Grand achievements in Preston. Is there something in the water? Well me, eventually
Oh frabjous day – callooh callay! Monday 17, that long-awaited day that marks our arrival at the next staging post of the roadmap out of lockdown. Swap your horses, adjust your britches, take a draught of small beer and regard with pleasure the great plains of freedom lying before you (ignore any musterings of variants you think you see on the horizon. They are not there).
Continue reading...Gradual tariff-free deal will be victory for free-trade Brexiters but will likely alarm UK farmers
UK ministers are expected to offer Australia a trade deal which will gradually eliminate all tariffs and quotas, one seen as a victory for free-trade Brexiters in the cabinet but likely to prompt alarm among UK farmers.
Downing Street did not deny reports on Friday that the likely offer to Australia would be a transition to zero quotas and tariffs over 15 years, although insisted discussions were still taking place.
Continue reading...Ministers to mull governance overhaul after inquiry condemns Martin Bashir’s 1995 Panorama interview
Damning findings about Martin Bashir’s 1995 Panorama interview with Diana, Princess of Wales, means the governance of the BBC and how it operates will have to be examined, according to a senior government minister.
The comments by the justice secretary, Robert Buckland, came as the Metropolitan police said they would “assess” the contents of John Dyson’s report “to ensure there is no significant new evidence”, after previously deciding not to begin a criminal investigation.
Continue reading...Confused over regulations, Home Office border staff meet legitimate visitors and workers with suspicion
EU citizens living and working in the UK have revealed how they are being met with suspicion and threats that they will be refused entry at the UK border for the first time in their lives, fuelling fresh fears that Border Force officials have not been trained in the new Brexit rules.
Wolfgang, a German national who runs an IT business, was detained at Heathrow airport despite having proof of settled status, indefinite leave to remain and a British passport on the way.
Continue reading...Children in overcrowded Cox’s Bazar settlement likely to suffer most from reduced humanitarian spending, say campaigners
The government has been accused of abandoning Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh after cutting aid to the humanitarian response by more than 40%.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) pledged £27.6m to the humanitarian sector’s joint response plan launched this week, compared with £47.5m last year.
Continue reading...BBC chief Tim Davie apologises after investigation identified ‘clear failings’ in tactics used by journalist to secure interview
The BBC has been forced to make a humiliating apology after an investigation found that Martin Bashir used deceitful tactics that were later covered up by senior executives to secure his sensational 1995 interview with Diana, Princess of Wales.
The inquiry, conducted by the former supreme court judge John Dyson, was withering of both Bashir and the corporation’s former director general, Tony Hall, who was accused of overseeing a flawed and “woefully ineffective” internal probe into the issue.
Continue reading...Latest figures from PHE come as another new variant is designated ‘under investigation’
The number of confirmed cases in the UK of the Covid variant of concern that was first detected in India has risen more than 160% in the past week, data shows, and another new variant has been designated as “under investigation”.
Data from Public Health England (PHE) shows there have now been 3,424 confirmed cases of the B.1.617.2 variant in the UK, up from 1,313 cases confirmed by last Thursday.
Continue reading...Aya Hachem was killed in drive-by shooting after dispute between tyre firm owners, jury hears
A student who was shot dead in the street amid a dispute between two neighbours in Blackburn was “in the wrong place at the wrong time”, a court has heard.
Aya Hachem, a 19-year-old law student, was a killed in a drive-by shooting on 17 May last year.
Continue reading...Cuts were agreed on the basis of a forecast shown five days later to be too pessimistic, report finds
UK civil servants were given five to seven working days to prepare 30% cuts in the overseas aid budget last summer, including a £730m cut to bilateral aid that it later emerged was unnecessary.
The cuts were agreed in July 2020 on the basis of a single forecast reduction in the size of the UK economy, which was shown to be too pessimistic five days after the cuts package was signed off.
Continue reading...Case in Paris was brought by 2,700 women over implants made by French company and certified as safe by German firm
Thousands of victims of the PIP breast implant scandal, including 540 British women, will receive compensation after a Paris appeals court ruling.
The case in Paris was brought by 2,700 women who said they had suffered long-term health effects after receiving implants manufactured by a French firm which were filled with cheap, industrial-grade silicone not cleared for human use.
Continue reading...Exclusive: commission’s finding follows number of protests over colonial legacy at Oriel College
A independent commission set up to examine the future of Oxford University’s controversial statue of British imperialist Cecil Rhodes has recommended its removal.
The commission was set up last June after Oxford University’s Oriel College voted in favour of removing its statue. The commission was asked to look into the issue after a statue of the slave trader Edward Colston was torn down in Bristol at the height of last summer’s Black Lives Matter protest.
Continue reading...More than 500 people have been waiting more than a year for claim to be handled, Home Office data shows
The Home Office has revealed that 21 people have died while waiting for Windrush compensation claims to be paid, amid continuing concern that the scheme is taking too long to make payments to elderly people affected by the scandal.
The number has more than doubled since November, when figures showed that nine people had died without receiving the redress they had applied for.
Continue reading...Aftermath of Scottish Premiership victory on Saturday marred by vandalism, unrest and abusive behaviour
A number of churches in and around Glasgow were subject to vandalism and anti-Catholic abuse over the weekend, the Guardian has learned, as Rangers supporters rampaged through the city centre on Saturday.
Windows were smashed at the St Maria Goretti church estate in Cranhill, north-east Glasgow. At another church, which has asked not to be identified, a banner with anti-Catholic slogans was draped across railings in time for evening mass, before it was removed by church officials. There were further reports of abusive heckling of those within church grounds. The Guardian understands that two incidents were reported to Police Scotland.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson likes to pretend that free-trade deals are easy and have no downside. Talks with Australia are proving him wrong
There is agreement across the Conservative party that free trade is a good thing, in theory. Unity is harder to sustain over practical detail, as has become clear through negotiations on a deal with Australia.
The agreement has immense symbolic value. It would be the first substantial post-Brexit deal that was not a rollover of terms that were available under EU membership. The prime minister sees it as the enactment of his “global Britain” rhetoric. The government is determined to have such a trophy ready in time for next month’s G7 summit.
Continue reading...Greenpeace investigation revealed British recycling left to burn on beaches and roadsides
Turkey is banning the import of most plastic waste after an investigation revealed British recycling was left to burn or be dumped on beaches and roadsides.
Greenpeace visited 10 sites in the southern city of Adana in March. Investigators found waste including British supermarket packaging in waterways, on beaches and in illegal waste mountains.
Continue reading...What would it have been like to be inside the Big Bang? We meet the ultra-hi-tech art duo who are using light, sound and sub-atomic astro data to recreate the biggest explosion ever
‘Step into the heart of the Big Bang,” says the advert for Halo, a walk-in, 360-degree, audiovisual installation about to open in Brighton. Come off it, I want to retort. You couldn’t “step” into the Big Bang without first travelling 13.8 billion years back in time and then being extremely miniaturised. After all, the universe was, according to one estimate, just 17cm in diameter at its inception.
What’s more, it was dark inside the Big Bang. In fact, there was no light at all. True, if you stuck around for 380,000 years, according to Nasa, you might have been able to see something because that was when free electrons met up with nuclei and created neutral atoms that would have allowed light to pass through. But who has 380,000 years to hang around waiting in the dark?
Continue reading...UK could also face travel block due to India variant and own incoming rules if altered EU policy stands
Fully vaccinated Britons could still be told to quarantine at their EU holiday destination due to concerns over the Covid variant first detected in India and a failure to allow Europeans to visit Britain freely, according to a policy agreed in Brussels.
Representatives of the 27 member states on Wednesday provisionally approved a change of the policy under which anyone from a non-EU country could travel if they were able to prove they had been fully vaccinated.
Continue reading...Report highlights data failings, workforce shortages and disconnect between health and social care
Coronavirus has exposed decades-long weaknesses in government and divisions in wider society, an official parliamentary watchdog has said, including neglect of social care and chronic underfunding in local government.
Amid renewed questions over the reopening timetable, the National Audit Office (NAO) warned that from the very start of the pandemic a lack of planning had left ministers without a “playbook” on how to respond.
Continue reading...Independent panel set up to investigate killing of Daniel Morgan ‘furious’ at home secretary’s move
The home secretary has ordered that an independent report on claims murderers were shielded by police corruption and claims of corruption in Rupert Murdoch’s media empire must be vetted by her department before its publication.
The move triggered fury and follows eight years of work by a special panel to investigate the murder of private detective Daniel Morgan in 1987, who was found dead in a south London car park with an axe embedded in his head.
Continue reading...UK study of 25,000 people finds even moderate drinking is linked to lower grey matter density
There is no safe amount of alcohol consumption for the brain, with even “moderate” drinking adversely affecting nearly every part of it, a study of more than 25,000 people in the UK has found.
The study, which is still to be peer-reviewed, suggests that the more alcohol consumed, the lower the brain volume. In effect, the more you drink, the worse off your brain.
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