The 87-year-old, Europe’s oldest ruling monarch, has suffered from ill health in recent years, and it is unclear when he will return home
Norway’s King Harald V, aged 87 and in poor health, is “improving” from an infection that forced him to be hospitalised while on holiday in Malaysia, his office has said.
The king will remain in hospital on the island of Langkawi and it is not yet known when he will return home, the Royal House of Norway said in a statement on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Parliamentary inquiry highlights likelihood of Scotland, Jersey or Isle of Man passing new laws
Laws to allow assisted dying may pass in Scotland, Jersey and the Isle of Man in the next few years, leading to a divergence between different parts of the UK and British Isles, MPs have warned.
The government must consider the repercussions of this, a parliamentary inquiry into assisted dying has said.
Continue reading...Length of time patients must wait for A&E care, diagnostic tests, cancer care and surgery will remain high, report predicts
The NHS hospital waiting list will be falling “consistently” by the time of the general election but will remain even larger than it was before Covid until 2030, a new report predicts.
In potentially good news for Rishi Sunak, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the waiting list for operations in England is expected to “start to fall consistently but slowly from the middle of 2024”, during the months leading up to the election, which is widely expected in November.
Continue reading...Daily registers will also be shared online with DfE as part of government drive to improve attendance
Taking an unauthorised family holiday is about to get more expensive, with the government announcing that fines for children in England missing school are to rise by 33%.
The education secretary, Gillian Keegan, is to overhaul the way local authorities fine parents for unauthorised school absences by bringing penalties “under a national framework to help tackle inconsistencies”.
Continue reading...Ministers and senior police sign ‘democratic policing protocol’ to control protests outside parliament, town halls and parties’ offices
Rishi Sunak is seeking to halt demonstrations outside MPs’ homes after telling senior police officers that the UK is descending into “mob rule”.
In comments that have concerned civil liberties groups, the prime minister also demanded a crackdown on protests outside parliament, political parties’ offices and town halls that may prevent use of a venue or “cause alarm harassment or distress”.
Continue reading...Officials say 179 people trying to cross Channel were rescued after four French-led operations
One person has died and two others are missing in the Channel after an incident involving a small boat, French rescue services have said.
According to the Préfecture maritime Manche et mer du Nord, four French-led rescue operations took place in the Channel on Wednesday, coordinated by the regional operational surveillance and rescue of Gris-Nez.
Continue reading...Neighbours complaining of building noise from property in Mawgan Porth, reports say
It is the latest sequel in the long-running saga over the luxury ecohome Cate Blanchett is building in a picturesque seaside town in Cornwall once dubbed “Hollywood-on-Sea”.
Neighbours have accused the actor of destroying family holidays with the building noise from the property in Mawgan Porth, it has been reported.
Continue reading...Court of appeal hears Oliver Campbell was convicted on basis of inconsistent confession made under police pressure
There is a “crescendo of concern” from psychological experts that a vulnerable man was convicted of murder on the basis of a false confession, the court of appeal heard on Wednesday.
Oliver Campbell was convicted of murdering east London shopkeeper Baldev Hoondle 33 years ago after telling police he had shot him. But Campbell, 53, suffered profound brain injuries as a baby, leaving him with significantly impaired cognitive ability.
Continue reading...Indian conglomerate says gigafactory in Bridgwater will bring about 4,000 jobs to region
The Indian conglomerate Tata has confirmed Bridgwater in Somerset as the site of its new £4bn battery factory, which will bring about 4,000 jobs to the region.
Tata’s battery business, Agratas, said it had bought land at the Gravity Smart campus off the M5, just outside the town.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: Why David Neal lost his job, and what he had to say about the faltering immigration system
• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First Edition
Good morning. When then-home secretary Priti Patel appointed David Neal as the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration in 2021, the Commons home affairs committee refused to endorse the decision. They were worried that the recruitment process had been inadequate and said they had seen no evidence that he was “confident to challenge performance publicly”. Well, they’ve seen it now.
Last week, David Neal was sacked from his job by James Cleverly, now the home secretary, just a month before he was due to stand down. Neal’s crime was to disclose unauthorised information to the media – a tactic that he appears to have resorted to after 15 reports he wrote uncovering problems with the immigration system went unpublished, instead gathering dust on a Home Office shelf. Now Neal has told the same parliamentary committee of “shocking leadership” at the Home Office and said he was “sacked for doing my job” – and his testimony paints a grim picture of the state of the accommodation centres where the government houses asylum seekers.
Conservatives | An alleged victim of a serious sexual assault by a Conservative MP has accused the central party of being more concerned with protecting its own reputation than her welfare after it failed to formally investigate her complaint. After her mental health deteriorated, the party’s headquarters paid £15,000 for her to receive treatment at a private hospital, the alleged victim told the Guardian.
US politics | Joe Biden has won the Democratic primary in Michigan – but a concerted effort by protest voters angry at his stance on the Israel-Gaza war could overshadow his win. With only 31% of votes tallied, 40,000 people had voted “uncommitted” – four times his margin of victory over Donald Trump in 2020.
Post Office | The former chair of the Post Office has claimed he was the victim of a “smear campaign” led by the business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, and turned on his chief executive in a dramatic day of evidence to a parliamentary committee. Henry Staunton stunned MPs when he told them that Post Office chief executive Nick Read was facing an internal investigation.
Politics | Rishi Sunak is braced for another byelection after former Tory MP Scott Benton was suspended from the Commons for 35 days over his role in a lobbying sting. If 10% of the Blackpool South MP’s constituents now sign a recall petition, a byelection will be triggered in his seat.
Social affairs | Jonathan Dimbleby has described the criminalisation of assisted dying in the UK as “increasingly unbearable” after his younger brother, Nicholas, died this month with debilitating motor neurone disease (MND). The broadcaster spoke as MPs prepare to publish a report showing that three-quarters of the public support legalisation within strict guidelines.
Continue reading...Judges urged to keep proceedings as open as possible in case relating to Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey
Allegations that UK police and intelligence spied on investigative journalists to identify their sources will be heard by a secret tribunal on Wednesday, with judges urged to ensure as much as possible takes place in open court.
Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey asked the investigatory powers tribunal (IPT) to look into whether police in Northern Ireland and Durham, as well as MI5 and GCHQ, used intrusive surveillance powers against them.
Continue reading...Firm told it must take responsibility for toxic legacy of pollution and safe decommissioning of abandoned oil infrastructure
The oil firm Shell cannot be allowed to withdraw from the Niger delta before it takes responsibility for its toxic legacy of pollution and the safe decommissioning of abandoned oil infrastructure, a report says.
Shell plc is preparing to divest from the delta but a report warns that it must remain until it has cleaned up its legacy of pollution.
Continue reading...New report notes ‘continued decline’ and rising call-waiting times as ‘fiscal drag’ pulls growing numbers of people into an ailing system
Customer service levels at HM Revenue and Customs have sunk to an “all-time low”, parliament’s spending watchdog has said.
Users regularly encounter long call-waiting times as the tax department apparently struggles to cope with demand, a report by the cross-party public accounts committee (PAC) has found.
Continue reading...Southwark asks residents to invest as little as £5 to help fund eco-projects such as cycle hangars and school upgrades
Deep cuts to government funding have led a council in south London to ask its residents to invest their own money, for a financial return, to build cycle hangars, new LED street lighting and green upgrades at schools and leisure centres.
In the midst of a financial crisis hitting town halls across England, councillors in Southwark have resorted to a crowdfunding scheme to raise £6m over the next six years to help fund climate-friendly projects.
Continue reading...Critics of the government’s mass housing plan say it won’t save public money and at worst put asylum seekers at risk of suicide
Twice in January, ambulances rushed to the former RAF airbase at Wethersfield in a remote part of Essex, now the Home Office’s biggest mass asylum accommodation site, to attend to suicide attempts. On each occasion, an asylum seeker was admitted to hospital. Both survived.
Acts of self-harm have been common since part of the 325-hectare (800-acre) site, which first opened in 1944, started to be used to house refugees in July 2023.
Continue reading...Proposed sale of Abyssinian artefact taken during 1868 battle triggers appeal for restitution of ‘wrongfully acquired’ item
The Ethiopian government has called the auction of a looted colonial-era shield “inappropriate and immoral” as it attempts to stop its sale this week and prevent it from disappearing into a private collection.
The Anderson & Garland auction house, in Newcastle upon Tyne, was contacted by the Ethiopian National Heritage national restitution committee about the 19th-century Abyssinian shield, which it said should be removed from the auction set to take place on Thursday.
Continue reading...Fast-fashion company believes it unlikely that SEC will approve US flotation, according to report
The fast-fashion company Shein is reportedly considering a stock market flotation in London rather than New York because of potential problems with a listing in the US, its preferred location.
Shein, which was founded in China but is now based in Singapore, is in the early stages of exploring an initial public offering in London because it believes it is unlikely that the US Securities and Exchange Commission would approve its initial public offering (IPO), Bloomberg reported.
Continue reading...Prince of Wales will not attend service for Constantine the former king of Greece at Windsor Castle
The Prince of Wales has pulled out of attending a memorial service at Windsor Castle for Constantine, the former king of Greece, due to a personal matter.
Kensington Palace would not elaborate further but said the Princess of Wales, who is recovering from abdominal surgery, continued to be doing well.
Continue reading...Illegal immigration minister Michael Tomlinson repeatedly refused to explain Anderson’s comments in LBC interview
Back at the business committee Andy McDonald (elected as a Labour MP, but currently sitting as an independent after having the whip withdrawn) complained about the amount of compensation being offered to post officer operators. He said what happend to them was “born of malice”. As a result, he said, compensation should not just cover loss of earnings, and other ways people were disadvantaged. He said there should be “aggravated and exemplary” damages to reflect the malice involved.
Sir Ross Cranston, the former Labour solicitor general who is now independent reviewer of the Post Office GLO scheme, said the scheme was operating on the basis that compensation should be “full and fair”. But that went beyond just paying people for what they lost, he said.
Continue reading...Competition helped offset impact of Red Sea shipping crisis in February, says analyst Kantar
Grocery price inflation in the UK has slowed to a two-year low as fierce competition among supermarkets offset the impact of the Red Sea shipping crisis on goods prices.
In a boost to households, supermarket prices were 5.3% higher than a year earlier in February, the lowest rate since March 2022 and down from January’s 6.8%, according to the analyst Kantar. Grocery sales grew by 5.1% in the four weeks to 18 February.
Continue reading...