Latest London News
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The next coalition Why Ed Miliband needs to get Nick Cleggs number
A senior Labour MP has urged Ed Miliband to start preparing now for a possible coalition with the Liberal Democrats because it will be difficult for the party to win an overall majority in ...
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1000 pupils and rising – primary schools go supersize
Barclay primary school in Leyton, east London, already has 1,200 pupils, and is expanding to 1,600 from September 2014. Photograph: Felix Clay for the ...
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Exit Europe from the left | Bob Crow
movements in other countries that are critical of the EU are led by the left , in Britain they are dominated by the hard right, and working-class concerns are largely ignored.This is particularly strange when you consider that the EU is largely a Tory neoliberal project. Not only did the Conservative prime ...
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Multinationals and tax a bad smell | Editorial
Call it the smell test. When Google justifies paying minimal taxes in the UK because "no money changes hands" here, while admitting that up to 70% of its relevant ad revenues are handled by UK staff, then all may be legal - but something still doesn't smell right. When Amazon negotiates the deals in its Slough office, but gets the paperwork done in ...
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Tim Cooks pitch for a corporate tax holiday suits Washington just fine | Heidi Moore
Apple , is a perfect example. It's easy to imagine that Cook wouldn't have a free moment, and that he'd be busy at home in Cupertino, California, with a litany of troubles: the fears that Apple's glory is over; that innovation isn't on schedule; that major shareholders are selling out; and the persistent downward misery of the company's stock price, which ...
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Letters We need smaller and regional banks
PM raises prospect of 1980s-style sale of RBS , 16 May), losing the taxpayer some 24bn, exposes the government's priorities. He insists on cutting benefits by 18bn and expenditure on public services by another 81bn, with all the hardship that causes, yet for ideological reasons gratuitously empties the public coffers of 24bn.Why sell RBS at all? Private-sector dominance of the banks led to ...
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Letters Tax avoidance distorts the market
You do evil, MPs tell Google , 17 May) - they also give them a built-in competitive advantage, because the same dodges are not available to domestic competitors in the markets in which they make their money (such as the UK). So why not hit them using not tax law but the Competition Act? The companies in such groups are ostensibly trading at arm's length - otherwise HMRC would disallow the ...
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To encourage creativity Mr Gove you must first understand what it is | Ken Robinson
'An essential first step in being creative is to question your own way of looking at things perhaps Gove could start there.' Photograph: Bob ...
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Prince Harry Draws a Crowd at the Greenwich Polo Club
GREENWICH, Conn. ...
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Football without Fergie Unthinkable
the kindly, wise-cracking fatherly figure with an infectious laugh? Or the hair-trigger temper itching for confrontation? Ferguson's bluntness - for instance, calling Real Madrid ';that mob'; and saying ';I wouldn't sell them a virus'; - was like cool water for parched throats in a business whose stars so often say nothing of interest. His Jekyll and Hyde ...
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Yes the men of my fathers generation were better at being men | Ian Jack
Diane Abbott says the UK is facing a 'crisis of masculinity', with young men brought up on a diet of drugs and pornography, but it's a lack of love that really separates the ...
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People are told migrants stole their jobs – in truth bosses want cheap labour | Deborah Orr
Having a referendum on membership of the EU is a bit like having a referendum on membership of the moon's gravitational pull. You can vote to leave it all you like, but it will still be there, exerting the natural influence of its mass. Even China has EU regulations on its statute book, because it needs them to trade with Europe. The best that can be said of a possible withdrawal is that at ...
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Ultra-Orthodox in Israel protest military draft 8 arrested
Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem protested a proposal to remove their exemptions and draft them for the first time into military service. The protesters, estimated by various news sources as 15,000 to 30,000, gathered Thursday evening at a military recruiting office in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Jerusalem. The demonstration included stones thrown at police and garbage cans ...
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Nigerian security troubles United Nations
Goodluck Jonathan this week declared a state of emergency for three northern states in response to threats from Islamist militant group Boko Haram. Militants suspected to be from Boko Haram killed more than 40 people in attacks on a village in northern Nigeria last week. At least 200 people died and more than 2,000 homes were destroyed in a recent military raid seen as a response to a Boko ...
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Russia warms to Syrian weapons investigation
Sergei Lavrov said Friday his government would do what it could to advance efforts to investigate claims of chemical weapons in Syria. Various sources said chemical weapons may have been used by both parties to the conflict in Syria. The BBC reported this week it has seen evidence Syrian forces dropped poisonous gas on civilian-populated areas last month. The Syrian government asked for a U.N. ...
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Just three members of Surrey GPs commissioning group to decide on proposals to downgrade Epsom Hospital
Just three members of Surrey's GP commissioning group will decide the fate of Epsom Hospital, after its governing body voted to delegate responsibility for voting on options to downgrade the hospital at a meeting attended by hundreds of people today. The decision at the meeting of the governing body of Surrey Downs Clinical Commissioning Group (SDCCG), which it decided to hold in ...
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Elena Ambrosiadou wins legal battle with ex-husband Martin Coward over software
Two hedge fund tycoons whose marriage "turned toxic" were accused by a judge yesterday of giving "tainted" evidence in their battle over the spoils of their failed ...
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Bean-counters will never understand the transcendent value of art or religion | Giles Fraser
The Aesthetic Dimension, Herbert Marcuse's 1978 critique of Marxist aesthetics. Except Marcuse spoke of "radical political praxis", not "economic growth".I have adapted his question for our current dominant ideology, for I don't suppose that a German Marxist philosopher is bedtime reading for Basingstoke MP and culture secretary, Maria Miller. Former economics ...
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Anderson shines for England but New Zealand in control
Jimmy Anderson leads the team off. He's bowled wonderfully well here today, but his side have had the worst of it. New Zealand trail by 79, and have six wickets in hand. A lot on going to depend on the first session tomorrow morning, and how much mayhem McCullum can ...
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Scottish independence divorce makes sense for both parties
Iain Banks outside the Scottish parliament building: 'Scottish writers I've spoken to felt we'd vote for independence purely never to be part of any more unnecessary, illegal, immoral wars.' Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the ...
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Ministry of Justice brings in auditors to investigate tagging contracts
Electronic tag for offenders. Justice secretary Chris Grayling said: 'My priority is to ensure that taxpayers' money is spent appropriately and delivers value for money.' Photograph: Toby ...
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Lib Dem minister urges coalition to carry out plain cigarette packet plan
A health minister has urged the coalition to press ahead with forcing cigarettes to be sold in plain packets to reduce sales, despite the plan being dropped from the Queen's speech because of unease in Downing Street.Norman Lamb, a Liberal Democrat, has urged ministers to make Britain the first country in Europe to adopt what he claims would become a key element of the legacy of ...
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Andrew Grice Friends abroad but blood-scenting rivals at home
Andrew Grice has been Political Editor of The Independent since 1998. He was previously Political Editor of The Sunday Times, where he worked for 10 years, and he has been a Westminster-based journalist since 1982. His column, Inside Politics, appears in The Independent each ...
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Revealed Devastating impact of bedroom tax which forces huge leap in bailouts for tenants
The extent of the suffering inflicted by the "bedroom tax" can be revealed for the first time today as figures show a 553 per cent leap in the number of people applying for emergency handouts in the month since it was ...
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Social-housing landlords training staff to spot tenants at risk of suicide
Maintenance workers, call-centre staff and housing officers are being sent on courses after growing problems among victims of austerity ...
Britain Feature
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Britain losing interest in leading?
Britain was once the most powerful country in the world, it ran an empire that was the envy of every other colonial power, and gave the world a number of modern institutions that are still widely used today, most notable in the realm of political systems and democratic checks and balances. But Britain today is a shadow of what it once was, some might say it is just another country, nothing special.
Perhaps it’s a little harsh to say there’s nothing special about the UK. The United Kingdom remains an influential country in international politics, especially throughout the Commonwealth, and the capital city, London, is headquarters to some of the world’s biggest companies and home to one of the largest stock exchanges in the world. Read more
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