United Kingdom

    British Prime Minister David Cameron on the occasion of Bangla New Year has selected Rushanara Ali, a Bangladeshi-origin British lawmaker, to join the cross-party Trade Envoy network as trade envoy for Bangladesh. Rushanara Ali, MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, will play a pivotal role in building ties between Bangladesh and UK to raise awareness of business and investment opportunities, and further enhance the collaboration between British and Bangladeshi companies, the British High Commission in Dhaka said in a press statement today. The UK is the largest investor in Bangladesh and has a deep and longstanding relationship with the country, and Rushanara Ali will use her experience of the markets to help address climate change concerns and share the UK’s expertise on labour ...

    A woman who was already in jail for killing her daughter has been sentenced to 13 years after admitting she murdered her baby son. Lesley Dunford, 37, smothered seven-month-old Harley Dunford in his cot on 27 August 2003. Her three-year-old daughter Lucy died in similar circumstances six months later. Harley's death was not treated as suspicious until she admitted the killing to prison staff in 2014, while serving seven years for the manslaughter of her daughter. The Old Bailey heard that Dunford, who pleaded guilty to murder, was "riddled with guilt". Jailing her for a minimum of 13 years, Mr Justice Baker said: "The reality is, had you not confessed to killing Harley whilst in custody, it is highly likely there would not have been a police investigation into his death an...

    A Britain where the government pays every adult the basic cost of living. Whether rich or poor – or, crucially, whether you’re in paid employment or not – everyone gets the same weekly amount, with no strings attached. The harsh, punitive model of modern “welfare” is a distant memory; passing in and out of employment in the so-called gig economy is now something everyone can afford. The positive consequences extend into the distance: women are newly financially independent and able to exit abusive relationships, public health is noticeably improved, and people are able to devote the time to caring that an ever-ageing society increasingly demands. All the political parties are signed up: just as the welfare state underpinned the 20th century, so this new idea defines the 21...

    AN Indian chef running a takeaway business out of the Nine Elms pub kitchen has been fined more than £7,500 after showing a lack of food hygiene. Mahbub Chowdhury, of Plymouth Street, took over the kitchen under the business of Yeahya Flavour of Asia in February last year after it had been out of use for some time. Environmental health officers visited the 45-year-old repeatedly over the following 12 months, witnessing cross contamination and filthy working conditions. On one of the most recent visits, Chowdhury explained a milk bottle filled with water and fecal matter was being used to wash himself after toilet breaks. In total, Chowdhury admitted 10 charges of breaching health and safety food hygiene regulations at Swindon Magistrates’ Court yesterday. Phil Wirth, prose...

    At least two people are feared dead and several trapped after a four-storey building collapsed in a Tenerife resort popular with Brit holidaymakers. The building is located in the Los Cristianos neighborhood, in the south of the island. Tenerife is the largest of the seven Canary islands and has a British expat community of around 10,000. Eight people are believed to be trapped under the rubble. The building is said to have collapsed at around 9.30am local time, sparking panic among the locals. The injured include a 57-year-old woman, who is said to be in serious condition and a 28-year-old man who suffered minor cuts and bruises. Both were taken to hospital for treatment. The third victim is a 55-year-old woman who was said to be in a state of shock and was treated at the...

    David Cameron's decision to publish his tax return has sparked all sorts of debate about whether it was a good idea for the sake of transparency, or a terrible idea that sets a dangerous precedent. However, while the debates raged on, the tax return quietly made an interesting revelation - David Cameron's housemakes more money in a year than he does. According to The Guardian, the tax return revealed that in the tax year 2014/15, he had a total taxable income of £200,000 or there abouts. He made £141,000 of this through his salary as Prime Minister. In addition to this, he has been renting out his Notting Hill property since moving to Downing Street, and in the past year that brought in an eye-watering £47,000. This, it's worth highlighting, is a half share of the total re...

    John Whittingdale John Whittingdale, the Culture Secretary, last night admitted he had been in a relationship with a sex worker. The Cabinet minister released a statement stating that he did not know about the woman's occupation when they were together and that he ended the relationship as soon as he was made aware of her job. It is believed that the woman, who Mr Whittingdale was with between 2013 and 2014, worked as a professional dominatrix. He said that he met the woman through an online dating website and admitted that the "old story" was "embarrassing". Mr Whittingdale, who was promoted to the Cabinet after last year's election, said he was only made aware that the woman was a sex worker when somebody tried to sell a story about the issue to a tabloid newspaper. The ...

featu     George Osborne has released a summary of his tax return for last year showing he earned almost £200,000 by topping up his chancellor’s salary with rental income and dividends from his family’s wallpaper firm. The chancellor was one of a string of senior politicians, including the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and the London mayor, Boris Johnson, who rushed out information about their finances on Monday afternoon. They had faced pressure to publish summaries of their tax affairs after David Cameron released information about his finances going back six years. Osborne’s summary showed he made £44,647 in dividends from Osborne & Little, the wallpaper firm co-founded by his father, Sir Peter Osborne, both through direct ownership of shares and as a life tenant of a fa...

    Tata is beginning the formal process of selling its loss-making UK steel empire today, inviting potential buyers to submit offers. The only company that has so far expressed a public interest in buying the assets, including the country's biggest steel plant at Port Talbot in south Wales, is Liberty owned by Sanjeev Gupta. Mr Gupta has spoken of a desire to save jobs with the potential to remodel Port Talbot as a producer of steel through the use of electric arc furnaces - to take advantage of recycling opportunities. But top of his list of concerns are high energy costs in the UK, which he told Sky News last week would have to be "rectified" by the Government. He also warned there would be no quick-fix, overnight solution. Mr Gupta said: "There are issues to resolve which ...

    Scotland’s largest teaching union has called for a review of all public-private partnership contracts in Scotland following the emergency closure of 17 schools in Edinburgh because of safety concerns, leaving 7,000 pupils unable to start the new term. The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) questioned how construction of the schools, which are about 10 years old and were all built under the same PPP1 contract, was approved, resulting in the serious structural problems. Larry Flanagan, the EIS general secretary, told Good Morning Scotland: “We’ve been long-term critics of these initiatives, largely because the main contracts have been a huge drain on school budgets. “We are concerned to find there are major structural difficulties. There is a question mark around buildi...