Category Archives: UK news

Boris Johnson has left the UK economy in a parlous state

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Analysis: If Johnsonomics stands for anything, it is a lack of plan or vision to address Britain’s economic woes

Boris Johnson entered Downing Street in July 2019 with a promise. The doubters, doomsters and gloomsters were going to get it wrong again: his leadership would make Brexit a success, re-igniting an economy stalled by the divisions over Europe.

Three years later, almost to the day, he prepares to leave with the country reeling from a political implosion of his own making, and an economy teetering on the brink of recession.

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Mark Rowley appointed new commissioner of Met police

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Former counter-terrorism chief takes over as force is embroiled in crises over women, race and homophobia

Sir Mark Rowley is to become the new commissioner of the Metropolitan police, after winning the top job in British law enforcement by promising “urgent reforms” to lead the country’s biggest force out of crisis.

Rowley, 57, a former head of counter-terrorism, left the Met in 2018 and returns after time in the private sector. He was selected over the Met assistant commissioner Nick Ephgrave, the other candidate to reach the final shortlist of two.

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Tory faithful are male and grey but choice of leader is less clear cut

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Analysis: Research indicates party members are over 60, male and white, yet do not like the same candidates

The final decision on the next Tory leader ultimately falls to the party membership, after MPs vote to narrow the candidates down to two.

This means the decision on the identity of Britain’s future prime minister will be voted on by 200,000 people, more or less. And they are not just ordinary members of the public, they are fee-paying members of the party’s grassroots with their own sets of beliefs.

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Victims of Brazil’s worst environmental disaster to get day in UK courts

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Court of appeal judgment allows £5bn lawsuit against mining giant BHP by more than 200,000 victims of 2015 Mariana dam disaster

More than 200,000 victims of Brazil’s worst environmental disaster will have their case heard in a UK court, making it the largest group claim in English legal history.

The lawsuit is against the Anglo-Australian mining company BHP – one of the biggest companies in the world – for their involvement in the collapse of the Mariana dam in 2015, which released toxic mining waste down 400 miles (640km) of waterways along the Doce River. Claimants are seeking at least £5bn ($6bn) in compensation.

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Boris Johnson resigns and says no new policies until next prime minister announced – live

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Boris Johnson says all major fiscal decisions will be left to his replacement

Last night Braverman said she would stand in the Tory leadership contest when Boris Johnson goes.

When it was put to her that she did not have enough experience, Braverman did not accept that. She said she had run a government department, the attorney general’s department.

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Race to replace Boris Johnson slow to take shape amid resignation chaos

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Analysis: Suella Braverman is lone frontbencher to voice leadership plan as Rishi Sunak, Sajid Javid and others hang back

Even before Boris Johnson delivered his ill-tempered exit speech, Conservative MPs’ focus had already switched to who might succeed him – and unlike in 2019, when he had been the prince across the water for months, this time there is no obvious successor.

Rishi Sunak, who walked out of the Treasury on Tuesday within minutes of Sajid Javid quitting, had been widely seen as the frontrunner until a series of missteps, including the botched spring statement.

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No new policies under my leadership, Boris Johnson confirms

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Outgoing PM confirms no big changes of direction, including about taxation, during race to succeed him

Boris Johnson’s government will not try to implement new policies while the Conservatives choose a new leader, the prime minister has told his cabinet, deepening concerns over paralysis in the aftermath of his resignation announcement.

The prime minister, who has pledged to step aside, said he will not introduce “major changes of direction” including tax decisions over the coming weeks as Tory MPs and party members run an election for his replacement.

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Cancer spending threatened if NHS staff given 3% pay rise without extra funds

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NHS England says Treasury must cover cost as health service faces first real-terms cut in funding ‘since possibly the mid-1950s’

The NHS will have to cut investment in cancer care if ministers award frontline staff a pay rise above 3% but refuse to provide extra money to cover it, health service bosses have warned.

The NHS England chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, and Julian Kelly, its chief financial officer, made clear their belief that soaring inflation means the service’s 1.3 million staff deserve a pay award of more than the 3% the government has already given the organisation funding to cover.

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Glee in Russia and sadness in Ukraine as Boris Johnson quits

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Kremlin gloats as oligarch Oleg Deripaska welcomes end of ‘stupid clown’ but Zelenskiy pays tribute to ‘true friend’

Boris Johnson’s downfall has been met with delight and ridicule in Moscow, while in Kyiv Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed sadness at the resignation of his key ally.

Johnson, who championed weapons transfers to Ukraine in the early stages of the war and was the first leader of a G7 country to visit Kyiv in April, has emerged as a much-loved figure in Ukraine. “We all heard this news [of Johnson’s resignation] with sadness,” Zelenskiy said in a statement after the two leaders spoke by phone. “Not only me, but also the entire Ukrainian society, which is very sympathetic to you.

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MP asks if ex-KGB agent tried to arrange private Johnson and Lavrov call

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Yvette Cooper requests more details about Boris Johnson’s meeting with Alexander Lebedev in Italy in 2018

Yvette Cooper has used an urgent question in the Commons to ask if Alexander Lebedev sought to arrange a private phone call between Boris Johnson and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, during a weekend party in April 2018.

A day after Johnson admitted for the first time that when foreign secretary he had met former KGB agent Lebedev without officials present, the shadow home secretary told the Commons there were further questions raised by the trip to the party at an Italian palazzo owned by Lebedev’s son.

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‘Get exit done’: UK front pages mix incredulity with PM’s message of defiance

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Word from No 10 bunker goes out to the Tory trenches but even the diehards know that the party’s one-time hero has to go

A blood-curdling vow to fight to the death, despair among Tory grandees at the impending loss of their champion, and incredulity that Boris Johnson is still hanging on – it is all part of the mix as the UK newspapers feast on another day of high drama at Westminster.

In what it calls an “exclusive” on “Defiant Boris’s message to Tory rebels”, the Sun splashes with the headline “You’ll have to dip your hands in blood to get rid of me”. A “key ally” of the prime minister repeats the No 10 briefing line that the rebels will have to overturn the “will of the people” if they want to oust Johnson.

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Three Wimbledon security guards arrested after alleged fight on grounds

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Fight in front of fans was reportedly broken up by police with the men taken into custody and later bailed

Three of Wimbledon’s security guards have been arrested after an alleged fight between them within the grounds of the grand slam tennis tournament.

The altercation on Friday took place between guards working for Knights Group Security, the company contracted to provide security services to Wimbledon.

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FBI and MI5 leaders give unprecedented joint warning on Chinese spying

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Christopher Wray joins Ken McCallum in London, calling Beijing the ‘biggest long-term threat to economic security’

The head of the FBI and the leader of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency have delivered an unprecedented joint address raising fresh alarm about the Chinese government, warning business leaders that Beijing is determined to steal their technology for competitive gain.

In a speech at MI5’s London headquarters intended as a show of western solidarity, Christopher Wray, the FBI director, stood alongside the MI5 director general, Ken McCallum. Wray reaffirmed longstanding concerns about economic espionage and hacking operations by China, as well as the Chinese government’s efforts to stifle dissent abroad.

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How much longer can Boris Johnson refuse to budge?

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A defiant prime minister may try to hold a general election to buy himself more time

Boris Johnson already knew more of his cabinet ministers wanted him gone before he went to face his MPs at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday. Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, and Simon Hart, the Welsh secretary, had told him to quit.

But the prime minister was immovable. He pressed on with the day, determined to answer questions three hours later from select committee chairs on the price of grain in the Bosphorus and the merits of road pricing at the liaison committee.

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Michael Gove sacked ‘for disloyalty’: allies reveal how it happened

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Levelling up secretary fired several hours after urging Boris Johnson to vacate No 10

Michael Gove was sacked by Boris Johnson on Wednesday evening after telling the prime minister to quit earlier in the day.

Allies confirmed the levelling up secretary had been dismissed after a delegation of cabinet ministers told Johnson he should resign.

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Sunak and Javid in pole position if race for Johnson’s job begins

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A number of senior Tory MPs are preparing leadership bids as Johnson’s hold on power weakens

Leadership jostling kicked off among leading Conservative MPs as Boris Johnson clung to power, with departing cabinet ministers Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid the favourites, and Eurosceptic Steve Baker publicly saying he would “reflect seriously on whether to run”.

Baker, a former chair of the European Research Group who was one of the “Spartan” holdouts against Theresa May’s Brexit deal, was the second to go on the record with leadership ambitions, saying it was “accurate” that he was thinking about a bid.

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UK watchdog opens investigation into Amazon’s marketplace practices

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CMA looks into whether firm gives own sellers unfair advantage over third-party rivals

The UK competition watchdog has launched an investigation into whether Amazon has been giving its own brands and those using its logistics services unfair advantage over third-party rivals on its online marketplace.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it opened an investigation on Tuesday amid concerns the US tech corporation’s practices on its UK marketplace may be anti-competitive and could result in a worse deal for customers.

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50 Chinese students leave UK in three years after spy chiefs’ warning

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MI5 chief says Chinese communist party targeting intellectual property across west

Fifty Chinese students have left the UK in the past three years after Britain tightened its procedures to prevent the theft of sensitive academic research, the head of MI5 said in a speech about the espionage threat posed by Beijing.

Ken McCallum, the director general of the spy agency, also said that MI5 had “more than doubled” its effort against Chinese activity over the same timeframe, as part of an unprecedented joint warning with his counterpart at the FBI.

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