UK News

Public sector workers will only get above inflation pay increases if they improve productivity, Downing Street has said. Unions have reacted with anger to proposals for a 2.8% pay increase for teachers, NHS staff and senior civil servants next year. The British Medical Association (BMA) said there was a “very real risk” of further industrial action if “pay erosion” was ...

There was further wind and rain for some on Sunday, although the storm has now moved away from the UK Tens of thousands of people are facing another night without power after Storm Darragh swept across the UK. A final yellow weather warning for wind in England and Wales expired on Sunday evening, with the storm having now moved away ...

They are not perhaps the most elegant duo of words, but they get to the heart of what the prime minister wants to set out in a wide-ranging speech on Thursday – what senior folk in government describe as “measurable deliverables”.In other words, Sir Keir Starmer’s “plan for change” to be revealed later will include half a dozen understandable, digestible ...

  A former Labour candidate has been cleared by the gambling watchdog, after he placed a bet that he would lose his bid to become an MP in this year’s general election. Kevin Craig was suspended as Labour’s candidate for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich after it emerged the Gambling Commission had launched an investigation over the bet. Mr Craig’s ...

Politics, with a big majority government, will be much quieter, some said. Not a bit of it. Here we are on a Friday, traditionally the sleepiest of Westminster’s weekdays, and MPs confront a potentially generational defining vote on assisted dying while the government confronts its first cabinet resignation. The first cabinet resignation is a moment for any government and a ...

Sir Keir Starmer has said he is “not that surprised” that some people who did not vote Labour in the last election want a “re-run” of the poll. A petition on Parliament’s website accusing Labour of breaking promises and calling for a new general election has gathered more than two million signatures – the third highest since 2010. The petition ...

A 22-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after a double shooting into a car which left an eight-year-old girl and her father with serious injuries. They were both taken to hospital following the shooting on Southern Row in Ladbroke Grove at about 17:30 GMT on Sunday, and remain in a serious but stable condition, the Metropolitan ...

Legislation put forward by the UK’s new Labour government to renationalise the country’s rail services, most of which are privately owned, was on Wednesday given the go-ahead by parliament. The bill will bring rail operators into public ownership when the private companies’ contracts expire — or sooner in the event of poor management — and will be managed by “Great ...

Britain’s former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has died following a battle with Alzheimer’s, his family announced. Prescott, an ex-merchant seaman who became a key figure in Tony Blair’s New Labour government, died “peacefully” in a care home at the age of 86, his family said on Thursday. Blair, prime minister between 1997 and 2007, led tributes to his former ...

Hospices will receive extra support to ease the burden of rising National Insurance (NI) contributions, the health secretary has promised. The hospice sector has warned that increased employer NI contributions, following the Budget, and rising wage bills could create a shortfall of tens of millions of pounds next year. Hospice care is free to use, but unlike the NHS, hospices ...