Category Archives: UK news

Jonathan Van-Tam’s family ‘threatened with having throats cut’, Covid inquiry hears

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Former deputy chief medical officer said police advised they move out of their home at one point in pandemic

Prof Sir Jonathan Van-Tam and his family were advised by police to move out of their home at one point during the Covid pandemic because of a threat that they would have their throats cut, he has told the inquiry into the pandemic.

Van-Tam, who was one of the deputy chief medical officers for England during the pandemic, said he was worried that the scale of hate from people who objected to lockdown-type measures could put off other people from doing jobs like his.

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Home secretary described Stockton as ‘shithole’, MP claims

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Alex Cunningham, MP for Stockton North, claims James Cleverly made comment during Wednesday’s PMQs

A Labour MP has claimed that his constituency was described as a “shithole” by the home secretary, James Cleverly, during prime minister’s questions.

Alex Cunningham said Cleverly had uttered the phrase when the Labour MP for Stockton North asked: “Why are 34% of children in my constituency living in poverty?”

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OBR halves UK growth forecast and warns inflation will exceed 2% target until 2025

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Despite £27bn windfall for the autumn statement, government forecaster warns of generally more difficult outlook until 2028

The government’s official forecaster has slashed its predictions for economic growth over the next two years, and warned that inflation could take until 2025 to come back to the official 2% target.

In an updated financial health check to accompany the autumn statement, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said a more resilient economy this year had handed the chancellor a £27bn budget windfall, but it warned of a more difficult outlook up to 2028 than previously forecast at the time of the budget in March.

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UK minister intends to refer Barclay family’s offer for Telegraph to Ofcom

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Government ‘minded to’ issue intervention notice to call in regulator on public interest grounds

The culture secretary intends to ask the media watchdog to examine the Barclay family’s proposed deal to hand control of the Telegraph and the Spectator magazine to an Abu Dhabi-backed consortium.

Lucy Frazer said on Wednesday she was “minded to” call in Ofcom to look at the investment fund’s plans to take over the titles in exchange for repaying £1.15bn of the family’s debts to Lloyds Banking Group.

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B&Q owner issues another profit warning after weak sales in France

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UK business lifted by ‘improve not move’ trend and interior design videos on TikTok

The owner of B&Q and Screwfix issued its second profit warning in three months after weak sales in France but said its UK business is being boosted by the “improve not move” trend and interior design videos on TikTok.

Kingfisher, which also owns Castorama and Brico Dépôt in France and operates in Poland, Iberia and Romania, too, reported an almost 4% sales decline in its financial third quarter, prompting a downgrade in its annual profit forecast from £590m to £560m.

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Gender pay gap for UK women aged 40 and over ‘will not close till they are pensioners’

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Equal Pay Day report from Fawcett Society blames lack of flexible working in well-paid high-quality jobs

UK women aged 40 and older will not experience the closure of the gender pay gap until after they reach state pension age, according to a report by the Fawcett Society.

The Equal Pay Day 2023 report, “Making flexible working the default”, found that on average working women take home £574 a month less than men – or £6,888 a year.

Forty per cent of unemployed women said access to flexible work would enable them to take on paid work. Almost a third of unemployed men said the same.

Women were significantly more likely to report working part-time (27%) compared with men (14%).

About 77% of women agreed that they would be more likely to apply for a job that advertised flexible working options.

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Wimbledon expansion plans rejected by Wandsworth council

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Planning committee votes unanimously against All England Club’s proposals to triple size on to listed park

A London council has rejected plans to build a new 8,000-seat stadium and 38 further tennis courts on a Grade II*-listed park in Wimbledon.

Wandsworth council’s planning committee on Tuesday night voted unanimously to reject the All England Lawn Tennis Club’s plans to almost triple the size of the tennis championship grounds from 17 hectares (42 acres) to 46 hectares.

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Autumn statement: Jeremy Hunt looks to cut UK taxes and ‘turbo-charge growth’

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Amid less gloomy OBR forecasts the chancellor is expected to take first steps towards cutting personal taxes

Jeremy Hunt will announce 110 measures to boost Britain’s stagnant economy and bow to demands from anxious Tory MPs for tax cuts when he delivers his second autumn statement on Wednesday.

In one of the last set-piece economic events before the general election, the chancellor will pledge to “turbo charge” growth while taking the first steps to cut personal taxes after recent sharp increases.

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Cleverly says he hopes to close Wethersfield asylum centre as soon as he can

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Discontent among people housed at Essex site is growing, with residents complaining about conditions

James Cleverly has said he hopes to close down the controversial mass accommodation centre in Wethersfield “as soon as practicable”, in a departure from government policy to move asylum seekers out of hotels and on to sites like the Essex military base.

Wethersfield, most recently used by Ministry of Defence police, is the Home Office’s largest mass accommodation site in the UK for people seeking asylum, with several hundred people accommodated there.

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Whitty implored officials not to use terms like ‘flatten curve’, Covid inquiry told

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England’s chief medical officer says incomplete knowledge of epidemiological concepts can be ‘dangerous thing’

Sir Chris Whitty spent early parts of the Covid pandemic trying to “implore” people in government not to publicly discuss health concepts they did not fully understand such as “flattening the curve” of infections and herd immunity, he said.

Giving evidence to the inquiry into Covid, Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, said he did this after realising that incomplete knowledge could be “a dangerous thing”.

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Dyson tells libel trial Daily Mirror article was a distressing ‘personal attack’

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Inventor is suing publisher over ‘rogues’ gallery’ article that stated he championed Vote Leave before moving global HQ to Singapore

An article that featured Sir James Dyson in a “rogues’ gallery” and stated that he had “championed Vote Leave … before moving his global head office to Singapore” was “damaging and distressing” to the inventor and entrepreneur, the high court has heard.

In a written statement to the court, Dyson described a Daily Mirror article published last year as a “personal attack on all that I have done and achieved in my lifetime” and said it was “highly distressing and hurtful”.

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Chris Whitty says No 10 decision-making ‘chaotic’ under Boris Johnson but other countries were similar – UK Covid inquiry live

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Chief medical officer for England and chief UK medical adviser says civil servants did good job but PM took ‘unique’ decisions

Q: Was there no aspect on the pandemic on which you did not advise?

Whitty says he would not put it like that. He says he felt it important to advise on issues where advice from a scientist or doctor would be useful.

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LadBaby bows out of Christmas No 1 race after five consecutive chart-toppers

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Record-breaking run comes to an end after raising over £1m for food bank charity The Trussell Trust

After beating the Beatles’ record for the most UK Christmas No 1s and raising well over £1m for charity, YouTube star LadBaby is bowing out of this year’s race for the festive top spot.

Mark Hoyle, with his wife Roxanne and their two sons in support, has reached No 1 at Christmas every year since 2018, with a series of songs featuring punning reworks – chiefly centred on sausage rolls – of classic rock songs.

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UK borrows less than expected this year as Hunt lines up giveaways

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Chancellor says bringing down inflation remains one of his main aims as he prepares autumn statement

The UK government borrowed less than expected in the first seven months of the financial year as Jeremy Hunt puts the last-minute touches to a series of pre-election giveaways in his autumn statement on Wednesday.

Public sector borrowing between April and October was just above £98bn, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), and while this was £22bn higher than in the same period last year, it was almost £17bn less than the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast in March.

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Banksy reveals his first name in resurfaced interview clip

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As a 2003 recording appearing to reveal his famously well-concealed identity comes to light, a lawsuit threatens to make it fully public

A lost interview with the street artist Banksy, which contains the only known instance of him revealing his first name, has been unearthed.

The 2003 recording features an interview with a BBC reporter who asks if Banksy’s real name is “Robert Banks”, to which the artist replies “It’s Robbie”.

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Police searching for missing teenagers in north Wales find car

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Jevon Hirst, Harvey Owen, Wilf Henderson and Hugo Morris were last seen on Sunday morning in silver Ford Fiesta

Police searching for four missing teenagers who disappeared on a camping trip in north Wales have found the car they were travelling in.

Jevon Hirst, Harvey Owen, Wilf Henderson and Hugo Morris are thought to have been travelling in the Harlech and Porthmadog areas of Gwynedd, North Wales police said.

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Ex-Dire Straits singer Mark Knopfler to sell guitar collection for charity

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‘I’ll be sad to see them go but we’ve had wonderful times together,’ says musician ahead of London auction

Mark Knopfler has said he wants to let his guitars have new adventures with new owners as he announced the sale of a collection of the instruments spanning his five-decade career.

Knopfler, who made Dire Straits one of the the biggest bands in the world, is to sell 120 of his guitars and amps at Christie’s in London in January, with 25% of the proceeds going to charity.

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Woman’s death during Brazilian butt lift surgery prompts UK-Turkey meeting

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Melissa Kerr from Norfolk died on day of buttock enlargement surgery at private hospital in Istanbul in 2019

UK officials are to meet with counterparts in Turkey after the death of a British woman during so-called Brazilian butt lift surgery at a private hospital in Istanbul.

Melissa Kerr, 31, from Gorleston in Norfolk, travelled to the private Medicana Haznedar hospital for the buttock enlargement surgery in 2019.

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UK white paper raises concerns over China’s growing foreign aid role

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Government paper says Britain must act robustly if interests challenged by the Chinese development model

China’s growing role in international development marks a systemic global shift that will require robust challenge by Britain if its interests are threatened, a UK government white paper on aid has warned.

With David Cameron starting as foreign secretary and under scrutiny for his previous business links with China, the document does not hold back in challenging the Chinese development model or its growing influence.

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Boris Johnson ‘bamboozled’ by science and Matt Hancock had habit of saying things that were untrue, UK Covid inquiry hears – live

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Former chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance revealed there was ‘complete lack of leadership’ at times in crisis

Vallance says that some of what he was doing during Covid would have been done by anyone else in the post of government chief scientific adviser (GCSA).

But he says because of his medical training, and his knowledge of vaccines (he had worked for GlaxoSmithKline before taking the GCSA job), he was probably more involved than another GCSA might have been.

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