Home News

A company linked to Tory peer Michelle Mone has been ordered to repay almost £122 million to the government for breaching a contract to supply surgical gowns during the Covid-19 pandemic.The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) sued PPE Medpro at the High Court over allegations that it breached a deal for the 25 million gowns because the items were “faulty” by not being sterile.Baroness Mone criticised the High Court judgment on Wednesday, calling it a win for the “establishment”, while her husband, Doug Barrowman, said it was a “travesty of justice”.Meanwhile, health secretary Wes Streeting said: “PPE Medpro put NHS staff and patients in danger with substandard kit whilst lining their own pockets with taxpayers’ money at a time of national crisis.”But the peer, who is on a leave of absence from the Lords, has claimed she is the target of a “vendetta” by the government.Born in Glasgow, Baroness Mone left school at 15 with no qualifications and gave birth to her first child at 18 More

Police have arrested 66 people on suspicion of supporting Palestine Action during a protest outside the Labour Party conference in Liverpool.Around 100 people gathered in the city centre at around 2.30pm on Sunday holding signs which read: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action,” organisers Defend Our Juries said. Merseyside Police said two people were later de-arrested. The 64 people who were arrested on suspicion of the terrorism offence were aged between 21 and 83 years old. They were taken into police custody and have now been released on bail. Palestine Action was proscribed as a “terror organisation” in July after the group claimed responsibility for the damage to two Voyager planes at RAF Brize Norton.A protester is carried away by police at a Palestine Action demonstration in Liverpool More

Menzies Campbell was a finely tailored politician who dressed like a Tory grandee, had a certain affinity with the social democratic wing of the Labour Party, but always described himself as both a proud Liberal and a proud Scot. And so he was.Despite knowing and being surrounded by equally talented Scottish Labour figures who’d made easier careers for themselves in what was the naturally dominant political force north of the border – notably John Smith, who rose to the party leadership – Campbell paid a certain price for his loyalty to Liberal values. He only became an MP at the comparatively mature age of 41, rose to the party leadership when he was, at 65, past his prime, and never held office.By the time the Liberal Democrats tasted national power in the Cameron–Clegg coalition government of 2010, he might have had the opportunity to serve in some role, but in any case, he sat it out. He could not be blamed for the Lib Dems’ nuclear winter that followed the 2015 general election. At that point, it was curtains for the lot of them.As is routine for an ex-party leader, Campbell took a peerage and stepped back from public life. But he had been in the thick of politics for decades. He was extremely close to Paddy Ashdown during his leadership in the 1990s, and had an attempt to pull Labour and the Liberal Democrats closer together in what was then termed “The Project” succeeded, he would easily have joined the Blair cabinet. It was not to be.Lord Campbell after giving his speech on the last day of the Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton in 2007 (PA) More

When Alex, 48, from Bristol received his first Universal Credit payment – £50 short of his rent – it was “an absolutely devastating experience, mentally, financially, emotionally,” he says.“There was no attempt whatsoever to help me. Just the repeated verbatim script, even when I opened up about the state of my mental health. It was just a mechanical conversation and there was no will or effort to help you at all.”The single father turned to Universal Credit after losing his job in 2023. He had worked for 30 years in marketing, holding several senior positions, but found it far harder than in the past to secure a new role.He is one of thousands of benefit claimants who have faced mental health struggles, as interacting with the welfare system is driving too many into ‘despair,’ a new report has found.More than half of all benefit claimants (51 per cent) say that claiming has damaged their mental health, research from welfare charity Turn2Us reveals, while 68 per cent say they feel ashamed of seeking the support they are entitled to.The research by Bristol University’s Personal Finance Research Centre finds that stigma is “structural and systemic” in the social security system, run in the UK by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).Labour has said it is working to ‘overhaul’ Jobcentres in the UK (PA) More

US president Donald Trump has claimed London wants to impose sharia law, prompting the city’s mayor Sir Sadiq Khan to hit back at his “appalling and bigoted” comments.In an address to the United Nations General Assembly, Mr Trump made the unfounded claim as he launched an attack on Sir Sadiq – without mentioning his name – over immigration and carbon-reduction policies.The president said: “I look at London, where you have a terrible mayor, terrible, terrible mayor, and it’s been changed, it’s been so changed.The two leaders have a history of hostility, with Donald Trump saying he didn’t want the London mayor at the recent Windsor banquet More

Houses are unaffordable for even the highest earners in England, new data shows, highlighting the challenge Labour faces in its push to boost housing.Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for 2024 show that buying a home was unaffordable – with the average house price over five times higher than the average salary – for 90 per cent of earners in England.The situation in the nation’s capital was even more dire, with house prices in London deemed to be unaffordable for all income groups – even the top 10 per cent of earners. While the new housing secretary, Steve Reed, has promised to “build, baby, build”, Conservative James Cleverly has accused Labour of “killing the market” with taxes and regulation.Years of dwindling housing supply and low building rates have contributed to sky-high house prices, while wage growth has not kept up.“Homes are the foundations of our lives, with many of us dreaming of the security of owning our own home. But it is increasingly clear that dream is now well beyond the grasp of the average renter,” said Ben Twomey, chief executive of campaigning group Generation Rent.“Even before the cost of renting is taken into account, buying a home is unaffordable for most people. Add soaring rents into the mix and our wages become stretched so thin that there’s often nothing left at the end of each month.”Meanwhile, experts from the Mortgage Advice Bureau (MAB) believe that regulatory changes made in the past year will make housing more affordable for buyers.“While we can’t dispute past statistics, the significant changes since then will tell a different story in 2025,” Rachel Geddes, director of MAB, told The Independent. “These regulatory shifts and increased flexibility for lenders have created new opportunities for aspiring buyers.”Although housing affordability improved between 2023 and 2024, homes were still generally unaffordable, costing more than five times the average salary, in many parts of the UK – a trend that has continued since 2006.Overall, house prices in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland were more affordable, while the average house price in England was still 7.9 times the average salary. Last year, the average home in England sold for £290,000 – substantially higher than prices in Wales (£200,000), Scotland (£185,000), and Northern Ireland (£168,000). Meanwhile, the average salary did not see such a significant fluctuation between the four countries. In England, average house prices were only affordable for the top 10 per cent of earners, who have salaries upwards of £72,000 a year, the ONS figures reveal. And in London, even the highest decile of earners – with over £91,443 in household income – were priced out of affordable home ownership, the data shows. The worsening housing market risks deepening existing inequalities, and The Independent recently reported that many people are stuck renting and unable to save for a deposit, while others are relying on the “Bank of Mum and Dad” to get on the housing ladder.“It’s become the norm for people to rely on family wealth if they can, but this only serves to widen inequality,” warned Mr Twomey.On the lowest end of the spectrum, the situation is even worse. The bottom 10 per cent of earners in England are seeing house prices over 17 times their salary, rising to as much as 34 times their salary in London.The average home in London sold for £527,500 last year – over three times more than the average price of a home in the North East (£165,000).But it’s not just a London problem. In the South East, East of England and South West, homes were also only affordable for the top decile of earners. Meanwhile, the North East is the most affordable region in England, with the average price standing at five times the average income. Overall, Blackpool was the most affordable area for homes in the UK, while the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea was the least affordable. Chancellor Rachel Reeves recently announced a boost to affordable housing investment, as the government works to deliver new homes More

Multi-billionaire businessman Sir James Dyson has reiterated his support for Brexit, arguing that it is better to be “independent” – even if leaving the EU has made people poorer. Britain’s fourth-wealthiest man was one of the most prominent UK business leaders to back Boris Johnson’s Leave campaign in 2016. But the 78-year-old, who is worth an estimated £20bn, was criticised after moving his company Sir James’s global headquarters to Singapore in 2019. Asked during a new interview with The Times if he believed Brexit was going well, he referred to the creation of the AstraZeneca vaccine, saying: “Well, you got a Covid vaccine before you would have otherwise. That’s the advantage of being independent.” He added: “I can’t judge it. For me, it’s not whether it’s going well or not. It’s important to be independent and make your own decisions. “Even if you’re poorer, worse off, it’s better to be making your own decisions than having supranational bodies making them for you. It’s that independence. I don’t want someone else telling me what to do.” In his memoir, he argued that the EU’s free movement of people didn’t provide companies such as his with the right engineers, and that regulations, such as energy-label performance data, had hindered progress. ‘I don’t want someone telling me what to do’: James Dyson has been a vocal critic of the EU for years More

A second migrant has been deported to France under Sir Keir Starmer’s “one in, one out” deal after losing a High Court bid to have his removal temporarily blocked. An Eritrean man was on a flight that left Heathrow for Paris at 6.15am on Friday, the Home Office confirmed.The failed asylum seeker had said he was a victim of trafficking, but the Home Office argued that there was not enough evidence for him to qualify for modern slavery support. Mr Justice Sheldon told the High Court late on Thursday that it was “clear” that the migrant would have the opportunity to submit a trafficking claim in France. The Eritrean said he had been kidnapped and forced to work in Libya, but Home Office decision-makers said they did not believe his account. Two migrants have so far been flown to Paris under the deportation deal More