Category Archives: UK news

Sikh separatists gather in London to protest after activists’ deaths

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Demonstrators stage protest outside Indian high commission questioning UK government’s response to killings

Supporters of the Sikh separatist Khalistan movement gathered outside the Indian high commission in central London to call for the UK government to stand alongside Canada after the killing of a prominent Sikh leader.

Monday’s protest on Aldwych came two weeks after Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said his government was looking at “credible allegations potentially linking” India with the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in British Columbia. Nijjar, who was 45, was killed on 18 June in a hail of gunfire outside his place of worship.

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Rishi Sunak refuses to make ‘premature decision’ over HS2

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PM declines to reveal if Manchester to Birmingham line will be scrapped amid speculation over soaring costs

Rishi Sunak has insisted he is not going to be forced into a “premature decision” over the fate of the HS2 high-speed rail line as speculation about the multibillion pound project continued to overshadow the Conservative conference.

“I am not going to be forced into a premature decision because it is good for someone’s TV programme,” the prime minister told BBC Breakfast.

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Sunak fails to hand WhatsApp messages from time as chancellor to Covid inquiry

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Exclusive: PM claims he has changed phone since running the Treasury and did not back up the messages

Rishi Sunak has failed to hand over his WhatsApp messages from his time as chancellor to the Covid inquiry despite the high court ruling that ministers should disclose their communications for scrutiny.

In his witness statement to the public inquiry, seen by the Guardian, the prime minister claimed that he did “not have access” to the messages during the period running the Treasury because he had changed his phone several times and failed to back them up.

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Kemi Badenoch failed to declare meeting with Rupert Murdoch

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Business secretary privately met media mogul in apparent breach of ministerial code of conduct

Kemi Badenoch failed to declare a meeting that she held with Rupert Murdoch days after she was appointed to the cabinet – in a breach of transparency rules.

The business and trade secretary reacted angrily on Monday on social media after it was revealed that she had privately met the media mogul and other executives from his News Corp company in New York in September 2022.

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Is HS2 destined for the rubbish heap or could its northern leg be saved?

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Furious city mayors make a plea for the project north of Birmingham amid ugly scenes at Tory conference

So what does cancelling HS2 north of Birmingham look like? There were ugly scenes at the Conservative conference hall even before the official death knell sounds: an uneasy HS2 minister batting off questions as above his pay grade, furious metro mayors declaring battle, railway leaders’ heads spinning at the logic.

In the real world, it’s even worse. From the massive crater and demolished homes, business and public spaces outside London Euston station to the hundreds of millions spent on compulsory purchases of houses on the original routes north from Birmingham, the consequences of a train line that may never exist are all too tangible. About 30,000 people are working on the scheme – and many of those believed they would have jobs for the long term.

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Rishi Sunak prepares to confirm scrapping of Manchester leg of HS2

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Tory mayor of West Midlands says PM in danger of ‘cancelling the future’ as bitter row threatens to derail conference

Rishi Sunak has become embroiled in a bitter row with regional politicians, the transport industry and members of his own party as he prepared to announce the cancellation of the multibillion high speed rail line to Manchester.

The prime minister is set to call an emergency cabinet meeting on Tuesday at the Conservative party conference in Manchester, where ministers are expected to give their approval to the biggest infrastructure climbdown in a generation.

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Mobile phone ban in English schools ‘smokescreen’ to mask real issues, say critics

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Most schools had policies before government’s plan, and there are concerns about safety and implications for carers of outright ban

Glyn Potts, head teacher at Newman Roman Catholic College in Oldham, could not hide his irritation at the morning headlines announcing a government ban on mobile phones in state schools in England.

His school, like the vast majority, already has a mobile phone policy. “All banned and have been for 10 years,” he said, dismissing the announcement by the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, as a “smokescreen” to distract from the real challenges facing schools, such as underfunding, teacher recruitment and providing for pupils with special educational needs.

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UK passport images database could be used to catch shoplifters

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Civil liberty campaigners warn Chris Philp’s plans to integrate databases are an ‘Orwellian nightmare’

Britain’s passport database could be used to catch shoplifters, burglars and other criminals under urgent plans to curb crime, the policing minister has said.

Chris Philp said he planned to integrate data from the police national database (PND), the Passport Office and other national databases to help police find a match with the “click of one button”.

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Tory MPs should ‘get behind’ Sunak, says Andrew Mitchell

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International development minister warns colleagues jostling for position not to be ‘self-indulgent’

Tory MPs should get over their “excess of doom and gloom” about their electoral prospects and “get behind” Rishi Sunak, a cabinet minister has said, with a veiled warning to colleagues jostling for position not to be “self-indulgent”.

The international development minister, Andrew Mitchell, suggested on Sunday that rival groups of Conservative MPs, who have been proposing an array of policy ideas at the party conference in Manchester, should be more disciplined before the election.

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‘Braverman knows exactly what she’s unleashing’: Ken Loach on his latest, and possibly last, film

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The Old Oak, about tensions in a former mining village when refugees arrive, has touched a nerve more raw now than when filming began

The veteran film-maker Ken Loach is famous for storylines that depict life’s bleakest injustices. But his latest film has touched a political nerve that is more raw now than when it was conceived before the pandemic.

Loach, now 87, has said that The Old Oak, which opened in cinemas on Friday, will be his last in a career spanning more than six decades. The six-week shoot was challenging, he says, but plays down the difficulties of making a big film at his age with the sight in one eye almost gone.

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NHS England leaders believe 2m operations and appointments lost to strikes

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Leaders say hidden total may be double official tally, as junior doctors, consultants and radiographers prepare more strikes

As many as 2m outpatient appointments and operations have been cancelled as a result of NHS strikes – double the official total – hospital bosses believe.

The NHS Confederation said the true number of care sessions hospitals are not able to provide due to staff walkouts is far higher than the NHS’s 1m figure because so many hospitals now do not book any patients in on strike days, to save having to reschedule them.

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UK families ‘eating less healthily’ due to cost of living crisis

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BBC Good Food Nation survey finds 19% of Britons eating more processed foods because they are cheaper

Families are eating less healthily and turning to ready meals and processed foods due to the cost of living crisis, a study has found.

More than two-thirds of people (69%) said they considered themselves to be healthy eaters but 28% said they were eating less nutritious food because it is too expensive, according to the BBC Good Food Nation survey.

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Catholic and C of E primary schools in England ‘take fewer Send pupils’

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LSE research suggests faith-based admissions requirements deter disadvantaged children

Church of England and Roman Catholic primary schools take fewer pupils with disabilities or special needs than other local schools in England, according to research that suggests faith-based admissions requirements deter pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The findings led the author, Dr Tammy Campbell of the London School of Economics, to conclude that faith schools “serve as hubs of relative advantage” for children from more affluent families who were less likely to have special needs.

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Charity challenges home secretary’s claims about ‘economic migrants’

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Refugee Council study suggests asylum claims by three out of four crossing Channel would be granted

Suella Braverman’s claim that most asylum seekers are economic migrants has been challenged by an analysis which suggests that three out of four people crossing the English Channel in small boats this year would be granted asylum if their claims were processed.

Using Home Office statistics on Channel crossings, the Refugee Council said that 74% of arrivals in 2023 would be recognised as asylum seekers, an increase from 65% last year.

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Rishi Sunak claims putting reducing inflation ahead of tax cuts Thatcherite and ‘deeply Conservative’ – UK politics live

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Prime minister says ‘the best tax cut we can give is to cut inflation’ after Michael Gove says taxes should be cut before general election

The BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg is starting. As well as Rishi Sunak, Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, is also being interviewed.

Q: Do you still think we’ve had enough of experts?

Economic forecasting was invented to make astrology look respectable.

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Campaigners urge Prince William to rewild Dartmoor farmland

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William became largest private landholder in the national park when he inherited Duchy of Cornwall

Campaigners are urging Prince William to invest in significant rewilding across swathes of Dartmoor’s predominantly farmed land.

The land became William’s after he inherited the Duchy of Cornwall, an extensive landholding including the largest privately owned area of Dartmoor national park, from his father, King Charles, when he succeeded to the throne.

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Tory swing voters switch to Labour after Sunak’s green retreat, poll finds

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Survey shows nearly 90% of 2019 Conservative voters say green industry is vital to UK’s economic growth

Almost nine in 10 voters who intend to switch their support from Conservative to Labour candidates in the next general election believe that “green growth” is important for the future of Britain’s economy, according to a poll.

Carried out by pollsters Opinium, the survey found that 82% of all respondents backed the growth of Britain’s green industry to boost the economy, in the same week that the prime minister announced a series of U-turns on the government’s green commitments in an attempt to create a dividing line with Labour before the election.

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Rishi Sunak shrugs off concerns that U-turns might make UK a ‘laughing stock’

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Prime minister says investors are excited about Britain and that he instinctively understands what the public wants

Rishi Sunak has rejected criticism that recent U-turns mean the UK cannot be taken seriously, as he fought to maintain order before a Conservative conference set to be dominated by questions about tax cuts and rivals jostling to succeed him.

In the traditional pre-conference TV interview, the prime minister again refused to say whether HS2 would extend as far as Manchester, the host city for the conference, which begins on Sunday afternoon.

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‘No more lives lost’: Glasgow architects urge road changes after colleague’s cycling death

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Road infrastructure campaign has been launched in honour of designer Emma Burke Newman, who was killed in lorry collision

On the long and busy stretch of road where Glasgow’s riverside meets its city centre, hundreds of commuters and visitors travel into and out of town each day. Since January this year, many will have spotted a new addition to their route: a white “ghost bike”, adorned with flowers and messages, parked at a busy junction where 22-year-old French-American architecture student and experienced cyclist Emma Burke Newman was killed in a collision with a lorry, just six months after moving to the city.

Now, former colleagues at architectural firm New Practice, where she worked as a designer while studying at Glasgow School of Art, have launched a road infrastructure campaign in her honour. Focusing on three specific junctions along the riverside, including the one where Burke Newman lost her life, the Waiting To Happen campaign aims to gather data about road users’ experiences of these locations with a view to creating a set of possible improvements.

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Former race lead sues EHRC for race discrimination

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Exclusive: Former staff member at equality watchdog says she was vilified, silenced and punished for speaking up on race

A former staff member at the Equality and Human Rights Commission is suing the watchdog, alleging race discrimination and unfair dismissal, at an employment tribunal this week.

Preeti Kathrecha, a senior associate and race protected-characteristic lead at Britain’s equality watchdog until 2021, claims she was vilified, silenced and punished for “doing my job” by speaking up about race.

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