News

The Government should write into law a positive definition of self-employment to provide clarity on who is and who is not genuinely self-employed, IPSE (the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed) has said. The call follows a decision in the employment tribunal today that a group of Hermes couriers were workers and not self-employed. GMB, the union for lifestyle couriers, scored a landmark legal victory against Hermes after an employment tribunal ruled their couriers are entitled to basic workers’ rights. The...

The Social Security Advisory Committee – the panel of experts responsible for scrutinising laws which affect the benefits system – have published the Government’s draft proposals for moving more than two million disabled people onto Universal Credit. The Government has said that this will take place between 2019 and 2023. It will affect around one million people with mental health problems who currently receive the disability benefit Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). Under these proposals people currently getting ESA will receive a letter informing...

The fire broke out in a block yesterday afternoon but did not spread to any other flats.

Oliver Storr, 22, asked the victim to send him a naked photograph of herself using Facebook messenger

Sharife Elwhabe stole 72,586.60 in hotel accommodation and cash, the prosecution claim, along with a further £10,000 in pre paid cards for victims of the blaze that killed 72.

Athirty4 also spraypainted UK as a ventriloquist dummy on Jean Claude-Juncker's lap

Hedge funds hired a network of pollsters to make millions off the pound’s collapse following the Brexit vote, a Bloomberg exclusive has revealed. Private polling in the city, which Nigel Farage was reportedly privy to, gave hedge funds a different view on the result of the referendum to the one presented to the public. They were able to use that mis-sentiment to buy derivatives and make lucrative trades. The Bloomberg scoop revealed that: Pollsters sold hedge funds critical, advance information, including...

UK export growth is slowing while European exporters are starting to flourish again, according to the latest European Export Index. The latest findings from the quarterly index show that UK exports have fallen to their lowest level since Q1 of 2016, when uncertainty loomed ahead of the nation’s vote to leave the EU. The UK’s Export Growth Index, which charts annual growth in total exports, fell to 96.0 from 98.2 in the first quarter of 2018, creeping closer to the...

Staff fork out on food for hungry kids, tampons, toilet rolls, pens, pencils and books as funding cuts bite More than half of school support staff feel they have to spend their own money on things for children at cash-strapped schools, a new GMB study shows. Teaching assistants and other support staff are forking out on food for hungry kids, tampons, pens, pencils and books. Staff report having to bring balls and even paper aeroplanes for break time because ‘our...