Category Archives: UK news

CPS to train staff on ‘spectrum of abuse’ in violence against women and girls

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Five-year strategy aims to improve casework after analysis finds domestic abuse in more than third of rape cases

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will train its staff to recognise the “wide spectrum of abuse” in cases of violence against women, after new data found that domestic abuse was present in more than a third of rape cases, and in more than eight out of 10 cases of stalking and image-based abuse.

Launching its five-year Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategy, the body said its main aims were to increase casework quality and increase trust in the CPS.

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UK to extend sugar tax to cover bottled milkshakes and pre-packaged lattes

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Levy will also apply to more fizzy drinks as health secretary says government ‘will not look away as children get unhealthier’

Sweet-toothed consumers face paying more for bottled milkshakes and some fizzy drinks after the government confirmed plans for a tougher sugar tax.

Designed to tackle obesity, the levy currently applies to drinks with a sugar content of 5g per 100ml. However, after a public consultation this is being cut to 4.5g per 100ml, meaning it could cover hundreds more products.

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Motability scheme to drop BMW and Mercedes as it aims to buy UK-made cars

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Rachel Reeves says changes to subsidised scheme for disabled drivers will help support thousands of jobs

The Motability scheme to provide disabled drivers with subsidised cars has said it will remove expensive cars such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz and aim to buy more British-built cars.

Motability said it hopes that 50% of the vehicles it offers will come from British factories by 2035. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said the changes to the scheme would “support thousands of well-paid, skilled jobs”, before the budget on Wednesday.

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UK rejects Nigerian request to deport former politican jailed for organ trafficking

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Ike Ekweremadu serving prison sentence after being found guilty of conspiring to exploit a man for his kidney

The UK government has rejected a request by Nigeria to deport a former senior Nigerian politician convicted of organ trafficking.

Ike Ekweremadu, 63, a former deputy president of the Nigerian senate and ally of the former president Goodluck Jonathan, is serving a sentence of nine years and eight months after being found guilty in 2023 of conspiring to exploit a man for his kidney.

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Princess of Wales calls for end to ‘stigma’ around addiction

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Forward Trust patron says ‘compassion and love’ is needed to end fear and shame felt by those affected

The Princess of Wales has called for an end to the “stigma” surrounding addictions, saying the experiences of those dependent on drugs, alcohol or gambling are “shaped by fear, shame and judgment”.

Catherine, who is a patron of the charity Forward Trust supporting recovering addicts, said more open conversations were needed to bring the issue “out of the shadows” and for society to show “compassion and love” to those affected.

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Civil liberties groups call for inquiry into UK data protection watchdog

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Campaigners including Good Law Project describe ICO ‘collapse in enforcement activity’ after Afghan data breach

Dozens of civil liberties campaigners and legal professionals are calling for an inquiry into the UK’s data protection watchdog, after what they describe as “a collapse in enforcement activity” after the scandal of the Afghan data breach.

A total of 73 academics, senior lawyers, data protection experts and organisations including Statewatch and the Good Law Project, have written to Chi Onwurah, the chair of the cross-party Commons science, innovation and technology committee, calling for an inquiry to be held into the office of the information commissioner, John Edwards.

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University students in England get two-thirds of funding of a decade ago, analysis finds

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University leaders says planned levy on international student fees will leave many institutions even worse off

University students in England get just two-thirds of the funding they would have received a decade ago, after inflation and government cuts have reduced the resources available for teaching, according to vice-chancellors.

University leaders said the situation was likely to get worse if the government went ahead with a new levy on international student fees in Wednesday’s budget.

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Theresa May and Cate Blanchett to guest edit BBC Today programme

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Former PM to examine issue of trust in politics and Oscar-winning actor’s show will discuss AI

The former prime minister Theresa May is to guest edit Radio 4’s Today programme and use it to explore the issue of dwindling trust in politics.

May, who resigned in 2019 with a tearful statement about the honour she felt in holding the office, will edit Today on New Year’s Eve.

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Beareaved parents face ‘harrowing’ delays for NHS postmorterms

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Shortage of specialist doctors means service is in crisis, says chair of Royal College of Pathologists committee

Bereaved parents are enduring “harrowing” delays of more than a year to find out why their child died because the NHS has too few specialist doctors to perform postmortems.

The shortage of paediatric and perinatal pathologists is revealed in a report by the Royal College of Pathologists published on Sunday. It warns that the situation is “dire”, services in some parts of the UK have “totally collapsed” and families are paying the price.

37% of consultant posts in the UK are lying vacant.

The UK has just 52 paediatric and perinatal consultants and 13 are due to retire in the next five years.

Just 3% of consultants think current staffing levels are enough to sustain their service.

Only 13 resident doctors are in training to become consultants in the specialty.

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Titanic passenger’s pocket watch sold for record £1.78m at auction

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The 18-carat Jules Jurgensen gold watch belonged to Isidor Straus, who along with his wife lost his life when ship sank

A gold pocket watch that belonged to a man who died onboard the Titanic when it sank has sold for a record sum.

The watch, which belonged to 67-year-old Isidor Straus, went for £1.78m at auction, the highest amount ever paid for Titanic memorabilia. He was given the watch – an engraved 18-carat Jules Jurgensen – as a gift on his 43rd birthday in 1888.

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Rachel Reeves promises to ‘grip the cost of living’ in autumn budget

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Chancellor admits economy ‘feels stuck’ for many as she signals intention to freeze income tax thresholds

Rachel Reeves has promised to “grip the cost of living” in the budget as she prepares to scrap the two-child welfare limit and freeze rail fares, while putting forward a multibillion-pound tax-raising package.

The chancellor is preparing to give her second budget on Wednesday after weeks of uncertainty about the scale of the tax rises she will need to impose to plug a financial hole of about £20bn.

Freezing income tax thresholds for an extra two years to 2030, bringing more people into higher tax bands as wages rise.

Making salary sacrifice schemes less generous, including those for pension contributions.

Bringing in higher tax on the most expensive properties, including a surcharge on the highest-value houses.

A pay-per-mile scheme on electric cars to help fill the tax gap from petrol duty as more people opt for green vehicles.

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Safe haven to sanctions: how Jersey sheltered Roman Abramovich’s billions

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Court papers show the island cautiously welcomed the oligarch – with London’s approval – before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

For decades the Channel Islands tax haven of Jersey has played a big role in moving fortunes made in some of the world’s most despotic countries into the west, attracting overseas oligarchs with a mix of low tax and high levels of financial secrecy.

It is a secrecy that extends to Jersey’s relationship with the UK government. As a crown dependency, Jersey has its own parliament, but belongs to the king. The relationship between the two jurisdictions remains something of a black box, with very little public information on how the big decisions are made, or to what extent Westminster is consulted.

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Lord Rothermere’s Telegraph takeover strengthens UK media’s rightwing tilt

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Many fear competition and diversity will be diminished as Daily Mail owner wins race to buy newspaper

As the dust settles from the battle for the ownership of the Daily Telegraph, one man has been left standing: Lord Rothermere, whose family have been a mainstay of British newspapers for more than a century.

“This is a very British stitch-up,” said Lionel Barber, the former editor of the Financial Times. “Lord Rothermere has played a very astute poker hand, he’s shown patience and he’s the big winner.”

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Scotland’s World Cup qualifying win reactions equivalent to small earthquake

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Celebrations to McLean’s jaw-dropping goal picked up by seismic activity monitors at Glasgow Geothermal Observatory

When Scotland qualified for the men’s football World Cup for the first time in 28 years, supporters were propelled into wild celebration – and even made the earth move in the process.

According to the British Geological Survey (BGS), when Kenny McLean scored from the halfway line to seal a breathtaking 4-2 win over Denmark, which are ranked 18 places higher in the world than Scotland, the reaction at Hampden Park was equivalent to a very small earthquake.

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Girl, 13, arrested on suspicion of murder after woman dies in Swindon

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Police detain teenager after responding to reports of disorder in Moredon on Friday evening

A 13-year-old schoolgirl has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a woman died inside a house in Swindon.

Police detained the teenager after responding to reports of a disorder in Baydon Close, Moredon, at about 7pm on Friday. They arrived to find a woman in her 50s not breathing, with no other reported injuries.

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‘The ad libs had us shaking behind the camera’: Corbyn and McKellen cameos raise panto’s profile

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Star turns are boosting ticket sales this season, including Islington show featuring MP’s Wizard of Oz and Olivier winner’s Toto

We’re a third of the way through the fabulously camp production of Wicked Witches, a mashup of Wicked and The Wizard of Oz, at the Pleasance theatre in Islington, north London. Dor (formerly known as Dorothy) and Tin 2.0 need guidance on how to take down the Wicked Witch and save the borough of Oz-lington from a great blizzard.

But wait! Who’s that Facetiming? It’s only Jeremy Corbyn, the wise Wizard of Oz-lington! The 200-person audience cheers and applauds the Islington North MP, who looks as if he’s beaming in from the allotment.

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Mind-altering ‘brain weapons’ no longer only science fiction, say researchers

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UK academics say latest chemicals are ‘wake-up call’ and urge global action to stop weaponisation of neuroscience

Sophisticated and deadly “brain weapons” that can attack or alter human consciousness, perception, memory or behaviour are no longer the stuff of science fiction, two British academics argue.

Michael Crowley and Malcolm Dando, of Bradford University, are about to publish a book that they believe should be a wake-up call to the world.

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Democrats investigating Epstein decry Andrew ‘silence’ over interview request

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Mountbatten-Windsor ‘continues to hide’, US lawmakers say, after deadline they set to receive response passes

Two Democratic lawmakers involved in the US congressional investigation into the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein on Friday condemned Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s “silence” in response to their request that he sit for a deposition.

Robert Garcia, the ranking member of the House oversight committee, and Suhas Subramanyam, a member of the panel, were among the Democrats who earlier this month sent the former British prince a letter seeking his cooperation in their inquiry into Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

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Iqbal Mohamed becomes second MP to quit Your Party

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Mohamed says decision to leave was after ‘many false allegations and smears’ against him and others

A second MP within a week has quit Your Party in acrimonious circumstances, throwing yet more doubt on the viability of the leftwing group co-led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana.

In a statement on X, Iqbal Mohamed, who was elected as the independent MP for Dewsbury and Batley last year, said his decision to leave was after “many false allegations and smears” against him and others, which he did not explain.

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Farage’s views on Russia likely to be further tested after jailing of Nathan Gill

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It would be expedient for Reform to take Labour’s advice and disavow ‘Putin talking points’

The discovery of a pro-Russian asset, Nathan Gill, at the heart of a British political party reads like the plot of a John Le Carré novel.

Russia was long known to have been trying to interfere in foreign politics with online bots and cyber-disinformation over the past decade.

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