Prime minister says he wants first flight to leave ‘as soon as practicably possible’ but will not give date
Q: When you said you would stop the boats, people thought that meant reducing them to negligble numbers. That is not going to happen, is it?
Sunak says he is proud of the progress he has made. He always said it would be difficult.
Continue reading...Lenders forecast biggest quarterly increase in missed repayments on credit cards and loans since 2009
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Britain’s biggest high street lenders expect the sharpest rise in defaults on unsecured lending since 2009, according to a Bank of England survey, as households come under growing pressure amid the cost of living crisis.
The figures from Threadneedle Street show banks expect a marked rise in the number of people who fail to meet repayments on credit cards, loans and other forms of unsecured borrowing over the next three months.
Continue reading...Saliah Mehmet and Basil Peterkin’s convictions linked to British Transport Police officer Derek Ridgewell posthumously quashed
Two men who were jailed based on evidence from a racist and corrupt police officer have had their convictions posthumously overturned by the court of appeal.
Saliah Mehmet and Basil Peterkin are the 10th and 11th people to have convictions relating to the British Transport Police (BTP) officer DS Derek Ridgewell quashed. Their appeals after a referral by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) were uncontested on Thursday.
Continue reading...Programme’s lexicographer says audiences are consumed by correct pronunciation of the word ‘scone’
As the in-house lexicographer on Channel 4’s enduringly popular Countdown programme, Susie Dent has been arbitrating on word-related disputes for more than 30 years.
Now, Britain’s most famous word expert has revealed the question she is asked most frequently about the sometimes idiosyncratic English language: the correct pronunciation of the word “scone”.
Continue reading...Delivery company says nearly all festive deliveries arrived on time and its revenues rose
Royal Mail has said it had its best Christmas for four years, with nearly all festive deliveries arriving on time – despite missing a target that would have handed postal workers a £500 bonus.
The delivery company’s owner, International Distributions Services (IDS), on Thursday reported group revenues rose nearly 10% to £3.6bn in the final three months of 2023.
Continue reading...Ed Sheeran and Little Mix fans among those targeted by firm that resold on Viagogo and StubHub
Ticket touts acting out of “greed and dishonesty” sold tickets worth £6.5m to music fans, a court has heard, as a woman known as the “Ticket Queen” pleaded guilty to fraudulent trading nearly seven years after being named in an Observer investigation.
TQ Tickets Ltd, owned by Maria Chenery-Woods of Norfolk, used fake identities to hoover up large numbers of tickets for acts such as Ed Sheeran and Little Mix, prosecutors for National Trading Standards said.
Continue reading...Former chief operating officer was lead architect of Facebook’s digital advertising-driven business model
Sheryl Sandberg is to step down from the board of Facebook’s parent company, Meta, nearly two years after quitting her executive role at the business.
Sandberg was the lead architect of Facebook’s digital advertising-driven business model as Meta’s chief operating officer.
Continue reading...As tensions in the Middle East continue to rise, this week John Harris speaks to Niku Jafarnia of Human Rights Watch about the regional conflicts. The Rwanda bill passed its third reading and Pippa Crerar, the Guardian’s political editor, reveals what happened behind the scenes. And the former No 10 adviser Gavin Barwell talks about the increasingly vicious struggles within the Conservative party
Archive: GB News
Continue reading...Flagship policy passes committee stage after tense lead-up in which Tory divisions came to the fore
Rishi Sunak has survived a damaging row over his flagship Rwanda bill after a Conservative rebellion melted away and dozens of rightwing MPs balked at further undermining the prime minister’s authority.
After a crucial 11th hour meeting of more than 45 Tory rebels, the group’s leaders concluded that defeating the bill by voting alongside Labour during an election year could risk collapsing the government.
Continue reading...Foreign secretary says there are legal, moral and political justifications for using assets of $350bn
Britain is ramping up pressure on western governments to use $350bn (£275bn) of frozen Russian assets to help rebuild Ukraine’s war-shattered economy, with David Cameron insisting there were legal, moral and political justifications for action.
The foreign secretary said the countries that were backing Ukraine had economies that when combined were 25 times the size of Russia and it was important to make that firepower count.
Continue reading...Palace says monarch’s condition is benign and he will attend hospital next week
The king is to attend hospital for treatment of an enlarged prostate, Buckingham Palace has announced.
Buckingham Palace said: “In common with thousands of men each year, the king has sought treatment for an enlarged prostate.
Continue reading...Sunak’s press secretary says Downing Street not shown legal basis for rebel amendments, despite this being offered and asked for
Rishi Sunak starts with the usual spiel about his engagements, and how he has got meetings with colleagues.
Rishi Sunak is taking PMQs in 10 minutes.
Continue reading...Suggestions that 13-year-old was pushed into river by schoolmate led to online comparisons with Stephen Lawrence murder
A senior police officer has raised concerns that a “narrative” was built up suggesting the death of a black boy allegedly pushed into a Welsh river by a schoolmate was a racist killing.
Det Ch Insp Matt Powell, who led the police investigation into 13-year-old Christopher Kapessa’s death, said comparisons to Stephen Lawrence’s murder on social media led to tensions rising in the community and meant the suspect had to be given protection.
Continue reading...Lincolnshire council launches review after death of Bronson Battersby, who was subject to children’s services checks
A two-year-old boy was left alone to die of starvation curled up next to the body of his father, who had suffered a fatal heart attack, his family has revealed.
Bronson Battersby was found dead on 9 January, alongside his 60-year-old father, Kenneth, at their home in Skegness, Lincolnshire – 14 days after they were last seen.
Continue reading...TV presenter says he reported most recent threats ‘to harm you and your family’ to police
Chris Packham has been given a bodyguard while filming the latest series of BBC’s Winterwatch after “specific threats” were made against him.
The presenter has faced persistent abuse in recent years, including in 2011 an arson attack on his home.
Continue reading...In wake of #MeToo, sexism in the City has become more ‘underhand and pernicious’, women tell inquiry
The social change sparked by the #MeToo movement has not translated to the UK’s financial sector, with sexual harassment merely shifting outside the office to conferences and work trips, MPs have heard.
A summary of private hearings held as part of the Treasury committee’s sexism in the City inquiry showed that, while a small number of women said workplaces had become more inclusive in recent years, the majority felt the Square Mile was still an “old boys’ club” with misconduct and misogyny widespread.
Continue reading...Petition demands online retailer stop immediate sale of bags and compensation for damages incurred
Uniqlo is suing the Chinese online retailer Shein over the sale of items it claims copy its popular banana-shaped ‘it’ bag, the “round mini”.
The petition demands that Shein immediately stops the sale of “the imitation products” and pays compensation for damages incurred as a result of their sale. It was filed last month in the Tokyo district court against the fast-growing business’s parent groups Roadget and Fashion Choice, as well as Shein Japan.
Continue reading...Paul Kagame also says he would be happy for the scheme to be scrapped
Rwanda’s president has said there are limits to how long attempts to implement an asylum deal with Britain can “drag on”, indicating he would be happy for the scheme to be scrapped.
Paul Kagame’s comments on Wednesday came before Rishi Sunak faced a potentially leadership-ending rebellion by Conservative MPs threatening to vote down his Rwanda deportation bill on Wednesday night.
Continue reading...June Givanni founded London archive documenting Pan-African cinema over 40 years
A pioneering curator, writer and programmer of African film is to receive Bafta’s outstanding British contribution to cinema award.
June Givanni is the founder of a London archive that has amassed more than 10,000 items – including films, ephemera, manuscripts, audio, photography and posters – documenting Pan-African cinema over 40 years.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: The controversial Rwanda bill is back in the Commons – what happens next could shape the party’s future
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Good morning. It’s been another miserable week for Rishi Sunak, and it’s only Wednesday. The fulcrum of his despair is today’s vote on the third reading of the government’s Rwanda deportation bill, which is meant to be a populist, lawyer-thwarting solution to the nightmare of the government’s policy on Channel crossings – but has come under serious threat from exactly the hardliners it was supposed to appease.
Yesterday, two Conservative deputy chairs, Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith, resigned from their jobs in order to vote for amendments to the bill alongside 58 of their peers. The government still looks likely to prevail later in the key vote today – but the row has dragged the Conservative party’s current self-loathing into the open once again. For today’s newsletter, I spoke to the Spectator’s political editor, Katy Balls, about the latest iteration of the Tory identity crisis, and what it tells us about the fight for the party’s future. Here are the headlines.
Post Office | Fujitsu, the technology company that built the flawed Horizon IT system at the heart of the Post Office scandal, has admitted for the first time that it should contribute to financial redress for victims. Fujitsu’s European boss, Paul Patterson, said there was a “moral obligation for the company to contribute”.
Iran | Iran has launched airstrikes on Pakistan territory, apparently aimed at a Sunni militant group, in the latest sign of a wave of violence rolling across the Middle East and beyond. Pakistan’s foreign ministry said two children were killed, and summoned Tehran’s senior diplomat in Islamabad to protest against the “unprovoked violation of its airspace”.
France | Emmanuel Macron wants to regulate French children’s screen time, test compulsory school uniform, and is not against all primary schoolchildren having to learn the national anthem, he has told a press conference. Macron’s promise of a “common sense” France comes as he tries to limit the potential gains of the far right in upcoming European elections.
Austria | Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man who raped and incarcerated his daughter in a purpose-built prison beneath his home for 24 years, is applying for release from jail, according to his lawyer. Fritzl, 88, could be moved to a nursing home if his appeal is successful.
Guinness World Records | Bobi the Portuguese mastiff, who had comfortably clinched the title of the oldest dog ever when he died in October at the apparent age of 31, is having the distinction reviewed after doubts were raised about his lifespan. Pictures purportedly of the same dog in 1999 appear to show him with different-coloured paws.
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