Coronation Street actor will appear as companion to Ncuti Gatwa’s 15th incarnation of the Doctor late in 2023
Millie Gibson has been unveiled as the Time Lord’s new sidekick in Doctor Who, in an announcement made live on BBC Children in Need on Friday evening.
The Coronation Street actor, 18, will play the role of Ruby Sunday, companion to the new Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa, when the programme returns towards the end of 2023.
Continue reading...Private school sanctions a number of boys after investigation into misogynistic language and racial slurs
Eton College has apologised and “sanctioned” a number of pupils after allegations that a group of girls visiting from a nearby state school were subjected to misogynistic language, racial slurs and jeering.
The boys’ private school near Windsor, Berkshire, told the BBC that an investigation took place into the incident which occurred during a speech by Nigel Farage last week.
Continue reading...Chancellor defends tax rises as Institute for Fiscal Studies says UK now entering a ‘new era’ of higher taxation
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has conceded that Boris Johnson’s hard Brexit deal has caused damaging trade barriers with the European Union, as he said immigration will be “very important” for the economy.
Hunt insisted the UK would find a way to improve trading ties with the EU without rejoining the single market.
His comments came after the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said Brexit caused a “significant adverse impact” to trade volumes and business relationships between UK and EU firms.
Asked if rejoining the single market would boost growth, the Chancellor told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
I think having unfettered trade with our neighbours and countries all over the world is very beneficial to growth.
I have great confidence that over the years ahead we will find outside the single market we are able to remove the vast majority of the trade barriers that exist between us and the EU. It will take time.
I don’t think it’s the right way to boost growth because it would be against what people were voting for when they supported Brexit which was to have control of our borders and membership of the single market requires free movement of people.
So I think we can find other ways that will more than compensate for those advantages.
There needs to be a long-term plan if we’re going to bring down migration in a way that doesn’t harm the economy.
We are recognising that we will need migration for the years ahead - that will be very important for the economy, yes.
They don’t look obviously deliverable. If you take the spending cuts that are in place and subtract out the protected departments like health and defence, you end up with really big falls in those unprotected departments.
Hard to see how given the legacy of austerity, given public sector wages are already lagging behind and given this is effectively tying the hands of governments, it’s really hard to see how those will be delivered.
What we saw yesterday was the biggest deterioration in the overall forecasts since the OBR started producing these forecasts.
What is doing the damage here is higher interest rates.
Continue reading...Labour leader says he is not tribal, has broken the ‘never kiss a Tory rule’ and has many Conservative friends
Keir Starmer has tried to reveal a little more about himself, confessing that he has broken the “never kiss a Tory rule” and that he is not ashamed.
The Labour party leader said he was “not tribal” when it came to personal relationships and politics because he entered the political scene relatively late in life. Speaking to Times Radio, he suggested only people in the political bubble were focused on maintaining division.
Continue reading...Jordan McSweeney had been recalled to prison when he killed 35-year-old in Ilford, east London
A man has pleaded guilty to pulling Zara Aleena off the street as she walked home after an evening out, and then kicking and stamping her to death.
At the Old Bailey on Friday Jordan McSweeney, 29, admitted he murdered Aleena on 26 June 2022, in Ilford, east London.
Continue reading...IFS and Resolution Foundation say Jeremy Hunt’s policies will shock middle England, with higher taxes here to stay
Traditionally elections in Britain are decided by swing voters in a relatively small number of seats. Parties go to considerable lengths to tailor their policies to the perceived demands of those getting by on average incomes. Pollsters have even coined names for the archetypal electors that need to be wooed: Basildon man and Worcester woman.
So it will be of some concern to government strategists that the post-autumn statement analysis by thinktanks focused heavily on how the measures announced by Jeremy Hunt had an effect on those not particularly poor but not especially rich either. Both the Resolution Foundation and the Institute for Fiscal Studies highlighted the return of the “squeezed middle”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Liz Roberts says familial sexual abuse is a ‘hidden scourge’ that has long-term impact on victims
A woman who was sexually abused by her older brother half a century ago when she was a young girl has waived her right to anonymity to describe her decades of torment and to encourage other victims of familial abuse to come forward.
Liz Roberts, 59, a former police officer, said the abuse carried out Andrew Herbert when she was about eight had led to a life of self-loathing and shame punctuated by episodes of depression, anxiety and self-harm.
Continue reading...Resolution Foundation says had wages grown at the same rate as before 2008, pay would be £15,000 a year higher by 2027
Jeremy Hunt’s autumn statement will result in extending wage stagnation for Britain’s workers to two decades as the chancellor’s tax-heavy budget piles more pressure on the nation’s “squeezed middle”, a thinktank said.
The Resolution Foundation said on Friday that the dire economic outlook meant that real wages were not expected to return to 2008 levels until 2027.
Continue reading...Hollywood actor criticised by South Africans after saying settler language ‘not very helpful’
Charlize Theron has prompted anger in her native South Africa after suggesting that Afrikaans, a language descended from Dutch colonial settlers, is heading for oblivion.
“There’s about 44 people still speaking it … it’s definitely a dying language, it’s not a very helpful language,” the 47-year-old Oscar-winning actor said this week on a US podcast, Smartless.
Continue reading...The activist’s mother was allowed to visit her son for the first time in nearly a month on Thursday
The family of the British-Egyptian political prisoner Alaa Abd el-Fattah say his health has visibly deteriorated due to the escalation of his hunger strike, after being allowed to visit him on Thursday.
It was the first time the activist’s mother, Laila Soueif, had been allowed to visit him in nearly a month. Prison authorities repeatedly denied her access last week.
Continue reading...Fiscal watchdog’s figures show eight years of growth wiped out; chancellor announces higher taxes and some cost of living support
In the Commons Rishi Sunak is making a statement about the G20 summit. These statements are normally routine, and just summarise what was said or decided at the meeting. They don’t normally include fresh announcements.
Sunak started by talking about the missile incident in Poland. He said Russia attacked Ukraine with missiles on the day that he “confronted the Russian foreign minister across the G20 summit table”. He said the blame for the missile landing in Poland lay with Russia. Ukraine could not be blamed for defending itself, he said.
During the bombardment of Ukraine on Tuesday an explosion took place in eastern Poland. The investigation into this incident is ongoing and it has our full support.
As we’ve heard the Polish and American presidents say, it is possible the explosion was caused by Ukrainian munition which was deployed in self-defence.
In just a few moments the chancellor will build on these international foundations when he sets out the autumn statement, putting our economy back on to a positive trajectory and restoring our fiscal sustainability.
Continue reading...Chancellor hopes to emulate Thatcher’s chancellor Nigel Lawson with bonfire of red tape, but move had its critics
Jeremy Hunt doled out the bad news in an autumn statement laden with tax rises and spending cuts, but he sought to buoy the fairly muted Tory benches behind him with a few nods to Thatcherism.
It was not the “iron lady” herself he channelled, but rather her second chancellor, Nigel Lawson, and his famed “big bang” deregulation drive that unshackled the financial markets and let business boom in the City.
Continue reading...Although barrister ‘would not want’ her daughter to attend the footballer’s parties, accusers were making ‘real-life choices’
Benjamin Mendy’s barrister said she wouldn’t want her daughter to go to a party if the Manchester City footballer was there, but insisted that did not mean he was a rapist or a Jimmy Savile-style groomer.
Eleanor Laws KC told the jury in Mendy’s rape trial that the 28-year-old regularly had unprotected sex at parties in his Cheshire mansion with “women he didn’t know from Adam”. But it was “not criminal” to have sex with multiple women without a condom, she stressed.
Continue reading...Merchandise linked to supermarket’s latest Christmas campaign sells out online hours after going on sale
More than 70,000 shoppers have queued online and hundreds lined up outside UK stores to get their hands on Aldi’s toys and merchandise based around its Kevin the Carrot adverts.
By 10am, several versions of the soft toys had already sold out online amid high demand for merchandise linked to the hero of the discount grocery store’s festive campaign.
Continue reading...Exclusive: protesters say they were assaulted by officers at peaceful ‘kill the bill’ demonstration in March 2021
A police force has paid damages to protesters who allege they were assaulted by officers when they broke up a peaceful “kill the bill” demonstration in Bristol.
One of the protesters alleges that an officer struck him in the face with a shield, leaving him scarred, and a second claims she struggled to breathe when she was crushed beneath two police shields. They say they witnessed another protester being dragged along the ground by his long hair.
Continue reading...Shadow chancellor attacks ‘crisis made in Downing Street’ but there are few signs of anger on Tory benches
Jeremy Hunt has seemingly escaped public pushback from fellow Conservative MPs over his tax-raising autumn statement, but he was lambasted by Labour for trying to blame global factors for a crisis sparked by Liz Truss’s mini-budget.
While there had been mutterings of dissent in advance at the idea of Hunt trashing Truss’s embrace of tax cuts, in the lengthy Commons debate after his statement there were only a few fairly muted quibbles.
Continue reading...Germany latest to end peacekeeping mission as operations prove unable to stop Islamic extremist insurgency
Thousands of international troops are withdrawing from Mali amid surging violence, growing Russian influence and an acute humanitarian crisis.
On Wednesday Germany became the latest country to end its participation in the UN peacekeeping mission in the unstable west African country. Earlier this week, British officials said that 300 British soldiers sent in 2020 to join the United Nations force would be returning earlier than planned.
Continue reading...State media says foreign nationals and 712 ‘political prisoners’ among 5,774 to be freed in so-called amnesty
Almost 6,000 people will be released from prison in Myanmar, including the Australian academic Prof Sean Turnell, Britain’s former ambassador Vicky Bowman and the Japanese film-maker Toru Kubota, junta-controlled media has said.
On Thursday, Myanmar’s state-run MRTV said that the foreign nationals, as well as a Burmese-American citizen, had been released and deported in a so-called amnesty timed to coincide with Myanmar National Day.
Continue reading...Waitrose’s No 1 Brown Butter pies wowed with their ‘buttery aroma’, while Aldi’s, at half the price, scored just one point less
Tucking into a mince pie is usually the first sign Christmas is on the way and with budgets under pressure this year getting your fix doesn’t have to break the bank, with a 29p pie from Aldi coming a close second to Waitrose’s brown butter pastry in a taste test.
The upmarket supermarket’s No 1 Brown Butter Mince Pies came top in a “rigorous” blind taste test conducted by Which?. They wowed the panel of baking experts with their “buttery aroma” and “citrussy aftertaste” to achieve the top score of 74%, earning the consumer group’s coveted “best buy” badge of approval.
Continue reading...National Audit Office says efforts to reduce record waiting lists under threat amid rising inflation and workforce shortages
Millions of patients could face years of long waits for treatment on the NHS, as a watchdog warned that the plan to reduce extensive waits for elective and cancer care services by 2025 is at serious risk.
NHS England published a three-year plan in February aimed at tackling the backlog in services, after the Covid-19 pandemic saw already long waiting lists grow to record levels. The Department of Health and Social Care is responsible for funding the recovery plan.
Continue reading...