A series of senior Conservatives have contradicted Kemi Badenoch after she criticised a landmark UK-India trade deal because it temporarily exempts seconded Indian workers from national insurance payments in the UK. Tories including Oliver Dowden, who was deputy prime minister under Rishi Sunak, said the deal should be hailed as a dividend of Brexit that … Read more
The UK has “ambitious” plans to secure a closer trading partnership with the EU, Keir Starmer has said, as he argued the British public had moved on from Brexit. Before a UK-EU summit, the prime minister urged people to “look forward, not back” as the country embarked on a new era of its relationship with … Read more
Ministers wrongly refused nature funding to 3,000 farmers in England when they shut the post-Brexit subsidy scheme, the government has admitted. There was anger earlier this year when the environment secretary, Steve Reed, suddenly paused a key post-Brexit farming payments scheme with little information about what would replace it and when. The sustainable farming incentive … Read more
How does Xi Jinping view the circus Donald Trump is ring-mastering in Washington? There is no denying that the new president has created an opportunity for Xi to drive a wedge into the flank of the battered transatlantic alliance. China’s special representative to the EU optimistically described Trump’s treatment of Europeans as so “appalling” that … Read more
Friday is a holy day for practising Muslims – a time to observe the faith more deeply and, where possible, attend prayers at the mosque. That’s exactly what Aboubakar Cissé did early on Friday 25 April. In the southern French village of La Grand-Combe, Cissé, a 22-year-old carpenter originally from Mali, volunteered at his local … Read more
North America could experience record-breaking heat this week as scorching daytime temperatures hit from south Manitoba in Canada all the way to Texas in the southern US. A powerful ridge of high pressure has built up over the continent, with a strong southerly flow amplifying high temperatures this week as it drags up a hot, … Read more
Cranes are finally whirling over a long-blighted stretch of wasteland on the Athens Riviera, just 6 miles from the Acropolis, which has been a symbol of Greece’s rise, fall and rise again over the past two decades. Yet it remains to be seen whether the country’s latest economic spring will prove more durable than past … Read more
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2025/may/11/nicola-jennings-cartoon-putin-europe-ceasefire-russian-president-ukraine
The climate crisis has taken a new and frightening turn, and in the expectation of disastrous flooding, the entire landmass of Denmark is about to be evacuated. Effectively, the country will be shutting itself down and sending its 6 million people abroad, where they will have to cope as best they can. Huge numbers of … Read more
On the day of the last general election, my mother rose at 5am to head to the polling station. With any kind of voting, she volunteers her days off from work to help out with the ballots. Although she can’t vote in this country. My mother feels patriotic about her country of origin, Italy, but … Read more