Faith Marley, from Leith, Edinburgh, was spotted on CCTV meeting an older man on Wednesday, police say
A fresh appeal has been launched to help police trace a 15-year-old girl who has been missing for three days.
Faith Marley, from the Leith area of Edinburgh, was last seen on CCTV meeting a man in Glasgow.
Continue reading...Home secretary’s trip to publicise refugee policy has been compared with Donald Trump’s news management
Outrage at the unusual level of control imposed on media coverage of the home secretary’s trip to Rwanda has grown this weekend during Suella Braverman’s first hours in the country.
Prominent names, including news presenters, academics and opposition MPs expressed shock at what they considered the partisan reporting of the trip from the right-wing news organisations invited to join the trip. The Guardian, BBC, Mirror, Independent and i Newspaper were barred.
Continue reading...Citizens who worked with British government or helped army told to get necessary documents stamped by the authorities
The Ministry of Defence has apologised after an investigation found Afghan applicants to a resettlement scheme were told they could only come to the UK if their documents were approved by the Taliban.
The Independent revealed that the mistake affected applicants to the Afghan relocations and assistance policy scheme (Arap), which aims to relocate Afghan citizens who worked with the UK government or helped its armed forces in Afghanistan. The MoD decides which applicants – who may apply with their families – are eligible for relocation to Britain.
Continue reading...Poll finds ITV news is more trusted source of information and trust in BBC has slipped
The BBC has slipped behind ITV as Britain’s most trusted news source in the wake of the row over Gary Lineker’s suspension, according to a new poll for the Observer.
The corporation remains one of the most trusted providers, according to the latest Opinium poll. Two in five trust BBC News and 26% distrust it, giving it a “net trust” of +14%. ITV recorded a net trust score of +23%.
Continue reading...Ex-prime minister due at televised Commons committee hearing, with legal team about to publish new evidence backing his claims
A defiant Boris Johnson is preparing an extraordinary televised defence of his actions during the Partygate scandal, as his allies this weekend accused the parliamentary inquiry into the affair of relying on weak evidence compiled by a former civil servant recruited by the Labour party.
With a potentially explosive appearance at the Commons privileges committee due on Wednesday, the Observer can reveal that the former PM’s legal team intends to publish written evidence, including new witness statements, supporting Johnson’s claim that he did not knowingly mislead MPs over lockdown parties – as well as examples of the advice he was given at the time.
Continue reading...Presenters back to cover FA Cup quarter-final after row that nearly cost BBC director general and chairman their jobs
Gary Lineker returned to presenting Match of the Day on Saturday evening after a row that threatened to topple the BBC chairman and director general.
As the former England international introduced live BBC coverage of the FA Cup quarter-final between Manchester City and Burnley, pundit Alan Shearer touched on the recent controversy.
Continue reading...Airline industry claimed science not ‘robust’ enough to implement new controls to combat climate warming caused by vapour trails
Airlines and airports opposed measures to combat global warming caused by jet vapour trails that evidence suggests account for more than half of the aviation industry’s climate impact, new documents reveal.
The industry argued in government submissions that the science was not “robust” enough to justify reduction targets for these non-CO2 emissions. Scientists say the climate impact of vapour trails, or contrails, has been known for more than two decades, with one accusing the industry of a “typical climate denialist strategy”.
Continue reading...Labour says chancellor had time to draw up more targeted changes rather than including wealthiest savers
Jeremy Hunt previously backed Labour’s idea of giving a pensions tax break only to NHS staff, despite ruling out such a move in this week’s budget because it would not come into force quickly enough.
The chancellor was chair of the health select committee last year when members wrote a report calling for the NHS pension scheme to be overhauled to encourage senior doctors to stay in their jobs.
Continue reading...Privileges committee rebuffs lawyer’s request to give evidence alongside former prime minister
Boris Johnson may be the only witness called by the privileges committee for its investigation into whether he misled parliament over Partygate, as the inquiry has rebuffed his lawyer’s request to give evidence alongside him.
The former prime minister is preparing to appear at a televised hearing on Wednesday. The length of the grilling will depend on how much he says.
Continue reading...RMT staff at 14 operators to take action, affecting LNER, Avanti, LNER and Southern among others
Rail travel around Great Britain will be severely disrupted again this weekend after the second 24-hour strike in three days started on Saturday morning.
Thousands of members of the RMT union working as train staff at 14 operators are on strike in the long-running dispute over pay and jobs.
Continue reading...The 2023 civilian gallantry list includes four people who tackled the terrorist behind 2019 terror attack
More than a dozen people who risked their lives trying to save others are to be recognised for their bravery, it has been announced.
The 15 named on the 2023 civilian gallantry list include a man who died intervening in an armed attack, a woman who saved an elderly neighbour from a burning building, and several people who tackled the terrorist behind the 2019 London Bridge attack. Each will be awarded either the Queen’s gallantry medal or the Queen’s commendation for bravery – the final such awards to be named after the monarch who died this year.
Continue reading...Murray Foote had described the reports, later revealed to be fact, as ‘drivel’ but opposition parties say he is ‘fall guy’ for hierarchy
The head of communications for the Scottish National party has resigned amid an escalating row over membership figures, as opposition parties described him as “a fall guy for the SNP hierarchy”.
Murray Foote announced on Friday evening that he had resigned after he denied reports about falling party membership figures that were in fact accurate.
Continue reading...Players criticise the BBC for questioning their integrity and naming individuals without consent
Female football players who fled Afghanistan after Kabul fell to the Taliban in 2021 are criticising a recent BBC article which has labelled some of those evacuated as “false footballers”.
The investigation by BBC Newsnight said some of the descriptions of UK visa applicants as national players or members of a regional team “appear to be false”. The report said there is resentment among “genuine players” now living under Taliban rule.
Continue reading...Mary Ellen Bettley-Smith of West Mercia police found guilty of gross misconduct and given final written warning
The police officer who repeatedly beat Dalian Atkinson as he lay dying has been found guilty of gross misconduct but has been allowed to keep her job.
The family of Atkinson, a former Aston Villa footballer, condemned the news that PC Mary Ellen Bettley-Smith of West Mercia police could return to the streets as an officer instead of being sacked.
Continue reading...Lingerie and sex toy chain’s boss tapped into the female market by embracing Britain’s peculiar erotic humour
When Jacqueline Gold arrived to shake up Ann Summers, the company had already been in the family for a decade, bought by her father, David, and uncle Ralph Gold. They had made the initial leap from sex shop to what they styled as a “lingerie boutique”; it would be more accurate to say they took it from a shop women never went into to a shop women did go into, while still selling the same sex toys and lucky knickers.
The impact of Jacqueline Gold, who has died aged 62, went far beyond the shops themselves or even the operation. The irony is that British culture in the 80s was hardly a stranger to images of women in their underwear, but these images were pretty well always used to sell random things to men. The notion of erotic imagery and shop frontage aimed at women was quite novel, and freighted with innuendo – this is one sense in which I can just about allow that Britain is exceptional, the peculiar humour it derives from sex: that Carry-On, seaside postcard, slightly mirthless and dutiful performance, where anyone revealing a sexual identity is considered to make themselves ridiculous, becoming the butt of some inexpressible joke. It was not cost-free, therefore, for women to go browsing in Ann Summers, and Gold attacked this from two directions.
Continue reading...Downing Street reveals cost of improved pay offer for nurses and paramedics but will not say where the money will come from
Downing Street says the improve pay offer for health workers in England announced yesterday will cost around £4bn.
At the morning lobby briefing, a No 10 spokesperson said the “non-consolidated element for 2022-23” – the one-off payments worth up to 8.2% – would cost an extra £2.7bn.
Analysis showed that in two years’ time - by which point Labour could have won a general election - two million people could face paying taxes of up to 55 per cent on their pots as a result of [Rachel] Reeves’ policy.
Continue reading...Ruth Perry was told that Caversham primary school in Reading would be downgraded to inadequate
A headteacher killed herself after she was told her school would be given the lowest possible Ofsted rating, her family has said.
Ruth Perry, who had worked at Caversham primary school in Reading for 13 years, took her own life in January after she was informed the school was being downgraded from outstanding to inadequate.
Continue reading...Handwritten poem in Greek from his undergraduate years has recommended sale price of £20,400
A handwritten manuscript containing a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge railing against the slave trade has been temporarily barred from leaving the UK in the hope that a British buyer can be found.
The poem, written in Greek by Coleridge across six mottled pages, attacks the horrors of slavery and condemns those who overlooked the conditions of enslaved people on the Middle Passage transportation route in the late 18th century.
Continue reading...Government-appointed managers will take over day-to-day running after authorities fell into effective bankruptcy
Two local authorities have been put into special measures after struggling to recover from the bad investments and governance failings that pushed them into effective bankruptcy.
The London borough of Croydon and Thurrock borough council in Essex have been told that government-appointed managers will take over the day-to-day running of operations, including overseeing all major financial and senior staffing decisions.
Continue reading...A mother whose son was killed in Basra, a senior non-commissioned officer with PTSD and a psychiatric nurse reflect 20 years on
The Iraq war left a profound mark on the UK. It forced the country to face up to its role, having initially helped rid Iraq of a brutal dictator, in the years of deadly chaos that followed. At home, meanwhile, it acted as the catalyst for one of the most popular domestic antiwar movements the country has seen.
The conflict also left many people in the UK asking: could they ever really trust their political leaders at a time of national crisis again? And could it ever be right to send young men and women to war without having first exhausted all peaceful means – and without a clear idea of what they were even meant to achieve once they got there?
Continue reading...