Alex Lidagovsky was forced to leave Ukraine with his family when his studio was bombed during the Russian invasion
A Ukrainian sculptor who fled to the UK when his studio was destroyed has been accepted into the Royal Society of British Artists.
Alex Lidagovsky was forced to leave Kyiv with his wife, Dasha Nepochatova, and 16-year-old stepdaughter after the Russian invasion began on 24 February 2022.
Continue reading...Charity publishes survey findings as it calls for youngsters to be no more than a 15-minute walk from green spaces
More than three-quarters of children want to spend more time in nature, the National Trust has found, as the conservation charity pushes ministers to ensure youngsters are no more than a 15-minute walk from green spaces.
Nearly two-thirds – 63% – of parents are able to take their children to nature spaces only once a week or less, citing accessibility as the main barrier, the survey of 1,000 children aged seven to 14 and 1,000 parents by the trust and the children’s newspaper First News found.
Continue reading...Five years after payment scheme launched, a former soldier says delays mean plan should be run independently
A former soldier who was a victim of the Windrush scandal has said he fears the government is “waiting for us to die off” before it pays compensation.
Conroy Downie, 67, and his daughter Katie Wilson-Downie have helped advise thousands of people affected by the Windrush scandal and have called for the compensation scheme to be run independently instead of by the Home Office.
Continue reading...Labour says places have fallen by almost 40,000 since the Tories came to power in 2010, forcing parents to leave the workforce
Childcare places in England have fallen by nearly 40,000 since the Tories came to power in 2010, Labour research has found.
This includes a drop of 1,000 places between March and December last year, at a time when demand was anticipated to rise before new entitlements became available.
Continue reading...Police Service of Northern Ireland seeks to end ‘unhelpful speculation’ after DUP leader charged with alleged sexual offences
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has said it received a complaint in early March that led them to arrest and charge Sir Jeffrey Donaldson with alleged sexual offences.
In a statement aimed at ending what they described as “unhelpful speculation” over the case, the PSNI said it “immediately commenced an investigation into this matter” after the complaint was received.
Continue reading...Analysis suggests wealthiest would save millions and Sunak’s own family could benefit to tune of £250m
Conservative plans to abolish non-dom status are riddled with loopholes worth hundreds of millions of pounds for the wealthiest people in the country, Labour has claimed.
Analysis by the party found that the policy, announced by Jeremy Hunt in this month’s budget, could theoretically see Rishi Sunak’s family benefit from tax savings of nearly £250m.
Continue reading...Royal Photographic Society says award reflects the support and encouragement McCabe showed for aspiring photographers
A bursary focusing on the theme of sporting endeavour and designed to help talented young photographers has been launched in honour of the memory of the award-winning Guardian and Observer photographer Eamonn McCabe.
The bursary, established by The Royal Photographic Society (RPS), The Guardian and Observer and McCabe’s family will give £3,000 to a photographer aged 25 or under to produce a project.
Continue reading...Campaigner Marsha Martin says ‘there is a lot of stigma within black community’ that prevents issues being discussed
Cultural barriers are preventing black children with autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) from accessing the help they need, the founder of a UK campaign for better support has said.
Hundreds of children with special educational needs (Send) routinely wait for more than a year to get help, as local authorities across England struggle to meet unprecedented need in a dire financial climate. A Guardian investigation last month found more than 20,000 children were waiting longer than the 20-week limit to be issued with an education, health and care plan (EHCP) that details the support they require.
Continue reading...Analysis shows content is aimed at working-class over-50s, and plays on fears of crime, stirs anger and pushes conspiracy theories
Are you a cleaner or builder who likes Primark, the pub or reality TV – but doesn’t care about the environment? If yes, the Conservative party wants your vote.
These are some of the interest categories used by the campaign team for the Tories’ candidate for London mayor, Susan Hall, to target audiences on social media.
Continue reading...Whoever wins the next election, a reckoning is overdue on the costs of Britain’s nuclear deterrent
When Rishi Sunak visited Barrow-in-Furness on Monday he said the Cumbrian town was “mission critical for our country” because of its role building four new nuclear submarines to carry the UK’s nuclear weapons. If you believe Sunak’s erstwhile ally, Dominic Cummings, then that mission faces serious problems.
Cummings, once Boris Johnson’s most powerful adviser, said this month – in characteristically aggressive terms – that spiralling costs were making a mockery of the government’s budget plans. He wrote on X: “the nuclear enterprise is so fkd [sic] it’s further cannibalising the broken budgets and will for decades because it’s been highly classified to avoid MPs thinking about it.”
Continue reading...DfE allocates £450m to 826 building projects at 733 schools, a fall of almost 60% – in terms of total projects – compared with 2020-21
A record number of schools have had bids for building repairs turned down by the government, with experts warning that buckets on desks, freezing classrooms and power cuts are all becoming commonplace.
The Department for Education (DfE) announced on Tuesday that it had allocated £450m to 826 building repair projects at 733 schools through its annual condition improvement fund (CIF), which is designed to help academies and small academy trusts keep buildings “safe and in good working order”. But this is a fall of nearly 60% – in terms of total projects – compared with 2020-21, when the government awarded £563m to 2,104 repair projects.
Continue reading...Tests that can identify early changes in cells would give doctors more time to offer treatment, say Cambridge researchers
Scientists at a recently opened cancer institute at Cambridge University have begun work that is pinpointing changes in cells many years before they develop into tumours. The research should help design radically new ways to treat cancer, they say.
The Early Cancer Institute – which has just received £11m from an anonymous donor – is focused on finding ways to tackle tumours before they produce symptoms. The research will exploit recent discoveries which have shown that many people develop precancerous conditions that lie in abeyance for long periods.
Continue reading...Met police say investigation into stabbing of Iranian journalist near home in Wimbledon is being led by counter-terrorism officers
Iran’s most senior diplomat in Britain has denied claims that the Iranian government was behind a knife attack on a TV presenter in London amid growing fears over threats to dissidents.
The country’s charge d’affaires, Mehdi Hosseini Matin, said Iran “denies any link” to the stabbing of Pouria Zeraati, 36, a presenter at Iran International, outside his home in Wimbledon on Friday. He is in a stable condition and was looking forward to being discharged from hospital soon.
Continue reading...Survey of 15,000 people suggests even party leader Rishi Sunak’s North Yorkshire seat is at risk
The Conservatives are on course for their worst election result, winning fewer than 100 seats, according to a new poll.
The seat-by-seat analysis gives the Tories 98 constituencies compared with Labour’s 468, giving Sir Keir Starmer a 286-seat majority, the Sunday Times has reported.
The 15,000-person poll, conducted by agency Survation on behalf of Best for Britain, gives Labour a 45% vote share with a 19-point lead over the Conservatives.
Rishi Sunak’s party is on track to win 98 seats with none in Scotland or Wales, according to the research. It also suggests the prime minister is at risk of losing his own constituency, the new Richmond & Northallerton seat in North Yorkshire, to Labour with his lead less than 2.5 percentage points.
Continue reading...Chair of foreign affairs select committee Alicia Kearns said at a Tory fundraiser that legal advice would mean the UK has to cease all arms sales to Israel without delay
• Analysis: scale of suffering will make war crimes harder to deny
The British government has received advice from its own lawyers stating that Israel has breached international humanitarian law in Gaza but has failed to make it public, according to a leaked recording obtained by the Observer.
The comments, made by the Conservative chair of the House of Commons select committee on foreign affairs, Alicia Kearns, at a Tory fundraising event on 13 March are at odds with repeated ministerial denials and evasion on the issue.
Continue reading...Party seeks to project stability after political earthquake of leader’s resignation over alleged sexual offences
The resignation of Sir Jeffrey Donaldson over alleged sexual offences will not derail power-sharing in Northern Ireland or fracture the Democratic Unionist party (DUP), according to party leaders.
The statements on Saturday sought to project stability and calm a day after Donaldson stepped down in a political earthquake that stunned the region.
Continue reading...Pressure on Michael Gove to act as householders see bills rise 40%, with many saying that they cannot afford to pay
Some of the UK’s largest housing providers have dramatically increased annual service charges by thousands of pounds, plunging residents into financial crisis, an Observer investigation has found.
Many residents who bought shared-ownership properties built as affordable homes have been sent bills in recent weeks with increases of more than 40%. Some say they are unable to sell the properties having now been lumbered with “extortionate” charges and no cap on future increases. More than 1,000 people across the country are now threatening to refuse to pay.
Continue reading...Party claims financial position still strong as it continues to hold a commanding lead in opinion polls
Labour has suffered a sharp fall in membership over the past two months following controversies over its policy on Gaza and its U-turn on green investment, according to figures released to its National Executive Committee (NEC). The drop of more than 23,000 members comes despite the party holding a commanding lead in the opinion polls, which suggests it is now seen by the wider electorate as ready and able to form the next government, after 14 years of Tory rule.
Labour sources said the party’s overall financial position remained strong despite membership subscriptions falling off, because donations large and small were healthy, and the expectation was that the unions would still give very substantial backing to the election effort.
Continue reading...Spokesperson tells Today programme that UK-based broadcaster has been under ‘heavy threat for last 18 months’
Tehran’s Revolutionary Guards have been targeting the broadcaster Iran International, a spokesperson for the channel said after a leading journalist was stabbed in London.
The Persian-language news television channel that employed Pouria Zeraati, who was attacked outside his London home, had received an increased level of threats beforehand, Adam Baillie told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme on Saturday.
Continue reading...Campaigners launch legal challenge as children and mixed-gender football team kept out by fence built by local sports academy
In Mount Florida, a south Glasgow neighbourhood, Scotland’s national football stadium, Hampden Park, looms large. But just half a mile north are the relics of another, with terraces and crush barriers surrounding a pitch that was once the heart of a 50,000-seat stadium known as “the second Hampden”.
At one time home to local teams Queen’s Park and Third Lanark – as well as hosting Scottish Cup finals in the late 19th century – the pitch is now part of Cathkin Park, a council-maintained public space enjoyed by local families, community football teams and urban wildlife alike. Leased since 2022 by the Jimmy Johnstone Academy, a charity set up in memory of the late Celtic player, it is also the home ground of two youth teams.
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