Government confirms ticket price rises will be delayed until March and will be below retail prices index
Rail fare rises in England will not exceed 9% next year and will be delayed until March, the government has said.
Ticket costs used to increase in January in line with inflation as measured by the retail prices index over the 12 months to the previous July. On Wednesday the Office for National Statistics revealed last month’s RPI rate was 9%.
Continue reading...Both sides of constitutional debate use Gers data to argue case for and against independence
Scotland’s public spending deficit has fallen from a record peak last year, as oil and gas revenues reached their highest-ever level after a global rise in oil prices.
The government expenditure and revenue Scotland (Gers) report calculated a per-person deficit – the gap between the amount raised through all tax and spending on all public services – as £1,521 in the 2022-23 financial year, down from £2,184 the previous year.
Continue reading...Company breached three-year rolling limit on abstraction licence at Fylde aquifer in 2018
United Utilities has been fined £800,000 after illegally abstracting 22bn litres of water in Lancashire, causing damage to an important aquifer that will take years to recover.
The illegal removal of water from the Fylde aquifer, which happened during a period of dry weather in 2018, is likely to have negatively affected river flows.
Continue reading...Corporation under pressure to respond to claims presenter sent photos of reality star Stephen Bear
The BBC is under pressure to respond to allegations that Stephen Nolan, one of the corporation’s highest-paid presenters, sent sexually explicit images to colleagues and was the subject of a bullying claim.
Political parties in Northern Ireland called on the BBC to provide a full response to the allegations about the region’s most influential and controversial broadcaster.
Continue reading...Payout for 2022 up from £5.6m a year before, as income bounces back after collapse of UK restaurant empire
Jamie Oliver and his wife, Jools, have paid themselves £6.8m in dividends, up from £5.6m a year before, after a bounceback in television and restaurant income.
The celebrity chef, whose UK restaurant empire collapsed in 2019 with the loss of 1,000 jobs, has 70 restaurants around the world run by franchise partners and has sold 2m books spun out from last year’s TV series Jamie’s One-Pan Wonders.
Continue reading...‘Technical issue’ allowed transfers and withdrawals beyond customer limits and made online banking unavailable
Bank of Ireland has apologised for an IT glitch that meant some customers were able to withdraw money they did not have in their accounts at cashpoints.
The bank said it had resolved the “technical issue”, which had also allowed transfers beyond customer limits and had made its online banking and mobile app services unavailable.
Continue reading...When Britain’s wonkiest pub was destroyed in a fire and the ruins demolished, it sparked protests and made headlines around the world – but why?
Thanks to a bad case of subsidence the Crooked House in the Black Country, had become a landmark. Punters talked about how its alarming lean made you feel drunk before you got to your pint, while badly made shelves were said to be ‘as straight as the Crooked House’.
But then it was bought by developers, caught fire and was immediately demolished. For many people it seemed like a symptom of how loved, local pubs were disappearing, while the nature of the pub’s destruction also raised interest across the country – and beyond.
Continue reading...Thousands of images from second world war include bomb damage to Old Trafford and troops at leisure
Black-and-white aerial photographs offering a bird’s eye view of England as it changed during the second world war are being made available to the public for the first time.
The 3,600 images include pictures of bomb damage to Old Trafford in Greater Manchester, as well as other towns and cities. They also show ancient monuments surrounded by anti-tank defences in West Sussex, and troops at play at a US army camp in Wiltshire.
Continue reading...Health secretary suggested patients could go directly to diagnostic test or clinician to ease ‘bottleneck’ in NHS system
Patients with cancer symptoms could bypass their GP in the future and go straight for a scan, the health secretary has suggested, in the latest “radical” attempt by the government to cut huge NHS waiting lists.
The suggestion, which comes as the government is expected to reduce the number of NHS cancer waiting time targets, could form part of proposals to “design out bottlenecks” in the NHS system, Steve Barclay said in an interview.
Continue reading...Event celebrates Afghan culture and protests against restrictions on women and girls two years after Taliban offensive
Hordes of colourful kites soared into the sky over London in solidarity with the people of Afghanistan on the second anniversary of the fall of their homeland to the Taliban.
Participants said the event, at Primrose Hill in north London, was intended to demonstrate how “colourful” the culture of Afghanistan once was and to provide “a voice, far from our home” for all the Afghans, especially women and girls, living under the Taliban’s oppressive regime.
Continue reading...After spending 17 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, the 57-year-old’s conviction was finally overturned last month
A 33-year-old woman is raped and left for dead on a motorway embankment in Salford as she walks home. She recalls causing a “deep scratch” to her attacker’s face. Andrew Malkinson is visited by police officers the next day who see he has no scratch. He is arrested two weeks later and then picked out of a video lineup.
Continue reading...Exclusive: No action taken despite 2007 discovery of searchable male DNA profile on rape victim’s top that did not match Malkinson’s
Police and prosecutors in the Andrew Malkinson case knew there was another man’s DNA on the victim’s clothes in 2007 – three years after he was wrongly convicted of rape – but he remained in prison for another 13 years.
Malkinson was cleared by the appeal court last month after spending 17 years in prison for a 2003 rape he did not commit. His exoneration came after fresh DNA testing linked another man to the crime.
Continue reading...The Airbus A340 taking Annalena Baerbock to the region twice had to turn back to Abu Dhabi after refuelling
Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, has been forced to abandon a trip to Oceania after a problem with her government plane twice forced it to return to Abu Dhabi.
Baerbock set off from Berlin on Sunday, but a mechanical problem with her ageing German air force Airbus A340’s landing flaps meant it had to turn back to Abu Dhabi after a refuelling stop there. The aircraft took off again on Monday night, but the technical problem resurfaced and the plane had to return to the Emirati capital again.
Continue reading...Coalition urges health secretary to back changes as long-term sickness levels reach record high
A coalition of charities and health experts has called for an overhaul of the UK’s “broken” sick pay system, as the number of people prevented from working by long-term sickness reached a record high.
The health secretary, Steve Barclay, was urged in a letter to support changes that the campaign says would not just address widening health inequalities but also benefit the economy.
Continue reading...Information about victims of crime, witnesses and suspects included with freedom of information responses, forces say
Two police forces in England have admitted mishandling the sensitive data of victims, witnesses and suspects in cases including domestic abuse incidents, sexual offences, assaults, thefts and hate crime.
Norfolk and Suffolk police said the data of 1,230 people was included in files responding to freedom of information requests and apologised.
Continue reading...Wes Streeting says announcement of £250m to provide 900 extra beds ‘comes nowhere near the 12,000 beds’ cut in the last 13 years
Back on the PSNI data leak for a second, former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has questioned how the details of PSNI officers and staff were all kept in one system.
“What’s happened, why it’s happened, I don’t know, I don’t get it – how 10,000 people were all in one system, particularly intelligence people – but I’m sure that will all come out in the wash,” PA Media reports he told Newstalk.
Continue reading...Bethany Cox, 22, will face trial next year over offences alleged to have taken place during first Covid lockdown in 2020
A 22-year-old woman has pleaded not guilty to charges alleging she illegally administered drugs in order to procure an abortion.
Bethany Cox, of Stockton-on-Tees appeared before the recorder of Middlesbrough, Judge Watson KC, at Teesside crown court.
Continue reading...Manju Malhotra, who joined retailer 25 years ago, is understood to have disagreed over pace of change
The boss of Harvey Nichols has quit the retailer she first joined 25 years ago after tensions over its strategy, and a member of its owning family will take the reins.
Manju Malhotra started at the Knightsbridge store in London in 1998 as a newly qualified accountant and worked her way up through the ranks before becoming chief executive in January 2020, just before the Covid pandemic forced stores to shut.
Continue reading...Suspects held in February in major national security investigation, BBC reports
Three suspected spies for Russia in Britain have been arrested and charged in a major national security investigation, the BBC reported on Tuesday.
The defendants were Bulgarian nationals alleged to be working for Russian security services, the BBC said.
Continue reading...Ursula von der Leyen aide reported to have ruled out ‘returns agreement’ in leaked copy of memo
The EU has rejected reports that it is not open to a new deal with the UK on returning people who have crossed the Channel, after a leak of purported discussions between London and Brussels.
A leaked copy of a memo on discussions with the UK’s national security adviser, Sir Tim Barrow, was reported to have included mention of an aide to the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, ruling out a post-Brexit “returns agreement”.
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