Labour leader also refuses to rule out deal with Lib Dems, saying he wants outright majority but will ‘see what situation is next year’
Q: Would Labour repeal the Public Order Act?
Starmer says Labour was opposed to it as it was going through.
Continue reading...Plausible for UK to become global clean energy superpower if investment is ramped up
The UK could unlock £70bn every year by generating enough clean electricity to become a major exporter of energy to mainland Europe, according to a former government economist.
A new report has found that by increasing Britain’s clean electricity generation 50% above its current projections for 2050 it could become a clean energy superpower capable of exporting £17bn of green electricity to Europe a year.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Sunak urged to take urgent action to solve food crisis at meeting with Defra and farmers
Immigration and food prices must increase to solve the food crisis, ministers are to say at a summit.
Rishi Sunak will be joined by ministers from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) as well as farmers and industry leaders at the meeting at No 10 on Tuesday.
Continue reading...BMA says consultant pay has declined by 35% since 2008-9
Senior doctors in England are to vote on whether to strike amid the continued row over pay in healthcare, as teachers’ unions also plan to hold a ballot for industrial action.
The ballot will open on Monday until 27 June as the British Medical Association urges members to approve.
Continue reading...Capital’s mayor lauds achievement but warns skyrocketing rents pose threat to ‘the soul of our city’
Sadiq Khan is to announce the surpassing of a landmark housebuilding target in London, but will warn that the capital’s skyrocketing rents pose a threat to “the soul of our city”.
In a speech on Monday setting out his stall before the 2024 election for city hall, the mayor of London will say that nearly 120,000 affordable homes have been built in the capital since 2015, equivalent to the housing stock of Plymouth.
Continue reading...Alzheimer’s Society says fear and confusion delays discussion for 33% of those who think they or a loved one may have dementia
A third of Britons who have concerns about whether they, or a loved one, might have dementia wait more than a month to discuss their worries with others, a leading charity has found, despite early diagnosis being important for treatment, support and planning.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 55 million people have dementia worldwide, with 60-70% of cases thought to be down to Alzheimer disease.
Continue reading...Business and trade secretary to meet Swiss counterpart on Monday to boost trade between two ‘services superpowers’
Kemi Badenoch will fly to Switzerland on Monday for talks with her Swiss counterpart on a new post-Brexit trade deal, describing the two countries as “natural trading partners”.
The business and trade secretary is meeting Guy Parmelin in Berne to discuss a “modern” UK-Switzerland free trade agreement (FTA) that would boost trade between two “services superpowers”, she said.
Continue reading...Footballer’s wife tells how she was ‘shamed’ and ‘blamed’ as she recalls the trauma of her early years for TV documentary
Rebekah Vardy has said she was sexually abused while growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness, an ordeal her former community failed to protect her from.
Vardy, 41, opened up about her upbringing in a Channel 4 documentary titled Rebekah Vardy: Jehovah’s Witnesses and Me, which will air on 16 May.
Continue reading...Exclusive: IVF in UK ‘is the most successful and the safest it has ever been’, says Tim Child
A leading fertility expert has said the law should be overhauled so that rapid advancements in reproductive science do not stall.
Prof Tim Child of the University of Oxford said IVF in the UK was “the most successful and the safest that it has ever been”, and noted that the chance of having a baby from a single embryo was rising and the likelihood of having multiple births dropping.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Victim speaks of feeling violated by hospital doctor incident that expert says is evidence of ‘systemic’ flaw in England
The confidentiality of NHS medical records has been thrown into doubt after a “stalker” hospital doctor accessed and shared highly sensitive information about a woman who had started dating her ex-boyfriend, despite not being involved in her care.
The victim was left in “fear, shock and horror” when she learned that the doctor had used her hospital’s medical records system to look at the woman’s GP records and read – and share – intimate details, known only to a few people, about her and her children.
Continue reading...During a five-minute peak in the UK, 11m people were watching, while the average viewing figure was 9.9m
Saturday night’s Eurovision song contest in Liverpool was the most watched grand final in the competition’s history, the BBC has said.
In the UK, there was a five-minute peak of 11 million people watching and an average viewing figure of 9.9 million, which equates to a 63% TV audience share.
Continue reading...Spokesperson says 12 incoming flights affected during almost hour-long suspension due to alert
Incoming flights were suspended at Gatwick airport for almost an hour on Sunday after reports of a drone near the airfield.
Gatwick said 12 incoming flights had to be diverted to other airports because of the alert.
Continue reading...Matt Barrett’s Instagram posts from Westminster Abbey cause embarrassment after Irish delegation sets precedent by attending
When Ireland’s leaders attended the coronation of King Charles III, it was hailed as a milestone in relations between Dublin and London.
The Irish president, Michael D Higgins, the taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, and Sinn Féin’s deputy leader, Michelle O’Neill, set the precedent – their predecessors had shunned previous coronations – to show respect to their neighbour.
Continue reading...Minister points to arrivals from Ukraine and Hong Kong as government sources confirm record increase is likely
Grant Shapps has stressed the importance of post-Brexit controls on work visas after government sources confirmed that ministers are braced for a record increase in immigration figures this month.
Reports have suggested that official data will show annual net immigration of between 650,000 and 997,000 fuelled by a rise in non-EU immigration from people entering the UK to work and study.
Continue reading...Macquarie has option for all of National Grid gas transmission and metering despite tainted history of owning utilities
Ministers have been urged to intervene if the Australian banking powerhouse Macquarie pushes the button on a mooted £3bn deal to take full control of a vital part of the UK’s gas grid.
A consortium made up of Macquarie Asset Management and British Columbia Investment Management Corporation completed the acquisition of 60% of the equity in National Grid’s gas transmission and meter business in January, in a deal which valued the business at £7.5bn.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Culture minister says he was puzzled about reasoning for not allowing president to address song contest
Ukraine’s culture minister has said he was “surprised” and “confused” that Volodymyr Zelenskiy was barred from making a televised speech during the Eurovision grand final.
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the owner of Eurovision, said last week that allowing the Ukrainian president to address the contest, which is watched around the world, risked jeopardising its “non-political nature”.
Continue reading...Fiona Fey, of popular choir Mediaeval Baebes, says her livelihood was threatened by noise abatement order
Musicians are facing a postcode lottery of noise complaints, industry leaders have warned, after a member of the classical chart-topping choir Mediaeval Baebes was handed a noise abatement notice for playing music in her flat.
Fiona Fey was told she had created “excessive noise from the playing of musical instruments that is audible and detectable from your property” and that she must cease making any more “noise from the property in the form of playing loud music”.
Continue reading...The actor, now recovered, tells BBC’s Desert Island Discs he became ‘very sneaky’ about his drinking in the early 2000s
Simon Pegg faced his own mission impossible, tackling both his addiction and eventual recovery, while working on the major Hollywood film franchise alongside Tom Cruise, he will explain in a revealing radio interview on Sunday morning.
Speaking of a secret reliance upon alcohol that he hid while working on film sets in the early 2000s, Pegg admits: “You become very sneaky when you have something like that in your life.”
Continue reading...Familiar faces on the Tory right met in Bournemouth to pour scorn on the government. And they can certainly make the PM’s life harder
• Read more: Tory anarchy breaks out as revolt looms on Brexit laws
It was billed as the launch of a campaign to hand more power to Tory members. It was not, its organisers repeatedly insisted, a group aiming to reinstall Boris Johnson as party leader – or cause trouble for Rishi Sunak. It was about “taking back control” of the Conservative party for the grassroots.
Yet as the Conservative Democratic Organisation (CDO) met for its inaugural gathering in a sunny Bournemouth on Saturday, it was less than 15 minutes after Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns had belted out the national anthem that Johnson’s name was first uttered on stage.
Continue reading...Loreen becomes only second person to win contest twice as Sweden claims seventh victory overall
The scandal though is that Georgia were robbed of a place in the final. Robbed, I tell you. A dramatic gothic ballad type affair with lots of creepy hands in the background on the screen reaching out for Iru, the song Echo would have been a great addition to tonight’s show. Don’t blame me, I voted for it.
This tweet summed it up really.
Continue reading...