Britain’s biggest mortgage lender forecasts 5% drop over this year and another 2.4% decline in 2024
UK house prices will continue to slide this year and in 2024 and will not start to recover until 2025, Lloyds Banking Group has forecast.
The lender, which owns Halifax and is Britain’s largest mortgage provider, said that by the end of 2023 UK house prices would have fallen 5% over the course of the year and were likely to decrease by another 2.4% in 2024.
Continue reading...Robert Jenrick says process of revoking visas of foreign nationals who spread ‘hate and division’ has already begun
The UK immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, has suggested that visitors to the country will be removed if they incite antisemitism, even if their conduct falls “below the criminal standard”.
Jenrick said he could not get into “specific cases” of visa-holders whose conduct is being reviewed, saying there was a “legal process that must be followed properly”, but noted some people had been seen “glorifying” terror activities and “praising Hamas”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Poll shows young people willing to make big lifestyle changes but baulk at smaller gestures
They are willing to have smaller families, stop using cars and – albeit in smaller numbers – go vegan for the planet, but abandoning single-use plastics and growing a few more plants could be a step too far.
Across Europe, according to a seven-country survey, it seems young people are more willing than older generations to make big lifestyle changes that would help combat the climate crisis – but are less convinced by smaller gestures.
Continue reading...Inmates at HMP Frankland in County Durham, some of ‘hardest to reach people in society’, did course in a year with no internet access
Inmates serving long sentences at one of the UK’s most secure prisons have been allowed to study GCSE English for the first time and have outperformed many of their peers on the outside.
More than three-quarters of the small cohort of prisoners who sat the exam at HMP Frankland in County Durham secured a pass at grade 4 or above – equivalent to a C – which is almost three times the success rate in further education colleges in England.
Continue reading...Party to encourage Wellingborough voters to sign petition if Commons votes to suspend Bone on Wednesday
Labour is ramping up plans to force another byelection ahead of a vote on Wednesday to suspend Peter Bone from parliament for six weeks.
Bone was stripped of the Conservative whip after being found by a watchdog to have bullied and harassed a member of staff and exposed his genitals near their face.
Continue reading...Sir Michael Wilshaw says Ofsted’s headline judgments ‘provide parents with false comfort’
The former chief inspector of schools Sir Michael Wilshaw has poured scorn on Ofsted’s judgment that almost nine out of 10 state schools in England are “good”, describing it as “complete nonsense”.
According to the latest official statistics, 88% of schools were judged to be either “good” or “outstanding” by the schools inspectorate as of the end of last December, but Wilshaw told MPs that having visited some of those awarded a “good” rating by Ofsted, he did not agree.
Continue reading...Police name Cheryl Woods, 61, and Sarha Smith, 40, from south Wales, and Peter Pelling, 61, from Scotland
Tributes have been paid to three people killed in two separate weather-related incidents on Friday at the height of Storm Babet, as new weather warnings were issued on Tuesday.
Yellow weather warnings were put in place for parts of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and the south-east of England on Tuesday, with the expectation of heavy rain in some areas that are already flooded.
Continue reading...The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, claims he’s making a difference in the Middle East but barely has a walk-on part
It’s all very confusing. On Monday, during his statement to the Commons, I could have sworn I heard Rishi Sunak say – with great modesty – he had been vitally important in international efforts to limit the violence in the Middle East. Only his personal interventions with Benjamin Netanyahu, Mohammed bin Salman and Abdel Fatah al-Sisi had prevented an even worse humanitarian catastrophe. Some were even proclaiming him to be a global peacemaker. A saviour among men.
So it was a surprise on Tuesday to hear James Cleverly making pretty much the same claims for himself during Foreign Office questions. Time and again, the foreign secretary would preface an answer with a reference to his own diplomatic missions to the Middle East. He alone had a full grasp of what was at stake as politicians from Israel, Turkey, Egypt and Qatar had begged him for advice. Sure, the prime minister had done his bit, but that had been largely cosmetic. The real donkey work had been done by him. The Great Jimmy Dimly.
Continue reading...Groups of thieves are targeting high-value items such as bottles of spirits, warns the retail group chair Sharon White
John Lewis chair Sharon White has raised fears for the safety of its store workers amid a rise of “organised gangs” of shoplifters who are targeting high-value items such as bottles of spirits.
White, the head of the department store group which also owns Waitrose supermarkets, said it was “not an exaggeration” to describe the change as an epidemic.
Continue reading...Lawyers argue Home Office failed to properly consider whether Begum had been groomed before stripping her of UK citizenship
Shamima Begum’s lawyers argued before the court of appeal on Tuesday that it was unlawful to deprive her of British citizenship because she was a victim of trafficking when she left the UK for Islamic State territory in Syria at 15.
Samantha Knights KC, her barrister, told the start of a three-day hearing that the Home Office and a lower court had failed to properly consider whether she was groomed – and called for the decision to be overturned.
Continue reading...London-based daughter of one of hostages released tells BBC her mother, 85, is OK but her father is still missing
At least 12 British nationals have been killed and five are suspected to be among the hostages being held by Hamas, No 10 has said.
The updated figures emerged after Victoria Atkins, the financial secretary to the Treasury, had told Sky News it was a “very, very fast-moving situation” and that she understood the number of British citizens killed to be 10, with six being held.
Continue reading...The half a million workers whose employers pay the voluntary real living wage will earn £3,000 a year above the minimum wage
Almost half a million workers in the UK whose employers are signed up to pay the voluntary real living wage are in line for a pay rise to at least £12 an hour, taking their annual wage to £3,000 a year above the government’s minimum wage.
The Living Wage Foundation said employers in London that are part of the scheme will pay an enhanced rate of £13.15 an hour to cope with the extra costs of living in the capital.
Continue reading...Chancellor calls scheme involving 20 of UK’s largest funds a ‘huge win’ for the country
A group of leading UK venture capital funds managing more than £25bn have signed an agreement backed by the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, to boost investment in high growth companies across the country.
In a government drive to drum up private investment in Britain before the chancellor’s autumn statement, Hunt said the scheme involving 20 of the UK’s largest funds was a “huge win” for the country.
Continue reading...Ex-SNP leader says she passed first time but the challenge of learning took her well out of her comfort zone
Nicola Sturgeon has announced on social media she has passed her driving test at the age of 53.
The former first minister of Scotland said she was successful on her first attempt. She posted a photograph of herself and Andy McFarlane, her driving instructor, on Instagram on Monday.
Continue reading...Education secretary’s letter emphasises copyright cannot be used as ‘excuse’ to withhold RSHE teaching resources
Gillian Keegan has written to schools in England ordering them to make the materials used in children’s sex education available to be seen by parents, warning headteachers there can be “no ifs, no buts, no more excuses”.
It is the second letter the education secretary has sent to schools on the issue, which has been seized upon by some backbench Conservative MPs amid claims that children are being exposed to inappropriate material during relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) at school.
Continue reading...Award for short story about a young man reflecting on a small-town childhood includes publication on the Guardian website
Tian Yi has won the 2023 4thWrite prize for The Good Son, a short story about a young man reflecting on a small-town childhood interrupted by strange occurrences, and a friendship he never fully understood.
The competition, run by the Guardian and publisher 4th Estate and now in its seventh year, is open to unpublished writers of colour living in the UK or Ireland. Yi has won £1,000, a one-day publishing workshop at 4th Estate, and the publication of her story on the Guardian’s website.
Continue reading...The PM, just back in the Commons after meeting Netanyahu, had only vain hopes to offer in the search for peace between Israel and Hamas
Call it war fatigue. So soon. Last week it was standing room only on both sides of the house for Rishi Sunak’s statement on Israel and Gaza. For the update on Monday there were plenty of gaps on the green benches. Especially on the Tory side. Already the Middle East has been filed under something too difficult, too unbearable and too far away. Most Conservatives no longer have the bandwidth for the conflict. They are too busy contemplating their own more immediate eternity. Losing the next general election.
Many of Sunak’s opening remarks were more or less a reprise of what he had said last week. Horror at the 7 October attacks on Israel by Hamas. A commitment to stand with Israel and a reaffirmation of its right to defend itself and to retrieve its hostages. An acknowledgment that the Palestinians are also victims of Hamas. Their need for humanitarian aid and for Israel to respond within international law. Hard to argue with any of that.
Continue reading...Video footage posted online appeared to show a driver using the PA system to lead a chant with passengers
A tube driver who appeared to lead a chant of “free, free Palestine” on a train has been suspended while Transport for London investigates the incident.
TfL said it had identified the driver responsible for the incident on a central London service on Saturday, as about 100,000 protesters took part in a pro-Palestine demonstration and demanded an end to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
Continue reading...Home secretary to meet Metropolitan police commissioner after officers said no offences were identified in footage from demonstration in London
Keir Starmer has said he had “productive” talks during a visit to Tata’s giant Port Talbot plant in south Wales.
The Labour leader told broadcasters:
We have ambitious plans for the steel industry. We see this as the future, not the past. That requires strategic thinking about our economy. We want to go to clean power, that will bring down energy costs.
If we are able to put in place our mission for clean power 2030, that will require more steel – and therefore we want the demand for steel to go up. Of course, we need to transition to green steel. But we must do this transition very carefully, protecting the jobs and the skills and the history that we have here in south Wales. Connecting and bridging that to the future, which is green steel.
So, we have been having productive discussions this morning about what I think will be a very bright future for steel. But only with strategic thinking around it.
They’re really living in a situation that my mother-in-law describes as torture.
The whole night there will be missiles, rocket fire, drones – they don’t know whether they are going to make it from one night to the next.
Continue reading...Paul Gilbert says people in flood-prone areas are forgotten, after death of Maureen Gilbert, 83, in Storm Babet
A man who found his mother’s lifeless body floating in flood water triggered by Storm Babet inher Chesterfield home has spoken of his anger that people in flood-prone areas are being “forgotten”.
It is thought that Maureen Gilbert, 83, drowned after she was unable to escape the rapidly rising water inside her terrace home owing to mobility problems.
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