News 19/04/26

An attempted arson attack has been reported at a synagogue in northwest London, the second suspected antisemitic hate crime in as many days.

It follows an earlier incident at a former Jewish charity building in the same part of the capital. The Metropolitan Police say officers on patrol noticed damage to a window at Kenton United Synagogue around midnight. Further checks found smoke inside and evidence a bottle containing an accelerant had been thrown through the window.

Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice says he is always happy to put things right if he has not paid the correct amount of tax.

It comes after reports he failed to pay nearly one hundred thousand pounds in corporation tax. The Sunday Times says he paid no tax on profits from four shell companies between twenty twenty and twenty twenty two. The firms were set up to receive dividends from his property business and pass money to a parent company.

Police are warning people not to approach a dangerous missing man they are urgently trying to find.

Grant McKinnon, aged 30, was last seen on Cardowan Road in Glasgow at four o’clock on Saturday morning. That was the same time officers were called to the suspicious death of a woman in the area. Police Scotland has not confirmed whether the two incidents are linked. Anyone who believes they have seen him is urged not to approach and instead call 999 immediately.

A new charity is being set up to honour Queen Elizabeth the Second during the week marking the centenary of her birth.

The government is providing forty million pounds to establish the Queen Elizabeth Trust, with King Charles the Third as patron. It will focus on restoring shared community spaces, reflecting the late Queen’s commitment to public service and her belief that everyone is our neighbour. She died in 2022 aged ninety six and would have turned one hundred on April the twenty first.

Slough Borough Council has not made the pace of improvement expected by commissioners, and changes to its leadership team have been proposed.

The government ordered an external review of the council’s finances in 2021, followed by an intervention placing commissioners in charge of oversight. That intervention has now been extended until November this year as efforts continue to improve the authority’s performance.