Category Archives: England

Next government must make hard university funding decisions, fast

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Labour sees no electoral gain in flagging sector’s funding crisis – but losses cannot be sustained much longer

Why are universities in such financial dire straits? According to one sector leader, it’s because they are losing money on two of their three income streams, while their third source is under attack by the government.

“We are already in a state where teaching home students operates at a loss, doing research operates at a loss, and the international student market has been diminished by the government’s rhetoric and policy. And those are the three areas where universities get their income,” said Rachel Hewitt, chief executive of the MillionPlus association of modern universities that includes Bath Spa, Wolverhampton and Sunderland.

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Man jailed for life after Gaza ‘revenge’ murder in Hartlepool

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Ahmed Alid, 45, stabbed Terence Carney, 70, and tried to kill another man in attacks described as terrorism

A terrorist who murdered a pensioner in Hartlepool town centre as “revenge” for “the people of Gaza” has been jailed for 45 years.

Ahmed Alid, 45, an asylum seeker from Morocco, stabbed 70-year-old Terence Carney, a complete stranger he encountered on the street, on 15 October.

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Teachers in England stretched by pupils’ mental and family problems, MPs say

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Education select committee concerned that excessive workload is driving teachers out of profession

Teachers’ workloads are being increasingly stretched by their pupils’ mental health and family difficulties, according to MPs who were critical of the government’s efforts to tackle chronic staff shortages in England’s schools.

The education select committee said it was “concerned that since the pandemic teachers are spending more time on addressing issues that would typically fall outside the remit of schools, including family conflict resolution and mental health support,” and called for the government to support better provision inside and outside schools.

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Vulnerable children in England ‘safer at school’ than being educated at home

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Review of serious safeguarding failures finds young people from abusive environments ‘less visible’ to agencies

Children who grow up in neglectful or abusive environments are safer attending school than being educated at home, according to a review of serious safeguarding failures in England in which six children died and 35 were harmed in one year.

The report, by the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, emphasised that while home education was not a safeguarding risk, it found that vulnerable children were “less visible” to safeguarding agencies than those regularly in school.

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Sex education in English schools set to be banned before children are nine

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Education secretary Gillian Keegan to announce guidelines for phased discussion of topics depending on pupils’ age

Sex education in England’s primary schools is to be limited to those aged nine and over, with “explicit” discussions on topics such as contraception to be delayed until the age of 13, according to new guidance to be proposed by the government.

The revised guidance on relationships, sex and health education is expected to be published this week by the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, and is likely to contain further restrictions on teaching about gender and identity, with teachers told to instead explain “biological” facts, according to reports.

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Girls do better in exams at all-girls schools than mixed, research finds

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Pupils in girls’ schools in England outperform girls with similar records and backgrounds in mixed schools, analysis says

Girls who attend all-girls schools get better exam results than girls with similar records and backgrounds at mixed schools – and outdo boys at all-boys schools – according to research.

While girls’ schools have long been known to outperform other types of school in England, the analysis by FFT Datalab found that even after adjusting for background characteristics there was an unexplained boost for pupils at girls’ schools, equivalent to 10% higher GCSE grades in 2023.

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Weather warnings for heavy rain in parts of UK to put end to sunny spell

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South-west England, south Wales and eastern parts of Northern Ireland expected to get heavy rain as thunderstorms also roll in

Weather warnings for rain have been issued across the UK on what is expected to be the hottest day of the year so far.

Temperatures could reach as high as 27C on Sunday but the recent warm and sunny spell could disappear by the end of the day.

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Man arrested on suspicion of murder after woman stabbed to death in north London

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Woman died of wounds in street after stabbing in broad daylight on Burnt Oak Broadway, Edgware

Detectives have arrested a man on suspicion of murder after a woman in her 60s was stabbed to death in broad daylight in a north London street.

The Metropolitan police said they were called at about 11.50am to Burnt Oak Broadway, Edgware, to reports of a stabbing and found a woman wounded in the street near a bus stop.

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Man known as ‘eunuch maker’ who streamed mutilations is jailed for life

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Marius Gustavson, 46, was involved in procedures that were ‘little short of human butchery’, UK court heard

The leader of a “grisly and gruesome” extreme body modification network who streamed mutilations on his “eunuch maker” website has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 22 years.

Marius Gustavson, 46, was the “arch manipulator” of vulnerable victims and was said to have been involved in at least 29 procedures, which were “little short of human butchery”, the Old Bailey in London heard.

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Five babies in England reported dead after developing whooping cough

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Fears of biggest UK outbreak in two decades as 2,793 cases confirmed in first quarter of 2024

The UK may be experiencing its biggest outbreak of whooping cough in two decades, with five deaths reported among infants who developed the disease in England between January and March.

According to the latest data published by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) on Thursday, cases of whooping cough continue to increase, with 1,319 confirmed in March. This brings the total number of confirmed cases during the first quarter of 2024 to 2,793. The true number of cases is likely to be much higher though, because mild cases are easily confused with other respiratory illnesses in the early stages when the infection can be tested for.

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Woman who caused cyclist to fall into car’s path has manslaughter conviction quashed

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Auriol Grey, who waved and shouted at Celia Ward, should never have been charged over Cambridgeshire incident, her lawyers said

A woman who shouted and waved at a cyclist, causing her to fall into the path of a moving car, has had her manslaughter conviction overturned.

Auriol Grey, 50, was seen on CCTV shouting at the 77-year-old cyclist, Celia Ward, to “get off the fucking pavement” as she approached her in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, in October 2020.

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Guernica-style battle of Orgreave painting stars in miners’ strikes exhibition

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Bob Olley’s unsettling vision of clash between miners and police is part of 40th anniversary show in Bishop Auckland

Bob Olley was there 40 years ago at the “battle of Orgreave”. “I saw the violence,” he said, shaking his head. “I thought I was in a foreign country when I saw what the police did. It is hard to believe it happened in this country.”

The brutality he and others witnessed on 18 June 1984 as striking miners met 6,000 police officers on horses or wielding batons on foot will stay in the memory. It was in his head as, some years later, he embarked on his response to one of the world’s greatest artworks, Picasso’s Guernica.

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Labour ‘working to get support back’ after losing votes over Gaza stance

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Analysis shows almost 18% drop in party’s vote in areas of England where more than a fifth are Muslim

A senior Labour official has insisted the party wants better lives for Palestinian people as it prepares to shift its campaigning to win back voters opposing its position on Gaza.

Pat McFadden, the party’s national election coordinator, said it would “work to get people’s support back” as analysis showed that despite huge gains in council seats, seizing the West Midlands mayoralty, and Sadiq Khan, the Muslim mayor of London, winning a third term, there was an almost 18% drop in the Labour vote in areas of England where more than a fifth of people identified as Muslim.

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Mains water begins returning to 32,500 East Sussex properties after pipe burst

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Southern Water says supplies coming back to St Leonards-on-Sea and Hastings now that rupture in woodland area has been fixed

Water has started to return to more than 30,000 homes in East Sussex after a main burst three days ago.

Southern Water said in an update on Sunday afternoon that supplies were “gradually being restored” to about 32,5000 properties in St Leonards-on-Sea and Hastings.

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‘Promising signs’: Greens dominate in Bristol election

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As party narrowly misses out on overall majority, co-leader says it has won spread of urban and rural seats

The Greens are celebrating a spectacular win in Bristol, where it became by far the largest party, as it headed for a record number of councillors in local elections across England.

Party officials said they believed they were on track to finish with more than 800 members on more than 170 councils.

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Key points as local election results show major Tory losses

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With almost all council elections declared, Conservatives are on course to lose up to 500 seats

At the start of a long weekend of election results, the first outcomes have been every bit as dire for the Conservatives and Rishi Sunak as analysts had predicted. Here is the state of play.

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Local elections 2024: full council results for England

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Results from more than 100 English councils, as well as for several mayors, are announced. So far the Conservatives have lost control of several key councils but have won the Tees Valley mayoral contest. Find out what happened in your area

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Dorset auction house withdraws Egyptian human skulls from sale

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MP says trade in remains is ‘gross violation of human dignity’, as skulls from Pitt Rivers collection removed

An auction house has withdrawn 18 ancient Egyptian human skulls from sale after an MP said selling them would perpetuate the atrocities of colonialism.

Bell Ribeiro-Addy, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Afrikan reparations, believes the sale of human remains for any purposes should be outlawed, adding that the trade was “a gross violation of human dignity”.

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Man detained by Home Office told he is being sent to Rwanda, says NGO

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Sudanese man being held in Croydon after arriving for routine sign-in believed to be first potential deportation under new law

An asylum seeker who turned up for a routine Home Office appointment on Monday was detained and told that he was being sent to Rwanda, an NGO has said.

In what is believed to be the first potential deportation case under the Rwanda scheme since Rishi Sunak’s bill received royal assent, the Sudanese man was held in Croydon, south London, the organisation Soas Detainee Support (SDS) told the Guardian.

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Slow 999 response times forcing many more people to find own way to A&E

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Figures for England obtained by Lib Dems show that 500,000 people in ‘very urgent’ need travelled to hospital without ambulance in 2023

Growing numbers of seriously ill people are making their own way to A&E in what has been called an “Uber ambulance crisis”, because 999 response times are too slow.

A&E doctors said that while they understood that people are acting out of “desperation”, they are taking a serious risk with their health, especially if they are driving themselves.

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