Queen Elizabeth II, Sir David Attenborough and James Bond have been named the most popular British cultural figures in a survey. The late monarch was voted the greatest “cultural icon” in the UK from the last 90 years, with 41% selecting her in a survey conducted to mark the 90th anniversary of the British Council, the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations.more

Workers should receive all tips from customers under a new law which bans firms from withholding the payments - whether in cash or by card. More than three million service workers in England, Scotland, and Wales should benefit from the law which comes into force on Tuesday. more

Billpayers have been urged to give an accurate meter reading as gas and electricity price rises take effect. A household in England, Wales and Scotland using a typical amount of gas and electricity will now see their annual bill rise by about £149 to £1,717.more

Illegal immigrants seeking asylum in the UK will be housed in hotels rented by the state for up to three more years as the backlog of their claims takes much longer to clear than Labour had predicted, ‘The Times’ reported today.more

UK shop prices fell at their fastest rate since 2021 in September, driven by discounts on non-food items, but fresh food inflation ticked up as olive oil and cocoa prices continue to surge.more

Many British Jews, looking at the BBC's public service coverage of the Middle East conflict, have become convinced that it has become ‘institutionally hostile to Israel,’ - wrote three leading Jewish organisations in the UK yesterday.more

The UK is about to stop producing any electricity from burning coal - ending its 142-year reliance on the fossil fuel. The country's last coal power station, at Ratcliffe-on-Soar, finishes operations on Monday after running since 1967.more

The UK's economy grew by less than previously estimated between April and June, according to official figures. It expanded by 0.5%, down from an initial reading of 0.6%, after output in the manufacturing and construction sectors fell by more than first thought. more

A 96-year-old woman has been spared an immediate prison sentence for killing a fellow member of her bridge club when her car mounted a kerb. June Mills struck Brenda Joyce, 76, after applying too much acceleration to her Vauxhall Corsa in Formby, Merseyside, on 2 August 2023.more

The minimum price at which alcohol can be sold in Scotland has risen by 30% in an attempt to keep up with inflation over the past six years. The minimum unit price (MUP) has not changed since it was set at 50p per unit of alcohol when it was first introduced in May 2018.more

Vodafone and Three UK have pledged to cap their lowest-cost mobile plans at £10 for two years, as the companies hope to convince the UK’s competition watchdog to approve their £15 billion merger.more

Eliminating Hezbollah's leadership and taking the lead in the conflict are incentives for Israel to go further and dismantle the organisation altogether, especially as Iran is unlikely to want to risk open war because of it, according to Matthew Savill of the London-based think tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).more

The Conservative Party's annual conference - the first after its devastating defeat in July's House of Commons elections - began yesterday in Birmingham, where the four candidates for the new leadership will present their vision of where the party should go.more

We love London, but even born and bred Londoners have got to admit - being a city the size that it is, it's not the safest place in the country. So if you're wanting something a tad safer while being within reach of the capital, a particular study has got you covered.more

The DWP is introducing changes along with the Post Office, Ofgem and the banking regulator. A series of nine money and rule changes for Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) claimants have been unveiled, set to impact UK households from October 2024. Among these changes is the opening of the Winter Fuel Payment phone lines.more

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) carries a lot of potential risks and therefore regulation in this area should not be allowed to be dealt with by the very companies that create it, according to Parmy Olson, a British technology journalist for Bloomberg and author of several books on the subject.more

Plans to expand the Wimbledon Tennis Centre, where the Grand Slam tournament is played, which have already been formally approved by the London authorities, are causing a lot of concern among local residents. These are planning to launch a protest action in the coming days.more

She was a national treasure - this is the most frequently repeated phrase in memories of British actress Maggie Smith, who died yesterday at the age of 89. Sadness at her death and admiration for her achievements were expressed by, among others, King Charles III with Queen Camilla and Prime Minister Keir Starmer.more

Two 13-year-old boys who killed a 19-year-old with a machete in an unprovoked attack last year were yesterday sentenced to sentences of at least eight and a half years in prison. They are the youngest killers in the UK since 1993.more

Two Just Stop Oil (JSO) activists have been jailed for throwing soup over Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers painting after they came close to "destroying" the masterpiece. Phoebe Plummer, 23 and Anna Holland, 22, were previously convicted of criminal damage after the contents of two tins of tomato soup were poured on to the priceless 1888 piece at the National Gallery in central London.more

Boris Johnson has revealed that while Prime Minister he tried to dissuade Prince Harry from leaving the UK with his wife Meghan. Harry and Meghan announced in early January 2020 they were stepping back as senior working royals.more

The Malta-flagged but Russian-linked damaged ship Ruby, carrying 20,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, has moored about 25km off the shores of Kent County in south-east England, shows ship-tracking service marinetraffic.com.more

None of the UK’s large supermarket chains are ensuring their suppliers use antibiotics in the most responsible way, an assessment by campaigners has found, despite heightened concerns about their overuse in farm animals.more

Parts of England have been hit by travel disruption after a night of heavy rain and flash flooding. A section of the M5 near Bristol is flooded and has been closed after motorists needed to be rescued from their cars, and there is rail disruption in parts of the Midlands and southern England.more

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in a speech to the UN General Assembly session yesterday, said that his country was returning to a more active and constructive role in the world. He also stressed that an escalation of the conflict in the Middle East was in no one's interest.more