Category Archives: UK news

Long-term sickness leaving 1.6m UK adults over 50 unable to work

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Campaign charity Rest Less says figures illustrate not only a national health issue but an economic one

More than 1.6 million adults aged 50 and over are unable to work because of long-term sickness amid ballooning NHS waiting lists and an exodus from the British workforce since the pandemic, according to the most detailed analysis yet of official data for this age group.

The number has increased 20%, or 270,000 in three years, according to an analysis of Office for National Statistics figures by Rest Less, a digital community and advocate for over fifties.

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Rishi Sunak set to unveil emergency care plan to slash NHS waiting times

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Experts warn plan does not address staff vacancies and £1bn fund pledged is not new money

Rishi Sunak will vow to rapidly slash long waiting times for urgent NHS care with a promise of thousands more beds, 800 new ambulances and an expansion of community care backed by a dedicated fund of £1bn.

The health service is engulfed in its worst-ever crisis, with urgent and emergency care in particular under unprecedented pressure in recent months. The prime minister will describe his blueprint for resolving the problems as “ambitious and credible”.

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French coastguard rescues 83 people from small boats crossing Channel

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Passengers taken to Calais after two vessels got into difficulty near Gravelines on north coast of France

The French coastguard has rescued 83 people from two small boats in the Channel after they got into difficulty.

The two boats were crossing the Channel on their way to England on Sunday when they encountered problems near Gravelines, on the north coast of France between Dunkirk and Calais.

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Ex-royal aide says trying to reopen deal with Virginia Giuffre won’t help Prince Andrew

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Former courtier says the King would still keep Duke of York at arm’s length as Charles prepares for coronation

Any attempt by Prince Andrew to try to row back an out-of-court deal with a woman with whom he is accused of having sex when she was a teenager is unlikely to rehabilitate him in the royal family, a former senior royal aide has warned.

The Duke of York was at the weekend urged to challenge his legal settlement with Virginia Giuffre by Alan Dershowitz, an American lawyer who himself was previously accused by her of sexual abuse.

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Rishi Sunak under pressure after sacking Nadhim Zahawi over tax storm

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PM’s judgment in question as Zahawi fails to apologise after inquiry finds breaches of ministerial code

Rishi Sunak has sacked the Conservative party chair, Nadhim Zahawi, for serious breaches of the ministerial code over his tax affairs, after weeks of damaging headlines undermined the prime minister’s attempts to restore government integrity.

An investigation by Sunak’s new ethics adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, concluded that Zahawi had broken the rules by repeatedly failing to declare an HMRC investigation into his tax affairs, which concluded with a £5m settlement including a penalty.

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Revealed: Cressida Dick sought £500,000 to quit as Met chief

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Exclusive: documents show tense exchanges between senior aide and London mayor’s office over ousting

Cressida Dick sought £500,000 to stand down as Metropolitan police commissioner after the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, ousted her over a litany of scandals, documents reveal.

Her tenure has been under renewed scrutiny in recent weeks with the revelation that the serial rapist David Carrick was kept on duty under her leadership despite being arrested on suspicion of rape.

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Hongkongers in UK ask Suella Braverman to ditch ‘repressive’ anti-protest bill

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Exclusive: Letter to home secretary says bill echoes ‘dangerously broad laws’ that result in jailing of protesters

Hongkongers in Britain have called on Suella Braverman to reconsider controversial measures in her public order bill, which they likened to the repressive measures used to crack down on democratic opposition in their home city.

In a letter to the UK home secretary, aspects of the bill were described as “repressive measures that threaten to paralyse entire social movement” and posed a threat to their right to protest in Britain, including against Chinese communist repression in Hong Kong.

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Gove admits ‘faulty’ guidance partly to blame for Grenfell fire

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Minister says he wants to abolish ‘outdated, feudal’ system of home ownership by end of this parliament

Michael Gove has admitted that “faulty and ambiguous” government guidance was partly responsible for the Grenfell Tower tragedy. The UK housing secretary said lax regulation allowed cladding firms to “put people in danger in order to make a profit”.

Gove’s remarks come more than five years after the tower block fire that killed 72 people.

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Nadhim Zahawi sacked as Tory party chair over tax affairs

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Rishi Sunak fires Zahawi after he was found to have committed ‘serious breach’ of ministerial code

Rishi Sunak has sacked the Conservative party chair, Nadhim Zahawi, after he was found to have breached the ministerial code by failing to declare the HMRC investigation into his tax affairs.

An investigation by the prime minister’s ethics adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, concluded that Zahawi had made a “serious breach” of the code by not telling officials he was under investigation by the tax body when he was appointed chancellor by Boris Johnson.

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Seven occasions when Nadhim Zahawi broke the ministerial code

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Timeline: the occasions when Rishi Sunak’s ethics adviser says Zahawi failed to be open about his tax affairs

The prime minister’s ethics adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, identifies seven occasions on which Nadhim Zahawi breached the ministerial code by failing to be open about his tax affairs.

April 2021 HMRC commenced its investigation of Zahawi’s tax affairs, which included a meeting with him and his tax advisers in June 2021. Zahawi, who was a business minister at the time, told Magnus he was under the impression he was “merely being asked certain queries”. Magnus says he should have understood it was a “serious matter”, informed his permanent secretary, and disclosed it in his ministerial declaration of interests.

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‘Mental torture’: six years after Grenfell, UK residents still live in fear as cladding deal falters

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A government agreement with developers was meant to solve the fire safety crisis in affected buildings – but the wrangling goes on

In June 2021, Charlotte Meehan received a safety inspection report for her block of flats as part of the nationwide checks after the Grenfell Tower fire. It made for grim reading, warning that the block had been built with combustible cladding and insulation.

Last April, the government announced a “wide-ranging” agreement with developers to fix the crisis of unsafe tall buildings, but Meehan, 34, and her fellow residents in the four-storey block in east London, are among tens of thousands still waiting for their homes to be made safe.

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Plant toxin hailed as ‘new weapon’ in antibiotic war against bacteria

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Scientists say albicidin has allowed them to take a giant step forward to creating a powerful new range of antibacterial drugs

Scientists have discovered a plant toxin whose unique method of dispatching bacteria could be used to create a powerful new range of antibiotics. The prospect of developing new antibacterial drugs this way has been hailed by doctors, who have been warning for many years that the steady rise of multidrug-resistant pathogens such as E coli now presents a dangerous threat to healthcare across the planet.

The new antibiotic – albicidin – attacks bacteria in a completely different way to existing drugs, a group of British, German and Polish scientists have revealed in a paper recently published in the journal Nature Catalysis. This suggests a new route could be exploited to tackle bacterial disease, they say.

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Tories call for action over legal threats from powerful figures facing scrutiny

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Solicitors accused of using lawsuits to stifle criticism of prominent figures include those acting for Nadhim Zahawi

Ministers are under pressure to speed up action against the use of legal tactics by powerful figures to silence legitimate criticism. This comes after a surge in investigations into their use.

The Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) warned the profession against employing such tactics at the end of last year, but says their use has increased since then, and it is now examining 40 cases.

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Troubles ahead for Rishi Sunak? Here are five pitfalls he’ll be dreading

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He may yearn for a period of calm, but the prime minister faces some daunting challenges in the stormy months ahead

Having taken on the party leadership after months of economic turmoil, Rishi Sunak always faced a tough task in turning around his party’s fortunes. With the future of cabinet ministers already in doubt and Boris Johnson courting MPs, a series of new hurdles in the months ahead will make life even harder for the prime minister.

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Boy arrested after girl, 15, stabbed to death in Northumberland

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16-year-old detained on suspicion of murder after incident in Hexham in which a boy, 16, was also injured

A teenage boy has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a 15-year-old girl was stabbed to death in Northumberland.

Northumbria police were called shortly after 5.10pm on Friday to a report of a teenage boy and girl injured in the Priestpopple area of Hexham.

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‘It’s just outrageous’: Flybe passengers on the frustration of cancelled flights

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Some people due to fly with regional airline had booked tickets just hours before firm collapsed

“I got an email asking me to check in, and 10 minutes later they had gone into administration.”

Andrew Gibbins was one of hundreds of passengers across the UK who have expressed frustration at regional airline Flybe, which abruptly announced its collapse on Saturday morning, telling any passengers expecting to travel with it not to go to the airport.

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Revealed: child migrants racially abused and threatened with violence at Home Office hotel

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Whistleblower tells of threats and illegal detention in fresh revelations about failures that drove children into hands of criminals

Children seeking asylum in the UK were threatened and subjected to racist abuse by staff at a Home Office-run hotel, a whistleblower has claimed as pressure grows on the government to act over the growing crisis in the system.

The source, who worked in the Brighton hotel for more than a year, said that in such an environment of “emotional abuse”, scores of children, who had arrived in the UK without parents or a carer, were driven on to the streets and into the hands of criminals.

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Clare Drakeford, wife of Wales’s first minister, dies

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Mark Drakeford and his wife married in 1977 and have three children

Clare Drakeford, the wife of Wales’s first minister, Mark Drakeford, has died suddenly, the Welsh government announced on Saturday.

A Welsh government spokesperson said: “It is with deep sadness that we confirm the sudden passing of Clare Drakeford, wife of the first minister.

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Zahawi should quit as party chair until tax inquiry ends, top Tory peer implies

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Lord Young suggests ministers should feel able to step aside for the duration of any investigation

Nadhim Zahawi should step away from his Conservative party role while the inquiry into his tax affairs continues, a senior Tory peer and former Commons standards chair has appeared to suggest.

Lord Young, who served in several Conservative administrations from Margaret Thatcher’s to Theresa May’s, suggested that ministers under pressure should feel able to step aside for the duration of any investigation.

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