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    The Liberal Democrats have announced they are opening nominations for a leadership contest to replace Sir Vince Cable. Sir Vince previously said he would be stepping down after the local and EU Parliament elections, but did not name a date. On Friday, a day after the election but before the results had been announced, he said that he had decided to step aside following the party’s "best ever council election results and a surge of support for the European elections. Nominations will close on June 7, the same day Theresa May announced she would be stepping down as Tory leader. The party said it hoped to conclude the contest and announce the new Liberal Democrats leader on 23 July. In a statement Sir Vince said: Last night, the British people finished voting in the...

    What does your friend who works at Facebook actually get paid? How about that woman from your class who joined Deutsche Bank and has since risen through the ranks? Most of us keep our salaries a secret, even from those we’re close with. But increasingly, current and former employees are sharing reams of information anonymously on crowdsourced sites like Glassdoor and Emolument, including what they really think of their employer and how much they earn. The interest in other people’s pay packets is often intense. When Ask A Manager, a popular workplace advice site, invited users last month to anonymously fill in a spreadsheet declaring their salary, thousands responded. For the third time, Glassdoor’s UK division has revealed the salary ranking for the country’s top-...

    The government has revealed the five busiest road sections in Great Britain, and it won’t surprise you to discover that four of them are on the M25. Predictably, the stretch linking junction 14 at Heathrow Airport with the M4 at junction 15 is the most congested, with 219,000 vehicles using the section EVERY DAY in 2018. Junction 13 at Staines to junction 14 is the next busiest road with 206,000 vehicles, with junction 15 to junction 16 for the M40 motorway next up with 201,000 vehicles. The section linking junctions 12 and 13 completes the misery for motorists forced to use the M25 on a daily basis, with 193,000 vehicles hitting the short section every day. Only the M1 between junction 9 for Rebourn and junction 8 for Hemel Hempstead manages to muscle in on the M...

    Theresa May’s position appears increasingly precarious as she faces calls from senior members of the cabinet to pull a planned vote on her new Brexit deal. Sajid Javid, David Mundell and Penny Mordaunt are among the cabinet ministers who are unhappy about May’s pledge to hold a vote on a referendum, during the passage of her Brexit bill. Others, including Michael Gove, have suggested it looks impossible to win a majority for the withdrawal agreement bill (Wab) and suggested the promised vote on it in early June should be pulled. May was granted a stay of execution last week by the 1922 Committee of backbench MPs in order to give her one last chance to offer a vote on her Brexit bill, which is due to receive its second reading in early June. She stressed that the g...

    Jeremy Corbyn has broken fast with members of the north London Muslim community to commemorate the Finsbury Park mosque attack. The Labour leader offered a message of unity as he joined the daughter of victim Makram Ali at a community street iftar meal outside the mosque on Tuesday evening. The attack took place on June 19, 2017, but Tuesday marked the 17th day of Ramadan and the second anniversary of the attack, according to the lunar calendar observed in Islam. Mr Ali, 70, was killed when Darren Osborne ploughed a hired van into worshippers gathered outside the Muslim Welfare House shortly after evening Ramadan prayers. He died at the scene while 12 worshippers were injured. Mr Corbyn, who lives nearby, told those gathered over the road from the attack on Tuesd...

    When you look at the short span of President Trump’s political career, one question jumps out: How much of his craziest, most paranoid and norm-violating behavior is motivated by a desire to keep his financial arrangements secret? It began with Trump’s bizarre refusal to release his tax returns, in defiance of both a nearly half-century practice and Trump’s own promise that he’d do so. Then there was his refusal to divest from his sprawling multinational empire, or even put it into a blind trust either of which would have forced at least some information disclosure to a third party. There were also the interviews and tweetstorms calling journalists who report on his finances enemies of the people, and suggestions that federal officials who audit him are anti-Christ...

    Danyaal Mahmud had no idea far-right activist Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was due to be campaigning in Warrington last month. The 23-year-old apprentice was in the North West town for an appointment when he was invited to join protestors awaiting Yaxley-Lennon’s arrival. I was the only Asian person there. All these people from [United Against Fascism] kept hugging me and telling me I was brave to be standing with them, Mahmud later told the Observer newspaper. Within seconds, Yaxley-Lennon who is standing to be one of the region’s members of the European Parliament – sought Mahmud out. The first time he approached me, he asked me if I thought he was racist and I said: yeah, Mahmud explained. Then he says: do you know 80% of grooming gangs are ...