Category Archives: UK news

Brianna Ghey murder trial: accused discussed killing five children, court told

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Boy and girl on trial at Manchester crown court over fatal stabbing of Brianna in a Cheshire park in February

Two teenagers accused of murdering a 16-year-old girl in a park near Warrington had a list of five children they wanted to kill, a court has heard.

The girl and boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were 15 when one or both of them allegedly stabbed Brianna Ghey 28 times in a “sustained and violent attack” on 11 February 2023. Brianna was transgender and had been living and dressing as a girl before her death, Manchester crown court heard.

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Stalking victims face ‘postcode lottery’, says coroner after Gracie Spinks killing

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Concerns raised over ‘consistency and availability’ of stalking advocates in UK police forces to support victims

Stalking victims face a “postcode lottery” of support due to a lack of advocates in police forces across the UK, a coroner has said following the death of Gracie Spinks.

The 23-year-old was killed in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, by a work colleague, Michael Sellers, who had become “obsessed” with her after previously harassing a number of other women. On 18 June 2021 he followed Spinks to the field where she kept her horse before fatally stabbing her and taking his own life soon after.

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Liz Truss backs Trump with call for Republican presidential victory

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Short-lived PM does not mention frontrunner for nomination by name but says ‘I hope a Republican will be returned in 2024’

Liz Truss, the shortest-serving prime minister in British history, who was memorably shown to have a shorter shelf life than a lettuce, has in effect backed Donald Trump in next year’s US presidential election.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Truss – who spent just 49 days in No 10 Downing Street before being turfed out by her own Conservative party in large part for pitching the UK economy into crisis – said she wished for a Republican president next.

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Andy Burnham claims government note shows Covid tier 3 restrictions imposed on Manchester as ‘punishment beating’ – as it happened

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Covid tier system introduced in October 2020 and imposed different restrictions on English regions in effort to contain spread of virus. This live blog is closed

At the Covid inquiry Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, said that he was not getting information from the government in February about Covid. He said he was “disappointed” by that.

In late February and early March he was getting information from other cities around the world instead, he said. He said this happened even though his foreign affairs team consisted of just three people.

The government generally does give us information about a variety of things happening. I’m disappointed the government weren’t giving us information in February about what they knew then.

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US, UK and a dozen more countries unveil pact to make AI ‘secure by design’

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Non-binding 20-page agreement signed by 18 countries says companies must develop AI that keeps public safe from misuse

The United States, the United Kingdom and more than a dozen other countries on Sunday unveiled what a senior US official described as the first detailed international agreement on how to keep artificial intelligence safe from rogue actors, pushing for companies to create AI systems that are “secure by design”.

In a 20-page document unveiled on Sunday, the 18 countries agreed that companies designing and using AI need to develop and deploy it in a way that keeps customers and the wider public safe from misuse.

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UK will not return to Cameron era’s close ties with China, Sunak says

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At summit to drum up foreign investment PM says he does not intend to change policy towards Beijing

Rishi Sunak has said the UK will not return to the close relationship with China pursued under David Cameron, as the prime minister met business leaders in an effort to drum up foreign investment.

The government on Monday said £29.5bn of new investment had been earmarked for the UK, including projects by the ScottishPower owner, Iberdrola, and BioNTech, the German company that partnered with Pfizer on its Covid vaccine.

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Let boardrooms look beyond shareholder returns to drive productivity, report urges

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Adapting business laws to include benefits other than profit in decision-making could add £149bn to UK economy, says Demos thinktank

Britain’s economy could receive a £149bn boost from a change to UK business laws that would ensure companies put social, economic and environmental benefits at the heart of their decision-making, according to a report.

With the UK on course for the second lowest growth rate in the G7 group of leading economies in 2023, the study by the thinktank Demos said it was clear that cutting taxes or raising public spending had not been effective at driving economic growth.

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Royal Court theatre launches digital archive of every play performed there

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London venue’s online collection of performances dating back to 1956 will be free to use for writers, directors and the public

The Royal Court has launched a free digital archive of every play performed at the London theatre since 1956 as a resource for writers, directors and members of the public.

Almost 2,000 plays by more than 1,000 writers are accessible on the theatre’s Living Archive, along with lists of their casts and directors.

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Scampi scam? UK retailers accused of misleading claims on environmental impact

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Five-year project to reduce environmental impact of industry has ‘all but failed’, report finds

British retailers and seafood companies have been accused of making misleading claims over “responsibly sourced” scampi or langoustines, according to campaigners, who say a five-year project to reduce the environmental impact of the £68m industry appears to be failing.

The companies, including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Waitrose, Young’s and Whitby Seafoods – the last of which is currently the largest supplier of breaded scampi to UK pubs, restaurants and fish and chip shops – are all part of a fishery improvement project (FIP) aimed at making the UK langoustine industry more sustainable.

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UK school pupils ‘using AI to create indecent imagery of other children’

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Protection groups call for urgent action to help pupils understand risks of making images that legally constitute child sexual abuse

Children in British schools are using artificial intelligence (AI) to make indecent images of other children, a group of experts on child abuse and technology has warned.

They said that a number of schools were reporting for the first time that pupils were using AI-generating technology to create images of children that legally constituted child sexual abuse material.

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Climate crisis adds average £605 a year to UK household food bills, study finds

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Report quantifies UK food inflation caused by extreme weather reducing global crop yields since end of 2021

Food bills in the UK have risen by £605 a year for the average household because of the effects of climate breakdown, according to research.

Floods and droughts, which scientists have said were probably exacerbated by global heating, have reduced crop yields over the past two years, said the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), a nonprofit organisation.

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UK spends more financing inequality in favour of rich than rest of Europe, report finds

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Inequalities of income, wealth and power cost UK £106.2bn a year compared with average developed OECD country

The UK spends more than anywhere else in Europe subsidising the cost of structural inequality in favour of the rich, according to an analysis of 23 OECD countries.

Inequalities of income, wealth and power cost the UK £106.2bn a year compared with the average developed country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), according to the Equality Trust’s cost of inequality report.

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Reform UK leader says party has not offered Tory MPs money to defect

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Richard Tice responds to claims by Conservative deputy chair Lee Anderson that he was offered ‘a lot of money’ to switch

Conservative MPs have not been offered money to defect to Reform UK, the party’s leader, Richard Tice, has stressed, amid claims that Lee Anderson was offered “a lot of money” last month.

Anderson, the MP for Ashfield and one of the Conservative party’s deputy chairs, was recorded telling Tory activists last month: “A political party that begins with an R offered me a lot of money to join them. I mean a lot of money, I mean a lot of money.”

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Women in UK military who report assaults face ostracisation, report says

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Exclusive: women tell study they were punished for breaking rules rather than supported when they reported incidents

Women in the British military who report sexual assaults are being ostracised and punished for breaching minor rules, research shows.

The forces’ “misogynistic and toxic” culture of “laddish” behaviour shapes the way it deals with and understands sexual assaults, according to the study, which is published in the Royal United Services Institution Journal.

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Campaigner for council housing in London fights on after leaving her home

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Aysen Dennis, who accused Southwark council of ‘social cleansing’, continues court challenge over Aylesbury estate plans

The bulldozers will soon be out for the south London council flat that was Aysen Dennis’s home for 30 years. After leading a fierce battle against the council and developers, claiming their plans to fill much of her estate with private homes amounted to “social cleansing”, she has finally moved.

Dennis, 65, has been relocated to a swanky new flat in a development bought back by Southwark council. She claims it paid £690,000 for her ninth-floor flat with panoramic views of the park – and is convinced it was an attempt to shut her up before a legal challenge.

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The heat is on as Britain’s boom in seaside saunas stirs up some local sweat

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Hot boxes are popping up on the coast, as well as beside lakes and rivers, but not everyone is happy about the trend

Seaside saunas were just a wisp of a dream until 2018. Now anyone walking along a beach at one of the UK’s main resorts is likely to come across a converted horse box offering heat and steam as a respite from bleak skies and icy winds.

There are now 70 such saunas operating in the UK according to the British Sauna Society, mostly at beaches or lakes, fuelled by the growth in wild swimming and healthy living.

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Nigella Lawson tells Britain to give Christmas cake the heave-ho-ho-ho

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TV cook says she will be making chocolate cake this year, a new tradition for her household

It may be one of the longest-standing festive traditions, but Nigella Lawson has urged people to ditch Christmas cake this year and opt for a family-friendly chocolate one instead.

The celebrity chef said there was no point in having a dried fruit cake “gathering dust” on the kitchen counter, and families should choose a festive dessert that would go down better with visiting guests over the winter break.

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Met police officer charged with attempted rape

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Sgt Elliot Butler also charged with causing male to engage in penetrative sexual activity

A serving Metropolitan police officer has been charged with attempted rape, allegedly committed 10 years ago, the force said.

Sgt Elliot Butler, attached to the Central East command unit, was also charged with causing a male to engage in penetrative sexual activity.

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Russia wages electronic warfare ‘using UK-made tech’, Ukraine dossier claims

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Report calls on government to take immediate action to disrupt supply of technology used in electronic warfare

Many of the countries that have sanctioned Russia over the war in Ukraine need to take urgent action to disrupt the supply of technology for its electronic warfare campaign, according to a new report.

The dossier compiled by Ukraine and circulated to the major countries which have imposed sanctions identifies key Russian firms involved in the development and production of electronic military equipment. It says the UK and other countries have not yet sanctioned some of the firms involved.

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‘They thought I had cancer’: painkiller banned in UK linked to Britons’ deaths in Spain

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Patients’ group says reactions to metamizole can cause sepsis and organ failure – and British and Irish people are at higher risk

A patients group representing several British victims has launched legal action against the Spanish government over claims it failed to safeguard people against the potentially fatal side effects of one of the country’s most popular painkillers, involved in a series of serious illnesses and deaths.

The drug metamizole, commonly sold in Spain under the brand name Nolotil, is banned in several countries, including Britain, the US, India and Australia. It can cause a condition known as agranulocytosis, which reduces white blood cells, increasing the risk of potentially fatal infection.

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