Both MPs have had the parliamentary whip restored following separate independent disciplinary processes
MPs Diane Abbott and Joani Reid have been readmitted into Labour and had the parliamentary whip restored, just under two weeks into Andy Burnham’s premiership.
The party confirmed that this followed separate independent disciplinary processes, although Labour said the leadership played no role in either decision.
Continue reading...Local leaders say plan will transform funding so English regions no longer rely on Whitehall handouts for projects
England’s regional mayors will be able to break out of the “death grip of the Treasury” by borrowing to invest in big projects under “transformational” plans to shift power out of Whitehall.
For the first time, mayors will keep a share of income tax generated in their area from 2028, as well as business rates totalling tens of millions of pounds by April 2027.
Continue reading...CRS officers funded by UK tried to stop boarding of boat, on day four asylum seekers died trying to cross Channel
French riot police funded by UK taxpayers used teargas on asylum seekers in an attempt to stop them from boarding a boat in which three women were later found dead, a charity has claimed.
Footage and photographs seen by the Guardian show CS gas canisters being fired towards groups of people on Plage du Braek near Dunkirk at 4am on Thursday. At 6am, three women were found dead in a boat near the same beach.
Continue reading...UK’s highest court gives permission for Huda Ammori to challenge court of appeal ruling
The co-founder of Palestine Action has won permission to challenge the ban against the group at the UK’s highest court.
The direct action group was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in July last year but its co-founder, Huda Ammori, has been fighting to have the ban overturned amid a mass civil disobedience campaign.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Electoral Commission urged to look into donations made by mother of convicted fraudster
Labour has accused Reform UK of being “up to its neck in sleaze” as it called on the Electoral Commission to urgently investigate substantial donations made to the party by the mother of a convicted fraudster.
Bridget Phillipson, Labour’s new chair, called on the commission to examine whether any rules had been broken, after revelations in the Guardian that George Cottrell transferred more than $2m to his mother in the days before her donations to the party in 2024.
Continue reading...UKHSA estimates 2,877 heat-associated deaths during heatwaves in May and June, almost twice the number in summer 2025
The number of excess deaths caused by heatwaves has almost doubled so far this year in England compared with 2025, the UK Health Security Agency, has said.
There were 2,877 heat-associated deaths during the heatwaves in May and June this year, a report has estimated, almost double the figure reported from the UK heatwaves in June to August last year.
Continue reading...Green party said it was ‘obvious from the start’ that Polanski had not committed an offence
At his press conference Robert Jenrick has just finished his opening statement, which was a long speech about what he claimed was Andy Burnham’s plan for a “death tax”.
The first question came from a GB News reporter who pointed out that the “death tax” was just one option that Burnham was considering. She asked if it wouldn’t be better for Reform UK to attend the cross-party talks and make the case of its own plans.
Let’s say, for argument’s sake, I just said ‘yes, we will by 2030 meet 3%’.
The inevitable next question is how will you fund it? And the trap that I’ve seen so many previous, particularly Conservative, governments fall into is setting out what they would spend or the taxes they would cut, without at the same time, saying how they would pay for it.
Continue reading...Several people evacuated after ‘large-scale, wind-driven’ fire breaks out at Dunwich Heath near Leiston
A major incident has been declared as firefighters battle a large heathland fire on the Suffolk coast.
Suffolk fire and rescue service was called to reports of a wildfire at Dunwich Heath, near Leiston, shortly after 5.30pm on Wednesday, and crews remained at the scene on Thursday morning. About 90 firefighters were tackling the blaze, while several people had been evacuated. Leiston is about 5km away from Sizewell B, but firefighters have said there is not thought to be any danger to the nuclear power station at this time.
Continue reading...Boom in hummingbird hawk-moth sightings put down to hot weather, strong winds and food scarcity in Europe
He had just sat down to dinner in the garden when a speedy visitor whizzed by – a “grey lump with orange wings”, recalled Luke Burstow, from Sussex. It was a hummingbird hawk-moth, a flying insect that migrates to the UK from continental Europe and north Africa.
“I was like: ‘Wow!’,” said the software project manager. “I didn’t even know they existed.”
Continue reading...The prime minister says that current inefficiencies in the system will be tackled first, as he reveals final recommendations will be out by summer 2027
Andy Burnham is speaking now.
In a reference to how he started campaing for social care reform almost two decades ago, he says it is good to see faces in the room “who’ve been on this journey with me for a long, a long time”.
When someone in your family is receiving care, you look at everything through new eyes, don’t you? You notice things that maybe you didn’t notice before because you watch it so closely and so carefully.
And I’ve just been really overwhelmed by their care, the skill in what they do, the professionalism.
Can I just remind everybody that nobody thought we could get everybody in off the streets?
So we can do difficult in this country and we can do it well.
Continue reading...BBC documentary reports incidents alleged to have taken place when actor and musician was in 30s and 40s
The actor and singer Jared Leto has been accused in a BBC documentary of criminal sexual conduct by four women, with the alleged offences taking place when the women were teenagers.
The incidents reported by the BBC are alleged to have taken place between 2002 and 2016, when the actor was in his 30s and 40s. He is now 54.
Support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
Continue reading...Introducing the legislation would be ‘very challenging’ until care system improved, PM says
Andy Burnham has said the assisted dying debate needs to wait until palliative care and social care are fixed, as he set out his path to resolving one of the most intractable problems in British politics.
The prime minister said he was not opposed to having the debate on assisted dying, but told reporters it would be “very challenging” to introduce the controversial legislation until the care system was in a better place.
Continue reading...Musa Ahmed was being treated in intensive care in London hospital after being pulled from West Mersea sea
A seven-year-old boy has died a week after an incident off the Essex coast in which his teenage cousin and her mother died as they tried to rescue him.
Musa Ahmed was being treated for life-threatening injuries after being pulled from the sea near West Mersea beach on 22 July.
Continue reading...Pharmaceutical company’s move to new £400m research centre accompanied by encouraging news for shareholders
“A vote of confidence in British business,” trumpeted Andy Burnham, seizing the political gift of GSK splashing out £400m on a shiny new research and development centre in Cambridge.
For positive vibes, it definitely beats the early pharma news his predecessor as prime minister received. That was the painful tale of how AstraZeneca, frustrated by indecision in the Treasury, cancelled its intended £450m expansion of a vaccine plant in Speke in Liverpool.
Continue reading...Shadow minister says there was no warning and ‘it looked and sounded like deliberate intimidation’
It is not just the Russians firing on Brits in the English Channel; Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, has accused a French warship of firing “warning shots” near him while he was on a boat in the Channel monitoring small boat crossings.
In a post on social media, he says:
On the channel today monitoring illegal migrant crossings … as I was being interviewed by the BBC just now a French warship approached close and fired 17 live rounds behind us. There was no notice or training exercise in place. Felt like warning shots or attempted intimidation
On the crisis in prison places, this has been a long time coming. We did some things, as I said [see 10.11am], it wasn’t enough, and I’m sorry about that.
But I can’t fix the past, but what I can do is come up with solutions for now, and for tomorrow.
This was something which we were doing in government. We had plans to rent prison places, just like Sweden has done with Estonia, so that we didn’t have to just release these sorts of violent criminals early. We could have put them in other countries.
If everybody says ‘no prison near me’, we won’t get these [prison places] built, so this is something the public can help with … We cannot say ‘no’ to every potential site for a prison.
Continue reading...Man already serving life for killing his cellmate while awaiting trial also murdered and dismembered his friends Claudio Aquilino and Daniel Coleman
On a spring day last year, James Desborough marched up to Cornwall’s county hall in Truro and began bombarding the offices with dozens of eggs stolen from a supermarket.
It was a drug- and drink-addled protest at his plight – homeless, jobless and generally angry at the world. He expected to be arrested and messaged a friend: “If I’m going to get nicked, might as well round the charges up.”
Continue reading...Chris Philp says shots were ‘deliberate intimidation’ while he filmed interview on small boats crisis but France says it was training exercise
When Chris Philp heard a volley of shots on the high seas and spun round to see a French gunship, he believed he was the victim of naval aggression – and updated his social media feed accordingly.
The reality appears to be more mundane: it was, the French authorities said, a routine Channel training exercise by officers who had no idea that the shadow home affairs spokesperson was present, or who he was in the first place.
Continue reading...Funding crisis could lead to an exodus that would be a blow for British science and national growth
On a chilly day in December 1945, Bernard Lovell, a physicist at the University of Manchester, struck out for the Cheshire countryside to study cosmic rays, the streams of high-energy particles that crisscross the universe. Peering at the signals from his army surplus radar, he made an unexpected discovery: radio reflections from the ionised trails of shooting stars.
The work marked the birth of radio astronomy at Jodrell Bank. A year later, engineers at the site mounted a radar on the base of a searchlight, providing sweeping access to speeding meteors. When Sputnik launched in 1957, they had just completed the Lovell telescope, the largest radio telescope in the world, the only one capable of tracking the Soviet satellite.
Continue reading...Average 25% increase for letters such as marketing, bills and medical appointment notices from 5 October
Royal Mail will increase the price of its wholesale postal service by as much as a third, in a multimillion-pound blow to the NHS and other large organisations.
The postal company has warned customers who use its wholesale postal service for mail including marketing letters, household bills and medical appointment notices that it is raising prices by an average of 25% from 5 October.
Continue reading...Nostalgic foods like toad-in-the-hole also in demand at Waitrose as people pivot towards familiarity amid climatic and political upheaval
Forget a crisp salad and glass of chilled rosé. Enervated Britons are seemingly more likely to crave a rich cottage pie and a robust red in heatwaves.
In a trend termed “reverse comfort eating”, Waitrose’s cottage pie sales have soared 110% in the last month and South African red wine is up 68% compared with the same period last year. The surprise spike in demand for winter comfort foods also includes retro chicken, bacon and leek pie (up 41%), chicken korma (up 67%) and chicken and ham gratin (68%).
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