Police say UK entrepreneur Quentin Griffiths fell from 17th floor of an 18-floor condominium on 9 February
Quentin Griffiths, the co-founder of the online fashion retailer Asos, has died after falling from an apartment building in the Thai seaside resort city of Pattaya.
Police told Reuters that the 58-year-old had fallen from the 17th floor of an 18-storey condominium on 9 February.
Continue reading...Struggling British carmaker says earnings for 2025 will be worse than City forecasts as US tariffs hit sales
Aston Martin has warned that its losses will be worse than expected and sold its permanent naming rights to its Formula One team, as the struggling British carmaker battles to stabilise its finances.
The luxury carmaker, majority-owned by the Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll, said its earnings for 2025 would be worse than City forecasts, its fifth profit warning since September 2024.
Continue reading...French utility company EDF says operations in Somerset will start a year later as delay costs firm €2.5bn
Britain’s first new nuclear plant in a generation at the Hinkley Point C site will face further delay, at a cost of €2.5bn to the French utility company EDF.
EDF said the first reactor at the site in Somerset will begin operations in 2030, a year later than planned – almost 13 years after construction work began – after a series of delays to the project.
Continue reading...Gloria Allred says allegations involving sharing of state trade secrets were prioritised over sexual assault claims against trade envoy
A lawyer representing several victims of Jeffrey Epstein has said she does not believe there will be “any real justice” for those trafficked and abused by him and his high-profile associates, despite the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
Gloria Allred, who has worked as a women’s rights lawyer for five decades, said that while the UK had acted quickly on the allegation that the former prince had shared confidential documents with the disgraced financier while he was a trade envoy, there appeared to be far less progress on sexual assault allegations against him.
Continue reading...Agreement across continent that Mountbatten-Windsor’s detention has put monarchy in unprecedented danger
Neither the shock nor the historical significance of the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was lost on the European press. And if there was one thing that correspondents and leader writers around the continent could agree on, it was that the former prince’s detention had plunged the British monarchy into a place of unprecedented danger and vulnerability.
“Despite all the scandals that have shaken the British royal family over the decades, it’s no exaggeration to say that the arrest of King Charles III’s brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor represents a momentous watershed for the Windsor monarchy,” El País said in a leader on Friday.
Continue reading...January increase of 1.8% beats forecasts and was also driven by shoppers snapping up jewellery online
Retail sales in Great Britain rose 1.8% in January, the largest monthly increase in almost two years, according to official data, as heavy discounting and post-Christmas sales drew consumers back to bigger ticket purchases.
The rise easily beat forecasts of a 0.2% rise and was partly driven by sales of artwork and antiques sales in January, alongside continued strong sales from online jewellers, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. It was the biggest monthly rise since May 2024.
Continue reading...Government plans legislation giving landowners and tenants rights to cull deer to protect crops and property
It will be much easier to shoot deer in England under government plans that aim to curb the damage the animals are doing to the country’s woodlands.
Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, plans to bring forward new legislation to give landowners and tenants legal rights to shoot deer to protect crops and property.
Continue reading...Former duchess has stood by the former prince through waves of allegations and has yet to comment on his arrest
While the spotlight has been on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, his arrest has prompted questions about what is next for his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson.
Ferguson, known by the tabloids as Fergie, married the then prince Andrew in 1986 and was divorced from him 10 years later after an alleged affair with an American financial adviser. It was one of multiple scandals in the 1990s and 2000s involving the former duchess, who was widely considered an embarrassment to the royal family.
Continue reading...US president links deal with military strikes against Iran in connection with Tehran’s nuclear ambitions
Donald Trump changed his mind on supporting the Chagos Islands deal because the UK will not permit its airbases to be used for a pre-emptive US strike on Iran, the Guardian has been told.
In his latest change of heart on the deal, the US president said on social media that Keir Starmer was “making a big mistake” by handing sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius in exchange for continued use by the UK and US of their airbase on one of the islands, Diego Garcia.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Prospect boss Mike Clancy cites problems retaining technical and digital experts
Ministers must end “barking mad” restraints on civil service pay or risk being unable to recruit the technical and digital specialists it needs to keep pace, a union leader has warned.
Mike Clancy, the Prospect general secretary, said the government should end the “rightwing trope” that restrained the pay of highly skilled civil servants and left government unable to compete with the private sector. He said it should be realistic for senior specialists in competitive fields to be paid more than the prime minister.
Continue reading...Demand is rising at unsustainable rate and could cost £3.4bn by 2030-31, local authorities warn
Families who have children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) should be means tested for school transport, according to councils in England, who say demand is rising “at an unsustainable rate”.
Local authorities are urging the government to be “radical” in its Send reforms, which are expected imminently, warning that annual costs on home-to-school transport for children with Send could rise to £3.4bn by 2030-31, up from £2bn last year.
Continue reading...BRC survey finds finance bosses expect technology to improve productivity, with 69% pessimistic about the economy
UK retailers are planning to cut staff hours and jobs amid rising employment costs and pessimism about the economy.
Almost two-thirds (61%) of finance bosses at retail companies said they planned to reduce working hours or cut overtime, according to the latest survey from the British Retail Consortium (BRC), the trade body that represents most big retailers. More than half (55%) said they would cut head office jobs and 42% said they would reduce jobs in stores.
Continue reading...Police arrest four after incident in the Briar Hill area that left a man in his 20s dead
A man is dead and a teenage boy is in a critical condition in hospital after they were stabbed at a Northampton skate park.
Northamptonshire police launched a murder investigation after emergency services were called to the park in Ringway in the Briar Hill area on Wednesday following reports that two people had been stabbed “during an altercation”.
Continue reading...Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick has announced party’s plans to cut welfare spending
Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s Treasury spokesperson, is giving his speech now.
He has announced, or confirmed, three measures to cut welfare spending.
The number claiming disability benefits for an attention disorder has more than doubled since Covid. We all know a significant number of these claims are spurious …
We will stop those with mild anxiety, depression, and similar conditions from claiming disability benefits and instead encourage them into the dignity of work.
We will end the abuse of the Motability scheme, where expensive cars are handed out for conditions like tennis elbow, and paid for by working people who can’t afford them themselves.
Continue reading...Exclusive: UK graduates in Germany, Belgium and possibly other countries informed of rises as salary threshold is cut
Britons living in some European countries face a huge rise in their student loan repayments later this year, the Guardian can reveal, in a move that threatens to trigger a fresh backlash for Rachel Reeves.
UK graduates working in Germany and Belgium – and possibly other countries – have been told that their monthly repayments will increase from April, the Guardian can reveal.
Continue reading...Reaction to Emerald Fennell’s movie adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi
My group of six English teachers – aged from 30 to 54 – saw the film on Friday. We are still processing our thoughts in a group chat. We agreed that the visuals were often delightfully shocking. We talked about the contrasts between the lavish costumes and the moor landscape, which we thought Fennell got right. We talked about the Charlie XCX music and how well it evoked the landscape and the spirit of the book.
Continue reading...Consultancy’s prediction comes after Rachel Reeves said green subsidy costs would be removed from domestic bills
Household energy costs in Great Britain are expected to tumble by an average of £117 a year from April after Rachel Reeves announced in November’s budget that the cost of green subsidies would be removed from domestic bills.
The government’s quarterly cap on energy bills is forecast to fall after the chancellor’s decision to shift the levies used to support renewable energy projects into general taxation, and scrap a bill payer-funded energy efficiency scheme, according to Cornwall Insight, a leading energy consultancy.
Continue reading...‘Eight-figure agreement’ made to supply new line between Ankara and İzmir – but questions over plant’s future remain
British Steel has secured an order worth tens of millions of pounds to supply rail for a high-speed electric railway in Turkey, amid continuing uncertainty over the long-term future of the government-controlled steelworks in Scunthorpe.
The site will supply 36,000 tonnes of rail to ERG International Group, the company announced, in what it called an “eight-figure agreement”.
Continue reading...Move comes after Gordon Brown’s claim that files show sex offender used airport in Essex to ‘fly in girls’
Police are assessing information about private flights to and from Stansted airport following the publication of files relating to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
It comes after former prime minister Gordon Brown claimed the documents showed in “graphic detail” how Epstein was able to use the Essex-based hub to “fly in girls from Latvia, Lithuania and Russia”.
Continue reading...National Crime Agency says rise in child sexual abuse being driven by technology and online forums
Child sexual abuse in the UK is soaring, police have said, with 1,000 paedophile suspects being arrested each month and the number of children being rescued from harm rising by 50% in the last five years.
The National Crime Agency said the growth in offending across the UK was driven by technology and linked to the radicalisation of offenders in online forums, encouraging people to view images of child sexual abuse by reassuring them it was normal.
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