Category Archives: UK news

Revealed: money for educating excluded children funded Bolton bar owner’s social life

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Call for ‘seismic change’ in social care system after Robert McGuinness’s use of funds

The owner of a children’s home in Bolton shut down for “serious and widespread failures” spent thousands intended for educating marginalised children on drinking, foreign trips and his pub business, the Guardian can reveal.

Between 2015 and 2021, £1.5m was paid by two local authorities to a “community interest company” (CIC) run by Robert McGuinness, the main director of the children’s home. The CIC was set up to provide vocational training to children from years 9 to 11 (ages 14-16) excluded from mainstream schools.

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Gavin Williamson awarded knighthood by Boris Johnson

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MP presided over exams debacle after being sacked as defence secretary for alleged leak

Boris Johnson has awarded a knighthood to Gavin Williamson, despite a ministerial record that includes the Covid exams debacle as education secretary and being sacked as defence secretary for allegedly leaking secure information.

The news prompted anger from opposition parties, with Labour calling Williamson’s record “disgraceful”. The Liberal Democrats called the knighthood “an insult to every child, parent and teacher who struggled through Covid against the odds”.

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Ukraine-born oligarch Mikhail Watford found dead at home in Surrey

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Police say death of businessman who made his fortune in oil and gas is unexplained but not suspicious

A Ukraine-born oligarch has been found dead at his home in unexplained circumstances, Surrey police have said.

Officers are treating the death of 66-year-old Mikhail Watford, who made his fortune in oil and gas after the demise of the Soviet Union, as unexplained. But they said it was not thought to be suspicious.

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UK politics live: we must ensure Putin fails, UK foreign secretary says

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Latest updates: Liz Truss says Putin must lose in Ukraine as she praises courage of Baltic states

The UK health secretary Sajid Javid has said the NHS must stop using energy supplied by the Russian-owned firm Gazprom, the PA news agency reports.

A senior government source told PA that Javid has been in talks with NHS England over ending the contracts, which are reported by Politico to have been worth 16 million in 2021.

Sajid has spoken with NHSE and been clear that trusts need to stop using Gazprom as a supplier. He has also requested a wider review of any Russian role in supply chains across the health service.

It’s clearly unsustainable for a humanitarian organisation like the NHS to have any commercial links whatsoever with Putin’s murderous regime.

It is time to sanction them all - and freeze their assets, including any property they own in the UK.

These properties should then be used to house any Ukrainian refugees, on a temporary basis, while they await permanent resettlement. Rather than languishing in hotel rooms - or worse, unsuitable barracks, we should be putting Putin’s cronies’ assets to good use.

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‘My childhood was stolen. Why is my adulthood being taken, too?’ The rape survivors waiting 1,000 days for prosecution

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Court closures, defunded legal aid and barrister shortages are adding to an already excruciating ordeal, while invasive investigations are leading many to drop proceedings altogether

For Nina, the prospect of walking into a police station and reporting her stepfather for child sexual abuse was, she says, her “worst nightmare ... It was something I’d dreaded my whole life,” she says. She had been raped by her stepfather for years when she was a child – and he had promised all sorts of consequences if she ever told anyone. Her mother, he told her, would kill herself. He implied that he might, too – but one thing he always assured her was that he would never go to jail.

When she was in her late teens, Nina finally told her mum, who was devastated, but believed her. It took years, however, before she felt ready to press charges. “One of the things that stopped me from telling anyone that it was happening at the time was the terror of standing in a courtroom putting all that shame on show – and that felt even worse the older I got.

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Sarah Everard’s family pay tribute on first anniversary of her murder

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‘We miss her all the time,’ say relatives of woman killed by serving Met police officer Wayne Couzens

The family of Sarah Everard have paid tribute to her on the first anniversary of her murder by a police officer, saying she was “wonderful and we miss her all the time” and that they “live with the sadness of our loss”.

Everard, 33 was abducted, raped and killed by serving Met officer Wayne Couzens as she walked home in south London on 3 March last year.

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What more could the west do about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?

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Analysis: From a no-fly zone to sanctions, the options that are on and off the table

Russia’s invading forces have bombed civilians in Kyiv, Kharkiv and elsewhere in Ukraine in the past 48 hours, prompting fears of rising casualties and growing questions as to whether the west could step up military, economic or other efforts to help. Here are some of the options – and the risks.

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Only 6% of G20 pandemic recovery spending ‘green’, analysis finds

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Review of G20 fiscal stimulus spending counters many countries’ pledges to ‘build back better’

Only about 6% of pandemic recovery spending has been “green”, an analysis of the $14tn that G20 countries have poured into economic stimulus.

Additionally, about 3% of the record amounts governments around the world have spent to rescue the global economy from the Covid-19 pandemic has been spent on activities that will increase carbon emissions, such as subsidies to coal, and will do little to reduce greenhouse gases or shift the world to a low-carbon footing.

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Police hail ‘miracle’ as 15-year-old-girl survives Liverpool shooting

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Teenager in serious but stable condition in hospital following ‘cowardly’ drive-by shooting in Toxteth

Police have said it was an “absolute miracle” that a 15-year-old girl survived after she was shot in a hail of bullets at a bus stop in Liverpool.

The teenager is in a serious but stable condition in hospital following the “cowardly” drive-by shooting in the Toxteth area of the city on Tuesday, detectives said.

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Eighty-year-old study of British slave trade is back in the bestsellers list

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Capitalism and Slavery, by the future first prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago Eric Williams, argues that the abolition of slavery was motivated by economic, not moral, concerns

A book of unpalatable truths about Britain’s slave trade has become a UK bestseller, almost 80 years after author Eric Williams was told by a British publisher: “I would never publish such a book, for it would be contrary to the British tradition.”

Capitalism and Slavery was first published in the US in 1944. It was published in the UK by the independent publisher André Deutsch in 1964, with a number of reprints over the next 20 years.

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Starmer questions why Roman Abramovich is not facing UK sanctions

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Labour calls for tougher action against Russian oligarchs at PMQs as Ukrainian ambassador watches from gallery

Keir Starmer has questioned why Roman Abramovich has not faced UK sanctions over the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as Boris Johnson appeared to accept a Labour offer to strengthen a new bill cracking down on illicit assets.

At a prime minister’s questions that began with the rare sight of MPs standing in unison to applaud the Ukrainian ambassador, Vadym Prystaiko, who was watching from the public gallery, Starmer repeatedly called for tougher action against Russian oligarchs.

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Scientists seek to solve mystery of why some people do not catch Covid

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Experts hope research can lead to development of drugs that stop people catching Covid or passing it on

Phoebe Garrett has attended university lectures without catching Covid; she even hosted a party where everyone subsequently tested positive except her. “I think I’ve knowingly been exposed about four times,” the 22-year-old from High Wycombe said.

In March 2021, she participated in the world’s first Covid-19 challenge trial, which involved dripping live virus into her nose and pegging her nostrils shut for several hours, in a deliberate effort to infect her. Still her body resisted.

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Man arrested after shooting of 15-year-old girl in Liverpool

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Girl now in stable condition in hospital as 21-year-old man arrested on suspicion of attempted murder

A man has been arrested after a teenage girl was seriously injured in a shooting in Liverpool.

Police were called to Upper Warwick Street in Toxteth at 5.10pm on Tuesday after reports that shots had been fired and a girl had been injured. The 15-year-old was taken to hospital for treatment in a “serious condition”. Her condition was subsequently described as stable, police added.

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Paleontology ‘a hotbed of unethical practices rooted in colonialism’, say scientists

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The study of fossils and prehistoric species is exploitative of local communities, says international team

The public image of palaeontologists as dusty, but rather affable academics, could be due an update. The study of ancient life is a hotbed of unethical and inequitable scientific practices rooted in colonialism, which strip poorer countries of their fossil heritage, and devalue the contributions of local researchers, scientists say.

Writing in the journal Royal Society Open Science, an international team of palaeontologists argue that there has been a steady drain of plesiosaurs, pterosaurs, prehistoric spiders, and other fossils from poorer countries into foreign repositories or local private collections – despite laws and regulations introduced to try to conserve their heritage.

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Russian billionaire on EU sanctions list quits as Royal Academy trustee

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Exclusive: Petr Aven’s donation returned after he was called one of Putin’s closest oligarchs in the list

A Russian billionaire named in EU sanctions “as one of Vladimir Putin’s closest oligarchs” stepped down on Tuesday as a trustee of the Royal Academy, which has also returned a donation he made towards a Francis Bacon exhibition.

The RA – which had had been among UK cultural institutions and bodies facing calls to sever ties with Russian oligarchs after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – said that the billionaire banker Petr Aven would be stepping down with immediate effect.

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‘I last went to school in December’: a headteacher’s battle with long Covid

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Steve Bladon led his Lincolnshire school tirelessly through the pandemic and thought the worst was over – then fatigue set in

Last month, Steve Bladon, a father of four, watched with some unease as the prime minister announced the lifting of all Covid restrictions in England. After two years of the pandemic – the lockdowns, the legal requirements to self-isolate, the social distancing and mandatory masks – the message from government was that it may not be over, but it’s time to learn to live with Covid.

As the headteacher of a primary school in a small town in Lincolnshire, Bladon, 46, knows as much as anyone about living with the virus. He has led his team and school community tirelessly through the pandemic, delivering remote education and food parcels, reassuring anxious parents and keeping colleagues calm.

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Ukrainians want to stay near home, claims Raab, amid UK visa criticism

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Deputy prime minister says those that leave ‘want to be as close to their home country as possible’

• Russia-Ukraine crisis: live news

The UK’s deputy prime minister has suggested Ukrainians would prefer to flee to countries nearer to home amid criticism that the Britain’s support for refugees is “heartless” and pressure to offer more help from Conservative MPs.

Under plans set out on Sunday evening, Ukrainian nationals settled in the UK will be able to bring their “immediate family members” to join them, which applies only to spouses, unmarried partners of at least two years, parents or their children if one is under 18, or adult relatives who are also carers.

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London tube strike: workers stage 24-hour walkout in jobs dispute

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Picket lines mounted outside tube stations in capital with another 24-hour strike planned for Thursday

Transport for London has encouraged people to work from home on Tuesday and Thursday as thousands of tube workers went on strike, crippling the capital’s transport network.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union said its members were “solidly supporting” the industrial action with picket lines mounted outside tube stations.

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To end FGM, the UK must protect girls everywhere, not just in Britain | Charlotte Proudman

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British women and girls are still being cut abroad and foreigners who are vulnerable are denied asylum by the UK

‘But why should we care about a practice that is being performed overseas?” It was a blunt question put to me by an audience member at a conference on female genital mutilation. Should we care because of a commitment to human rights? Our collective duty to prevent suffering? We have a moral obligation to end the practice in Britain and also to focus efforts on eliminating it globally.

After spending many years researching FGM, I have spoken to women who vehemently support it and those that actively resist it. If we are going to end FGM, it is important that we hear all women’s voices, however uncomfortable that may make us.

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Viewers of online abuse at high risk of contacting children directly, study finds

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Darknet survey finds 42% sought contact after watching sexual abuse online, with escalating porn habits driving users to illegal material

The largest ever survey on the thoughts and behaviours of people who watch child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online has found significant evidence that those who watch illegal material are at high risk of going on to contact or abuse a child directly.

Nearly half (42%) of respondents to the survey, the first of its kind, said they had sought direct contact with children through online platforms after viewing CSAM, and 58% reported feeling afraid that viewing CSAM might lead to them committing abuse in person.

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