Category Archives: UK news

Large blue butterfly numbers soar in Britain

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Endangered species enjoys best summer in 150 years thanks to habitat restoration scheme

The large blue butterfly has enjoyed its best summer for 150 years in Britain thanks to targeted restoration work, which is also benefiting other rare insects including the rugged oil beetle and the shrill carder bee.

The butterfly, which became extinct in Britain in 1979 but was reintroduced via caterpillars from Sweden four years later, flew in its greatest numbers in June this year since records began.

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Philip Hammond’s consultancy firm made almost £1m in profit

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Filings cover period ex-chancellor worked for controversial clients including Saudi government

The former chancellor Philip Hammond’s private consultancy has generated almost £1m in profits while working for controversial clients including the government of Saudi Arabia, company filings suggest.

Accounts filed this month suggest the Conservative peer has built a lucrative business since leaving government in 2019 providing “advisory services” to an array of private sector and foreign government clients.

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British Gas to donate 10% of profits to struggling customers

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Company’s owner, Centrica, says extra support will begin in autumn and last for the ‘duration of the energy crisis’

British Gas has announced it will donate 10% of its profits to help its poorer customers manage rising gas and electricity bills for the “duration of the energy crisis”.

Ahead of an expected rise in the price cap on energy on Friday, the company’s owner, Centrica, said it would donate £12m this autumn into an existing support fund. Grants of £250 to £750 would be given to poorer customers, and the pledge to donate 10% of profits every six months would last for the duration of the energy crisis “backdated to the start of 2022”, it added.

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Economists demand urgent action on energy bills to avert ‘catastrophe’

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Millions of vulnerable people will be harmed without radical policies to ease cost of living crisis, say experts

Physical and financial harm will be caused to millions of vulnerable families unless the government takes action to avert a winter catastrophe by cutting energy bills, leading economists have warned.

In the run-up to the announcement of the new energy price cap tomorrow the Resolution Foundation thinktank said radical policies such as price freezes, solidarity taxes or lower social tariffs were needed to prevent the cost of living crisis worsening.

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Sunak says it was a mistake to ‘empower scientists’ during Covid pandemic

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Ex-chancellor admits being furious about school closures, adding trade-offs of lockdowns were not properly considered by experts

Rishi Sunak has claimed that it was a mistake to “empower scientists” during the coronavirus pandemic and that his opposition to closing schools was met with silence during one meeting.

The Conservative leadership candidate believes one of the major errors was allowing the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) to have so much influence on decision making such as closing nurseries, schools and colleges in March 2020.

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GCSE results expected to confirm widening of north-south attainment gap

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Tory leadership candidates called on to commit to fixing growing regional disparities in education

This year’s GCSE results for England and Wales are expected to confirm a widening north-south education gap, prompting a prediction that the government will miss one of its key levelling-up targets if it continues to hold back pupils in the north of England.

A coalition of school leaders, charities and the Northern Powerhouse Partnership has written to the Conservative leadership candidates urging them to commit to fixing growing regional disparities in education.

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Men watch Love Island to hear women’s conversations, says ITV boss

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Show offers young men insight into female counterparts, says Kevin Lygo, as channel adds Big Brother to roster

Cynics have suggested Love Island’s popularity is built on the opportunity to watch contestants walking around a villa in swimwear. But according to ITV’s boss, the show’s real appeal for young men is the insight it offers into the mentality of women.

Kevin Lygo, who oversees ITV’s programme output, said the hit dating show allows straight men to hear conversations that they are usually excluded from.

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Emily Maitlis says ‘active Tory party agent’ shaping BBC news output

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Former Newsnight presenter says former No 10 communications chief Sir Robbie Gibb on board acting as ‘arbiter of impartiality’

Emily Maitlis has said a BBC board member is an “active agent of the Conservative party” who is shaping the broadcaster’s news output by acting “as the arbiter of BBC impartiality”.

The former Newsnight presenter highlighted the role of Sir Robbie Gibb, who previously worked as Theresa May’s director of communications and helped to found the rightwing GB News channel.

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Sacked Labour MP Sam Tarry faces reselection battle before party conference

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Supporters of former shadow transport minister who joined RMT picket lines says process fast-tracked out of ‘revenge’

The Labour MP Sam Tarry is facing an imminent reselection battle before the party conference, with his supporters accusing figures close to the leadership of fast-tracking the process out of “revenge”.

The Ilford South MP was sacked as a shadow transport minister in July after attending a picket line in support of RMT workers, but Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, later said the reason he was removed from his role was for making up policy “on the hoof” in television interviews.

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Hope not hate: England women football team enjoy positive social media posts

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Study shows female Euro players got 125 positive posts for each hate one – in contrast to abuse directed at England men

The vast majority of social media posts directed at England women’s triumphant Euro 2022 football players across a three-month period were positive, research has found.

The study of 78,141 posts on Twitter, Reddit and the imageboard website 4chan identified more than 50,000 positive posts – roughly one “hate” post for every 125 “hope” ones.

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Workers’ anger at cost of living as strong as time of poll tax riots, union boss says

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Sharon Graham, head of Unite, on picket line with Felixstowe dock strikers, says people could rise up again as they did in the 1990s

British workers are at breaking point, with anger over the cost of living crisis reaching a level not seen since the poll tax riots of the 1990s, the head of one of the UK’s most powerful trade unions has said.

Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, said frustration at pay failing to keep pace with soaring inflation was spilling over into a wave of strike action that would extend from a summer of discontent into the winter.

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Anoosheh Ashoori: London Marathon dream of Iran detainee nears reality

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British-Iranian who set goal while at notorious Evin prison says he wants ‘something good to come out of all that pain’

Serving a minimum 10-year sentence in Iran’s notorious Evin prison on spying charges, Anoosheh Ashoori, a 68-year-old British-Iranian retired engineer, knew he must find purpose if he was to avoid insanity.

He pledged that one day, when he was released, he would run the London Marathon. It was an ambitious dream, especially for a man who was not very fit and or expecting to be freed before the age of 73.

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Kenyan tea pickers on Scottish-run farm to pursue health issues in UK court

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Prolonged bending to gather tea for James Finlay Kenya is argued to accelerate ageing of pickers’ backs by up to 20 years

More than a 1,000 Kenyan tea pickers who say that harsh and exploitative working conditions on a Scottish-run tea farm have caused them crippling health complaints can now pursue their class action in an Edinburgh court.

Lawyers acting for the tea pickers have won an order from the court of session, Scotland’s highest civil court, telling James Finlay Kenya Ltd (JFK) to abandon attempts to block the suit through the Kenyan courts.

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Tories offer access to new chancellor for £3,000

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Business day at party’s autumn conference will give lobbyists and CEOs access to senior ministers, raising ethics concerns

The Tories are selling access to the new chancellor and senior ministers ​at almost £3,000 a ticket for corporate leaders and lobbyists at their autumn conference, saying it will help firms “take your business to the next level”.

The party is advertising spaces for its “prestigious” annual business day at £2,990 a head, saying it will give attenders the chance to interact with “key decision makers in the party”.

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Putin to blame for UK’s high energy bills, says Johnson on surprise visit to Kyiv

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Prime minister says while Britons face higher costs, Ukrainians are ‘paying in their blood’ for Russia’s aggression

Vladimir Putin is to blame for British people being hit by high energy bills while Ukrainian people are “paying in their blood”, Boris Johnson has said as he made a final visit to Kyiv as prime minister.

In his third visit to the country since Russia invaded in the spring, Johnson urged the international community to “stay the course” in its support for Ukraine. The outgoing prime minister also told the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, that Ukraine “can and will win the war”.

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Dutch state railway to sell Abellio in UK management buyout

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Abellio UK’s CEO Dominic Booth is understood to be leading buyout and will help fund deal using own money

The Dutch state railway is to pull out of the UK with a management buyout of its subsidiary Abellio, which runs four rail lines and a number of London bus routes.

Abellio, which for 20 years has run East Midlands Railway, Greater Anglia, Merseyrail and West Midlands Railway and employs 15,000 staff, is to be sold by the Netherlands state-run Nederlandse Spoorwegen to its UK management. The business will be operated by a new firm, to be known as Transport UK Group Limited.

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Eurotunnel passengers stranded underground for five hours

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Travellers had to leave their vehicles and walk through the emergency tunnel

Eurotunnel passengers were stranded for nearly five hours at subsea level after the train broke down beneath the Channel, leaving hundreds of passengers to be ushered to a service tunnel.

The incident happened late on Tuesday, affecting the 3.50pm Eurotunnel Le Shuttle service from Calais to Folkestone.

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Next PM could face £23bn autumn spend to cover £900 rise in energy bills

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Energy prices have soared above prediction and subsidies will require significant further spending

Ministers could face an additional £23bn price tag for covering extra household energy costs of £900 this autumn, rising to £90bn next year, a new paper by the Institute for Government has found.

The paper, looking at the options for Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak in No 10, also warned the government should plan for prolonged rises in energy bills by going a lot further in making public appeals to use less gas – for example by informing consumers about the cost savings from turning down thermostats – and in committing to building more energy efficient homes to help protect consumers.

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GCSE results will reflect varying impact of pandemic, says headteachers union

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Association of School and College Leaders predicts grades will be uneven across England and Wales due to Covid disruption

GCSE results will be uneven across the country due to the varying impact of the pandemic, according to the headteachers union, which described the government’s Covid recovery programme as “lacklustre and chaotic”.

The number of top grades at A-level fell sharply this year and a similar decline is anticipated for GCSE grades as the government seeks to reverse the grade inflation caused by teacher-assessment during the pandemic.

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TUC picks opportune moment to call for rise in minimum wage

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Analysis: £15 an hour is ‘logical next step’ amid cost of living crisis but neither Labour or Tories likely to back campaign

• Minimum wage should be increased to £15 an hour as soon as possible, says TUC

The TUC has chosen its moment well. With Britain gripped by a cost of living crisis, the umbrella body for trade unions has called for the minimum wage to be raised from £9.50 to £15 an hour as soon as possible, and by 2030 at the latest.

It is an ambitious target, as the TUC openly accepts. The minimum wage is now 64% of median earnings. A £15-an-hour minimum wage by 2030 would be 75% of median earnings, the highest of any of the 38 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development group of rich countries.

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