Category Archives: UK news

Four in 10 pandemic-era mutual aid groups still active, UK data suggests

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Groups set up to help out neighbours in 2020 are now helping people cope with cost of living, say campaigners

Four in 10 of the mutual aid groups that were set up at the start of the pandemic to make it easier for neighbours to help each other are still active and many have become established charities helping local people cope with the cost of living crisis, analysis suggests.

When the pandemic began, an estimated 4,000 mutual aid groups sprang up to offer assistance to those in need with a range of essential activities, from food shopping to collecting prescriptions and providing Covid information.

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CBI warns UK government over Northern Ireland protocol

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Impasse over Brexit deal forcing companies to reconsider investing in Britain, says business lobby group

The UK’s foremost business lobby group has warned the government that its threat to override the Northern Ireland protocol is forcing companies to think again about investing in Britain and dragging down the economy.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said immediate talks with the EU, rather than political grandstanding, were needed to resolve the impasse over the protocol, which governs post-Brexit trade between the EU, Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

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Food plan for England condemned by its own lead adviser

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Henry Dimbleby says government’s response to his review of food system shows no vision and ‘is not a strategy’

The government’s lead adviser on food issues has condemned what ministers have billed as a landmark national plan to combat food poverty and obesity, saying it is “not a strategy” and warning it could mean more children will go hungry.

Henry Dimbleby’s verdict is further bad news for Boris Johnson as the white paper is a direct response to last year’s wide-ranging review of Britain’s food system, which was led by the restaurateur.

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Unions call for delay to Rwanda policy until legal position fully tested

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Appeal against plan to remove asylum seekers who arrive in the UK via unofficial routes due to take place on Monday

Protests have taken place before a possible first flight removing asylum seekers to Rwanda, as unions said that officials should not be asked to take part in a policy that may subsequently be declared illegal.

With the first flight in the deportation scheme scheduled to take place on Tuesday evening, activists also promised to target the Spanish charter airline understood to be providing the aircraft.

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Brace for heatwaves next week and more often, says Met Office

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Temperatures expected to hit 32C in south-east England on Friday as forecasters warn heatwaves becoming more likely

Temperatures could reach the mid-30s in parts of the UK this week as forecasters said that Britain should brace itself for its “first properly hot summer’s day”.

The coming months will also bring heatwaves which the Met Office has previously warned are becoming more likely due to climate change and the higher concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere.

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Hundreds gather in Manchester to oppose Rwanda deportation plan

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Protesters march in city centre as anger grows over Priti Patel’s refugee scheme

Hundreds of Mancunians – many of them from charities, campaign groups and religious organisations – gathered in the city’s St Peter’s Square on Sunday to protest against the government’s plan to deport refugees to Rwanda.

With just two days to go before the first refugees are due to board flights to the central African country, the protest was one of a number taking place across the UK, and was happening amid further legal challenges after the high court ruled last week that the flights can go ahead.

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EasyJet trims June flight schedule in bid to avoid further airport chaos

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Low-cost carrier makes ‘pre-emptive cancellations’ of about 40 flights a day to ensure no repeat of half-term disruption

EasyJet has reduced its flight schedule for the rest of June in a bid to overcome the travel chaos seen in the school holidays when staff shortages meant thousands of people were hit by last-minute cancellations.

Britain’s biggest carrier has come under fire for its handling of the disruption which also saw passengers endure long delays. In a message to staff on Friday, its chief operating officer, Peter Bellew, said the carrier was making pre-emptive cancellations for the “coming days and weeks” to “increase resilience across the network”.

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Opposition MPs demand full legal advice on Northern Ireland protocol bill

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Lib Dems say failure to provide it would look like ‘another attempt to cover up Boris Johnson’s repeated lies and law-breaking’

Opposition parties have demanded ministers release their full legal advice over a bill to unilaterally amend the Northern Ireland protocol that is expected imminently in the Commons, saying refusing to do so risked accusations of a cover-up.

The bill, which sets the UK on a potential collision course with the EU and which critics see as Boris Johnson’s latest attempt to mollify rebellious backbenchers and reassert his authority, is scheduled to be published on Monday afternoon.

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Digitisation of food vouchers for UK families left them hungry and desperate

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Analysis: in a botched upgrade the fruit and veg Healthy Start scheme turned away numerous eligible low-income families

As the cost of living crisis blew up in March, and millions faced “starve or freeze” choices, it emerged – with dismal timing – that the rollout of the government’s newly digitised Healthy Start fruit and veg voucher scheme for low-income mothers was in chaos.

About 550,000 mothers who are pregnant or who have children aged three or under are in theory eligible for the scheme, which is worth between £4.25 and £8.50 a week. Designed to ensure their kids get their five-a-day portions, milk or formula, it should have been a timely boost.

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Former British soldier killed fighting Russian forces in Ukraine

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Jordan Gatley’s family say he died in the battle for the strategic eastern city of Sievierodonetsk

A former British soldier has died fighting Russian forces in the Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk, his family have said.

Jordan Gatley left the British army in March “to continue his career as a soldier in other areas” and had been helping Ukrainian troops defend their country against Russia, his father Dean wrote in a statement posted on Facebook on Saturday.

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Hope of finding Dom Phillips alive has gone, say mother-in-law and wife

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The British journalist was travelling in the Amazon with Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira when they went missing

The wife and mother-in-law of missing British journalist Dom Phillips have said their hopes of finding him alive had gone, in a heartfelt and heart-breaking message that paid tribute to him and his travelling companion Bruno Pereira.

Phillips, a longtime contributor to the Guardian, and Pereira, an experienced Indigenous advocate, went missing on 5 June in a remote part of the western Amazon.

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‘A gift from God’: Binley Mega Chippy owner basks in TikTok fame

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Kamal Gandhi, 70, and his Coventry chip shop became a sensation after its name was turned into a catchy song

It has been two weeks since his Coventry chip shop became a TikTok sensation drawing in crowds from around the country, and 70-year-old Kamal Gandhi is exhausted.

He has had to take on and train four new staff members, ensure a continuous supply of stock to deal with hundreds of new customers and help manage the long queues snaking down the road outside the now world famous Binley Mega Chippy.

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‘I am amazed’: 101-year-old Dutch woman reunited with painting looted by Nazis

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Exclusive: she will sell the 1683 portrait of Steven Wolters by Caspar Netscher through Sotheby’s so her family can benefit from the proceeds

At the age of 101, a Dutch woman has been reunited with a painting that had been looted from her father by the Nazis during the second world war, but she has decided to sell it through Sotheby’s in London so that her family can benefit from the proceeds.

Charlotte Bischoff van Heemskerck, a non-practising Baptist who joined the Dutch Resistance, had never given up hope of finding the 1683 portrait of Steven Wolters by Caspar Netscher, a Dutch master whose paintings are in the National Gallery, London.

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Liz Truss accused of ignoring evidence of rendition of UK citizen to Nigeria

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Family of Nnamdi Kanu, a separatist leader, say he was seized and tortured in Kenya and then flown to Nigeria

The family of a British citizen have accused the foreign secretary of ignoring “overwhelming evidence” he was taken to Nigeria in an act of extraordinary rendition and failing to end his “unlawful” imprisonment there.

Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob), a prominent separatist movement proscribed in Nigeria, has been held there since June last year.

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Family pays tribute to Ceredigion father who died saving children from rip tide

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‘Selfless’ Hywel Morgan, 47, recovered from sea at Poppit Sands after helping rescue group of children but could not be saved

Tributes have been paid to a father who died after rescuing a group of children caught in a rip tide.

Hywel Morgan, 47, had helped save the children who had got into difficulty in the sea at Poppit Sands, St Dogmaels, Ceredigion.

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Poll says Keir Starmer worse choice for PM than Boris Johnson

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Labour ahead of Tories by two points, but Labour’s leader failing to make a personal breakthrough

Boris Johnson makes a better prime minister than Keir Starmer would despite Partygate, the cost of living crisis and the confidence vote in Johnson held by his MPs, according to the latest Observer poll.

The Opinium figures, which will raise further concerns within Labour over the party leader’s performance, shows that the prime minister has a two-point lead over his opponent. It also reveals that Starmer’s party holds a narrow two-point lead, compared with a three-point lead in the last poll a fortnight ago. Labour are on 36% of the vote, with the Tories up one point on 34%. The Lib Dems are on 13% with the Greens on 6%.

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Boris Johnson faces rural fury over post-Brexit food strategy

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Anger grows before West Country byelection as farmers say they will be left poorer and unable to compete with foreign producers

Boris Johnson’s hopes of surviving as prime minister have been dealt a serious blow after farmers and environmentalists condemned his government’s post-Brexit food strategy as a disaster for people in the countryside – with less than two weeks to go before a key rural byelection.

In an interview with the Observer, the president of the National Farmers Union, Minette Batters, said ambitious proposals to help farmers increase food production, first put forward last year by the government’s food tsar, Henry Dimbleby, had been “stripped to the bone” in a new policy document, and meant farmers would not be able to produce affordable food.

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200 protesters block immigration officers’ van during Peckham arrest

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Met police called to help enforcement officers get past crowd of demonstrators after Nigerian man detained for overstaying visa

A man arrested for immigration offences was released on bail after protesters gathered in south-east London on Saturday for hours to block a van he was being transported in from leaving.

Video footage posted on Twitter showed a crowd of about 200 people sitting on the ground in front of the vehicle in Peckham while another clip showed members of the public standing and shouting “let him go”.

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15-year-old boy stabbed to death in Manchester named by police

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Jakub Szymanski was attacked during a domestic incident in Miles Platting, reportedly as he attempted to protect his mother

A 15-year-old boy who died after he was stabbed in Miles Platting has been named by Greater Manchester police as Jakub Szymanski.

A 44-year-old man was arrested in Kent on Friday night on suspicion of murder after the teenage boy was stabbed to death and his mother was injured at a Manchester home, police confirmed.

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