Category Archives: UK news

Tougher second homes regulations come into force in Wales

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Council tax and planning changes aim to make housing more affordable for those on local incomes

Radical measures giving councils in Wales a raft of extra powers designed to stop second homes hollowing out communities, especially in coastal and rural areas, have come into force.

Local authorities across Wales are using the powers to increase the amount of council tax that second home owners must pay and will also be able to bring in changes to planning rules to make it harder for houses and flats to be snapped up as holiday boltholes.

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Planning applications in England fall to record low in housing blow

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Experts say developers deterred by changes to planning system brought in by successive Tory governments

Planning applications in England have fallen to their lowest level in at least 16 years, according to figures published this week by the levelling up department that highlight the scale of the country’s housing crisis.

Local authorities received fewer applications to build new buildings or improve old ones in 2022 than at any point since before 2006, the earliest year for which the government provides statistics.

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Woman fatally injured at Arthur’s Seat said husband had pushed her, witness says

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Kashif Anwar is accused of murdering Fawziyah Javed and her unborn child by pushing her from hill

A woman walking on Arthur’s Seat on the night a husband is alleged to have pushed his wife off the Edinburgh hill claimed the alleged victim told her he had pushed her, a court has heard.

Kashif Anwar, 29, is accused of murdering Fawziyah Javed, 31, and her unborn child in September 2021 by pushing her from the landmark.

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BBC journalists to strike during local elections over radio cuts

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NUJ members’ 24-hour stoppage on 5 May will coincide with the reporting of poll results

BBC journalists in England have announced a second 24-hour strike, to run from midnight on 5 May to coincide with the reporting of local election results, in a dispute over cuts to local radio.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) said the broadcaster’s management want local radio stations to share programmes across the network from 2pm on weekdays and at weekends, going from more than 100 hours of local programming on every station each week down to 40.

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Cambridgeshire shootings: man charged with murder over deaths of father and son

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Stephen Alderton, 66, will appear in court in connection with killings of father and son Gary and Josh Dunmore

A man has been charged with the murders of a father and son following two shootings in villages in Cambridgeshire.

Stephen Alderton, 66, has been charged with the murders of Gary
and Joshua Dunmore after the incidents near Huntingdon on Wednesday, Cambridgeshire police said.

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Starmer accuses government of ‘turning Britain’s waterways into an open sewer’

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Lib Dems call for Thérèse Coffey to resign after raw discharges sent into English rivers 825 times a day last year

Keir Starmer has accused the government of “turning Britain’s waterways into an open sewer”, as data showed raw discharges were sent into English rivers 825 times a day last year.

Private water companies have been consistently accused of failing to take action, and the Environment Agency admitted there were more than 300,000 spillages into rivers and coastal areas in 2022, lasting for more than 1.75m hours.

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Three Insulate Britain protesters face retrial over London street blockade

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Giovanna Lewis, Amy Pritchard and Paul Sheeky were part of group who glued themselves to road in City of London in 2021

Three climate protesters who stopped traffic to bring rush-hour chaos to the City of London are facing a retrial.

Giovanna Lewis, 65, a councillor from Dorset, Amy Pritchard, 37, a horticultural worker and Paul Sheeky, 46, a screenwriter, were part of a large group of Insulate Britain protesters who glued themselves to the ground and blocked traffic between Bishopsgate and Wormwood Street on 25 October 2021.

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King Charles lays wreath in Hamburg to honour second world war dead

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Charles and Camilla also remembered the Kindertransport children, during a state visit to Germany

King Charles and Germany’s president have lain wreaths in remembrance of the victims of the second world war, in the ruins of a bombed-out church in Hamburg.

The monarch joined President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the mayor of Hamburg, Peter Tschentscher, to leave floral tributes at St Nikolai memorial church, whose spire was a landmark used by bomber crews during the conflict 80 years ago and has since become a monument against war.

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Four climate activists convicted of causing public nuisance, but no jail term

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Men staged protest in City of London in October 2021, which included one gluing head to road to block traffic

Four climate protesters, including a man who glued his head to the road in order to block traffic in central London, have escaped jail terms.

Matthew Tulley, 44, Ben Taylor, 38, George Burrow, 68 and Anthony Hill, 72, staged a protest between Bishopsgate and Wormwood Street in the City of London on 25 October 2021. They were convicted of causing a public nuisance by a jury at Inner London crown court. All four represented themselves.

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Kemi Badenoch casts doubt on growth projections for Asia-Pacific trade deal

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Comments threaten to worsen already tense relationship between senior ministers and civil servants

Kemi Badenoch has cast doubt on her department’s projections for how much the Asia-Pacific trade deal the UK government has signed will help economic growth.

The government announced overnight it had joined the 11-member Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTTP), which includes Australia and Japan, after two years of negotiations.

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Man charged with attempted murder after driver hit by his own van in Cardiff

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Christopher Elgifari, 31, is alleged to have stolen the delivery van, whose 54-year-old driver is in a critical condition

A man has been charged with attempted murder after a delivery driver was hit by his own stolen van and left fighting for his life.

Christopher Elgifari, 31, is alleged to have stolen a white van from the 54-year-old victim on Tuesday in Cardiff, south Wales.

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Man accused of pushing wife from Arthur’s Seat was ‘abusive’ and ‘violent’

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Court hears Kashif Anwar, accused of murdering Fawziyah Javed in Edinburgh, had told her it would be ‘OK’ if she died in childbirth

A man accused of murdering his wife by pushing her from Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh was overheard in hospital telling her that if she died in childbirth it “would be OK” because he “would be free”, a court has heard.

Kashif Anwar, 29, is accused of killing Fawziyah Javed, 31, in September 2021 by pushing her from the peak in Holyrood Park, causing her multiple blunt force injuries that led to her death and that of her unborn child.

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Bafta Games Awards: God of War wins six but Vampire Survivors is best game

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The were gasps in the crowd as a cult indie shooter beat the blockbusters to the key award of the night

It must be one of the biggest shock wins in the history of the Bafta Games Awards. Up against huge blockbuster titles such as Elden Ring and God of War Ragnarök, the best game winner at this year’s ceremony, which took place on Thursday evening, was Vampire Survivors, a shoot-’em-up largely developed by lone coder Luca Galante.

There were gasps in the crowd at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London when the title was read out, with Galante’s small team accepting the award on his behalf and looking shaken. The game, in which players attempt to survive as long as possible in an ever-changing landscape swarming with monsters, had earlier won the game design award.

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Home Office accused of building delays into plan to speed asylum claims

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Questionnaire system at heart of effort to reduce backlog is ‘fundamentally flawed’, say immigration lawyers

Immigration lawyers have accused the Home Office of building delays into a scheme meant to speed up decisions on 12,000 asylum claims.

The plans announced last month to cut the asylum backlog – which now stands at a record 160,000 cases – by sending questionnaires to refugees requires claimants to reply in English within 20 working days or risk refusal.

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Every fire brigade in England plagued by bullying and harassment claims, report finds

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Inspectors say ‘deeply troubling’ behaviour found at fire and rescue services across England may be ‘tip of the iceberg’

Every fire brigade in England is plagued with bullying, harassment and discrimination complaints, a damning report has found, and officials have called for drastic measures to clean up the service.

Inspectors urged bosses to carry out background checks on every firefighter, with those who fail being sacked, after long-awaited findings shone a light on “deeply troubling” behaviour in the emergency service.

A senior officer accused of calling a black colleague the N-word dismissing it as simply “having a laugh”.

A firefighter reporting a superior for making a racist comment, only to find his account dismissed because the alleged offender “wouldn’t behave in such a way”. The senior officer in question then threatened “to make his life hell”.

Two male firefighters mockingly told a female colleague they were “going to rape her”, before simulating it with her.

Some staff being reluctant to speak up after being told it would be “career suicide” to do so.

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Government disposed of 3bn items of PPE bought in pandemic, data shows

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Department of Health and Social Care in England has removed 269,500 pallets of PPE from its stock

The government has disposed of more than 3bn items of personal protective equipment (PPE) it bought during the pandemic, figures have revealed.

An estimated 3.14bn items have been shed through a mixture of recycling, energy from waste processes – including some incineration – donations and sales.

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Margaret Ferrier should be suspended for 30 days for Covid breach, says MPs’ watchdog

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Possible byelection looms for Rutherglen and Hamilton West after MP travelled back to Scotland on train after positive test in 2020

The MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West Margaret Ferrier should be suspended from the House of Commons for 30 days for breaching Covid rules, the committee on standards has recommended.

Ferrier could face a byelection as the Commons watchdog recommended she should be suspended for 30 days for breaching Covid rules. She was found to have damaged the reputation of the Commons and put people at risk after taking part in a debate and travelling by train while suffering from Covid.

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Starmer to launch local election campaign with claim Labour is ‘party of lower taxes for working people’ – UK politics live

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Latest updates: Labour leader to launch campaign for local elections with tax pledge that Conservatives have criticised as worthless

The Commons standards committee says Margaret Ferrier should be suspended for 30 days for breaches of Commons rules related to the incident where she travelled by train from London to Scotland after testing positive for Covid in 2020.

Last year a court sentenced her to 270 hours of unpaid work in relation to the offence, but the standards commmittee says a further sanction by the Commons is required.

The threshold for a breach of paragraph 17 of the code [which says MPs should “never undertake any action which would cause significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole”] is necessarily high. However, any finding that a member’s actions have brought the house into disrepute must be considered to be a serious breach. The 2019 Code states that “members have a duty to uphold the law”; something the public rightly expect. If Ms Ferrier had been a public sector employee in a position of trust or leadership, she could have faced severe disciplinary consequences, potentially including dismissal, for these or similar actions.

We therefore recommend that Ms Ferrier is suspended from the service of the house for 30 days.

Labour’s announcement isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. They have no plan to introduce this if elected. They’re taking the British people for fools.

If Labour were serious about cutting council tax Labour councils would be doing it now.

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People in Cheshire village will not be forced to join hydrogen energy trial

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Backlash prompts companies to give residents option of keeping natural gas rather than joining pilot project

Energy firms will no longer force people in a village in Cheshire to stop heating and cooking with natural gas and swap to lower-carbon hydrogen after a local backlash to a planned government-backed pilot.

British Gas and Cadent had been prepared to cut off gas supplies to nearly 2,000 homes in the village of Whitby, just outside Ellesmere Port on the south bank of the Mersey, as part of their proposals to create the UK’s first hydrogen-fuelled village.

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Keith Reid, lyricist for Procol Harum, dies aged 76

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Songwriter behind psychedelic 1960s masterpiece A Whiter Shade of Pale had been receiving cancer treatment for two years

Keith Reid, the lyricist for Procol Harum whose poetic vision on Whiter Shade of Pale made it a defining song of the 1960s, has died aged 76.

He died in a London hospital, after receiving cancer treatment for two years. The band paid tribute to him on social media, writing: “His lyrics were one of a kind and helped to shape the music created by the band. His imaginative, surreal and multi-layered words were a joy to Procol fans and their complexity by design was a powerful addition the Procol Harum catalogue. Our thoughts go out to his family and friends.”

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