Category: News Story

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The UK public finances recorded an unexpected £1.8 billion deficit in July, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. Economists surveyed by Reuters had expected the public finances to be broadly balanced, while the Office for Budget Responsibility had forecast a £500 million surplus for the month.

The ONS said higher Government spending offset record self assessed income tax receipts. Central Government spending on social benefits was £2 billion higher than in July 2025, while spending on goods and services, including staff costs, increased by £1.2 billion. The deficit for June was revised down from £16 billion to £12.8 billion.

Public sector borrowing reached £56.7 billion during the first four months of the 2026 to 2027 financial year, compared with the £54.4 billion forecast by the OBR. Chancellor John Healey said the Government remained committed to its fiscal rules ahead of the Budget in October.

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Councils could be given powers to require people responsible for fly tipping to carry out up to 20 hours of unpaid clean up work under new Government proposals. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has launched an eight week consultation on the plans, which would allow local authorities to use conditional cautions to make offenders help clear the areas they have damaged.

The proposals would also allow councils to recover the costs of clearing dumped waste directly from offenders. Ministers say the aim is to speed up enforcement in appropriate cases without requiring lengthy court proceedings, while ensuring that taxpayers are not left paying for the removal of illegally dumped material. The consultation is due to close on 16 October 2026.

The measures follow an increase in the maximum on the spot fine for fly tipping from £1,000 to £5,000. The Government has also announced a new Tackling Waste Crime Alliance bringing together regulators, police, councils and the waste industry, while the Environment Agency is reviewing the level of fixed penalty notices available for waste crime offences.

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The Adam Smith Institute has called for five new defence focused enterprise zones to be established in the North East of England as part of proposals it says could increase manufacturing and encourage regional economic growth. The think tank has identified publicly owned sites at High Hanning, Quarrington Hill, High Pittington, Blaydon Quarry and Newburn Riverside as potential locations for the scheme.

Under the proposals, businesses operating within the zones would benefit from faster planning decisions, full factory write offs, zero rated business rates, lower employer National Insurance contributions and discounted electricity costs in areas with surplus energy. Each zone would be built around a large defence company acting as an anchor tenant, with the Institute arguing that this could encourage suppliers and other manufacturers to establish operations nearby. It said the North East already has a manufacturing workforce of around 110,000 and relatively low land costs.

The proposals have received support from a number of local political figures. Sunderland City Council leader Chris Eynon described the idea as an innovative way of strengthening manufacturing and the defence industry, while Gateshead Council leader Nick Allan said the authority was keen to explore the proposal and had asked its economic development team to carry out an initial assessment of the Blaydon Quarry site. Reform UK Durham County Council cabinet member Kyle Genner also backed the plans, saying they could provide long term employment and support industrial regeneration in County Durham.

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Merseyside Police has introduced a dispersal zone across Liverpool city centre following a series of reports of antisocial behaviour. The order came into force at 10.30pm on Wednesday 19 August and will remain in place until 10.30pm on Thursday 20 August. It covers a wide area of the city centre and waterfront, as well as Liverpool Lime Street, Edge Hill, Liverpool Central, James Street and Moorfields railway stations.

The order was authorised under Section 34 of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. It allows officers to direct people suspected of causing, or being likely to cause, crime, nuisance or antisocial behaviour to leave the designated area and prevent them from returning for up to 48 hours. Officers can also seize items, including vehicles, used in antisocial behaviour. Returning to the area after being directed to leave can amount to a criminal offence.

Chief Inspector Christopher Ruane said the measure followed several incidents in the city centre during the week. He said a 16-year-old boy from Liverpool was arrested after being chased into a McDonald’s on Lord Street by a group of youths and was subsequently found with a knife in his jacket. Extra officers are being deployed across the city centre while the dispersal zone remains in force, with police urging parents and guardians to know where their children are and who they are with during the summer period.

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A Bradford man has been jailed for three years and 10 months after police found more than 87,000 indecent images and videos of children on his devices. Richard Pooley, 60, of North Dean Avenue, was sentenced at Bradford Crown Court on Thursday 20 August after being convicted of offences including three counts of making an indecent photograph of a child and possession of a prohibited image of a child.

Pooley was also convicted of possession of an extreme pornographic image involving an animal, observing a person doing a private act and operating equipment beneath another person’s clothing without consent. He was placed on the sex offenders register for life and made subject to a 10 year Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

West Yorkshire Police began its investigation after receiving intelligence in October 2024 that indecent images had been uploaded to the internet. Officers from the Online Child Abuse Investigation Team identified Pooley, arrested him and seized his devices. Examination of the equipment uncovered more than 87,000 images and videos, including material police said Pooley had obtained by using hidden cameras to secretly film children.

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A Doncaster councillor has condemned The Harewood over a social media post which targeted a female council enforcement officer during a dispute over parking enforcement. Gemma Cobby, who is the City of Doncaster Council portfolio holder responsible for regulation and enforcement, said she was “deeply appalled” by the venue’s behaviour and described the comments directed at the officer as misogynistic.

Cobby said no council officer should be publicly shamed for carrying out their role and argued that any concerns about an officer’s conduct or challenges to parking tickets should be raised through the council’s formal procedures. She added that people could also raise concerns directly with her in her role as portfolio holder rather than targeting individual members of staff online.

The councillor said she had checked with the relevant service manager on the wellbeing of the officer involved and would offer to meet her personally to thank her for the work she does. The intervention follows criticism of The Harewood after it published a photograph of the enforcement officer on Facebook and made personal comments about her appearance, prompting accusations of bullying and calls from some local residents for a boycott of the venue.

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A convicted sex offender who used TikTok to groom young girls has admitted more than 40 further offences after additional victims were identified. Dominic Woodcock, 23, pleaded guilty to offences including causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, distributing indecent images and engaging in sexual communication with a child. He was convicted at Birmingham Crown Court on 14 August and will remain in prison until he is sentenced in December.

Woodcock had previously been jailed for four years and eight months in 2024 after an investigation found that he had used the social media platform to target children. West Midlands Police said he operated a fake gymnastics promotion account and initially contacted young girls asking them to send videos of themselves performing gymnastics routines. After establishing contact, he would seek indecent images and threaten to expose victims online if they refused his requests.

Further children targeted by Woodcock were subsequently identified, allowing officers from West Midlands Police’s Child Abuse Investigation team to bring the additional charges. The force said officers continue to work to identify and prosecute people who target children online and urged parents and carers to discuss internet use with young people, establish appropriate boundaries and ensure children understand the risks associated with sharing images online.

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Sue Gray has described her period as Keir Starmer’s chief of staff in Downing Street as “unbearable”, saying repeated internal briefings and leaks created an atmosphere in which she feared conversations could be recorded and passed to journalists. Speaking publicly in detail about her departure for the first time, Gray said the situation had become extremely difficult and had begun to affect her personal life.

Gray said she raised her concerns with Starmer on several occasions but was disappointed that more action was not taken. She also disputed reports from the period suggesting she had attempted to move senior adviser Morgan McSweeney away from the Prime Minister, saying discussions about office arrangements had been misrepresented. Some former Downing Street advisers have challenged Gray’s account, with one telling the Guardian that they did not recognise claims of a culture of briefings against her.

The Labour peer also questioned the clarity of Starmer’s political direction during his period in office, arguing that leadership required a clear vision and agenda. She contrasted his approach with that of his successor Andy Burnham, whom she said had entered Downing Street with a clearer idea of what he wanted to achieve. Gray resigned as Starmer’s chief of staff in October 2024 after only a few months in Government, saying at the time that controversy surrounding her position risked becoming a distraction.

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Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has accused Reform UK leader Nigel Farage of using references to Britain’s Christian heritage as a means of channelling anti-Muslim sentiment. Williams, who served as Archbishop of Canterbury from 2002 until 2012, made the comments in an interview with New Humanist magazine in which he discussed the growth of Christian nationalism and the role of religion in contemporary politics.

Williams said anxiety about migration and hostility towards Islam were among the factors driving Christian nationalism in Britain and argued that presenting the UK as a Christian society could provide political support for anti-Muslim arguments. Farage has repeatedly emphasised what he describes as Britain’s Christian or Judeo-Christian inheritance, including saying at Easter that the Christian values on which the country was built should be a source of pride. Earlier this year, he criticised an iftar event in Trafalgar Square, describing it as an attempt to dominate British culture.

Williams also questioned whether Farage’s interest in Christianity reflected a deep theological commitment and raised similar concerns about activist Tommy Robinson’s public identification with the faith. Reform has increasingly incorporated Christianity into its political messaging, with theologian James Orr taking a senior role in the party and arguing that a Reform government would be more supportive of Christians than its rivals. Farage has described himself as a member of the Church of England, although he has acknowledged that he is not a regular churchgoer.

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Unite the union failed to establish and maintain a satisfactory system of financial controls during 2021, according to the final report of an independent investigation commissioned by the Certification Officer. The investigation was commissioned in June 2025 following allegations of financial irregularities dating from 2019 and the final report was received by the Certification Officer this month.

The investigator found that during the year ending 31 December 2021 Unite did not maintain satisfactory controls over its accounting records, cash holdings, receipts and remittances, contrary to requirements in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. The report did not find that the breach arose from refusal or wilful neglect.

The Certification Officer said Unite has since taken substantial steps to address the control failures, including significant strengthening of its finance functions. Following the investigation, the office will review statutory requirements governing annual returns and issue new guidance. It will also recommend financial awareness and compliance training for executive committees and boards of trade unions and employer associations.