Category Archives: UK news

Female Labour MPs call on PM to scrap new rape victim guidance

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More than 100 MPs write to Boris Johnson saying guidance will lead survivors to avoid seeking therapy

More than 100 female Labour MPs have written to Boris Johnson calling on him to scrap new guidance on pre-trial therapy for rape victims, which they say will make it less likely they will get the vital therapy they need.

Led by the shadow attorney general, Emily Thornberry, MPs including Yvette Cooper, Angela Rayner and Jess Phillips argue that the new rules “will cause many survivors to avoid seeking therapy, and make it more likely that cases will collapse when the prolonged stress of waiting for trials becomes too much”.

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Cost-of-living crisis for councils will make levelling up a distant dream

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Analysis: after cash injections during Covid, local councils now face a world of precarity and pain

It was only a year ago that the national spending watchdog was praising the government for injecting billions into council budgets in England to help them cope with Covid-19. Ministers are never happy to splash the cash, but without it, the National Audit Office said, local government would have collapsed.

We are now in, if not quite system-failure territory, then at least a world of mass municipal precarity and pain. Rampaging inflation, fuelled by soaring energy and fuel costs, have left councils with their own cost of living crisis, and a budget hole of almost £2bn. Once again, they are asking ministers for financial help.

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Schools and libraries face huge cuts after soaring costs create £1.7bn shortfall

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Exclusive: Emergency council cuts feared across England caused by inflation and higher energy costs

School-building projects, swimming pools and libraries have been earmarked for emergency funding cuts because town halls have been hit by an unexpected £1.7bn hole in their budgets, the Guardian can reveal.

Rampant inflation and soaring energy bills mean that council leaders have been forced to rip up financial plans from a few months ago, with higher than anticipated staff pay bills also contributing to their newfound deficits. Without help from Whitehall, it will leave them no option but to cut services and put up council tax next April.

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Geidt doubles down on claims No 10 wanted to break international law

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PM’s former ethics adviser says reason given by Downing Street for his resignation was a ‘distraction’

Boris Johnson’s former ethics adviser has said the reason given by Downing Street for his resignation was a “distraction” and doubled down on claims that the government wanted to break international law.

After he dramatically quit this week, Christopher Geidt said his explanation had used too much “cautious language” leading to “some confusion about the precise cause of my decision”.

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Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner return questionnaires to Durham police

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Labour leader and deputy have promised to resign if found to have breached Covid rules by eating curry and drinking beer at event

Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner have returned questionnaires to Durham constabulary, giving their account of a gathering during last year’s local election campaign, the Labour party has confirmed.

The pair have both promised to resign if they are found to have breached Covid rules by eating a curry and drinking a beer at the event, which was caught on camera.

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Coeliac patient died after being fed Weetabix in hospital, inquiry hears

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Hazel Pearson’s condition not signposted by her bed as coroner deems Wrexham Maelor’s plan of response ‘amateurish’

An 80-year-old woman with coeliac disease died within days of being fed Weetabix in hospital, an inquest has heard.

Hazel Pearson, from Connah’s Quay in Flintshire, was being treated at Wrexham Maelor hospital and died four days later on 30 November from aspiration pneumonia. Although her condition was recorded on her admission documents, there was no sign beside her bed to alert healthcare assistants to her dietary requirements, BBC News reported.

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Government’s Rwanda asylum policy is ‘absolutely shameful’, says Lady Amos

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Labour peer who is first black member of Order of the Garter says scheme threatens to undermine UK’s global standing

Sending asylum seekers to Rwanda is an “absolutely shameful” policy that threatens to undermine Britain’s potential to lead in a changing world, the Labour peer Valerie Amos has said.

Lady Amos, who this week became the first black member of the Order of the Garter, said the scheme “sends a message” to other countries about “how seriously we take our responsibilities” to the UN’s security council and charter on refugees.

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Boris Johnson promises Ukraine UK-led troop training scheme on Kyiv visit

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PM announces programme including battle skills and counter-explosive tactics that will take place outside Ukraine

Boris Johnson has announced that the UK will oversee a new three-week training programme for Ukrainian soldiers, as he visited Kyiv for the third time this year for talks with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

The prime minister had been expected to address Conservative MPs at the Northern Research Group conference in Doncaster on Friday, but pulled out at the last minute.

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‘Frankly insulting’: Rwanda resents its portrayal in UK asylum row

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Kigali government seeks to shift narrative with managed tours of processing facilities and accommodation for deportees

Rwanda has been caught in the eye of a British political storm this week, and its officials are not happy with how the country has been portrayed.

It was preparing to welcome asylum seekers on Tuesday until a dramatic 11th-hour ruling by the European court of human rights.

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NHS to offer women in England drug that cuts recurrence of breast cancer

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Abemaciclib can improve chances of certain type of cancer not returning after surgery by more than 30%

Thousands of women in England with breast cancer are to benefit from a new pill on the NHS which reduces the risk of the disease coming back.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) has given the green light to abemaciclib, which cuts the chance of breast cancer returning after a patient has had surgery to remove a tumour.

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Rare birds’ arrival an ‘unmissable sign’ climate emergency has reached Britain

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Pushed northwards by global heating, exotic birds like the rainbow bee-eater seen nesting in Norfolk will likely become established summer visitors

Rainbow-hued bee-eaters breeding on the Norfolk coast this summer and three rare black-winged stilts fledglings in Yorkshire are an “unmissable sign” that the nature and climate emergency has reached Britain, according to conservationists.

Birdwatchers are flocking to north-east Norfolk to see the bee-eaters, a colourful rare visitor from Africa and southern Europe, after seven birds were spotted close to Cromer by a local birder.

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Election guru Lynton Crosby attending PM’s morning meetings

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Greater role for head of polling company coincides with prime minister’s shift to the right

Lynton Crosby, the election guru and businessman, has been attending Boris Johnson’s 8.30am meetings in No 10, showing he is more involved in the prime minister’s decision making than previously thought.

The Australian political strategist, whose advisory firm has represented tobacco as well as oil and gas interests, is known to have been helping Johnson remotely over his leadership woes but his involvement in the regular meetings shows he appears to have taken a much greater role than before.

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‘Boris Johnson thinks he’s honest’: Devon candidate declines to say if PM trustworthy

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Helen Hurford, Tory candidate in Tiverton and Honiton, blames media for stopping public from moving on from Partygate

The Conservative candidate in Tiverton and Honiton has blamed the media for preventing the public from “moving on” from Partygate and twice declined to say that Boris Johnson was honest.

In an interview with the Guardian, Helen Hurford acknowledged the party faced a very tight battle to retain the previously ultra-safe seat and criticised what she called the media’s “persistent regurgitating of Partygate”. Asked if she believed Boris Johnson was fundamentally honest, Hurford twice refused to say.

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Gatwick reduces summer capacity to prevent repeat of jubilee chaos

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Number of flights in August will be below pre-pandemic levels to ensure those on sale are ‘deliverable’

Gatwick airport will reduce its summer capacity to ward off potential chaos, after dozens of last-minute cancellations wrecked the travel plans of holidaymakers over the platinum jubilee and half-term holiday.

London’s second busiest airport will limit the number of daily take-offs and landings to 850 in August – about 50 more than the average in early June, but more than 10% below its pre-pandemic maximum.

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UK not on track to cut air pollution and is not informing public on air quality, NAO says

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Spending watchdog warns existing policies not enough to meet most targets by 2030

The government is not on track to cut air pollution and is not effectively informing the public about the issue, the spending watchdog has warned.

The National Audit Office (NAO) warned that existing policy measures will not be enough to meet most of the government’s air quality targets by 2030.

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No 10 refuses to say if ethics adviser will be replaced following Lord Geidt’s resignation after being put in ‘impossible position’ – live

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Boris Johnson ‘carefully considering’ whether to appoint new ethics adviser after Lord Geidt’s resignation

Ellis has finished. He has not told us anything new about why Geidt resigned.

Ellis says the powers of the independent adviser on ministers’ interests have changed.

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Grant Shapps tells rail staff not to ‘risk striking yourself out of a job’

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Unions accuse transport secretary of threats and intimidation of workers, and government of trying to make political capital out of the strike

The transport secretary has told rail staff not to “risk striking yourself out of a job”, before industrial action that will close much of the railway next week.

In a speech in which Grant Shapps said he was “appealing directly to workers” instead of unions, he claimed the strikes were “a bid to derail reforms that are critical to the network’s future, and designed to inflict damage at the worst possible time”.

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Morrisons mistakenly lists £2.50 whisky

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The retailer identified the pricing error on its website before any bottles were sold

Mark Twain reputedly said “Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whisky is barely enough”.

Online shoppers at the supermarket Morrisons came close to testing his theory when the retailer accidentally priced bottles of a Scotch whisky at just £2.50, a 93% discount from its usual price of £36.

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London state school pupils train to take on private schools at rugby fives

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Bold experiment uses sport to boost social mobility while bringing organised games to state schools

St Paul’s and Winchester are facing a new rivalry at fives – the handball game that for hundreds of years has largely been the preserve of the most rarified public schools.

Children at Stoke Newington school in Hackney, east London, are leading a new wave of state school rugby fives players who have started training to take on their privileged counterparts in matches that will reach across one of the UK’s most entrenched social divides.

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Lord Geidt letter says request from Boris Johnson put him in ‘odious position’

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Ethics adviser who quit says PM asked him to consider matter that risked deliberate breach of ministerial code

Boris Johnson placed his ethics adviser in an “impossible and odious” position by asking him to “risk a deliberate and purposeful breach of the ministerial code”, letters from the adviser show.

Johnson revealed in his reply that he had asked Christopher Geidt to consider plans by the government to continue some steel tariffs – a move that could break World Trade Organization terms – but hinted he was unsatisfied with the explanation.

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