Myrteza Hilaj and Kreshnik Kadena convicted after NCA operation into Albanian crime group involved in illegal migration
Two men who used a plane to smuggle people from northern France to an aerodrome in Essex have been jailed.
Myrteza Hilaj and Kreshnik Kadena, both from Leyton in east London, were found guilty at Southwark crown court in March of facilitating the commission of a breach of immigration law.
When on holiday in Berwick the artist often gave his work away. Now a new exhibition reveals the value of drawings that survived in a shoebox
A 1958 drawing of a family with their dogs by LS Lowry from one of his many holidays in Berwick-upon-Tweed is to go on public display for the first time. But the sketch is lucky to have survived: it was kept in a shoe box for 43 years, emerging somewhat creased because its recipient had little idea of Lowry’s significance.
The signed and dated drawing on headed notepaper from the Castle Hotel, where the artist stayed for most summers from the 1930s until the 1970s, was given to hotel receptionist, Anne Mather. “I didn’t think much about it, and only after he died did I remember it,” Mather told the Berwick Advertiser in 2001 when she put the sketch up for auction. “He was quiet and reclusive, but I can still visualise him in the lounge. He would sit and doodle, with his glasses at the end of his nose.”
Nelson Shardey, 74, became tearful on hearing of support for effort to gain settled status after 50 years in UK
A retired 74-year-old newsagent who has lived in the UK for nearly 50 years said “tears were running” from his eyes after strangers fundraised more than £30,000 to support his legal fight to remain in the country.
Nelson Shardey, who has been described as a Merseyside “local legend”, is pursuing a legal challenge against the Home Office after he was refused indefinite leave to remain, despite living and working in the UK since 1977.
Low-price deals in UK mean consumers are eating less-nourishing food more frequently, say experts
Office workers looking for a cheap lunch on the high street might struggle. With inflation pushing up prices in recent years, a sandwich, snack and drink at popular coffee chains can now cost upwards of £10, while even the average supermarket meal deal has risen by more than 21% in price since before the pandemic.
But now fast-food chains have moved to fill the gap in the market. In March, KFC introduced a new lunch deal for £5.49, offering a fried chicken wrap with a drink and side – either crisps or a cookie – and available from Monday to Friday until 3pm. “KFC is now workplace appropriate, for when finger lickin’ is not,” the chain said in its promotional material.
Victoria Atkins says she has asked officials to look into claims doctors and nurses who have spoken up were mistreated
The NHS must listen to whistleblowers and investigate their concerns in the interests of patient safety, the health secretary has said.
Victoria Atkins said she had asked officials to look into cases where there were claims of mistreatment of people who had spoken up about the issues they had experienced.
South West Water identifies ‘damaged valve’ as possible cause of cryptosporidium contamination in Brixham area
Health officials are expecting more cases of a waterborne disease in Devon, as an MP said “heads are going to roll” over the outbreak and that the anger among residents was “palpable”.
The UK Health Security Agency has confirmed 46 cases of cryptosporidium infection in the Brixham area, while more than 100 other people have reported symptoms, including diarrhoea, stomach pains and dehydration.
Jonathan Yeo’s divisive painting of the king raises the question of whether paintings of the monarchy have become irrelevant and anachronisitic
Why do reports always say that a portrait of someone great and good has been “unveiled”? The word is an empty metaphor that turns the first viewing into a ceremony; it also mystifies the entire procedure and makes it somewhat morbid.
Portraits of kings, presidents, prime ministers and the like are effigies, meant to replace the mortal being. Once the official image has been fixed in place, the living subject can be sent off to die. The unveiled portrait draws a veil over another ceremonial occasion: what we are looking at is posterity’s verdict, so in effect we are attending a funeral.
Hospice patient Lynne Cottignies welcomes proposals to make it legal to help eligible people end their lives. Many others have serious concerns
Lynne Cottignies has been planning her funeral. A wicker coffin and a church service with Ave Maria and All Things Bright and Beautiful, followed by a wake at the Royal Jersey golf club where she was lady captain a few years ago. Later, close friends and family will scatter her ashes on a beach near her Jersey home, a spot where they have enjoyed happy sunset barbecues.
Between now and then, Cottignies, 71, faces the prospect of increasing and potentially unbearable pain as the cancer that started in her breast spreads. “I’ve had a lot of different chemo treatments, and just about every side-effect possible. But now time’s up. I’m too weak for anything else.”
Campaigners say move to electronic permits by end of the year is a ‘recipe for disaster’ that could leave immigrants without proof of status
Lawyers and migrant rights campaigners have warned that the government is heading for a repeat of the Windrush scandal after imposing a “cliff edge” deadline for immigrants to switch to new digital visas.
By the end of this year an estimated 500,000 or more non-EU immigrants with leave to remain in the UK will need to replace their physical biometric residence permits (BRPs) – which demonstrate proof of their right to reside, rent, work and claim benefits – with digital e-visas.
In thrall to a character who may not truly exist any more, the Labour leader kicked off his election campaign in Purfleet
Tim Burrows is the author of The Invention of Essex
Call him Southend Keir. The kind of geezer who when in search of a new job – in this case the next prime minister of the UK – rolls up his sleeves and takes himself to dockside Essex. That’s where the Labour leaderlaunched his six pledges for the next election on Thursday, in an aircraft hangar-sized rehearsal space in Purfleet, a town in Thurrock known for its 18th-century gunpowder battery. But there were no explosive pledges. Instead, there were anaesthetised assurances that if elected, Labour will, tentatively, try to make people’s lives a little bit better. Just not straight away.
The significance of Essex was not lost on the Times, which pointed out the party’s attempts “to win over the modern equivalent of Blair’s ‘Essex man’”. Simon Heffer, the Telegraph columnist, came up with the term Essex man in 1990 to describe a new kind of voter who materialised during the Thatcher era. He had sharp elbows and worked as a trader in the City of London, near to where his unionised father had worked on the docks. He may have grown up in a socially rented east London flat, but he now lived in leafier environs on the other side of the newly built M25, where he was likely to have bought a council house.
Previous £25,000 maximum no longer enough to fund some home improvements, says building society
Nationwide building society has doubled the maximum personal loan it will offer borrowers to £50,000, citing the continued increase in building costs as the reason for the change.
The society previously offered up to £25,000 for qualifying customers but said this was no longer enough to fund some home improvement projects.
Children crying out for stability are paying the highest price for Britain’s chaotic and exploitative residential care
I’m a patron of a small local charity that helps struggling children to rebuild trust and connection. It’s called Sirona Therapeutic Horsemanship, and it works by bringing them together with rescued horses. The horses, like many of the children, arrive traumatised, anxious and frightened. They help each other to heal. Children who have lost their trust in humans can find it in horses, which neither threaten nor judge them, then build on that relationship gradually to reconnect with people.
It’s an astonishing, inspiring thing to witness, as the children begin to calm, uncurl and find purpose and hope. It can have life-changing results. But, though I can in no way speak on Sirona’s behalf, I’m painfully aware that such charities can help only a tiny fraction of the children in desperate need of stable relationships, trust and love.
Gender stereotypes at home may hamper female students’ ability to progress in the classroom, research suggests
Parents are more likely to overestimate maths ability in sons than daughters, according to research that suggests that gender stereotypes at home may hinder the progress of female students.
The findings, presented in a lecture at University College London this week, found that parents tend to be overconfident about their children’s academic performance in reading and maths regardless of gender. But, in maths, parents overestimated boys’ skills to a significantly greater extent.
Eight-year-olds’ video, which racked up 14m views, hits a sore point for mobilers who have struggled with the cost of living
Like the totemic £8 pint or £5 coffee, the cost of a Mr Whippy ice-cream has become a barometer of a world gone mad. But really, nine quid for two ice-creams? Bloody hell.
That was the damning verdict of an eight-year-old whose TikTok rant over the cost of two screwballs from an ice cream van in the park has racked up 14m views at the time of writing.
Sue Wathen, Joan Edgington and Nicola Leahey were diagnosed with hepatitis C after struggling through years of unexplained symptoms that were dismissed by doctors.
For her debut book, the Irish photographer Eimear Lynch travelled around Ireland to photograph groups of girls immersed in the, often lengthy, ritual of dressing up and applying their makeup together
Chancellor seems to cherrypick data as he tries to outline how the Tories have got the country back on its feet
Jeremy Hunt called a press conference on Friday to outline why the electorate should trust the Conservatives with the economy, but some of his claims appear to have used cherrypicked facts and figures. He gave his speech just over a week after the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, accused the Conservatives of “gaslighting” the UK over the state of the economy by presenting too rosy a picture of what is actually going on.
Here are some of Hunt’s statements on the economy, and some context for his claims.
‘Strikingly large’ sum being recouped from people who fell foul of system that did not flag overpayments
Ministers are clawing back more than £250m from unpaid carers over benefit infringements that occurred largely as a result of government failures, it can be revealed.
More than 134,000 people who care for loved ones are being forced to repay often huge carer’s allowance overpayments. The debts are incurred in many cases through no fault of their own, and leave carers saddled with enormous debts, and some with criminal convictions.
A cold, damp spring depressed plant sales in the UK, but help is at hand from the ‘Glastonbury festival of the gardening world’
The sixth-wettest April on record has not been kind to Britain’s gardens or its 1,600 garden centres.
So far this year, with most of the key selling season over, garden centre sales are up just 2% on last year and down 11% on 2022, after the sodden spring depressed sales of shrubs, trees, bedding plants and seeds.
Firm asked to back up claims about Fiona Harvey after executive’s appearance before select committee
An MP has asked Netflix to provide evidence that the woman who inspired the character Martha Scott in Baby Reindeer is a “convicted stalker”, claiming that a record of her conviction has not yet been found.
Netflix’s director of public policy, Benjamin King, told the culture media and sport committee on 8 May that the show was “the true story of the horrific abuse that the writer and protagonist, Richard Gadd, suffered at the hands of a convicted stalker”.
Exclusive: FoI request reveals Arts Council updated guidance after discussing Gaza conflict with DCMS
Arts Council England (ACE) issued a warning that “political statements” could break funding agreements after discussions with the government about artists speaking out over the Israel-Gaza war, newly released documents suggest.
A freedom of information request made by the actors’ union Equity has revealed that the conflict was discussed in a meeting between ACE and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in December.
I was around for the Shrewsbury and Telford hospital trust report a couple of years ago. All those dead babies, all those mothers and parents talking about not being listened to or respected. All that handwringing from service providers, all those promises from politicians. The recommendations were set up to prevent the experiences we heard about this week (‘I was left lying on the ground in pain’: shocking stories from UK birth trauma inquiry, 13 May). For instance, continuity of midwifery care through the maternal pathway prevents so much of the stuff we read about now.
Exclusive: Experts call for higher taxes and tougher regulation as research shows cost to NHS, other public services and economy
The cost of alcohol abuse is laid bare in a new study that shows £27bn a year being spent in England on the health and social harms of drinking.
The research that found the extra burden on the NHS, social services, the criminal justice system and the labour market cost at least 37% more than in 2003, when comparable research by the Cabinet Office estimated the costs at between £18.5bn and £20bn.
Chancellor also criticised for ‘dodgy dossier’ on Labour plans as he aims to make low tax a key election issue
Jeremy Hunt has been accused of exaggerating the Conservatives’ economic record and presenting a “dodgy dossier” on Labour’s spending plans, as he moved to put low tax at the heart of his party’s offering at the next election.
The chancellor gave a speech in central London on Friday, pitching the Conservatives as having helped the UK recover from economic troubles more quickly than expected. He also signalled a further cut to national insurance in the autumn, having already reduced the tax from 12p in the pound to 8p.
Wall Street Journal notes that British example may not be a good one, as ‘plan hasn’t gone into effect yet ‘amid legal challenges’
Aides to Donald Trump working to transform US immigration policy should he return to power are pursuing goals including “the largest mass deportation in US history” while “part-inspired” by the UK government’s deal to ship asylum seekers to Rwanda, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The Conservative UK government reached an agreement with the African country in 2022. Since then, however, the Rwanda policy has proved politically controversial, legally vulnerable, highly inefficient and vastly expensive.
Shadow foreign secretary sets out vision for a more strategic, less elitist approach to UK diplomacy
The shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, says his family history as descendants of enslaved people will inform his work in government, as he seeks to deepen the UK’s relations with the global south and the Commonwealth.
“I will take the responsibility of being the first foreign secretary descended from the slave trade incredibly seriously,” he said in a speech setting out how Labour would reform the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), a Whitehall department that has a reputation for institutional conservatism.
Politics is about achieving things and telling a compelling story. But neither the president – nor Starmer – can match Trump’s gift for narrative
The smile was the giveaway. Asked whether he was “just a copycat” of Tony Blair at the launch of his Blair-style pledge card on Thursday, Keir Starmer positively glowed. He was delighted with the comparison, which the entire exercise was surely designed to encourage. Blair “won three elections in a row”, Starmer said, beaming. Of course, he’s thrilled to be likened to a serial winner. And yet the more apt parallel is also a cautionary one. It’s not with Starmer’s long-ago predecessor, but with his would-be counterpart across the Atlantic: Joe Biden.
It’s natural that the sight of a Labour leader, a lawyer from north London, on course for Downing Street after a long era of Tory rule, would have people digging out the Oasis CDs and turning back the clock to 1997: Labour election victories are a rare enough commodity to prompt strong memories. But, as many veterans of that period are quick to point out, the circumstances of 2024 are very different. The UK economy was humming then and it’s parlous now. Optimism filled the air then, while too few believe genuine change is even possible now. And politics tended to be about material matters then, tax and public services, rather than dominated by polarising cultural wars as it is now.
Writedown by Canadian pension fund Omers highlights growing financial crisis at utilities firm
Thames Water’s biggest investor has slashed the value of its stake in the company to zero in the latest sign of an escalating financial crisis for Britain’s biggest water supplier.
The Canadian pension fund Omers issued a “full writedown” of its 31.7% stake in Thames’s troubled parent company in its annual report published on Friday, signalling that it believes its share is worth nothing.
Firm run by the ‘Ticket Queen’ sold tickets worth more than £6.5m on sites including Viagogo and StubHub
Ticket touts who conspired to “fleece” fans of artists including Ed Sheeran, Liam Gallagher and Lady Gaga have been jailed for operating a “fraudulent trading” scheme worth more than £6.5m.
Judge Batiste sentenced four touts, who fraudulently bought and sold hundreds of tickets through a business called TQ Tickets, to up to four years in prison each on Friday.
PC Perry Lathwood handcuffed Jocelyn Agyemang last year over false suspicion of fare evasion in Croydon
A Metropolitan police officer who manhandled a woman as she was arrested in front of her son on the false suspicion of fare evasion has been found guilty of assault.
PC Perry Lathwood was found guilty of assault by beating after a one-day trial at the City of London magistrates court last week.
A peer is set to be suspended from House of Lords bars for 12 months after he was found to have bullied and harassed two people while drunk.
Kulveer Ranger has resigned the government whip after the House of Lords conduct committee also recommended that he be suspended from the house for three weeks.
Presenter, who cared for late husband, said she was approached by people in street pleading for intervention
The TV presenter Kate Garraway has said the UK government’s prosecution of unpaid carers for thousands of pounds in benefit payments has a “horrible echo” of the Post Office scandal.
In an emotional intervention on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Garraway said many people had pleaded with her to “please do something” to help those being pursued by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Big-name ballet dancers and rising choreographers have found a new home in the superclub where the after-party goes on until 5am
“It’s the easiest rider we’ve ever done,” says the Ministry of Sound’s Mahit Anam. “Normally it’s five bottles of Patrón, four bottles of vodka … ” And this time? Water, bananas and protein bars. It’s not your usual green room at the south London superclub, because this is not your usual show: the dancefloor is about to be taken over by professionals. Ballet Nights – a monthly production usually held in a Canary Wharf theatre and featuring the country’s top ballet stars and rising choreographers – is moving into clubland. So now amid the speaker stacks and DJ decks you’ll see Royal Ballet dancer Joshua Junker and work from Olivier award-winning choreographer James Cousins. It’s a whole different kind of podium dancing.
“Everything’s got too formulaic, too samey, and that’s why we want to do this stuff,” says Anam. “Pushing boundaries is something we should always be doing.” Ballet Nights was hatched by former Scottish Ballet soloist and choreographer Jamiel Devernay-Laurence in 2023. The idea was to give audiences an up-close view of big-name ballet dancers like Steven McRae and Matthew Ball as well as nurturing a stable of young artists. But he was itching to expand, and eager to attract younger audiences, people who are the same age as the dancers who perform. Devernay-Laurence had met with all sorts of venues – theatres, concert halls – and it was always a “let’s talk again in the future” situation. But when he walked into Ministry of Sound: “They had open arms, they were so excited. We walked out the same day with an agreement and a date.”
FirstGroup submits application for alternative route between capital and Rochdale
Plans for an alternative direct train service between Greater Manchester and London have been launched, promising competitive fares, by the transport group that already runs the main Avanti service linking the cities.
Trains straight from London Euston to Rochdale will run from 2027, if approved, under FirstGroup’s Lumo brand, calling first at Warrington and going via Manchester Victoria.
Finance chief gives evidence on Paula Vennells and says company looked like ‘corporate bullies’ in how it dealt with branch operators
The former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells did not believe there had been miscarriages of justice, the Horizon inquiry has heard, as the current finance boss said the company looked like “corporate bullies” in the way it dealt with branch operators.
Alisdair Cameron, the Post Office chief financial officer who joined the board in 2015, told the inquiry on Friday that Vennells had been “clear in her conviction” that nothing had gone wrong with Horizon.
Rebecca Joynes, 30, convicted of engaging in sexual activity with minors while in a position of trust
A teacher has been found guilty of having sex with two schoolboys.
Rebecca Joynes, 30, groomed the teenagers from the age of 15, Manchester crown court heard, and was on bail for sexual activity with the first child, boy A, when she began having sex with the second, boy B, by whom she went on to become pregnant. Neither teenager must be identified.
The first minister, Vaughan Gething, is facing fresh turmoil after Plaid Cymru ended its cooperation agreement with the Labour-led government in Wales.
Rhun ap Iorwerth, the Plaid leader, said he was deeply concerned that Gething had refused to hand back a £200,000 donation for his successful leadership campaign from a company whose owner was convicted of environmental crimes.
The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has said the UK will look at the national security implications of a bid for Royal Mail by the Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský, but indicated ministers were not opposed to the takeover in principle.
Royal Mail’s owner, the London-listed International Distributions Services (IDS), on Wednesday backed a £3.5bn bid by Křetínský’s EP Group, after initially rejecting a £3.2bn offer.
History project tells stories about the lives of women who ran B&Bs in Morecambe
It is true that a postwar northern seaside landlady could be direct, insist on full-board guests being back for tea at 5pm or get nothing, and have no plug sockets in case someone had the wild idea of using a hairdryer.
But were they the unflinching, arms-folded battleaxes often depicted in popular culture? “They generally weren’t,” said the local historian David Evans. “They were firm with their rules but they were fair, they were kind and the important thing for them was that someone enjoyed their holiday and would come back again.”
Popularity of traditional holiday memento hit by smartphones, ‘rude rock’ and rising price of stamps
A trip to the British seaside may not always have been something to write home about, but these days you might struggle even if you wanted to.
At the Little Gems gift shop in Blackpool town centre, all the usual seaside wares are on display – beach towels, plastic buckets and spades, sticks of rock – but one item is notably missing.
Barclays’ analysis may be slightly off the mark, but the megastar is tapping into a new trend in spending
Taylor Swift has long been credited with an outsized influence on music, celebrity culture – even politics. But reviving the UK’s flagging economy may be too much to ask, even of the sequinned megastar.
Research published this week by analysts from Barclays pointed to the extraordinary spending surge that ensues when Swift touches down, and suggested she could bring a £1bn boost to the UK.
Her inquiry appearance has been long awaited. So far, no official has been held accountable for the ruining of so many lives
Strange to think the northern lights have been glimpsed in public more frequently over the past few years than the former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells. I didn’t see the northern lights last week, but I will see Vennells close up next week, when – at very, very long last – she presents herself before the public inquiry into the Horizon scandal.
Polite notice: if your attention has drifted slightly after the fireworks sparked by ITV’s sensational drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office earlier this year, next week is the time to return with laser-like focus to this story. Post Office is once again box office – and remember, NOT ONE PERSON has yet been held accountable for what happened. Alan Bates has just rejected his second “derisory” offer of government compensation.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Little change at top between 2021 and 2022 but European names such as Nova beginning to gain favour
New entries to the list of top 100 baby names in England and Wales for 2022 suggest European names are gradually gaining favour, data from the Office for National Statistics shows.
While girls’ names remained largely unchanged from 2021, with Olivia top (most popular with mothers aged 25 and older), followed by Amelia (most popular with mothers aged under 25), Isla and Ava, more unusual names are creeping in.
The British engineering company Arup has confirmed it was the victim of a deepfake fraud after an employee was duped into sending HK$200m (£20m) to criminals by an artificial intelligence-generated video call.
Hong Kong police said in February that a worker at a then-unnamed company had been tricked into transferring vast sums by people on a hoax call “posing as senior officers of the company”.
Login
