Lead News

LONDON, Dec 29 : British house prices fell by 1.8% in the 12 months to December, recording the biggest decline over the course of a year since 2008 during the global financial crisis, mortgage lender Nationwide said on Friday. A Reuters poll of economists had pointed to a drop of 1.4%. In month-on-month terms, prices in December were flat compared ...

British interior minister James Cleverly apologised on Sunday after he was reported to have joked about spiking his wife’s drink with a sedative known for its use as a date-rape drug. The Sunday Mirror tabloid reported that Cleverly, one of the most senior ministers in Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government, had joked to female guests at an event this month ...

Millions of people across the country are making their Christmas getaway on one of the busiest days for travel of the year. There are long queues at the Port of Dover after a surge in demand for ferries caused by Thursday’s Eurotunnel strike action in France. Domestic train services in parts of the UK have also been disrupted. The RAC ...

The Home Office has rowed back on plans to hike the salary needed to bring family members to the UK to £38,700 next spring. The increase – from the current level of £18,600 – was announced earlier this month as part of a plan to lower legal migration. But the new threshold will initially be set at £29,000, with further ...

Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer has said there are “grounds for changing the law” on assisted dying. Sir Keir said MPs should be given a chance to vote with their conscience on the matter. A bill to legalise assisted dying in the UK was defeated in 2015, but was backed by Sir Keir and several Tory cabinet members. The issue ...

Baroness Michelle Mone has hit back at Rishi Sunak, saying she was “honest” with the government over contracts for personal protective equipment (PPE). The peer has admitted lying to the media about her links to a company that supplied millions of pounds worth of personal protective equipment to the government during the Covid pandemic. But she insisted the government knew ...

The foreign secretary has said he would like to see a “sustainable ceasefire” in the Israel-Gaza conflict. Lord Cameron also warned “too many civilians have been killed” in Gaza. More than 18,000 people have been killed, including thousands of children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. His intervention in a Sunday Times article marks a shift in tone from the UK government, ...

LONDON, Dec 15 : A teenager from Britain who resurfaced in southern France after disappearing six years ago is expected to return to northern England in the next few days, police said on Friday after the boy left a spiritualist mountain community in the Pyrenees. Alex Batty disappeared at the age of 11 during a holiday with his mother and ...

A 17-year-old British boy from Oldham who went missing in Spain in 2017 has been found in France, authorities say. Alex Batty was found in the town of Revel, east of Toulouse, early on Wednesday morning. The prosecutor’s office in Toulouse told the BBC the family had confirmed the teenager’s identity. Alex had been missing for six years after going ...

Former minister David Davis has confirmed he intervened to stop an attack on a rough sleeper near Parliament on Tuesday evening. The veteran Tory MP said he stepped in when he two men began “kicking seven bells” out of another man on the floor. He told the BBC the man was so “badly beaten up” that he let him stay ...