Category Archives: UK news

Sunak’s wife to pay UK tax after outcry

Posted on by

Akshata Murty says she realises many felt her arrangements were not ‘compatible with my husband’s job as chancellor’

• Sunak defends wife’s tax status as Labour and No 10 deny leak

Rishi Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty, bowed to pressure to pay UK taxes on Friday night, after Boris Johnson said he had been unaware she was a “non-dom” and fresh questions emerged over the couple’s tax affairs.

With Sunak’s position under increasing threat, Murty said she realised many people felt her tax arrangements were not “compatible with my husband’s job as chancellor”, adding that she appreciated the “British sense of fairness”. She will pay tax on all worldwide income in future and for the last tax year, but not on backdated income, which could have saved her an estimated £20m of UK tax on foreign earnings from her billionaire father’s Indian IT company.

Continue reading...

Germany will stop importing Russian gas ‘very soon’, says Olaf Scholz

Posted on by

Chancellor declines to endorse claim by Boris Johnson during London visit that goal will be achieved by mid-2024

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has said his country is doing all it can to wean itself off Russian energy, but declined to endorse a claim by Boris Johnson that it would stop importing Russian gas by the middle of 2024.

Scholz said only that the goal would be achieved very soon, and that Germany would stop using Russian coal by the summer and Russian oil by the end of the year.

Continue reading...

Liberty Steel to cut 200 jobs but create up to 160 more in plant move

Posted on by

Jobs set to go at Stocksbridge in South Yorkshire and at West Bromwich, but new posts to be created at Rotherham

Liberty Steel has announced plans to cut 200 jobs in the UK at plants in South Yorkshire and the West Midlands, as industrialist Sanjeev Gupta’s metals group looks to shift production to Rotherham.

The company said on Friday that it would cut 160 jobs at a plant in Stocksbridge, South Yorkshire, and 45 in West Bromwich in the West Midlands as it focused production on the plant in Rotherham, also in South Yorkshire.

Continue reading...

Using Windrush to justify UK visa rule for Ukrainian refugees baffles experts

Posted on by

Analysis: Windrush scandal wrongly categorised people as illegal immigrants, while most Ukrainian refugees have documentation

Why has Britain, unlike every other country in Europe, insisted on requiring all Ukrainian refugees to obtain visas before travelling here?

In justifying the decision, Priti Patel has again pointed to the Windrush scandal as a key factor in the government’s refusal to waive visas for people fleeing Ukraine. But it is a reasoning that has left immigration experts baffled.

Continue reading...

Police examining contracts related to Unite’s £98m Birmingham hotel project

Posted on by

Union’s offices raided as part of investigation into allegations of bribery, fraud and money laundering

A police inquiry involving a Unite union official is examining contracts related to the construction of a £98m hotel and conference centre in Birmingham, the Guardian has learned.

South Wales police and HM Revenue and Customs raided the union’s offices in central London on Thursday as part of an investigation into allegations of bribery, fraud and money laundering.

Continue reading...

Shirtmaker TM Lewin could return to UK high street in rescue deal

Posted on by

Company’s lender, understood to be Petra Group, said to be considering possibility of opening stores

The shirtmaker TM Lewin could return to the high street after being rescued from administration by its main lender, understood to be Petra Group.

It is not clear if the group’s 50 staff will be kept on under the rescue deal for TM Lewin, which called in administrators last month for the second time in less than two years.

Continue reading...

Ensure waist size is less than half your height, health watchdog says

Posted on by

Guidance for England and Wales comes amid increasing concern over rate of obesity and cost to NHS

A health watchdog is urging millions of people for the first time to ensure their waist size is less than half their height in order to help stave off serious health problems.

The UK has one of the worst obesity rates in Europe, with two in three adults officially overweight or obese in an escalating crisis that now costs the NHS £6bn a year and wider society £27bn.

Continue reading...

Scientists make further inroads into reversing ageing process of cells

Posted on by

UK research could lead to development of techniques that will stave off diseases of old age

People could eventually be able to turn the clock back on the cell-ageing process by 30 years, according to researchers who have developed a technique for reprogramming skin cells to behave as if they are much younger.

Research from the Babraham Institute, which is affiliated to the University of Cambridge, could lead to the development of techniques that will stave off the diseases of old age by restoring the function of older cells and reducing their biological age.

Continue reading...

Omicron variant does cause different symptoms from Delta, study finds

Posted on by

Data from UK’s Zoe Covid study confirms reports Omicron patients recover more quickly and are less likely to lose sense of smell or taste

People who have the Omicron Covid variant tend to have symptoms for a shorter period, a lower risk of being admitted to hospital and a different set of symptoms from those who have Delta, research has suggested.

As the highly transmissible Omicron variant shot to dominance towards the end of last year, it emerged that, while it is better at dodging the body’s immune responses than Delta, it also produces less severe disease.

Continue reading...

Family of Sabina Nessa call killer a ‘coward’ for refusing to attend court

Posted on by

Koci Selamaj did not attend sentencing for murder of 28-year-old primary school teacher in London

Sabina Nessa’s family called her killer a “coward” when he refused to come to court to be sentenced for her murder on Thursday.

Koci Selamaj, 36, drove to London from his home in Eastbourne on the south coast to carry out a premeditated attack on a woman after being spurned by his estranged wife.

Continue reading...

Union rejects pay rise of £1,500 for BT staff and plans strike ballot

Posted on by

CWU bosses say increase is relative cut in salary but BT says it is its biggest award in two decades

BT has given 58,000 workers a £1,500 pay rise that it says is its biggest award in two decades, despite its largest union rejecting the deal and saying it intends to ballot members over strike action.

Last week BT had a £1,200 pay rise offer rejected by the Communication Workers Union (CWU), which represents about 40,000 of the company’s 100,000 employees, with union bosses describing it as “insulting” and a “relative pay cut” as soaring inflation fuels a cost of living crisis.

Continue reading...

Eric Pickles asks Grenfell inquiry not to waste his time but gets death toll wrong

Posted on by

72 people were killed in the fire but Pickles said 96, the number who died in the Hillsborough disaster

A former cabinet minister has challenged the Grenfell inquiry not to waste his time while giving evidence, before getting the death toll from the disaster wrong.

Lord Pickles, who served as secretary of state at the then Department for Communities and Local Government between 2010 and 2015, sparked anger after he advised the inquiry’s senior counsel to “use your time wisely” as he had an extremely busy day.

Continue reading...

UK to announce fresh military aid package for Ukraine

Posted on by

UK and Ukrainian ministers met to view missile systems and armoured vehicles that could be used in next phase of fighting

Britain is preparing to announce a fresh package of military aid for Ukraine and has demonstrated new missile systems and armoured vehicles that it believes can help Kyiv in the next phases of fighting.

Junior defence ministers Jeremy Quin and James Heappey invited Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Volodymyr Havrylov to Salisbury Plain on Wednesday, where they discussed what extra weapons the UK could supply.

Continue reading...

Trial of Greek pilot accused of murdering British wife Caroline Crouch to begin

Posted on by

Babis Anagnostopoulos alleged to have confessed to Athens murder and to hanging puppy

The trial of a Greek helicopter pilot accused of strangling his British wife as she slept next to their baby daughter is due to begin on Friday in Athens.

Nearly a year after Caroline Crouch was found dead in the couple’s maisonette, her husband, who had originally tried to blame the murder on ruthless “foreign thieves”, will appear before a mixed jury court in the Greek capital. It will be the first time Babis Anagnostopoulos, 33, has been seen in public since his alleged confession to a crime that has gripped the nation.

Continue reading...

Two Britons are among four tourists missing after diving trip in Malaysia

Posted on by

The group, which also includes a French woman and a Norwegian woman, disappeared during diving training off the southern town of Mersing

Malaysian authorities were searching on Thursday for four Europeans, including two Britons, who disappeared during diving training off a southern island.

The divers are a 46-year-old British man, a 14-year-old British boy, an 18-year-old French woman and a 35-year-old woman from Norway.

Continue reading...

UK’s transparency laws are being undermined, warn journalists

Posted on by

Letter signed by several MPs urges better enforcement of transparency law, as government accused of obstructing requests

More than 100 journalists, politicians and campaigners have signed an open letter warning that the UK’s freedom of information (FoI) laws are being undermined by a lack of resources and government departments obstructing lawful requests.

The signatories include the editor-in-chief of the Guardian, Katharine Viner, the editor of the Observer, Paul Webster, as well as the shadow solicitor general, Andy Slaughter, the former Brexit secretary David Davis, and the former Green party leader Caroline Lucas.

Continue reading...

Liberty threatens to sue government over ‘racist’ joint enterprise law

Posted on by

Human rights group argues law unfairly attaches gang motives to black and minority-ethnic young men

The human rights group Liberty is threatening to sue the government and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) over the bitterly contested law of joint enterprise, arguing that it is discredited and racist in the way the authorities pursue it.

Under the law, people present when a person is killed can be convicted of murder despite not committing any serious violence themselves, if they are found to have “encouraged or assisted” the perpetrator. Liberty is acting for the campaign group Joint Enterprise Not Guilty By Association (Jengba), which supports approximately 1,400 people in prison who believe they have been unjustly convicted of serious crimes perpetrated by somebody else.

Continue reading...

PM to put nuclear power at heart of UK’s energy strategy

Posted on by

Plan will not please environmental campaigners, who say it fails to meet government’s net-zero targets

Boris Johnson is to put nuclear energy at the heart of the UK’s new energy strategy, but ministers have refused to set targets for onshore wind and vowed to continue the exploitation of North Sea oil and gas.

Amid deep divisions among senior Conservatives, the strategy will enrage environmentalists, who say the government’s plans are in defiance of its own net-zero targets and neglect alternative measures that experts say would provide much quicker relief from high energy bills.

Increasing nuclear capacity from 7 gigawatts to 24GW

Offshore wind target raised from 40GW to 50GW (from 11GW today)

Solar could grow five times from 14GW to 70GW by 2035

An “impartial” review into whether fracking is safe

Up to 10GW of hydrogen power by 2030

Continue reading...

National insurance rise forces UK employers to shoulder £9bn tax burden

Posted on by

Bosses say 1.25-point rise heaps pressure on firms already enduring soaring costs linked to Covid and Brexit

Britain’s employers are being forced to shoulder a £9bn tax rise after the government pushed ahead with raising national insurance on Wednesday despite stiff opposition.

Company bosses said the 1.25-percentage-point rise in national insurance contributions (NICs), which is paid by workers and their employers, would add to already severe pressure from runaway inflation and soaring business costs this year linked to Covid, Brexit and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Continue reading...

Rishi Sunak’s wife claims non-domicile status

Posted on by

Tax status allows Akshata Murthy to avoid tax on foreign earnings

Rishi Sunak’s multi-millionaire wife claims non-domicile status, it has emerged, which allows her to save millions of pounds in tax on dividends collected from her family’s IT business empire.

Akshata Murthy, who receives about £11.5m in annual dividends from her stake in the Indian IT services company Infosys, declares non-dom status, a scheme that allows people to avoid tax on foreign earnings.

Continue reading...