Category Archives: UK news

Senior Tories fear £4bn cut to overseas aid will be made permanent

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MPs campaigning against chancellor’s plans believe they can ‘humiliate’ the government into U-turn

Senior Tories fear that the cut to Britain’s aid budget will become permanent, amid a growing campaign inside and outside parliament to reverse the decision.

Conservatives opposed to the move are already vowing to “humiliate” the government by forcing it to stand by its manifesto commitment to spend 0.7% of GDP on overseas aid – a vow chancellor Rishi Sunak said he would breach in his review of public spending last week. He announced that £4bn would effectively be cut from the aid budget by reducing it to 0.5%, despite pleas from Tories and the archbishop of Canterbury.

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UK and France sign deal to make Channel migrant crossings ‘unviable’

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Both countries agree to double police patrols on route already used by more than 8,000 people this year

Britain and France have signed a new agreement aimed at curbing the number of migrants crossing the Channel in small boats.

The home secretary, Priti Patel, and her French counterpart, Gérald Darmanin, said they wanted to make the route used by more than 8,000 people this year unviable.

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Last-ditch Brexit trade talks resume amid growing EU scepticism

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Michel Barnier has told bloc he is prepared for four more days of make-or-break negotiations

Michel Barnier has told MEPs he is prepared for a further four days of make-or-break Brexit negotiations, with growing scepticism among EU member states about the utility of further talks.

Having spent a week in isolation after a member of the bloc’s team tested positive for coronavirus, Barnier and his staff resumed face-to-face negotiations in London on Saturday morning.

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UK supermarkets unite after Sainsbury’s advert prompts racist backlash

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Aldi, Asda, Co-op, Iceland, Lidl, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose run ads back-to-back on Channel 4

A group of leading UK supermarkets have joined together to take a stand against a racist online backlash that followed Sainsbury’s Christmas advertisement featuring a black family.

Aldi, Asda, Co-op, Iceland, Lidl, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose ran their adverts back-to-back during two primetime slots on Channel 4 on Friday evening, with the hashtag #StandAgainstRacism. Normally, competitors actively avoid airing their ads close together.

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Nadhim Zahawi appointed minister in charge of Covid-19 vaccine rollout

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UK business minister to take on additional role as NHS prepares for mass deployment

Nadhim Zahawi, a minister for business and industry, has been placed in charge of overseeing the deployment of the Covid-19 vaccine, Downing Street has announced.

No 10 said the Stratford-on-Avon MP would take on the role until at least next summer.

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‘Why did it take nine hours to go 130 miles in our new electric Porsche?’

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A Kent couple love their new car – but their experience suggests there are problems with the charging network

A couple from Kent have described how it took them more than nine hours to drive 130 miles home from Bournemouth as they struggled to find a working charger capable of producing enough power to their electric car.

Linda Barnes and her husband had to visit six charging stations as one after another they were either out of order, already had a queue or were the slow, older versions that would never be able to provide a fast enough charge in the time.

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‘Grain to glass’ distiller hopes to put Wales on world’s whisky map

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In The Welsh Wind distillery already taking orders for 30-litre casks of ultra-local spirit

The barley has been grown in fields with spectacular views over Cardigan Bay and malted on a local farm. The all-important water comes from springs deep beneath the Welsh countryside.

A small distillery in west Wales is at the centre of what it hopes may turn out to be a quiet whisky revolution.

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UK ski holiday firms in limbo as Covid restrictions and Brexit bite

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British tourists, chalet owners and resort staff wait for winter season decisions across Europe

British holidaymakers, chalet owners and resort staff are in limbo as countries across Europe decide whether or not this winter’s ski season will go ahead.

This week, Britain’s biggest ski operator Crystal Ski Holidays was forced to cancel all its French ski trips in December after President Macron ordered the nation’s resorts to stay shut until the new year.

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Starmer prepares to reopen old Labour wounds over Brexit deal vote

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Leader planning to throw weight behind a deal if last-minute negotiations succeed in coming days

Keir Starmer is preparing to risk a party rift by throwing Labour’s weight behind a Brexit deal if last-minute negotiations succeed in the coming days.

In what he hopes will be a signal to red wall voters that the party has heard them, multiple Labour sources said Starmer, and Cabinet Office shadow minister Rachel Reeves – who has been liaising with backbenchers on the issue – are minded to impose a three-line whip in support of a deal, subject to the detail.

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Extremely vulnerable in UK given high priority for coronavirus vaccine

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Those with conditions such as blood, bone or lung cancer put in same category on interim guidance list as over-70s

People at very high risk of contracting coronavirus due to health problems, who were made to shield during the pandemic, have been given the same priority as the over-70s to receive a Covid-19 vaccine.

People aged 18 or older deemed “clinically extremely vulnerable” are in the same priority group as those aged 70 and over, according to the provisional vaccine priority list published by Public Health England.

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Kylie Moore-Gilbert faces long road back to normality, says fellow former hostage

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Ana Diamond, who was held for more than six months, says the Australian academic was subject to a ‘sophisticated’ hostage-taking operation

Back on Australian soil, and safe in the enforced quiet of Covid quarantine, Kylie Moore-Gilbert faces a long road to recovery, according to another victim of Iran’s practice of seizing foreign nationals as hostages.

Ana Diamond was just 19 when she was seized by the country’s Revolutionary Guards in 2016, held for 200 days in solitary confinement and forced to endure a mock execution over baseless allegations she was a foreign spy.

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Hospitals in England told to prepare for Covid vaccine rollout in 10 days’ time

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Exclusive: NHS could receive first deliveries of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine as soon as 7 December

Hospitals have been told to prepare for the rollout of a coronavirus vaccine in as little as 10 days’ time, with NHS workers expected to be at the front of the queue, the Guardian has learned.

NHS bosses said hospitals in England could expect to receive their first deliveries of a vaccine produced by Pfizer/BioNTech as soon as Monday 7 December, with regulatory approval anticipated within days.

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Slashing overseas aid reflects badly on Britain | Letters

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Readers respond after the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, cut international aid by a third in his spending review

Rishi Sunak has said he could not tell the country he was giving 0.7% of gross national income to foreign aid (Foreign Office minister resigns as Sunak cuts aid budget, 25 November). What kind of country does he think he lives in? Can he and the rest of the government not see that so many of the problems in the world come from the gross divide between countries like ours and ones where so many face starvation?

Has he not noticed that during the first lockdown, 10 million people volunteered to help people in their community? Did he not notice the thousands who volunteered to trial the vaccine? These are not people who would wish to ignore the rest of the world.

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Huge wealth of Rishi Sunak’s family not declared in ministerial register

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Akshata Murty, Sunak’s wife, holds multimillion-pound portfolio making her richer than the Queen

The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is facing questions over the transparency of his financial affairs after a Guardian investigation established that his wife and her family hold a multimillion-pound portfolio of shareholdings and directorships that are not declared in the official register of ministers’ interests.

Akshata Murty, who married Sunak in 2009, is the daughter of one of India’s most successful entrepreneurs. Her father co-founded the technology giant Infosys, and her shares in the company are worth £430m, making her one of the wealthiest women in Britain, with a fortune larger than the Queen’s.

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UK coronavirus live: Tory backlash grows over England’s new tier restrictions

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MPs from tier 3 areas express concern about social and economic impact as communities secretary says rules may be eased in some areas before Christmas

Lord Frost, Boris Johnson’s Europe adviser, has insisted a Brexit deal “is still possible”.

He tweeted: “I look forward to welcoming michelbarnier and his team to London and to resuming face-to-face talks tomorrow. We are glad all are safe and well.

1/4 I look forward to welcoming @michelbarnier and his team to London and to resuming face-to-face talks tomorrow. We are glad all are safe and well.

Around a quarter of adults in Great Britain believe it will take more than a year for their lives to return to normal following the Covid-19 pandemic, a survey suggests.

Some 17% of people think it could take between four to six months, while just under a fifth (18%) believe it may be between 10 and 12 months, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

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Will everyone in the world have access to a Covid vaccine? – video explainer

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The hunt for a coronavirus vaccine is showing promise but it is premature to say the end of the pandemic is nigh. Several rich countries have signed a 'frenzy of deals' that could prevent many poor nations from getting access to immunisation until at least 2024. Also, many drug firms are potentially refusing to waive patents and other intellectual property rights in order to secure exclusive rights to any cure.

Michael Safi, the Guardian's international correspondent, explains why 'vaccine nationalisation' could scupper global efforts to kill the virus and examines what is being done to tackle the issue

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Areas in England may go down a tier before Christmas, says Robert Jenrick

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Jenrick insists some areas can ‘de-escalate’, but scientists say 16 December is too soon to decide

The communities secretary, Robert Jenrick, has insisted there is a prospect of some areas in England “de-escalating” from a higher to a lower tier of coronavirus measures before Christmas, despite scientists warning that the 16 December review will be too soon to make changes.

Many Conservative MPs reacted with anger after the government announced that 99% of the population in England would be placed under the top two tightest levels of restriction – tiers 2 and 3 – when the nationwide lockdown ends next week.

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Overseas aid budget for education cut by a quarter this year, data shows

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Reduction came before this week’s move to slash UK spending on poorer nations to 0.5% of national income, with girls worst affected

The overseas aid budget for education was slashed by more than a quarter by the government this year, even before this week’s further axing of a third of aid spending, according to analysis seen by the Guardian.

As anger met the government’s announcement this week, it was revealed that it has already reneged on the Tory manifesto pledge by cutting primary and secondary education funding as part of £2.9bn of cuts made by Dominic Raab in July. On Wednesday in parliament, while announcing he would seek to legally cut the aid budget from 0.7% to 0.5% of gross national income, Raab reiterated a promise to prioritise girls’ education, which was immediately dismissed as “empty rhetoric” by the shadow international secretary.

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Barnier to travel to UK for Brexit talks despite lack of progress

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EU chief negotiator had told British counterpart he could not see any point in coming to London

Michel Barnier has backed down from his threat to pull out of planned Brexit negotiations in London, telling EU ambassadors that he will persist despite a lack of progress over the last week.

The bloc’s chief negotiator told representatives for member states that he would travel on Friday evening to try to break the logjam over the most contentious issues.

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