United Kingdom

Pupils achieved their best A-level results in a generation on Thursday with marks that highlighted the growing gap between the strongest and weakest-performing parts of the country.

While the national exam grades were among the highest for decades, regional differences showed areas in the north lagging far behind the south-east. Private schools also continued to outperform state schools.

Students in London and the south-east of England recorded some of the most startling results – more than 30% of their A-level entries were awarded A* or A grades. But those in the East Midlands saw top grades creep up by just 0.2 percentage points to 22.5%.

The West Midlands, which had previously been among the worst-performing regions, enjoyed an above-average increase in top grades, but still remained far behind London and the south-east with 24.8% of entries gaining A* or A.

The gap between university application rates from London and the north-east of England, which had the lowest application rate, has also widened further. As a result, while more than half of school leavers in London go on to higher education, only one in three do so from the north-east.

The UK's economy grew by 0.6% between April and June as it continued its recovery from the recession at the end of last year.

The latest figure was in line with forecasts and follows a 0.7% increase in the first three months of this year.

Growth was led by the services sector, in particular the IT industry, legal services and scientific research. Services are the biggest contributor to the UK's economy, far outstripping manufacturing and construction, both of which saw output fall between April and June.

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Although the planning application will initially be handled by Tower Hamlets council, the national government could get involved if the proposal is rejected again and China appeals.

China has accused Britain of exaggerating allegations about Chinese spies and cyberattacks.

The embassy would be China’s biggest diplomatic legation in Europe and almost twice the size of its one in Washington.

This led some British politicians and security officials to warn that a bigger embassy and more Chinese diplomats could make it easier to increase the number of spies in the country.

A functioning society depends on equality before the law. If crimes are not treated equally and dispassionately by the justice system, we lose trust in democracy and each other. But as sentences begin to be passed on racists who rioted earlier this month, we see once again a blatantly unequal application of the law.

Let’s make a couple of obvious comparisons. One was highlighted this week by the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi). Had those sentenced for their part in the riots this week – who heeded the calls of racist organisers and rampaged through England’s cities – been Muslims inspired by Islamists, they are likely to have been prosecuted as terrorists, potentially facing much longer sentences. Assaulting people in the name of Islam appears to be treated as a far graver crime than assaulting people in the cause of Islamophobia.

How were the attacks on mosques, on a hotel housing asylum seekers and on those who have sought to defend refugees not terrorism? Instead, the riots have been prosecuted as though they were random thuggery, although they emerge from a long and organised campaign of hatred directed towards asylum seekers, immigrants and Muslims. Some of those convicted were reported as having been “caught up” in the disorder: they were portrayed as weak people gone astray. No such understanding is extended to jihadists. As Rusi explains, the UK has a genuine two-tier justice system. It treats some people – white, non-Muslim – as though they act from blind anger, and others – Brown, Muslim – as coordinated terrorists, even when they commit the same crimes.

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But there’s an even more obvious comparison with the way the racist riots have been handled, and that is with the prosecution of environmental protesters. It is true that only the first clutch of riot cases have so far gone to court, and longer sentences may yet be handed down. But what we have seen is that violent disorder and assaults on the police have so far attracted shorter prison terms than those imposed for peaceful protest. In fact, the longest sentence for a rioter to date (three years) is shorter than the sentences (four and five years) imposed last month on Just Stop Oil campaigners.

As the judge in the Just Stop Oil case pointed out, the protesters caused major disruption by blocking the M25. They inflicted an economic cost of £770,000. No one, including the defendants, expected them to escape punishment. But,whether you agree with Just Stop Oil’s tactics or not, by any standards their nonviolent protest, whose aim was to protect us all from harm, was a far less serious crime than the violence on the streets this month, whose perpetrators deliberately inflicted injury and massive, indiscriminate criminal damage. The riots did not just inconvenience people, they terrorised them. When civil disobedience is punished more severely than racist rioting, something has gone badly wrong.

Social media platform Bluesky says it has seen a surge in signups in the United Kingdom in recent days.

Since X owner Elon Musk made controversial comments about the riots in the UK, a number of influential figures said they would leave the platform or scale back their use, including home office minister Jess Philips.

Now, Bluesky says it has seen a 60% jump in general activity from accounts in the UK, with several MPs also joining the platform recently.

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"For 5 out of the last 7 days, the UK had the most Bluesky signups of any country," said Bluesky in a statement on Monday.

While attention has inevitably been on the first rise in grocery price inflation since March last year, the latest till roll data from Kantar Worldpanel also contains valuable insights into the grocery market itself.

The figures highlight in particular the continued success of the biggest two players in the market, Tesco and Sainsbury's, in terms of pulling away from the rest of the pack.

Asda, on the other hand, looks to be in a very bad way.

Its market share during the period fell to 12.6%, down from 13.7% a year ago, which is an astonishing fall from grace.

It does not seem that long ago that Asda first overtook Sainsbury's to become the market's second-biggest player - an event celebrated by Tony DeNunzio, Asda's then chief executive, by giving all 125,000 UK employees an extra day off.

In fact, though, it was as long ago as August 2003 - when Asda, then owned by the US giant Walmart, had a 17% market share and Sainsbury's was at 16.1%.

However, following a turnaround under then chief executive Justin King, Sainsbury's recaptured the number two spot in 2013.

The pair went on to be neck and neck for most of the next few years but Asda has not had the number two spot since late 2019 and, since then, Sainsbury's has been on top.

So what has gone wrong at Asda?

In short, a great deal of upheaval.

Banknotes with a face value of £78,430 have raised more than 11 times that amount for charity following a series of auctions.

New £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes featuring King Charles III entered circulation in June.

A full set of the first issues were presented to the monarch, but hundreds of other low serial numbered banknotes have gone under the hammer.

One single £10 note with the serial number HB01 000002 sold for £17,000 during bidding.

During another lot, a sheet of 40 connected £50 notes - with a face value of £2,000 - sold for £26,000. That was a record for any Bank of England auction.

The four sales run by auctioneers Spink in London raised £914,127 in total.

Collectors seek banknotes which come as close to the 00001 serial number as possible, hence the large amounts raised.

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The proceeds will be shared equally between 10 charities chosen by the Bank:

Householders are angered by the discovery they cannot remortgage or sell their homes after installing spray-foam insulation to cut energy use.

The violent unrest that has caused so much damage in the UK has not in fact happened across the UK. It has almost been exclusively confined to England.

True, violent riots also took place in Belfast, Northern Ireland, but, interestingly enough, even there they were largely perpetrated by British loyalists, along with a few far-right extremists from Dublin.

The counter-protestors were seemingly mostly drawn from Northern Ireland’s Catholic community.

At least up until now, Scotland and Wales have remained peaceful. When considering why this is the case, we might look at how the English are positioned within the United Kingdom.

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After all the mess has been cleared from the streets, it would be advisable for the government and society as a whole, to have a debate about what “England” and “Englishness” stand for in a Union profoundly divided by rising nationalism and in a world where Britannia no longer rules the waves.

Chanaka Balasuriya, the 47-year-old owner of Southport’s Windsor Mini Mart, has been deeply affected by the violent unrest that spread across the UK - but also by the acts of compassion that followed.

Children will be taught how to spot extremist content and fake news online under planned changes to the school curriculum.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said she was launching a review of the curriculum in primary and secondary schools to embed critical thinking across multiple subjects and arm children against “putrid conspiracy theories”.

Pupils might analyse newspaper articles in English lessons in a way that would help weed out fabricated clickbait from true reporting. In computer lessons, they could be taught how to spot fake news sites and maths lessons could include analysing statistics in context.

Police have released photographs of 12 people they want to speak to over riots which took place on Merseyside days after the deaths of three girls in Southport.

As riots swept the U.K. in recent days, far-right groups plotted attacks on immigration centers and swapped manuals for making petrol bombs on the fringe social network Telegram.

Social media platforms have faced intense criticism for hosting extremist rhetoric that has inflamed violent disorder since the killing of three children in Southport in a stabbing attack late July.

But while Elon Musk’s provocations on X (formerly Twitter) have grabbed the limelight, right-wing agitators have long enjoyed an unparalleled level of impunity on Telegram.

“The far right, fascists and neo-Nazis have long regarded Telegram as a safe space for the exchange of their views,” said Matthew Feldman, a specialist on right-wing extremism who teaches at the University of York.

Channels set up on Telegram following the killings in Southport amassed tens of thousands of members and were used to mobilize far-right rioters. Locations shared on the app were targeted for widespread violence and the destruction of property, including a mosque in Southport.

Rioters attempted to burn down two hotels housing migrants in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, and Tamworth, Staffordshire, on Sunday.

Telegram has since shut down some of the most egregious channels, including one named “Southport Wake Up,” that had gathered more than 13,000 members. “Telegram allows peaceful expression regardless of political affiliation, but calls to violence are explicitly forbidden by Telegram's terms of service,” the company said in a statement.

This unusual move was likely because the channels contained material that could have been considered “terroristic,” said Tim Squirrell, director of communications at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a non-profit which analyzes extremism.

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It's extremely rare for Telegram to “nuke” a whole channel, said Squirrell, who previously worked as a senior adviser on counter-terrorism to the British government. However, the platform has acted upon notices from the security services or counter-terrorism police before.

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The app’s headquarters are legally in the British Virgin Islands but it operates out of Dubai.

“It became really, really big during the pandemic, when it became a real home for conspiracy theorists of all stripes, and was used to network and mingle and repost their content,” said Squirrell.

“A lot of those networks never went away after the pandemic.”

The platform hosts a far-right channel set up by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, who was banned from Twitter. The far-right agitator has now returned to the platform under Musk’s stewardship.

Channels like those run by the conspiracist Unity News Network and far-right group Patriotic Alternative were prominent during the past week’s unrest in the U.K.

Lax content controls mean that far right organizers can conduct their activities undisturbed. Telegram has “less than a dozen” moderators, said Feldman, compared to the estimated 15,000 who work at Meta. Telegram’s few moderators spend their time removing “the worst things that humanity can come up with,” like child sexual abuse material, he added.

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The messaging service’s range of functionality makes it appealing to right-wing activists. “What you'll see is smaller, more vetted groups being used as a way to organize, and then larger public channels as a way to do recruitment [and] push propaganda out to a much wider audience,” said Squirrell.

While Telegram has removed some far-right channels inciting violence in the U.K., many remain open and have continued to share plans for public disorder. However, there are signs users are becoming more savvy about implicating themselves. “This list does not constitute an endorsement of any protest action that may lead to violence,” read one post identified by the Independent.

While Telegram has removed some far-right channels inciting violence in the U.K., many remain open and have continued to share plans for public disorder. However, there are signs users are becoming more savvy about implicating themselves. “This list does not constitute an endorsement of any protest action that may lead to violence,” read one post identified by the Independent.

While the app has half a billion users worldwide, average U.K. active users have numbered around 2.7mn since the beginning of 2024, although this increased to 3.1mn on the day of the stabbing.

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Although Telegram removed some channels this week, there are doubts the app will respect the U.K.’s new internet regulation, the Online Safety Act, when it comes into force at the end of the year.

Under this legislation, platforms will have to consistently remove illegal content, including content involving hatred, disorder, provoking violence and certain types of disinformation. But Telegram faces less stringent rules than larger platforms like X.

“[Telegram] will do as little as possible until there are credible threats [to] their bottom line,” said Feldman.

The hunt to find the rioters and the people who incited them began the moment the first brick was thrown. But the efforts to catch them will last weeks or months, and involve super-recognisers, specialist software, video doorbells and, in a few cases, criminal stupidity.

A dizzying number of newly convicted rioters and online agitators were this weekend waking up in a prison cell on the first day of their sentence. Of the more than 700 arrests made so far, about 300 people had been charged by Friday night, with more arrests and court appearances on Saturday.

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Anyone who has watched a police procedural will have some idea of how officers work, but the reality is usually more prosaic than a TV drama. Some people who commit crimes simply don’t think before they act.

Tyler Kay, a 26-year-old from Northampton, posted on X that people should set fire to hotels with asylum seekers inside. Helpfully for Northamptonshire police, he also tagged them in his posts. On Friday, Kay was jailed for 38 months after admitting publishing material intended to stir up racial hatred.

The sheer volume of video footage can be overwhelming, and civil society groups such as Hope Not Hate and Tech Against Terrorism say police are sometimes restricted in ways they can monitor the footage. And finding the people who instigated and incited the protests in the first place is much more complex.

Teams in the 19 police forces in England and Northern Ireland where violent disorder happened since 30 July have been scouring social media videos and going through CCTV and body-worn camera footage. Forces in Merseyside, Cleveland, Greater Manchester and Avon and Somerset have all so far issued pictures of people they want to question.

“They’re going through CCTV, other images they’ve picked up, cross-referencing it with whatever they find on people, whether it’s tattoos or birthmarks,” said Dr Victor Olisa, a former Met police chief superintendent and now an adviser to Police Scotland.

Olisa, who was borough commander for Haringey in north London after the 2011 riots, said the volume of video had grown hugely since the disorder and looting that followed the death of Mark Duggan in Tottenham.

“You’ve got local authority CCTV, traffic CCTV, lots of business premises have it now, and the public has video doorbells,” he said. “That makes it easier for police to collect evidence and present evidence in court. People who have previous convictions will be in the Police National Computer.

“There will be masses of them. You’ve also got some officers who’ve got a brilliant memory for faces – the super-recognisers.”

Those wearing balaclavas or masks may feel safer, but Olisa said they could be detected by association. “You might have half a dozen young men and five are masked up and one isn’t. If you can find that one, say on the police database, then you can work your way back.”

Then there is facial recognition. BJ Harrington, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for public order, said that officers were using facial recognition software on the footage gathered, and the technology could identify people even with masks.