UK News and Discussions

[Time_Traveller]

Boris Johnson warns of ‘wage-price spiral’ if workers demand higher pay

Thu 9 Jun 2022

Boris Johnson has raised the spectre of a 1970s-style “wage-price spiral” that could force the Bank of England to push up interest rates dramatically, if workers demand to be compensated for rocketing prices.

The prime minister vowed to tackle low growth and the cost of living crisis but said the government would put a new focus on the cost of housing, including extending the right to buy and a comprehensive overview of mortgage products aiming to radically increase the number of 95% mortgages on offer.

As rail workers prepare to go on strike later this month, and with inflation running at 9%, Johnson claimed that if wages continued to chase prices upwards it could unleash an economic crisis.

“When a wage-price spiral begins, there is only one cure and that is to slam the brakes on rising prices with higher interest rates,” he said, speaking at a college in Blackpool.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... higher-pay

[Time_Traveller]

A Labour government would axe laws that override Northern Ireland Protocol, Keir Starmer vows

Friday 10 June 2022

A Labour government would axe laws designed to unilaterally override aspects of Brexit’s Northern Ireland Protocol, Sir Keir Starmer has vowed.

The Labour leader made the pledge on a visit to Belfast where he met with political leaders on Friday (10 June).

During the trip, he also said Labour would oppose the UK Government immunity legislation to address the legacy of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Sir Keir's trip to the island of Ireland, which also involved meetings with Irish government ministers in Dublin, came amid the deepening row over the post-Brexit Irish Sea trading arrangements.

The Government has confirmed it will table legislation at Westminster on Monday that will give ministers powers to scrap parts of the protocol.

https://www.itv.com/news/utv/2022-06-10 ... armer-vows

[Time_Traveller]

Lidl becomes first major supermarket to launch label to help those who can't afford food

9 JUN 2022

Lidl has become the first major supermarket in the UK to introduce a new label in stores that will help those who are struggling to pay for their food.

In an industry first, the supermarket has launched the 'Good To Give' trustmark which aims to diversify the donations to UK food banks.

Starting from today, shoppers looking to donate to food banks can find the labelled food on shelves across all Lidl stores in the UK.

The signage will feature on 30 products across all Lidl GB stores, including tinned fruit, noodles and veg - and it will help those who rely on food banks to get the balanced diet they need.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle ... t-27186731

[Time_Traveller]

Five asylum seekers will not be sent to Rwanda, Home Office says, as hearing challenging plan begins

Friday 10 June 2022

Five asylum seekers fighting their deportation from the UK to Rwanda will not be sent to the African country, the Home Office has said.

The news came as part of submissions by Home Office lawyers to the High Court on Friday as a bid began to block a deportation flight under the government's controversial new asylum seeker removal policy.

Five people due to be deported next week have now had their removal directions cancelled.

Two campaign groups - Detention Action and Care4Calais - joined the PCS Union and four individual asylum seekers bringing legal action against the Home Office after it announced the first group of people would be sent to Rwanda on Tuesday.

https://news.sky.com/story/five-asylum- ... n-12631249

[Time_Traveller]

Five asylum seekers will not be sent to Rwanda, Home Office says, as hearing challenging plan begins

Friday 10 June 2022

Five asylum seekers fighting their deportation from the UK to Rwanda will not be sent to the African country, the Home Office has said.

The news came as part of submissions by Home Office lawyers to the High Court on Friday as a bid began to block a deportation flight under the government's controversial new asylum seeker removal policy.

Five people due to be deported next week have now had their removal directions cancelled.

Two campaign groups - Detention Action and Care4Calais - joined the PCS Union and four individual asylum seekers bringing legal action against the Home Office after it announced the first group of people would be sent to Rwanda on Tuesday.

https://news.sky.com/story/five-asylum- ... n-12631249

Update: -

UK deportation flight to Rwanda can go ahead, high court judge rules

Fri 10 Jun 2022

A high court judge has ruled that a controversial deportation flight to Rwanda that was due to take off early next week can go ahead.

Mr Justice Swift refused to grant interim relief – urgent action in response to an injunction application made by four asylum seekers facing offshoring to Rwanda.

Lawyers acting for the asylum seekers and the groups had argued the policy was unlawful and sought the urgent injunction to stop next week’s planned flight and any other such flights ahead of a full hearing of the case later in the year.

The decision will not stop individual refugees from further legal challenges to their removal to Rwanda, or a judicial review of the policy, which Mr Justice Swift said could take six weeks.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... udge-rules

[Time_Traveller]

Bank of England set to raise rates again as inflation heads for 10%

7 hours ago (Jun 10, 2022 12:33)

LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England looks set to raise interest rates next week for the fifth time since December, its steepest run of rate hikes in 25 years, and is likely to keep going in the coming months as inflation heads for double digits.

While Britain is forecast to have the weakest economy in 2023 among the world's big, rich nations, investors and most economists are predicting a quarter-point rate hike by the BoE next Thursday.

That would take Bank Rate to 1.25%, its highest level since January 2009, when Britain's economy was holed by the global financial crisis.

While historically low, expectations for British borrowing costs over the next couple of years have risen sharply recently and they jumped again this week when the European Central Bank flagged rate hikes at its next two meetings, including a possible half percentage-point rise in September

https://uk.investing.com/news/economy/b ... 10-2666674

[Time_Traveller]

Four-day week could be within reach for British workers

Fri 10 Jun 2022

Five days on, two days off has been the defining pulse of British labour for more than 80 years. But as 70 UK companies embark on the largest trial yet of a four-day week, the working calendar may finally be changing.

Campaigners are seizing on the way Covid shook up working lives to push back the boundaries of the weekend for the first time since the postwar years when the whole of Saturday became a day off for most. One advocate predicts a four-day week could be available to the majority in Britain within five years, and Stephen Fry this week gave his voice to an increasingly confident four-day week campaign, which argues shorter hours boosts productivity, cuts carbon emissions and improves family life – all without cutting pay.

In the campaign, Fry suggests the seven-day week should no longer be considered “a brute fact” because it is “not real the way a day is real, a single spin of our planet, or the way a year is real, one lap of the Earth round the sun … the week was invented by us.”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... sh-workers

i am intrigued how this will work in the retail sector which i am currently in.

[weatheriscool]

Five asylum seekers will not be sent to Rwanda, Home Office says, as hearing challenging plan begins

Friday 10 June 2022

Five asylum seekers fighting their deportation from the UK to Rwanda will not be sent to the African country, the Home Office has said.

The news came as part of submissions by Home Office lawyers to the High Court on Friday as a bid began to block a deportation flight under the government's controversial new asylum seeker removal policy.

Five people due to be deported next week have now had their removal directions cancelled.

Two campaign groups - Detention Action and Care4Calais - joined the PCS Union and four individual asylum seekers bringing legal action against the Home Office after it announced the first group of people would be sent to Rwanda on Tuesday.

https://news.sky.com/story/five-asylum- ... n-12631249

Update: -

UK deportation flight to Rwanda can go ahead, high court judge rules

Fri 10 Jun 2022

A high court judge has ruled that a controversial deportation flight to Rwanda that was due to take off early next week can go ahead.

Mr Justice Swift refused to grant interim relief – urgent action in response to an injunction application made by four asylum seekers facing offshoring to Rwanda.

Lawyers acting for the asylum seekers and the groups had argued the policy was unlawful and sought the urgent injunction to stop next week’s planned flight and any other such flights ahead of a full hearing of the case later in the year.

The decision will not stop individual refugees from further legal challenges to their removal to Rwanda, or a judicial review of the policy, which Mr Justice Swift said could take six weeks.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... udge-rules

If it is safe in Rwanda then it sounds good to me.

[Time_Traveller]

Arron Banks loses libel action against reporter Carole Cadwalladr

Mon 13 Jun 2022

The multimillionaire Brexit backer Arron Banks has lost his libel action against the Observer and Guardian journalist Carole Cadwalladr, in a significant decision for public interest journalism.

Banks, who funded the pro-Brexit Leave.EU campaign group, sued Cadwalladr personally over two instances in which she said the businessman was lying about his relationship with the Russian state – one in a Ted Talk and the other in a tweet.

In a written judgment handed down on Monday, Mrs Justice Steyn ruled the threshold for serious harm had only been met in the Ted Talk but that Cadwalladr initially had successfully established a public interest defence under section 4 of the Defamation Act.

The defence fell away after the Electoral Commission found no evidence of law-breaking by Banks with respect to donations but by that time – 29 April 2020 – the court was not satisfied that the continuing publication of the TED Talk caused or was likely to cause serious harm to his reputation.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... xit-russia

[Time_Traveller]

Keir Starmer faces inquiry over alleged breaches of MPs’ code of conduct

Mon 13 Jun 2022

Keir Starmer is being investigated by parliament’s standards commissioner over alleged breaches of the rules on declaring financial interests.

The inquiry into the claim against the Labour leader was opened last week, and relates to earnings and gifts, benefits or hospitality from UK sources.

Starmer has insisted he is confident he has not broken the MPs’ code of conduct, saying “there’s no problem here”.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... of-conduct