Author: Sumon Admin

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty on Sunday morning offered prayers at the Akshardham Temple in Delhi with their team. They spent around 40 minutes at the temple premises. Sunak visited every statue personally and did an aarti too, according to Akshardham Temple official Jyotindra Dave. Dave added that Sunak spoke to the saints at the temple and that they were happy with their visit. Jyotindra Dave, an official of the Akshardham temple said, "Britain PM Rishi Sunak came with his wife Akshata and the entire team. He had a great experience and spend more than 40 minutes. He visited every statue personally, and did an aarti too. They spoke to us too and were very happy with the visit" . During his visit, Sunak was given an overview of the Swaminarayan Akshardham te...

The UK Government has quietly admitted that post-Brexit checks at the UK’s borders will increase inflation – despite Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s headline pledge to drive it down. The admission came at the very end of a 1500-word press release put out by the Tory government on Tuesday, which confirmed that the post-Brexit border checks on food products coming from the EU would be delayed for a fifth time. The first stage of the UK’s new border model, originally set for October, is now delayed to January 2024, with physical checks and other requirements coming in throughout the next year. In January, when inflation was at 10.1%, Sunak pledged to halve the rate by the end of 2023. In July, the UK’s consumer prices index (CPI) was at 6.8%, the Office for National Statistics reported. De...

House prices have become less expensive relative to average earnings, new data has revealed. The cost of a typical home is now 6.7 times average earnings, according to major lender, Halifax, down from a peak of 7.3x last summer. Downward pressure on property prices following last summer's peak, combined with strong wage growth, has seen the UK's house price to income ratio fall back over the past 12 months'. At its peak in June last year, the cost of a typical home was £293,586, while the average annual earnings of a full-time worker was £40,196. A year later, the average house price had fallen by 2.5 per cent to £286,276 while wages have risen by 7 per cent to an average of £43,090 per year. But house prices remain more expensive than they were in early 2020, relative t...

New rules are set to come into force aimed at preventing serious criminals gaining British citizenship. Changes to the “good character” requirement of citizenship applications from Monday will see tougher rules applied to anyone who has received a 12-month prison sentence. Currently an attempt to gain British citizenship will normally be refused if an individual has received a four-year jail term. Previously an application was also likely to be rejected from anyone who has served between 12 months and four years in prison until 15 years have passed since the end of the sentence. Anyone who had spent less than a year in prison also faced an application being rejected until 10 years had passed. The changes bring the system into line with immigration rules, with new rules designed to b...

Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty has claimed the top place as one of Britain’s best dressed for 2023. The businesswoman and fashion designer, 43, was named on the list compiled by Tatler magazine alongside Princess Beatrice’s husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi and Love Actually star Bill Nighy. Chandler Tregaskes, style editor for Tatler said: The coveted number one spot in Tatler’s best dressed list belongs to the chatelaine of Downing Street, Akshata Murty. Her stream of ‘It’ ensembles would have given Jackie Kennedy a run for her money. Though she lacks the pillbox hats and layered pearls of yore, Mrs Sunak is a shining example of modern-day diplomatically decadent dressing that steals the show. Ms Murty, the daughter of an Indian billionaire, attended the Fashion Institute of Design &...

Sir Tony Blair said he believed that the United Kingdom will go back into the European Union in the future as a new poll showed support for rejoining the bloc was at a five-year high. The former Labour prime minister told the New Statesman magazine that a future generation would take Britain back into Europe. The comments came as Deltapoll published a survey that showed an uptick in support for rejoining the EU. The company’s latest tracker poll, conducted between July 21-24, found that 56 per cent of people would vote to rejoin the EU if a second referendum on membership was held. That number was up by four points when compared to the previous poll conducted between July 14-17. Some 38 per cent of people, down by three points, said they would vote to stay out of the bloc. Deltapoll ...

Ukraine’s ambassador to London has been sacked after publicly rebuking Volodymyr Zelensky for comments he made about Ben Wallace. Vadym Prystaiko had accused the Ukrainian president of displaying “unhealthy sarcasm” toward the Defence Secretary, who suggested Kyiv should stop treating its allies like “Amazon” and show more gratitude for arms deliveries at the Nato summit in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital. “How else can we show our gratitude? We can wake up in the morning and thank the minister,” Mr Zelensky theatrically responded in a news conference. “Let him write to me and tell me how to thank him.” When asked to comment on the row, Mr Prystaiko last week said: “I don’t believe this sarcasm is healthy.” “I don’t think we need to show the Russians there is something betw...

A senior Conservative has urged Rishi Sunak to call an early election to minimise Tory losses at the polls. Lord Finkelstein, a member of the House of Lords and former senior advisor, said May 2024 might be the "best moment" to go to electorate. Recounting his experience of advising John Major on the timing of the 1997 election, the Tory peer said he now believed an earlier election would have made the defeat "less severe". "The hope was that something might turn up. Instead voters simply became more irritated," he wrote in an article for the Times newspaper. "The mistake is to think that a bad moment can’t become worse. Or that there is really little difference between losing power by a little and losing it by a lot. "There is a vast difference for the Conservatives, and for Sunak ...

UK inflation dropped to a 15-month low of 7.9% in the year to June, easing concerns for Bank of England (BoE) policymakers who are battling against runaway prices. It is the lowest reading since March 2022. Economists predicted that the rate would dip to 8.2% from 8.7% in both April and May. New figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Wednesday showed that an ease in food price inflation and also falling prices for motor fuel helped to push the rate down. The largest downward contribution came from the milk, cheese and eggs category, with the annual rate easing to 22.8%, from 27.4% in May. Motor fuel prices fell by 22.7% in the period, compared with a fall of 13.1% the month prior. Core CPI, which excludes energy, food, alcohol and tobacco, rose by 6.9% in the 12 mon...

A man is due to appear in court charged with murder following the disappearance of a woman in east London. Aminan Rahman, 45, was arrested on Tuesday as part of an investigation into the disappearance of Suma Begum, 24, who knew the accused. Ms Begum was reported missing from an address in Orchard Place, Tower Hamlets on April 30. Rahman is due to appear at Barkingside Magistrates’ Court charged with Ms Begum’s murder on Thursday. Ms Begum has still not been found and enquiries continue into her disappearance.