Page 20 - Britain

Growth across UK biz dips in May, in early blow to Sunak, shows PMI survey

S&P Global UK Composite Purchasing Managers' Index for the services and manufacturing sectors fell to 52.8 in May from 54.1 in April

PM Sunak, Keir Starmer to hit campaign trail as UK election race begins

Both party leaders are expected to hit the campaign trail, seeking to seize the early initiative by meeting voters and delivering the messages they hope will earn them enough seats in parliament

British PM Rishi Sunak declares July 4 as UK general election date

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday ended frenzied speculation by announcing that the country's general election will be held on July 4. In an address from the lectern on the steps of 10 Downing Street on a rainy London evening, the country's first Prime Minister of Indian heritage confirmed a summer poll in six weeks' time and that the Parliament would soon be dissolved after he formally informed King Charles III of the election timeline. The 44-year-old leader laid out his record in office in his pitch to the British electorate, who will soon give their verdict at the ballot box. "I will do everything in my power to provide you with the strongest possible protection I can. That is my promise to you now is the moment for Britain to choose its future, he said. It comes as the governing Conservative Party is forecast for a general election drubbing by most opinion polls, with the Opposition Labour Party holding a firm lead after a series of recent byelection and local ..

UK inflation drops less than expected, dashing June rate cut hopes

Consumer prices rose by an annual 2.3 per cent last month, down sharply from a 3.2 per cent increase in March

UK govt borrows more than expected in April, posing challenge for PM Sunak

Net borrowing excluding state-controlled banks was 20.5 billion pounds

Hope India-UK FTA not far away, says incoming Ficci UK Council chair

The proposed India-UK free trade agreement is hopefully not far on the horizon as it will offer immense opportunity to be leveraged within the bilateral partnership, said the new chair of a trade council that has played a key role in shaping the ongoing negotiations. UK-based tech professional Priya Guha, who invests in women-led innovation as Venture Partner of Merian Ventures, took over as chair of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) UK Council from Baroness Usha Prashar at a hand-over ceremony at the High Commission of India in London on Monday evening. The India-UK Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations opened in January 2022 and are aimed at significantly enhancing bilateral trade currently worth around GBP 38.1 billion a year. The negotiations are now in their fourteenth round of talks, and likely to pick up pace following the Indian general election. Guha, the British Indian investor, expressed the hope that the bilateral partnership would ..

Victims of UK blood scandal to start receiving final compensation this year

Victims of the UK's infected blood scandal, in which tens of thousands of people were infected by contaminated blood or blood products provided by the public health service, will start receiving their final compensation payments this year, the government said Tuesday. Officials announced the compensation plans a day after the publication of a damning report that found civil servants and doctors exposed patients to unacceptable risks by giving them blood transfusions or blood products tainted with HIV or hepatitis from the 1970s to the early 1990s. The report said successive UK governments refused to admit wrongdoing and tried to cover up the scandal, in which an estimated 3,000 people died after receiving the contaminated blood or blood products. In total, the report said about 30,000 people were infected with HIV or hepatitis C, a kind of liver infection, over the period. The scandal is seen as the deadliest disaster in the history of Britain's state-run National Health Service sin

Britain's regulator seeks to rein in Mastercard and Visa fees on retailers

Cards are the most popular form of payment in Britain, with 27.1 billion transactions in 2022 worth 954 billion pounds

ICC arrest request for Israeli PM Netanyahu is unhelpful, says UK

President Joe Biden on Monday condemned as outrageous an attempt by the chief prosecutor of the world's top war crimes to seek arrest warrants for Israeli leaders

Rishi Sunak apologises for Britain's historic infected blood scandal

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday apologised after Britain's state-funded National Health Service (NHS) was accused of cover up in an infected blood scandal dating back to the 1970s in a public inquiry report submitted to the government. Speaking in the House of Commons hours after inquiry chair Sir Brian Langstaff delivered his scathing verdict on the issue, the British Indian leader said it was a day of shame for the British state after a catalogue of failures and attitude of denial documented in the inquiry. The scandal involves over 30,000 people being infected with life-threatening viruses such as HIV and Hepatitis C while they were under NHS care between the 1970s and 1990s, with over 3,000 having died. I find it almost impossible to comprehend how it would have felt...I want to make a whole-hearted and unequivocal apology, said Sunak, addressing the victims and their families, some of whom were in Parliament. "On behalf of this and every government stretching back

Britain's health service accused of cover up in infected blood scandal

Britain's state-funded National Health Service (NHS) was accused of cover up in an infected blood scandal dating back to the 1970s in a public inquiry report submitted to the government on Monday. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is expected to issue an apology on behalf of the government after inquiry chair Sir Brian Langstaff delivered his scathing verdict on the issue, which involves over 30,000 people being infected with life-threatening viruses such as HIV and Hepatitis C while they were under NHS care between the 1970s and 1990s. It involves infected batches of Factor VIII, an essential blood clotting protein which haemophiliacs do not produce naturally, imported from the US and used widely to treat patients at the time. They were infected as donated blood was not tested for HIV/AIDS until 1986 and Hepatitis C until 1991 in the UK. The scale of what happened is horrifying. The most accurate estimate is that more than 3,000 deaths are attributable to infected blood, blood products an

Assange can appeal against extradition order to US, rules UK court

A British court has ruled that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can appeal against an order that he be extradited to the US on espionage charges. Two High Court judges on Monday said Assange has grounds to challenge the UK government's extradition order. The ruling sets the stage for an appeal process likely to further drag out a years-long legal saga. Assange faces 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over his website's publication of a trove of classified US documents almost 15 years ago. The Australian computer expert has spent the last five years in a British high-security prison after taking refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for seven years.

Find out why the High Commissioner for India owes 8 mn pounds to the UK

London's embassies and international bodies owe more than GBP 143 million 'outstanding congestion charge' to the Transport for London

Europe, West being fed negative stories about India: British journalist

In a candid assessment of the perception of India in the Western world, Stevenson told ANI expanded on the prevalence of negative narratives fuelled by media coverage

Inquiry report on UK's infected blood scandal to be revealed on Monday

The final report of the UK's infected blood inquiry will be published Monday, nearly six years after it began looking into how tens of thousands of people contracted HIV or hepatitis from transfusions of tainted blood and blood products in the 1970s and 1980s. The scandal is widely seen as the deadliest to afflict Britain's state-run National Health Service since its inception in 1948, with around 3,000 people believed to have died as a result of being infected with the HIV virus and hepatitis, an inflammation of the liver. The report is expected to criticise pharmaceutical firms and medical practitioners, civil servants and politicians, though many have already died given the passage of time. It's also set to pave the way to a huge compensation bill that the British government will be under pressure to rapidly pay out. Had it not been for the tireless campaigners, many of whom saw loved ones die decades too soon, the scale of the scandal may have remained hidden forever. This who

UK watchdog decides not to pursue investigation into Microsoft-Mistral deal

British regulators said Friday they don't need to open a competition investigation into Microsoft's partnership with French artificial intelligence company Mistral, a month after asking for industry feedback on the deal. Microsoft announced earlier this year that it was partnering with the buzzy French startup in a move that could lessen the software giant's reliance on ChatGPT-maker OpenAI for supplying the next wave of chatbots and other generative AI products. The Competion and Markets Authority said in a brief update that the tie-up does not qualify for investigation" under UK merger rules. The watchdog had said in April that it was seeking comments from interested third parties, before deciding whether to carry out an in-depth antitrust investigation. By deciding not to probe the deal, "the CMA confirmed that the structure of the partnership between Mistral and Microsoft does not grant sufficient rights/influence to Microsoft," Alex Haffner, competition partner at UK law firm

India, Britain reaffirm FTA commitment at annual strategic dialogue

India and Britain on Friday reaffirmed their commitment to conclude a mutually beneficial free trade agreement (FTA) at the annual UK-India Strategic Dialogue in London. Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra, who is on a visit to the UK, held discussions with his counterpart, Sir Philip Barton, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). After their meeting, the FCDO said the two leaders reviewed the progress made on the UK-India 2030 Roadmap since the last strategic dialogue in January last year and looked ahead to the next phase of bilateral cooperation. The two reflected on good progress on the 2030 Roadmap since the last review, noting key areas where the UK and India have worked together to tackle some of the world's biggest challenges, the FCDO said in a statement. This included collaborating on the world's first malaria vaccine, working closely on India's successful G20 Presidency and increasing opportunities for students and entrepreneurs

Russia asks British diplomat to leave country in a week in tit-for-tat move

Russia on Thursday declared Britain's defence attach persona non grata and gave the diplomat a week to leave the country in response to London's decision to expel the Russian defence attach earlier this month over spying allegations. Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it summoned a representative of the British Embassy in Moscow on Thursday to express its strong protest in connection with the unfriendly and groundless decision to expel the Russian attach from London. We emphasized that we regard this step as a politically motivated action of clearly Russophobic nature, which is causing irreparable damage to bilateral relations, the statement read. Britain on May 8 announced several measures to target Moscow's intelligence gathering operations in the UK Those included a decision to boot Maxim Elovik, a Russian colonel who the British government termed an undeclared military intelligence officer, rescinding the diplomatic status of several Russian-owned properties ...

India-UK FTA: Work in progress to resolve issues, says commerce ministry

Senior officials of India and the UK held negotiations last month on the outstanding issues of the proposed free trade agreement (FTA) and the work is in progress to iron out the differences. According to the commerce ministry, the Indian team visited London from April 16-19 for negotiations. "The teams have made good progress and work is in progress in resolving pending issues. Chapter-wise textual negotiations are nearly closed and schedules on goods and services are at an advanced stage of negotiations," the ministry said. The ministry, however, did not disclose further details. So far, 13 rounds of talks have been completed. The 14th round started in January. There are 26 chapters in the agreement, including goods, services, investments, and intellectual property rights. The Indian industry is demanding greater access for its skilled professionals from sectors like IT and healthcare in the UK market, besides market access for several goods at nil customs duty. On the other h

Post-study visa route dominated by Indians should stay, finds UK review

A post-study visa route dominated by Indian graduates is helping the universities in the UK make up for financial losses on the domestic front and expanding the country's research landscape, a review commissioned by the British government concluded in its report on Tuesday. The independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) had been tasked by UK Home Secretary James Cleverly to undertake a rapid review of the relatively new Graduate Route visa that allows international students to stay on for up to two years after their degree to look for work and gain work experience. It found that Indian students lead the pack in this visa category, accounting for 89,200 visas between 2021 and 2023 or 42 per cent of the overall grants, and the visa was stated as the overwhelming decision point for their choice of a higher education destination. Our review recommends the Graduate Route should remain as it is and is not undermining the quality and integrity of the UK's higher education system, said