Day: November 18, 2016

    Ten-year programme of works to come from 66% increase in sovereign grant but Queen will remain in residence throughout. The work on Buckingham Palace is to be finished in 2027. Friday 18 November 2016 13.31 GMT Last modified on Friday 18 November 2016 13.46 GMT The Queen has been awarded a 66% pay rise to fund a £369m 10-year refit of Buckingham Palace designed to future-proof the ageing building, it has been announced. Theresa May, Philip Hammond and the Queen’s keeper of the privy purse, Sir Alan Reid, who are the royal trustees, agreed that the temporary pay increase was the best way to pay for urgent repairs. The major refit, which has been described as essential, will see miles of ageing cables, lead pipes, electrical wiring and boilers replaced, some for the first ti...

    London and Portsmouth are among Europe’s most notorious hubs for terrorist recruitment, as US military report has revealed. A new study by the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point found evidence that Isis and other extremist groups have networks in specific areas, mostly with significant immigrant communities, “where they can identify high numbers of potential recruits who are potentially under social-economic stress”. Analysis of more than 850 foreign fighters showed that almost three quarters came from cities where at least one other militant was known, often as part of the same friendship group. Out of the jihadis known to have travelled to Syria and Iraq between 2011 and 2015, the highest number came from London, with 38 recruits, while eight were from Portsm...