Category Archives: UK news

Network Rail warns of Easter disruption due to engineering works

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Train passengers advised to plan ahead over holiday weekend with west coast main line services hit

Rail passengers have been advised to plan ahead for Easter, with engineering works expected to close the west coast main line between some of Britain’s biggest cities.

No trains will run between London Euston and Milton Keynes throughout the four-day holiday weekend from Good Friday on 7 April, until Easter Monday, on 10 April, meaning replacement buses or alternative routes will be needed to travel between the capital and towns and cities including Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool.

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Wetherspoon’s boss: hospitality holding off price rises could be ‘catastrophic’

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Tim Martin says Bank of England is right to ask firms to be mindful but advice should not be taken too literally

The boss of JD Wetherspoon has warned it could be “catastrophic” for pubs and restaurants to hold off raising prices as costs continue to soar, as the pub chain revealed that the “ferocious” impact of inflation has fuelled a dramatic increase in its bills.

Tim Martin said that Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, was right to warn companies to be mindful of how much they put up prices to avoid continuing to fuel an inflationary cycle, after the headline annual rate unexpectedly rose to 10.4% last month.

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Florence Pugh releases first songs as singer-songwriter

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The Best Part and I Hate Myself are performed by her character in A Good Person, written and directed by Zach Braff

Florence Pugh has released her first performances as a singer-songwriter, which are included on the soundtrack to her new film A Good Person.

The British actor has written and performed two songs: the slow ambient ballad The Best Part, and the self-lacerating piano-driven number I Hate Myself. Each are presented in the film as being sung by her character, Allison, a promising musician whose career is set back by personal tragedy.

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King Charles’s visit to France postponed amid protests

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French president’s office confirms state visit off after mass strikes and demonstrations across the country

King Charles’s state visit to Paris has been postponed amid mass strikes and protests, the French president’s office has said.

The king had been scheduled to arrive in France on Sunday on his first state visit as monarch, before heading to Germany on Wednesday.

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‘We are refugees now, even our cat’: a Kherson mother’s UK diary

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Olha fled the Ukrainian city a year ago this week and has faced many challenges, including enrolling her children in school

I’m just an ordinary mother. My children went to school and enjoyed after-school clubs. Last February, I was preparing to shoot a short film about Kherson’s streets. A rehearsal was scheduled – but it never took place.

That was the day they bombed airports simultaneously across the country. Public transport stopped running from our city. The frontline ran straight to our city and a week later we found ourselves under occupation. One morning changed our lives, and that of every Ukrainian family, for ever.

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Boy handcuffed in Superdrug targeted because of his race, mother says

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Kirsty Buchanan says her 15-year-old son, who is black, was buying shampoo in Chichester shop and was held by police until 1.15am

The mother of a black 15-year-old boy detained by civilian security staff while shopping for shampoo in Chichester has said he was thrown to the floor and handcuffed after joking about being followed.

Former Downing Street aide Kirsty Buchanan has called for a national review of the use of private security staff, saying her child had been targeted because of his race, and that the behaviour of the security guards was dangerous.

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Food banks supported 800,000 UK children in 2021-22, data shows

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One-fifth of UK population was in relative poverty after first year of pandemic, when support measures scrapped

Families including 800,000 children were forced to turn to food banks to feed themselves as poverty levels started to rise again after the first year of the pandemic, the first official figures on UK food bank use show.

The statistics came in official poverty data, which revealed that the reduction in relative poverty achieved during the first year of the Covid crisis in 2020-21 was temporary and was reversed after ministers scrapped support measures.

In-work poverty remains high – half (54%) of people in poverty lived in a household where at least one adult was in work, while more than two-thirds of children in poverty (71%) lived in working families.

Child poverty rates were much higher among black (53%) and Asian (47%) families than white families (25%). About 44% of children in single-parent families, and 36% of children living in families where someone has a disability, were in poverty.

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Partygate: Johnson should reject any finding that he broke rules, say allies

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Former PM should refuse to accept outcome if privileges committee rules he knowingly misled MPs, say supporters

Boris Johnson should refuse to accept the outcome of the privileges committee investigation if it concludes that he intentionally misled the Commons over the Partygate scandal, his allies have said.

Some of the former prime minister’s supporters believe he should reject the cross-party group’s findings if they decide, based on written evidence and a fractious three-and-a-half-hour evidence session on Wednesday, that he broke strict parliamentary rules.

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Brother of Biafra separatist held in Nigeria loses court challenge against UK

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UK government not required to state whether Nnamdi Kanu, a British national, was victim of extraordinary rendition, judge rules

The brother of a British national being held in Nigeria after falling victim to extraordinary rendition has said he is disappointed after the high court dismissed his challenge to UK ministers’ handling of the case.

Kingsley Kanu, brother of Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob), a prominent separatist movement proscribed in Nigeria, claimed that three foreign secretaries – Liz Truss, Dominic Raab and then James Cleverly – had acted unlawfully by failing to reach a view on whether he had been subjected to extraordinary rendition.

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Keir Starmer promises to halve violence against women as part of crime ‘mission’

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Labour’s plan would include dedicated rape courts and domestic violence experts taking 999 calls, says party leader

Keir Starmer has vowed to halve violence against women and girls within a decade, with measures including dedicated “rape courts” and domestic violence experts taking 999 calls.

Setting out one of Labour’s core missions on crime, Starmer said it was the “unfinished business in my life’s work to deliver justice” and said Tory attacks on him for being a human rights lawyer “only shows how far they’ve fallen, and how little they understand working people”.

Restore public confidence in the police and criminal justice system to its highest level.

Halve knife crime incidents, including with an enhanced police presence outside schools.

Drastically improve statistics for the proportion of crimes solved by the police.

Drive down violence against women and improve conviction rates.

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Keir Starmer follows Rishi Sunak in releasing tax returns

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Labour leader earned little outside his parliamentary income apart from windfall after sister sold home he helped her buy

Keir Starmer has released his tax returns for the last two years, showing that he earned little outside his parliamentary income except for a windfall when his sister sold the family home that he helped her buy.

The Labour leader released a summary of his past two years of tax payments on Thursday, a day after the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, released three years of his.

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French strikers won’t provide red carpets for King Charles’s ill-timed visit

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With uncollected rubbish lining Paris streets, critics are comparing the optics of the royal arrival to 1789

Striking workers in France are refusing to provide red carpets for King Charles’s first overseas trip as monarch amid protests over rises to the pension age.

French trade union CGT announced this week that its members at Mobilier National, the institution in charge of providing flags, red carpets and furniture for public buildings, would not help prepare a reception for the king upon his arrival in Paris on Sunday.

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RAF airstrikes killed 29 civilians in Iraq and Syria in two years, analysis suggests

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Report says UK armed service has ‘major questions to answer’ about conduct in war against Islamic State

Twenty-nine civilians are feared to have been killed in nine RAF airstrikes in Iraq and Syria between 2016 and 2018, 10 more than previous estimates, and far higher than the single non-combatant fatality accepted by the UK, according to analysis.

In the worst incident, 12 civilians were accepted as likely to have been killed in Raqqa, Syria in 2017 by a US strike, while research points to an RAF drone strike killing at least four member of the same family in Abu Kamal, Syria, in 2016, according to on-the-ground reports.

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Ikea UK makes agreement with EHRC to improve policies on sexual harassment

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Company will review processes after reports allegations not properly handled by management at store

Ikea UK has made an agreement with the Equality and Human Rights Commission to improve its sexual harassment policies and practices after a complaint by a former employee.

The agreement comes after the EHRC was made aware of an allegation of sexual assault and harassment at Ikea UK and reports that these allegations were not appropriately handled by management at one of the company’s UK stores.

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Peak of 2022 heatwave forced fifth of UK hospitals to cancel operations – research

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Findings reveal level of disruption over three days in July when temperatures reached as high as 40C

Almost a fifth of hospitals in the UK were forced to cancel operations during the three days in July last year when temperatures soared highest, research suggests.

The findings, published in a letter to the British Journal of Surgery, are based on surveys of surgeons, anaesthetists and critical care doctors who were working during the peak of last year’s heatwave, from 16-19 July, when temperatures reached as high as 40C in some parts of the country.

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Teacher vacancies in England 93% higher than pre-pandemic, study finds

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Headteachers forced to use non-specialists as turnover continues, education research body reports

Teacher vacancies in England have virtually doubled since before Covid, with school leaders increasingly forced to use non-specialist teachers, which threatens to drive down pupil attainment, according to research.

A report by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) found that teacher vacancies posted by schools were 93% higher in the academic year up to February 2023 than at the same point in the year before the start of the pandemic.

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Britain’s biggest banks under pressure to pass on higher interest rates to savers

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Unite says their analysis shows banks have made £7bn in extra profit from the rise in borrowing costs

Britain’s biggest banks are under pressure to pass on higher interest rates to savers after figures showing they have made an extra £7bn by refusing to do so, and as they stand to benefit from a tax cut announced by Jeremy Hunt.

On the day the Bank of England is expected to announce a further rise in interest rates, the Unite trade union said banks had already made billions of pounds in extra profit from the dramatic rise in borrowing costs.

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Birmingham fire assault suspect arrested over man set alight in London

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Incident in Ealing last month also involved a man being set alight after leaving mosque

A man arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after a 70-year-old man was set on fire while walking back from a mosque in Birmingham has been arrested over a similar incident in London last month.

On Monday evening Mohammed Rayaz was sprayed with a substance and set alight on Shenstone Road in Edgbaston and remains in hospital with life-changing injuries, including severe burns to his hands and face.

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Boris Johnson insists Partygate leaving dos were ‘essential for work purposes’ during grilling by MPs – as it happened

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Former PM suggests ‘unsocially distanced farewell gatherings’ were allowed at work and that he didn’t think following guidance meant following it perfectly

Turning back to the Northern Ireland protocol deal vote for a moment, Steve Baker, the Northern Ireland minister, has said that Boris Johnson risks being remembered as a “pound shop Nigel Farage” for his stance on the Windsor framework.

Baker said that reviving the Northern Ireland protocol bill, Johnson’s declared alternative to Rishi Sunak’s deal (see 9.40am), would “wreck our relations with the European Union and damage our standing internationally”. Sky’s Sam Coates has posted the full quote on Twitter.

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