Rate rises by 19% compared with 2020, prompting fresh concerns about NHS maternity care
The risk of women in England suffering severe bleeding after giving birth has risen to its highest level for five years, prompting fresh concern about NHS maternity care.
The rate at which mothers in England experience postpartum haemorrhage has increased from 27 per 1,000 births in 2020 to 32 per 1,000 this year – a rise of 19%.
Enfield’s family-run Neco Tantuni, which specialises in Turkish street food, secured place among other Michelin-starred restaurants on Vittles 99-strong list
On a list of London’s best restaurants, you would expect to see the usual Michelin-starred suspects such as The Ledbury, Ikoyi and The Ritz. But high among these culinary heavyweights sits a humble salonu tucked away in the depths of north London.
Neco Tantuni, a small Turkish eatery specialising in the foodie delights of Mersin, a city located on the southern coast of Turkey, has been crowned the fourth best restaurant in London by Vittles, the trendy food magazine that has become a bible for those looking for the best (and more off-the-radar) grub in the capital.
Exclusive: A trio of candidates have been interviewed by the PM, but he could still decide to directly appoint someone else
Keir Starmer is poised to choose a new ambassador to Washington from a shortlist of three as relations with the US are tested over Ukraine and Donald Trump’s attacks on European leaders.
The prime minister held interviews with three finalists for the role this week, the Guardian has learned, with Downing Street preparing to make an appointment before the end of the year.
The former British Vogue editor reflects on his early years in London, the importance of celebrating diversity and why he takes comfort in the younger generation
When Edward Enninful was scouted on the tube travelling through London in 1988, it changed his life. The Ghanaian teenager, newly arrived in Britain, was drawn into the capital’s creative scene of the 90s – as a model, then stylist and, by 18, the fashion director of i-D magazine.
“It was the height of the YBA [Young British Artists] movement – Jay Jopling, Tracey Emin. I met Kate [Moss] at a casting,” he recalls. “Then Naomi [Campbell] for a cover, and I knew we’d be great friends. We all hung out across disciplines. Friday rolled into Saturday into Sunday. I miss that rawness.”
Drivers also told to take caution after complaints rise about long-stay meet-and-greet services
Terence Baxter* had booked a meet-and-greet service to park his Volkswagen at Heathrow airport while he and his wife went on holiday. The couple handed over the keys at the drop-off site and were driven to the terminal – and that was the last they saw of their car. On their return they were informed by the company it had been stolen.
Their case comes as airports and police forces are warning travellers to be wary of “unofficial” operators advertising cheap long-stay parking after a rise in complaints.
Several car-sharing companies are considering launching or expanding in London, with the imminent closure of Zipcar’s UK operation leaving a large gap in the market in one of Europe’s biggest cities.
Free2Move, owned by the carmaker Stellantis, said it was “closely monitoring the London market”, and “actively assessing” options for its services. It already operates fleets in cities including Berlin, Paris, Rome and Washington DC.
Release of 43-second video comes as senior church figures speak out against dangers of Christian nationalism
The Church of England has released a video in response to a Christmas carols event on Saturday being organised by the far-right activist Tommy Robinson amid calls from a growing number of senior church figures to challenge Christian nationalism.
In the 43-second video, Christmas Isn’t Cancelled, posted on the church’s YouTube channel, more than 20 people from the archbishop of York to schoolchildren speak about the “joy, love and hope” of Christmas. The message is “a simple reminder that Christmas belongs to all of us, and everyone is welcome to celebrate”, the C of E said.
From pie-and-mash to the swank of a Michelin star, everyone has their own idea of what’s ‘best’. What’s yours?
Jonathan Nunn is the author of London Feeds Itself
Almost 24 years ago, a small British food magazine called Restaurant assembled an all-star panel – made up of Gordon Ramsay, John Torode, Aldo Zilli and 65 other food guys – to adjudicate on the world’s most stupid question: what is the best restaurant on the planet? It didn’t matter that no judge had been to all the restaurants on the shortlist, or that two of the judges happened to be Jeremy Clarkson and Roger Moore – what the editors of Restaurant understood is that people love a list, and if you order a group of restaurants from 50-1 and throw a party, people might take it seriously.
“This could run and run,” the editors wrote in their intro, half hoping. They were right. Within two decades, The World’s 50 Best Restaurants had gone from what critic Jay Rayner described as a “terribly successful marketing exercise” to an insurgent alternative to the ossified Michelin Guide, solidifying the reputations of El Bulli, the Fat Duck and then Noma as the “world’s best restaurant”.
Jonathan Nunn is a food and city writer based in London who co-edits the magazine Vittles. He is the author of London Feeds Itself
As 27 European countries urge changes to laws forged after second world war, human rights chief says politicians are playing into hands of populists
The battle had been brewing for months. But this week it came to a head in a flurry of meetings, calls and one heady statement. Twenty-seven European countries urged a rethink of the human rights laws forged after the second world war, describing them asan impediment when it came to addressing migration.
Amnesty International has called it “a moral retreat”. Europe’s most senior human rights official said the approach risked creating a “hierarchy of people” where some are seen as more deserving of protection than others.
Neath, south Wales: This quarry built the abbey and the nearby terraced towns – and it’s different every time I visit
The way to Neath Abbey Quarry is a perfect stranger to me this morning. It’s been three years since my last visit, and the maze of the path has shifted; old tree trunks have turned to mulch and the brook carves a different channel. My companion and I shoulder big bouldering pads, poorly proportioned for tight manoeuvres, yet we bump, turn and pivot our way through. Thanks to the late sunrise, we’re gifted a lingering coda of the dawn chorus, coming from a holly thicket heavy with berries. A goldcrest fizzes around ahead of us, seeking bugs startled by our approach.
Like every old quarry, this place has been host to much change. Once it was just a plain old hill, then a source of building blocks for monks and their abbey. Much later, it was extracted again for the terraced towns of the south Wales coalfield. Once that need had faded, climbers found the place, hacking paths through the tangle and stringing ropes up its face.
Several European nations are already planning similar moves while Britain has said ‘nothing is off the table’
Australia is taking on powerful tech companies with its under-16 social media ban, but will the rest of the world follow? The country’s enactment of the policy is being watched closely by politicians, safety campaigners and parents. A number of other countries are not far behind, with Europe in particular hoping to replicate Australia, while the UK is keeping more of a watchful interest.
King extols early diagnosis which can give ‘invaluable time’ and backs launch of screening checker tool
King Charles has hailed a “milestone” in his “cancer journey” and revealed he is to reduce his schedule of treatment in the new year, describing the news as a “personal blessing”.
His treatment will move into a precautionary phase with its regularity significantly reduced as his recovery reaches a very positive stage, it is understood. His medical team will assess how much longer he will require treatment to protect and prioritise his continued recovery.
Exclusive: As Labour ministers prepare long awaited strategy, campaigners accuse them of sidelining experts
Leading organisations have criticised the development of the government’s flagship violence against women and girls strategy, calling the process chaotic, haphazard and “worse than under the Tories”.
Ministers are gearing up for a policy announcement blitz before the publication of the long-awaited plan next week.
Five men who targeted vulnerable girls in park sentenced to terms of between 18 months and 14 years
Five men who were part of a “horrific” grooming gang that raped and sexually assaulted schoolgirls in a park have been jailed for between 18 months and 14 years.
The men targeted vulnerable girls in Saltwell Park, Gateshead, plying their victims with alcohol and cocaine.
Nick Moss, Dr Deborah Talbot, Dimitra Blana and Mary Pimm on the prime minister’s plan to ‘protect our borders’ and Donald Trump’s accusations that Europe is ‘weak’ and ‘decaying’
It is not just that the human rights lawyer who wrote a key text on the Human Rights Act 1998 has become, as prime minister, an advocate of the act’s undoing, along with all the consequences for migrant families that will flow from that. It is that Starmer shows through this the complete dearth of ideas available to European social democracy.
A super flu epidemic is sweeping the country. Let us come together to protect the institution we all love
Keir Starmer is the British prime minister
I am a Labour prime minister who believes in workers’ right to strike. But let’s be clear about the strikes planned by resident doctors next week. They should not happen. They are reckless. They place the NHS and patients who need it in grave danger.
I remain hopeful they can be averted. A good deal is on the table, and the British Medical Association (BMA) is putting it to members this weekend. My message to the doctors is simple – take it.
Keir Starmer is the prime minister of the United Kingdom
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.
Keir Starmer has said it is “frankly beyond belief” that resident doctors would strike during the NHS’s worst moment since the pandemic, in remarks that risk inflaming tensions with medical staff.
Writing for the Guardian, the prime minister made an outspoken attack on the strikes planned for 17-22 December for placing “the NHS and patients who need it in grave danger”.
As Wham! top singles chart, Minogue draws level with David Bowie, Eminem, U2 and Rod Stewart in the album league table, thanks to a reissue of her 2015 Christmas LP
Kylie Minogue has scored her 11th UK No 1 album, putting her level with David Bowie and Eminem in the league of all-time album chart-toppers.
The album, Kylie Christmas (Fully Wrapped), will sound familiar to her fans: it’s a reissue of her 2015 album Kylie Christmas (which only reached No 12), containing four newly recorded tracks and an altered tracklisting. It had already been reissued once before, in 2016, as the Snow Queen Edition. Nevertheless, the Fully Wrapped version counts as a new album in chart terms, and so continues a non-consecutive run of No 1s that began in 1988, when Minogue’s self-titled debut spent six weeks at the top.
The US made it clear this week that it plans to help the parties of the European far right gain power. Keir Starmer and his fellow leaders have to face this new reality
When are we going to get the message? I joked a few months back that, when it comes to Donald Trump, Europe needs to learn from Sex and the City’s Miranda Hobbes and realise that “He’s just not that into you”. After this past week, it’s clear that understates the problem. Trump’s America is not merely indifferent to Europe – it’s positively hostile to it. That has enormous implications for the continent and for Britain, which too many of our leaders still refuse to face.
The depth of US hostility was revealed most explicitly in the new US national security strategy, or NSS, a 29-page document that serves as a formal statement of the foreign policy of the second Trump administration. There is much there to lament, starting with the sceptical quote marks that appear around the sole reference to “climate change”, but the most striking passages are those that take aim at Europe.
Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist
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Conservative insiders say the party and the public are warming to Kemi Badenoch after a difficult first year
At a Conservative donors event last week, Kemi Badenoch was asked for a selfie by the former Spice Girl Geri Horner. The Tory leader was, her allies say, a little bemused. But they were clear about what the approach meant: cut-through.
Badenoch’s leadership got off to a poor start. Still reeling from the Tories’ worst general election defeat, she took over a diminished and disheartened party, which was languishing in the polls and facing an existential threat in the form of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
Pro-Palestine demonstrators have daubed the Ministry of Justice building in central London with red paint, demanding that the justice secretary meet eight Palestine Action-affiliated hunger strikers.
Two protesters were arrested after Friday’s action, the activists said. They are demonstrating over the treatment of hunger strikers who are due to be held for more than a year before standing trial.
John Vincent on bouncing back after cutting branches, refreshing the menu, and staff learning from martial arts
John Vincent is going back to the future. Four years after selling Leon, the fast food chain named after his father and founded in 2004 with two friends, he has bought it back with hopes of reviving its fortunes.
“In a crisis you need a pilot in full control,” the martial arts fan says, speaking to the Guardian from Leon’s headquarters near London Bridge.
Police appeal for witnesses after tree put up in tribute to war dead cut down in act of ‘mindless vandalism’
A Christmas tree that had stood in a village for more than a decade has been chopped down hours after having its lights switched on.
The tree, in Shotton Colliery in County Durham, was felled between 10pm and 11pm on Wednesday. It is believed to have been cut down deliberately. Police are appealing for witnesses.
Robert Rhodes acquitted in 2017 on grounds of self-defence after manipulating a child to help in cover-up
A man who was previously cleared of killing his wife on the grounds of self-defence has been found guilty of her murder after their child came forward with new evidence under double jeopardy rules.
Robert Rhodes, 52, from Withleigh, Devon, was convicted unanimously at Inner London crown court of murdering his wife, Dawn nine years ago on 2 June 2016.
Scottish rock band says image ‘meant to provoke debate, not hate’ after many at concert accuse group of antisemitism
The Scottish rock group Primal Scream has defended displaying an image of a swastika inside a Star of David during a London gig, in response to accusations of racism and antisemitism.
During a performance at the London’s Roundhouse, a video was shown on stage of a swastika in the centre of a Star of David that was then superimposed over eyes of images of political figures, including the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the US president, Donald Trump.
In World Cup parlance, Qatar was Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s qualifier. Now it’s the big time for Trump’s dictator-curious protege
I used to think Fifa’s recent practice of holding the World Cup in autocracies was because it made it easier for world football’s governing body to do the things it loved: spend untold billions of other people’s money and siphon the profitswithout having to worry about boring little things like human rights or public opinion. Which, let’s face it, really piss around with your bottom line.
But for a while now, that view has seemed ridiculously naive, a bit like assuming Recep Erdoğan followed Vladimir Putin’s election-hollowing gameplan just because hey, he’s an interested guy who likes to read around a lot of subjects. So no: Fifa president Gianni Infantino hasn’t spent recent tournaments cosying up to authoritarians because it made his life easier. He’s done it to learn from the best. And his latest decree this week simply confirms Fifa is now a fully operational autocracy in the classic populace-rinsing style. Do just absorb yesterday’s news that the cheapest ticket for next year’s World Cup final in the US will cost £3,120 – seven times more than the cheapest ticket for the last World Cup final in Qatar. (Admittedly, still marginally cheaper than an off-peak single from London to Manchester.)
Conservative policies that pitted drivers against cyclists risked making the roads less safe by inflaming tensions, a minister has said, promising that the era of transport culture wars is over.
Lilian Greenwood, whose Department for Transport (DfT) role includes road safety and active travel, said seeking to divide road users into categories was pointless given most people used different transport methods at different times.
Members of the House of Lords have proposed “totally unnecessary” and “very cruel” amendments to the assisted dying bill in an attempt to scupper it, the MP leading the campaign has said.
Kim Leadbeater said on Friday she believed that peers opposed to the bill were trying to block it by proposing hundreds of changes, including one that would require terminally ill people to be filmed as they undergo an assisted death.
Britain’s economy shrank unexpectedly in October as consumers held back on spending before Rachel Reeves’s budget, and car manufacturing struggled to recover from the cyber-attack on Jaguar Land Rover.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed gross domestic product fell by 0.1%, after a 0.1% drop in output in September. City economists had predicted a 0.1% rise in October.
Mark Rowley says capital is a safe city, and claims of no-go areas are ‘completely false’
Members of the House of Lords have proposed “totally unnecessary” and “very cruel” amendments to the assisted dying bill in a bid to scupper it, Kim Leadbeater, the MP leading the campaign for the legislation, has said. Kiran Stacey has the story.
I have beefed up the post at 9.08am to include the direct quote from Wes Streeting about not being able to guarantee patient safety in the NHS if the strike by resident doctors in England goes ahead. You may need to refresh the page to get the update to appear.
My offer to host dinner is declined. My cooking is never good. Triumph lies in the fact food is cooked and not full of bacteria
Yeah, I’m gonna say it – stop with the fetishisation of sandwiches, already! Obviously we’ve had the annual rejoicing over the advent (Ha! See what I did there?) of the Pret Christmas offering and the paler imitations thereafter by lesser chains and retail outlets. Now Harrods is getting in on the act with a £29 version on sale at its steakhouse, the Grill on Fifth. It consists of a burger patty (and listen, let’s get rid of the word ‘patty’ while we’re about it, shall we? Why? Because it’s viscerally hateful, that’s why), roast turkey breast, stuffing, a pig in a blanket, spiced red cabbage, cranberry sauce and turkey gravy.
Tribute to Sylvia Townsend Warner follows campaign to nominate overlooked women
“The thing all women hate is to be thought dull,” says the title character of Sylvia Townsend Warner’s 1926 novel, Lolly Willowes, an early feminist classic about a middle-aged woman who moves to the countryside, sells her soul to the devil and becomes a witch.
Although women’s lives are so limited by society, Lolly observes, they “know they are dynamite … know in their hearts how dangerous, how incalculable, how extraordinary they are”.
Retailer, which also owns Funky Pigeon, says economic pressure has hit shoppers’ confidence
Card Factory has delivered an unwelcome early Christmas surprise for investors by issuing a shock profit warning during the greetings card retailer’s peak trading period, which sent shares plunging by more than a fifth.
The retailer, which also owns the online card and gift brand Funky Pigeon, said economic pressure on shoppers has hit confidence in its most important trading period of the year.
Announcement draws anger from Labour MP over refusal to remove tonnes of rubbish dumped near school in Wigan
The Environment Agency is to spend millions of pounds to clear an enormous illegal rubbish dump in Oxfordshire, saying the waste is at risk of catching fire.
But the decision announced on Thursday to clear up the thousands of tonnes of waste illegally dumped outside Kidlington has drawn an angry response from a Labour MP in Greater Manchester whose constituents have been living alongside 25,000 tonnes of toxic rubbish for nearly a year.
The courts are a clumsy means to negotiate social relationships. Let organisations make up their own minds about inclusion
Towards the end of her life, I was a friend of the writer Jan Morris. I had known her for many years and, much to my regret, had declined an offer to do her “tell all” interview when she transitioned. Jan presented herself as a woman and had undergone an operation. To me she was simply a remarkable woman. She touched, sometimes humorously, on embarrassing incidents in her life. But it never occurred to me that a legal ruling might hover over our restaurant table and block her from going to the ladies.
Last April, the supreme court issued a ruling confirming that the word “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex, not a person’s legal gender. This has a wide-reaching impact on how equality law is applied in practice, particularly in providing sex-based rights such as single-sex spaces. Six months later, a draft code on the ruling’s implementation was sent bythe Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to the equalities minister, Bridget Phillipson. She has been sitting on it ever since, pleading for more time.
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
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Still rare only 20 years ago, the charismatic animals are in almost every UK river and a conservation success story
On a quiet Friday evening, an otter and a fox trot through Lincoln city centre. The pair scurry past charity shops and through deserted streets, the encounter lit by the security lamps of shuttered takeaways. Each animal inspects the nooks and crannies of the high street before disappearing into the night, ending the unlikely scene captured by CCTV last month.
Ineffective systems culminated in serious case of Covid fraud that cost UK taxpayers £800,000
Nationwide has been fined £44m by the City watchdog over “weak” financial crime controls that culminated in a serious case of Covid fraud that cost UK taxpayers £800,000.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) fined the building society for failures stretching over nearly five years. It said the lender had been aware that some customers were using personal accounts for business activity, in a breach of its own terms.
Health secretary urges resident doctors, who are to strike from 17 December, to accept his offer to end dispute
Wes Streeting has told resident doctors that strikes and a sharp rise in the number of flu cases over the Christmas period could be “the Jenga piece” that forces the NHS to collapse.
The health secretary said the NHS faced a “challenge unlike any it has seen since the pandemic” and urged resident doctors to accept the government’s offer and end their action.
With the US threatening to support ‘patriotic’ parties here, we need better defences, starting with tough new rules about political donations
The new threat is so dizzyingly bizarre that Europe, and especially Britain, is slow to believe it. The US declares itself our enemy. Europe emerges as its main adversary in the US national security strategy. Russia is its friend, not us. Everything that looked solid since the second world war is turned upside down; the land of the free becomes the destroyer of democratic values. Appeasement fails.
He may ramble, but Donald Trump speaks plainly. He means what he says, and he hates everything European. Except its emerging“patriotic” parties, which he wants to support. His strategy warns of “civilizational erasure”, claiming Europe will soon “become majority non-European” and parroting the racist conspiracy known as the great replacement theory. Describing Europeans as “weak”, “decaying” and “destroying their countries”, with “real stupid” leaders, Trump responded to the question of whether they would still be allies, in a Politico interview, with a hint of threat: “It depends.”
Explore a curated selection of images by Guardian photographers from 2025. Available to buy through the Guardian Print Shop. Produced on premium heavyweight fine art paper, the prints are supplied with a Guardian Archive certificate of authenticity
Snuggle up under oak beams in front of a deep inglenook fireplace, stay warm with underfloor heating or enjoy your own wine cellar for festive entertaining
More trains, faster journeys and better reliability promised – but spectre of great timetable fiasco of 2018 looms large
Billions of pounds of investment, years of engineering works – and now, the moment of truth. On 14 December a revamped railway timetable goes live across Great Britain, with the biggest fanfare and radical changes for the east coast mainline, where passengers are promised more train services, faster journeys and a new era of reliability.
But the spectre of a previous, disastrous timetable change from May 2018 still looms over the railway. So will Sunday’s revamp be a great gift for passengers that the industry expects – or usher in a bleak midwinter ahead?
Home secretary to order special investigation amid concern inadequate checks during hiring spree may pose criminal risk
The home secretary is to order an independent special inquiry into whether the Metropolitan police allowed hundreds of recruits to join without proper vetting amid fears they may pose a criminal risk.
The Guardian has learned that the inquiry will be carried out by the policing inspectorate, with concerns centred on 300 new officers hired between 2016 and 2023.
The first week of the Guardian’s Hope appeal has raised more than £200,000 for grassroots charities doing inspiring work to bring divided communities together, promoting tolerance and positive change, and opposing racism and hate.
The milestone was reached before the annual fundraising telethon on Saturday. Journalists preparing to take donations over the phone include Polly Toynbee, John Crace, Jonathan Liew, Patrick Wintour and Simon Hattenstone.
Court heard Alicia Kemp, 25, from Redditch, Worcestershire was over the blood alcohol limit when she drove into Thanh Phan, 51, in Perth
A British backpacker has been sentenced to four years in prison after a fatal collision with a father-of-two while riding an electric scooter in Australia.
Alicia Kemp, 25, from Redditch, Worcestershire, appeared at Perth district court in Western Australia on Friday where she was sentenced after pleading guilty to dangerous driving causing death while under the influence of alcohol.
With a record number of flu patients in hospital, Britons are weighing up the merits of face coverings
The number of patients in hospital with flu in England has reached a record high for this time of year. The latest data puts the daily average at 1,717, with 69 in critical care.
Speaking to Times Radio this week, Daniel Elkeles of NHS Providers, which represents health trusts, said anyone with flu or cold symptoms “must” wear a mask in public.
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