United Kingdom

    Theresa May has won a second symbolic vote on her decision to launch airstrikes, following another day of fraught parliamentary debate on Syria. The prime minister’s advisors believe the result shows she has successfully navigated difficulties arising from her move to push ahead with a military operation without first consulting MPs. But Jeremy Corbyn used the debate to demand that the Commons “take back our control" of decisions to launch any military action, with a new War Powers Act. It came as inspectors were set to finally make it to the site of the alleged Douma chemical weapons attack on Wednesday, with Ms May accusing Moscow of preventing the scientist from doing their work. Ahead of the Commons vote on Syria, Ms May told MPs that coming to parliament befo...

    Emmanuel Macron has angrily confronted critics of last week's Syria air strikes, claiming France, the UK and the US saved the honour of the international community. During a three-hour debate at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, the French President was challenged by MEPs opposed to the bombing raids on chemical weapons plants. Responding passionately, he insisted France, the UK and the US had not declared war on Bashar al Assad, but said Syria could not be rebuilt after its civil war if we turn our backs. After the President's opening speech, outlining ambitious proposals to make the EU more democratic, senior MEP Guy Verhofstadt strongly backed the military action, claiming a country that used chemical weapons was a genocidal and illegitimate regime. But af...

    Sergei Skripal The nerve agent used to poison Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury was delivered in a liquid form, it has been revealed. The Department for Environment said one primary location was targeted the Skripal's Wiltshire home. The details emerged as the department announced a major clean-up operation was under way across the city to bring a small number of potentially contaminated sites back into safe use for residents and tourists. Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal were found collapsed on bench in Salisbury The London Road cemetery, the mall where the pair were discovered unconscious, Zizzi and the Ashley Wood compound where the ex-spy's red BMW 3 series was taken after the attack have been handed back over by the police invesigation. The department's ...

    The number of people in work has reached a record high, while earnings have grown slightly above inflation for the first time in almost a year, new figures showed. Employment increased by 55,000 in the quarter to February to 32.2 million, the highest figure since records began in 1971, giving a record rate of 75.4%. Unemployment fell by 16,000 to 1.42 million, the lowest in more than a decade, giving a jobless rate of 4.2%, the lowest since 1975, according to the Office for National Statistics. Average earnings increased by 2.8% in the year to February, unchanged on the previous month and the highest since September 2015. The latest CPI inflation figure is 2.7% and is expected to remain unchanged when new figures are published on Wednesday. Matt Hughes, senior ON...

    Theresa May gave a personal apology to Caribbean leaders today for the treatment of Windrush citizens threatened with deportation and denied healthcare. Earlier, her de facto deputy David Lidington admitted that the Government was still not sure if any people who had come to Britain as children after the Second World War had been wrongfully deported. Mrs May was expected to add that a crackdown on illegal migrants she announced as home secretary in 2014 was not aimed at the Windrush generation, who were valued members of the British community. The Prime Minister’s office had initially declined a meeting on the issue, without telling Mrs May, but after the row threatened to overshadow this week’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, she dashed to make amends and...

    Mrs May said she acted in the national interest of the UK The Prime Minister will tell MPs she acted in Britain's national interest by ordering airstrikes on Syria as the Government calls for an emergency debate on the issue. Theresa May will pre-empt planned opposition motions by applying to the Speaker for a debate herself to give the House an extended opportunity to discuss the military action. In a statement to the Commons, she will also set out her justification for the decision arguing that it was done to alleviate further humanitarian suffering in Syria caused by chemical weapons attacks. The PM will say: UNSC-mandated inspectors have investigated previous attacks and on four occasions decided that the regime was indeed responsible. We are confident in our ...

    The British high street is dying and the Government must take responsibility, according to a retail boss. Founder of toy retailer The Entertainer has condemned Britain’s soaring business rates, saying the Government is a catalyst in causing casualties on the high street. Gary Grant said last year’s rate hike had been a ‘real killer’ for retailers by heaping financial pressure on firms already suffering from squeezed margins. His criticism comes amid a spate of restructuring and refinancing deals involving British retailers, as they grapple with a double-whammy of rising costs and waning consumer confidence. While pressures from rising inflation and the National Living Wage have hit retailers, Mr Grant said business rates remain the elephant in the room. Mr Grant ...

    The Royal Wedding has secured a major tourism boost for areas surrounding London and Windsor as Airbnb revealed bookings had surged by 1,438 per cent. A leading travel agency also said that they had seen a spike in bookings for flights to London from Europe for the weekend of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding. Bookings in Windsor and its nearby towns, Slough, Maidenhead and Reading have soared as excited fans gear up for the May 19 wedding, online letting firm Airbnb said. The capital is also expected to receive more than 40,000 guest arrivals over the wedding weekend with visitors flocking to London to celebrate the nuptials there. Leading online travel agent opodo.co.uk said it has seen a 33 per cent increase in passenger bookings to London airports betwe...

    Around 52 per cent of the UK wants a people’s vote on Brexit, a survey claims. Only 31 per cent are opposed, according to Open Britain, and Labour supporters are most keen by 65 to 21 per cent. Amongst 18 to 34-year-olds, which includes 500,000 people who could not vote in the 2016 referendum, the idea leads by 61 to 21. James McGrory, of Open Britain, said: The people know the final deal is too important to be left to the politicians alone. The idea of a vote is overwhelmingly ­supported by Labour voters and it is difficult to see how Jeremy Corbyn could resist. Open Britain launches a campaign today calling for a public vote on whatever Brexit deal Theresa May presents to parliament after the summer. It would have to take place before March 2019.

    Police are probing links ­between spy in the bag victim Gareth Williams and the poisoning of father and daughter Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal. Williams, 31, a codebreaker at Britain’s GCHQ eavesdropping centre who was on secondment to MI6, was found dead inside a locked red holdall in his bath eight years ago. At the time his bizarre death in his London flat was dismissed as a sex game that had gone wrong. But this week two counter-terrorism detectives from Salisbury, Wilts where the Skripals were poisoned by a Russian nerve agent will question KGB defector Boris Karpichkov about Williams’ death. Karpichkov, 59, claims that Williams was murdered with an untraceable poison because he had discovered the identity of a Russian mole at GCHQ. Karpichkov, a former m...