British Airways flight BA001 and Virgin Atlantic flight VS3 performed a synchronised departure from Heathrow on Monday heading for New York JFK for the first time since the US travel ban was introduced due to pandemic
Continue reading...Category Archives: UK news
Cop26: Obama criticises China and Russia for ‘dangerous absence of urgency’ – day eight live
Day eight at the Glasgow summit focuses on loss, adaptation and damage
- Cop26: what’s still to be resolved in the week ahead
- Hit $100bn target or poor countries face disaster, says Gambia president
- Cop26 week one in review
- Cop26 legitimacy questioned as groups excluded from crucial talks
The fossil fuel industry has hundreds of people accredited to the key climate talks in Glasgow - giving the sector a bigger delegation than any country, campaigners have claimed.
Analysis of the UN’s provisional list of named attendees suggests 503 delegates at Cop26 who are either directly affiliated with fossil fuel companies or are part of country delegations but are affiliated to oil, gas or coal firms, PA reports.
Continue reading...Johnson refuses to apologise over Paterson vote after No 10 says he will miss sleaze debate – UK politics live
Latest updates: prime minister also does not rule out peerage for Paterson; No 10 says PM will not attend debate as he will be on a train then
- No 10 says no need for watchdog to look into PM’s flat refurb
- Tory peer says Covid texts may have been deleted to save space
- Minister backs ban on MPs having lobbying-based second jobs
- 30 MPs who could be affected by proposed consultancy ban
- Coronavirus – latest global updates
The Downing Street lobby briefing is over, and the prime minister’s spokesman has confirmed that Boris Johnson will not be speaking in, or attending, the sleaze/standards/corruption debate in the Commons this afternoon.
And he won’t be watching it on the TV in his office afterwards; he is on a visit to a hospital in the north-east. No 10 signalled that he would not be able to be able to return to London in time for the debate because the rail timetable did not allow this.
Continue reading...RSPCA investigates after huntswoman filmed kicking and punching a horse
Naturalist Chris Packham calls for legal action over ‘appalling abuse’ at Hertfordshire event
The RSPCA is investigating after a woman was filmed by a hunt saboteur group apparently punching and kicking a horse.
The woman was condemned by the anti-hunting campaigners, as well as the naturalist Chris Packham and the organisation that oversees hunting with hounds in the UK.
Continue reading...Broken covers: collector puts world’s worst album art on show
Steve Goldman’s first rule is ‘it has to make me laugh’, and he is sharing the fun with public in Huddersfield
There’s the album cover with the band as rabbits, or the one with a harmony duo walking out of water dressed only in their underwear and ties, but surely the most baffling is the concert guitarist pictured in dinner jacket and no trousers.
Why? “I’ve no idea, sorry,” says Steve Goldman, who owns about 300 records that can lay claim to having some of the world’s worst cover art.
Continue reading...Belarus escorts hundreds of migrants towards Polish border
Column of up to 500 people including children led by border guards in escalation of deadly crisis
Belarusian authorities have escorted as many as 500 people, most of whom are from the Middle East, to the Polish border in an escalation of a deadly crisis that has already left people desperate to reach the EU trapped between borders and at least seven dead due to exposure.
Videos published by Belarusian media on Monday showed armed Belarusian border guards in combat fatigues escorting the column of people, which included families with children, along a highway from the border town of Bruzgi and towards a forest that runs alongside Poland’s Podlaskie region.
Continue reading...Australia shark attack: British victim hailed as ‘wonderful father’
Perth police have called off search for Paul Millachip, 57, saying it is apparent that attack was fatal
The wife of a man who is believed to have been killed by sharks off Australia’s west coast has paid tribute to a “wonderful father” .
Paul Millachip, 57, who is understood to have been from the UK, was last seen in the water on Saturday by two teenagers who witnessed what they believed was a shark attack off Port Beach in North Fremantle, Perth.
Continue reading...Northern Ireland: bus hijacked and set alight on outskirts of Belfast
Incident near Rathcoole in Newtownabbey sparks fresh fears of Brexit-related violence in region
A bus has been set on fire after it was hijacked by four masked men on the outskirts of Belfast.
The men boarded the double-decker bus in Church Road near Rathcoole in Newtownabbey, County Antrim, at about 7.45pm on Sunday, ordered passengers to get off and set it alight.
Continue reading...MPs could be barred from consultancy roles in sleaze clampdown
Watchdog considers tightening restrictions on MPs’ second jobs which could affect 30 parliamentarians
MPs could be banned from having consultancy jobs like Owen Paterson’s under plans for a clampdown on sleaze being considered by the Commons standards committee.
The prospect of tightened restrictions on MPs’ second jobs is to be decided within weeks and could affect more than 30 parliamentarians earning between £180,000 and hundreds of pounds a year on top of their £82,000 salary.
Continue reading...‘Get the vaccine’: family of Covid victim’s plea to pregnant women
Saiqa Parveen planned to have jab after giving birth but died from disease after daughter was delivered by emergency caesarean
She was eight months pregnant and weeks from welcoming her fifth daughter to the world, but Saiqa Parveen died of Covid after putting off getting the coronavirus jab. Her family have now issued an emotional plea for pregnant women to get vaccinated.
Parveen, 37, had planned to delay having the jab until her baby was born, her family said, but she was admitted to hospital with breathing difficulties in September and put on a ventilator.
Continue reading...Julian Assange and fiancee claim they are being blocked from marrying
WikiLeaks founder and Stella Moris are preparing legal action against Dominic Raab and Belmarsh jail governor
Julian Assange and his fiancee, Stella Moris, say they are being prevented from getting married and are preparing legal action against Dominic Raab and the governor of Belmarsh prison.
The action accuses the justice secretary and Jenny Louis, who runs the prison where the WikiLeaks co-founder is being held while the US is seeking his extradition, of denying the human rights of the couple and their two children.
Continue reading...EU could shelve Brexit trade deal if UK triggers article 16, Irish minister warns
Simon Coveney accuses British government of ‘deliberately forcing breakdown’ in negotiations over Northern Ireland
The prospect of a trade war between the UK and the EU has edged closer, with Ireland giving the clearest hint yet that Brussels plans to suspend the entire trade deal struck last December if the British government suspends the Northern Ireland Brexit protocol.
The Irish foreign minister, Simon Coveney, accused the UK of “deliberately forcing a breakdown” in negotiations over Northern Ireland, adding that there was still time to step back from the brink.
Continue reading...Few willing to change lifestyle to save the planet, climate survey finds
Exclusive: poll of 10 countries including US, UK, France and Germany finds people prioritising measures that are already habits
Citizens are alarmed by the climate crisis, but most believe they are already doing more to preserve the planet than anyone else, including their government, and few are willing to make significant lifestyle changes, an international survey has found.
“The widespread awareness of the importance of the climate crisis illustrated in this study has yet to be coupled with a proportionate willingness to act,” the survey of 10 countries including the US, UK, France and Germany, observed.
Continue reading...Jemima Khan cuts links with The Crown over treatment of Diana’s final years
Princess’s close friend says story was not handled ‘as respectfully and compassionately’ as she had hoped
Jemima Khan, a close friend of Princess Diana, pulled out of helping to script Netflix’s The Crown because the story was not being handled “as respectfully or compassionately” as she had hoped, she has said.
Khan said she was brought in to help the show’s creator, Peter Morgan, write the script of the fifth series, which includes the years leading up to Diana's death in a Paris car crash in 1997.
Continue reading...Anger over ‘grotesque abuse’ of £600,000 case to keep Mountbatten papers secret
David Owen condemns Cabinet Office’s ‘waste of public money’ in four-year bid to stop part of archive’s release
The Cabinet Office has been accused of a “grotesque abuse” of public funds in a freedom of information battle over the personal diaries of Lord and Lady Mountbatten in which costs are now expected to exceed £600,000.
Andrew Lownie, the author and historian, has fought a four-year legal battle over the papers that are in an archive saved for the nation after a fundraising campaign. They are now held at Southampton University.
Continue reading...Return of the sleazy party: the Conservatives and the Owen Paterson affair
As No 10 ham-fistedly let the scandal spread, was this about saving an old Brexit ally or protecting the PM himself?
A Conservative MP who entered parliament in 2010 began to receive what he described as a series of “unusually persistent” texts from his Tory whip last week. The member in question had been part of the Conservative intake that followed the parliamentary expenses scandal of 2009.
The arrival of this new group at Westminster – many of them with impressive previous careers outside politics – was supposed to demonstrate, as David Cameron said at the time, that his party was reforming its ways, ridding itself of sleaze.
Continue reading...Irish police arrest British man on suspicion of threatening to kill MP
Person alleged to have made threat during a phone call to a female Labour politician
A British national has been arrested in Ireland on suspicion of making threats to kill a sitting Labour MP.
A 41-year-old man was detained in the Cork suburb of Douglas on Saturday and brought to the Brideswell Garda station for questioning.
Continue reading...Woman arrested and fourth person dies after paddleboarding incident in Wales
Dyfed-Powys police say woman held on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter has been released under investigation
Police in Wales have arrested a woman on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter following a paddleboarding incident a week ago that has now claimed a fourth death.
The suspect, who police said was from south Wales, has been released under investigation.
Continue reading...‘The time for change is now’: demonstrators around the world demand action on climate crisis
Up to 100,000, including Kahnawake Mohawk delegates, brave Glasgow rain as 22 arrested after scientists blockade bridge
People on almost every continent were gathering for marches and rallies on Saturday to mark a Global Day for Climate Justice, halfway through the Glasgow climate change summit.
Activists in the Philippines, eight hours ahead of the UK, had already finished their rally as protesters gathered in Scotland. There were also rallies in South Korea, Indonesia, the Netherlands and France. The Belgian arm of Extinction Rebellion occupied a street in Brussels.
Continue reading...Eight police officers injured in clashes with protesters in Parliament Square
Anti-establishment Million Mask March group gathered to let off fireworks and demonstrate against the government
Eight police officers have been injured after clashing with hundreds of anti-establishment protesters in Parliament Square on Bonfire Night.
Demonstrators wearing Guy Fawkes-style masks had gathered at nearby Trafalgar Square at the annual Million Mask March with some throwing fireworks at officers.
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