Kemi Badenoch has kicked off the return to parliament with a reshuffle of her top team in order to take on Andy Burnham and Reform UK. She has made sweeping changes to the shadow cabinet and ruthlessly axed her shadow chancellor. Here is a run-down of the new characters sitting across from Labour on the opposition frontbench.
Exclusive: Prime minister wants to ‘bring back hope’ by tackling cost of living as MPs call for electoral reform
Andy Burnham will drive home his pledge to bring more essential services back into public control, telling MPs in the Commons on Tuesday that it will be the only way to improve growth across the country.
Burnham will address the house for the first time in 16 years from the frontbench, and six weeks since he became prime minister, after spending the summer recess announcing a slew of policies that will now be put before MPs.
Body of victim thought to be in her 70s found in bin bag in walled garden area of Stanley Park on Friday
Police in Liverpool have urged members of the public to come forward with information after the body of an unknown woman believed to be in her 70s was found in a black bin bag in a popular park.
Merseyside police were contacted by a passerby who had found the woman’s body in Stanley Park, in the Anfield area of Liverpool, at about 5.25pm on Friday 28 August.
Technology trained on millions of routine ECGs could fast-track high-risk patients for treatment
Doctors have developed a “superhuman” AI tool that can spot heart disease in less than two seconds.
The groundbreaking technology has been trained on millions of patients and works by extracting more information from a routine electrocardiogram (ECG) than the human eye can typically see.
Technology trained on millions of routine ECGs could fast-track high-risk patients for treatment
Doctors have developed a “superhuman” AI tool that can spot heart disease in less than two seconds.
The groundbreaking technology has been trained on millions of patients and works by extracting more information from a routine electrocardiogram (ECG) than the human eye can typically see.
These things are undermining not just our public spaces but the very nature of being human. Let’s shame them off the streets
So far I am yet to be tempted into purchasing a pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses. To a certain extent this is a function of possessing a large, misshapen and comically convex head upon which no pair of sunglasses has ever looked remotely appropriate. Nor am I one of those consumers who professes to be “really into gadgets”, a preference I’ve always found weirdly unspecific. It’s subtly telling when people claim to be into “gadgets”, because they’re never talking about, say, a tin opener. What they really mean is something gimmicky and expensive that almost certainly requires the services of a datacentre and enough water to irrigate Kent.
And even if I were to surmount these two obstacles, you then get into the ethics of the thing. I’m nobody’s idea of a PR expert, but if your shiny new product keeps requiring patches and updates to prevent people from using it to do degenerate things to women, perhaps it might be worth walking it back to the research and development stage.
David ‘Jacko’ Jackson has aimed to raise awareness of brain injuries, with fellow runners sharing their stories
The key for David “Jacko” Jackson is to take each stage nice and gently. “It’s not about running fast,” he said. “It’s more like the hare and tortoise story. Slow and steady – and do it again tomorrow.”
So far, so good. Jackson, a former professional rugby player who retired after a traumatic brain injury, is nearing the end of an extraordinary bid to run 100 ultramarathons (50km, or about 30 miles) in 100 consecutive days.
Telecoms company to benefit from soaring prices for recycled metal recovered from full-fibre broadband rollout
BT is on track for an estimated £2bn-plus windfall over the next decade from selling off old copper cabling, as it cashes in on soaring prices amid the AI market frenzy and switches the UK’s network to full-fibre broadband.
Copper is one of the main beneficiaries of the “electrification of everything”, essential for the rapid growth of AI datacentres, electronics and the fast-growing renewable energy industry.
Jasmeet Wadhwa, who fled Taliban persecution in Afghanistan, lost his life while trying to reach UK in April
A British family is pleading with French authorities to release the body of a relative that officials have held for five months after he died in the Channel in April.
Jasmeet Wadhwa, 32, died while attempting to reach the UK on a dinghy on 1 April with his mother, Harbans Kaur Wadhwa, after they fled Taliban persecution in Afghanistan in January.
Exclusive: Dr Will Tullett says better understanding of scents can improve wellbeing and perception of the world
Children need a better education in sniffing aromas, a leading historian of smells has said, noting it may improve their wellbeing and help them understand the world around them.
Dr Will Tullett, of the University of York, said pollution had been found to impair people’s olfactory abilities, while many objects and substances today – from margarines to car interiors and even our own homes – were stripped of their original smells and “reodourised” with synthetic scents.
Exclusive: Dr Will Tullett says better understanding of scents can improve wellbeing and perception of the world
Children need a better education in sniffing aromas, a leading historian of smells has said, noting it may improve their wellbeing and help them understand the world around them.
Dr Will Tullett, of the University of York, said pollution had been found to impair people’s olfactory abilities, while many objects and substances today – from margarines to car interiors and even our own homes – were stripped of their original smells and “reodourised” with synthetic scents.
Exclusive: Labour MPs believe Gordon Brown-era SMC has become ineffective and its work ‘should be a core function of government’
Ministers are considering a shake-up of the government’s social mobility watchdog that could range from giving it more teeth to abolishing it outright.
The move comes amid concerns that the Social Mobility Commission (SMC) – originally conceived under Gordon Brown’s government in 2010 – has become ineffective.
Clacton, funding, internal divisions – party prepares for annual conference next week after a season of missteps
Senior Reform UK figures like to boast that the summer time – and parliament’s longest recess – is when the party makes hay.
Supposedly, it is when Nigel Farage and co can muscle in on the news cycle with provocative statements and new policies, painting “establishment” opponents as workshy layabouts.
Clacton, funding, internal divisions – party prepares for annual conference next week after a season of missteps
Senior Reform UK figures like to boast that the summer time – and parliament’s longest recess – is when the party makes hay.
Supposedly, it is when Nigel Farage and co can muscle in on the news cycle with provocative statements and new policies, painting “establishment” opponents as workshy layabouts.
Exclusive: How a court case over an unoccupied office block could end a widely used tax avoidance scheme
From the outside, the seven-storey building at 2 America Square looks like any other office block in the heart of London’s financial district.
Located about half a mile from Tower Bridge, one might expect it to be a hive of commercial activity, teeming with employees holding important meetings. However, much of the property is home not to staff vying for their next bonus, but to stacks of nondescript black boxes arranged in neat lines.
Andy Burnham urged to seek consensus over response to extreme heat and forthcoming ‘super El Niño’
Andy Burnham should call a cross-party meeting to discuss the UK’s response to worsening extreme weather, including the forthcoming ‘super El Niño’, the Liberal Democrats have said.
The prime minister chaired a Cobra emergency meeting on the drought earlier this month but there has been little from the government on the wider threats posed by five successive heatwaves since May and expected global issues with food shortages and inflation.
Kemi Badenoch sacked her shadow chancellor, Mel Stride, and the shadow foreign secretary, Priti Patel, in a sweeping Conservative reshuffle on Monday, replacing Stride with Andrew Griffith, and Patel with Tom Tugendhat.
Stride, who had been shadow chancellor since Badenoch became leader, was widely seen among Tories as failing to make an impression at a time when Labour had been under pressure over the economy.
Julius Mugabo launches landmark case as union says thousands in capital lost incomes due to ‘broken system’
An Uber driver who got into thousands of pounds of debt and feared losing his home due to delays in Transport for London renewing his licence to pick up passengers is taking on the organisation in the high court in the first challenge of its kind.
Julius Mugabo, 55, has been an Uber driver licensed by TfL since 2016. Under the Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998, all minicab drivers cannot work lawfully unless TfL has carried out checks on them and issued or renewed their licences. These licences must be renewed every three years.
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