Category Archives: UK news

Home Office accused of cover-up over ‘golden visas’ for super-rich Russians

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Government refused to publish review of system that allowed Russians now sanctioned due to Ukraine war to live in Britain

The government has been accused of a cover-up for refusing to publish a review of the so-called golden visa scheme that allowed wealthy investors, including at least 10 sanctioned Russian oligarchs, to take up residency in the UK.

The Tier 1 visa scheme, whereby super-rich individuals could buy the right to live in the UK by investing in British-registered companies, was closed in February 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, amid concerns that the system was being abused.

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‘Poisoned by chemicals’: citizen scientists prove River Avon is polluted

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Charity blames the decline of invertebrates on farming, sewage and run-off from roads and homes, months after the Environment Agency told them the water in Wiltshire river was clean


A citizen science programme has revealed the decline of one of the country’s most significant chalk streams after claims by Environment Agency officials that it had not deteriorated. The SmartRivers programme run by the charity WildFish, which surveys freshwater invertebrates, reported “strong declines in relation to chemical pressure” on the River Avon in Wiltshire. It said its data indicated a decline in the condition of the river over the last five years.

The charity compiled a report on its findings after the conservation groups say they were told at a meeting by the Environment Agency in August that “the Avon has not deteriorated in water quality in the last five years”. David Holroyd, head of water quality for Wiltshire Fishery Association, said the numbers of invertebrates collected in spring and autumn samples from 2019 and 2023 at 11 sites on the upper Avon had shown a decline.

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Labour calls for Liz Truss and Lee Anderson to lose Conservative whip

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Media appearances by ex-PM and former deputy Tory chair attract ire of Labour frontbench and within Tory ranks

Liz Truss and Lee Anderson should both lose the Conservative whip over controversial media appearances that have caused unrest and anger within Tory ranks, campaigners and opposition politicians have said.

In a letter to the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, on Friday, the shadow paymaster general, Jonathan Ashworth, said “egregious” remarks made by the pair “cannot go unchecked or unchallenged”.

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‘It’s on our doorstep’: Bristol’s fearful parents seek answers after three knife deaths in three weeks

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As teenage victims are mourned across the English city, some believe the return of youth centres would keep children safer

Terre Baptiste has been checking her teenage son’s whereabouts compulsively since a 16-year-old boy was fatally stabbed two weeks ago in a park a mile away from their home in the east of Bristol.

“It is very worrying,” says Baptiste, in her living room. “Bristol isn’t a perfect city. But there weren’t stabbings one after the other. It was few and far between. Now it is on our doorstep.”

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MPs to get free vote on decriminalising abortion in England and Wales

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Amendment by Labour MP Diana Johnson would end prosecutions for terminations after 24 weeks

MPs are expected to get a free vote on decriminalising abortion when a Labour backbencher lays an amendment that would end the prosecution of women who terminate pregnancies after the 24-week limit.

Diana Johnson is expected to lay an amendment to the Criminal Justice Act next month that would stop the possibility of women being jailed for going ahead with abortions after the time limit.

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Prosecutors target smuggled people who were forced to pilot small boats

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Campaigners say Ibrahima Bah should be treated as a victim of trafficking after he was forced to steer a boat. Instead he faces at least six years in jail

Ibrahima Bah will spend at least the next six years and three months in custody. He will do so for manslaughter, and for smuggling dozens of people into the UK on a perilous small-boat journey across the Channel during which at least four died.

In the words of the migration minister Michael Tomlinson, it was “right that he has been brought to justice” because Bah “put dozens of lives in extreme danger by taking charge of a perilous and illegal small boat crossing”.

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‘It’s been scary’: relief in Plymouth as German bomb is floated out to sea

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Residents tell of concerns and community spirit after discovery and removal of 500kg second world war explosive

Usually as the weekend approaches, the streets, shops and pubs around Devonport, the largest naval dockyard in western Europe, hum with life.

But an eerie hush fell over the area on Friday after more than 10,000 people were evacuated from homes and workplaces so a second-world-war bomb dropped on Plymouth by the Luftwaffe could be extracted from a back garden.

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Tory MP Lee Anderson claims ‘Islamists’ have got control of Sadiq Khan

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Ex-deputy party chair says on GB News Islamists control London as well as its mayor, prompting calls for him to lose the whip

The Conservative MP Lee Anderson has claimed that “Islamists” have “got control of London” and its mayor, Sadiq Khan.

Speaking on GB News, Anderson said of Khan, the first Muslim mayor of London: “He’s given our capital city away to his mates.

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Plymouth bomb: device to be detonated tonight or tomorrow, say police – as it happened

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Second world war bomb now in the water by Plymouth after its removal from a garden

The large Naval Dockyard at Devonport and the presence of the Air Force and Army in the city made it a prime target for Hitler’s Luftwaffe. The people of Plymouth experienced their first air raid alert at 12.45am on 30 June 1940.

Between July 1940 and April 1944, the people of Plymouth experienced 602 alerts and 59 bombing raids, resulting in the deaths of 1174 civilians. More than 4,000 properties were destroyed with a further 18,000 damaged.

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Three children found at house in Bristol died of knife injuries, police say

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Children formally identified as Fares Bash, seven; Joury Bash, three; and Mohammed Bash, nine months

Three children, including a baby, who were allegedly murdered at a house in Bristol all died of knife injuries, police have said.

Avon and Somerset police said the siblings had formally been identified as Mohammed Bash, aged nine months, Joury Bash, three, and Fares Bash, seven.

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‘We need a bigger bazooka’: Liz Truss takes aim at left ‘deep state’ at CPAC

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Hawking a book to many empty seats, former UK prime minister spoke at Maryland’s Conservative Political Action Conference

Liz Truss, the former British prime minister, has made a fresh bid for political relevance by addressing a far-right conference in the US, railing against Joe Biden, transgender rights and a so-called leftwing-run deep state.

Truss was greeted by gentle applause and dozens of empty seats when she walked on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference at the National Harbor in Maryland. CPAC styles itself as the biggest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world but is now widely seen as a glorified Donald Trump campaign rally, drawing speakers only from the populist right of the Republican party.

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Seeing same GP ‘improves patient health and cuts workload of doctors’

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Study analysing data from 10m consultations in England also says practice can free up millions of appointments

Seeing the same GP improves patients’ health, reduces doctors’ workloads and could free up millions of appointments, according to the largest study of its kind.

Primary care is under enormous strain, with patients struggling to book consultations, GPs quitting or retiring early, and financial pressures causing some practices to close. Four-week waits hit a record high in 2023, with 17.6m appointments taking place at least 28 days after being booked in England last year.

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Online slot machine stakes to be capped at £5 in Great Britain

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Maximum will be £2 for younger adults but campaigners say government has not gone far enough

The amount that can be staked on the spin of an online slot machine will be capped at £5, or £2 for younger customers, as part of government plans to tighten regulation of the £11bn-a-year gambling industry in Great Britain.

Online slots are currently exempt from limits on how much punters can wager.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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‘Daylight robbery’: two in five UK teachers work 26 hours for free each week

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TUC survey finds teaching staff perform the most unpaid overtime of any profession, losing out on £15,000 a year each

Teaching unions have accused ministers of “daylight robbery” after a new survey by the Trades Union Congress revealed that teachers perform the most unpaid overtime of any profession.

The TUC survey – published to mark its Work Your Proper Hours Day on Friday – found that two out of five teaching staff in the UK worked 26 hours for free each week, for a combined 5.5m hours a year.

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ITV announces drama on contaminated blood scandal after Post Office series success

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Peter Moffat will write show about what is considered one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in NHS history

ITV has announced a drama on the contaminated blood scandal, widely considered to be one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in NHS history, after the success of its series on the Post Office.

The drama, which is being written by the Bafta award-winning screenwriter Peter Moffat, will show how people with haemophilia and other blood disorders were contaminated with blood infected with HIV and Hepatitis C, the American media site Deadline reported.

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Post Office said last month it stands by most Horizon convictions

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Letter shows Post Office told ministers it would oppose attempts to overturn 369 prosecutions

The Post Office has admitted writing to ministers saying it would stand by the prosecution of more than half of the post office operators targeted during the Horizon scandal as recently as last month.

Despite the outpouring of concern and anger after what has been described as Britain’s worst miscarriage of justice, the letter from the Post Office’s chief executive, Nick Read, showed it would oppose attempts to overturn the prosecutions in 369 cases.

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Rolls-Royce swings to £1.6bn profit with cost cuts ‘well under way’

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Engine-maker says it has made £150m of its £400m to £500m savings target, with up to 2,500 jobs to go

The British engine-maker Rolls-Royce has said cost-cutting plans that will result in it axing up to 2,500 jobs by the end of next year are “well under way”, as it swung to a £1.6bn underlying operating profit for 2023.

The aerospace engineering specialist reported the statutory pre-tax profits for 2023 against losses of £1.5bn in 2022, helped by cost savings and better-than-expected revenues.

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UK quits treaty that lets fossil fuel firms sue governments over climate policies

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Britain joins France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands in withdrawing from charter it says ‘penalises’ shift to net zero

The UK is pulling out of a treaty that lets fossil fuel firms sue governments over their climate policies.

The government said the UK was withdrawing from the energy charter treaty after efforts to modernise it ended in stalemate.

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‘It was a big cat’: claimed Cumbrian leopard sighting fails to convince experts

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Research from the Royal Agricultural University suggests possible big cat presence in the UK, but others say evidence is flimsy

When you think of four-legged British wildlife, the first animal that comes to mind may not be a black leopard.

Yet that is exactly what Sharon Larkin-Snowden insists she has seen roaming the Cumbrian countryside over the past few months. The 52-year-old part-time construction worker was first told about alleged sightings of the so-called Beast of Cumbria in November, when local farmers noticed “unusual activity” on their land. But it wasn’t until later in the month that she claims to have had her own sighting.

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Lloyds sets aside £450m for car loan fines and payouts

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Bank’s profits rise 57% but it says there is ‘significant uncertainty’ over liability amid FCA investigation

Lloyds Banking Group has been forced to put aside £450m for potential fines and compensation for motor finance customers, after the UK regulator opened an investigation into whether consumers had been charged inflated prices for car loans.

The lender, which also owns the Bank of Scotland and Halifax brands, said there was “significant uncertainty” over the extent of any misconduct or loss to customers that could result in penalties or payouts.

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