United Kingdom

    The Conservatives have been branded cruel after forcing seriously ill MPs to leave their sickbeds in order to vote, ripping up normal Commons rules. One Labour MP said she had to discharge herself from hospital and delay a possible operation to take part in the showdown on a meaningful vote, while dosed up on morphine. Four other MPs were also required to vote while sick while others had to go through the voting lobbies while heavily pregnant. Labour accused the Conservatives of breaking with decades of convention by refusing to allow nodding through perhaps in an ambulance, somewhere on the parliamentary estate. Even during the knife-edge votes of the 1970s, when the Callaghan government teetered on the brink of falling, nodding through” had been allowed, the par...

    Theresa May meeting US President Donald Trump. Theresa May has condemned Donald Trump’s policy of keeping migrant children in cages at the US border and vowed to challenge him when they meet next month. The prime minister bowed to growing pressure to speak out, condemning the practice as wrong and putting it on the agenda for the US president’s controversial visit to the UK. The pictures of children being held in what appear to be cages are deeply disturbing. This is wrong, she told MPs. But Ms May refused to cancel the visit, on 12 July, arguing that opposition MPs consistently put pressure on her to take the opportunity to confront Mr Trump on issues of concern. We do that, she said. When we disagree with the United States we tell them so. But we also have key ...

    A glamour model has revealed how an ISIS recruiter brainwashed her on Facebook before grooming her to move to Syria to become the next White Widow. Kimberley Miners, 29, from London, claims she was groomed and indoctrinated online by ISIS recruiter Naweed Hussain, who died in an airstrike in February. She said they wanted her to become the next White Widow and follow in the footsteps of Sally Jones, a British mother of one who sacrificed her life to the cause earlier this year. Miss Miners was arrested by anti-terror police last year after they discovered correspondence between her and Hussain which included a bomb-making manual. She told The Sun she believed ISIS wanted to use her as a new version of Jones. She described how Hussain flattered her and boosted her...

    The attempt to secure a meaningful vote that potentially could have given MPs the power to stop Britain leaving the EU without a deal has been defeated. The final obstacle to the EU withdrawal bill was removed as MPs voted 303 to 319 against an amendment that had been tabled by the former attorney general Dominic Grieve before he accepted government reassurances about its respect for the power of MPs to hold it to account. At least five Tory rebels Ken Clarke, Anna Soubry, Heidi Allen and Antoinette Sandbach, as well as Dr Philip Lee who resigned last week to vote against the government held out against the compromise that Labour MPs dismissed as meaningless. Grieve was accused by one angry Labour backbencher of behaving like the Grand old Duke of York. You can’t k...

    The meaningful vote amendment was passed by 354 votes to 235 a majority of 119 The government has been defeated in a landslide Lords vote which will set up another Commons showdown over an amendment to give MPs a meaningful vote even if the government fails to reach a Brexit deal. The House of Lords voted in favour of a new amendment, devised by Tory MP and pro-EU rebel Dominic Grieve and tabled by Viscount Hailsham, by a significantly bigger margin than the last time the issue was debated. The amendment was passed by 354 votes to 235 a majority of 119. Michael Heseltine, Chris Patten and Sayeeda Warsi were among the 22 Tory peers who rebelled and backed the amendment. Hailsham, the former Conservative cabinet minister Douglas Hogg, tabled the last-minute amendment...

    The Government will ban combustible tower block cladding in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire. In a statement issued today, housing minister James Brokenshire said he would move to make it illegal to cover the outside of high-rises with flammable materials like the ones used on the west London block. But he failed to set a deadline, suggesting the decision would only be made after a consultation. I have listened carefully to concerns and I intend to ban the use of combustible materials on the external walls of high-rise residential buildings, subject to consultation, he said. Grenfell Tower, a 24-storey London social housing block, was engulfed in flames after fire broke out in the middle of the night in June last year. Officials have said aluminium cladding wi...

    British citizens of Indian, Ghanaian and Pakistani descent have been hit by the government’s hostile environment immigration policy forcing the Home Office’s Windrush scandal taskforce to step in, The Independent can reveal. In dozens of cases of alleged discrimination, people born in Commonwealth nations who have lived in the UK for decades have been left stranded abroad or threatened with deportation. Charities said growing numbers from outside the Caribbean had approached them in need of support with immigration issues and warned that the Windrush fiasco was the tip of the iceberg. Labour MP Virendra Sharma, who chairs the Indo-British all-party parliamentary group, said: The treatment of these hard-working and British citizens is appalling. While thousands were...

    Lord Ivar Mountbatten opened up about his sexuality in 2016 after a decades-long struggle. Later this summer, the Royal who is cousin to the Queen and the great-nephew of Earl Mountbatten of Burma  will wed his long-term partner James Coyle, who was by his side when he revealed he was gay. The news comes just weeks after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle tied the knot at Windsor Castle, with the couple making their support for LGBT rights clear in the build-up to the wedding by meeting with young LGBT activists from across the Commonwealth. Speaking to the MailOnline, Mountbatten said he had encountered no backlash at all over the planned union – including from his extended family. All my good friends have accepted James, he revealed. I basically told everyone: I’ve ...

    Rarely a week goes by without news of a household high street name shutting up shop or closing stores. The rise of online shopping, or e-commerce, is widely blamed for the demise of traditional retail. Yet people are spending more money than ever just not on the high street. In many ways, the offering provided by the traditional bricks-and-mortar store such as the latest brand to report hard times, House of Fraser remains unchanged since its inception more than a century ago. They have been slow to respond to the changing social and technological landscape. And today's customer expects something more. The digital age has caused a shift in how consumers engage with their favourite brands we can now purchase online with the convenience and confidence once the reserv...

                                                                                                                                                                                    The newlyweds co-ordinated in powder blue as they watched Princess Diana's niece Celia… The Duke and Duchess of Sussex looked in excellent spirits as they attended a family wedding yesterday. The newlyweds co-ordinated in powder blue as they watched Princess Diana's niece Celia McCorquodale tie the knot with George Woodhouse at St Andrew and St Mary's Church in Stoke Rochford, Lincolnshire. Harry and Meghan looked delighted to be at the occasion as they arrived at the pretty country church holding hands and smiling and laughing with the other guests. The bride, Celia, arrived at the church in a vintage 1910 R...