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Consumers are making fewer visits to the shops as the ongoing Middle East conflict drags down confidence, figures suggest. Over March and April – to cancel out any distortion from this year’s earlier Easter – total footfall across the UK was down 3.9% on the same period last year, according to the British Retail Consortium-Sensormatic data. Visits to the high street fell 3.3%, while trips to shopping centres […]

Nigel Farage suggested Reform UK was on course for a general election victory after taking council seats from Labour in early local election results. Sir Keir Starmer’s party was haemorrhaging seats as local authorities began declaring overnight, in a set of contests that could prove decisive for his premiership. Reform’s gains exceeded 210 seats when results were in from 37 of the 136 councils in the early hours […]

A third British national has been diagnosed with suspected hantavirus linked to a cruise ship outbreak, health officials have said. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said two British nationals have confirmed hantavirus but there is now “an additional suspected case of a British national on Tristan da Cunha”. The patient remains on the remote South Atlantic island. The other two British nationals remain in hospital in the […]

Sir Keir Starmer insisted he would carry on as Prime Minister despite Labour suffering disastrous local election losses. He acknowledged it had been a “tough” night for Labour but said that “days like this don’t weaken my resolve to deliver the change that I promised”. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK made gains across the country as hundreds of Labour councillors were voted out, heaping pressure on […]

Labour is heading for a crushing defeat in Wales after suffering disastrous local election results in England overnight. The party has been the largest at country-wide elections in Wales for more than a century and had won the most seats in the Welsh Parliament since its creation more than two decades ago. But after Wales went to the polls on Thursday, Labour is bracing itself […]

Counting is under way in the Scottish Parliament election after voters went to the polls on Thursday. Results will start coming through from declaration centres across the country from about lunchtime on Friday – with John Swinney’s SNP hoping for a record-breaking fifth consecutive win. Scottish Labour will be hoping they can buck the trend which has seen the party lose hundreds of council seats […]

Baroness Eluned Morgan, the First Minister of Wales, has lost her seat in the Senedd and resigned as Welsh Labour leader in a dire set of elections for the party. Lady Morgan losing her seat marks the first time a sitting Welsh leader has lost an election in the Welsh Parliament, and is one of many results across Britain which will add to growing pressure on Sir […]

Sir Keir Starmer insisted he would not quit despite an electoral mauling in Labour’s heartlands as Nigel Farage’s Reform UK made stunning gains. The Prime Minister said he was hurting from “tough” results which saw Labour lose hundreds of councillors in England and suffer humiliation in Wales. First Minister of Wales Eluned Morgan failed to win a seat in the newly-expanded Senedd, with Plaid Cymru and Reform hammering […]

Two people who were on board the cruise ship linked to the hantavirus outbreak are self-isolating after returning to the UK, health officials have said. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said that neither of these people who were on board the MV Hondius are reporting symptoms and that a number of close contacts of those on the boat are also being “offered support and are also self-isolating”. […]