News 07/10/26

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has announced proposed changes to inheritance tax, stating her party cannot afford to abolish the duty completely due to funding needed for missile defence, prisons and deficit cuts.

Addressing her desire to minimise the tax, Badenoch asked what most people want to pass on to their children and grandchildren, answering that it is their family home.

A thirty-eight-year-old man has admitted sexually assaulting a woman who was drugged and raped by her husband over more than two decades.

Sean Peers, from Stockport, Greater Manchester, was due to stand trial alongside eleven other men who deny various allegations of sexual offending against the woman. Appearing at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court, Peers changed his plea to guilty for a single count of assault by penetration, with his bail extended ahead of sentencing.

A man charged with murdering his wife after she was found dead at a property in Norfolk has appeared in court.

The body of 45 year-old GP Dr Hannah Cain, also known professionally as Dr Hannah Terry, was discovered at an address in Dersingham on Sunday morning. Forty-five-year-old Mark Cain, of the same address, appeared at Norwich Magistrates’ Court following his arrest and charge by Norfolk Police.

The man accused of murdering Ann Widdecombe has appeared in court charged with preparing acts of terrorism, including against Nigel Farage.

Joshua Kerry, aged twenty-eight, is accused of researching targets and attempting to enter the Reform UK leader’s home. Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard Mr Farage’s partner returned home to find damage to the front door frame and a bottle of lighter fluid in the porch on Sunday the twentieth of April last year.

Up to two thousand five hundred Royal Mail employees could lose their jobs under an organisational review, the company has announced.

The expected job losses will affect head office roles in Farringdon Road, London, and support functions by the end of 2027. Royal Mail, which employs around one hundred and thirty-one thousand staff, said it aims to achieve the reduction through natural attrition and voluntary redundancy without compulsory job losses.

A twenty-seven-page internal inquiry commissioned by Reform UK has cleared two senior advisers of electoral law breaches following an undercover sting.

Aides Dan Jukes and James Orr stood down after being filmed by Channel 4 discussing a five hundred thousand pound foreign donation and poll funding. Both men deny wrongdoing, while the Metropolitan Police continues to investigate the claims as part of a wider probe into party donations.

Firefighters in Berkshire may lack the specialist equipment and training needed to tackle wildfires, according to an association representing rural landowners and businesses.

The warning comes as nearly eighty per cent of councils recorded more wildfires in the first half of 2026 than in the whole of 2024, with incidents in Berkshire hitting a five-year record high during the first six months of this year.

Jaguar has unveiled its new electric car, two years after a controversial rebrand and twelve months following a major cyber attack that halted production.

The Type 01 model, revealed in New York on Tuesday, will be manufactured in Solihull in the West Midlands, delivering an expected range of up to four hundred and fifty miles. Chief executive PB Balaji called it the start of an exciting new era. Orders open early next year, with production starting in 2027.

The Green Party member behind a motion declaring Zionism as racism was named in court documents as a close friend of a man jailed over a Heathrow Airport suicide bomb plot.

Lubna Speitan proposed the motion at the party conference. Court documents from 2015 reveal she offered to testify for Minh Quang Pham, who was jailed in the US for supporting al-Qaeda. The Green Party said she holds no official position and it takes such allegations seriously.