Exclusive: Sayeeda Warsi says burqa jibe adds to view that Muslim women are ‘fair game’ One of the Conservative party’s most high-profile Muslims has accused Boris Johnson of making “hate crime more likely” with an indefensible, “dog-whistle” reference to fully veiled Muslim women. Sayeeda Warsi, writing in the Guardian on Wednesday, said the former foreign secretary had used rightwing, “alt-right” ...

Education secretary wants UK and Silicon Valley firms to help put tech at heart of classrooms Tech companies in the UK and abroad, including Apple and Microsoft, have been urged to help foster an education revolution by putting technology at the heart of the classroom. The education secretary, Damian Hinds, said only a minority of schools and colleges were taking ...

Former minister asked to say sorry for comparing veiled Muslims to bank robbers Boris Johnson has been told by Conservative party chiefs to apologise for his claim that Muslim women in burqas resemble letter boxes and bank robbers. The Tory chairman, Brandon Lewis, said he had asked the former foreign secretary to say sorry for his controversial remarks in an ...

Rayhan Ahmed Topader: Student protests spread like wildfire across the capital and elsewhere in the country yesterday, with the demonstrators vowing to remain on the streets until their demands for road safety are met. Angered by police beating on the previous day, thousands of students in uniforms and schoolbags on their back poured onto the streets of Dhaka and blocked ...

Exclusive: leaked letter warns home secretary of ‘significant loss of operational capacity’ A no-deal Brexit poses a substantial risk to public safety, with police officers instantly losing vital access to cross-border investigative powers and databases, the home secretary has been told in a damning letter from the national body of police and crime commissioners. In the leaked document – marked ...

Developers made proposals for 35,000 homes in protected parts of England in 2017 Applications to build an additional 35,000 homes on green belt land were submitted last year, taking the total number proposed for construction on protected land to a record 460,000. New data from the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) released on Monday showed that more than 24,000 ...

Universities UK says educating people of all ages would help to meet economic challenges The report calls for continual learning and for policymakers to help reverse the decline in part-time and mature student numbers. Photograph: Sam Edwards/Getty Images/Caiaimage The UK economy could benefit from more people of all ages attending university, a report has concluded. It also suggests the advance ...

Rayhan Ahmed Topader: European Union leaders have defended a migration deal struck during talks in Brussels as doubts emerged about whether they would fulfil their promises to build secure centres for processing asylum claims of people rescued at sea. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said Europe had made a step in the right direction on migration as she prepared to ...

Exclusive: Chequers plan ties future governments to EU rules on subsidies, negotiators say Britain’s Brexit negotiators have tapped into growing concerns in Brussels over Jeremy Corbyn’s plans for the British economy, by stressing in recent talks that the Chequers plan would tie any future prime minister to the EU’s evolving rules on state aid in perpetuity, according to EU sources. ...

Jean Bizet says safeguard on migration should be discussed at May-Macron meeting Europe should try to keep the UK in the EU by improving its offer on an emergency brake on the free movement of people, first made before the 2016 referendum, the chair of the French senate’s European committee has said. Jean Bizet was speaking to the Guardian before ...