United Kingdom

    PM Theresa May is to warn EU leaders to be wary of hostile states like Russia and pledge the UK will stay committed to European security after Brexit. In Brussels for a summit, she will say it is crucial that European countries work together to protect our shared values and ideals. She will also discuss Brexit with European Council President Donald Tusk. Last week Mr Tusk said the UK must show more progress on the divorce bill if trade talks were to begin this year. On Friday, Mrs May is expected to stress the need for a unified approach to security as the UK leaves the EU. She will say: From agriculture in Ukraine to the tech sector in Belarus there is a huge amount of potential in the Eastern neighbourhood that we should nurture and develop. But we must also be open-eyed...

    Jeremy Corbyn has lambasted the budget, saying it completely fails to deal with a national crisis of stagnation and falling wages, and telling Philip Hammond it epitomised the woes of a government no longer fit for office. In a 25-minute response to the budget the Labour leader largely avoided direct comment on the chancellor’s announcement and instead focused on wider themes about the effects of austerity on public services, and people’s struggles with flat wages and benefit cuts. The test of a budget is how it affects the reality of people’s lives all around this country, Corbyn began. And I believe as the days go ahead, and this budget unravels, the reality will be a lot of people will be no better off. And the misery that many are in will be continuing. With pay lower ...

    Scores of people have been rescued from flooding as heavy rain caused widespread disruption across north west England and North Wales, with large parts of Scotland also braced for snow. More than 70 people were evacuated from their flood-hit homes in north Lancashire early on Thursday. Lancashire Constabulary said emergency services, the Environment Agency and Lancaster City Council had received more than 500 flood-related calls and attended more than 100 incidents. People were urged not to call emergency services unless there was a threat to life as crews continued to respond to a backlog of incidents. The Met Office said around 1.7in (4.3cm) of rain had fallen in 24 hours in parts of Lancashire, while further north in Cumbria around half a month's rain, 3.5in (8.9cm), wa...

More than 60 visitors and employers attended the Somali Taskforce jobs and training fair hosted by the council's Somali Taskforce and WorkPath, the council's partnership employment programme. Mayor Biggs set up and commissioned the Somali Taskforce last year, to investigate the challenges facing Somali residents in Tower Hamlets. The taskforce found that residents of Somali origin are more likely to suffer from economic inequality due to factors such as language barriers. Recommendations, by the taskforce include creating new employment opportunities, an internship scheme and improved targeted provision for English for Speakers of other Languages (ESOL). The training and employment fair on November 13 was a major step towards improving the life experience of Somali residents in the borough...

A consultation on where in Tower Hamlets on-street charging points for electric vehicles should be installed has launched today (Monday). This forms part of the council's climate change and clean air strategy. The decision to install more electric charging points was approved by the council's cabinet in September.With increasing demand for electric vehicle charging, the extra charging points will help to deliver the council priority of encouraging people to use cleaner vehicles. It will also help to reduce emissions from road traffic and help deliver the Mayor of London's target for a zero emission transport network by 2050. While private cars make up the majority of electric vehicles in the borough the council also wants to prepare for 1 January 2018 when new Transport for London regulati...

    A huge inter-generational divide has been revealed over whether Labour or the Conservatives would be best at running the economy. Despite both parties being neck-and-neck overall, a Sky Data poll found huge splits between young and old. Of 18 to 34-year-olds, 62% want Labour in charge of the nation's finances, versus 28% for the Tories. 's party also scrapes a narrow win among 35 to 54-year-olds, who favour it 41% to the Conservatives' 39%. But among those aged over 55, 56% would prefer Theresa May's party ran the economy, with Labour trailing on 28%. Among all ages, 43% of people say they want a Conservative chancellor, versus 41% for Labour. The revelation comes ahead of Philip Hammond's autumn Budget on Wednesday, which is expected to offer a boon to young people in a b...

    The Budget is set to be a make or break moment for the chancellor Philip Hammond as ties between him and the prime minister Theresa May are at breaking point. Concern was mounting in Downing Street at a lacklustre run-up to the Budget which is titled Building a Britain Fit for the Future, and is considered one of the most important moments of May's premiership. Hammond has been criticised for an interview on the BBC in which he appeared to say there were no unemployed people in the UK. There were also reports of panic in Downing Street, with one Cabinet source describing it as the worst Budget build-up in history and another minister telling the Telegraph: They've cleared the decks for him (Hammond), he can have no excuses. It is his Budget, he will stand or fall by it. Th...

    Driverless cars are the chancellor’s vision. He promised to ride one but yesterday backed off: someone warned him driverlessness was a bad look on budget eve. If he is trying to mimic Harold Wilson’s 1964 white heat of technology, it may not be as popular. Few yet yearn for robots on the roads certainly not the million professional drivers fearful of joining the unemployed, even if Philip Hammond wrongly claimed on Sunday that the unemployed don’t exist. But it’s a faithful image nonetheless. There was never such a driverless cabinet, crashing daily as its members split and split again like Trotskyite groupuscules. You might think the great fault line between Brexiteers and remainers was enough. But no. Michael Gove and Boris Johnson’s astonishingly aggressive letter to th...

    Britain's election watchdog has re-opened an investigation into a controversial donation made by the Vote Leave campaign group during the final days of the Brexit referendum campaign. The Electoral Commission announced on Monday that it was probing whether a £625,000 ($827,000) gift to Darren Grimes, a 24-year-old fashion student, was in breach of strict election regulations. It is also investigating Vote Leave directly over claims that it breached the maximum spending limit during the referendum period. This is the second time the donation is being investigated. In a press release on Monday, the commission said it had decided to investigate again. Explaining the decision, it said: New information has come to light which, when considered alongside the information obtained ...

    A suicide bomber killed at least 50 people at a mosque in northeastern Nigeria on Tuesday in the biggest mass killing this year in a region facing an insurgency by Islamist militant group Boko Haram. Abubakar Othman, a police spokesman in Adamawa state, said the death toll from the attack in the town of Mubi is 50 people, but there could be more as those seriously injured could add to the figure. Mubi is in Adamawa state where Boko Haram militants held territory in 2014, although the insurgents were pushed out of those areas by troops in early 2015. Boko Haram typically mounts suicide attacks in crowded public places such as mosques and markets. Tuesday's attack is the highest loss of life since 56 people were killed in the same state last December, when two schoolgirl sui...