Exclusive: Fears over regulator’s ability to cope with planned expansion in nuclear energy
The number of formal reports documenting security issues at the UK’s civil nuclear facilities has hit its highest level in at least 12 years amid a decline in inspections, the Guardian can reveal.
Experts said the news raised concerns about the regulator’s capacity to cope with planned expansion in the sector.
Continue reading...One-off levy to fund support package amid cost of living crisis which could include increase in benefits
Rishi Sunak will push the button on a controversial windfall tax on energy companies on Thursday, as he lays out measures to ease the pain of rising household bills.
The chancellor has confirmed speculation he will announce fresh support for Britons struggling with the cost of living crisis. The measures are expected to help the poorest households as rampant inflation pushes up the price of everything from food to fuel.
Continue reading...Prime minister feels it is his ‘job to get on with my job’ despite report detailing major leadership failures at No 10
This is from Nikki da Costa, a former director of legislative affairs at No 10, speaking up on civil servants whose reputations, she fears, will be tainted by the Sue Gray report.
Tom Harwood from GB News is now also saying the report has arrived in Downing Street. It is 37 pages long, he says.
Continue reading...Frontbencher says PM ‘getting away lightly’ after Sue Gray says she did not fully investigate alcohol-fuelled gathering
Conservative MPs fear a “cover-up” over potentially the most damaging event of the Partygate scandal after Sue Gray admitted she did not fully investigate an alcohol-fuelled gathering in the flat shared by the prime minister and his wife.
The six-month inquiry concluded with an acknowledgment from Gray that little was known about what took place in the flat above 11 Downing Street on 13 November 2020, with food, alcohol and loud Abba music reported.
Continue reading...Greater Manchester police agree to withdraw penalty notices issued to two nurses for socially distanced protest in March 2021
Two NHS nurses have won compensation from Greater Manchester police (GMP) after being fined over a socially distant protest about NHS pay during lockdown.
Karen Reissmann, a 61-year-old mental health nurse who worked throughout the pandemic, received a £10,000 fixed penalty notice for organising the protest on 7 March 2021 over the government’s proposed 1% pay rise for NHS workers.
Continue reading...Outspoken leader thought to have resisted board’s attempts to split the roles of chair and chief executive
The boss of JD Sports has stepped down with immediate effect just months after the retailer was fined more than £4m for breaching the competition regulator’s rules with clandestine meetings with a takeover target.
The company said Peter Cowgill, the outspoken chair and chief executive officer of JD, who has led the group since 2004, would be temporarily replaced as chief executive by Kath Smith, its senior independent director who spent 25 years as managing director of the Adidas and Reebok brands.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Letter urges PM and party to do more to tackle sexual abuse, harassment and bullying
Serious sexual abuse, harassment and bullying accusations made against MPs are treated as “mere gossip”, dozens of Conservative staffers have said, as they urged Boris Johnson and party HQ to do more to tackle the problem.
The group of staff working for Tory MPs said “behaviour committed by a few individuals but tolerated by others has stained the reputation” of parliament.
Continue reading...Unwanted lockdown goldfish pose a triple threat to native species in UK waterways, study reveals
If that lockdown goldfish is starting to lose its lustre, think twice before throwing it in the river or canal – the creatures may look innocent but their voracious appetite, tolerance for cold and have-a-go habits compared with native species can be catastrophic for local wildlife.
New research shows that goldfish consume much more than comparable fish in UK waters, eat more than other invasive fish and are also much more willing to aggressively take on other competing species.
Continue reading...Exclusive: mother of Emily Whelan hopes tests that helped prove Stewart was murdered may shed light on daughter’s death
The mother of a woman with epilepsy who died in 2016 hopes the high-profile murder of Diane Stewart could hold the key to establishing her daughter’s cause of death.
Emily Whelan, 25, was found unresponsive in her bedroom in Leeds on 7 November 2016 and pronounced dead the next day at Leeds general infirmary.
Continue reading...Nice approves Keytruda, which with chemotherapy can lengthen survival of women with triple negative breast cancer
Women with advanced breast cancer in England will be able to benefit from a new type of immunotherapy on the NHS after a U-turn by the medicines watchdog.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) has overturned its draft rejection of Keytruda (pembrolizumab) and said women in England can take the drug in combination with chemotherapy.
Continue reading...Time is running out to save 58 resident species, Butterfly Conservation warns
Half of Britain’s butterfly species are now listed as threatened with extinction after five more joined the new “red list” of endangered butterflies.
The increase in the number of species listed as “vulnerable” from nine in 2011 to 16 today is a warning that time is running out to save the 58 resident species, according to Butterfly Conservation, which compiled the red list from scientific monitoring data according to the criteria set out by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Continue reading...Exclusive: panel says organisers have failed to engage city’s diverse groups in a meaningful way
Organisers of the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham have left diverse communities feeling “largely ignored” and have failed to engage them in a meaningful way, according to a report.
The Birmingham Race Impact Group (BRIG) commissioned a panel of race equality practitioners and consultants to assess the Games in a number of areas including legacy, community engagement and procurement.
Continue reading...After an error on a visa application form, Sarah slipped into immigration limbo
Six years ago, when she was 24, Sarah received an unexpected letter from the Home Office telling her she faced arrest and removal from the UK within seven days. She was so terrified that she climbed out of the back window of the house where she was living, taking her seven-year-old son with her, and they became homeless.
Sarah, who asked for her real name not to be published, had been in the UK since she arrived in 1994 as a two-year-old refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She had attended primary and secondary school in the UK and was working and paying taxes in London, but her uncertain immigration status had not been resolved when she was a child. As an adult she was required every three years to pay fees of about £1,000 to apply for visas that would allow her to remain. An error on her 2016 application form meant the visa was refused, but the fees were not refunded and she could not afford to reapply, and she slipped into immigration limbo. Even now, 28 years after arriving in the UK, she is still battling to get British citizenship.
Continue reading...Firm aims to apply ‘equity lens’ across clinical tests to ensure diverse population groups take part
The pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca is conducting a major review of diversity across its trials in an attempt to ensure its medicines work for all population groups, although it has admitted that including pregnant women is a particular challenge.
The head of oncology at Britain’s biggest drugmaker, David Fredrickson told the Guardian that the firm was among those leading efforts to improve participation of people of colour and other under-represented groups in clinical trials.
Continue reading...People in the UK and Poland rated their governments worst on matters of trust and legitimacy in an EU-funded study
People in the UK are more likely than those in other European countries to say that their government ignores rules, according to a large six-state survey, with ‘Partygate’ probably to blame.
The EU-funded study found that 62% of people in the UK think their government ignores rules and procedures, compared with an average of 44% and well above the next highest, Poland (50%), where the administration has been accused of authoritarianism.
Continue reading...Fawzia Amini advocates for rights of Afghan women and girls from London hotel room she’s been stuck in for nine months
One of Afghanistan’s top female judges has been honoured with an international human rights award while she continues her work to advocate for her country’s women and girls from a London hotel.
Fawzia Amini, 48, fled Afghanistan last summer after the Taliban takeover of the country. She had been one of Afghanistan’s leading female judges, former head of the legal department at the Ministry of Women, senior judge in the supreme court, and head of the violence against women court.
Continue reading...Pre-action letter questions Home Office claims that east African country is ‘generally safe’
Priti Patel’s plan to send refugees on a one-way ticket to Rwanda is being legally challenged over the government’s alleged failure to identify risks facing vulnerable groups such as LGBTQ+ people.
A pre-action letter sent to the Home Office on behalf of the pressure group Freedom from Torture questions government claims that the east African state is “generally a safe country” for refugees.
The government’s claim that Rwanda is “generally” a “safe third country” is irrational.
It relies upon apparent pre-determination or bias.
The home secretary has breached her duty not to induce breaches of the European convention on human rights by her agents.
Removing asylum seekers to Rwanda is beyond Patel’s legal authority because it is contrary to the refugee convention.
Continue reading...Latest updates: Grant Shapps, transport secretary, does not deny Times report as row grows over further Partygate photos
At cabinet this morning Boris Johnson praised Thérèse Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, for helping people get back into work. Johnson believes work is the best route out of poverty and, with unemployment at its lowest level for almost 50 years, he is using this as part of his attempt to show there is a Tory response to the cost of living crisis.
According to PA Media, Johnson opened cabinet by saying:
I want to give a special shout out to Thérèse Coffey, the secretary of state for DWP, because under her plans, the Way To Work scheme, since we launched it this year it has got 380,000 people off welfare and into work. That’s the way forward.
I want to see people not on benefits, I want to see them in work - that’s the Conservative answer and that is the answer we are offering to the people of this country.
Continue reading...Nine in 10 people say they are worried about the rising price of their shop, Kantar survey finds
More than a fifth of households in Great Britain say they are struggling to make ends meet as the price of the weekly grocery shop rises 7%, the highest level of inflation in 13 years.
Nine in 10 people say they are worried about the rising price of groceries, according to the market research group Kantar, putting the issue in second place behind concerns about energy bills as the cost of living crisis hits families hard.
Continue reading...Team admit Gillyflower is not the first but hope it encourages a more sustainable approach to golfing
The views are spectacular, taking in a lovely Cornish river, a ruined castle and the rooftops of an ancient town while the golf is pleasantly challenging, with tight fairways and undulating greens.
But what makes Gillyflower golf course in Lostwithiel different is that every square metre of non-playing surface will be used to grow fruit and vegetables or encourage flora and fauna.
Continue reading...