Lead News

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been accused of misleading parliament after it emerged that Peter Mandelson was made Britain’s ambassador to the US despite having failed to clear security vetting. The New Labour grandee had already been announced by the prime minister as the UK’s most senior diplomat in Washington in December 2024 before he went through the usual ...

Anas Sarwar has dismissed as “a desperate lie from a desperate man” a claim by Reform UK’s Scotland leader, Malcolm Offord, that he offered to do a deal with the hard-right party to keep the Scottish National party out of power. Offord made the claim on Channel 4’s Scottish leaders’ debate on Tuesday evening, alleging the Scottish Labour leader came ...

Donald Trump has threatened to row back on the trade deal the US signed with the UK last year, in his latest salvo against the British government over sharp differences about the US’s approach to the Middle East. The US president said the economic deal struck with the UK, which cut some of his tariffs on cars, aluminium and steel, ...

A Reform UK activist in the Gorton and Denton byelection who was suspended over racist and antisemitic comments has been named as the election agent for three of the party’s candidates in Manchester ahead of polls on 7 May. Adam Mitula, an interim campaign manager in the Tameside area, confirmed in February that he had been suspended as a party ...

The government has shown a “corrosive complacency towards defence” and put the UK in peril, according to a government adviser, in fierce criticism of Keir Starmer’s military policy. George Robertson, the former Nato secretary general and author of the government’s strategic defence review, believes Starmer is “not willing to make the necessary investment”, the Financial Times reported. In addition, Lord ...

UK government minister Wes Streeting on Sunday said it was “disappointing” that negotiations between the United States and Iran in Islamabad had stalled, adding that US President Donald Trump’s earlier social media comments had been “extraordinary”. “It’s obviously disappointing that we haven’t yet seen a breakthrough in negotiations and an end to this war in Iran that is a sustainable ...

Keir Starmer has said he is “fed up” with the effect that Donald Trump’s actions in the Middle East are having on the British public, while appearing to draw a comparison between the US president to Vladimir Putin. Speaking to ITV’s Robert Peston on Thursday, the prime minister said: “I’m fed up with the fact that families across the country ...

In order to cut rising bills all UK households should receive a minimum amount of energy at rates subsidised by the government through North Sea taxes, a thinktank has suggested. Providing all homes with enough energy to heat two rooms, provide hot water and run key appliances such as a fridge and washing machine, at rates frozen at current levels, ...

Keir Starmer has arrived in Saudi Arabia to meet leaders in the Gulf region to discuss diplomatic efforts to support the ceasefire agreed between the US and Iran. The UK prime minister’s visit on Wednesday comes hours after a two-week ceasefire was agreed on Tuesday evening, cancelling a self-imposed deadline by the US president, Donald Trump, for Iran to surrender ...

A Dhaka court on Wednesday fixed 19 April for the hearing on charge framing against Tulip Rizwana Siddiq and former RAJUK assistant legal adviser Sardar Mosharraf Hossain in a case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) over alleged flat fraud in the capital’s Gulshan-2 area. Dhaka Metropolitan Senior Special Judge Md Sabbir Faiz fixed the new date and transferred the ...