Presenter also admits the reason for his departure was new BBC schedule for Sunday afternoon show
Paul O’Grady thanked his listeners and said he can now “run free” as he signed off from his final BBC Radio 2 show on Sunday.
O’Grady, 67, had hosted the Sunday afternoon programme for nearly 14 years, before a schedule shake-up meant he shared the hosting role with comic Rob Beckett, swapping every 13 weeks.
Continue reading...As farms look further afield for labour, investigation finds Kent pickers saying they struggle to pay fees charged by unlicensed brokers
Indonesian labourers picking berries on a farm that supplies Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and Tesco say they have been saddled with debts of up to £5,000 by unlicensed foreign brokers to work in Britain for a single season.
Pickers at the farm in Kent were initially given zero-hours contracts, and at least one was paid less than £300 a week after the cost of using a caravan was deducted, according to payslips and other documents seen as part of a Guardian investigation.
Continue reading...Drawn to the prospect of a job abroad, people such as Banyu signed up to a language course. From there, their debts to brokers grew
Sitting in a caravan in the hot Kent countryside, Banyu’s face is etched with worry. It is July and he is less than a month into a job picking fruit at Clock House farm near Maidstone, which supplies strawberries, raspberries and other soft fruit to leading supermarket chains.
He says he arrived from Indonesia this summer £5,000 in debt to an unlicensed broker in Bali, handing over the deeds to his family home as surety. He only has a six-month visa for the picking season and is scared that the work is not as lucrative as he hoped.
Continue reading...Documentary reveals how Britain was not only involved in rape and torture but tried to suppress evidence
A former police commissioner resigned after attempts to expose rape and torture by British colonial forces in Kenya during the Mau Mau uprising were covered up, a documentary shows.
During the 1950s, Britain fought a war in Kenya against the Mau Mau, a movement that fought for independence from colonial rule. The movement was brutally suppressed through the use of widespread detention camps and systemic violence.
Continue reading...Breakthrough research could see some genetic cancers neutralised before they take hold and is already being used for people at risk
Sue Hayward was first diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2017. Doctors acted swiftly and she was given a hysterectomy followed by sessions of chemotherapy.
But her cancer returned within a year. “I carry a mutated version of a gene known as BRCA1 which makes me susceptible to breast and ovarian cancers,” said Hayward, who works at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford. “It runs in families. My mother died of cancer and we assume her mother did as well.”
Continue reading...As official drought is declared in parts of England, here are some measures to preserve and future-proof gardens
With British gardens facing record temperatures, drought and hosepipe bans, it’s time for emergency measures. It’s particularly important because during drought, additional mains water is drawn from wild sources, affecting struggling wildlife. Here are some of the things you can do.
Continue reading...Stand-up comic Red Richardson on his pedigree comedy childhood
Driving Rik Mayall around would be entertaining work for anyone, but for the young Red Richardson, the job he had in his 20s was the continuation of a childhood bond.
Mayall, who died suddenly in 2014 at the age of 56, was a near neighbour in South Devon, but he was also Richardson’s father’s close friend.
Continue reading...Analysis shows half of the most-deprived areas in England have not benefited from investment
A proposal to curb ministerial influence over the £4.8bn levelling up fund after claims of possible bias in favour of Tory seats has been rejected by the government.
Analysis has revealed more than half of the 100 most deprived areas of the country have not yet benefited from the fund. The awards are under fresh scrutiny after former chancellor Rishi Sunak told an audience in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, that he changed funding formulas to divert money from “deprived urban areas”.
Continue reading...Inside the protests taking place at the online giant which is accused of exploiting workers and awarding derisory pay offers
Amazon workers say they are working in a “sweatshop” as safety concerns and worries about the cost of living crisis have triggered walkouts at warehouses around the country.
The Observer has spoken to four staff involved in the walkouts, who work at three Amazon warehouses, including Tilbury in Essex, where protests began on 4 August. All say they will struggle to survive this winter with pay rise offers between 35p and 50p an hour – far less than the rate of inflation, which is currently at 13%.
Continue reading...Thérèse Coffey ‘set out to minimise evidence’ on studies including research into deaths of benefit claimants and help for vulnerable
Ministers have been accused of deliberately attempting to hide the impact of the government’s wide-ranging welfare reforms by concealing a range of official reports on benefits.
Thérèse Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, said she would not publish five reports or research on the benefit cap, deaths of benefits claimants, the impact of universal credit (UC), and benefit sanctions, and that she had no plans to publish two further reports on unpaid carers and work capability assessments.
Continue reading...British prime minister-in-waiting Liz Truss is said to want to appear in the fashion glossy, but she should be careful what she wishes for
Liz Truss, heavily tipped to be the next leader of the Conservative party, would like to get into Vogue. We know this because she asked the Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, how to go about it at the Cop26 climate conference last November. Sturgeon said Truss “looked a little bit as if she’d swallowed a wasp” when she told her she had made its pages twice.
“This is going to sound really up myself but I don’t mean to … I’d just been interviewed by Vogue, as you do … that was the main thing she wanted to talk to me about – she wanted to know how she could get into Vogue”, Sturgeon told an Edinburgh fringe event last week.
Continue reading...A year after the fall of Kabul, Abdullah Sayyid is in hiding, his wife has been murdered and the Home Office seems to have lost his case file
Abdullah Sayyid often thinks about the moment the Taliban broke down his door, burst inside and shot his wife. The gunmen left, but would soon redouble their efforts to kill him because of his work for the British government.
Sayyid’s wife was murdered during the chaotic aftermath of Operation Pitting, the UK’s emergency mass airlift from Kabul that began on 13 August last year.
Continue reading...Jonathan Edwards’s membership of Welsh party sends out ‘wrong message’, says Adam Price
The leader of Plaid Cymru has called for an MP who received a police caution for assaulting his wife to stand down.
Jonathan Edwards, the MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, had been suspended since July 2020 but on Thursday the party said he was being readmitted to its Westminster group.
In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women’s Aid. In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org
Continue reading...Nick Gardner bagged Cairn Gorm on Saturday, ending his quest in aid of Alzheimer’s and osteoporosis charities
An 82-year-old man said he felt “like a child on Christmas Eve” as he set out to scale the final peak in a mission to climb every Scottish Munro.
Nick Gardner embarked on the challenge in an attempt to raise funds for Alzheimer’s Scotland and the Royal Osteoporosis Society (ROS) after his wife, Janet, 84, who has since moved to a care home, developed both conditions.
Continue reading...This live blog has now closed.
London Fire Brigade has called on people to avoid barbecues during the extreme weather, following a grass fire in Hayes, west London, yesterday.
It tweeted:
Firefighters tackled another grass fire in #Hayes which damaged around 400sqm of grass and shrubland, along with some boundary fencing, a chicken coop & a shed.
Remember - don’t barbecue in parks, dispose of cigarettes properly & clear away rubbish & glass.
Continue reading...Countryfile and former Blue Peter presenter completes lineup of dancers in 2022 show, due to air in September
The Countryfile presenter Helen Skelton has been confirmed as the final contestant for Strictly Come Dancing 2022.
The 39-year-old’s participation was announced on Saturday morning by Claudia Winkleman, who co-hosts the celebrity dance show with Tess Daly, during her BBC Radio 2 show.
Continue reading...Transferring critically endangered species within Europe to broaden the gene pool is more difficult with Britain outside the EU
Breeding programmes designed to save critically endangered species are being jeopardised by Brexit, with zoos warning they are being prevented from transferring animals such as rhinos and giraffes by red tape created by the UK’s departure from the EU.
The animal health regulation was passed in 2016 before the EU referendum, but came into force in April 2021. There have been no reports that the UK dissented from the regulation.
Continue reading...Uoc Van Nguyen was one of the four Vietnamese nationals reported missing after the fire
The partial human remains of one of the four men feared dead following a fire at a mill in Oldham have been identified.
Authorities were able to identify through fingerprint analysis the remains as having belonged to Uoc Van Nguyen. Further DNA testing is still to come.
Continue reading...The writer had no idea his novel would unleash such anger and become a litmus test of freedom of expression
When Salman Rushdie wrote his novel The Satanic Verses in September 1988, he thought its many references to Islam might cause some ripples.
“I expected a few mullahs would be offended, call me names, and then I could defend myself in public,” Rushdie would tell an interviewer much later.
Continue reading...Analysis: noncommittal positions of leadership hopefuls on tackling climate crisis may be short-sighted
It’s the driest, hottest summer in 50 years, yet the Conservative leadership candidates appear to be fiddling while Britain burns.
Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have barely been asked anything about their plans for tackling the climate emergency in all their debates and hustings so far – and nor have they made it a leading campaign issue themselves.
Continue reading...