United Kingdom

    The boss of US investment bank Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, has used his latest Twitter post on Brexit to suggest a second referendum is held. Here in UK, lots of hand-wringing from CEOs over Brexit. Better sense of the tough and risky road ahead. Reluctant to say, but many wish for a confirming vote on a decision so monumental and irreversible. So much at stake, why not make sure consensus still there. The remarks marked his third intervention in the debate around the effects of the UK's decision to leave the EU. Goldman is currently mulling shifting staff to Germany's main financial centre. Goldman Sachs, which employs 6,000 in the UK currently, has leased office space in Frankfurt - home of the European Central Bank to house up to 1,000 workers. A month ago he told h...

    A block of high rise flats has caught fire on the outskirts of Belfast. The blaze broke out at Seymour Hill in Dunmurry near Belfast and there appears to be several floors alight with flames. One person has been taken to hospital by ambulance, according to reports, four residents needing to be rescued from the building. The tower block has been evacuated, according to witnesses with the fire now under control. Hundreds of residents have been forced to gather in the streets, with a nearby community hall opened for them to shelter in. Another witness, who was driving past the tower block said he thought he saw steam coming from the top of the building. He said: It was sort of frightening. After what happened in England [Grenfell Tower], you think to yourself, is this another...

    British Prime Minister Theresa May is heading for a showdown with her own Tory party over what one member of Parliament called her mad plan to write the date of Brexit into British law. Former Attorney General Dominic Grieve was cheered by several of his senior colleagues Tuesday in the House of Commons in London as he said he’d vote to stop May’s proposal to enshrine the date of withdrawal March 29, 2019 in statute. Such a law would force Britain out of the EU and also out of hundreds of other treaties, even if no deal has been reached on a future trading relationship, he said. I will vote against it absolutely no ifs, no buts, no maybes about this, no arm-twisting, nothing that can be done to me in the intervening period to change my mind, Grieve told lawmakers. He descr...

    The last date for using the old £10 note featuring Charles Darwin will be 1 March 2018, the Bank of England has announced. After that date only the new £10 notes, featuring Jane Austen, will be legal tender. The plastic notes featuring Austen the first female writer to feature on a banknote were first issued in in September and by early October accounted for 55% of £10 notes in circulation. The Bank of England will continue to exchange the paper Darwin £10 notes, first issued in 2000, after 1 March. The paper £10 is going the way of the old £5 notes, which ceased to be legal tender in May. Both new notes have encountered controversy because they contain tallow, an animal byproduct. The Austen £10 note also contains a quote from one of her books Pride and Prejudice I declar...

    Theresa May has accused Russia of meddling in elections and planting fake stories in the media in an extraordinary attack on its attempts to weaponise information in order to sow discord in the west. The prime minister spoke out against the scale and nature of Russia’s actions during an address at the lord mayor’s banquet, saying it was threatening the international order on which we all depend. Listing Russia’s attempts to undermine western institutions in recent years, she said: I have a very simple message for Russia. We know what you are doing. And you will not succeed. Because you underestimate the resilience of our democracies, the enduring attraction of free and open societies, and the commitment of western nations to the alliances that bind us. The UK will do what ...

    The account, tweeted a picture of a woman in a hijab walking past a victim laying on the ground while on her phone. It said: Muslim woman pays no mind to the terror attack, casually walks by a dying man while checking phone PrayForLondon Westminster BanIslam. The sentiment was picked up by far-right activists in the UK and the US and the woman was attacked for her indifference to the scene. In March 52-year-old Muslim convert Khalid Masood, who had been radicalised by Isis propaganda, drove a van in pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before attempting to storm the Houses of Parliament. He killed five people, including a police officer on duty who tried to stop him, before being shot dead by armed officers. The woman was photographed on the bridge in the moments after the at...

    Boris Johnson has apologised for the distress he has caused Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her family after he suggested that she was in Iran to train journalists rather than on holiday. The foreign secretary told MPs: Of course I apologise for the distress, for the suffering, that has been caused by the impression that I gave that I believed that she was there in a professional capacity. She was there on holiday. Labour's shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said: His pride matters not one ounce [compared] to her freedom. Business Insider UK Boris Johnson Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in Tehran last March, and since then has been in prison while the Foreign Office, which Johnson leads, tries to secure her release. Conservative MP Julian Lewis, chair of the House of C...

    Theresa May’s ability to deliver Brexit is in doubt amid a growing threat to her leadership and concerns over whether she still has the political clout to govern. Ms May must this week renew the drive to push her EU withdrawal Bill through the House of Commons, with Tory MPs who backed Remain in the referendum threatening to join forces with Jeremy Corbyn’s party to impose changes. But Labour and other opposition parties warned that Ms May no longer has enough authority over the Conservatives to secure the passage, after it emerged some 40 Tory MPs may now be willing to sign a letter of no confidence in her and a note emerged in which two cabinet ministers appear to direct her Brexit policy. It also follows reports that the EU is preparing for the collapse of Brexit talks ...

    We already know the 9 foods Queen Elizabeth II refuses to eat and the four countries she’s never visited. And we now know which word will never slip out of her mouth. Your first guess would probably be that the Queen turns up her nose at curse words, but that might not be true. She doesn’t swear publicly, but comedian Brian Blessed claims Her Majesty said the F-word when talking about one of his appearances on the TV show Have I Got News For You. Granted, she was talking about the Anglo-Saxon origins of the word that he uses so much not cursing him out. Still, the idea of the 91-year-old monarch swearing is still amusing. But there’s another word Queen Elizabeth cannot stand and it’s nothing you’d ever guess. According to Us Weekly, a palace source says the Queen finds the...

    Theresa May faces a devastating Commons defeat over Brexit within weeks if she continues to deny parliament a meaningful vote on the final deal with the EU, Tory and Labour MPs have warned. With the withdrawal bill returning to the Commons on Tuesday, a cross-party group who oppose a hard Brexit and are co-operating on tactics say they believe they have the numbers to defeat the government if they are denied such a vote. While the critical amendments and closest votes are not expected to be taken until next month, Tories who oppose a hard Brexit insist there is no softening of their position and that they are biding their time ready to strike before Christmas. Some Tories say they are even more determined to insist on parliament’s right to veto a bad or no deal because the...