Tarik Namik fled UK before sentencing in December but detained after returning to Manchester airport
The head of a Kurdish people-smuggling ring has been arrested after going on the run before his sentencing, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.
Tarik Namik, 45, from Oldham, failed to show up at Manchester crown court and was given an eight-year jail term in his absence on 9 December.
Continue reading...Comments follow reports that Tory party chairman paid HMRC a penalty as part of a multimillion-pound tax settlement
Tory party chair Nadhim Zahawi has released a statement to “address some of the confusion about my finances” after reports that he paid a penalty as part of a multimillion-pound tax settlement.
He said: “As a senior politician I know that scrutiny and propriety are important parts of public life. Twenty-two years ago I co-founded a company called YouGov. I’m incredibly proud of what we achieved. It is an amazing business that has employed thousands of people and provides a world-beating service.
Continue reading...Party member lodges a complaint about the security services ignoring attempt of Russian infiltration into the Conservatives
MI5 repeatedly refused to investigate evidence that an alleged Russian spy was attempting to cultivate influence with senior Conservative politicians and channel illegal Russian funds into the party, a Tory member has alleged in a new complaint lodged with the investigatory powers tribunal (IPT).
Sergei Cristo, a Conservative party activist and a former journalist with the BBC World Service, has lodged a complaint with the investigatory powers tribunal, filing the case after corresponding with the chair of parliament’s intelligence and security committee, Conservative MP Julian Lewis, who recommended he take the information to the authorities.
Continue reading...Wife of Leicester City footballer posts picture on Instagram praising ‘brilliant’ Lincolnshire fire service
A gym at the home of Rebekah and Jamie Vardy has been destroyed by fire.
The wife of the Leicester City footballer posted a picture on Instagram of two of her children smiling at the camera having climbed inside a fire engine as she praised the “brilliant Lincolnshire fire and rescue service”.
Continue reading...The brief encounters between an actor and an interviewer have been compared to Austen’s novels and Hollywood’s golden age
He’s a Hollywood A-lister, recently named a man of the year and routinely included among the sexiest alive. She is an awkward art-school graduate who has his shirtless photo as the wallpaper on her phone. And they just can’t seem to stop running into each other.
The television personality Amelia Dimoldenberg and the actor Andrew Garfield have been hailed as a real-life romcom in the making for their brief but memorable – and, now, heavily hyped – encounters at awards shows.
Continue reading...Angela Rayner calls for explanation after it emerged former chancellor paid 30% penalty to settle tax bill
Nadhim Zahawi’s position as Conservative party chair is “untenable” after reports he paid a penalty as part of a seven-figure tax settlement, Labour has said.
The former chancellor, who attends cabinet meetings, has faced pressure in parliament and the media after it emerged he agreed to pay millions to HMRC in December after a settlement with the tax agency.
Continue reading...Businesswoman one of four people charged after investigation into trafficking and immigration offences
Stagecoach co-founder Dame Ann Gloag has said she “strongly disputes the malicious allegations” made against her after being charged with human trafficking offences.
Her husband, David McCleary, and two other members of their family – understood to be her stepdaughter and daughter-in-law, Sarah Gloag, 47, and her son-in-law, Paul McNeil – have also been charged.
Continue reading...High-cost, low-quality housing market is pushing many from war-torn country to edge of homelessness
Maria, 22, came to the UK from Ukraine in March last year shortly after the war broke out. She and her mother travelled using the Ukraine family scheme visa to stay with her aunt. But when her aunt was evicted, they became homeless. For five months, Maria and her mother have been living in temporary accommodation in south London.
“It’s horrible actually, the corridors are so old and so dirty,” Maria says. “The council haven’t been very helpful. The room is so small and it’s hard with two adults in one room.”
Continue reading...Radical reforms needed to tackle waiting times, says former health secretary
Patients should be charged for GP appointments and A&E visits, Sajid Javid has said, as he called the present model of the NHS “unsustainable”.
The former health secretary said “extending the contributory principle” should be part of radical reforms to tackle growing waiting times.
Continue reading...Dense fog that could reduce visibility to below 100 metres set to blanket UK after sharp overnight frost
A yellow weather warning was issued on Friday, with a dangerous “freezing fog” set to blanket parts of the UK after a sharp frost overnight.
By Saturday morning, the fog could be so dense that visibility drops to below 100 metres in some places, the Met Office said.
Continue reading...Frontbencher to call for more help with energy bills for householders and to promise massive green power programme
Rachel Reeves has said she wants to be “Britain’s first green chancellor” ahead of a speech in which she will call on ministers to extend relief on energy bills and promise that Labour will reduce these in the longer term with a massive green power programme.
Addressing the Fabian Society conference on Saturday, the shadow chancellor is to argue that investment in renewable energies, plus a huge programme to retrofit insulation to homes – part of Labour’s flagship £28bn-a-year investment in climate measures – could save households up to £1,400 off annual bills each year.
Continue reading...Experts call major spike in deaths on 19 July and following day ‘extraordinary data’ and a wake-up call over dangers of extreme heat
The hottest day on record last summer resulted in 638 more deaths in England than normal, according to official figures, which experts said show the danger that extreme heat and climate change pose to human life.
The following day, when temperatures remained almost as high, 496 more people died than would usually be expected.
Continue reading...‘Brief error of judgment’ captured while PM was recording Instagram video in back of moving car
Rishi Sunak has become the second sitting prime minister in history – and in the last 12 months – to be fined by the police after he received a fixed-penalty notice for not wearing his seatbelt.
Lancashire constabulary announced on Friday it was fining the prime minister, who filmed a social media video earlier this week while travelling in the back of a car without his belt on.
Continue reading...WUC claimed UK unlawfully failed or refused to investigate cotton imports from Xinjiang
The World Uyghur Congress has said it is disappointed to have lost a legal challenge against UK authorities for not launching a criminal investigation into the importation of cotton products manufactured by forced labour in China’s Xinjiang province but would continue to fight for accountability.
The WUC took the home secretary, HM Revenue and Customs and the National Crime Agency (NCA), to the high court, claiming an unlawful failure or refusal to investigate imports from Xinjiang, allegedly home to 380 internment camps used to detain Uyghurs and people from other Muslim minorities.
Continue reading...Influencer and self-professed misogynist in custody after arrest on suspicion of human trafficking and rape
A court in Bucharest has ruled that Andrew Tate must remain in preventive custody until at least 27 February while an organised crime investigation continues into the former kickboxer, influencer and professed misogynist.
The court on Friday agreed to a request by the country’s organised crime agency, Diicot, to extend Tate’s detention, along with that of his brother Tristan and two Romanian female suspects, one a former police officer.
Continue reading...Trip to examine country’s rights record derailed as meetings with government officials also cancelled
A high-profile trip by two senior UK parliamentarians to Kazakhstan to examine its human rights record has almost immediately run into trouble as they were denied access to a jailed opposition leader who is the focus of the visit.
The former director of public prosecutions Ken Macdonald and the former justice secretary Robert Buckland were not permitted to meet the head of the unregistered Democratic party of Kazakhstan, Zhanbolat Mamai, or senior Kazakh diplomats.
Continue reading...St James’s hospital declares critical incident after suspicious package found outside Gledhow wing
A 27-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of a terror offence after he was allegedly seen with a suspected firearm and a suspicious package at a hospital’s maternity wing in Leeds.
Police ordered a partial evacuation of the Gledhow wing at St James’s hospital after the suspect was detained at about 5am on Friday.
Continue reading...Surprise December drop a result of cost of living crisis forcing people to cut budgets in run-up to Christmas
Retail sales in Great Britain unexpectedly fell by 1% last month as the cost of living crisis forced households to cut back on spending in the run-up to Christmas.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the surprise decline in sales volumes – economists had forecast a rise of 0.5% – was down to factors including rampant increases in food prices and a decline in online purchases as consumers worried about a wave of postal strikes affecting Christmas deliveries.
Continue reading...Latest updates: YouGov survey finds there is almost nowhere in Britain where people think their community has got better
Keir Starmer has held a meeting with Leo Varadkar, the taoiseach (Irish PM), at Davos this morning. According to a readout of the meeting from the Labour party, Starmer and Varadkar “discussed the importance of strengthening British-Irish relations, their mutual commitment to that enduring relationship, and talked about areas both countries could work together on in the future”.
They also talked about the need “to proceed at pace in finding agreement over the Northern Ireland protocol,” Labour said.
I know I’m not the only MP in the party who thinks this — I’m just the only one who feels I have nothing to lose by speaking out. After all, there’s no front-bench job offer for the only Labour MP in my county. Many of us know that self-identifying as a woman does not make a person a biological woman who shares our lived experience. But for obvious reasons, these views are not voiced outside of closed rooms or private and secret WhatsApp groups. Even there, the most senior MPs often do not post a single word; they know exactly what’s at stake and not many of them want to be me. So for now, they mostly remain silent.
One of the traits of being in an abusive relationship is “stonewalling”. The abuser will go quiet for days on end. They will stew, not speak to you, turn their back on you. Trust me when I say I don’t take this lightly: but what I feel now, after six years of being cold-shouldered by the Labour party, conjures memories of how I felt in that abusive relationship. When I come home at night, I feel low-level trauma at my political isolation.
In 2019, it was hard enough trying to convince my constituents that Labour wasn’t antisemitic. In the next election, when they inevitably ask whether Labour is sexist, I’m not sure I’ll be able to do the same.
Continue reading...Jim Auld, 72, was one of 14 ‘hooded men’ subjected to interrogation methods since ruled as torture
Jim Auld was so tortured by British army interrogators during the Troubles that he tried to kill himself. He survived but has never seen a counsellor or psychologist or psychiatrist, and never will.
“I don’t trust them that it wouldn’t end up in a paper somewhere. I don’t want the torturers learning from me so they can improve their techniques,” he said last week.
Continue reading...