UK News

Friends and family of one of Russell Brand’s alleged rape victims told a court she did not go to police at the time because she “didn’t think she would be believed”. Brand, now 51, is accused of raping a 21-year-old fan after meeting her at one of his Hammersmith Apollo gigs in 2009. Southwark Crown Court heard evidence from friends of the alleged victim who were told at the time […]

A whisky bottle which belonged to John Lennon has gone on display in a museum. The Johnnie Walker Black Label bottle, which has been twisted into an unusual shape, was bought by Lennon when he was in New York with Sir Paul McCartney in 1968 to promote their newly-founded company Apple Corps. The bottle was passed on to Neil Aspinall, the Beatles’ road manager, whose son, Roag Best, has now […]

Harry Brook became the first England batter to record a double century in one-day internationals as he propelled his side to 429 for four in their tri-series contest in Rawalpindi. Brook started watchfully as England looked to bounce back from their 87-run defeat to Pakistan in their opening match, collecting 13 from his first 24 balls but he hardly looked back after belting part-time left-arm spinner Kamindu Mendis for two […]

Kieran Hayler has been acquitted of raping and sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl when he was married to Katie Price after a court heard he said the charges were part of a “smear campaign” against him by his ex-wife. The 39-year-old was found not guilty of three counts of rape and one count of sexual assault of the teenager in West Sussex in 2016 following a trial at Lewes Crown […]

Selfridges has unveiled its Christmas windows featuring scenes of festive traditions from cities around the world. Titled Christmas And The City, the windows – across all of the department store’s UK outlets – “celebrate the rush, magic and emotion of the world’s most festive cities”. The Oxford Street windows feature scenes from Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, Lagos, New York City, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Copenhagen, Milan, Paris and London. […]

The Met Office has issued weather warnings for wind and rain across parts of the UK, with two named storms due to bring disruption. Storm Austen, the first named storm of the season, is expected to affect south-west England on Friday – with an amber warning for wind issued in Cornwall, Devon and the Isles of Scilly from 1am. Forecasters have warned of very strong north-westerly winds, with gusts of […]

Thirty-two Government services are offline and four are partially unavailable while work is carried out to address potential cybersecurity issues, a minister has said. Organisations around the world have been scrambling to fix a critical security flaw in the programming language PHP used by the majority of websites. Downing Street on Thursday said no large UK public-facing critical services have been affected, but some “limited” Government websites have gone dark […]

Barclays has revealed it expects to have cut around 5,000 staff by the end of 2026 after turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to make the bank more efficient. The banking group said this is the equivalent of about 5% of all its employees, which totalled around 93,000 globally at the end of 2025. Some 1,000 of the roles were cut during the first half of 2026, and the remainder are […]

Consumer confidence has tumbled before the Budget against a backdrop of rising inflation and ongoing geopolitical tensions, figures show. Expectations for the state of the economy over the next three months worsened to minus 40, down from minus 34 in September, according to an Opinium survey for the British Retail Consortium (BRC) taken between October 6 and October 9. Consumer expectations for their personal finances also fell to minus 18 […]