Category Archives: UK news

Labour urges spending watchdog to assess impact of chancellor’s £21bn package

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Shadow Treasury secretary asks Office for Budget Responsibility to examine Rishi Sunak’s emergency cost of living measures

Labour has called for an independent assessment of whether Rishi Sunak’s £21bn cost of living emergency package could cause inflation to rise even higher and a verdict on the fiscal impact of substantial borrowing.

Pat McFadden, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, wrote to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to ask it to analyse the impact of the measures.

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Coffee drinkers may be at lower risk of early death, study suggests

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Even people who take sugar seem at lower risk, say experts, but results may be due to coffee drinkers being more affluent

People who drink coffee – whether with or without sugar – appear to have a lower risk of an early death, although experts caution the finding may not be down to the brew itself.

About 98m cups of coffee are drunk every day in the UK, according to the British Coffee Association, with the National Coffee Association revealing that in the US the figure is about 517m cups.

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Hinkley Point B owner says it will not extend life of nuclear plant

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EDF Energy tells staff reactors will be shut down in summer despite concerns of blackouts later this year

The owner of one of the UK’s six nuclear power plants has said it will not extend its life beyond a planned shutdown in summer, despite officials raising concerns over the danger of blackouts in the months that follow.

The French-owned EDF Energy sent a memo to staff on Monday in which it said it would not postpone the closure of the two reactors at Hinkley Point B in Somerset, which are scheduled to be shut down on 8 July and 1 August.

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Johnson’s lurch to the right adds to momentum for leadership vote

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Several Tory MPs believe the 54-letter threshold has been reached and that a challenge to PM could be mounted as soon as next week

Boris Johnson’s lurch to the right after Partygate is fuelling even more anger among rebel Tory MPs, with momentum now building for a leadership challenge next week.

Conservative whips spent the first day of recess anxiously phoning round the parliamentary party to shore up support for the prime minister, as three more MPs called on him to resign, including Jeremy Wright, the former attorney general.

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Blair and former PMs should not act as political ‘figureheads’, says Ed Balls

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Ex-Labour minister tells Hay festival that the involvement of former leaders in the ‘next phase of politics’ may not be sensible

Ed Balls has said former prime ministers such as Tony Blair and David Cameron should not attempt to return as “figureheads for the next phase of politics”.

The former cabinet minister’s comments addressed Blair’s upcoming Future of Britain conference, which is seen as an attempt to reinvigorate centrist politics in the UK by taking inspiration from the success of La République En Marche, the recently created centre-left party that brought Emmanuel Macron to power in France.

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Shropshire records 3.8-magnitude earthquake

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Earthquake on Monday was third quake with a magnitude of greater than two to hit UK within 24 hours

A 3.8-magnitude earthquake has been recorded in the centre of Shropshire, the third quake to hit the UK within 24 hours.

The British Geological Survey (BGS) said the earthquake hit just to the east of the town of Wem at a depth of 7km (4.35 miles) at 2.36pm on Monday.

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UK about to deport up to 30 Kurdish asylum seekers to Iraq despite dangers

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Foreign Office warns against all travel to the country where Islamic State is still a threat

Up to 30 Kurdish asylum seekers are facing deportation to Iraq in the first Home Office flight of its kind for a decade.

Iraq is deemed to be so dangerous that the Foreign Office warns against all travel there, warning of “a high threat of kidnapping throughout the country including from both Daesh [Islamic State] and other terrorist and militia groups”.

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G7 countries to stop funding fossil fuel development overseas

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Ministers from world’s biggest economies reach agreement that could shift estimated $33bn a year to clean energy sources

The world’s biggest economies are to stop funding any overseas fossil fuel development from the end of this year, in a move likely to choke off some of the investment in “carbon bombs” that are imperilling efforts to meet the world’s climate targets.

The agreement could shift about $33bn (£26bn) a year from fossil fuels to clean energy sources, according to analysts’ estimates.

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Visa scheme for graduates from top 50 non-UK universities is launched

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‘High potential individual’ route will allow eligible individuals to come to Britain without a prior job offer

Graduates from the world’s top 50 non-UK universities can apply to come to Britain through a new visa scheme.

Ministers hope the “high potential individual” route, which launches on Monday, will attract the “brightest and best” at the beginning of their careers to work in the UK.

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‘Same nightmare week after week’: UK firms fed up with post-Brexit EU trade

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Exporters fear Northern Ireland protocol row will spur trade war with Brussels, making an already difficult job even harder

Mark Brearley is still frustrated by Brexit. More than a year from Britain’s formal withdrawal from the EU, on terms agreed by Boris Johnson’s government, exporting the goods his company produces hasn’t got any easier for the London-based manufacturer.

Describing it as “the same nightmare week after week”, he says: “A lot more time is spent with things going wrong. The EU really feels like the hardest place in the world to ship things to sometimes.”

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Longer work visa could tempt more foreign students to UK, survey finds

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Chancellors urge review of two-year visas as overseas graduates say three-year offer would be more attractive

International students would be more likely to consider studying in the UK if they were allowed to stay and work for three years instead of two, a survey suggests.

Foreign students have been able to stay on and work in the UK for two years after completing their course since 2019, when the government reinstated the two-year post-study work visa after years of pressure from universities.

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Ukrainian MP urges west to supply long-range rockets or risk Russian victory

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Kira Rudik says on visit to UK that without further military help Ukraine will fail to push back invaders

A Ukrainian MP visiting Britain has urged the west to supply long-range rockets to her country – and warned without further military help her country risked deadlock or defeat in its war against Russia.

Kira Rudik, the leader of the opposition liberal Golos party, said she was afraid of the three-month long war “becoming the new normal” and that the west would not supply the Nato-standard weapons Ukraine needed to push back the invaders.

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Top British diplomat’s husband pokes fun at New Zealand’s ‘crappiest fountain’

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Tweet about Wellington water feature drew light-hearted responses from MPs and the public, with one saying: ‘There’s a fine line between iconic and crap’

The husband of New Zealand’s British high commissioner has announced his loathing of the Wellington bucket fountain, a well-known and polarising water feature that graces the centre of the nation’s capital.

Toby Fisher, husband of British commissioner Laura Clarke, tweeted: “After 4 years in Wellington, it’s time to be straight with you all, this is the crappiest fountain ever.”

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Medical research stalled as NHS focuses on small number of trials, experts say

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Report outlines ‘research waste’ that occurred during the pandemic, with weakly designed trials exposing millions to unproven treatments

Government efforts to focus NHS resources on a smaller number of well-designed clinical trials could inadvertently be contributing to a backlog of stalled medical research, and result in some important trials being scrapped, researchers say.

Their warning comes as a report outlines the scale of “research waste” that has occurred during the pandemic, with rampant duplication of scientific efforts and weakly designed clinical trials exposing millions of patients to unproven treatments, with little scientific benefit.

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Most small firms fear long-term fallout from UK’s cost of living crisis

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Half worry rocketing prices will cut spending, while three in four fear long-term damage to businesses

Three-quarters of small and medium-sized companies are worried about the long-term impact the cost of living crisis, soaring energy bills and rising inflation will have on their business, a survey has found.

Just over half (51%) of SMEs said they were concerned that rocketing prices would dent consumer spending, in response to Barclays’ SME Barometer, a quarterly survey of business sentiment conducted for the bank.

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Holidaymakers face queues, cancellations and delays

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Rebounding demand and a string of last-minute flight cancellations have compounded half-term travel woes

Holidaymakers are facing flight cancellations and the prospect of delays on the road as half-term starts and the UK gears up for an extended bank holiday weekend.

The June half-term traditionally heralds the start of the summer tourist season, and this year comes amid rebounding consumer demand for leisure breaks following the relaxation of UK Covid travel restrictions.

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More than 1m trips made on central section of Elizabeth line

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Newly completed Crossrail project has also seen more than 2m journeys across the entire network, Transport for London says

More than 1m journeys have been made on the central section of London’s Elizabeth line in the first five days of its opening.

Across the entire railway – which spans from Reading and Heathrow in the west to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east – more than 2m trips have been made, Transport for London said.

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Jacqueline Wilson: my mother slept with a gun under her pillow

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Children’s author says she told her elderly mother to get rid of it as she was terrified of being mistakenly shot

The children’s author Dame Jacqueline Wilson has said her elderly mother slept with a gun beneath her pillow.

Wilson, creator of the Tracy Beaker series, told an audience at the Hay festival in Wales that she was daughter of a character more colourful than any she had written – and that she was terrified her mother might shoot her by accident, and persuaded her to get rid of it.

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Liverpool fans liken ‘terrifying’ treatment in Paris to Hillsborough

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Witnesses say they feared for their lives as French police fired teargas into the crowds ahead of Champions League final

Families affected by the Hillsborough disaster have compared the “terrifying” treatment of Liverpool fans at the Champions League final to the crush that led to the deaths of 97 supporters in 1989.

Witnesses described seeing children “trembling with fear”, and adults scared for their lives, as French police fired teargas into crowds outside the Stade de France in Paris on Saturday night.

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Minister disputes claims No 10 pushed Sue Gray to dilute Partygate report

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Brandon Lewis ‘absolutely confident’ investigation was independent and she was not lobbied to alter details

A senior minister has disputed claims Sue Gray was pressured to water down her report into law-breaking parties across Westminster, saying he is “absolutely confident” the investigation had been entirely independent.

Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland secretary, dismissed suggestions that senior figures in Downing Street pushed for detail about the so-called “Abba party” in Boris Johnson’s flat during lockdown and staff members’ names to be stripped out.

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