Category Archives: UK news

UK should finally acknowledge role in 1953 Iran coup, says David Owen

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Former foreign secretary says doing so would benefit both reform movement in country and Britain’s credibility

The UK should finally acknowledge its leading role in the 1953 coup that toppled Iran’s last democratically elected leader, for the sake of Britain’s credibility and the Iranian reform movement, a former foreign secretary has said.

The US formally admitted its role 10 years ago with the declassification of a large volume of intelligence documents, which made clear that the ousting of the elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosadegh, 70 years ago this week was a joint CIA-MI6 endeavour. The formal UK government position is to refuse to comment on an intelligence matter.

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Bibby Stockholm: Home Office ‘should accept blame’ for delay in removing people

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Mayor of Portland says ‘buck stops with Suella Braverman’ after it took three days to inform ministers about outbreak

The Home Office should accept responsibility for failing to immediately remove asylum seekers from a giant barge after the detection of a dangerous bacteria, the mayor of Portland has said.

Carralyn Parkes said the “the buck stops with Suella [Braverman]” after Whitehall briefings over the weekend claimed that contractors on the Bibby Stockholm were to blame for delays as it took three days to inform ministers about the outbreak of legionella.

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UK universities face more strikes unless employers resume talks, union warns

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University and College Union is preparing a new ballot that could lead to marking boycott continuing and strikes lasting into 2024

Universities across the UK will face another round of strikes next month unless employers agree to return to the negotiating table, the University and College Union has warned.

A marking boycott that has left tens of thousands of students without their degree result this summer will continue, the union said, while preparations will get under way for a new strike ballot to renew the union’s mandate.

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Legionella on the Bibby Stockholm barge: five questions for Home Office

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Many issues remain to be resolved after asylum seekers were evacuated on Friday because of a potentially deadly bacteria

The Home Office’s decision to use the Bibby Stockholm barge to accommodate asylum seekers generated controversy long before the first person set foot onboard.

But issues with its use came to a head on Friday when the government confirmed the asylum seekers were being evacuated just days after moving in because of legionella, a potentially deadly bacteria, being found in its water system. While officials have provided a plan to use an RAF base instead, many questions remain.

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Keir Starmer urged to defend lawyers after Tories’ ‘targeted campaign’

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Exclusive: Martin Forde KC says fellow professionals are ‘bewildered’ at silence over case of Jacqueline McKenzie

Keir Starmer is facing calls to defend the legal profession against government attacks on “lefty lawyers”, amid further concerns for the safety of an immigration solicitor subjected to a “targeted campaign” by the Conservative party.

Martin Forde KC, the senior lawyer commissioned by Starmer to investigate the Labour party’s culture, said legal professionals from across the political spectrum had expressed their bewilderment that the Labour leader had not said anything after such personal attacks, even after former Conservative law officers criticised the political rhetoric aimed at “lefty lawyers” on Friday.

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Keir Starmer accuses Tories of ‘moving goalposts’ on NHS cancer care

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Proposals to ‘streamline’ treatment, which government says are clinically led, would cut number of targets from nine to three

Keir Starmer has accused the government of “moving the goalposts” as the number of NHS cancer waiting time targets is expected to be reduced.

The government has been consulting on the proposed measures to streamline NHS cancer care, which would replace the nine existing cancer targets with just three. The target of all patients seeing a specialist within two weeks of an urgent referral for cancer tests by the GP is expected to be scrapped.

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Dissident republicans obtained leaked police data, says PSNI chief

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Force’s chief constable believes thousands of officers’ personal details are in paramilitary hands

Republican paramilitaries have obtained the information that leaked in a Police Service of Northern Ireland data breach, according to the force’s chief constable.

Simon Byrne said on Monday that he believed dissident republicans had the dataset that mistakenly disclosed the personal details of more than 10,000 officers and staff last week.

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UK should embrace foreign students or lose them to rival countries, warns Ucas chief

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Many institutions have become increasingly reliant on higher fees from international students to help cover costs

Britain should warmly welcome international students joining universities across the country or risk losing out to the US, Canada and Australia, the higher education admissions chief has said.

The intervention came amid concerns that domestic students hoping to begin undergraduate courses this autumn could lose out to international applicants. Some courses in clearing in the run-up to A-level results day this week are available only to overseas students.

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French coastguards mobilise six boats and a helicopter after Channel deaths

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Improving weather and sea conditions have raised fears of further attempts to reach the UK on small boats

French coastguards have mobilised six patrol boats in the Channel and a helicopter in anticipation of further attempts by migrants to cross as weather and sea conditions improve.

The high alert comes as prosecutors opened an investigation for manslaughter after at least six people died as a result of a small boat capsizing and sinking in the early hours of Saturday. Rescuers are still searching for at least one other missing person presumed drowned.

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Kenya launches inquiry into claims of abuse by British soldiers at training unit

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Nairobi MPs say findings could have implications for the defence deal that allows UK troops to train in the country

The Kenyan government has launched an inquiry into allegations of abuse by the British army, which MPs say could have implications for the future role of UK troops in the country.

The investigation will examine the activities of the British Army Training Unit Kenya (Batuk), whose soldiers have been accused of murder, sexual abuse, and damaging land close to its base in Nanyuki, about 125 miles (200km) north of the capital, Nairobi.

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Two people seriously injured as car crashes into campsite in Wales

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Six people taken to hospital after vehicle veers off road and hits tent containing baby, who escapes serious injury

Two people have been left seriously injured and four others taken to hospital after a car veered off a road and crashed into a tent on a Welsh campsite.

A baby was inside the tent hit by the car at Newgale campsite in Haverfordwest on the Pembrokeshire coast, west Wales, but is understood to have escaped serious injury.

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Cigarette packs could soon include advice on how to quit smoking

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Ministers launch a consultation on including inserts in boxes that outline the benefits of quitting tobacco

Plain packaging, graphic images of lung disease and warnings that smoking causes cancer already adorn cigarette boxes. But now smokers in the UK could also be given an upbeat note with every pack in an attempt to help them quit.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has announced that it is opening a consultation on Monday to seek views on the introduction and design of pack inserts for tobacco products, such as cigarettes and rolling tobacco.

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Nearly 4m fewer UK working days in past year due to strike action, study says

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Resolution Foundation report says much of industrial action ‘fuelled’ by public sector workers’ anger over falls in real-terms pay

About 3.9m working days have been lost to industrial action in the past year, more than at any point since the 1980s, according to a new analysis.

The Resolution Foundation, which focuses its research on low- to middle-income households, said many of the strikes were “fuelled” by anger among public sector workers over real-terms pay declines, which amounted to an average cut of more than 9% since 2021, adjusted for inflation.

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Sharp rise in cost of food basics forces UK families ‘to make desperate choices’

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Which? research finds cheese, butter and bread are up by more than 30% in the past two years, hitting the poor hardest

The cost of some basic food items such as cheese, butter and bread has soared by more than 30% in the last two years, forcing poorer households to “make desperate choices between keeping up with their bill payments or putting food on the table,” campaigners have said.

Food price inflation has slowed in recent months, but costs remain much higher than they were two years ago, disproportionally affecting low-income households, according to research by consumer body Which? shared exclusively with the Guardian.

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Disadvantaged students to bear brunt of grade deflation, say experts

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Social Mobility Foundation says it expects GCSE and A-level attainment gap based on income to grow this year

Disadvantaged students are likely to bear the brunt of grade deflation when this year’s A-level and GCSE grades are published, according to experts, who said the government’s decision to impose pre-pandemic grading in England was premature.

This week hundreds of thousands of sixth-formers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will receive the results of their A-level, BTec and other exams. But a survey of students by the Social Mobility Foundation (SMF) found that those from disadvantaged or low-income backgrounds in England were less likely to have received the help they needed to restore learning lost during the pandemic.

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Letters from George Harrison’s mum reveal her horror at Beatles fans

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Louise Harrison wrote of her disgust at screaming fans in letters to be sold at annual Liverpool Beatles Auction

In an inflammatory 1964 essay on the “menace of Beatlism”, the historian and commentator Paul Johnson described the fans who screamed themselves into hysteria as “the least fortunate of their generation, the dull, the idle, the failures”.

He wasn’t alone. A newly revealed letter from George Harrison’s mum shows that she was similarly horrified.

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Britain has felt the shift to home working more than most countries

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For many reasons it is no surprise that the office exodus is so pronounced in the historical centre of Anglo-Saxon capitalism

Working from home is a seismic shift in employment patterns that has rocked businesses, charities and public sector organisations across the world.

From Hong Kong and Singapore to London, New York and Toronto, white collar workers have changed the way they work, shop and pursue leisure, culture and recreation, shifting many local economies on their axis. For many towns and cities it’s as if the sun shines at a different point in the day, such is the transformation in how about 60% of people conduct their lives.

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TikTok users in UK to be left with ‘more toxic’ version of app, say campaigners

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Activists call on tech giant to extend a change making personalised algorithm optional to comply with rules for EEA countries

TikTok users in the UK face being left with a “less safe” and “more toxic” version of the app than those in Europe after the tech giant was forced to make its personalised algorithm optional there to comply with EU rules.

From the end of August, TikTok users in 30 countries in the European Economic Area will be able to opt out of receiving personalised content recommendations, which are largely generated based on past activity. Instead, their “For You” and live feeds will include popular videos from the places they live and around the world.

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Rishi Sunak must not retreat from climate pledges, says top Tory mayor

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Andy Street, seen as most powerful Conservative outside London, vows to fight party’s retreat from climate pledges

The most powerful Conservative outside London has warned he will not hesitate to stand up to the party should it attempt to retreat from its pledge to tackle the climate crisis.

There are already serious concerns that Rishi Sunak and his advisers are using green policies as a political dividing line with Labour in an attempt to revive the party’s fortunes. The prime minister recently backed “maxing out” oil and gas reserves, while cabinet minister Michael Gove said net zero should not become a “religious crusade”. Tory MPs have also demanded a delay to the ban on petrol car sales by 2030.

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Landmark NHS recruitment plan in danger from applicant shortfall

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The huge increase in students needed to fill medical training places, and supplying the staff to teach them, may not be feasible

A “once in a generation” NHS recruitment plan requiring an extra 50,000 clinical training places in less than a decade risks being derailed by difficulties in finding enough applicants and a shrinking number of staff to teach them.

A new analysis seen by the Observer reveals the sheer scale of the proposed increase in NHS staff implied by the government’s long-awaited workforce plan, unveiled at the start of the summer and given a broad welcome across the NHS.

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