Family accommodated in a Midlands hotel were sick after eating meal provided by Serco
Children at a Home Office hotel unwittingly ate worms that were in food provided to them by government contractors, the Guardian has learned.
A four-year-old boy, not realising that his meal of fish and chips contained worms, began vomiting soon after he started to eat it. Paramedics were called and the boy was taken to hospital.
Continue reading...Woman was reportedly handed information from the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children at London clinic
A pregnant woman who told her GP she was considering having an abortion says she was left “shocked and traumatised” after being given a leaflet for an anti-abortion group.
The woman, 38, says she was seeking treatment for a bladder problem on 19 July when a doctor at All Saints Medical Centre in Plumstead, south-east London, asked whether she was pregnant.
Continue reading...Employment conditions can tie staff to roles for up to five years and impose fees of £14,000 for an early return home
• Trapped and destitute: how foreign nurses’ dreams turned sour
The NHS must halt the use of “repayment clauses” in contracts for international healthcare workers, MPs have said.
Members of the Commons health and social care committee came to this finding after an Observer investigation in March revealed how some workers were being forced to pay thousands of pounds if they wish to quit their jobs before their agreed contract ends. Widely used in both the private health and social care sector and in the NHS, the clauses are designed to help with retention of workers and recouping costs associated with overseas recruitment.
Continue reading...His team told his general-election style campaign too slick and unfocused as time runs out to sway electors
Rishi Sunak’s team is being urged to overhaul his “general election-style” campaign in favour of a grassroots effort speaking directly to Tory members in a last-ditch attempt to beat Liz Truss to the Conservative leadership.
With some supporters of the former chancellor in despair over the apparent grip Truss has assumed over the contest to replace Boris Johnson, allies have warned that there has been too much focus on polished social media content, TV appearances and visits to swing voters that have not won over Tory members.
Continue reading...Head of party’s biggest union donor warns members feel ‘crushed’ and may vote not to pay millions to Starmer
Labour is becoming “irrelevant to workers” and it is now hard to justify handing the party millions in funding, the head of the party’s biggest union donor has warned.
In an interview with the Observer, Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, said she felt Labour’s leadership was, in effect, “sticking two fingers up” at workers with its response to strike action and its abandonment of pledges to renationalise public utilities.
Continue reading...‘Special shuttle’ is only service running in Birmingham after the latest industrial action on the network in England and Wales
Rail strikes brought fresh misery for millions across the country on Saturday, including major disruption to Birmingham as it hosted one of the busiest days of the Commonwealth Games.
The latest round of strikes during a summer of chaos for passengers prompted bitter exchanges between union leaders and ministers.
Continue reading...Head of Aslef says transport secretary ‘misrepresenting’ the truth after claim the union was ‘dragging its feet’ in pay talks
Mary Kelly Foy, the Labour MP for City of Durham, has expressed solidarity with Aslef union members as they strike.
LNER, which runs trains between London and Scotland, is warning customers of its “extremely limited services” today.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Gordon Brown warns plans to flood upper chamber with dozens of Tory peers proves urgent need for reform
Keir Starmer has been urged not to abandon a key leadership pledge of abolishing the House of Lords, with Gordon Brown warning that plans to “gerrymander” parliament’s upper chamber by flooding it with dozens of Tory peers proved the need for drastic reform.
Alarm was raised by the former Labour prime minister over a proposal drawn up by a political lobbying group for Boris Johnson to appoint up to 50 new Conservatives to ram contentious legislation through given a series of embarrassing defeats by peers.
Continue reading...Sacked Labour frontbencher says rail workers had the right to expect Labour to stand with them
Boris Johnson’s reluctance to leave Downing Street in the face of opposition from ministers and Tory MPs seemed a bit “let’s storm the Capitol, chaps”, according to a former senior No 10 aide, likening it to the January 6 insurrection in Washington DC.
The comparison was made by Cleo Watson, a former special adviser to Johnson’s former chief adviser Dominic Cummings in an article for Tatler magazine.
These workers are being forced to take industrial action. I’m a Labour MP so I’m a member of the Labour trade union. When the call comes out from CWU for solidarity to join the picket lines, of course I respond positively.
The actions of the Labour leadership is disgraceful. We will have to deal with that. I think what will happen is that people will see through Labour unless they change their position because it seems to me that Labour want to win an election without any principles or any policies and people won’t accept that.
Continue reading...Tory leadership candidates have clashed bitterly but many pressing matters have been overlooked
Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have clashed vehemently over tax and spending, immigration and the UK’s stance on China in their acrimonious battle to become prime minister – but have had little to say about many other pressing issues. Here are some largely overlooked key issues of the contest so far.
Continue reading...Dawoodi Bohra leader Mufaddal Saifuddin, who is in the UK to preach, is an advocate of the abusive practice whose visa should be revoked, say activists
Campaigners have criticised the UK government for granting a visa to a religious leader who has advocated for female genital mutilation (FGM).
Mufaddal Saifuddin who is the syedna, or leader, of the Dawoodi Bohra community, a sect of Shia Islam with 1.2 million followers worldwide, will give sermons in front of tens of thousands of people at Northolt mosque in London between 29 July and 7 August.
Continue reading...Officials say they can not provide hope of resettlement for Afghans who worked for UK civilian schemes
The UK Foreign Office has admitted a catalogue of errors over its handling of Britain’s exit from Afghanistan, but has shut the door on many Afghans who helped the UK prior to the Taliban takeover last August, saying it will not provide false hope that they will be given the chance to come to the UK.
Foreign Office officials say it is difficult to judge whether Afghans who worked on UK-funded civilian schemes, such as the British Council, are truly in danger from the Taliban, saying the evidence is that the threat primarily applies to those who provided security support to the UK.
Continue reading...Leadership rivals bid to win members’ support in foreign secretary’s home town
Drug-related deaths in Scotland fell by nine in 2021, according to the latest figures released by National Records of Scotland, the first decrease since 2013 but falling well short of the significant reduction that campaigners are calling for.
The latest figure of 1,330 is still the second highest annual total on record, and Scotland continues to have by far the highest drug death rate recorded by any country in Europe and five times the rate in England.
We’ve had a raft of reports, policies and strategies that say what needs to change, and families are more likely to be included round the table, but it’s much harder to track their influence on the ground. We don’t understand what’s getting in the way of good words becoming good deeds.
1,330 of our fellow Scots have died entirely preventable deaths and we should not be celebrating this as an achievement ... The solutions are no secret. We need action, not reports with recommendations that are never implemented.
Continue reading...Local government minister describes scale of financial challenge as ‘unprecedented’
A bankrupt local authority could have to raise council tax by 20% a year and will be forced to sell off thousands of homes and other assets under “unprecedented” plans imposed on it after it ran up catastrophic debts amid overspending running into hundreds of millions of pounds.
The scale of the financial and management chaos at Labour-run Slough council is revealed in a stark report by a team of government commissioners sent in to run the authority after it declared effective bankruptcy a year ago.
Continue reading...Union source claims MPs will join BT staff on Friday despite Labour leader’s call for frontbenchers to stay away
Up to 70 Labour MPs could join union picket lines on Friday as Keir Starmer faces a renewed battle to maintain party unity over support for striking workers.
One shadow minister was believed to be considering joining a Communication Workers Union (CWU) picket line as thousands of BT staff began two days of strikes over pay, which would set up a fresh potential conflict with the Labour leader’s office.
Continue reading...About 8% of borrowers – 130,000 firms – have so far failed to repay government-backed emergency loans
Taxpayers have been left to foot a £421m bill to cover soured Covid debts, after one in 12 businesses defaulted on state-backed emergency loans distributed at the height of the pandemic, official figures reveal.
In the first set of figures detailing the performance of government-backed loans offered to struggling firms during the outbreak, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said about 8% of 1.6m borrowers – roughly 130,000 – failed to repay their debts as of March this year.
Continue reading...Tory leadership hopefuls set out plans to tackle violence against women and girls, as Labour’s Stella Creasy welcomes Truss U-turn
Liz Truss has vowed to make street harassment a crime months after a similar move was blocked by Boris Johnson, while Rishi Sunak pledged to outlaw “downblousing” – taking a photo down a woman’s top without consent.
Both Tory leadership candidates set out plans to tackle violence against women and girls, which has been the focus of a longstanding campaign by opposition MPs and feminist activists, especially after the killings of women including Sarah Everard, Sabina Nessa and Zara Aleena.
Continue reading...Labour MP will make court apology to financier Christopher Chandler over Commons comments he later tweeted
The Labour MP Chris Bryant is to make a formal court apology to a billionaire financier he accused in parliament of money laundering, after being sued for repeating the claims in a tweeted letter.
In a highly unusual legal case, Bryant was taken to court by Christopher Chandler, a New Zealand-born investor and co-founder of a London-based thinktank, over comments initially made during a debate in the House of Commons in 2018, during which another MP accused Chandler of links to Russian intelligence
Continue reading...As Leeds prepares to host hustings, residents of leafy suburb where Truss grew up take issue with her claims about the area
As Leeds prepared to host the first of the Conservative leadership regional hustings on Thursday evening, people who grew up alongside candidate Liz Truss have found much to disagree with her on.
Truss went to Roundhay school, an Ofsted “outstanding” comprehensive in the leafy suburb in the north of the city. She caused outrage and indignation among local leaders with her comments about her former school, which she said “let down” children.
Continue reading...Aslef members voted for action in August, while the RMT chief, Mick Lynch, is calling for a general strike
Unions warned the UK could face a general strike this year as rail workers voted for fresh action set to intensify a summer of industrial unrest.
The vote for further transport strikes came as Keir Starmer sacked shadow transport minister Sam Tarry who conducted broadcast interviews alongside striking RMT workers at Euston station – a move that is likely to increase divisions between Labour and trade unions.
Continue reading...