United Kingdom

    Theresa May today signalled she is ready to pay billions of pounds more in a Brexit divorce bill to secure a December deal to begin trade talks. In a choreographed finish to the EU summit, the other 27 leaders took less than two minutes to reach a decision to start preparations for moving negotiations onto trade. Sources confirmed to the Standard that at a dinner yesterday Mrs May told them that her Florence speech last month, offering at least £18 billion, was not the final word. Cabinet ministers think that the final bill could be another £20 billion higher. An agreement before Christmas would delight the City, which today warned firms will have no choice but to consider moving jobs abroad if the stalemate were allowed to drift on to next year. But it will be fiercely re...

    A damning report has accused one of the UK’s biggest abortion providers of paying its staff bonuses for persuading women to go through with a termination. The allegations concerning the Maidstone branch of the Marie Stopes International clinic emerged in an inspection report by the Care Quality Commission, the official health service watchdog. The clinic said it is categorically untrue that staff bonuses are linked to the numbers who proceed with abortions but the report found a cattle market culture where staff felt encouraged to ensure women went through with abortions because it was linked to their performance bonus. There are 70 Marie Stopes clinics across the UK, where private terminations cost between £546 and £2040 including a consultation, depending on how advanced...

    Dawn Davies, 37, threatened to hurt the boy and report him to police if he told anyone A paedophile mother has been jailed for 15 years after sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy on camera. Sick footage of Dawn Davies, 37, molesting the youngster was sold on a market stall, Manchester Crown Court heard. The traumatised youngster was subjected to a campaign of ‘corruption and depravity’ after being lured to Davies’ Salford flat. Dawn Davies has been jailed for 15 years after she sexually abused an 11-year-old schoolboy. On a string of occasions the mother-of-three violently assaulted the boy - and would threaten to ‘hurt’ him and falsely report him to police if he complained. The court heard the incidents occurred between January 2012 and April 2014 and that one was witnesse...

    Theresa May admitted Brexit negotiations have hit “difficulty” as she urged EU leaders to clear the way for a deal she can sell to British voters. The Prime Minister made the concession for the first time at a working dinner with the heads of the remaining 27 EU states in Brussels. She said that before her key speech in Florence two weeks ago she had recognised the difficulty the process was in. I took stock, listened to what the people in the UK were saying, and what my friends and partners in Europe were saying, and I made a step forward, she said. Mrs May told leaders they face a clear and urgent imperative to give new impetus to stalled negotiations if they are to get an outcome which is acceptable to both the British public and their own people. The EU27 will declare ...

    Undergraduates at the Oxford college where Aung San Suu Kyi studied have voted to remove the leader of Myanmar’s name from the title of their junior common room because of her response to the Rohingya humanitarian crisis. In a vote on Thursday evening, students at St Hugh’s college at the University of Oxford resolved to eliminate the name of the 1991 Nobel peace laureate from the Aung San Suu Kyi junior common room with immediate effect, reports The Guardian. The motion criticised the ‘silence and complicity’ in her apparent defence of the country’s treatment of its Rohingya Muslim minority, who have suffered ethnic cleansing and violent attacks by Myanmar’s military forces. The crisis has led to more than half a million Rohingya being driven out from northern Rakhine sta...

    Strong winds and big waves will batter Britain’s coast just days after Storm Ophelia wreaked destruction. Gusts of 50mph are expected widely across southern England and the west of Wales on Saturday, and winds could reach 70mph in exposed areas. The wild weather, caused by a low pressure system moving in from the Atlantic ocean, may cause coastal flooding and affect transport, the Met Office said. A yellow weather warning for wind has been issued in affected areas, valid from 4am to midnight on Saturday. Met Office forecaster Helen Roberts said: “We’ve got a spell of strong winds which is likely to bring some large waves as well. So there’s the potential for some coastal flooding in places and transport disruption. Northern Ireland, one of the areas worst-affected by Storm...

    The restrictions thought to be the most extreme yet to be introduced by health services immediately came under attack from the Royal College of Surgeons. Its vice president called for an urgent rethink of policies which he said were discriminatory and went against the fundamental principles of the NHS. In recent years, a number of areas have introduced delays for such patients with some told operations will be put back for months, during which time they are expected to try to lose weight or stop smoking. But the new rules, drawn up by clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in Hertfordshire, say that obese patients will not get non-urgent surgery until they reduce their weight at all, unless the circumstances are exceptional. The criteria also mean smokers will only be referr...

    Millions of people face the prospect of working into their 70s or 80s to make ends meet amid a pensions timebomb. A probe by the Financial Conduct Authority reveals a third of workers roughly 15 million people are not saving towards retirement. Those who are depending on the state pension could be in for a rude awakening. Related: The state pension is going up - how much extra will you get? Writing in the Mirror today, FCA chief executive Andrew Bailey says: “Around 15 million adults who are not retired are not paying into a pension... “While the state pension is a hugely important part of retirement provision... for many people it is not enough to maintain living standards.” He adds the FCA’s largest ever survey into the nation’s personal finances, a poll of 13,000 people...

    Recorded hate crimes jumped by 29% last year exacerbated by the EU referendum and Westminster Bridge terror attack, new figures show. Over 80,000 offences were committed in England and Wales over the last 12 months up from 62,518 in 2015/16. The figures, released by the Home Office on Tuesday, represent the largest jump since records began in 2011. Types of hate crime recorded Race - 78% Sexual orientation - 11% Religious - 7% Disability - 7% Transgender - 2% Some hate crimes had more than one motivating factor, the Home Office said, explaining why the sum breached 100%. The department revealed there was a genuine rise in hate crime around the time of the EU referendum and after the Westminster Bridge terror attack in March that killed five people. It also attributed the r...

    As she tries to move the Brexit negotiations forward, how much better would Theresa May and the country feel if the speech she made to her party went as follows. Leadership is about confronting the great challenges. But Brexit is the biggest challenge we have faced since the second world war. So I intend to devote my speech, in four parts, to this alone. First, I want to explain why I voted remain because for all its faults, the European Union has been a force for good in Europe and in the UK. I believed that our future prosperity and security, and opportunities for our young people, would be enhanced by staying in. Second, I want to explain why, nonetheless, I was something of a reluctant remainer. The truth is, there is a lot wrong with the EU. So though I voted remain, ...