Category Archives: UK news

Counter-terror chiefs on alert for Iranian activity in UK exploiting Gaza war

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Israel-Hamas conflict raises fears Iran might seek to encourage radical groups or terrorist activities in Britain

British counter-terrorism officers are monitoring closely if Iran will try to exploit the Israel-Hamas war for its own ends in the UK, amid wider anxieties that Tehran is an increasing security menace to dissidents and critics.

Concerns about Russia and China are well established, but Iran’s campaign of intimidation and harassment has been the most visible development in the domestic threat picture over the last 12 months.

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Reynolds admits Cabinet Office failed to get on top of Covid crisis and No 10 distracted by Cummings-related tensions – live

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Boris Johnson’s former principal private secretary is first of ex-prime minister’s inner circle to give evidence to inquiry

Keith shows a WhatsApp message from Simon Case, the cabinet secretary. It is date 20 December 2021 and in it Case says:

PM is mad if he doesn’t think his WhatsApps will become public via Covid inquiry – but he was clearly not in the mood for that discussion tonight! We’ll have that battle in the new year.

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More than 4,000 English flood defences ‘almost useless’, analysis finds

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Exclusive: Hundreds of ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ defences are in areas battered by Storm Babet, according to analysis by Unearthed

More than 4,000 of England’s vital flood defences are so damaged they are almost useless, including hundreds in areas battered by Storm Babet.

Nearly 800 critical assets – defined as those where there is a high risk to life and property – were in a “poor” or “very poor” condition in the 10 English counties worst affected by last week’s historic downpours.

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Nigel Farage ‘giving very serious consideration’ to I’m a Celebrity … offer

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Former Ukip leader said he was offered ‘substantial sums of money’ and would decide ‘within next 48 hours’

Nigel Farage is giving “very serious consideration” to an offer to join the lineup of I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!

The former leader of Ukip and the Brexit party has been courted by the ITV show several times in the past, but previously ruled out an appearance, saying the reality show was “humiliating”.

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Man jailed for life for attempted murder of US woman stationed at GCHQ

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Joshua Bowles, 29, carried out reconnaissance before stabbing victim in Cheltenham in March

A former UK intelligence worker has been jailed for life for attempting to murder an American woman who worked for the US government’s National Security Agency and was stationed at GCHQ in Gloucestershire.

Joshua Bowles punched and stabbed the woman at a leisure centre 3 miles from the UK intelligence, security and cyber-agency’s Cheltenham base after researching the woman and carrying out surveillance of her.

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Higher interest rates help HSBC to more than double profits

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Bank criticised by MPs for being too slow to reward savers as it announces 15% rise in net interest income and $3bn share buyback

Higher interest rates helped HSBC to more than double its profits and hand over $3bn (£2.5bn) to shareholders, as MPs criticised the largest UK banks for being too slow to reward savers.

The London-headquartered bank said it was launching a share buyback, and paying a dividend worth 10 cents a share, after what its chief executive, Noel Quinn, hailed as “three consecutive quarters of strong financial performance”.

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Weather tracker: UK and France brace for Storm Ciarán

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Torrential rain and 100mph gusts forecast in some areas when low-pressure system makes landfall

Storm Ciarán is expected to arrive in the UK and Ireland, France, and the Iberian peninsula on Wednesday night into Thursday. Gusts of up to 100mph (160km/h) could be possible off the western coast of France before the severe winds filter through the Channel. Brittany and the western French coast could experience wind speeds of more than 80mph, and it is likely to remain windy through the weekend.

Torrential rain is also expected, with a chance of flooding in parts of western France and the north-western Iberian peninsula. Coastal inundation is also likely to be a risk along the northern Spanish and Portuguese coasts, as well as along the French coastline, with sea swell caused by strong winds and the low-pressure displacement of seawater. The rest of France could also experience heavy rain.

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Portuguese police apologise to Madeleine McCann’s parents

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Officers apologised to parents of missing girl earlier this year for their handling of investigation and treatment of family

Portuguese police have apologised to the family of Madeleine McCann for the handling of the unsolved case, more than 16 years after the three-year-old’s mystery disappearance in 2007.

Earlier this year, a delegation of police officers travelled from Lisbon to London to apologise for the handling of the investigation and how the family was treated, according to BBC Panorama.

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UK ministers to hold Cobra meeting on terrorism threat from Israel-Hamas conflict

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Suella Braverman will meet police and national security officials at No 10 to discuss ‘accelerated’ risk

UK ministers will hold an emergency meeting of its Cobra committee amid concerns that the Israel-Gaza conflict has raised the possibility of a domestic terrorist incident.

The home secretary, Suella Braverman, will meet national security officials and police at No 10 on Monday to assess the security risk after the deadly Hamas attack on Israel more than three weeks ago.

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Antisemitism is deeply ingrained in European society, says EU official

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Remarks by rights chief come as civil society groups warn of a rise in antisemitism amid Israel-Hamas war

Antisemitism is a “deeply ingrained racism in European society” that poses an existential threat to the continent’s Jewish community and the fundamental aims of the European Union, an EU official has warned.

Michael O’Flaherty, the director of the bloc’s agency for fundamental rights, said it was worrying that only a third of the general population considered antisemitism a big problem, when there was no doubt “dramatic moments in our societies trigger antisemitic responses”.

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Minister seen campaigning with suspended former Tory MP Peter Bone

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Tom Pursglove, minister in DWP, photographed with Bone two days after suspension over bullying and sexual misconduct

A minister has been photographed campaigning with the former Conservative MP Peter Bone, who was suspended from parliament last week after an investigation found he had engaged in bullying and sexual misconduct.

Tom Pursglove, a minister in the Department for Work and Pensions, was photographed by The Sunday Mirror canvassing in Northamptonshire with Bone two days after his sanction was ratified by MPs.

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Huge ethnicity pension gap revealed in UK figures

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Shortfalls fuelled by misconceptions and distrust of employers, as well as lack of spare income, figures show

A UK individual from a minority ethnic background typically has a pension pot less than half the size of that belonging to the average white British saver, data reveal.

The research from Legal & General’s investment arm claimed there was a sizeable “ethnicity pensions gap” in the UK that was being fuelled by “misconceptions” around pensions and a “significant distrust of employers”, as well as a lack of spare income.

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Humza Yousaf says parents-in-law are alive in Gaza but have run out of water

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Scottish first minister expresses relief after communications were cut off during Israeli bombardment

Scotland’s first minister has expressed relief after discovering his parents-in-law in Gaza are alive, although they have run out of clean drinking water.

Humza Yousaf said the welcome news had come through on Sunday morning, hours after describing his worries about whether they were alive or dead following the imposition by Israel of a communication blackout in Gaza on Friday.

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Death of baby after UK hospital missed vitamin jab ‘beyond cruel’, parents say

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Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge failed to give William Moris-Patto a routine vitamin K injection

The parents of a baby boy who died at seven weeks old after a hospital did not give him a routine injection have described the failure as “beyond cruel”.

William Moris-Patto was born in July 2020 at Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge, where it was recorded in error that he had received a vitamin K injection – which is needed for blood clotting. The shot is routinely given to newborns to prevent a deficiency that can lead to bleeding.

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UK drivers make claims of ‘dangerous’ electric car faults

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Motorists locked inside their cars, while an NHS doctor said her BMW iX accelerated to 65mph and then crashed

An electric car owner has claimed her vehicle’s autopilot engaged without warning and accelerated to 65mph, zigzagged across the road and caused a serious crash, the Guardian can reveal.

The alleged incident involved a doctor, Ravpreet Kaur, who was travelling in Buckinghamshire with her son in the family’s £80,000 BMW iX. Her husband said they were lucky to escape unhurt.

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Driver crashes into pedestrians at bus stop in central London

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Man arrested and eight others taken to hospital after incident in Aldwych in early hours of Sunday morning

Pedestrians in the West End of London were taken to hospital after a car crashed into a bus stop in the early hours of Sunday morning, with a man in his 20s arrested on suspicion of dangerous driving.

Paramedics said that eight of the pedestrians had been taken to hospital – with three people in major trauma centres – after a Range Rover careered off the road in Aldwych, near the Indian High Commission, after a night of Halloween festivities in the capital.

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Britain is ‘omni-surveillance’ society, watchdog warns

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Exclusive: Fraser Sampson says law is not keeping up with AI advances as police retain 3m images of innocent people

Britain is an “omni-surveillance” society with police forces in the “extraordinary” position of holding more than 3m custody photographs of innocent people more than a decade after being told to destroy them, the independent surveillance watchdog has said.

Fraser Sampson, who will end his term as the Home Office’s biometrics and surveillance commissioner this month, said there “isn’t much not being watched by somebody” in the UK and that the regulatory framework was “inconsistent, incomplete and in some areas incoherent”.

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Labour will not punish calls for Israel-Hamas ceasefire, shadow minister suggests

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Keir Starmer has ‘listened’ to rebels and will ‘continue engaging’, says Peter Kyle, amid mounting pressure from senior party figures

Members of Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet will not be punished if they break party ranks by demanding a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, because Labour is a “diverse party”, Peter Kyle has suggested.

The shadow science, innovation and technology minister also rejected claims that Labour was taking Muslim votes for granted, and said the party was not basing its policy on the conflict around what might win votes.

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Afghans who fled Taliban to UK ‘set to be made homeless at Christmas’

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Home Office has imposed a 15 December deadline to eject people who worked for UK in Afghanistan from hotels, say councils

More than 1,000 Afghans in the UK face being made homeless days before Christmas after the Home Office imposed a fresh deadline to eject them from hotels.

The Local Government Association (LGA) revealed the number of at-risk Afghans, which includes families, after the Home Office last week imposed the new deadline of 15 December.

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Overseas students and workers targeted in illicit UK visa trade

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Brokers in south Asia charging up to £800 for appointments that should be free

UK visa appointments are being booked up by brokers and sold on for hundreds of pounds in an illicit trade targeting overseas workers and students.

An Observer investigation has found brokers in some parts of south Asia charging up to £800 for the biometric appointments, which are widely advertised on Facebook and the Telegram messaging service.

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