Day: July 28, 2017

    Britain’s relationship with the EU three years after Brexit may look similar to its current one, with free movement, access to the single market and an inability to strike trade deals with other countries, Philip Hammond has said. The chancellor confirmed multiple reports over the last week that the cabinet had agreed to seek a transitional period of around three years, ending before the next election due in 2022. He said there was broad consensus in the cabinet that such a period would be necessary to cushion the impact of leaving the EU. The agreement was made last week but not announced by Theresa May, who has left the UK for a three-week holiday. Instead, the news has seeped out from other cabinet ministers, and was confirmed by Hammond on Friday morning. Speaking on B...

    The aftermath of the Grenfell Tower block blaze. Dozens of tower blocks have failed a new safety test that was more thorough than previous checks in the wake of the Grenfell Tower blaze, it has been reported. Cladding and insulation used in at least 60 high-rises are said to have not passed the latest inspection, the BBC said. Fire safety at high-rise buildings has been thrust into the spotlight after at least 80 people died, many as they tried to escape, from the 24-storey Grenfell Tower last month. Previous fire safety checks have only examined cladding from towers . The new test checked the cladding along with the foam insulation used in Grenfell. Lord Porter, the Local Government Association chairman, told the BBC that housing associations and private sector landlords ...

    The brother of a female physics teacher who had drunken sex with a pupil has denied she did it and defended his sister. Eleanor Wilson engaged in sexual activity with the pupil in the toilet of a plane while returning home from a school trip to visit the Large Hadron Collider Geneva in 2015. The 28-year-old, who had trained as a Royal Navy Reservist and worked at a school in Bristol, engaged in oral sex with the pupil in the toilet cubicle and then had full sex with him, a disciplinary panel found earlier this week. Jethro Wilson, 26, told the Daily Mail that the incident never happened and for it to come out that it was on the plane was a bit bizarre really. He said that his sister was not sacked from her job, adding: She left because of all the hassle she was getting fro...

    A 15-year-old girl who flagged down a car for help after she was raped in Birmingham was raped again by the driver who pulled over. A double manhunt is now under way to find the attackers, both described as Asian men in their early 20s. Police said the first attack happened this week in an isolated part of Birmingham's Witton railway station, between 7pm on Tuesday and 2am on Wednesday. The girl had walked to the station with her friend before being led away by a man who then raped her. She left the station shortly after the attack and flagged down a passing vehicle to ask for help. She was then raped again after getting into the second man's car. Detectives from British Transport Police and West Midlands Police have launched a major investigation to try to identify both a...