United Kingdom

    David Cameron will resign as Prime Minister on Wednesday saying that he leaves Britain a "stronger country" with a "thriving economy and more chances to get on in life". Speaking to The Telegraph, Mr Cameron says "it has been a privilege to serve the country I love" as he attempts to shift the focus of his legacy away from Brexit. He will address the Commons for the final time as Prime Minister where he will highlight his record as a reforming Conservative who introduced same-sex marriage and commitment to spending on foreign aid. He will then make a speech in Downing Street standing alongside his wife, Samantha, and their three children before leaving No 10 for the final time before heading to Buckingham Palace to formally resign. On Tuesday he chaired his final Cabinet m...

    She's a vicar's daughter who's a fan of Geoffrey Boycott, kitten heels, colourful clothes and cooking. She drinks Earl Grey tea, has more than 100 cook books and lives in the same picture postcard village as George Clooney. Theresa May, who will be 60 in October, suddenly finds herself poised to become Prime Minister two months earlier than she expected. She will have Cabinet appointments to make, favours to repay and a Conservative Party badly split by the EU referendum to unite. But she will do all those in her usual unflappable manner, without fuss and with the steel and determination she has shown in her six years as Home Secretary. At her side, more than ever as she prepares to move into Britain's most famous address, 10 Downing Street, will be her loyal husband Phili...

    The FTSE 100 index burst into bull market territory after Theresa May emerged as successor to David Cameron, providing a further boost to surging stocks on both sides of the Atlantic. Within minutes of Andrea Leadsom announcing that she was leaving the field clear for May to become leader, the index of Britain’s biggest listed companies rose to the point where it had gained more than 20% since February’s low – the technical definition of a bull market. The FTSE100 has now risen by 1,145 points since it hit a 2016 nadir of 5537 on 11 February, when investors were anxious about the low oil price and threat of global recession. Share prices had already been supported by growing speculation that the Bank of England is ready to cut interest rates from 0.5% to 0.25% on Thursday ...

    I’m not even sure I should be writing this. I am, after all, a childless woman. Do I have enough of a stake in the future of our society to have an opinion? Can I really get my head around the complex, emotionally knotty issues of the day when my childless state means I’m incapable of understanding anything as profoundly as a mother can? I only ask because Andrea Leadsom – the woman who until yesterday was our potential future prime minister – seemed to be worrying about my ability to care. Her comments that she was more “directly” involved in the future of our country because she had children, while Theresa May had none proved to be the final nail in the coffin of her putative leadership bid. I wasn’t particularly surprised. Remarks like Leadsom’s go far beyond the usual ...

    The chancellor, George Osborne, will urge US investors not to turn their backs on Britain as he begins a world tour aimed at building new trade ties outside the European Union. Osborne will meet senior figures from Wall Street in New York on Monday during the first of several missions to major economies to discuss the ramifications of Brexit on trade links. “Britain and the US have been at the forefront of open trade in the last 200 years and pursuing a stronger relationship with our biggest trading partners is now a top priority,” the chancellor said. Osborne hopes to use the New York visit to present the referendum vote as a “golden opportunity” for US investors to forge an even stronger relationship with Britain, the Treasury said in a statement. The US is already the l...

    Leadsom came in for criticism from party colleagues Andrea Leadsom has dropped out of the Conservative leadership race, clearing the way for Theresa to be named Britain’s next Prime Minister. It follows a torrid week for the Tory leadership contender who came under attack from senior Conservative colleagues for her incendiary comments on Theresa May’s childlessness. In an interview this morning Ms Leadsom said that she felt she was “under attack, under enormous pressure”. “It has been shattering,” she added. There are suggestions, however, that the party would need to find an alternative to Ms Leadsom to allow the 150,000 party members a proper choice. The junior energy minister, who was a vocal campaigner and voice in the Leave campaign during the European Union referendu...

    A Conservative MP received an early diagnosis for Lyme disease after talking with a constituent about the infectious illness. Michelle Donelan, MP for Chippenham, believes she was bitten by a tick a week ago. The 32-year-old said she ignored the resulting rash until she researched the symptoms after discussing the level of care for Lyme disease. Ms Donelan told the Gazette & Herald: "I knew that I wasn’t well, I had the rash for a week and it was getting worse but I thought nothing of it. On Friday I held my surgery and had a chap come in and he wanted to talk about level of care and Lyme disease. I did a bit of research on it and saw the symptoms and that’s how my rash looked. She posted on Facebook, she has been receiving treatment at Bath's Royal United Hospital, jo...

    The Bank of England is poised to slash interest rates to close to zero this week as fears mount over a Brexit-induced recession. Economists believe the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will cut rates to a new low of just 0.25pc on Thursday, while markets have priced in a 75pc chance of more easing. Bank of America Merrill Lynch believes policymakers will reduce rates to as low as 0.1pc. A cut would be the first change in interest rates since March 2009, when the base rate was slashed to 0.5pc. Global investors have rowed back their hopes for higher interest rates following the UK’s decision to leave the EU. Ahead of last month’s poll, markets were priced for 0.19 percentage points of rate cuts from the G7 central banks over the coming year. Now, they expect almost a full pe...

    A few days after Britain voted to leave the European Union, Monika Baginski was in a supermarket, chatting with a friend on the phone in her native Polish, when a man followed her down the aisle. “You foreigner,” Ms. Baginski recalled him saying. “You’ll be out soon.” Ms. Baginski, 32, said she was stunned. Until that moment, she had never been the target of abuse, even in Boston, a port town on the east coast of England where rancor between longtime residents and the fast-growing population of recent immigrants has been simmering for years. Sign Up For NYT Now's Morning Briefing Newsletter But since Britain’s referendum vote to leave the European Union, latent hostility toward the new arrivals — most of whom came to Boston from Central and Eastern Europe under rules that ...

    John Prescott The Iraq War was illegal, according to Lord Prescott, the deputy prime minister at the time of the 2003 invasion. The Labour heavyweight used his strongest language yet to condemn Tony Blair's decision to take part in the Iraq War, a decision he supported at the time. Lord Prescott's comments come just days after the publication of the long-awaited Iraq Inquiry report by Sir John Chilcot. Writing in The Sunday Mirror the peer said: "I will live with the decision of going to war and its catastrophic consequences for the rest of my life. Theo Bertram acted as adviser to both Tony Blair, left, and Gordon Brown, right (Picture: Getty Images) "In 2004, the UN secretary-general Kofi Annan said that as regime change was the prime aim of the Iraq War, it was illegal....