United Kingdom

    A major financial crunch on contracts worth almost £30 trillion ($39.7 trillion) could be on the horizon in March next year, the Bank of England warned on Wednesday. The UK's central bank used its latest Financial Stability Report which looks at the risks to the safety of the UK economy and the global financial system to warn that Britain's impending exit from the European Union could have a huge impact on over-the-counter derivative markets. Derivative markets allow those in the financial system to trade assets that have no inherent value, but derive their value from elsewhere, such as credit swaps and stock futures. European derivative markets are linked heavily between the UK and the rest of the continent, and the bank argued that if a fix cannot be found to all...

    Uber has won its appeal of TfL’s decision to revoke its London operating licence last year. Westminster Magistrates Court found that the company is fit and proper to hold the licence, and granted the firm’s appeal after it agreed to an audit. Uber requested, and was granted, a probationary 15-month licence as opposed to the five year licence it previously sought. It has also agreed to pay TfL’s costs of £425,500. The ride-hailing app was stripped of its licence in September 2017, with TfL citing “public security and safety implications” following numerous complaints the company was failing to properly screen the backgrounds of its drivers. Uber immediately announced plans to appeal the decision, and the firm was permitted to continue operating as usual throughout ...

    A study finds Britain's health service performs worse than average in treating eight out of the 12 most common causes of death. The NHS is below average at saving the lives of patients with many of the most common and lethal illnesses, a major study has found. A report by four leading think tanks revealed Britain's health service performs worse than average in treating eight out of the 12 most common causes of death. They include deaths within 30 days of having a heart attack and within five years of being diagnosed with breast cancer, rectal cancer, colon cancer, pancreatic cancer and lung cancer. The UK also has high rates of child mortality around birth, according to the report by the Nuffield Trust, the Health Foundation, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and T...

    Commuters have been warned to expect travel disruption as the UK's extreme heat continues following the hottest day of the year. Temperatures reached 30.1C (86F) in parts of the country on Monday, with forecasters predicting the mercury will rise even further in the next few days. Speed restrictions are being introduced on some of Britain's railways amid concerns that tracks will buckle in the sweltering conditions. Divers recovered the man's body from a lake in Nutfield, Surrey on Monday evening after reports he had been struggling in the water. A major search operation is resuming for the missing child who got into difficulty in Westport Lake in Staffordshire. The force said: Bodies of water may look safe, but can hide dangers such as hidden currents, hazardous...

    Boris Johnson has faced sharp criticism from fellow Conservative MPs over his decision to miss Monday night’s crunch vote on Heathrow expansion by flying out of the country on an official visit to Afghanistan. The foreign secretary claimed that resigning over his opposition to the £14bn project, which the Commons backed on Monday night by 415 votes to 119 a majority of 296, would achieve “absolutely nothing” and that he would lobby against it privately instead. (The Guardian) Images of the foreign secretary meeting his counterpart in Kabul emerged on social media after hours of speculation about his whereabouts, as the government refused to disclose his location for security reasons. (Independent) A suspect has been arrested in Jamaica over the murder of a British W...

    Police are failing to solve 63 per cent of knife crimes committed against under-25s as stabbing incidents soar, The Independent can reveal. So far this year in London alone there have been 21 youth murders while knife crime against young victims across England and Wales has surged by 69 per cent in the last four years. Politicians and youth workers accused the government of failing to act on the rise in stabbings, and warned of the disastrous effect cuts to police and youth services were having on young people. Figures obtained through freedom of information requests show the overall number of knife incidents against victims under the age of 25 surged from 3,857 in 2013-14 to 6,503 in the year to March 2018. The number of knife-related incidents involving youth th...

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has said the country demands a full British Brexit  not a bog roll Brexit that's soft, messy and never ending. The Foreign Secretary warned Theresa May that she needs to be tough and fulfill the mandate of the voters. They don't want a half-hearted Brexit, the Foreign Secretary wrote in the Sun. They don't want some bog roll Brexit soft, yielding and seemingly infinitely long. Mr Johnson acknowledged the NHS funding package announced last week - which equates to more than the £350m per week which he promised during the Referendum campaign - saying Theresa May had honoured a key Vote Leave pledge. He said Brexit had defied the 'doomsters' who had predicted economic collapse after Britain's departure from the EU. He also fired a warning sho...

    Donald Trump is due to visit the UK on 13 July. Theresa May has ample reasons to cancel Donald Trump’s visit to the UK next month, Jeremy Corbyn has said. The Labour leader said the escalating trade dispute between US and the EU, as well as the US treatment of child migrant detainees separated from their parents, were reasons enough to rescind the invitation to the US president. Donald Trump needs to understand that declaring a trade war by putting tariffs on aluminium and steel and then building up a series of tit-for-tat series of retaliations, in which the US retreats in on itself and starts a trade war with the rest of the world, is going in a very bad and dangerous direction, Corbyn said. Interestingly, it’s been downgraded time after time from a state visit t...

    Up to 7,700 secondary school pupils in England have left mainstream schooling and slipped off the radar,  according to new research. Of the 553,000 children who started Year 7 at state schools in England in 2012, 531,000 were still enrolled in 2017, when they would be due to sit their GCSEs, according to education research group FFT Education Datalab. This means around 22,000 pupils had disappeared from state school rolls in this time a rise of 10% from 2016. The vast majority of the absences can be accounted for. Just under 7,000 ex-state school pupils show up on the records of private schools or further education colleges. Thousands more left the English school system to move elsewhere in the UK or abroad, and a handful will have died. This group of pupils who ...

    The government has faced criticism over its treatment of EU citizens living in the UK since the Brexit vote. The government has promised to fast-track the registration process for EU citizens who want to stay in the UK after Brexit, with decisions on applications to remain in the country reduced from six months to a matter of days. Unveiling details of the settlement scheme for EU citizens, the Home Office promised that the application process would be short, simple and user friendly with a default position of accepting rather than rejecting applications. Sajid Javid, the home secretary, said: “With the scheme, we’re meeting our commitment to secure the rights of EU citizens who are already in this country, contributing in so many ways, they’re working, they’re stu...