Some people cannot prove they are in the country legally because of glitch in digital residency permits
EU nationals living in the UK who apply to change their status risk being rejected by landlords, employers and mortgage lenders because of an anomaly on the digital residency permits issued by the government.
Before they can access public or financial services, EU nationals have to prove that they have been granted either settled or pre-settled status by the Home Office.
Continue reading...Border Force is being trained on ‘turn-around’ tactics but France warns plan could endanger lives
Priti Patel is preparing to send back small boats carrying migrants in the Channel despite warnings from the French authorities that it could endanger lives.
Border Force staff are being trained to employ “turn-around” tactics at sea under plans developed for two years, a statement from the Home Office said.
Continue reading...Clarke’s follow-up to Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was praised by judges as ‘a truly original, unexpected flight of fancy’
Comment: Piranesi is a triumphantly unusual winner
Susanna Clarke, who published her debut novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell 17 years ago and then was struck down with chronic illness, has won the Women’s prize for fiction for her second, Piranesi.
Narrated by its eponymous hero as he explores the endless halls of a house that imprisons an ocean, Piranesi is “a truly original, unexpected flight of fancy which melds genres and challenges preconceptions about what books should be,” according to the Women’s prize chair of judges, Booker-winning novelist Bernardine Evaristo.
Continue reading...Talks involving up to 20 nations come as militants ignore calls to form inclusive government in Afghanistan
The US is convening an expanded group of western nations to set a framework for cooperation with the new Taliban government, amid fears that isolating the militant group could backfire.
The meeting on Wednesday, chaired by the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, faces an all-male, Pashtun-dominated caretaker government that has ignored calls to form an inclusive administration.
Continue reading...It is every climber’s worst nightmare. In this extract from his thrilling book about the glorious – and treacherous – Cuillin Ridge on Skye, Simon Ingram recalls the day its wild peaks almost took his life
I had been out of signal for most of the day, so when my phone suddenly stirred in my pocket, I decided to have a look. Remembering a climbing maxim – “Don’t try to do two things at once” – I shouted for my friend Kingsley to hang on, stopped and took out my mobile. The message was junk, but I took the opportunity to send some that weren’t and then check my voicemail.
Wandering absent-mindedly to where a boulder jutted off into the mist, I noticed Kingsley moving down the path. Shouting to alert him that I’d stopped, I brought the handset up to my ear and looked out at the cloud hanging off the Cuillin Ridge, waiting for the phone to connect. I took another step, just a small one to the left. And then everything went wrong.
Continue reading...Channel 4’s Grenfell: The Untold Story will include previously unseen recordings of pleas to former MP and landlord executive
Previously unseen footage of Grenfell Tower residents pleading with their MP and landlord to end their mistreatment in the months before the 2017 disaster is to be broadcast for the first time.
Recordings of acrimonious meetings with Victoria Borwick, the then Conservative MP for the area, and Peter Maddison, the council landlord’s senior executive in charge of works at the time, shed fresh light on how the concerns of residents were handled in the run-up to the fire on 14 June 2017.
Continue reading...Police claim plans for end-to-end encryption will stop officers being able to access ‘incisive intelligence’
Facebook’s plans to allow encrypted messaging across all its platforms could prevent the detection of up to 20m child abuse images every year, a senior investigating officer has claimed.
Rob Jones, the director of threat leadership at the National Crime Agency, said the social media company’s goal of rolling out end-to-end encryption will stop officers from accessing “incisive intelligence” that allows them to rescue abused children.
Continue reading...Tina Ince, Tom Watson and Alex Britton died on A303 near Andover after collision involving HGV
Tributes have been paid to three people who died after a lorry crashed on a dual carriageway.
Tina Ince, 58, and Tom Watson, 30, who were from Southampton, had both pulled over to help Alex Britton, 28, from Portsmouth, whose vehicle was at the side of the A303 near Andover on the morning of 25 August after breaking down.
Continue reading...Reviewers in the US have lauded the film, but complain it is too difficult to understand and needs subtitles
Kenneth Branagh’s new autobiographical film, Belfast, is tipped for Oscar glory, but his home town will not be happy if it’s in the foreign language category.
Hollywood reviewers who have lauded the film’s storytelling and acting complain the Northern Ireland accents are difficult to understand and require subtitles.
Continue reading...Environmental activists demand delay to Glasgow climate talks if costs and travel restrictions block attendance of those worst-hit
The Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow should be postponed until the government can ensure that the talks won’t be a “rich nations stitch-up”, a diverse coalition of international organisations has said.
With less than two months to go before the talks, the Climate Action Network (CAN), a global alliance of more than 1,500 civil society organisations, is warning that many delegates from the global south will be unable to attend due to vaccine inequity and prohibitive quarantine costs.
Continue reading...RNLI lifeboat charity experiences especially busy day after recent run of bad weather halted crossings
Hundreds of people have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel, as several charities said the current humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan showed why people risk their lives to flee.
It followed a first day of landings in more than two weeks on Sunday, after a run of bad weather put a halt to the crossings. A Home Office source said reports of 1,000 migrants entering the UK across the Channel in a single day is an exaggeration, and believed the figure will be between 800 and 850.
Continue reading...Government source says UK wants to ‘create space for talks to happen without deadlines looming’
Plans for post-Brexit checks on some goods entering Northern Ireland have been suspended indefinitely by the UK after negotiations with the EU reached a stalemate.
Grace periods designed to ease the transition into new trading arrangements and checks on the island of Ireland have twice been extended as part of diplomatic wrangling labelled “the sausage wars”.
Continue reading...Clarence House says Prince of Wales supports investigation after he and trusted aide reported to police
The Prince of Wales has “no knowledge” of the alleged honours and citizenship controversy, Clarence House has said, after Charles and his most trusted aide were reported to the police over the claims.
At least two complaints have been made to the Metropolitan police over allegations that a wealthy Saudi businessman was offered help to secure an honour and British citizenship after donating to Charles’s charities.
Continue reading...Economic cost of climate crisis has cut 37% from global GDP this century, say researchers
A return flight from the UK to New York could cost the global economy more than $3,000 (£2,170) in the long run, owing to the effects of the climate crisis, according to a report.
Researchers examined the economic cost of the climate crisis and found it would cut about 37% from global GDP this century, more than twice the drop experienced in the Great Depression.
Continue reading...Some welcome the routine, while others are concerned about how it will work without everyone in at the same time
Workers in the UK have gradually been returning to offices in recent weeks, after the lifting of coronavirus restrictions. While many firms have adopted a flexible arrangement that combines remote and office work each week, many others have called their employees back full time.
For some, it is a welcome return to normality, but others have raised concerns about their health and working conditions.
Continue reading...James Heappey, armed forces minister, says it is important to let veterans know their service was not in vain
British veterans of the conflict in Afghanistan will be feeling vulnerable and questioning whether their service was worth it as they witness the country fall to the Taliban once again, a UK government minister has said.
James Heappey, the armed forces minister and former British army officer, was forced to backtrack during media interviews on Monday over a claim he made that a soldier who served in Afghanistan had taken his own life in the last few days.
Continue reading...In speech marking 20 years since 9/11 attacks, former British PM warns that non-state actors may turn to bio-terrorism
The west still faces the threat of 9/11-style attacks by radical Islamist groups but this time using bio-terrorism, Tony Blair has warned.
Blair also challenges the US president, Joe Biden, by urging democratic governments not to lose confidence in using military force to defend and export their values.
Continue reading...The 25-year-old politician talks about taking time off to address her mental health, dropping out of university because of the cost – and why she’ll always give away a large part of her salary
Nadia Whittome originally made headlines when she became the “baby of the house” in 2019, elected at the age of 23 as Labour MP for Nottingham East, in an election whose main take-home was how many seats Labour had lost. She was a firebrand or maverick – insert your favourite term for “disobedient” – from the start: hard-remain when Corbyn’s office was all about the lexiters, further to the left than Starmer has turned out to be (so far).
So she was never going to be a quiet backbencher, working her way strategically through the party ranks, but her next headlines were a long way from politics. In May this year, she announced her decision to take time off because of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In a parliamentary culture in which even MPs who have to give birth or have chemotherapy are surrounded by endless discussion about whether they can still do their job, this was a momentous act, signalling to many that Whittome belonged to a new, more honest culture. Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, said at the time that her colleague had “shown so much bravery and … will have helped so many other people”, a view shared by many Conservatives. But Whittome wasn’t thinking of the career angle. “My symptoms were getting worse rather than better. I couldn’t be the energetic, effective MP that Nottingham needs and deserves, and, also for my own health, I needed time and space to recover. I didn’t worry about my political future, I wasn’t thinking about that at all.”
Continue reading...Barclays and HSBC among banks booking money equivalent to 14% of annual profits in offshore entities
Leading European banks are booking around €20bn (£17bn) a year – equivalent to 14% of their total profits – in tax havens, with Barclays, HSBC and NatWest Group among those enjoying the lowest tax rates, according to a new report.
The figures emerge from an analysis, conducted by the EU Tax Observatory, of 36 big banks required to publicly report country-by-country data on their activities.
Continue reading...England vaccines minister says passes needed for nightclubs and mass events; Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi residents must receive one dose by 15 September
The BBC reports that Scottish Labour will not support the Scottish government’s plans to introduce vaccine passports.
Anas Sarwar told BBC Scotland’s The Sunday Show:
This is not opposition for opposition’s sake. Neither is this an ideological opposition to the principle of vaccine passports. This is about what works, and what’s going to make a meaningful difference. We all agree the vaccine is working in helping reduce hospitalisations and reduce deaths but there is a fear that using vaccine passports might actually entrench vaccine hesitancy rather than encourage uptake.
US officials have expressed optimism that Covid-19 booster shot delivery can start for all adults on 20 September, the goal set by President Joe Biden, as cases continue to rage across the country fueled by the highly transmissible Delta variant.
The officials insist, however, that boosters will not be rolled out without US health agencies’ authorisation, leaving open the possibility of delays.
Related: US officials optimistic Covid booster rollout can start on 20 September
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