The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has offered some advice to his UK counterpart after Rishi Sunak weighed into the controversy over Jonny Bairstow’s dismissal at Lord’s on Sunday.
Mr Albanese said on Tuesday he understood Sunak’s disappointment.
Continue reading...Financial Conduct Authority to meet executives on Thursday as part of its investigation into savings market
UK bank bosses have been summoned to a meeting with the financial watchdog this week amid mounting concerns that they are profiting from rising interest rates by offering paltry savings rates to customers.
Executives from the big high street names Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest, HSBC and Barclays, as well as from smaller lenders, are due to attend a meeting at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on Thursday to discuss concerns that savings rates are lagging far behind the soaring costs of mortgages and loans.
Continue reading...Chinese embassy in London tells UK to ‘stop interfering’ in China’s affairs, as Hong Kong leader says overseas activists will be ‘pursued for life’
China has accused the UK of protecting fugitives after the British foreign secretary criticised Hong Kong’s decision to offer HK$1m bounties for the arrest of eight democracy activists based overseas, as the territory’s leader said the group would be “pursued for life”.
In a statement late on Monday, China’s embassy in London said: “British politicians have openly offered protection for fugitives. This is crude interference in Hong Kong’s rule of law and China’s internal affairs.”
Continue reading...Government wins Commons vote despite more than 80 Tory backbenchers joining Labour in abstained on the vote
MPs have voted to ban public bodies from boycotting Israel and other countries, despite scores of Conservative MPs not backing the bill, some of whom said the ban was illiberal and others that it would hamper action against China.
The government won a vote on Monday night on the economic activity of public bodies bill, despite the opposition of Tory backbenchers, after Labour abstained on the vote.
Continue reading...Peers voted against government-proposed measures on detention and deportation of asylum seekers
The government’s small boats bill has suffered a series of defeats in the House of Lords, as Channel crossings in June by people seeking asylum set a new record.
Peers voted on Monday to limit the time that children and pregnant women who claim asylum after arriving by irregular means can be detained, and backed preventing LGBTQ+ people from being deported to a country where they would have a well-founded fear of persecution.
Continue reading...Civil inquiry finds official’s talks over role without telling bosses is ‘prima facie’ breach of code
A Cabinet Office investigation has said Sue Gray apparently breached the civil service code by discussing a role with Keir Starmer without telling her Whitehall bosses, prompting a vehement fightback by Gray’s allies, who said the inquiry was arbitrary and politically motivated.
Jeremy Quin, a Cabinet Office minister, said a civil inquiry found a “prima facie” breach of the code about outside interests to be clear and transparent – meaning an apparent contravention of the rules based on first impressions.
Continue reading...Pair – aged 27 and 17 – arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder over stabbing on Thursday
Detectives have arrested two men suspects over a double murder in north London in which 15-year-old Leonardo Reid and a 23-year-old man were killed.
The pair – aged 27 and 17 – were arrested on Monday evening on suspicion of murder and attempted murder and are in custody at a north London police station.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Bridget Phillipson says early-years education key to improving life chances
More graduate teachers would be parachuted into nurseries under plans being considered by Labour to improve education for under-fours, the Guardian has learned.
There could also be more nursery places in primary school settings as the opposition works up proposals to drive up standards and formally integrate early years into the English education system.
Continue reading...Tom Tugendhat asks Treasury to review whether banks are blacklisting those with controversial views
It should be “completely unacceptable” for banks to close accounts on “political grounds”, a Home Office minister has said, as Conservatives weighed in on a so-called freedom of speech row prompted by claims from Nigel Farage.
Tom Tugendhat, the security minister, was speaking in parliament after the culture secretary, Lucy Frazer, urged regulators to take action against banks that shut off access to people with controversial views.
Continue reading...Spokesperson says PM agrees with Ben Stokes about Jonny Bairstow’s dismissal at Lord’s
Rishi Sunak has weighed into the row over Jonny Bairstow’s controversial dismissal at Lord’s on Sunday, saying Australia did not act in the spirit of the game.
Downing Street said it was the prime minister’s belief that the Australian team had contravened the spirit of cricket by stumping Bairstow out when the England batsman appeared to believe the ball was not in play during a heated final day of the second Ashes test.
Continue reading...Like any author, translators want to receive credit for their work instead of being treated as an afterthought
They have often been overlooked in the artistic and literary process, but translators have long claimed they have the power to change everything.
There are tales of myths being born, societies being forged and cities destroyed with just a slip of the pen, such as the supposed translation error that allegedly led to the US deciding to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, or the speculation about life on Mars after the mistranslation of an Italian astronomer.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: the Labour leader may well win the next election – but why are so many of his policies being ditched?
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Good morning.
Keir Starmer has undergone a political transformation since he became leader of the Labour party. During the leadership contest, he positioned himself as a “colleague and friend” of former leader Jeremy Corbyn, in whose shadow cabinet he had served. His list of policy pledges presented him as a more competent version of Corbyn, with none of the political baggage.
NHS | Seven in 10 people in the UK believe charges for NHS care will creep in over the next decade, ending the health service’s record of being free at the point of use, polling has found. Ahead of the service’s 75th birthday this week the Guardian also asked five experts for their ideas on how to make the NHS thrive again.
House of Lords | Two British peers were among 50 people who attended a party organised by the Russian ambassador to the UK at his opulent residence in west London last month. The event was to mark the creation of a Russia independent of the Soviet Union.
Scotland | Orkney could leave the UK to become a self-governing territory of Norway after its council opted to explore “alternative forms of governance”. The archipelago off the north coast of Scotland will also consider changing its legal status within Britain as it seeks to provide more economic opportunities.
Israel | As many as 50 Conservative MPs are threatening to rebel against a government proposal that would impose fines on public bodies, including local councils, that seek to mount boycotts against Israel. The scale of the unease on a foreign policy issue has caught government whips by surprise.
France | The riots over the police shooting of teenager Nahel M appeared to ease after five nights of unrest that have seen thousands arrested and widespread destruction. French media reported that police made 49 arrests nationwide yesterday, down significantly from more than 2,000 over the previous two days.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Cadent Gas, owned by Australia asset manager Macquarie, is considering closing its defined benefit scheme
The former owner of crisis-hit Thames Water has been accused by union leaders of staging a “cost-cutting money grab” at another critical UK infrastructure asset under its control, as it emerged that Cadent Gas is considering cuts to its pension scheme.
Macquarie, the Australian banking powerhouse that owned Thames for a decade, has led a consortium controlling Cadent since 2016. Cadent, Britain’s biggest gas network, serving 11 million people, was formerly part of National Grid.
Continue reading...David Davis said Mohamed Amersi ‘silenced’ Margaret Hodge, chair of parliamentary anti-corruption group
A major Conservative donor has been accused of using bullying legal threats to suppress a report by the veteran Labour MP Margaret Hodge, which alleged he was “mired in an international corruption scandal”.
Speaking in the House of Commons on Thursday, the former Tory cabinet minister David Davis accused Mohamed Amersi of having “effectively silenced” Hodge, chair of the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on anti-corruption and responsible tax.
Continue reading...Promotion is designed to help parents who are struggling to afford clothes amid cost of living crisis
Families are being offered money off children’s clothes in Marks & Spencer if they donate school uniform hand-me-downs, as part of a push designed to help parents struggling to afford them amid the cost of living crisis.
The second-hand uniform collected will be sold via Oxfam’s high street chain as well as via a new “back-to-school” eBay shop. The tie-up is an extension of M&S’s existing “shwopping” partnership with Oxfam, in which customers drop off old clothing in exchange for loyalty card perks.
Continue reading...More than 100 signatories express concern in letter to foreign secretary over lack of progress in case of Alaa Abd el-Fattah
More than 100 MPs and peers have written to the foreign secretary to express concern over the lack of progress to free a jailed British-Egyptian activist.
It comes seven months after the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, shook hands with Egypt’s president, Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi, while Alaa Abd el-Fattah was close to death due to a hunger strike.
Continue reading...Good Jobs Project from ReGenerate aims to help ex-prisoners, neurodivergent people, asylum seekers and other groups into work
Unemployed ex-offenders are being overlooked for jobs and could help fill the 1.1 million vacancies in the UK job market, a report has claimed.
Britain is “facing one of the worst labour shortages in its history”, the year-long study said, arguing that the vast numbers of people commonly overlooked for jobs should be targeted.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Ranem Elkhalidi meeting Foreign Office officials this week as she continues fight to bring her son home
A woman whose seven-year-old son was kidnapped by his father and taken to Saudi Arabia has said lawyers in the country are too afraid to get involved with her case, as she prepares for a meeting with the Foreign Office this week.
Ranem Elkhalidi has vowed to keep fighting for the safe return of her Cheshire-born son Ibrahim, who was taken from his primary school six months ago by her estranged husband, Hamzah Faraj, a Saudi national, in breach of a court order.
Continue reading...Lawyers for bereaved families allege British soldiers carried out policy of terminating all fighting-age men
Eighty Afghans may have been victim of summary killings by three separate British SAS units operating in the country between 2010 and 2013, lawyers representing the bereaved families have told a public inquiry.
One of the elite soldiers is believed to have “personally killed” 35 Afghans on a single six-month tour of duty as part of an alleged policy to terminate “all fighting-age males” in homes raided, “regardless of the threat they posed”.
Continue reading...With a lower carbon footprint than gas-fired cremation, the process is described as ‘gentler on the body and kinder on the environment’
For anyone uneasy at the thought of their body being consumed by flames or interred in an insect-teeming grave, a new funeral choice is about to become available: water cremation.
The process of dissolving a body in a bag in 160C water treated with an alkali will become available in the UK from this week – the first new legal method of disposing of cadavers since the Cremation Act of 1902. It has been described as a “boil in the bag” funeral.
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