Category Archives: UK news

Gibraltar’s chief minister threatens top rights lawyers with defamation

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Lawyers call for apology and withdrawal of threats made during inquiry into alleged government corruption

Two leading London-based human rights lawyers have been threatened with defamation proceedings for making submissions on behalf of their client, in a highly unusual development.

The threat was made by lawyers representing the Gibraltar government and senior ministers, including the chief minister, Fabian Picardo, at an inquiry exploring alleged corruption at the top of the British overseas territory’s administration.

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Heathrow has busiest start to year since before Covid lockdowns

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More than 5.4m passengers travelled through airport in January, double the 2.6m from 2022

Heathrow airport had its busiest start to the year since before the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns in 2020 as travel restrictions continued to ease, according to data published on Monday.

More than 5.4 million passengers travelled through the UK’s and Europe’s busiest airport in January, double the 2.6 million from 2022, Heathrow said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange.

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Labour condemns ‘catalogue of waste’ on government ‘credit cards’

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Analysis of civil service spending includes Rishi Sunak’s Treasury department spending £3,000 on Tate photographs

Spending on government-issued “credit cards” has risen 70% since 2010, when the Conservatives first warned they were generating “hideous waste”, according to a Labour analysis of civil service spending.

Civil servants at 14 of the 15 main government departments spent nearly £150m on government procurement cards (GPCs) in 2021, the figures show, a steep rise since 2010-11, when David Cameron warned about the lax rules and oversight governing their use.

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Whitehall procurement cards serve a purpose but oversight is patchy

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Labour analysis shows use of GPCs has risen under Tory government despite David Cameron decrying ‘hideous’ spending levels in 2010

Nestled inside a shaded courtyard, Plataran in south Jakarta offers diners the promise of authentic Indonesian food “with the atmosphere of Javanese royalty”. Five miles to the north, Kaum gives guests a taste of tribal Indonesian cooking with modern inflections.

Together, these are two of the city’s finest restaurants, and they are where Liz Truss and her team decamped, first for lunch and then for dinner, during a whistle-stop trip to the Indonesian capital in 2021. The two meals cost the taxpayer £1,443 – all paid for conveniently by handing over one of the thousands of government procurement cards (GPCs) that officials can use to pay for anything under £20,000.

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Nurses’ union in UK warns of exodus of young staff

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RCN says nearly 43,000 nurses in UK have quit early in their careers over past five years

The UK’s largest nursing union warned of a workforce “exodus” with tens of thousands of young staff leaving the profession, as NHS bosses backed calls for ministers to meet unions to agree on a pay deal and avoid further strike action.

Nearly 43,000 nurses across the UK in the early stages of their careers have quit over the past five years, figures from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) show – almost equal to the record 47,000 nursing posts now vacant in NHS England.

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Brexiters claim ‘sellout’ after Tories discuss rapprochement with EU

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Nigel Farage, John Redwood and Lord Frost rail against news of senior Tories joining cross-party summit to tackle failings of Brexit

Prominent Brexit supporters have hit out at senior Conservative figures after the Observer revealed they had taken part in a private cross-party summit entitled: “How can we make Brexit work better with our neighbours in Europe?”

John Redwood, the prominent Brexit-supporting Tory MP, and Nigel Farage, the former leader of the UK Independence party, criticised those attending the summit at Oxfordshire’s Ditchley Park retreat, including the cabinet minister Michael Gove.

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Brianna Ghey: boy and girl, both 15, arrested on suspicion of murder

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Police had appealed for witnesses after 16-year-old was found with stab wounds in Culcheth’s Linear Park in Warrington

A boy and girl, both aged 15, have been arrested on suspicion of murder after the fatal stabbing of 16-year-old Brianna Ghey in a park in Warrington, Cheshire police have said.

A statement from the force said: “Detectives have arrested two teenagers following the death of 16-year-old Brianna Ghey.

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Drag queen storyteller says readings ‘help youngsters discover true selves’

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Aida H Dee’s Tate Britain events attracted rival protests from a far-right group and counter-protests led by Stand Up to Racism

A drag queen whose storytelling sessions for children prompted rival demonstrations over the weekend has defended the event as a way of helping youngsters discover their true selves.

Sab Samuel, whose drag name is Aida H Dee, hosted three Drag Queen Story Hour UK readings in Tate Britain in London on Saturday, while about 30 protesters from the far-right group Patriotic Alternative gathered outside chanting “leave our kids alone”.

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‘He’s a bit of a prat’: voters in Ashfield turn on Lee Anderson

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The Tories’ new deputy chairman thinks he has the support of his constituency. But a tour around the market town says otherwise

Depending on your political instincts he’s a prime candidate for the “worst man in Britain”, no-nonsense voice of the people, or pugnacious darling of the Tory right.

Lee Anderson defends his inability to swerve controversy by claiming that what might make parliamentarians blanch, the people of Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, unequivocally back.

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Brexit is a self-inflicted wound of unparalleled severity | Phillip Inman

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Quitting the EU has stalled business investment, making us reliant on workers who are now scarce. Hence rising wages, high inflation and increased interest rates. Result? A looming recession

Whenever Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, talks about the economy, he is forced to mention the toll taken by Brexit.

Business leaders, initially reluctant to criticise the Tory decision to quit the EU, have begun to find their voice. Most recently, leading City figure Guy Hands called Brexit a “complete disaster” and a “bunch of total lies” that has harmed large parts of the economy.

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UK counter-terrorism report author accused of basing conclusions on ‘handful of cases’

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William Shawcross analysed just six Channel cases before calling for more focus on Islamist extremism, say critics

The author of a controversial review into Britain’s counter-terrorism strategy has been accused of failing to do his job properly because he attended only a handful of the thousands of meetings of its key deradicalisation programme.

William Shawcross was appointed to review Prevent, the government’s counter-extremism programme, in January 2021. Last week his controversial conclusion that the programme had concentrated too much on the far right and not enough on Islamist extremism was met with widespread condemnation.

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Have you seen this bug? Scientists call on Britain’s gardeners to track elusive aphid

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The elusive giant willow aphid goes into hiding in spring. Now the Royal Horticultural Society wants volunteers to help find out why

Gardeners have been urged by scientists to help find a mysterious bug which disappears in spring and reappears at the end of summer.

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) is asking people to send in sightings of the giant willow aphid (Tuberolachnus salignus) so that they can find out where it goes and how it interacts with garden plants.

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Anne Boleyn’s reputation as ‘temptress’ to be recast in new exhibition

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Henry VIII’s second wife was a deeply religious woman who resisted his advances for years, according to fresh research

Anne Boleyn was found guilty of adultery, incest and conspiracy – all, almost certainly, false charges trumped up by Henry VIII – and then executed. For centuries, her reputation was that of a scheming seducer.

Now Anne is being recast as a deeply religious woman who, far from plotting to become Henry’s second wife, bade her time for six years as a lady-in-waiting to the king’s consort, Catherine of Aragon. She deliberately never consummated her relationship with Henry until their “unofficial” marriage in November 1532 – just two months before their formal wedding.

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‘It’s too cruel’: family stuck in Ukraine after UK host dies suddenly

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Exclusive: Nadiia Luba is one of 9,700 Ukrainians still waiting on visa decision under Homes for Ukraine scheme

Nadiia Luba was sheltering in a basement in central Ukraine earlier this month when she learned that her family’s chances of escaping to Britain had been dashed.

After nearly eight months of waiting for visas for her and her two sons, she got a text to say that the British host who had been so ready to welcome them had died suddenly. “I couldn’t stop crying,” she said. “My brain didn’t want to accept it.”

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Revealed: farmers received less than 0.5% of post-Brexit money last year

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Agricultural businesses risk closure as figures show government paid only tiny fraction of slashed EU farming subsidies

Cuts to post-Brexit farming payments mean farms risk “going out of business” as new figures reveal only a tiny fraction of slashed EU subsidies went to agriculture businesses last year.

The government is replacing the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which paid subsidies to farmers to keep them in business, with “payments for public goods”, meaning land managers get paid for improving nature.

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Brit awards 2023: Harry Styles and Wet Leg triumph while Lizzo delivers the glitz – as it happened

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Fontaines DC, Aitch, Becky Hill and the 1975 also won gongs, while Tom Grennan flubbed it. Here’s all the action from the 43rd annual music awards

• Read the full report here
• The trouble with the Brits
• The night in pictures

Shania is here! And in a week where she has a UK No 1 album with Queen of Me to boot. She’s performed with Harry Styles in the past; wonder if they’ll have a redux (or if she’ll present him with one of the awards that he’ll inevitably walk away with tonight).

RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant Bimini Bon-Boulash has arrived in extremely punk fashion, wearing a dress that transplants the colours of the trans pride flag onto the union jack – a nice little injection of chaos onto this year’s red carpet.

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Will Ferrell seen having pint with football fans in Wrexham before match

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Hollywood actor in Welsh town to watch team co-owned by fellow actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney

Will Ferrell was pictured having a pint of beer with football fans on his first visit to Wrexham to watch the local team, co-owned by fellow Hollywood actor Ryan Reynolds, continue their winning run in the National League.

Pictures posted on social media showed Ferrell enjoying a drink in The Turf pub, which featured in the Disney+ documentary about the north Wales club, Welcome to Wrexham.

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Bad taste? McDonald’s vows to remove McCrispy ad next to crematorium sign

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Burger chain’s bus stop advertisement in Cornwall, England, provokes restrained backlash and a few chuckles

The US fast-food restaurant chain McDonald’s has pledged to remove an advertisement for its new McCrispy chicken sandwich that was placed across from a crematorium in England.

The McCrispy advertisement was placed at a bus stop in Cornwall, England, that is next to a road sign pointing motorists toward the Penmount crematorium, according to the local news outlet Cornwall Live.

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British woman undertakes trip from London to Edinburgh using only £2 local buses

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Thousands are following and supporting Emily Turner’s epic journey on Twitter

A British woman undertaking an epic three-day expedition from London to Scotland using only local buses has expressed her surprise at the level of support from thousands of people following the chronicles of her journey on Twitter.

Writer and podcast host Emily Turner, from London, began her nearly 400-mile journey in the early hours of Friday, announcing on Twitter: “I’ve been wanting to do this for YEARS!!”, explaining that she “loves buses” and promising to share photos and observations along the way.

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Nurses set to withdraw from A&E and intensive care units as strike intensifies

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UK’s biggest nursing union prompts alarm among senior officials by calling on intensive care workers to join walkouts

The UK’s biggest nursing union is preparing an escalation of its pay dispute with the government that will see members working in emergency departments, intensive care units and cancer care services being asked to join the next round of strikes.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is also planning to announce the first continuous 48-hour strikes running through two days and two nights, rather than limiting walkouts to the 12 hours from 8am to 8pm, as they have done to date.

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