Starmer implies he didn’t tell Trump he was ‘fed up’ about his impact on rising UK energy bills – as it happened

Prime minister says conversation with US president on Thursday night focused on need for ‘practical plan’ to open strait of Hormuz

Tony Blair, the former Labour prime minister, has joined those saying the government should allow drilling for oil and gas in the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields in the North Sea.

Both applications were approved by the last Conservative government, but then overturned by a court ruling. Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, has to make a decision about the revised applications operating in a quasi-judicial capacity, which means he has to follow due process and can’t take the decision purely on political ground.

The current debate [on energy policy] is deadlocked between two incomplete responses. The government argues the answer is to accelerate Clean Power 2030, focusing on decarbonising the electricity system as quickly as possible. The opposition argues that the answer is to expand domestic oil and gas production. Both positions contain elements of truth, but neither addresses the core strategic problem: outside the power sector the UK economy remains overwhelmingly dependent on fossil fuels, and electricity is still too expensive to support mass electrification.

The UK is caught in a self-reinforcing high-cost, low-electrification trap. High electricity costs suppress demand, slowing the uptake of electric vehicles, heat pumps and industrial electrification. Weak demand growth, in turn, means that the fixed costs of the system – from networks to long-term contracts – are spread across a smaller base, keeping prices high. The result is a system that is too expensive to electrify and therefore remains dependent on fossil fuels and exposed to global shocks …

The first of these vital measures will ban anyone from possessing or publishing harmful pornography that shows incest between family members, and sex between step or foster relations where one person is pretending to be under 18.

A further amendment will criminalise the publication and possession of pornography where an adult is roleplaying as a child.

This government is uncompromising in our mission to protect women and girls online, and we have taken action to stop tech firms from publishing this abusive content.

In February, we told platforms that they must remove reported non-consensual intimate images within 48 hours.

I greatly welcome the government’s plans to fully address harmful pornographic content such as incest, step-incest and the mimicking of child sexual abuse. This content that is freely and widely available online is deeply harmful, normalising child sexual abuse and abusive relationships within families …

Today the government has answered our calls for change, and I am delighted that once again the UK is leading the way on regulating this high harm industry.

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Starbucks’s retail arm gets £13.7m tax credit even as sales increase

Credit can be used to offset future bills as full-year losses at UK division widen to £41.3m and it adds 92 stores

Starbucks’s UK retail arm received a £13.7m corporation tax credit last year, even as its sales increased 6% and it added more than 90 stores.

The credit, which can be used to offset future tax bills, comes after losses widened to £41.3m in the 12 months to the end of September – almost matching the £40m it paid in royalty and licence fees to its parent company.

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Israel’s attacks on Lebanon should not be happening, says Keir Starmer

In article for Guardian, PM also calls for Iran conflict to become watershed moment for future UK security

Israel’s continued attacks on Lebanon “shouldn’t be happening”, Keir Starmer has said on his visit to the Middle East, as he called for the Iran conflict to become a watershed moment for the future security of the UK.

In an article for the Guardian, the prime minister said the UK’s response to the crisis must involve a fundamental reset in terms of making the country more resilient, including by boosting defence and having closer links to Europe.

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Man who groomed 14-year-old girl he met on Roblox jailed for 28 months

Police say case highlights online dangers to children after Carlo Tritta pleads guilty to making indecent images

A man who obsessively groomed a 14-year-old girl he met through the online gaming platform Roblox has been jailed for 28 months.

Carlo Tritta, now 19, kept indecent images of the girl and travelled hundreds of miles from his home in Eastleigh, Hampshire in order to turn up, uninvited, at her home in Manchester.

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Sadiq Khan demands stronger action on social media ‘outrage economy’

Mayor says disinformation, including about London crime rates, is ‘eating away at basic bonds of trust’

Sadiq Khan has called on ministers to take significantly stronger action against social media companies that spread disinformation after a study showed a surge in hostile accounts posting falsehoods about London’s crime rates and integration.

In an intervention on what he called “the outrage economy”, the London mayor, who has also written to social media firms demanding change, said a lack of action could prompt more domestic terrorism by people who believe conspiracy theories they find online.

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Lidl to open 50 UK stores in year ahead – and its first pub

Almost 2,000 jobs will be created, with retailer vying to overtake Morrisons as Britain’s fifth largest supermarket

Lidl is to open 50 new UK stores in the year ahead – as well as its first pub – as it aims to overtake Morrisons as the country’s fifth largest supermarket chain.

The German-owned retailer has begun building a pub in east Belfast in response to strict local licensing laws that cap the number of premises that can sell alcohol.

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Son of British couple detained in Iran calls on Starmer to press for their release

Joe Bennett says ceasefire presents ‘very opportune moment’ to raise case of his parents, Lindsay and Craig Foreman

The son of a British couple detained in Tehran on espionage charges has called on Keir Starmer to prioritise their case in the “very opportune moment” of a ceasefire in the Iran conflict.

Lindsay and Craig Foreman, from East Sussex, were arrested while on a five-day trip across Iran in January last year and have been held in Evin prison for 15 months.

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Defence secretary reveals UK navy foiled secret Russian submarine operation in North Sea – UK politics live

John Healey says navy forced Russia to abandon activity in month-long operation

In interviews this morning Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, declined to confirm reports that a Russian warship has been escorting two sanctioned Russian ships through the English channel.

Sanctioned Russian ships carry oil being sold to fund the war in Ukraine, and the UK government recently announced that the armed forces have been authorised to board these ships in British waters to stop them.

What I can tell you is that we have given permission now for action to be taken against the Russian shadow fleet. Operational decisions then have to be taken in the right way by the military.

There are indications of the way in which not just the Russian shadow fleet is operating, but also the way in which we are seeing increased Russian threats, not just to the UK, but across Europe as well.

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Doug Allan, cameraman on David Attenborough’s Planet series, dies trekking in Nepal

Wildlife film pioneer has died aged 74 ‘immersed in nature and surrounded by friends’, his representatives have said

An award-winning wildlife cameraman renowned for his work with David Attenborough has died aged 74 while trekking in Nepal.

Doug Allan, described as a “true pioneer” of wildlife film-making, won several Bafta and Emmy awards and was principal camera operator on a number of BBC series including Planet Earth, Frozen Planet and The Blue Planet.

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UK navy foiled Russian submarines surveying undersea cables, defence minister says

John Healey says warship and aircraft forced Russia to abandon activity in North Sea in month-long operation

A British warship and aircraft tracked and monitored Russian submarines trying to survey vital undersea infrastructure in the North Atlantic, ensuring they fled the area, the defence secretary, John Healey, has said.

Speaking at a Downing Street press conference, Healey said the UK operation lasted more than a month and saw a Royal Navy warship and P8 marine patrol aircraft “track and deter any malign activity” by three Russian submarines.

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Four people die in Channel small-boat sinking

At least 42 others rescued after incident in strong currents off coast of Boulogne

Two men and two women have died after a small boat sank in the Channel between France and Britain, French local authorities have said.

They died after being swept away by strong currents while trying to board a dinghy, according to François-Xavier Lauch, the prefect of Pas-de-Calais. The dinghy was described as a taxi-boat, which travels along stretches of the northern French and Belgian coasts, picking up refugees and migrants along the shore.

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‘I’m broken-hearted’: father pays tribute to student, 21, stabbed in Primrose Hill

Finbar Sullivan, who ‘loved movies and making films’, had gone to London park to use new camera, says father

A film student who was stabbed to death in London’s Primrose Hill was a “beautiful, lovely, outgoing, loving” man, his father has said.

Finbar Sullivan, 21, was stabbed in a fight in the north London park in the early evening on Tuesday and was pronounced dead at the scene.

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Campaigners demand action to break UK’s ‘addiction’ to controversial herbicide

Use of glyphosate has risen 10-fold in 30 years, raising fears for public health

It was Scottish farmers in the 1980s who pioneered the practice of spraying glyphosate on their wheat just before harvest. Struggling in the damp glens to get their crop to dry evenly, they came up with the idea of accelerating the process by killing it a week or two before harvesting.

Glyphosate, then a revolutionary herbicide that killed everything plant-based but spared animal life, seemed perfect for the job. Soon the practice spread to wetter, colder agricultural regions around the world.

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Lebanon must be included in US-Iran ceasefire deal, Yvette Cooper to say

Foreign secretary to address City leaders in London as Israel intensifies bombing and Vance says Lebanon is not part of deal

Lebanon must be included in the ceasefire agreement between the US and Iran, the British foreign secretary is to say, as a two-week pause in the conflict hangs in the balance.

Addressing an event at the Mansion House in London, Yvette Cooper is expected to say there “must be no return to conflict” after the ceasefire announced by the US president, Donald Trump, late on Tuesday.

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Victims and bereaved families to get more time to challenge ‘unduly lenient’ sentences

David Lammy says those affected by a heinous crime cannot be expected to engage with the justice system within the existing 28-day limit

Victims and bereaved families will be given six months to challenge “unduly lenient” sentences handed to criminals, under changes announced by David Lammy.

Relatives of murder victims campaigned for the government to scrap the 28-day time limit to submit a formal request after an offender is sentenced.

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Starmer says UK wants to help with opening of Hormuz strait on Gulf visit

PM meets Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia before further visits to regional allies, who may see him as more reliable than Trump

The UK has a “job” to help reopen the strait of Hormuz, Keir Starmer has said, as Iranian reports said the key shipping route was closed again just hours after a supposed ceasefire.

The prime minister met British and local military personnel at an airbase in Taif, Saudi Arabia, at the start of what is expected to be a wider trip to Gulf allies, one billed as a mirror to his efforts to pull together a plan for how a ceasefire might operate in Ukraine.

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Man who caused gas blast that destroyed partner’s house jailed for 11 years

Paul Solway ignited explosion that damaged total of six terrace houses in Derby after his partner had kicked him out

A man who blew up a terrace house by causing gas to leak from a pipe and setting fire to a chair after his partner kicked him out has been jailed for 11 years.

Paul Solway was having a “meltdown” when he caused the explosion at his partner Joanne Waterfall’s home in Alvaston in Derby on the evening of 10 June last year.

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British crypto billionaire Ben Delo says he has given £4m to Reform UK

Delo, pardoned by Trump after violating US banking law, describes himself as champion of free speech

A British billionaire convicted in the US for failing to implement adequate anti-money-laundering controls in his cryptocurrency business has given £4m to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

Ben Delo, 42, who is now based in Hong Kong, wrote in the Telegraph that he had made the donation since the start of the year, before the government’s cap on donations to political parties by British citizens living abroad.

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‘It’s not AI, it’s real’: shock as RSPCA releases images of 250 dogs found at property

Dozens of dogs were found crammed into single living room space at property in undisclosed location in UK

More than 250 dogs have been found at a property in scenes so shocking that the RSPCA was forced to deny allegations that the images were faked by artificial intelligence.

The animal welfare charity said it took in 87 dogs from the property at an undisclosed location in the UK and the remainder went to the Dogs Trust, another charity.

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‘A step back from the brink’: European leaders welcome US-Iran ceasefire

Announcement of deal met with relief and calls for strait of Hormuz to be reopened and permanent end to hostilities

European leaders have welcomed the US-Iran ceasefire deal while calling for the reopening of the strait of Hormuz and a permanent end to hostilities, including in Lebanon.

The US and Iran agreed a two-week conditional ceasefire on Tuesday, including a temporary reopening of the strait of Hormuz, after last-minute diplomacy from Pakistan. The Israeli military said on Wednesday it was continuing “fighting and ground operations” in its war against the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, despite a statement from Pakistan that Lebanon was included in the ceasefire.

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