10 h. ago Why are some of Britain’s ancient woodlands failing to regenerate?

With forests under pressure from drought, heat, disease and deer, a study has found fewer trees across a range of species surviving to maturity. But scientists say there is still hopeTo the untrained eye, Monks Wood looks healthy and lush in the summer sun. Hundreds of butterflies dance on the edge of footpaths in the ancient Cambridgeshire woodland, which is rich with ash, maple and oak trees. Birds flit through the hedgerows as they feed. A fox ambles through a forest clearing, before disappearing into long grass.But for a number of years, it has been clear to Bruno Ladvocat and Rachel Mailes that something is missing. In 2022, Ladvocat, Mailes and their research team from Birmingham University were out sampling when they noticed that the small trees that typically cover the woodland floor were increasingly hard to find. Continue reading...

Events

10 h. ago In some UK woodlands, every young tree has died. What’s going wrong?

With forests under pressure from drought, heat, disease and deer, a study has found fewer trees across a range of species surviving to maturity. But scientists say there is still hopeTo the untrained eye, Monks Wood looks healthy and lush in the summer sun. Hundreds of butterflies dance on the edge of footpaths in the ancient Cambridgeshire woodland, which is rich with ash, maple and oak trees. Birds flit through the hedgerows as they feed. A fox ambles through a forest clearing, before disappearing into long grass.But for a number of years, it has been clear to Bruno Ladvocat and Rachel Mailes that something is missing. In 2022, Ladvocat, Mailes and their research team from Birmingham University were out sampling when they noticed that the small trees that typically cover the woodland floor were increasingly hard to find. Continue reading...

Events

11 h. ago Last orders: Pubs in Britain will close at rate of one a day in 2025, trade body warns

The British Beer and Pub Association calls for help to cut pub costs with 378 pubs in England, Scotland and Wales likely to call time this yearBritish pubs will close down at the rate of one a day this year, the industry’s trade body has warned, blaming high business taxes. At the same time, the hospitality sector has called on ministers to tackle “eye-watering” costs.The British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA), which represents more than 20,000 pubs in the UK, said it expects 378 to close this year in England, Scotland and Wales, at a cost of 5,600 jobs. Continue reading...

Events

33 h. ago This column does not express support for Palestine Action – here’s why | Owen Jones

In Britain’s increasingly authoritarian society, any sort of protest can find itself at odds with the law. You might even go to jailThis piece must be carefully written to avoid my being imprisoned for up to 14 years. That’s a curious sentence to say as a newspaper columnist in Britain in 2025. But since the government voted to proscribe the direct action protest group Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act, any statement seen as expressing support could lead to arrest and prosecution.You may justifiably respond that Guardian journalists are not above the law. For example, if I penned a column in support of al-Qaida, you might be sympathetic to incarceration: it did, after all, kill nearly 3,000 people on 9/11, as well as perpetrate multiple terrorist atrocities such as the 2004 Madrid train bombings, and the 7 July London bombings two decades ago. Similarly, you may conclude that a polemic in favour of Islamic State should be met with a hefty prison sentence.Owen Jones is a Guard...

Politics

35 h. ago Macron and Starmer talk Trump, boats and Ukraine – but Brexit is the ghost at the banquet | Rafael Behr

The prime minister has repaired broken relations with France, but Britain still looks perilously isolated in a world of shifting alliancesGilded carriages and royal banquets are not essential tools of modern diplomacy, but nor are they obsolete. In a digital age, when intergovernmental business could easily be conducted online, the analogue grandeur of a state visit feels potent as a bestowal of favour.This week Emmanuel Macron is the beneficiary. In September it will be Donald Trump. The sequence is not meant to indicate preference. Both relationships are special, say officials. There are enough champagne receptions and sleepovers at Windsor Castle to go around.Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnistOne year of Labour, with Pippa Crerar, Rafael Behr and more On 9 July, join Pippa Crerar, Raf Behr, Frances O’Grady and Salma Shah as they look back at one year of the Labour government, its current policies and plans for the next four years Continue reading...

Politics

49 h. ago Bayeux tapestry to return to Britain for first time in 900 years

Tapestry to go on display in British Museum next year, with treasures from Sutton Hoo lent to France in exchangeThe Bayeux tapestry will return to the UK for the first time in more than 900 years as part of a landmark loan agreement by Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron.The 70-metre embroidered cloth depicts the 1066 Norman invasion and Battle of Hastings, in which William the Conquerer took the English throne from Harold Godwinson and become the first Norman king of England. Continue reading...

Politics

55 h. ago This London beer was just crowned the best in Britain for 2025

This London beer was just crowned the best in Britain for 2025  Time Out

Politics

59 h. ago To those who question what Labour stands for – look at Best Start. It will change Britain’s future | Polly Toynbee

Sure Start was New Labour’s finest achievement, and the Tories destroyed it. Now it’s back with a mission to put children at the heart of everythingThey hunt high and low for Labour’s missing message, vision, purpose or identity. Well, here it is, where it always was, in the future of children. It’s what Labour does best, what it is for: building a society where children come first and everything else falls into place. The foundations have now been laid by Bridget Phillipson by finally bringing back Sure Start to England – the most successful achievement of the last Labour government – now rebranded as Best Start family hubs.It’s a pity about the new name, but young parents recognise “hubs”, whereas Sure Start is largely gone and forgotten. Its uprooting began the day Michael Gove arrived as education secretary in 2010. He entered the “Department for Children, Schools and Families” – a name chosen to reflect the awareness that children don’t learn without wraparound care for their w...

Politics

3 d. ago Parents in Britain to be granted bereavement leave after miscarriage

Mothers and partners will gain the legal right if they lose a baby before 24 weeks, in Labour workers’ rights reformParents in Britain will be granted a right to bereavement leave after suffering a miscarriage as part of Labour’s workers’ rights reforms, it has been confirmed.In a change to the law made via amendments to the employment rights bill, mothers and their partners will be given the legal right to at least one week’s bereavement leave if they have suffered a pregnancy loss before 24 weeks’ gestation. Continue reading...

Politics

7 d. ago Immigrants, flying sheep and Brigitte Bardot: Britain through the lens of Picture Post

From 1938 to 1957, the celebrated photo magazine captured tattooists, transgender women and topless men sinking pints – and changed the way the country saw itself Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago If Britain is broken, what is to blame – big money and big tech, or graffiti on your train? | Tom Whyman

A new cadre of agit-prop campaigners has been cleaning the London underground, but there is more to the political stunt than meets the eyeBritain, let’s face it, is crap. Crap, I mean, in quite a specific sense: we might not be teetering on the brink of civilisational destruction, as the post-Brexit right can often seem to think. But there nonetheless remains a vast, ambient sense of rubbishness. Everything is expensive but nothing works. Our streets are full of potholes; our houses are full of mould. All the shops are shut, except for a Tesco Express, where there are security tags on the eggs. It takes about a million years to build a railway line.Up to now, the response to Britain’s enshittification has, by and large, seemed remarkably fatalistic: Keir Starmer spent the first year in government repeatedly insisting that there just wasn’t any money, and so really nothing could be done. Thank God then, one might think, for Looking for Growth, a new campaign group led by young (well,...

Politics

1 week ago Beastly Britain by Karen R Jones review – how animals shaped British identity

A revelatory cultural history of our relationship with native wildlife, from newts doing handstands to Mrs Tiggy-WinkleWhen newts go a-wooing, sometime in the spring, their signature move is the handstand. Girl newts cluster round to watch, while the boy newts flip on to their creepily human hands and shake their tails in the air. The waggiest newt is the winner, although the actual act of love is a strictly no-contact sport. The male deposits a packet of sperm on an underwater leaf for the female to collect and insert into her own reproductive tract. The whole business is best thought of, says Karen R Jones, as a “sexually charged game of pass-the-parcel”.This kind of anthropomorphising often strikes naturalists as unscientific or even downright distasteful. But Jones is an environmental historian and her methodology allows, indeed impels, her to start from the principle that Britain’s human and animal populations are culturally entwined. Consequently, we cannot...

Politics

2 w. ago How and why is Britain obtaining access to nuclear gravity bombs?

UK purchase of F-35A squadron means US nuclear warheads are likely to be stored on British soil once againBritain is to obtain air-launched nuclear weapons by buying a squadron of 12 F-35A fighter jets, which are capable of carrying the US B61-12 gravity bomb as well as conventional arms, Keir Starmer has announced at the Nato summit. Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago Adults in Great Britain now spending more time on mobiles than watching TV

Daily average for watching all types of screen is now almost 7.5 hours, annual survey for IPA findsThe amount of time adults in Great Britain spend using their mobile phones has finally overtaken that spent watching TV, according to a report that calculates the daily average for watching all types of screen is now almost 7.5 hours.For the first time a typical person aged 15 or over spends longer each day on their mobile (three hours and 21 minutes) than on watching a traditional set (three hours and 16 minutes), the annual TouchPoints survey found. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Britain must prepare for possibility of attack on UK soil, government warns

The government’s new security strategy said it has to actively prepare for potential wartime scenariosBritain needs to prepare for the possibility of being attacked on its own soil, the government has warned in its security strategy, laying out in stark terms the range of threats ministers say the UK now faces.Russia’s military buildup and Iran’s increasing attacks on dissidents abroad mean the country could soon find itself involved in a domestic war, the review says. Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago Britain on track to lose 'unprecedented' 16,500 millionaires in 2025 amid high taxes and non

The UK is set to lose twice as many high net worth individuals as China and ten times as many as Russia this year

Economics

2 w. ago Overblown infrastructure projects damage lives and imperil democracy. Why is Britain addicted to them? | George Monbiot

The Lower Thames Crossing proves the point. It’s a white elephant plan, sucking money from local projects that could actually improve livesThere appear to be two main determinants of what infrastructure gets built. The first is whether it provides large and lucrative contracts for powerful corporations. The second is whether ministers can pose beside it in hard hats and yellow jackets. Otherwise, it is hard to explain the decisions made.Both determinants favour large and spectacular schemes. Big corporations don’t want to dabble in minor improvements: real money comes from prestige projects over which governments cannot afford to lose face, ensuring that they keep throwing cash, however high the budget spirals. And few ministers want to pose beside a new bus stop: a grand ego demands a grand setting.George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago ‘It takes 25 years for a footprint to disappear’ – the secret, beguiling magic of Britain’s bogs

They are the air-conditioning units of the world – filtering water, preventing flooding, preserving history and providing habitat. Our human ancestors knew the extraordinary power of peatlands, so why are they still being destroyed?I haven’t found an hour when I don’t love a bog. Recently, after a night of counting rare caterpillars in Borth in Mid Wales (they come out only after dark), walking back to the car under the glow of a flower moon, I wondered if 2am was my new favourite. I felt very safe, held by the bog’s softness, and everyone that was out at that hour seemed to have a sense of humour. I met a nightjar hopping around on the ground, pretending, I think, to be a frog.But there is also something about the humidity of a languid afternoon on a bog, when everything slows and fat bumbles hum, that is surprisingly good. I have done freezing horizontal rain and thick, cold-to-your-bones fog and wind so howling that I couldn’t think. All of those were hard, but I did come away fe...

Events

2 w. ago Britain is one step closer to compassionate, kind death for all | Kim Leadbeater

This historic day comes too late for many who supported my bill, but I will never forget their courage and selflessnessKim Leadbeater is Labour MP for Spen ValleyI am relieved and overjoyed by the historic vote on assisted dying in the House of Commons today. The road has been long and hard, and I am very aware that many others have been on that journey since long before I even became an MP. The question of whether to offer choice to people at the end of their lives was first raised in parliament in 1936 – almost a century ago.Since then, terminally ill people have pleaded repeatedly with MPs to heed their simple wish to have control and autonomy at the end of their lives. A courageous few have taken their cases to the courts, even while they confronted the prospect of their own imminent and inevitable deaths. The judges said it was for parliament to decide. Now, at last, the House of Commons has responded, and responded decisively to recognise the justice of their cause.Kim Leadbea...

Events

3 w. ago What are the legal issues around Britain helping Trump bomb Iran?

Keir Starmer is weighing up whether to back the US and – as a lawyer – will be aware of the legal landscapeMiddle East crisis – live updatesUK politics live – latest updatesAs Keir Starmer considers whether Britain should support the US if Donald Trump decides to bomb Iran, the attorney general, Richard Hermer, has reportedly warned him that UK involvement could be illegal. The prime minister was an outspoken opponent of the Iraq war when he was a human rights lawyer in 2003 and will be well aware of the thorny legal issues around engagement in strikes against Iran. Continue reading...

Politics