Category Archives: UK news

Inquiry into leak of Matt Hancock kiss images leads to no prosecutions

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ICO finds insufficient evidence against those suspected of capturing footage of minister with colleague

No one will be prosecuted over the leak of CCTV footage showing Matt Hancock engaged in a clinch with a colleague in his office, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has announced.

The footage and stills of the embrace, which prompted his resignation as health secretary, were leaked to the Sun in June last year. It was most likely obtained by someone using their phone to record a CCTV screen, the ICO said.

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Boris Johnson ‘made a mockery’ of UK’s Covid sacrifices, says Ruth Davidson

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Former Scottish Tory leader renews calls for PM to resign, in split from current leader Douglas Ross

Ruth Davidson, the former Scottish Tory leader, has renewed her calls for Boris Johnson to quit over the partygate scandal as she accused him of “traducing” the office of prime minister.

One of the first Tories to call for his resignation when the scandal first broke, Davidson echoed a handful of Tory MPs who confirmed on Wednesday they stood by their no-confidence letters after Johnson’s fine for breaching his government’s Covid rules.

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UK imposes sanctions on another 206 Russians after Ukraine railway attack

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Foreign secretary says 178 of those targeted helped prop up self-proclaimed republics in Luhansk and Donetsk

The UK government has imposed sanctions on another 206 individuals in response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, including 178 people it said were involved in propping up the self-proclaimed republics in Luhansk and Donetsk.

Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, said the latest sanctions were imposed in a direct response to the “horrific rocket attacks” on a train station in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, that killed dozens of civilians.

Vladimir Yakunin, a former head of Russian Railways who the Foreign Office said had close ties to Putin. The US had already imposed sanctions on Yakunin.

Igor Kesaev, the founder of the cigarette company Megapolis, who the UK says has a £2.9bn fortune.

Saodat Narzieva, “a pro-Kremlin oligarch with close ties to Putin” and a sister of Alisher Usmanov. She was hit with EU sanctions last week.

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Commonwealth rift in Caribbean as re-election of Lady Scotland challenged

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Jamaican minister’s entry to race for secretary general called ‘monumental error’ by Antigua

Patricia Scotland’s hopes of being re-elected Commonwealth secretary general are under threat, after Jamaica’s foreign minister, Kamina Johnson-Smith, announced that she was challenging Scotland for the post.

The decision has sparked controversy in the Caribbean, which had previously met to back Scotland’s bid for a second term. The Antiguan prime minister, Gaston Browne, has described Jamaica’s decision to break ranks as a “monumental error”.

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GSK to buy US cancer drug developer amid pressure from activist investor

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GlaxoSmithKline’s £1.5bn Sierra Oncology deal comes after pressure from Elliott to boost its pipeline

The UK drug company GlaxoSmithKline has agreed a £1.5bn deal to buy a US cancer treatment developer, Sierra Oncology, as it tries to fend off pressure from the activist shareholder Elliott Management.

The deal will give Britain’s second-largest pharmaceutical company access to California-based Sierra Oncology’s momelotinib, a drug being tested on anaemic patients with a type of bone marrow cancer called myelofibrosis. GSK said the drug had “significant growth potential” and it expected sales to start next year, with one analyst predicting it could generate peak annual sales of about $1.7bn (£1.3bn).

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V&A acquires ‘autograph suit’ signed by stars at Baftas and Oscars

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Outfit worn by costume designer Sandy Powell bought by charity boss who has given it to museum

The costume designer Sandy Powell’s one-of-a-kind “autograph suit”, which was signed by more than 200 Hollywood celebrities and luminaries including Leonardo DiCaprio, Spike Lee and Donatella Versace, has been acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The suit, worn by Powell during the 2020 film awards season, was auctioned as part of a fundraising effort by Art Fund to save Prospect Cottage, the creative studio of Powell’s mentor and friend Derek Jarman. It was bought by Edwina Dunn, the chief executive of the educational charity The Female Lead, who has given it to the V&A.

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Replacing Human Rights Act will weaken protections, say peers and MPs

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Joint committee on human rights says plans contravene principle that human rights are universal

Dominic Raab’s proposal to replace the Human Rights Act with a British bill of rights is not evidence-based and will diminish protections for individuals, MPs and peers have said.

The criticisms by the joint committee on human rights (JCHR) are the latest directed at the planned changes, which the justice secretary has said will counter “wokery and political correctness” and expedite the deportation of foreign criminals.

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Colston Four acquittal to be referred to court of appeal

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Unusual move to seek legal clarification, which cannot reverse verdict, amounts to the ‘politicisation of jury trials’, says defence lawyer

The attorney general has referred the case of four protesters cleared of the toppling of the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston to the court of appeal for legal direction.

In a rare move, which cannot reverse the not guilty verdicts, Suella Braverman is to ask appeal judges for clarification on whether defendants can cite their human rights as a defence in a case of criminal damage.

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One in eight privately rented homes in England pose threat to health, MPs say

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Serious health and safety risks costing NHS £340m a year, public accounts committee report finds

More than one in eight privately rented homes in England pose a serious threat to people’s health and safety, costing the NHS about £340m a year, according to a report from a committee of MPs.

It also uncovered evidence of unlawful discrimination, with an estimated one in four landlords unwilling to let to non-British passport holders.

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Third of GPs in England want to quit within five years, survey finds

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Practitioners’ struggles include increased workloads, greater demand from patients, and paperwork

A third of GPs in England say they want to quit within five years, according to a regular survey which warns that clinical doctors are especially unhappy with the number of hours they work.

The survey of 2,195 GPs undertaken in 2021 found 33% planned to leave “direct patient care” by 2026. The figure represents a return to levels last seen in 2015, after plans to quit peaked in 2018 when two in five GPs wanted to stop seeing patients within five years.

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Non-compliant online STI tests put patients at risk, experts warn

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Few sexually transmitted infection test kits available online meet official standards, BMJ study finds

Patients are being put at risk in the UK because very few sexually transmitted infection (STI) tests offered online meet official standards, experts have warned.

The NHS provides free in-person tests for STIs via its network of sexual health and genitourinary medicine clinics. Patients can also order tests via the internet from both NHS-commissioned and private providers, a practice that has become increasingly popular during the pandemic.

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British man fighting in Ukraine forced to surrender to Russians

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Aiden Aslin said his unit in Mariupol has run out of food and ammunition and can no longer hold out

A Briton who has been fighting with the Ukrainian armed forces in the besieged city of Mariupol has been forced to surrender along with his unit to the Russians because they have run out of food and ammunition.

Aiden Aslin, from Newark, joined Ukraine’s marines in 2018 but has told friends and family that he and his comrades cannot hold out any longer as the Russians gradually tighten their grip on the southern port city.

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Novichok poisonings: Nick Bailey reaches settlement with police force

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Bailey says he has continued to suffer from trauma of nerve agent attack in Salisbury in March 2018

A police officer who suffered novichok poisoning when he searched the home of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal following the Salisbury nerve agent attack has reached a settlement with his former force.

Lawyers for Nick Bailey argued that he continued to suffer from the trauma of the poisoning more than four years on and made a personal injury claim against Wiltshire police.

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Tory MP Crispin Blunt withdraws statement questioning guilty verdict in Imran Ahmad Khan’s sexual assault trial – politics live

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Latest updates: all the news and developments in politics in the UK

As mentioned earlier, it is crime week in the Labour elections campaign grid and last night the party announced that - as it put it in its own press release - it was “calling for immediate nationwide injunctions to block Just Stop Oil protests as demonstrations continue to cause misery for motorists across Britain”.

Keir Starmer tweeted about this last night.

Up and down the country, people are struggling to get fuel to put in their cars to get to work to put food on the table, pay rent or mortgage and it’s a very basic thing. People are struggling under the cost of living crisis already with stratospheric energy bills. Life is tough enough. And we want people who need their cars to get to work to be able to.

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Home Office contractors accused of paying for sex while deporting migrants

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Investigation launched after whistleblowers said colleagues regularly paid sex workers for 10 years

An investigation has been launched after claims that Home Office contractors paid for sex while deporting people abroad, the Guardian has learned.

Five whistleblowers have said some colleagues regularly paid sex workers on overnight stopovers over a period of 10 years after accompanying migrants on flights from the UK.

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Crispin Blunt urged to apologise for comments on Imran Ahmad Khan case

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Tory MP said trial in which colleague was found guilty was ‘nothing short of an international scandal’

The Conservative MP Crispin Blunt is under pressure to apologise for and retract comments that a fellow MP found guilty of sexual assault was a victim of a “miscarriage of justice”.

Blunt deleted the tweet and removed the comment from his website after an intervention from Tory whips overnight. A Tory source said: “Crispin’s views are wholly unacceptable. Following exchanges late last night we expect the statement to be retracted first thing this morning.”

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Jump in UK wages fails to keep pace with cost of living

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Pressure for more support for households and businesses after consumer prices rise 6.2%

Business live updates: jobless rate drops and wage squeeze continues

Britain’s cost of living crisis moved into its fourth consecutive month in February despite a jump in wages and a fall in unemployment to just 3.8%, its lowest level since 1974.

The Office for National Statistics said average earnings growth of 5.4%, including bonuses, failed to keep pace with a 6.2% rise in the consumer prices index in February, while for those who missed out on a bonus the situation was even worse after average wages increased by only 4%.

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At least 40% of child-to-parent violence in UK unreported, study finds

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Rate of abuse against parents is highest among 19- to 25-year-olds and most perpetrators are male

At least 40% of child-to-parent violence and abuse incidents are unreported to police, according to research.

The study into the “hidden harm” commissioned by the London mayor’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) found that the rate of violence and abuse against parents and carers was highest among those aged 19-25, and 81% of perpetrators were male.

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Free wooden bellyboard hire scheme aims to cut plastic pollution

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Surf Wood for Good aims to tackle waste caused by polystyrene bodyboards by lending beachgoers UK-made wooden boards

A new initiative is offering free bellyboard hire across England, Wales and Northern Ireland to discourage the use of polluting plastic boards.

Surf Wood for Good aims to tackle the waste caused by polystyrene bodyboards, which are usually imported and single-use, by lending beachgoers British-made wooden boards.

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BlackRock urged to delay debt repayments from crisis-torn Zambia

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Anti-poverty campaigners say world’s largest fund manager refuses to reduce or delay payments on Zambia’s debt

BlackRock, the world’s largest fund manager, has come under pressure to delay demands for debt interest payments from Zambia to prevent the crisis-hit African country’s finances from spiralling out of control.

Anti-poverty campaigners said BlackRock, which manages $10tn (£7.68tn) of assets, was among the private sector lenders that had refused to reduce the interest rate or delay payments on Zambian bonds, unlike governments and international agencies that hold the country’s debts.

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