Category Archives: UK news

One in five families in Liz Truss’s seat would lose out under real-term benefit cuts

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Research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows impact of increasing benefits in line with earnings, not inflation

At least one in five working-age families in most UK constituencies – including in Liz Truss’s seat – would lose out by hundreds of pounds on average if real-terms benefit cuts go ahead, a study has found.

The scale of the impact of a below-inflation rise on already struggling households and by extension, local shops and businesses, is revealed in a study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF). It would amount to the biggest-ever real terms cut to benefits in a single year.

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UK trade regulators struggling to cope due to poor Brexit planning, MPs say

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Commons committee warns there are still shortages of staff to deal with UK’s new status as a third country

UK regulators are struggling to cope with the post-Brexit trading environment because of “poor preparation and planning”, a House of Commons committee investigation has found.

Almost two years after the UK quit the EU, there are still shortages of vets, toxicologists, lawyers and economists to deal with the UK’s new status as a “third country”, found the public accounts committee report, Regulating After EU Exit.

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Power giants to face windfall tax after all as Liz Truss delivers U-turn

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Prime minister accused of ‘another screeching U-turn’ having previously rejected calls to impose levy

Renewable power companies will have their revenues capped in England and Wales, after the government bowed to pressure to clamp down on runaway profits.

The announcement late on Tuesday night provoked immediate accusations that Downing Street had performed “another screeching U-turn” – having previously rejected calls to impose a windfall tax on power giants.

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The Bank of England’s lifeboat is in choppy waters with its bond buying

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Pensions hedging crisis shows how the City never seems equipped to handle the next big financial hazard

Pension funds have found themselves embroiled in a byzantine world of exotic financial trading that many of them appear to have badly misunderstood.

On Tuesday, a third rescue mission in little more than a fortnight was announced by the Bank of England, which is reprising its role in the 2008 financial crisis as the City’s lifeboat.

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British businessman charged over helping Russian oligarch evade US sanctions

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Graham Bonham-Carter was arrested after being accused of funding properties purchased by Oleg Deripaska and expatriating his artwork

A British businessman has been charged with conspiring to violate sanctions imposed by the US government on a Russian oligarch.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) said Graham Bonham-Carter was arrested on Tuesday after being accused of funding properties purchased by Oleg Deripaska and expatriating his artwork, which Bonham-Carter denies.

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Pound falls sharply against dollar after Bank confirms bond-buying end date

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Sterling falls more than a cent to below $1.10 after Andrew Bailey tells pension firms they have ‘got to get this done’

The pound has fallen sharply against the dollar after Andrew Bailey warned the Bank of England would not extend its emergency intervention in financial markets beyond this week, after the turmoil sparked by the government’s mini-budget.

Sterling skidded by more than a cent against the dollar to below $1.10 after the Bank’s governor insisted the £65bn scheme to purchase UK government bonds would not be continued beyond the deadline on Friday.

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Refugee wrongly labelled child murderer says decades of his life wasted

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Mayooran Thangaratnam fled Sri Lanka for the UK in 2003 after brutal murder of his father but was repeatedly refused asylum

A refugee who was wrongly recorded as being a child murderer by the Home Office says delays in his case have led to him wasting almost two decades of his life.

Mayooran Thangaratnam, a 41-year-old Tamil from Sri Lanka, fled to the UK in 2003 at the age of 23 and claimed asylum. He provided evidence to the Home Office from media reports that his father, a journalist who passed information to the UN about the Sri Lankan government’s persecution of Tamils, was murdered by Sri Lankan forces and that his life was also in danger.

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Starmer’s chief of staff to leave job as Labour leader unveils major party shake-up – UK politics live

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Latest updates: Labour leader hoping to put party on war footing ahead of next election

In the supreme court Dorothy Bain KC, the lord advocate, the Scottish government’s most senior law officer, is now setting out her case.

Here is the 50-page submission to the court setting our her case that was released in July.

Despite the political context of this reference, the questions the court has to decide are limited to technical questions of law. The court will decide them by applying legal principles.

The court will require time after the hearing to prepare its judgement. The hearing is the tip of the iceberg. We also have more than 8000 pages of written material to consider.

Therefore, as usual, is likely to be some months before we get our judgement.

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Keir Starmer axes chief of staff to put Labour on ‘election footing’

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Restructuring includes departure of Sam White, as party leader seeks to capitalise on slump in Tory support

Keir Starmer has announced a major shake-up of his political team, including the departure of his chief of staff, Sam White, saying Labour was being put on an immediate election footing.

Boosted by turmoil in the Conservative party and a string of hefty leads in opinion polls, Starmer said the party needed to move into the next phase of election readiness.

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Pret a Manger raises pay for second time in a year amid staff shortages

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Sandwich shop chain to increase pay by 5% for most cafe workers, with higher rates for baristas

Pret a Manger is investing £10m in raising pay, announcing its third rise in 13 months to a minimum of £10.30 an hour, as hospitality and retail businesses compete to attract workers during the busy run-up to Christmas.

The sandwich shop chain, which has more than 400 outlets in the UK, said it was increasing pay by 5% or 50p an hour for most cafe workers from 1 December. Pay for skilled baristas, who are particularly in short supply, will rise from a minimum of £10.30 to £10.85 – an extra 5p.

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Hundreds of skeletons found beneath old Pembrokeshire department store

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Archaeologists find remnants of medieval priory under former Ocky White store in Haverfordwest

The remains of more than 240 people, including about 100 children, have been discovered beneath a former department store in Pembrokeshire among the ruins of a medieval priory.

Archaeologists believe they have discovered the remnants of St Saviour’s Priory underneath the former Ocky White store in Haverfordwest, which closed in 2013.

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Cerith Wyn Evans brings his neon-lit art home to Wales

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Hepworth prize winner’s works have been shown around the world and now arrive in Llandudno

His twisty neon installations and glittering towers of light are frequently shown in some of the world’s most exclusive galleries in New York, Mexico City, Tokyo and Shanghai.

For his first major solo show in his home country of Wales, Cerith Wyn Evans’ work is on display in the traditional surroundings of a gallery built in Edwardian times in the resort of Llandudno, best known for its old-fashioned pier and seafront – and the bold goats that descended on the town during the first lockdown.

The exhibition runs until 5 February 2023.

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Supreme court urged to authorise fresh Scottish independence referendum

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UK’s highest court asked to allow Scottish parliament to resolve ‘festering issue’ without Westminster approval

The UK’s highest court has been told the question of Scotland’s independence is a “live and significant one”, and has been urged to authorise a fresh referendum next year.

Dorothy Bain KC, the lord advocate and Scotland’s top law officer, told the supreme court on Tuesday morning that Scottish voters had consistently elected MPs and MSPs who backed independence.

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No signs Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapon, says GCHQ boss

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UK spy chief says Kremlin does not appear to be engaged in preliminary steps despite Putin’s threats

The head of GCHQ has said the UK spy agency has not seen any indicators that Russia is preparing to use a tactical nuclear weapon in or around Ukraine despite recent bellicose statements from Vladimir Putin.

Jeremy Fleming, speaking on Tuesday morning, said it was one of GCHQ’s tasks to monitor whether the Kremlin was taking any of the preliminary steps needed before a tactical weapon was being made ready.

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Kwasi Kwarteng’s secret meetings with Saudi oil firms revealed

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Exclusive: Meetings while in Saudi Arabia undisclosed due to ‘administrative oversight’, says business department

The chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, held undisclosed meetings with senior executives of Saudi Arabian firms when he was the business secretary, documents acquired by the Guardian show.

The meetings occurred in January, when Kwarteng visited the kingdom for a two-day trip under his previous ministerial role.

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Truss overrules Kwarteng Treasury pick in bid to calm markets

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Veteran official gets permanent secretary role instead of reformer as fiscal plan is brought forward by three weeks

Liz Truss has overruled Kwasi Kwarteng’s top appointment at the Treasury and handed the role to a veteran Treasury official, one of a series of moves designed to calm markets and backbenchers.

It was also announced that the chancellor will set out plans to shore up the public finances three weeks earlier than planned and publish long-awaited forecasts by the Office for Budget Responsibility at the same time.

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Profumo spy had weakness for women and drink, archives reveal

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Files on Russian intelligence officer and ‘lady-killer’ Eugene Ivanov littered with reports of drunkenness

Eugene Ivanov, the Russian spy at the centre of the 1963 Profumo scandal, was a philandering alcoholic whose weakness for women and drink M15 hoped to exploit to get him to defect, but who ended up toppling the Macmillan government by chance, according to newly released intelligence files.

He arrived at the Russian embassy in London as assistant naval attache in 1960 but M15 suspected he was an intelligence officer, partly because he didn’t seem to know much about ships and also he carried an umbrella.

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Half of poorest countries have cut health spending despite Covid, says Oxfam

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Analysis of budgets finds rich nations, including UK, ‘exacerbated explosion of economic inequality’

Many of the world’s poorest countries have cut health spending during the last two years, sometimes to make debt repayments to rich creditors, according to a report by Oxfam that shows inequality between rich and poor nations worsening during the coronavirus pandemic.

Analysis of national budgets across 161 nations found that despite the biggest global health emergency in a century, half of low- and lower-middle-income countries cut health spending, while almost half cut their welfare budgets and almost three-quarters cut education spending.

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Rise in UK borrowers falling behind on mortgage payments, says Santander

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Boss says bank is putting aside more money for potential defaults linked to cost of living crisis

The boss of Santander UK says the bank is putting aside more money for potential defaults linked to the cost of living crisis after seeing a pickup in customers falling behind on mortgage and loan payments.

Mike Regnier told the Guardian that he was keeping a close eye on the “strain and pressure” facing customers as a result of the cost of living crisis, which has made it harder for some households to keep up with rising food and energy bills and financial commitments such as home loans.

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Unfunded tax cuts mean UK ‘will need £60bn spending cuts’

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IFS says Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget will leave ministers making serious reductions in public services

Kwasi Kwarteng will need to find £60bn of savings by 2026 to fill the gap left by unfunded tax cuts and the costs of extra borrowing triggered by a panicked reaction on international money markets to the chancellor’s “mini-budget”, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The UK will also struggle to hit the chancellor’s 2.5% growth target, with economic forecasts by the investment bank Citigroup that the IFS uses to underpin its analysis showing the UK will struggle to grow at more than 0.8% on average over the next five years.

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