Lammy, standing in for Keir Starmer, avoided answering questions on the mistaken release during PMQs
David Lammy starts by saying the PM is in Brazil.
He says the thoughts of all MPs are still with the victims of the appalling attacks in Huntingdon and Peterborough, where, he says, he was at school for seven years.
Continue reading...Prospect says proposals to make payouts less generous would damage public finances rather than save money
Reform UK’s plans to make public-sector pensions less generous could cost billions extra a year and cause a ticking timebomb in the public finances, a leading trade union has warned.
Prospect said the plans unveiled by the party’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, would damage the public finances rather than save money “and end up costing taxpayers tens of billions of pounds in the years to come”.
Continue reading...Algerian man, 24, ‘released in error’ from HMP Wandsworth two days after stronger checks for jails were brought in
Police have launched an urgent manhunt for a second foreign prisoner freed mistakenly, two days after the justice secretary, David Lammy, brought in stronger checks for jails.
The 24-year-old Algerian was wrongly released from Wandsworth prison in south London last Wednesday, with the Metropolitan police informed only this week.
Continue reading...Drop in US, Asia and Europe follows warning from bank bosses that market correction could lie ahead
Global stock markets have fallen sharply amid concerns that a boom in valuations of artificial intelligence (AI) companies could be rapidly cooling.
Markets in the US, Asia and Europe have fallen after bank bosses warned a serious stock market correction could lie ahead, after a run of record stock market highs led some companies to appear overvalued.
Continue reading...Health secretary and NHS England chief warn of winter pressures and rising levels of abuse
An “ugly” racism reminiscent of the 1970s and 1980s has become worryingly commonplace again in modern Britain and NHS staff are bearing the brunt of it, Wes Streeting has warned.
Incidents of verbal and physical abuse based on people’s skin colour now happen so often that it has become “socially acceptable to be racist”, the health secretary said.
Continue reading...Questions mount for officers as Anthony Williams, 32, appears in court on charges of attempted murder
Police investigating the mass stabbing on a high-speed train in Cambridgeshire are examining four knife incidents alleged to have taken place hours before Saturday evening’s attacks.
Questions mounted for police as Anthony Williams, 32, appeared in court on Monday on a series of attempted murder charges related to two stabbing incidents.
Continue reading...Agreement that will increase drivers’ pay to nearly £80,000 by 2027 comes after strike action in September
The RMT union has accepted a three-year inflation-plus pay deal for London Underground workers, ending the dispute that led to travel chaos in London in September and increasing drivers’ pay to nearly £80,000 by 2027.
The deal, with an initial 3.4% increase backdated to this April, means London Underground staff pay will rise in line with RPI inflation – higher than the CPI rate normally used for index-linked pay rises – with guaranteed minimum rates if inflation falls, making the total deal worth at least 9.2%.
Continue reading...Boy had sought court order to force his return, after parents took him on trip to Ghana and returned without him
A British teenager whose parents left him in Ghana, fearing he was at risk from “gang culture” in the UK, should stay there until at least the end of his GCSE exams, a judge sitting at London’s high court has ruled.
The boy took legal action against his parents, seeking a court order that would force his return, after they enrolled him in a boarding school and arranged for him to live with extended family in Ghana without telling him.
Continue reading...About 32,000 volunteered to fight Franco dictatorship, including 2,500 men and women from Britain and Ireland
The Spanish government has granted citizenship to 170 descendants of volunteers in the International Brigades in recognition of their fight against fascism during the Franco dictatorship that followed the civil war.
An estimated 32,000 volunteers from around the world joined the anti-fascist brigades during the civil war, including approximately 2,500 men and women from Britain and Ireland, of whom 530 were killed.
Continue reading...River Action bringing legal action against water regulator over who should foot bill for firms’ past failures to invest
Ofwat is unlawfully allowing water companies to charge customers twice to fund more than £100bn of investment to reduce sewage pollution, campaigners will allege in court on Tuesday.
Lawyers for River Action say the bill increases being allowed by Ofwat – which amount to an average of £123 a year per household – mean customers will be paying again for improvements to achieve environmental compliance that should have been funded from their previous bills.
Continue reading...Minister responds to calls from watchdog’s chair to approve new guidance on transgender rights ‘as soon as possible’
Bridget Phillipson has urged the equalities watchdog to focus more on helping ministers do their jobs and less on having public debates as a row continues about how long it will take to implement new rules on gender recognition.
The comments by Phillipson, who is the equalities minister as well as the education secretary, come after the Equality and Human Rights Commission took the unusual step of urging the government to “act with speed” in approving its statutory guidance on responding to a landmark supreme court ruling on transgender rights.
Continue reading...Sheffield Hallam University ordered professor to cease human rights study into Uyghurs forced labour in China
An investigation into allegations that a British university was subjected to pressure from Beijing authorities to halt research about human rights abuses in China has been referred to counter-terrorism police.
The Guardian reported on Monday morning that Sheffield Hallam University, home to the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice (HKC) research institution, had ordered professor Laura Murphy to cease research on supply chains and forced labour in the country in February.
Continue reading...Chancellor to promise ‘fairness and opportunity’ but will not repeat manifesto pledge on tax, after PM’s hint at breach
Rachel Reeves will lay the groundwork for a tax-raising budget that could break Labour’s election promise on income tax, in a major speech in which she will be “candid” about the tough choices ahead.
The chancellor will give the speech as the markets open on Tuesday, when she will promise to make fair choices at this month’s budget but decline to repeat her manifesto pledge of no rise in income tax, VAT or national insurance.
Continue reading...Department store chain banks on nostalgia to get customers into festive mood with Where Love Lives
John Lewis is hoping that a dash of nostalgia will get consumers into the festive mood this year as it officially kickstarts the countdown to Christmas with the launch of its 2025 advert to the tune of the 1990s club classic Where Love Lives.
The department store chain is appealing to ageing clubbers – and their teenage kids – with this year’s ad focused on a middle-aged dad transported back to his clubbing days after receiving a vinyl record from his son.
Continue reading...Nassim Mimun, who left with Lammy’s and his wife’s bags after ‘tone escalated’, acquitted owing to lack of evidence
A French taxi driver accused of stealing money and luggage from David Lammy has been acquitted due to lack of evidence, a prosecutor said.
Nassim Mimun, 40, drove the deputy prime minister and his wife, Nicola Green, more than 600km (370 miles) from Forli, near Bologna in northern Italy, to the ski resort of Flaine in the French Alps on 11 April.
Continue reading...Reform leader refuses to commit to keeping mechanism that guarantees how pensions are increased
Farage is speaking now. He says another “depressing budget hoves into view”. It will be a budget that “doesn’t have the guts to cut public spending”.
He says Britain has been living under an illusion.
I think for some years we’ve actually been living under an illusion. We’ve not been prepared to face up to just how much of an economic mess we genuinely in.
As we slipped down the global league tables, we kid ourselves that it’s OK, we’ve got GDP growth.
Continue reading...Akinola Davies Jr’s Nigeria-set drama has 12 nominations, including best film and besr director
Nigeria-set drama My Father’s Shadow is the leading contender at this year’s British independent film awards (Bifas), after it scooped 12 nominations, including best British independent film, best director for Akinola Davies Jr, and best screenplay for Davies’s brother Wale. The film came out ahead of Pillion, adapted from Adam Mars-Jones’s coming-of-age relationship story, which got 10 nominations, and biopic I Swear, which got nine.
My Father’s Shadow, which stars Sope Dirisu and is Davies’s debut feature as a director, premiered at the Cannes film festival to admiring reviews. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw described it as “a transparently personal project and a coming-of-age film in its (traumatised) way, a moving account of how, just for one day, two young boys glimpse the real life and real history of their father who has been mostly absent for much of their lives”. The film is yet to be released in the UK, but has already come out in Nigeria.
Continue reading...Party leader says proposal had been an ‘aspiration’ and accuses Tories and Labour of ‘wrecking the public finances’
Nigel Farage has rowed back from his party’s election promise to cut £90bn of taxes, accusing Labour and the Tories of “wrecking the public finances” and saying Reform UK would need to get public spending under control first.
The Reform leader rejected suggestions he had been forced to break manifesto promises in order to gain economic credibility, suggesting the proposal had only ever been an “aspiration”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Leading professor at Sheffield Hallam was told to cease research on supply chains and forced labour in China after demands from authorities
A British university complied with a demand from Beijing to halt research about human rights abuses in China, leading to a major project being dropped, the Guardian can reveal.
In February, Sheffield Hallam University, home to the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice (HKC), a leading research institution focused on human rights, ordered one of its best-known professors, Laura Murphy, to cease research on supply chains and forced labour in China.
Continue reading...Mother of Bella May Culley, 19, awaiting sentencing on Monday, says conditions have improved after transfer to new jail
A pregnant British teenager accused of drug-smuggling has been moved to a mother and baby unit in a Georgian prison, her mother said.
Bella May Culley, 19, who is reported to be eight months pregnant, was arrested at Tbilisi airport in May.
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