Category Archives: UK news

Ministers and officials to be banned from contact with groups labelled extremist

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New extremism definition to be published by Michael Gove is already being challenged by Muslim groups and experts

Ministers and civil servants will be banned from talking to or funding organisations that undermine “the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy”, under a new definition of extremism criticised by the government’s terror watchdog and Muslim community groups.

Michael Gove, the communities secretary, will tell MPs on Thursday that officials should consider whether a group maintains “public confidence in government” before working with it.

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‘Restless, angry’ voters vulnerable to far-right extremism, warns Hope Not Hate

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Group’s annual report notes rise in anti-migrant activism and asks if Tory voters are ‘falling out of love with democracy’

British voters are restless, angry and demoralised and more than half of them are pessimistic about the future, according to polling that a counter-extremism organisation has said shows warning signs of future unrest.

More than one in four respondents (43%) described the UK as “declining”, just 6% agreed that the political system was working well and 79% said politicians “don’t listen to people like me”.

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Students suspended even for short spells fare worse at GCSEs, study finds

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Charity says findings from schools in England show need for early intervention and fewer exclusions

Children who are suspended from school in England even for short periods see their GCSE results suffer, according to research that highlights the need for early interventions to reduce suspensions.

Pupils who had been suspended were found to be lagging a year behind their peers and on average were unable to achieve a standard pass in GCSE maths and English.

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Hollywood connection: Wrexham lines up three-hour direct rail service to London

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Train maker Alstom plans fast service skirting Birmingham as Ryan Reynolds’ football club takeover reaps in ever more benefits

Direct trains could next year connect Wrexham to London, with a new service capitalising on the town’s Hollywood-meets-football mini-boom.

The train manufacturer Alstom is bidding to set up the Wrexham, Shropshire and Midlands Railway with a promise of cheaper, more comfortable trains straight to London.

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Suicide toll prompts call for more support for UK domestic abuse victims

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Project finds police recorded 93 suspected domestic abuse-related suicides in a year – one every four days

Campaigners for women’s rights in the UK are calling for more mental health support for domestic abuse victims after police recorded 93 suspected abuse-related suicides in a year.

A report found 242 domestic abuse-related deaths were recorded between April 2022 and March 2023, of which 93 were suspected suicides, 80 were intimate partner homicides, 31 were adult family homicides, 23 were unexpected deaths, 11 were child deaths, and four others were deaths involving individuals living together who were not family members or intimate partners.

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Met to pay £10,000 to woman detained overnight after Sarah Everard vigil

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Jennifer Edmunds sued police, which have now settled after dropping charges relating to 2021 gathering on Clapham Common

The Metropolitan police has agreed to pay £10,000 in damages to a woman arrested at the Sarah Everard vigil in Clapham, her solicitors have said.

Jennifer Edmunds was detained overnight and charged with breaching Covid restrictions at the Clapham Common gathering on 13 March 2021, said Bhatt Murphy Solicitors.

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Telegraph takeover: UK planning new laws to prevent foreign states owning assets

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New legislation could thwart planned £600m purchase of media group by UAE-backed consortium

The UK government plans to introduce legislation that would prevent foreign governments owning UK newspapers and news magazines in a significant move that could scupper the planned £600m sale of the Telegraph to a United Arab Emirates-backed consortium.

RedBird IMI – a partnership between a fund backed by the UAE’s vice-president, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and a privately owned US investment firm – is seeking to acquire one of the UK’s most influential newspaper groups.

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UK home care workers cannot work as visa regime tightened, says employer

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Grosvenor says it is prevented from making 3,000 visits a week as it pays migrant workers to sit at home because permits not renewed

One of the UK’s biggest home care providers says it is paying dozens of migrant workers to sit at home and do nothing because the Home Office has not renewed key immigration permits.

Thousands of workers, mostly from Africa, were welcomed into the UK to help fill the one in 10 care worker jobs vacant after the Covid crisis. But after scammers abused the system, leading to allegations of modern slavery, the government appears to have tightened the application of the rules.

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Ministers to quash convictions of hundreds of post office operators

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Legislation will overturn convictions of theft, fraud and false accounting during Horizon scandal

Ministers will publish legislation to quash the convictions of hundreds of post office operators who were prosecuted during the Horizon scandal, marking a significant victory for victims after decades of campaigning.

The legislation on Wednesday will automatically overturn convictions of theft, fraud and false accounting that were handed down in connection with Post Office business during that period. It will cover prosecutions brought by the Post Office and the Crown Prosecution Service in England and Wales between 1996 and 2018.

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Archbishops of Canterbury and York warn against new extremism definition

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Clerics say Michael Gove’s anti-extremism strategy risks targeting Muslims and may threaten freedom of speech and peaceful protest

The archbishops of Canterbury and York have joined the growing list of critics of the government’s new extremism definition, which they have warned risks “disproportionately targeting Muslim communities” and “driving us apart”.

Michael Gove will present his new counter-extremism strategy on Thursday, which he says will target organisations that undermine British democracy.

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Overweight girls ‘more likely to see GP about musculoskeletal problems’

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Study finds reception-age girls with obesity 67% more likely to see doctor about musculoskeletal issues than those at healthy weight

Girls aged between four and 11 who are overweight or obese are more likely to see a GP at least once about musculoskeletal problems than their healthy weight peers, research suggests.

Pupils in reception year who had a body mass index considered overweight were 24% more likely to see a doctor at least once for a musculoskeletal issue while their peers who were living with obesity were 67% more likely to do so than girls with a healthy weight, the study found.

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Civil servants threaten ministers with legal action over Rwanda bill

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Exclusive: Union says Home Office staff could be in breach of international law if they implement deportations

Civil servants have threatened ministers with legal action over concerns that senior Home Office staff could be in breach of international law if they implement the government’s Rwanda deportation bill.

The FDA union, which represents senior civil servants, have warned they could also be in violation of the civil service code – and open to possible prosecution – if they followed a minister’s demands to ignore an urgent injunction from Strasbourg banning a deportation.

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Workplace AI, robots and trackers are bad for quality of life, study finds

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Tech such as laptops, tablets and instant messaging has more positive effect on wellbeing, says thinktank

Exposure to new technologies including trackers, robots and AI-based software at work is bad for people’s quality of life, according to a groundbreaking study from the the Institute for Work thinktank.

Based on a survey of more than 6,000 people, the study analysed the impact on wellbeing of four groups of technologies that are becoming increasingly prevalent across the economy.

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Palestinian citizen of Israel granted UK asylum in case said to be unprecedented

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‘Hasan’, 24, argued he would face persecution in Israel on grounds of his race, faith and its ‘apartheid regime’

A Palestinian citizen of Israel has been granted asylum in the UK after claiming he would face persecution in his home country on the grounds of his race, his Muslim faith and his opinion that Israel “is governed by an apartheid regime”.

“Hasan”, whose real identity is not being disclosed for his own protection, has attended pro-Palestinian protests in the UK, and his lawyers also argued that his activism would place him at increased risk of hostile attention on his return.

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Diane Abbott says it is ‘frightening’ to hear what Tory donor Frank Hester said about her – UK politics live

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Hackney MP says she feels more vulnerable after Tory donor said looking at her makes you ‘want to hate all black women’

Kwasi Kwarteng, the Conservative former chancellor, has said that the remarks about Diane Abbott attributed to Frank Hester were clearly racist and sexist. But he said he did not know for sure that Hester actually used those words.

Speaking on the BBC’s Politics Live, Kwarteng said:

[Those comments] are clearly racist, and they’re clearly sexist.

And I think Diane [Abbott] was right to point out that the call to violence, even in a flippant way, is really inappropriate. So they were very stupid remarks.

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Virgin Money bosses in line for £6m if Nationwide takeover goes ahead

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Chief executive David Duffy would be biggest winner on £3.5m, with large paydays for about 12 other staff if deal goes through

Banking bosses at Virgin Money are in line for a £6m windfall if Nationwide Building Society pushes ahead with a proposed takeover of the lender, with more than half of that sum set to be pocketed by longtime chief executive David Duffy.

Public shareholder data suggests that 13 executives, board members and senior staff are poised for big paydays from the potential £3bn deal, after accumulating stock through years of service at Virgin Money, which was co-founded by billionaire Sir Richard Branson in 1995.

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UK pressing for ‘full explanation’ of alleged abuses after Gaza hospital raid

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Andrew Mitchell responds to Labour question in Commons about reports of Israeli mistreatment of medical staff

A UK Foreign Office minister has called for an investigation into a report that medical staff in Gaza faced violent and humiliating treatment in detention after an Israeli raid.

Nasser hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis – at the time the largest functioning hospital in the Palestinian territory – was raided over several days by Israeli forces in an attack that began on 15 February.

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‘I’ve seen solid waste float by’: Surrey riverside residents try to Stop the Poo

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The sewage treatment works at Horley seem to be crumbling, much like owner Thames Water itself

The brochure boasts of a family-friendly community located in tranquil green space within easy reach of high-speed links to London.

However, the residents of a new development of 1,500 homes in Horley, Surrey, have recently set up a WhatsApp group, whose title illustrates a less attractive feature of the community: Stop the Poo.

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Come clean on secret taxpayer rescue plans for Thames Water, MP demands

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Exclusive: Sarah Olney to press in parliament for details of scheme being drawn up in event of supplier’s collapse

Ministers must come clean on the secret details of an emergency plan for a taxpayer bailout in the event of Thames Water collapsing, a Liberal Democrat MP has said.

Sarah Olney will press in parliament this week for details of a behind-the-scenes rescue operation being drawn up for the biggest privatised water company in England. Olney said keeping the details of the contingency plan secret amounted to a cover-up.

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Up documentary series voted most influential UK TV show of last 50 years

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Programme that follows the lives of 14 children at seven-year intervals tops Broadcasting Press Guild’s 50th anniversary chart

The groundbreaking Up documentary series has been voted the programme that changed television the most over the past 50 years in a poll of the country’s leading TV writers.

The series, which follows a group of children from different social backgrounds and documents their progress every seven years, topped a list of the the most influential shows from the last five decades compiled by the Broadcasting Press Guild (BPG).

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