Category Archives: UK news

Cambridge University scraps prisoners programme after 2019 terror attack

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Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones were killed by convicted terrorist at event at Fishmonger’s Hall

Cambridge University has scrapped a programme that taught prisoners alongside students after the deadly 2019 Fishmonger’s Hall terrorist attack was carried out at one of its events.

Jack Merritt, 25, who was employed by the Learning Together programme at the time, and Saskia Jones, 23, who was one of its volunteers, were killed by the convicted terrorist Usman Khan at an event to mark the fifth anniversary of the scheme.

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France to push for EU-wide UK migration treaty over Channel crossings

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French government wants whole bloc to act despite warnings other member states have no appetite

France will press the EU to negotiate an asylum and migration treaty with the UK in an attempt to deter people from making the dangerous Channel crossing.

The French government, which last week took up the six-month rotating presidency of the EU council of ministers, wants the whole bloc to act, despite warnings that other member states have no appetite for a migration treaty with Britain.

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‘It felt like losing a husband’: the fraudsters breaking hearts – and emptying bank accounts

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Romance scams robbed Britons of nearly £100m last year. Thanks to online dating and the pandemic, these cruel crimes are more sophisticated and prevalent than ever

In February 2019, Anna, a finance professional in her 50s, joined the dating website Zoosk. She had been single for four years, recovering from an incredibly difficult, abusive marriage. “I was finally ready to meet someone,” she says.

So, when she met Andrew, a handsome Bulgarian food importer living in London, she was thrilled. The pair were soon spending hours talking on the phone each day. Anna was smitten. “He showered me with love and affection,” she says. “If you imagine candy floss, I was the stick and he was the sugar wrapped around me. I felt as though I was floating.”

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Covid live: Record numbers admitted to US hospitals with coronavirus; Sweden to introduce stricter curbs

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Over 132,000 patients currently on US wards with Covid; Swedish measures include work from home mandate

Two of New Zealand’s most prominent Covid-19 experts have warned that the country is unprepared to prevent the health system from being overloaded by an Omicron outbreak, with likely fatal consequences.

Otago University’s Dr Nick Wilson and Dr Michael Baker also said it was only a “matter of weeks” before the highly transmissible variant seeped into the community due to border failures.

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UK government urges all pregnant women to get immediate Covid jab

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Campaign comes as figures show almost all expectant mothers hospitalised with coronavirus symptoms were unvaccinated

The UK government is warning that almost all pregnant women admitted to hospital with Covid symptoms were unvaccinated in one analysis over several months last year, as it kicks off an advertising campaign encouraging expectant mothers to get boosted.

The campaign is calling on pregnant women not to wait to get either their first, second or booster jab. It will highlight the risks of Covid-19 to mothers and babies, with testimonies of pregnant women who have had the vaccine to be broadcast on radio and social media.

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Platinum pudding for Queen’s jubilee to follow 1953’s coronation chicken

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Fortnum & Mason’s judges include Mary Berry and event will form part of celebrations for 70-year reign

Fortnum & Mason is launching a competition to find a dish celebrating the Queen’s 70 years on the throne, marking the beginning of official jubilee festivities.

Much like Poulet Reine Elizabeth, more commonly known as coronation chicken, invented by Le Cordon Bleu London for the Queen’s coronation banquet in 1953, it is hoped the Platinum Pudding competition will serve as a long-lasting reminder of the 95 year-old monarch’s reign.

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Brexit changes will add to soaring costs in 2022, warn UK manufacturers

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Make UK says two-thirds of companies fear customs delays and red tape from new rules will further hamper supply chains

Manufacturers have warned that Brexit will add to soaring costs facing British industry, amid concerns that customs delays and red tape will rank among the biggest challenges for firms this year.

Make UK, the industry body representing 20,000 manufacturing firms of all sizes from across the country, said that while optimism among its members had grown, it was being undermined by the after-effects of the UK’s departure from the EU.

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‘Living with Covid’ does not have to mean ditching all protective measures

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Analysis: reports and denials that free LFTs will be axed highlight gulf in opinions on how to move forward

Reports on Sunday that free lateral flow tests could be axed under a strategy of living with Covid within weeks were met with a swift backlash. The government promptly denied the suggestion that free tests could soon be scrapped.

The story highlights a gulf in opinions on what “living with Covid” might look like, with some saying we will achieve this only through continued caution and others equating the phrase to ditching all Covid measures and partying like it’s 2019.

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Nadhim Zahawi: UK should lead move from pandemic to endemic Covid – video

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The education secretary has called for the UK to show the rest of the world how to move from 'pandemic to endemic' Covid, as he suggested it would be helpful to cut the isolation period to five days to ease workforce shortages. Nadhim Zahawi also played down suggestions that the government was about to start charging for lateral flow tests, which would lead to fewer infections in the community being identified

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Covid live news: official cases in Africa pass 10m; UK minister says cutting self-isolation would be ‘helpful’

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South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Ethiopia and Libya among countries hardest hit; Nadhim Zahawi says he supports reducing isolation to five days

More on the Philippines, after the country set a record for new 28,707 Covid infections for a second consecutive day.

A senior government official confirmed an increase in hospital beds and medical resources in and around the capital Manila have been ordered, Reuters reports.

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Nicola Sturgeon urged to scrap census asking teenagers about anal sex

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Chief of Scottish parents’ organisation says health and wellbeing survey ‘not fit for purpose’

Scotland’s largest parents’ organisation is calling for the SNP government to withdraw its schools’ health and wellbeing census, which has attracted opprobrium for asking 14-year-olds about their experience of anal sex.

The controversial poll has united rightwing pro-family campaigners and progressive children’s rights advocates, with both groups fearing it may end up causing harm to the young people it intends to help.

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Nadhim Zahawi denies there is plan to end free lateral flow Covid tests

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Education secretary ‘puzzled’ by reports government will start charging for tests in England in few weeks

Ministers are “absolutely not” planning to scrap free rapid Covid tests, amid reports the government will start charging for them in England in the next few weeks.

The Sunday Times reported free lateral flow tests (LFTs) could be limited to high-risk settings – such as care homes, hospitals and schools – and to people with symptoms.

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Brexit decision left UK firms paying 10% more than EU rivals for emissions

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Government refusal to link carbon market to EU’s has led to higher cost for British businesses

British businesses are paying substantially more to produce carbon dioxide than their EU rivals because of the government’s refusal to link the UK carbon market to the bigger European market after Brexit.

The difference is putting UK industry at a significant competitive disadvantage to European rivals, at a time of soaring energy prices, but does not result in any additional benefit to the environment.

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Coronavirus: should the UK make vaccination mandatory?

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With more countries ready to oblige citizens to receive the Covid jab, what are the key questions in the debate?

In Italy, it is now obligatory for people aged 50 or over to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Greece is pondering a similar move. In France, which has seen record numbers of positive cases, President Emmanuel Macron has also announced that he wants to “piss off” the unvaccinated, while Austria is contemplating a law to make the vaccine mandatory for all its citizens. By contrast, in the UK, Boris Johnson has confined himself to accusing anti-vaxxers of talking “mumbo-jumbo”.

But is that enough? Should the UK take a harder line on those who refuse to be vaccinated? After all, this is a virus that threatens to overwhelm the NHS. As doctors continue to point out, hospital beds are now filling up with more and more seriously ill Covid patients, many of whom are unvaccinated. So, should vaccines against Covid be made mandatory, not just in certain workplace settings but for all individuals?

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Global spread of autoimmune disease blamed on western diet

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New DNA research by London-based scientists hopes to find cure for rapidly spreading conditions

More and more people around the world are suffering because their immune systems can no longer tell the difference between healthy cells and invading micro-organisms. Disease defences that once protected them are instead attacking their tissue and organs.

Major international research efforts are being made to fight this trend – including an initiative at London’s Francis Crick Institute, where two world experts, James Lee and Carola Vinuesa, have set up separate research groups to help pinpoint the precise causes of autoimmune disease, as these conditions are known.

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Art historian discovers that £65 painting on his wall is work of Flemish master

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Picture of Isabella Clara Eugenia, Infanta of Spain, is likely to be by Sir Anthony van Dyck, finds Courtauld’s report

As a leading art historian, Christopher Wright has uncovered several old master paintings in public and private collections over five decades. Now he has discovered that a copy of a painting by Sir Anthony van Dyck, which he bought for himself for £65 in 1970, may actually be an original by the 17th-century Flemish court painter to King Charles I.

“I bought it from a jobbing dealer in west London,” he said. “I was buying it as a copy, as an art historian. I took no notice of it, in a strange way. The syndrome is the cobbler’s children are the worst shod. So the art historian’s collection is the least looked at.” Wright estimated the painting might be worth around £40,000, although some Van Dycks have fetched seven-figure sums.

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Two teenagers charged over death of woman, 88, in east London fire

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Eighteen-year-old and 15-year-old to appear at Thames magistrates court after incident in October

Two teenagers have been charged with manslaughter and arson after an 88-year-old woman was killed in a fire in east London.

Metropolitan police officers were called to reports of a fire at a residential address in Queens Park Road, Romford, in October where Josephine Smith was pronounced dead at the scene.

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Royals await anxiously the fallout from Prince Andrew’s disgrace

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The Queen’s favourite child, under siege in the press as he awaits a critical court ruling, is not the first obnoxious royal. But he has damaged ‘the Firm’ – and it will have to change

Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, KG, GCVO, CD, ADC, turns 62 next month. It is long past the age at which a man is expected to stop being a cause of concern and embarrassment to his parents. And yet Andrew, who is said to be the Queen’s favourite child, has exposed his mother to the greatest threat to the royal family’s reputation in living memory.

As he awaits the decision of a New York judge, Lewis Kaplan, in the sex assault case brought by Virginia Giuffre, the prince finds himself in the deeply unedifying position of trying to evade court with a secret silencing deal struck by his late friend and convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein.

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Desmond Tutu’s funeral and Kazakhstan clashes: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to Hong Kong

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Gemma Chan on the truth about her father’s life at sea: ‘He knew what it was like to have nothing’

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The actor knew her father had served in the merchant navy, but it wasn’t until she read about Britain’s mistreatment of Chinese seamen in the 40s that she understood just how much his experiences had shaped her family

“Take the rest of the noodles and the pak choi and you can have it for your lunch tomorrow.” My dad pushed the takeaway containers and their remaining contents across the table towards me.

“I’ve got loads of food at mine, why don’t you and Mum keep it?” I protested. I knew he’d insist I take the leftovers with me. This routine would always play out at the end of family dinners once I’d left home and, this time around, it felt both familiar and oddly comforting – because it had been a while since our last dinner.

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