was “masses” he agreed with in this week’s review of the NHS’s gender identity services by Hilary Cass. He said he also believed the report had been influenced by groups and individuals with “transphobic” views, and said the “potential for positive change must be backed with resources”.
Continue reading...OpenDemocracy investigation names attenders, including Keir Starmer, at Edinburgh meeting to discuss party’s banking policies
Senior members of the shadow cabinet have held a private meeting with a group of financial services companies to discuss the party’s banking policies just weeks after one of the companies donated £150,000 to the party.
Six senior Labour figures – including the leader, Keir Starmer, the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and the shadow business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds – attended the meeting in Edinburgh last December, according to an investigation by the website OpenDemocracy.
Continue reading...Former home secretary will rub shoulders with populist right from across the globe, including Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán
Rishi Sunak is being urged to stop his former home secretary from attending a rightwing convention featuring figures who have been under investigation for extremism, in the latest sign of his waning control of his party.
Suella Braverman, who has been a central plotter against the prime minister since she left the cabinet, is set to be one of the keynote speakers at the National Conservatism (NatCon) conference in Brussels this week.
Continue reading...The superstar arrives in Europe next month – and Swifties, tourist boards and venues are already preparing
Tim Brown, 44, and his wife, Marcella, 34, may not consider themselves bona fide “Swifties”, but when it was announced last June that Taylor Swift would be visiting their corner of the globe this summer they could not resist joining the scramble for a pair of tickets.
A post-pandemic appetite for live music events has fuelled huge worldwide interest in the American singer-songwriter’s Eras tour, which surpassed in $1bn sales in November to become the highest-grossing series of concerts in history.
Continue reading...Stories include man with bruise in shape of Prince Harry and statue of H from Steps being erected in Wales
The comedian Joe Lycett has disclosed the fake stories that he successfully planted in the British media over the past month included a man with a bruise in the shape of Prince Harry and a statue of H from Steps being erected in his home town of Cowbridge in Wales.
In the first episode of his new Channel 4 show, Lycett said four stories that were covered by newspapers and television news were fabricated.
Continue reading...David Blunkett and Alan Johnson join Iain Duncan Smith in dismay at DWP’s treatment of benefit recipients’ minor mistakes
The “scandalous” prosecution of unpaid carers uncovered by the Guardian must end now and an inquiry must be launched immediately, Rishi Sunak has been told.
The pressure on the prime minister grew as three former work and pension secretaries and Labour demanded to know why thousands of people who care for their loved ones have been hounded for thousands of pounds – and in some cases convicted – after unwittingly breaching earnings rules by just a few pounds a week.
Continue reading...Nicholas Panayiotou and Eleanar Attard among gang who planned to smuggle 58kg of the drug into the UK
Members of a gang, including two former winners of a Channel 4 cooking programme, have been convicted after their plan to import large amounts of cannabis was uncovered.
Nicholas Panayiotou, Eleanar Attard, Constantinos Zavros, Luke Wileman and Koby Haik planned to smuggle 58kg of cannabis into the UK from the US, but were foiled after a theft at a London airport, the Metropolitan police said.
Continue reading...Inquest delivers findings 48 years after 10 Protestant workers were shot dead when their minibus was ambushed in County Armagh
The shooting dead of 10 Protestant workers at Kingsmill in Northern Ireland in 1976 was an “overtly sectarian attack by the IRA”, a coroner has ruled.
Nearly eight years after the inquest opened, Brian Sherrard delivered his findings in Belfast on Friday into the Troubles killings in County Armagh.
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