Category Archives: UK news

Truss and Sunak still haven’t grasped the magnitude of Britain’s cost of living crisis

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Sunak says Truss’s plan to reverse the increase in national insurance ‘won’t touch the sides’ but neither will his

Britain is facing a cost of living crisis this winter more brutal than any in living memory. Annual energy bills for the average household are set to hit £300 a month from October, almost double the current level. Spending power will be sucked out of the economy as millions of households struggle – and fail – to make ends meet. The courts will be clogged up with people prosecuted for falling behind with their payments.

That’s the situation facing the two hopefuls slugging it out to be the country’s next prime minister, yet neither Liz Truss nor Rishi Sunak yet seems to have grasped the magnitude of the problem, in public at least.

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UK braces for even higher bills as Norway threatens electricity export cut

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Water levels in southern Norway so low domestic consumers may be prioritised over international customers

British consumers could face even higher bills and potential energy shortages this winter after Norway threatened to ration electricity exports.

The UK receives hydroelectric power from Norway through a subsea interconnector cable running beneath the North Sea.

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‘Like a scene out of Jaws’: British boy attacked by sharks in Bahamas

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Finley Downer, eight, bitten on both legs by nurse sharks at Compass Cay before being pulled to safety

An eight-year-old British boy has been attacked by sharks while on holiday in the Bahamas.

Finley Downer was surrounded by three nurse sharks while swimming in a lagoon last week, his family said, before he was pulled to safety after suffering bites on both legs.

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Revealed: Met police strip-searched 650 children in two-year period

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Appropriate adults were often absent during the search, and the majority of children were innocent

The children’s commissioner for England has denounced the Metropolitan police’s record on child protection after new data revealed that 650 children were strip-searched over a two-year period and the majority were found to be innocent of the suspicions against them.

Dame Rachel de Souza said she was not convinced that the force was “consistently considering children’s welfare and wellbeing” after police data showed that in almost a quarter of cases (23%) an appropriate adult was not present during the search, despite this being a requirement under statutory guidance.

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Report upskirting and cyberflashing to the police, victims told

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CPS move comes after it was found most women don’t think some forms of harassment are serious enough to report them

Victims of street harassment such as cyberflashing and upskirting are being encouraged to report offences to police, amid concerns there is a lack of awareness that such behaviour can amount to criminality.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for England and Wales has published new legal guidance on public sexual abuse, which also includes exposure of genitals, to clarify the law and “send a clear message that this intimidating behaviour can be a criminal offence”.

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A third of UK parents cutting back on children’s pocket money

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Cost of living crisis has meant the average amount given to children has fallen to lowest level since 2001

Children’s piggy banks are paying a high price for the cost of living crisis after almost a third of parents cut back on pocket money during the last year.

The average amount that is going into the pockets of under-16s each week has dropped by 23% to £4.99 this year from £6.48 in 2021, according to research from the lender Halifax – the lowest amount since 2001.

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Universities will adjust to lower exam results in England, says minister

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Government seeks to reassure pupils taking GCSEs and A-levels after sharp rises in grades during pandemic

The government has sought to allay pupils’ fears over GCSE and A-level results, which are expected to be lower in England this summer after two years of record increases, reassuring them that universities will “adjust accordingly”.

The schools minister Will Quince said it was important to “move back to a position where qualifications maintain their value” and reassured students that grades will still be higher than in 2019, before the pandemic.

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Research on ‘molecular drills’ of skin cancer cells offers hope for treatment

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Institute of Cancer Research in London isolates gene that allows tumours to spread through the body

Skin cancer cells produce “molecular drills” to penetrate healthy tissues and spread around the body, according to research that raises the prospect of new therapies for the disease.

Researchers used robotic microscopy to capture the formation of the drills by melanoma cells that were being grown in 3D skin-like material in the laboratory.

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Two-thirds of UK’s top restaurants in the red after Brexit, Covid and inflation

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Meanwhile £700m of support funds in business rates relief remains unpaid by local councils

Debt repayments, staff shortages and rising energy bills have pushed almost two-thirds of the UK’s top 100 restaurants into the red, according to research that reveals the impact of the pandemic, Brexit and the cost of living crisis on the hospitality sector.

With a recession looming and further increases in energy bills weighing on businesses, a separate report found that £700m of business rates relief remains unpaid with only half of English councils paying out the support funds.

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London museum to return 72 Benin treasures to Nigeria

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Horniman museum is first government-funded institution to hand back artefacts looted by British forces in 1897

A London museum is to return 72 treasured artefacts, including its collection of Benin bronzes, to Nigeria in what experts described as an “immensely significant” moment.

The Horniman museum said it would transfer the ownership of the historic objects to the Nigerian government after an unanimous vote by its board of trustees.

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Equity union launches working practices charter for comedians

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Measures aim to ensure safety, pay transparency and anti-harassment and discrimination policies

The performing arts and entertainment trade union Equity has launched a comedian’s charter in an effort to ensure good working practices and the safety of performers.

Developed by the union’s comedians’ network, the measures included in the charter “will ensure pay transparency, a safe working environment, late-night safety, and anti-harassment and discrimination policies”, according to Equity.

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Penny Mordaunt denies Liz Truss is ruling out more help for poor this winter

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Truss said she would lower taxes not give ‘handouts’, but ally says future support is not off the table

A senior ally of Liz Truss has played down suggestions she ruled out more emergency support payments to help people struggling through the worsening cost of living crisis this winter.

Penny Mordaunt, who is backing the frontrunner in the Tory leadership race, said Truss’s comments had been misinterpreted and she wanted to prioritise tax cuts.

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Rare collection of bird fossils from 55m years ago donated to Scottish museum

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Collection bequeathed to National Museums Scotland includes species that are unknown to science

A remarkable collection of fossilised birds that lived 55 million years ago has been bequeathed to the National Museums Scotland (NMS) in Edinburgh and includes dozens of species that are unknown to science.

Dating from the beginning of the Eocene epoch, they represent the early stages in the evolution of modern birds.

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Truss-Sunak contest leaves Brussels pessimistic about relations with UK

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EU officials see little hope of escape from post-Brexit low under either Tory candidate

European officials are pessimistic about a reset in post-Brexit relations with the UK, whoever becomes Britain’s next prime minister in September.

Whether it is Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak who is handed the keys to Downing Street on 5 September, officials in Brussels have little hope of a rapprochement with the new government.

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Charity Commission opens compliance case into donor to the Prince’s Trust

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Move to examine the Barrowman Foundation comes amid mounting scrutiny of Charles’s charity

The Charity Commission has opened a compliance case into one of the key donors to Prince Charles’s charity after it emerged it had been funded by unsecured loans.

The Barrowman Foundation, a platinum donor to the Prince’s Trust, has not recorded any donations in its published accounts since it was set up and is funded by borrowings from its founder, the businessman Doug Barrowman.

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‘Zombie government’: more than half of departments delay key decisions

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As an economic crisis looms in the UK, legislation shelved and deadlines missed on energy, online safety and gambling laws

Mining along the west coast of Cumbria goes back to at least the 1600s, and this summer the local community awaited a crucial government decision on whether a new deep coalmine operation would be given the go-ahead.

While proponents of the £165m deep coalmine near Whitehaven say it would create jobs and help power the UK’s steel industry, environmental campaigners say it would undermine the government’s commitment to meeting climate targets.

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‘Shameful’: Afghans who helped UK abandoned to a life of fear under the Taliban

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Home Office accused of failing to ensure safety of thousands including teachers and translators

Thousands of Afghans who worked for the UK have been abandoned and remain at risk from the Taliban a year after the evacuation from Kabul, a coalition of human rights groups has said.

In a parliamentary briefing, nine expert groups on Afghanistan criticised the British government’s resettlement schemes as “unjustifiably restrictive”. They said it was deeply concerning that the government is currently not offering a safe route for many Afghan women and girls or to oppressed minority groups.

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Spider crabs swarm in shallow waters on Cornish beach

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Rising sea temperatures caused by climate crisis create unusual phenomenon in St Ives

Thousands of venomous crabs converged on the beaches of Cornwall due to rising sea temperatures caused by the climate crisis.The migratory creatures swarmed in the shallow water in St Ives, shedding their shells before returning to depths of up to 300ft.

The crustaceans are instantly recognisable for their long legs and pincers and have a venomous bite that is poisonous to their prey but harmless to humans.

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Tory party’s lurch to right ‘painful’ to watch, says Rory Stewart

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Former minister also argues Britain should move beyond first-past-post political system at Edinburgh festival fringe

Former Foreign Office minister Rory Stewart has said he has found it “painful” to watch the Conservative party “lurch to the right”, arguing that electoral reform is the only way to plug a “gaping hole in the middle of British politics”.

Speaking to an audience at the Edinburgh festival fringe, Stewart said a shift away from the UK’s first-past-the-post system was needed so “new parties, new ideas, new opportunities” could break through.

He said this would be an important corrective to a “wooden, stiff and boring” Labour party and a Conservative party in “la-la-land”.

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Gordon Brown: ‘Set emergency budget or risk a winter of dire poverty’

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Former PM has warned of a financial timebomb awaiting families as Labour plans a major intervention to address crisis

Boris Johnson and the Tory leadership candidates should agree an immediate emergency budget tackling the spiralling cost of living, Gordon Brown has said, or risk “condemning millions of vulnerable and blameless children and pensioners to a winter of dire poverty”.

The intervention by the former prime minister comes as new figures seen by the Observer show that more than 4 million households are on course to spend a quarter of their net income on energy.

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