Category Archives: UK news

Priti Patel under ‘immense pressure’ from No 10 over Channel crossings

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Downing Street declines to praise home secretary over attempts to stop crossings in small boats

Priti Patel is being put under “immense pressure” from Downing Street and Conservative MPs over government efforts to halt Channel crossings in small boats, with No 10 refusing to say the home secretary had done a good job.

As figures revealed, the number of people making perilous crossings has tripled since 2020, Boris Johnson’s spokesperson twice declined to praise Patel’s strategy on Monday. He said the prime minister had “confidence in the home secretary” but would only say she has “worked extremely hard and no one can doubt this is a priority for her”.

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UK employers step up demand for workers vaccinated against Covid

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Analysis shows job adverts requiring candidates to be jabbed rose by 189% between August and October

Employers in the UK are following the lead of their counterparts in the US by stepping up demands for staff to be vaccinated against Covid-19, analysis of recruitment adverts reveals.

According to figures from the jobs website Adzuna, the number of ads explicitly requiring candidates to be vaccinated rose by 189% between August and October as more firms ask for workers to be jabbed before they start on the job.

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Pandemic hits mental health of women and young people hardest, survey finds

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Survey also finds adults aged 18-24 and women more concerned about personal finances than other groups

Young people and women have taken the hardest psychological and financial hit from the pandemic, a YouGov survey has found – but few people anywhere are considering changing their lives as a result of it.

The annual YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project found that in many of the 27 countries surveyed, young people were consistently more likely than their elders to feel the Covid crisis had made their financial and mental health concerns worse.

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As China threat rises, can Aukus alliance recover from rancorous birth?

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Questions mount about pact’s ultimate purpose and implications for other Asean countries

It was initially seen as an audacious enlistment by Joe Biden of Australia into the 21st-century struggle against China, elevating the country in the process to a significant regional military power and finally giving substance to Global Britain and its tilt to the Indo-Pacific.

But since then the “ruckus” about Aukus, as Boris Johnson described it, has not stopped. If this was the start of a new “anti-hegemonic coalition” to balance China’s rise, it has not quite blown up on the launchpad, but nor has it taken off as smoothly as intended.

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Johnson ‘losing the confidence’ of Tory party after rambling CBI speech

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Senior party members concerned after chaotic fortnight, with PM said to be losing his grip over key policies

Conservative MPs are increasingly worried about Boris Johnson’s competence and drive after he gave a rambling speech to business leaders and was accused of losing his grip over a series of key policies from social care to rail.

Senior members of his own party said they needed Johnson to get the government back on track after a disastrous two weeks amid dismay about his performance at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) conference, where he lost his place in his speech for about 20 seconds and diverted into a lengthy tangent about Peppa Pig.

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Kenyan police launch investigation into death of British BBC employee

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Kate Mitchell’s body was found shortly after an emergency alarm was activated in her hotel room

A murder investigation has been launched in Kenya into the death of a British woman who worked for the BBC’s international development charity.

The body of Kate Mitchell, a senior manager at BBC Media Action, was found on Friday in the capital Nairobi shortly after an emergency alarm was activated in her room. Police in Kenya said the window to her eighth-floor hotel room had been broken and the body of a man Mitchell had been with earlier was found on the ground below.

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‘Embarrassing’: Boris Johnson criticised for rambling speech to CBI

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Business leaders and Conservative MPs criticise speech in which PM extensively praised Peppa Pig World and imitated car

Boris Johnson has been criticised by senior business leaders and Conservative MPs for a “rambling” speech to top industry figures that saw him extensively praise Peppa Pig World, compare himself to Moses and imitate the noise of an accelerating car.

The prime minister’s sprawling address to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) was accused of lacking seriousness and professionalism. Johnson lost his place during the speech and spent 20 seconds repeating “forgive me” as he shuffled the printed pages on his podium.

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Hogging the limelight: how Peppa Pig became a global phenomenon

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Boris Johnson threw spotlight on show that has run for 17 years and been exported to 118 countries

To many families taking their excited children to Peppa Pig World, the most surreal aspect isn’t the pastel-hued streets or the giant cartoon animals milling around; it’s the soundtrack. Piped from speakers spread around the park, the can’t-get-it-out-of-your-head theme tune plays on a continuous loop, and parents could be forgiven for feeling they’ve entered a nightmare rather than a toddler’s dreamscape.

Not so for Boris Johnson. The prime minister was so buoyed by his Sunday enjoying delights such an egg-shaped boat ride overlooked by Grampy Rabbit, where he was photographed grinning alongside his one-year-old son Wilfred and wife Carrie, that he was moved to praise the New Forest amusement park effusively in a speech to business leaders on Monday.

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Sarah Everard: former prosecutor to lead inquiry into rape and murder by police officer

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Dame Elish Angiolini to examine policing failures that allowed Wayne Couzens to attack 33-year-old

The Home Office inquiry into the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a police officer will be chaired by Dame Elish Angiolini, formerly Scotland’s top prosecutor, the department has said.

It will examine whether chances to identify her murderer, Wayne Couzens, as a danger to women before he attacked Everard in March 2021 were missed.

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Nasa to slam spacecraft into asteroid in mission to avoid future Armaggedon

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Test drive of planetary defence system aims to provide data on how to deflect asteroids away from Earth

That’s one large rock, one momentous shift in our relationship with space. On Wednesday, Nasa will launch a mission to deliberately slam a spacecraft into an asteroid to try to alter its orbit – the first time humanity has tried to interfere in the gravitational dance of the solar system. The aim is to test drive a planetary defence system that could prevent us from going the same way as the dinosaurs, providing the first real data about what it would take to deflect an Armageddon-inducing asteroid away from Earth.

Our planet is constantly being bombarded with small pieces of debris, but these are usually burned or broken up long before they hit the ground. Once in a while, however, something large enough to do significant damage hits the ground. About 66m years ago, one such collision is thought to have ended the reign of the dinosaurs, ejecting vast amounts of dust and debris into the upper atmosphere, which obscured the sun and caused food chains to collapse. Someday, something similar could call time on humanity’s reign – unless we can find a way to deflect it.

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‘She believed in every one of us’: ex-pupils on their inspirational teachers

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After Adele’s tearful reunion with a former teacher, four readers recall their own school memories

“So bloody cool, so engaging.” That’s how Adele described her English teacher at Chestnut Grove school in Balham, south-west London, Ms McDonald, when asked who had inspired her.

Answering a question from the actor Emma Thompson during ITV’s An Audience With Adele on Sunday, Adele said: “She really made us care, and we knew that she cared about us and stuff like that.”

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‘All my friends went home’: a fruit picker on life without EU workers

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With fellow Europeans leaving the UK, and no British workers taking their place, Eleanor Popa’s job harvesting strawberries has gone from tough to tough and lonely. Will the farm survive another year?

Eleanor Popa used to sleep in a six-berth caravan on the site of Sharrington Strawberries, a 16-hectare (40-acre) strawberry farm in Melton Constable, Norfolk. Now, there are only four people in her caravan: everyone else has left to work in EU countries. “My friends,” she says, “they went home, or to work in Spain and Germany. A lot of them did not come back to work this year.”

Popa, who is from Bulgaria, has been a fruit picker for two years. “It’s hard work,” she says. “We have to get up early and pick. It’s 6am in the summer. Now we get up at 7.30am. And we work in tunnels. Sometimes it’s cold, sometimes it’s hot. Sometimes it’s windy. It can be boring.” Picking strawberries is skilled work. “It took me a month to learn how to pick the fruit,” she says.

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Another Covid Christmas: Britons urged to delay festive plans

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Analysis: scientists say high transmission rates mean caution is critical if people are to stay safe

As Christmas approached in 2020, it was not a Dickensian spirit but the spectre of Covid that haunted households up and down the UK.

With cases soaring, government-approved plans to allow three households to mix for five days in England were scrapped within weeks of being made, while scientists urged families to connect over Zoom or host drinks on the pavement rather than meeting for a hug.

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Covid live: UK reports 40,004 new cases and 61 new deaths; Brussels protest turns violent

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Latest updates: tens of thousands of people march in Belgian capital against Covid measure; UK health secretary says vaccination must be voluntary

From Monday, people aged 40-49 in England will be able to book a Covid jab, the Department of Health and Social Care has confirmed. Sixteen and 17-year-olds will also be able to book in for their second jab.

Taking up the offer of a second or third dose will help protect the progress of the vaccine rollout in the face of waning immunity, and mean people can “enjoy Christmas safely”, the Department of Health and Social Care said.

We simply don’t know how many people who didn’t come forward during Covid-19, during the pandemic, will actually come forward, and therefore we are in a bit of a guessing game about exactly how many.

But the bit I can assure you is that NHS staff and NHS leaders are working incredibly hard at the moment to create that plan to ensure that we can get through that backlog as quickly as possible.

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Boris Johnson urged to stop MPs cutting tax bills on second jobs

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Critics call for planned rule change on outside work to include restricting use of personal companies to avoid tax

Critics have urged Boris Johnson to restrict MPs using personal companies to skirt tax bills under the planned new rules on second jobs, as the Conservative sleaze row continues to dominate Westminster.

Using a personal company to accept payments for consultancy work can provide benefits such as avoiding income tax of up to 45% at source on the earnings, with an investigation by the Times finding multiple MPs were paid in total about £1m via the arrangements.

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Start of final Crossrail trials in London raises hope of early 2022 opening

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Volunteer passengers will be aboard central TfL section of Elizabeth line as part of final testing phase

Hopes that Crossrail will open in central London in early 2022 – this time on schedule – have been boosted as the troubled £19bn scheme moved into its final phase of testing at the weekend.

The start of months of trial operations, which will involve thousands of volunteer passengers to test how the system will function, including in emergencies, was described as a “significant milestone” by Transport for London and the mayor.

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Sajid Javid rules out compulsory Covid vaccinations in UK – video

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The health secretary says the UK 'won't ever look at' mandatory vaccinations for the general public, after Austria announced it would become the first country in Europe to make coronavirus jabs compulsory. This comes as several countries, including Belgium, Germany and Norway, revealed last week they were preparing to beef up measures to tackle low uptake of Covid-19 vaccines

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Man held on suspicion of murder after two people found dead near Preston

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Police treating the deaths of a man and a woman found at a house in Higher Walton as suspicious

Police have arrested a man on suspicion of murder after two people were found dead at a house near Preston.

Lancashire constabulary said officers found the bodies of a man and a woman at the property on Cann Bridge Street in the village of Higher Walton on Saturday afternoon.

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The young loyalist who dared contemplate the idea of a ‘new’, united, Ireland

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Activist Joel Keys says unionism would benefit from confronting, not avoiding, the things it finds most difficult

He was the teenage supermarket worker who shocked MPs examining loyalist anger in Northern Ireland by claiming that sometimes violence “was the only tool you have left”. Joel Keys left the committee chair, Tory MP Simon Hoare, “chilled and appalled” and he faced a media backlash.

Six months on Keys, now 20, has not disappeared into oblivion after his 15 minutes of fame. Nor has he abandoned his position on violence. He has ambitions to become a local politician representing young loyalist communities that he describes as “goldmines” left behind by unionist parties and education leaders.

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New racism scandal rocks English football

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Diversity report alleges that the FA’s referee system is obstructing black and Asian people from reaching elite levels of the game

English football has been rocked by a fresh racism scandal after black and Asian referees revealed the scale of abuse and prejudice that, they say, is holding them back.

A dossier compiled by match officials, and seen by the Observer, alleges that racism in the Football Association’s refereeing system is undermining efforts by black and Asian people to reach the highest levels of the game.

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