Category Archives: UK news

So, Prince Harry’s memoir is done – but what’s likely to be in it?

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Ghostwritten book, with interviews conducted mostly during ‘peak rage’, expected to be published by end of year

The manuscript is, reportedly, written; the ink now dry. Publication is said to be on course to capitalise on the lucrative Christmas market.

Few crumbs, if any, of the contents of the Duke of Sussex’s much-anticipated memoirs have so far emerged. “It’s juicy, that’s for sure,” one source told the Page Six website, with another adding: “There is some content in there that should make his family nervous.”

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Rupert Murdoch’s flagship Australian newspaper deletes story on sex life of British royal

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The Australian’s online youth section, The Oz, published salacious gossip about a royal based on an unverified online rumour site

It is known as the most conservative newspaper in Australia but on Friday Rupert Murdoch’s national masthead ventured into the surprising territory of highly salacious and unsubstantiated gossip about the British royal family.

Minutes after the Guardian asked the editor-in-chief of the Australian, Christopher Dore, to comment on why the unusual article purportedly about a royal’s sex life had been published, it was taken down.

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Foreign Office admits multiple errors in UK’s exit from Afghanistan

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Officials say they can not provide hope of resettlement for Afghans who worked for UK civilian schemes

The UK Foreign Office has admitted a catalogue of errors over its handling of Britain’s exit from Afghanistan, but has shut the door on many Afghans who helped the UK prior to the Taliban takeover last August, saying it will not provide false hope that they will be given the chance to come to the UK.

Foreign Office officials say it is difficult to judge whether Afghans who worked on UK-funded civilian schemes, such as the British Council, are truly in danger from the Taliban, saying the evidence is that the threat primarily applies to those who provided security support to the UK.

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Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss facing Tory members in Leeds for first official leadership hustings – UK politics live

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Leadership rivals bid to win members’ support in foreign secretary’s home town

Drug-related deaths in Scotland fell by nine in 2021, according to the latest figures released by National Records of Scotland, the first decrease since 2013 but falling well short of the significant reduction that campaigners are calling for.

The latest figure of 1,330 is still the second highest annual total on record, and Scotland continues to have by far the highest drug death rate recorded by any country in Europe and five times the rate in England.

We’ve had a raft of reports, policies and strategies that say what needs to change, and families are more likely to be included round the table, but it’s much harder to track their influence on the ground. We don’t understand what’s getting in the way of good words becoming good deeds.

1,330 of our fellow Scots have died entirely preventable deaths and we should not be celebrating this as an achievement ... The solutions are no secret. We need action, not reports with recommendations that are never implemented.

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Tavistock gender identity clinic is closing: what happens next?

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Analysis: as NHS shuts London clinic for young people, new regional hubs are planned – but thousands remain on waiting lists

When the Gender Identity Development Service for Children and Adolescents (GIDS) at the Tavistock and Portman NHS trust in London was established in 1983, it was a different era in terms of the medical understanding of gender dysphoria and the cultural debate around appropriate treatments for transgender young people.

The demand for the service was unrecognisable for what it is today: in the past decade alone, the number of referrals to the GIDS went from 138 in 2010-11 to 2,383 in 2020-21.

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Slough could raise council tax by 20% and be forced to sell off thousands of assets

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Local government minister describes scale of financial challenge as ‘unprecedented’

A bankrupt local authority could have to raise council tax by 20% a year and will be forced to sell off thousands of homes and other assets under “unprecedented” plans imposed on it after it ran up catastrophic debts amid overspending running into hundreds of millions of pounds.

The scale of the financial and management chaos at Labour-run Slough council is revealed in a stark report by a team of government commissioners sent in to run the authority after it declared effective bankruptcy a year ago.

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Solemn sentencing is no circus as cameras enter English courts

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Analysis: viewers stand to gain an insight into judges’ decision-making at a time when transparency is being reduced elsewhere

Almost 100 years after a ban on cameras in criminal courts was enshrined in law, the first broadcast from an English crown court went out on Thursday and is likely to have left many viewers asking: “Why has it taken so long?”

Resistance in the past has often been motivated by fears that allowing in cameras could risk turning cases into the sort of media circus seen around high-profile US trials such as that of OJ Simpson or, albeit a civil case, the recent Johnny Depp v Amber Heard defamation proceedings.

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Up to 70 Labour MPs may join pickets as Starmer faces test of party unity

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Union source claims MPs will join BT staff on Friday despite Labour leader’s call for frontbenchers to stay away

Up to 70 Labour MPs could join union picket lines on Friday as Keir Starmer faces a renewed battle to maintain party unity over support for striking workers.

One shadow minister was believed to be considering joining a Communication Workers Union (CWU) picket line as thousands of BT staff began two days of strikes over pay, which would set up a fresh potential conflict with the Labour leader’s office.

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Taxpayers left with £421m bill after one in 12 firms default on Covid loans

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About 8% of borrowers – 130,000 firms – have so far failed to repay government-backed emergency loans

Taxpayers have been left to foot a £421m bill to cover soured Covid debts, after one in 12 businesses defaulted on state-backed emergency loans distributed at the height of the pandemic, official figures reveal.

In the first set of figures detailing the performance of government-backed loans offered to struggling firms during the outbreak, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said about 8% of 1.6m borrowers – roughly 130,000 – failed to repay their debts as of March this year.

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Shock in Cardiff after ‘poisoning’ of father and son in Bangladesh

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Rafiqul Islam, 51, and Mahiqul, 16, found dead with three unconscious relatives while on two-month visit

Police investigating the apparent poisoning of a British family of five on holiday in Bangladesh, which killed a father and son, are hoping the survivors could hold the key to what happened.

Rafiqul Islam, 51, a taxi driver from Cardiff, and his son, 16-year-old Mahiqul, along with three other members of their family, were discovered unconscious in a locked room by police officers on Tuesday.

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Calls for Ukrainians living on cruise ship in Scotland to be quickly rehoused

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MS Victoria is temporary solution to host refugees but there are concerns about small rooms and seasickness

Ukrainian refugees staying on a cruise ship docked in Edinburgh must be moved to more suitable accommodation within days, welfare groups have said, as those onboard already report concerns about small rooms and feeling seasick.

The first arrivals of mainly women and children displaced by the war in Ukraine boarded the MS Victoria passenger ship earlier this week. Chartered by the Scottish government, it is expected to host up to 1,700 people and is a temporary solution to a growing accommodation crisis, which earlier this month prompted the government to pause its Ukrainian refugee sponsorship scheme for three months.

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Truss vows to outlaw street harassment as Sunak pledges ban on ‘downblousing’

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Tory leadership hopefuls set out plans to tackle violence against women and girls, as Labour’s Stella Creasy welcomes Truss U-turn

Liz Truss has vowed to make street harassment a crime months after a similar move was blocked by Boris Johnson, while Rishi Sunak pledged to outlaw “downblousing” – taking a photo down a woman’s top without consent.

Both Tory leadership candidates set out plans to tackle violence against women and girls, which has been the focus of a longstanding campaign by opposition MPs and feminist activists, especially after the killings of women including Sarah Everard, Sabina Nessa and Zara Aleena.

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Chris Bryant to say sorry to billionaire over money-laundering claims

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Labour MP will make court apology to financier Christopher Chandler over Commons comments he later tweeted

The Labour MP Chris Bryant is to make a formal court apology to a billionaire financier he accused in parliament of money laundering, after being sued for repeating the claims in a tweeted letter.

In a highly unusual legal case, Bryant was taken to court by Christopher Chandler, a New Zealand-born investor and co-founder of a London-based thinktank, over comments initially made during a debate in the House of Commons in 2018, during which another MP accused Chandler of links to Russian intelligence

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Archie Battersbee: family given 24 hours to appeal against decision to end life support

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Extension is to enable parents of boy, 12, to make application to European court of human rights

The parents of a 12-year-old boy, who doctors have said is showing “no signs of life”, have been granted a further 24 hours to appeal against a decision to end his life support treatment.

The extension is to enable Archie Battersbee’s parents to make an application to the European court of human rights (ECHR) but they said their preferred option is to take the case to the United Nations convention on the rights of people with disabilities (UNCRPD).

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‘She’s delusional’: Roundhay voters on Tory leadership contender Liz Truss

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As Leeds prepares to host hustings, residents of leafy suburb where Truss grew up take issue with her claims about the area

As Leeds prepared to host the first of the Conservative leadership regional hustings on Thursday evening, people who grew up alongside candidate Liz Truss have found much to disagree with her on.

Truss went to Roundhay school, an Ofsted “outstanding” comprehensive in the leafy suburb in the north of the city. She caused outrage and indignation among local leaders with her comments about her former school, which she said “let down” children.

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Unions issue threat of UK general strike as rail crisis grows

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Aslef members voted for action in August, while the RMT chief, Mick Lynch, is calling for a general strike

Unions warned the UK could face a general strike this year as rail workers voted for fresh action set to intensify a summer of industrial unrest.

The vote for further transport strikes came as Keir Starmer sacked shadow transport minister Sam Tarry who conducted broadcast interviews alongside striking RMT workers at Euston station – a move that is likely to increase divisions between Labour and trade unions.

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UK scientists take ‘promising’ step towards single Covid and cold vaccine

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Francis Crick Institute in London says area of spike protein of Sars-CoV-2 could form basis of jab against variants and common cold

Scientists have made a “promising” advance towards developing a universal coronavirus vaccine to tackle Covid-19 and the common cold.

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute in London have discovered that a specific area of the spike protein of Sars-CoV-2 – the virus that causes Covid-19 – is a good target for a pan-coronavirus jab that could offer protection against all the Covid-19 variants and common colds.

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Morad Tahbaz has been freed from jail in Iran on electronic tag, UK says

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Foreign Office confirms British-Iranian man is at home in Tehran and officials are working to free him permanently

Morad Tahbaz, the British-Iranian man held in a Tehran prison, has been released on an electronic tag, the UK Foreign Office has confirmed.

He had been due to be released on a tag at the same time as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori were allowed to return to the UK in March, but he was only allowed to return to his mother’s home in Tehran for a few days before he was sent back to Evin prison.

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Train strikes: millions across Britain face rail disruption as union action begins – live

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Some 40,000 workers from 14 train companies and Network Rail are striking in an ongoing dispute over pay, jobs and conditions

Here’s the latest TfL update:

Bakerloo — Part suspended. There is no service between Queen’s Park and Harrow & Wealdstone.

I’m looking at banning strikes by different unions in the same workplace within a set period. We should also place an absolute limit of six pickets at points of Critical National Infrastructure, irrespective of the number of unions involved, and outlaw intimidatory language.

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Grant Shapps rules out meeting with rail unions as strikes halt most trains

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Shadow minister defying Labour leadership to stand on picket line says lives are at stake

Grant Shapps has escalated the government’s confrontation with the rail unions by ruling out meeting with them, as a shadow minister said “lives could be lost” if wages did not improve.

Labour’s Sam Tarry defied his party leadership to stand on the picket line at Euston on Wednesday morning while rail strikes disrupted travel for millions.

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