Category Archives: UK news

Family of man who died in Taser incident call for inquiry into Met to be widened

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Family of Oladeji Omishore allege police failed to correct reports he was armed with screwdriver

The family of a man who died after falling into the Thames after police repeatedly fired a Taser at him have called for an investigation into alleged misinformation put out by Scotland Yard.

Oladeji Omishore, 41, clashed with officers on Chelsea Bridge, west London, just after 9am on Saturday 4 June. The Met said they were called to reports of a man clutching a screwdriver who was causing a disturbance.

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Brexit: unilateral action on NI protocol ‘not conducive’ to trade deal, warns US

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Exclusive: officials’ comments put paid to idea displeasure with UK is limited to Irish caucus on Capitol Hill

The US government has warned that Boris Johnson’s move to unilaterally axe some of the Northern Ireland Brexit arrangements protocol was a matter of continuing concern and “not conducive” to a trade deal.

Senior officials have hit back at suggestions that the lack of public commentary by the Biden administration meant it was not troubled by the move to bring in new laws to ditch part of the Brexit deal signed in 2020.

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Joe Lycett standup joke investigated by police after complaint

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Comedian says he was asked to explain context of gag to investigating officers, and will keep it in his show

The comedian Joe Lycett has said he was investigated by the police after an audience member made a complaint about a joke in one of his shows.

In a post on Instagram, he revealed that he was asked to explain the context of the gag and that the authorities have now closed the case.

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Brexit is making cost of living crisis worse, new study claims

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EU withdrawal fuelling higher import costs and costing British workers nearly £500 a year, says Resolution Foundation

Britain’s cost of living crisis is being made worse by Brexit dragging down the country’s growth potential and costing workers hundreds of pounds a year in lost pay, new research claims.

The Resolution Foundation thinktank and academics from the London School of Economics said the average worker in Britain was now on course to suffer more than £470 in lost pay each year by 2030 after rising living costs are taken into account, compared with a remain vote in 2016.

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No 10 to set out sweeping plans to override power of Europe’s human rights court

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Proposal to replace Human Rights Act with bill of rights is effort to make government ‘untouchable’, say critics

Downing Street will tomorrow set out sweeping plans to override the power of Europe’s human rights court just days after a judge in Strasbourg blocked the deportation of asylum seekers from Britain to Rwanda.

The abolition of the Human Rights Act (HRA), including reducing the influence of the European court of human rights (ECHR), will be introduced before parliament in what the government described as a restatement of Britain’s sovereignty.

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SNP orders sexual harassment complaints review after ‘falling short’

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Party’s Westminster leader faced calls to resign after leak of comments supporting suspended former chief whip Patrick Grady

The SNP has launched an external review into the support available to staff after an MP accused her party of “clearly falling short” of supporting sexual harassment complainants.

It follows the party’s former Westminster chief whip Patrick Grady being suspended from the SNP’s Westminster group for a week, as well as being suspended from parliament for two days, over a sexual advance towards a teenage staff member in 2016.

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Evidence exists that PM tried to get top job for Carrie Johnson, says source

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Growing call for inquiry over claims that Boris Johnson tried to secure Foreign Office role for then girlfriend

Correspondence exists confirming that Boris Johnson attempted in 2019 to secure a senior role for his then girlfriend, Carrie Johnson, at the Foreign Office, a source has said, amid growing calls for an inquiry.

The source, who worked with Johnson at the time, said Carrie Johnson – now the prime minister’s wife – had never progressed as far as formally applying for the role.

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Labour frontbenchers likely to be disciplined for joining rail pickets

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At least five MPs defy Keir Starmer’s orders and tweet pictures of themselves with RMT strikers

Keir Starmer is expected to discipline at least five Labour frontbenchers who defied his orders and appeared on RMT picket lines on Tuesday in solidarity with striking railworkers.

On the first of three days of industrial action, the Labour leader had instructed his team not to appear alongside striking workers, in order to show “leadership”, amid fears of Labour being portrayed by the Tories as responsible for the RMT’s walkout.

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Train strikes: transport secretary claims biggest rail walkout in 30 years is ‘a stunt’ – live updates

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Grant Shapps says government will not get involved in solving rail dispute as commuters face massive disruption on UK railways and London Underground

Guardian North of England editor, Helen Pidd, is reporting on the rail strikes from Manchester, where pedestrians have been wishing strikers luck as they pass.

On Monday, Boris Johnson responded to the biggest rail strikes in a generation with plans to break the industrial action by allowing firms to bring in agency staff, a move unions have decried as unworkable, unsafe and potentially breaking international law.

There aren’t any agency staff – we have seen that in other industries.

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Boris Johnson suggests he is digging in on rail strikes, telling cabinet they must ‘stay the course’ – live

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Prime minister signals he will not give in to RMT demands and says rail reforms must be pushed through to cut costs for commuters

In interviews this morning Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, reaffirmed the government’s intention to change the legislation to allow firms to use agency workers to fill in for staff who are on strike. (See 11.14am.) As we report in our overnight lead on the strike, Whitehall sources say No 10 and the Cabinet Office are pushing for this, rather than the business department.

Yesterday the TUC and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) put out a joint statement opposing the idea “in the strongest possible terms”. They said it was unworkable.

I don’t know how bringing in untrained, non-safety critical, inexperienced workers into a dangerous environment like the railway - with high speed trains, there are high voltage distribution systems, there are rules and regulations that have the power of statute - how that will help anyone, whether they are a passenger or a worker or manager or whatever?

I don’t see how the use, the deployment of students or people who have got no work experience that are working for an agency will help anyone to resolve this situation, so as usual [Grant Shapps is] just spouting nonsense given to him from some policy unit which doesn’t help to resolve the situations which are in front of us.

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Post Office IT scandal victims may be disqualified from compensation scheme

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At least 170 wrongly accused branch managers told they may not be repaid because they missed deadline

Scores of post office operators wrongly accused of embezzlement by the Post Office due to faulty accounting software, may be disqualified from a dedicated compensation scheme.

At least 170 branch managers have been told that they may not be repaid money wrongly deducted from their wages in what has been described as “the biggest miscarriage of justice in UK history” because they were unaware of the scheme, which was launched for just three months during the 2020 lockdown.

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Tooting taxis and no Greggs queue: Manchester calm as rail strikes begin

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While picketers receive support, it’s quiet on the roads, and the train to Preston is running late as usual

Assembling their picket line outside Manchester Piccadilly station at 6am on Tuesday, the striking rail workers wondered if they would receive a hostile reaction from those inconvenienced. But instead of abuse they received toots of support from passing buses and taxis, while cyclists rang their bells.

“Passengers who use our railways day in, day out support us. They know that most of us are not on the inflated wages you see thrown about by rightwing commentators and newspapers,” said Clayton Clive, the RMT branch secretary for Manchester. About 950 of his 1,500 members had downed tools for the day, he said, a turnout of 63%.

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Fire breaks out at high-rise block near Grenfell Tower in west London

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Firefighters extinguish blaze on 12th floor of building in Shepherd’s Bush as a number of patients treated

Firefighters and parademics attended a fire at a high-rise block in Shepherd’s Bush, west London, less than a mile from the site of Grenfell Tower.

London fire brigade said eight engines and about 60 firefighters were at the scene of the tower block in Queensdale Crescent on Tuesday morning. The brigade said half of a flat on the 12th floor was on fire.

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Shadow ministers urge Starmer to start picking new candidate for Corbyn’s seat

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At least two frontbenchers have said Labour should not support former leader’s candidacy at next election

Shadow cabinet ministers have privately urged Keir Starmer to draw a line under Jeremy Corbyn’s suspension from Labour and allow the party to begin the process of selecting a new candidate in Islington North.

The Guardian has learned of at least two Labour frontbenchers who say they have counselled for the party to inform Corbyn the party would no longer be prepared to support his candidacy at the next election.

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MP whose murder sparked Irish civil war to get Commons plaque

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Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson was assassinated by IRA gunmen 100 years ago and then all but forgotten

On 22 June 1922 Sir Henry Wilson, an army field marshal turned MP, unveiled a plaque to railway employees who had died in the first world war before returning to his stately home in Belgravia, central London.

He was a distinctive figure – tall, in uniform, with a facial scar that had earned him a nickname as the “ugliest man in the British army”.

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Visa delays leave UK families with adopted babies stranded in Pakistan

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Home Office accused of leaving mothers and traumatised children stranded for months while priority is given to Ukraine refugees

British couples who travelled to Pakistan to adopt children have been left stranded after the Home Office told them to expect months of delays in processing visas because of the Ukraine refugee crisis.

The delays are part of wider failings in visa processing that have left families around the world stuck waiting to return to the UK.

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UK lawyers gather evidence for action against countries over Yazidi genocide

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Yazidi Justice Committee has been working privately for more than two years to show states failed to protect minority group

A group of high-level British lawyers have been working privately on compiling evidence to show that one or more countries failed in their international obligations to prevent genocide against the Yazidis in northern Iraq.

The lawyers, who formally announced their collaboration as the Yazidi Justice Committee (YJC) on Tuesday, have been working over the past two and a half years to investigate the genocide committed from early 2013 by Islamic State.

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Lindsay Hoyle introduces new Westminster cat named after Clement Attlee

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Attlee follows in the steps of other parliamentary moggies such as Palmerston, Gladstone and Larry

For the past few months, Westminster has been abuzz with little else other than Boris Johnson and his nine lives. Now, however, he may have a rival in that particular field: Lindsay Hoyle’s new cat, Attlee.

The feline will follow in the steps of other parliamentary moggies including the Foreign Office’s Palmerston, Treasury’s Gladstone and Downing Street’s Larry.

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Boris Johnson plans to break rail strikes by allowing use of agency workers

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Unions condemn measure as potentially against international law as 40,000 staff prepare for first day of industrial action

Boris Johnson has responded to the biggest rail strikes in a generation with plans to break the industrial action by allowing firms to bring in agency staff, a move unions have decried as unworkable, unsafe and potentially breaking international law.

As 40,000 workers prepared for Tuesday’s strike, the most wide-reaching on the railways in 30 years, Downing Street brought forward changes to enable employers to replace employees with temporary staff.

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