National News

A parole hearing for one of the killers of two-year-old James Bulger will take place behind closed doors over the next two days. The oral hearing to decide whether Jon Venables can be released after his latest sentence for possessing child abuse images is due to take place on Tuesday and Wednesday. Chair of the Parole Board for England and Wales Caroline Corby ruled that proceedings should take place in private, in

Britain’s new Foreign Secretary David Cameron will need little introduction to world leaders, diplomats and voters. The former prime minister has returned to frontline politics, joining Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet seven years after his failure to win the 2016 Brexit referendum effectively cut short his political career. The last image of Mr Cameron most voters will remember was outside Number 10, announcing his resignation the morning after millions of Britons voted

That's according to regulator OFGEM Energy regulator Ofgem has unveiled a plan to eliminate “zombie” wind and solar farms which are holding up the rollout of renewable electricity. A new queueing system will allow the company that runs the grid to kick unserious potential developers out of the queue if they do not meet key milestones. Serious developers have complained for years about the time it takes to get a

Royal Mail has been fined £5.6 million by regulator Ofcom for a “significant” failure to meet its postal delivery targets in the past financial year. Ofcom imposed the penalty following an investigation launched in May after Royal Mail fell short of its performance targets across the 2022 to 2023 financial year for first and second class mail deliveries. Some 73.7% of first class mail was delivered within one working day

British holidaymakers increasingly chose staycations this year amid wildfires across Europe and soaring air fares, with domestic trips proving popular again for 2024, according to accommodation search website Trivago. The group’s recently appointed chief executive Johannes Thomas said UK hotel bookings in the third and fourth quarters of the year are dominated by domestic destinations. The rising cost of flights has been a big factor in the increasing popularity of

Retail giant the Co-op is calling for more action to tackle crime in the sector amid a warning it has reached record levels. At the start of Respect for Shopworkers Week, the Co-op said repeat offenders and criminal gangs were operating “exempt from consequences”. The firm said its latest data showed that of the near 3,000 occasions this year where specialist security teams detained serious offenders in its stores, the

One in four teachers think “banter” is a serious problem in their schools, a poll has found. More than three in five (62%) teachers agree there is a fine line between banter and bullying, according to the survey commissioned by the Anti-Bullying Alliance. The poll, which questioned nearly 900 teachers in the UK between May and June, found 37% believe the effects of banter online are serious and 26% think

A children’s TV presenter has talked about writing her new book aimed at helping to represent mixed-race children in literature. Gemma Hunt, who fronts the CBBC programme Swashbuckle, wrote the book for her own daughter, who has a mixed-race mother, a white father, a black grandmother, and a white grandfather, so that she could see a family like her own reflected in the books she reads. “We couldn’t find any

Suella Braverman has been sacked as home secretary as Rishi Sunak took action following her unauthorised article criticising the way pro-Palestinian protests had been policed. A No 10 source said the Prime Minister “asked Suella Braverman to leave Government and she has accepted”. The Conservatives said Mr Sunak is carrying out a wider reshuffle which “strengthens his team in Government to deliver long-term decisions for a brighter future”. But sacking