The broadcaster left Radio 4’s Saturday Live in March after 12 years
The Rev Richard Coles has said he “felt rather hurtled towards the exit” after leaving the BBC this year.
The broadcaster, 61, stepped down from his Radio 4 programme Saturday Live in March after 12 years.
Continue reading...Promotional samples dodge rules forbidding sale of e-cigarettes to under-18s, who are vaping in rapidly increasing numbers
Retailers will no longer be able to hand out free samples of vapes to children after ministers announced plans to close a legal loophole.
Although it is illegal to sell e-cigarettes to under-18s, it is not illegal for retailers and marketing firms to hand out free samples. This is because vapes are not covered by the tobacco advertising rules prohibiting free distribution, as they are not considered a tobacco product.
Continue reading...Members of the Unite union will picket in London, Brighton, Bristol and Oxford after ‘pitiful’ pay offer
Workers at the homelessness charity St Mungo’s will begin a month-long strike on Tuesday in a dispute over pay.
Members of Unite who work at the organisation will mount picket lines outside its head office in Tower Hill in London and in Brighton, Bristol and Oxford. The union said the industrial action was over a “pitiful” pay offer of 2.25%, which was made in April 2023.
Continue reading...But property website warns that rebound in activity could be hit by rising mortgage rates
More prospective house sellers are returning to the UK’s property market, pushing agreed home sales to their highest point of the year in May, according to Zoopla, although it warned that the rebound in activity could be knocked by rising mortgage rates.
House prices have fallen by 1.3% nationally over the past six months, the property website found, but the speed of price falls has been decreasing as buyer confidence slowly improves.
Continue reading...British Retail Consortium says rate fell from 15.7% to 15.4% even as rise in overall shop prices hits fresh high
Food inflation in the UK fell in May, lifting hopes that the rapid increase in grocery prices may have reached its peak after keeping the broader consumer prices index painfully high so far this year.
After more than a year of sharp increases in the price of food, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said annual food inflation eased this month from 15.7% to 15.4%, even as the overall rise in shop prices hits a fresh high.
Continue reading...Health secretary Steve Barclay not confirming when strategy to increase numbers of doctors and nurses will be published
NHS leaders have raised concerns about the delay to the long-awaited workforce plan, after the health secretary, Steve Barclay, refused to give a deadline for its publication amid rumours it is considered too costly.
The plan, which was expected to be published on Tuesday, appears to have been delayed, according to the deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery.
Barclay blamed the pandemic and “various things that have been happening in recent years” for the delay during broadcast interviews over the weekend. He had previously promised that the plan to increase the number of doctors and nurses would be published before the next general election.
Cordery said the plan, which has already been postponed from last year and aims to fix the UK’s crumbling healthcare system by plugging chronic staff shortages, was needed “as quickly as possible”.
In conversation with Sally Rooney at Charleston festival author says award has hindered her ability to focus on writing
Annie Ernaux, the French winner of the 2022 Nobel prize in literature, has said she never wanted the award and that it fell into her life “like a bomb”, hindering her ability to focus on writing.
In conversation with the novelist Sally Rooney on the final day of Charleston festival, Ernaux was talking via an interpreter as she explained her tricky relationship with the prize.
Continue reading...Former Newsnight presenter, 73, will end stint as longest serving current quizmaster on British television
Jeremy Paxman’s stint as the longest serving current quizmaster on British television will come to an end on Monday night when he presents his final edition of University Challenge.
The 73-year-old former Newsnight presenter is bowing out from the show after revealing he has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
Continue reading...Highly skilled officers in England and Wales to be replaced by less qualified staff under MoJ proposals
Plans to disband specialist teams that deliver treatment courses for sex offenders have prompted fears public safety will be jeopardised.
Under the Ministry of Justice proposals, which are being fiercely resisted internally, behaviour programmes for a wide variety of offenders would be delivered by staff who are not fully qualified probation officers.
Continue reading...Health groups raise alarm after Sir Mark Rowley says he will order officers not to attend 999 calls about mental health incidents
Thousands of people in a mental health crisis will be “left without support” under worrying and inappropriate police plans to “walk away” from emergency incidents, health chiefs have said.
In a letter seen by the Guardian, the Metropolitan police comissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, said that from September he would order the force’s police officers not to attend thousands of 999 calls about mental health incidents.
Continue reading...Former professor who argues trans people cannot expect all rights afforded by biological sex is due to speak at Oxford Union
Kathleen Stock, the gender-critical feminist whose forthcoming address to Oxford university students on Tuesday has prompted planned protests, has insisted that she is a “moderate” and has a right to upset people.
Before her contested appearance at the Oxford Union, Stock said it was her trans activist opponents, who want the event cancelled, who were extreme.
Continue reading...‘Equal pay generation’ of female workers abandoned by Tories, says Anneliese Dodds, who commissioned research
The so-called equal pay generation of female workers born near the passing of the 1970 Equal Pay Act are unlikely to see the gap close during their working lives, a Labour analysis has shown.
Research carried out for Anneliese Dodds, the shadow secretary of state for women and equalities, calculated that such is the slow rate of change with equal pay for women in their 50s, the gender pay gap will not close before 2050 at the current trajectory.
Continue reading...Doctor also says he was ‘managed out’ of the show after raising concerns over how people were being treated
A TV doctor who previously worked on ITV’s This Morning has said the culture on the show became “toxic” and that he was “managed out” after he tried to raise his concerns.
Dr Ranj Singh, who made regular appearances offering medical advice, said that, over 10 years on the show, he grew “increasingly worried about how things were behind-the-scenes and how people, including myself, were being treated”.
Continue reading...Australian musician told Hay festival we should not ‘eradicate the best of these people in order to punish the worst of them’
Nick Cave has said that boycotting songs because of the actions of the artist “is not a very good way to go about things”.
The Australian singer-songwriter told the Hay festival: “Making art – especially making music – it prevents you from becoming the worst aspects of your character, and that’s why I very much think we need to be very, very careful about the music we don’t think people should listen to any more because of what the artist who has made that music may have been like,” the Australian singer-songwriter said.
Continue reading...Two men in their 20s were pulled from the sea near Torbay as boy who died in Carlisle named as Lewis Michael Kirkpatrick, 15
At least three people have drowned over the bank holiday weekend as the UK experienced the hottest day of the year so far on Sunday.
Two men in their 20s died after being pulled from the sea off the coast of Torbay, Devon and Cornwall police said. Officers were called to assist the coastguard at about 9am on Saturday after reports of concern for two people off Oddicombe beach.
Continue reading...Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri wants to bring case examining alleged role of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ in his mistreatment by CIA
A Guantánamo Bay prisoner tortured by the CIA has accused British intelligence agencies of complicity in his mistreatment in a new case before one of UK’s most secretive courts.
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is alleged by the US to have plotted al-Qaida’s bombing of an American naval ship, is seeking to persuade the court to consider his complaint against MI5, MI6 and GCHQ.
Continue reading...Exclusive: move will come into force on 31 August and will only be waived if a threat to life is feared
The Metropolitan police will no longer attend emergency calls related to mental health incidents, the force’s commissioner has said.
In a letter seen by the Guardian, Sir Mark Rowley says he will order his officers not to attend thousands of calls they get every year to deal with mental health incidents.
Continue reading...Woman’s husband has been granted asylum in UK and has been trying to get her a visa to join him
A heavily pregnant woman who was shot at, escaped an overturned car and had to walk for hours in the middle of the night to reach a border crossing with her three-year-old daughter has given birth to a miracle baby, her husband has said.
The woman had been trapped in the war-torn Sudanese capital, Khartoum, after fighting broke out last month, while her husband, who works as a carer in Wolverhampton, tried to get her a UK visa.
Continue reading...After a year of walkouts and failed talks, the unions, ministers and operators are as far apart as ever
Almost a year since the first national rail strike was called, another series of stoppages loom. Passengers who have been spared the usual round of disruptive bank holiday engineering works this weekend won’t be so lucky in the second half of the half-term break. Strikes by drivers and crew will more or less wipe out services on Wednesday and Saturday, shred schedules on Friday, and add a bit of scattergun disruption in between.
This time in 2022, the mere prospect of the biggest rail strike in decades was causing consternation. Now, though, the latest guaranteed upheaval has not even produced a round of talks between unions and industry – let alone ministers – to try to head off the disruption.
Continue reading...Northern Ireland policeman was shot multiple times after a youth football team coaching session in February
Seven men have been charged with the attempted murder of a senior police detective in Northern Ireland, police said.
DCI John Caldwell was shot multiple times at a sports complex in Omagh, County Tyrone, after a youth football team coaching session on 22 February in an attack linked to dissident republicans. His son was with him as he loaded footballs into the boot of his car when the gunmen approached.
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