Category Archives: UK news

Troubles trials: why did they collapse, and what happens next?

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Decision to halt prosecution for murder of two British veterans is likely to affect other cases

Why have prosecutors dropped Troubles-era murder charges against former soldiers who served in Northern Ireland?

A technicality, and a whole lot of history, lie behind Friday’s decision to halt the prosecution of two veterans. Soldier F had been charged with two murders and five attempted murders during Bloody Sunday in Derry in January 1972. Soldier B was charged with killing a teenager in the city in July 1972.

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Star soprano Danielle de Niese sang through pain of miscarriage

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Exclusive: De Niese reveals she was in hospital hours before acclaimed performance in La Bohème at Royal Opera House

The soprano Danielle de Niese’s opening performance in Puccini’s La Bohème at the Royal Opera House last Saturday was acclaimed as “standout”, “show-stealing” and “big-hearted” as she “startle[d] with her energy and physicality, fusing acting and song in a way no one else approaches”.

What neither the critics, the audience nor most of her colleagues knew was that 18 hours earlier she was doubled up in hospital in searing pain from a miscarriage, and the cramps continued for days afterwards.

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Million Pfizer jabs face being dumped after Israel-UK swap deal fails

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Israel says technical issues have scuppered deal to give UK Covid vaccines expiring on 30 July

More than a million Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine doses held in Israel that are due to expire at the end of July may be thrown away after attempts to broker a swap deal with the UK failed.

Israel had reportedly offered the jabs to Britain in return for a similar number of vaccines that the UK is due to receive from Pfizer in September. Health authorities are racing to vaccinate as many of its adult population as possible before Covid restrictions are lifted in England later this month.

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Britons with Indian-made AstraZeneca vaccine face extra EU travel hurdle

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EU vaccine passport scheme omits Covishield jab, despite it offering same protection as UK-made one

British travellers hoping to visit Europe this summer face an extra hurdle as it emerged that those vaccinated with Indian-manufactured AstraZeneca jabs would not automatically skip quarantine.

Under the EU vaccine passport scheme, people given the AstraZeneca jab produced by the Serum Institute of India (SII) would not automatically avoid quarantine and mandatory testing when travelling in Europe.

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‘We are a petri dish’: world watches UK’s race between vaccine and virus

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Analysis: UK stands alone in pitting advanced vaccination programme against fast-spreading Delta variant

Not for the first time in the coronavirus pandemic, the UK finds itself in a unique position. Through a combination of history, biology, mathematics and politics, the country stands alone in pitting an advanced vaccination programme against a substantial wave of Covid driven almost entirely by the fast-spreading Delta variant.

Nowhere in the world is the race between vaccination and virus more keenly watched than here.

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Labour candidate Kim Leadbeater wins narrow victory in Batley and Spen byelection

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Sister of murdered MP Jo Cox holds West Yorkshire seat for party, easing pressure on leader Keir Starmer

Labour has narrowly won the Batley and Spen byelection, holding on to the West Yorkshire seat after a hotly contested campaign.

Labour won 13,296 votes with the Tories recording 12,973, according to official results. Kim Leadbeater defeated Ryan Stephenson, the Conservative candidate, by 323 votes. George Galloway, representing the Workers Party of Britain, came third with 8,264 votes.

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Queen Victoria statue toppled in Canada amid anger at deaths of Indigenous children

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Smaller statue of Queen Elizabeth also removed in Winnipeg during protest at treatment of Indigenous children in notorious residential schools

A statue of Queen Victoria has been toppled in Canada amid growing outrage over the discovery of unmarked graves belonging to Indigenous children.

A group gathered at the Manitoba legislature pulled down the statue on Canada Day – an annual celebration on 1 July that marks the country’s confederation.

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Angela Merkel and PM to discuss Covid travel curbs during final UK visit

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Prime minister will welcome German leader at Chequers in her last visit as chancellor

Boris Johnson is to welcome Angela Merkel to Chequers on Friday, with coronavirus travel restrictions anticipated to be high on the agenda for their meeting.

The German chancellor, who is making her final visit to the UK before stepping down, has called for quarantine for all UK travellers entering the EU, regardless of whether they have been vaccinated, due to concerns over the Delta variant.

Germany has already designated the UK a “virus variant region”, meaning anyone travelling from the UK has to quarantine for two weeks on arrival – excluding those in transit.

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Ending furlough scheme too early could damage recovery, say trade unions

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Government is reducing its contribution to the scheme, with employers having to pay a share

Ending the furlough scheme too early could damage the recovery and push unemployment higher, trade unions warned as official figures showed the number of workers on the scheme in May fell at a slower rate than expected to 2.4 million employees.

Without an extension of furlough or extra support for the hardest-hit industries, the bounce back on economic activity could be choked off, unions said.

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William and Harry unveil Diana statue at Kensington Palace

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Bronze artwork depicts princess flanked by children to represent ‘generational impact of her work’

The long-awaited statue of Diana, Princess of Wales was finally unveiled in a scaled-down ceremony on Thursday which saw the dukes of Cambridge and Sussex reunited in tribute to their mother, setting aside their recent differences.

On what would have been Diana’s 60th birthday, the brothers appeared together for the first time since the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral, after Prince Harry flew in from California for the brief ceremony.

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‘Excited delirium’: term linked to police restraint in UK medical guide condemned

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Public health bodies and families say term carries racial bias and is used to justify lethal use of force by police

Public health bodies, charities and the families of men who died after being restrained by police have condemned the inclusion of a controversial medical term in one of the UK’s leading medical handbooks.

Acute behavioural disturbance (ABD), more commonly known as “excited delirium”, a contentious expression used in fatal cases of police violence, has recently been added to the Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines (MPG).

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Over 50,000 EU citizens scramble to beat UK settled status deadline

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Exclusive: Home Office receives fivefold daily rise in applications as people tell of fear and anger

There was a fivefold surge in applications by EU citizens for UK settled status on Wednesday, with more than 50,000 scrambling to beat the midnight deadline, it has emerged.

Such was the last-minute rush that the Home Office extended the time applications would be accepted to 9am on Thursday.

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New DUP leader targets end to Northern Ireland protocol

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Sir Jeffrey Donaldson seeks to draw line under party infighting and adopts hard line on Irish Sea border

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has demanded the removal of the Northern Ireland protocol, in his first speech as leader of the Democratic Unionist party.

The MP for Lagan Valley took a hard line over the Irish Sea border on Thursday, calling it the “greatest threat to the economic integrity of the United Kingdom in any of our lifetimes”.

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Pregnant women in England denied mental health help because of Covid

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In 2020-21, only 31,261 out of 47,000 managed to access perinatal mental health services

Thousands of pregnant women in England were denied vital help for their mental health because of the pandemic, analysis from leading psychiatrists shows.

In 2020-21, 47,000 were expected to access perinatal mental health services to help with conditions such as anxiety and depression during or after giving birth, but only 31,261 managed to get help in the most recent data for the 2020 calendar year only, according to analysis from the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

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Man filmed accosting Chris Whitty loses job as estate agent

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Lewis Hughes, 24, apologises for ‘any upset caused’ after video of incident in London went viral

A man who was called a “thug” by Boris Johnson after being filmed accosting Prof Chris Whitty has apologised for “any upset I caused”.

Lewis Hughes, 24, said if he made England’s chief medical officer feel “uncomfortable”, then “I am sorry to him for that”. He said he had lost his job as a result of the video.

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Employers warned not to discriminate amid rush for EU settled status

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Citizens told to complain if rights have been breached, as number of applicants surges before deadline

Businesses and public bodies have been warned by the Brexit rights regulator not to discriminate against EU citizens as the new post-Brexit immigration regime enters into force at midnight.

The warnings come as Home Office helplines for EU citizens living in the UK were reported to be “jammed” by a last-minute surge in EU citizens applying to remain in the UK by the midnight deadline. Charity workers helping applicants said they were also struggling to get through to the specialist hotline reserved for advisers.

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Scientists urge UK to expand official list of Covid symptoms

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UK’s narrow clinical definition only includes high fever, continuous cough, or loss of smell and taste

Senior scientists have called for the UK to expand its official list of Covid symptoms to reduce the number of missed cases and ensure more people know they should self-isolate.

The researchers, who include Prof Calum Semple, a member of the government’s Sage committee of experts, argue the UK’s narrow clinical definition of Covid leads to delays in identifying people with the disease and may miss them altogether, hampering efforts to disrupt the spread of the virus.

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Pauline Latham MP picks up bill to end child marriage in England and Wales

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MP to take over private member’s bill proposed by Sajid Javid to raise legal age to 18, after his promotion to health secretary

The MP Pauline Latham will step in to adopt Sajid Javid’s private member’s bill to end child marriage after his promotion to health secretary.

Javid presented a bill raising the minimum legal age of marriage to 18 in England and Wales to parliament earlier this month, but is not able to take it forward because he is no longer a backbencher.

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Belfast court dismisses legal challenge to Brexit Northern Ireland protocol

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Ruling is boost to UK and EU negotiators who are expected to announce new arrangements

The high court in Belfast has thrown out a legal challenge to the Northern Ireland Brexit protocol.

The ruling is a setback for the applicants including the Democratic Unionist Party and a relief for UK and EU negotiators who are planning to announce a package of new arrangements later on Wednesday aimed at taking the heat out of the current dispute over Brexit checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea from Great Britain to Ireland.

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Covid: Sage scientist fears England could repeat ‘mistakes of last summer’

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Prof Stephen Reicher says restrictions may have to be reimposed if reopening leads to surge in infections

A scientific adviser to the government’s Covid-19 response has expressed fears England could be in danger of repeating “the mistakes of last summer”.

Prof Stephen Reicher, from the University of St Andrews and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) subcommittee on behavioural science, said the government may have to reimpose restrictions if the reopening leads to a surge in infections.

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