United Kingdom

Rachel Reeves is due to hold talks with the US next week amid efforts to strike a trade deal, which the UK hopes can help soften the brunt of Donald Trump's tariffs.

There has been speculation that Washington may press the UK to limit its dealings with China as part of trade talks.

Senior Labour figures are urging Keir Starmer to take a leaf out of Donald Trump’s book and make more frequent media appearances in an attempt to dominate the political agenda as the US president does.

MPs told the Guardian they want the prime minister to act more like Trump, who has upended political convention by televising large parts of his cabinet, holding long bilateral meetings on camera and calling in to live television shows.

Maker of triangular-shaped almond-and-honey-laced chocolate bar says it has made ‘difficult decision’ to withdraw product

I'm not sure I even realised there was a dark chocolate version.

With the news of the Supreme Court Ruling. There has been a large raft of protests that have been announced all over the country, and it is very difficult to keep track of all the events. We have compiled a list of all the protests we can find.

Original article is behind a paywall.

UK government officials have raised private concerns that Chinese-manufactured drones are being used to take high resolution images of critical national infrastructure sites in the UK, going against guidance from the country’s security services.

National Grid Plc, which operates the nation’s electricity and gas networks, uses drones made by Shenzhen-based SZ DJI Technology Co. to take videos, photographs and thermal images of its electricity substations, according to information posted on its website as recently as September.

DJI drones have also been used to survey the construction of Electricite de France SA’s Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant, to inspect solar farms, and by Thames Water to monitor reservoirs and the water supply.

Deployment of the drones comes despite a warning in 2023 by the UK’s National Protective Security Authority (NPSA), part of the domestic security service MI5, that British organizations managing sensitive sites should be wary of using drones “manufactured in countries with coercive data sharing practices,” a reference to China. Moreover, in 2022, the US Department of Defense included DJI on a blacklist of Chinese firms with military ties.

National Grid said it follows government guidance, while Thames Water said it takes security “seriously.”

EDF didn’t respond to requests for comment.

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“It is reasonable to be concerned around the alleged widespread use of Chinese drones to map and track the performance of critical UK national infrastructure,” said Sam Goodman, senior director of policy at the China Strategic Risks Institute in London.

“At the very least, without British companies undertaking modification of these drones including software patches, this could pose a significant data security and national security risk to the UK, as DJI is legally required to provide data and cooperation with China’s Ministry of State Security under the PRC’s National Intelligence Law.”

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Prime Minister Keir Starmer is pursuing closer economic ties with China, even amid those security concerns and President Donald Trump’s trade war with the Asian nation.

Last year, Bloomberg reported that British officials were concerned Chinese state actors had made widespread — and likely successful — efforts to access British critical infrastructure networks, underscoring fears of vulnerabilities to increasingly sophisticated efforts by foreign powers to compromise security.

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Meanwhile the UK’S NPSA’s advice to British companies states: “the first line of defense for organisations wishing to use unmanned aerial systems (UAS) may be to restrict UAS and associated component procurement from countries which pose a risk to security.”

Using Chinese-made drones at key sites in Britain pose a risk because Chinese national security laws can compel its companies to share data with the state, according to a UK government official who requested anonymity discussing a sensitive issue.

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DJI drones were able to capture “incredibly valuable, accurate data” at Hinkley Point nuclear power plant, according to Skymatics, a surveying company which ran the project at the site.

The site is part-owned by China General Nuclear Power Group. Representatives for EDF did and Skymatics did not respond to requests for comment.

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Sir Keir Starmer must embrace Donald Trump’s agenda by repealing hate speech laws in order to get a trade deal over the line, a Washington source has told The Independent.

https://archive.ph/j2jfI

White House officials believe a trade deal with Britain can be finalised within three weeks, The Telegraph can reveal.

An insider familiar with the strategy said London was in a good position for a rapid deal although the UK will likely be in a second wave of announcements, following Japan, India, and South Korea, which Donald Trump wants to reach agreements with in order to isolate China.

https://archive.ph/Ygt7i

The UK supreme court has ruled that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act refer to a biological woman and biological sex, in a victory for gender-critical campaigners.

Five judges from the UK supreme court ruled unanimously that the legal definition of a woman in the Equality Act 2010 did not include transgender women who hold gender recognition certificates (GRCs).

In a significant defeat for the Scottish government, the court decision will mean that transgender women can no longer sit on public boards in places set aside for women.

X’s revenues and profits collapsed in the UK in the year after Elon Musk took over the social media platform, the company has admitted.

A decline in advertising spending amid concerns about “brand safety and/or content moderation” were cited as the reason for the fall, according to accounts filed this week to Companies House.

Twitter UK Ltd also narrowly averted being struck off last month for failing to file the accounts on time, according to other recent filings to Companies House. It only filed full accounts on Monday for 2023, the year in which it was rebranded as X after Musk’s takeover.

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Its overall revenue totalled £69.1m, down from £205.3m in 2022, a decrease of 66.3% year-on-year. The profit for 2023 dropped from £5.6m the previous year to £1.2m. Pre-tax profits were 74% lower at £2.25 million. This was a “significant decrease in the performance of the company”, it said.

Musk’s takeover also led to a wave of sackings, with the billionaire telling the BBC in 2023 that only 1,500 of about 8,000 Twitter employees were still employed at the company in that year.

In the UK, the accounts show that the number of the company’s employees fell to 114, from 399 the previous year. This included a cut of 173 to the number employed in “research and development”.

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Musk set up a new company in the UK at the end of last year amid speculation that he was planning to make a large donation to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party.

The company, called X.AI London, was incorporated on 12 December. It was recorded as being engaged in “business and domestic software development” and is based at the same London offices as X.

Former PM says she wants to protect free speech after being ‘cut off at the knees’ by ‘the elite’ while at No 10

Researchers from China are to be allowed access to half a million UK GP records despite western intelligence agencies’ fears about the authoritarian regime amassing health data, the Guardian can reveal.

Preparations are under way to transfer the records to UK Biobank, a research hub that holds detailed medical information donated by 500,000 volunteers. One of the world’s largest troves of health data, the facility makes its information available to universities, scientific institutes and private companies. A Guardian analysis shows one in five successful applications for access come from China.

For the past year, health officials had been assessing whether extra safeguards were needed for patient records when added to the genomes, tissue samples and questionnaire responses held by UK Biobank. Personal details such as names and dates of birth are stripped from UK Biobank data before it is shared but experts say that in some cases individuals can still be identified.

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