Boris Johnson has denied his Conservative Party are neglecting southern parts of England in favour of its new northern seats as he blamed “particular circumstances” for a surprise by-election loss. The Tories have been dealt a humiliating defeat after the Liberal Democrats won Thursday’s Chesham and Amersham by-election. The Buckinghamshire constituency had been a Conservative
The prospect of a full-scale investor revolt at JD Sports Fashion grew on Friday when another leading adviser warned shareholders over bonuses awarded to its bosses despite refusing to repay government support. Sky News has learnt that the Investment Association’s influential IVIS service has ‘red-topped’ JD Sports over votes on bonus payments and its future
AstraZeneca and the EU have both claimed victory in a court ruling over the supply of COVID-19 vaccines. The two sides have had a rocky relationship over the past few months, with the European Union accusing the vaccine maker of not producing supplies fast enough. AstraZeneca was contracted to do its best to deliver 300
Italy is introducing a mandatory five-day quarantine for visitors from Britain from Monday amid growing concerns over the Delta coronavirus variant. They will also have to be tested for COVID, the country’s health minister Roberto Speranza said on Friday. But curbs will be relaxed on travellers from a number of other countries. Image: Italy is
It is often said that water is a blessing in South Sudan but the people who live in this impoverished nation have been given good reason to reconsider an unquestionable truth. Two years of unprecedented flooding has changed the way the country looks, with thousands of kilometres of rich agricultural land now lying under water.
The Klarna logo displayed on a smartphone. Rafael Henrique | SOPA Images | LightRocket via Getty Images LONDON — Europe’s tech sector has already attracted more venture capital investment so far this year than it did throughout the whole of 2020, according to data shared with CNBC. Start-ups in the continent have raised a whopping
A leading business group is forecasting the UK economy could bounce back from COVID sooner than expected, and Ian King is joined by the CBI’s chief economist. Also today, the coronavirus pandemic forces the cancellation of the Notting Hill Carnival for a second year; and as England and Scotland meet in Euro 2020, Ian asks
David Silver, leader of the reinforcement learning research group at DeepMind, being awarded an honorary “ninth dan” professional ranking for AlphaGo. JUNG YEON-JE | AFP | Getty Images Computer scientists are questioning whether DeepMind, the Alphabet-owned U.K. firm that’s widely regarded as one of the world’s premier AI labs, will ever be able to make
A leadership hopeful for one of Labour’s biggest union backers has pulled out of the race in a bid to find a unity left-wing candidate. Howard Beckett, who had once been viewed as the heir apparent to Len McCluskey as Unite’s general secretary, is no longer seeking to lead the trade union. Instead, Mr Beckett
Almost since Channel 4 launched 38 years ago, with the first episode of Countdown, there has been speculation that it is facing privatisation. In January 1983, just two months after the channel launched, Kevin Goldstein-Jackson – the executive who helped launch hits like Tales of the Unexpected and who later headed the ITV franchise operator
A wealth management platform which works with a fifth of Britain’s financial advisers has drawn takeover interest from a blank cheque company set up by Bernard Arnault, one of the world’s richest men. Sky News has learnt that Pegasus Europe, an Amsterdam-listed special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), was among the parties which tabled bids for
Bridgepoint, the private equity firm, is to take a big stake in Itsu, the Asian fast-food chain – a deal that will revive one of the UK casual dining industry’s most successful partnerships. Sky News has learnt that Bridgepoint is putting the finishing touches to a deal, with an announcement possible as soon as Monday.
The Delta variant now accounts for almost all of the UK’s coronavirus cases, according to Public Health England. Some 33,630 cases of the strain were recorded in the last week and PHE said “the most recent data show 99% of sequenced and genotyped cases across the country are the Delta variant”. Last week, the Delta
An Arizona beta user of Starlink internet service from SpaceX, a company headed by Elon Musk, was recently forced to resort to an unconventional method to get back online after his satellite dish overheated and went into a thermal shutdown. Following the service disruption, the Starlink app displayed an error message, that read, “Offline: Thermal shutdown.
A minister has said the government is trying to “accommodate” Euro 2020 “as much as we possibly can” – amid reports thousands of VIPs will be granted quarantine-free access to England for the final. Both semi-finals and the final of the tournament are set to take place at London’s Wembley stadium next month. And, according
Tesco, the UK’s largest supermarket chain, has admitted it faces a shortage of drivers for its lorries as the haulage industry warns of a widespread UK delivery crisis ahead. Ken Murphy, Tesco’s chief executive, told a call with analysts after the company’s first quarter results that it was “working hard” to address its shortfall through
Kim Kardashian West has said she almost became a “runaway bride” before her 72-day marriage to basketball player Kris Humphries. The reality star told a Keeping Up With The Kardashians reunion special she had cold feet before tying the knot, but denied claims the wedding was a ploy to boost ratings. Kardashian West married Humphries
NASA has launched a contest for space enthusiasts to name the manikin, a spacesuit-donned dummy, that will fly around the Moon during an upcoming mission. The dummy, which the space agency affectionately calls “moonikin”, will fly around the lunar surface and help gather data during the uncrewed Artemis I test mission expected later this year before
It’s an unwritten rule of politics that every electoral action can have an opposite – if not quite equal – reaction. The question being asked by many Tories this morning will be whether the party’s recent relentless focus on winning new supporters in traditionally Labour-held areas in the north is starting to cost them in
A sharp fall in demand for groceries, as pubs and restaurants reopened to indoor customers, has driven a decline in retail sales volumes. The Office for National Statistics charted a surprise 1.4% fall in retail sales between April and May. Economists had predicted growth of 1.6% on the back of a 9% surge the previous