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    Angry Tory MPs attacked the Scottish government tonight for telling its officials to fly the Union Flag just once a year. The historic emblem was replaced by the blue-and-white Scottish Saltire for several Royal birthdays, including the Queen's, in new guidance issued by Holyrood. The guidance recommends the Union flag flies over government buildings only on Remembrance Sunday, down from 15 occasions a year. Tory ex-minister Iain Duncan Smith claimed the guidance was outrageous and tawdry while backbencher Jacob Rees Mogg complained it smacks of small-mindedness. Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser accused First Minister Nicola Sturgeon of trying to eradicate the Union Flag and appealing to extreme elements of the nationalist movement. Under 2017 guidance, on Royal bir...

    Approximately 1,450 people have been evacuated from a nightclub and a hotel and a major railway station is closed after a gas main ruptured in the Strand, central London. Witnesses described chaos as doormen at the Heaven nightclub ordered them to leave after the alarm was raised at around 2am, while guests at the hotel were moved into emergency accommodation. Strand after a gas leak forced the evacuation of 1,450 people from a nightclub and a hotel and closed Charing Cross station in central London London Fire Brigade (LFB) said it was called to the scene at after high levels of natural gas were detected at the scene in Craven Street near Charing Cross station. The Strand, a major route through central London, has been closed entirely and a 150m cordon put in plac...

    Amena Khan, from Leicester, said she deeply regret the tweet and apologised for the upset and hurt caused by the posts. Ms Khan was set to be the first woman in a hijab to be a part of an advert for hair care and would have started alongside the likes of pop star Cheryl Tweedy. She announced the news on Instagram and said: I deeply regret the content of the tweets I made in 2014, and sincerely apologise for the upset and hurt that they have caused. Championing diversity is one of my passions, I don’t discriminate against anyone. I have chosen to delete them as they do not represent the message of harmony that I stand for. In the tweets Ms Khan said Israel is an illegal state and Israel Pharaoh. Both are child murderers, according to the. A spokesperson for L’Orea...

    The head of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre has warned that a major cyber-attack on the UK is a matter of when, not if, raising the prospect of devastating disruption to British elections and critical infrastructure. In remarks underlining newly released figures showing the number of cyber-attacks on the UK in the last 15 months, Ciaran Martin said the UK had been fortunate to avoid a so called category one (C1) attack, broadly defined as an attack that might cripple infrastructure such as energy supplies and the financial services sector. The US, France and other parts of Europe have already faced such attacks. Interference in elections would also constitute a C1 attack, as would a deliberately provocative move by a hostile state. During an hour-long inte...

    Boris Johnson is set to confront Theresa May face-to-face tomorrow with his controversial demand for £100million a week for the NHS after Brexit. Allies said the Foreign Secretary has vowed to raise the much-disputed Brexit dividend in Cabinet risking a new Tory row. It piles fresh pressure on the Prime Minister's leadership after a senior Tory MP, Nicholas Soames, complained her offering to voters was dull, dull, dull". Sir Nicholas added today: It really won't be enough to get people to vote against The Corbini. Mr Johnson is said to be planning the intervention despite Labour reporting him to the UK Statistics Authority when he resurrected the misleading NHS pledge, originally made during the EU referendum , a week ago. An ally of Mr Johnson said: Boris believe...

    Financial markets in Britain and the European Union will face instability and significant business disruption if the U.K. exits the EU in March 2019 without a transition deal or final settlement on a number of crucial issues, a finance industry trade group warned. There are at least five key areas where financial firms need clarity from U.K. and EU policymakers to avoid instability, the Association for Financial Markets in Europe said in a report published Monday. These include an agreement on data transfers, continuity of contracts, legal jurisdiction, access to market infrastructure and recognition of bank resolution actions, according to AFME. A quarter of all over-the-counter derivative contracts entered into by parties in both the U.K. and EU with a gross notio...

    Pressure was today mounting on Ukip leader Henry Bolton to step down following a flurry of resignations from his frontbench team. The party’s assistant deputy leader Mike Hookem MEP, local government spokesman Tim Aker and education spokesman David Kurten announced they had quit their posts just before lunchtime, bringing the number of senior departures today to six. Deputy leader Margot Parker, immigration spokesman John Bickley and international trade spokesperson William Dartmouth have all also quit their posts, demanding Mr Bolton resigns. Mr Bolton has refused to step aside. At an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) next month members will vote whether he should stay on. Mr Hookem said he had resigned on Friday as the situation had become an “almost farcical ...

Margaret Thatcher believed South Africa should be a whites-only state, it has been reported. The former head of the Diplomatic Service, Sir Patrick Wright, has made a number of explosive claims in his account of the former Prime Minister’s time in office. Sir Patrick also said that Ms Thatcher loathed Germans and wanted to push Vietnamese boat people into the sea. Extracts from his diaries have been published in the Mail on Sunday and include claims that Ms Thatcher expressed a desire for a pre-1910 South Africa. In the diary entry, Sir Patrick writes the conversation took place over a lunch he was invited to with Ms Thatcher. “She opened the conversation by thrusting a newspaper cutting about Oliver Tambo [ANC president] in front of us, saying that it proved that we should not b...