The first Elizabeth line services on London’s long-awaited £14.8 billion Crossrail project will run for the first time next month.

Pic:The first Elizabeth line train spotted at Liverpool Street this week.
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Eight years after building work began on the mammoth cross-London project, the first stage of the railway will launch towards the end of May.

The stretch of the line between Liverpool Street heading east to Shenfield will be the only part of the line to run, until the next stage launches in May 2018.

Around 11 new Elizabeth line trains will be gradually rolled out across that section of line from now until September.

Transport for London has not yet announced the exact date of the first service next month as more tests and practice runs are carried out by as drivers and Crossrail staff.

The first passenger trains have been spotted across London during the tests but TfL are keeping information about what the trains look like on the inside closely guarded.

What is Crossrail?

Crossrail is the much-anticipated new high-speed railway which will go through the capital.

It will run for more than 60 miles from Reading and Heathrow in the west, through London via tunnels and out the other side to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.

The Crossrail project is made up of one line, called the Elizabeth line, named in honour of the Queen. 

The line branches off into two on both its ends, but joins up at Hayes and Harlington in the west and at Whitechapel in the east.

Where does the Elizabeth line run?

The line will connect some of London’s busiest national rail stations with central London, parts of Berkshire and Essex when it is fully complete.

The central London stations on the line will be Paddington, Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon and Liverpool Street.

Other stations on the line include Reading, Maidenhead, Slough, West Drayton, Ealing Broadway, Canary Wharf, Stratford, Woolwich, Romford and Shenfield.

How quick will journeys be on Crossrail?

The new high-speed Elizabeth Line will cut most journey times by half and some journeys will be five times quicker.

How quicker will a Crossrail journey be?

Destination	Current time	Crossrail time
Paddington to Tottenham Court Road	20	4
Paddington to Liverpool Street	23	10
Paddington to Canary Wharf	34	17
Bond Street to Paddington	15	3
Bond Street to Whitechapel	24	10
Canary Wharf to Liverpool Street	21	6
Canary Wharf to Heathrow	55	39
Whitechapel to Canary Wharf	13	3

From Paddington to Tottenham Court Road, which usually takes 20 minutes, the journey time will be just four minutes and just three minutes to Bond Street.

For people in Abbey Wood in south east London, a journey to Heathrow will take just over 51 minutes – 42 minutes quicker than the current time.

Bond Street to Whitechapel in east London normally takes 24 minutes but on the Elizabeth line will take 10.

How many people will use it?

Around 200 million passengers are expected to travel on the Elizabeth line each year.

Because of the huge amount of travellers, 10 new stations are being built to deal with the capacity. An extra 1.5 million people will now be within 45 minutes of central London thanks to the new trains.

Each of the main line-size trains will be able to carry around 1,500 people at peak periods.

Which stations are being rebuilt?

Paddington is undergoing its biggest ever transformation since the main station opened in the 19th century.

Bond Street, serving one of the UK’s busiest shopping districts, is also being upgraded to accommodate more than 225,000 people changing Tube and Crossrail lines and upgrades at Farringdon station will see it become one of the busiest stations in the UK 

Other stations being transformed are Abbey Wood, Canary Wharf, Custom House, Liverpool Street, Tottenham Court Road, Whitechapel and Woolwich.

How often will trains be?

When the route fully opens in December 2019, Crossrail promises a train every two and a half minutes at peak time at central London stations.

From stations like Custom House and Abbey Wood, trains are expected to be every five minutes in peak time.

When will it open?

The whole of the Elizabeth line will fully open in December 2019.

Until then, as work to finish building stations continues, stretches of the line will open in stages.

The first new Elizabeth line car train will enter passenger service between Liverpool Street and Shenfield towards the end of May this year.

After that, the next milestone will be May next year, when a TfL rail service will open between Paddington and Heathrow Terminal 4. This route will replace the current Heathrow Connect service.

In December 2018, the new stations open and the Elizabeth line opens between Paddington and Abbey Wood, Liverpool Street to Shenfield and Paddington main line to Heathrow Terminal 4.

May 2019 will see the service extend from Shenfield to Paddington and by December of that year the whole shebang is expected to be up and running.

May refuses to rule out income tax and NI rises

Pic:Theresa May said on the Andrew Marr Show: ‘I don’t want to make specific proposals on taxes unless I’m sure I can deliver on those.
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Theresa May has all but confirmed she will drop the Conservative pledge not to raise three key taxes, as she ruled out higher VAT but declined to make a similar promise not to hike income tax and national insurance.

The prime minister said she did not want to make promises she was not absolutely confident she could keep, as she also signalled she would ditch the “triple-lock” formula by which the state pension would increase each year.

She was unable to promise that either of the commitments would continue, just two years after they formed a central plank of David Cameron’s 2015 election campaign.

In her first long interviews of this election campaign, the prime minister told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday she had “absolutely no plans to increase the level of tax” and an intention to lower taxes on working families.

But pressed about Cameron’s promise not to raise income tax, NI or VAT, she added: “I don’t want to make specific proposals on taxes unless I’m sure I can deliver on those.”

In a subsequent interview on ITV’s Peston on Sunday, she refined her position, saying: “We won’t raise VAT.”

May was in a similar position when asked about the triple-lock on state pensions – a promise that it would rise by a minimum of either 2.5%, the rate of inflation or average earnings growth, whichever is the largest. Labour has promised to keep the guarantee.

In a signal that it is to be dropped, potentially to pay for more social care funding, the prime minister said the state pension would continue to rise every year but “exactly how we calculate that rise” was for the manifesto.

She suggested there could be a comprehensive shakeup of social care funding, saying the government had to deal with “long-term issues about the ageing population”.

The prime minister was also tackled by Marr over her use of soundbites and slogans, but continued to use her favoured phrase about showing “strong and stable leadership”.

There has been speculation since the election was called that May would drop the tax lock promise and pensions triple lock to avoid tying her hands as the UK economy goes through the Brexit process.

But John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said it was wrong for May to drop the triple-lock formula and that he did not want to see pensioner incomes go backwards.

He also told ITV’s Peston on Sunday that Labour would pledge not to raise VAT and there would be no tax rises for middle or low earners, without giving a definition.

“We will end the tax giveaways to the corporations and the rich; we will demonstrate item by item how we can fund those and that will be about a fair taxation system. But let me give this assurance: there will be no increase in income tax for middle and low earners,” he said.

“We will protect middle and low earners. I will say also we will not increase VAT – and I want you to ask Theresa May that question because, if you remember, last time the Tories promised no increase in VAT and then they increased it afterwards. That’s a regressive tax. It falls on some of the poorest and middle earners as well, so that’s one guarantee we’re giving.”

Polling suggests May’s lead against Labour has been cut but she is still heading for a Conservative majority on the current trajectory.

Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, made a prediction on Sunday that there would be a “colossal coronation” for May and therefore no hung parliament.

He urged voters to make the Lib Dems the official opposition, saying there was a “vacancy for leader of the opposition” because Labour backs Brexit, unlike his own party.

This would require an enormous electoral shift, given the party has just nine MPs and Labour has 229, while the SNP has 56.

UK may have to recognise ECJ court rulings to keep security cooperation

Pic:Sir Julian King, Britain’s most senior EU official
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Britain’s most senior EU official has warned that a post-Brexit Britain would have to recognise the rulings of the European court of justice if it wished to maintain the current level of cooperation in countering terrorism and organised crime.

Sir Julian King, the European commissioner responsible for security, said the UK’s security services had become increasingly reliant on shared crime-fighting tools to carry out their work.

In an interview with the Weastar Times, King suggested that there would be difficult discussions to be had in order to maintain something near the status quo on security cooperation, which will form part of negotiations with the remaining 27 members of the EU.

The bloc unanimously agreed this weekend a tough set of negotiating guidelines, including the declaration that the EU would not discuss trade matters or security cooperation until the issues of Britain’s divorce bill, citizens’ rights and the border on the island of Ireland were settled.

At the Brussels summit on Saturday, both the president of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, indicated some concern that this message had yet to be understood in London.

Over dinner, Juncker is said to have pulled out a copy of the EU-Canada trade deal, a document of 2,000 pages that took nearly a decade to negotiate, and suggested Theresa May study its complexity.

It has been claimed that at a meeting between Juncker and the prime minister on Wednesday in Downing Street, May asked for a full outline of a future trade deal before agreement on an estimated €60bn withdrawal bill was arrived at. One EU diplomat was quoted by the Sunday Times as claiming: “This was a rather incredible demand. It seemed as if it came from a parallel reality.”

On Sunday, May was tackled about reported comments from Juncker that she was living in another galaxy when it came to her demands for trade talks before the exit bill was settled.

The prime minister denied this was the case. “I’m not in a different galaxy but what this shows is that there are going to be times when these negotiations are going to be tough; we need strong and stable leadership.”

She insisted she was still confident the UK could get a trade deal, saying: “I want to ensure that we agree on a trade deal and our withdrawal arrangements so we know what both of those are.”

King told the Weastar Times that in order for security cooperation to be maintained, the EU institutions would need to break new ground and there may be tough political compromises to make on either side, including over the role of the ECJ.

In the latest example of the work of Europol, the UK joined 16 other member states earlier this year in uncovering the identity of child victims of sexual abuse posted on the internet.

“The UK has exported 8,000 people under the European arrest warrant and imported a thousand, it is an active user, but there you are talking about an element of the acquis [EU law] and legal and criminal proceedings, so you have to have some level of arbitration,” King said. “The existing level of arbitration is the European court of justice, so that is an issue that will have to be worked through in the negotiations.”

He added that it may be possible for a new independent arbitration body to be established to avoid the ECJ being directly involved, but that it would be rulings made by the court in Luxembourg that would be at issue when the new body came to adjudicate. “By definition the jurisprudence relating to the European arrest warrant is ECJ jurisprudence,” he said.

Along with leaving the single market and ending the free movement of people, Theresa May has set taking back control of British law and ending the jurisdiction of the ECJ as a test of whether the UK has left the bloc.

A softening of Downing Street’s position on the ECJ would be likely to be fiercely resisted by some senior Tory MPs, who accuse the the court in Luxembourg of eroding British sovereignty.

Asked whether he agreed with the prime minister that no deal with the EU would be better than a bad deal, King said: “You are not going to get me to comment on aspects of the UK government’s position. From the commission’s point of view on terrorism, cyber and serious organised crime, we have a shared assessment of the threat and we are stronger countering them if we are working together.”

King, a former ambassador to France who was nominated last year by David Cameron for his post in Brussels following the referendum, said the European commission believed continued cooperation on security was in everyone’s interests, and the European council’s negotiating guidelines outlining the EU’s negotiating position indicated a willingness to come to a deal.

He added that the UK’s decision last year to opt back in to Europol, which from Monday is more firmly under the control of the commission and has greater flexibility in sharing criminals’ data, suggested the UK felt the same.

Up to 40% of traffic through Europol comes from the UK or concerns issues involving the UK. Between 2015 and 2016 the number of enquiries the UK made of the Schengen information system, which holds an 8,000-name watchlist of suspected terror suspects and is used to monitor those coming in and out of the EU, increased by 100%.

But King said: “At the moment there are no precedents for non-EU member states having a link to the Schengen information system. So if the UK wanted that, it would have to be something to be discussed, it would have to be a particular bespoke arrangement.

“There is no precedent for such a thing. You get into the wider issue of data protection rules and data adequacy. An overall arrangement on data adequacy, ie the EU recognising that it accepted the level of data protection in the UK.”

King, who will be the last commissioner from Britain in Brussels, added of membership of Europol: “Just because you want something doesn’t mean it is easy.

“Full membership as such, at the moment, is available to EU member states. So it would have to be, if the UK wanted it, subject to discussion and agreement with the member states, something new and different, the terms of which and how that operates would have to be agreed.

“The issue that at some point will need to be confronted is two years down the track, if you don’t have something sorted out for the day that there is a change, then you have a problem and a potential gap.”

Denmark opted not to be a member of Europol, and has come to an arrangement under which it is able to ask for data, rather than have direct access. “They have to present effectively a request to Europol to say: ‘We would like to be working with you on this, that or the other,’” King said. “It is obviously short of the situation that member states are in and the UK is in, having opted in to the new regulation.” The Danish position was “workable”, he added, but it “does make it a bit more cumbersome to organise your security”.

Police hunt car that struck and killed four-year-old boy in Leeds

Staff reporter(wp):

Tributes have been left to a four-year-old boy who died after being hit by a car outside a medical centre in Leeds.

Flowers and a teddy were tied to traffic lights on a crossing outside the Reginald Centre on Chapeltown Road.

West Yorkshire police said officers were called to the scene of the collision at about 4.50pm on Saturday.

A spokesman said: “Emergency services, including ambulance, were at the scene in three minutes and found a four-year-old child with serious injuries.

“The young boy was taken to Leeds General Infirmary and was sadly pronounced deceased.” The child’s parents are being supported by specialist officers.

Police said a Vauxhall Corsa was travelling away from the city centre on Chapeltown Road northbound when it hit the child.

Officers are appealing for information from anyone who may have witnessed the collision or seen the vehicle beforehand. There have been no arrests.

Markings made on the road by collision investigators appear to show that the incident happened on or close to the pelican crossing outside the Reginald Centre, a community hub housing a medical centre as well as council services.

Chapeltown Road is a busy road into the city and the area is usually bustling with people, with a number of shops and cafes close by.

There was no sign of emergency services activity on Sunday morning and traffic was running on the road as normal.

Man, 26, knifed to death during row in front of horrified crowds

Crime reporter(wp/es):

A young man became the sixth person to be stabbed to death on London’s streets in just six days after he was attacked during a row in front of a crowd of horrified witnesses.

The 26-year-old victim was knifed repeatedly when he became involved in an argument with another person in a street packed with onlookers in Peckham Rye on Friday afternoon, police said.

Paramedics fought to save him but he was pronounced dead at the scene in Rye Lane shortly before 4pm.

Shop workers and business owners were heard screaming and crying as they ran out into the street to try to save the man after the attack before emergency services arrived.

Video footage and pictures posted on social media showed a swarm of police cars and sirens blaring as people looked on in the aftermath in broad daylight.

Scotland Yard said on Saturday that officers were still trying to piece together the events that led to the victim’s death. 

Detective Chief Inspector Dave Whellams of the Homicide and Major Crime Command, who is leading the investigation, said: “At this early stage we believe he was involved in an altercation with another person prior to being stabbed. 

“The incident drew a large crowd of onlookers who were on the street and in shops nearby at the time the incident happened.”

He appealed to anyone with mobile phone footage of the incident to contact the police urgently. 

Emergency services raced to the scene of the stabbing near to the junction with Blenheim Grove after 999 calls from members of the public at about 3.15pm.

The victim was pronounced dead in the street about 35 minutes later despite the efforts of paramedics.

A witness, an unnamed shopkeeper, told Southwark News that two men were arguing for about 15 minutes and were being held back by others.

He told the newspaper that as the argument escalated, one of the men broke free and stabbed the other.

A resident named Laura, who declined to give her second name, told the Weastar Times she was in the kitchen at the back of her flat when she heard a bang “and women from the salons screaming”.

She said: “My flat looks out on Blenheim Grove, the man fell across the road from me.

"I heard a bang which I think was the man falling into one of the metal shutters.

"I could just see lots of women in the road screaming. There are six salons in the road all next to each other. 

"It was more the screaming which drew me to the window. They were all in the road screaming and crying. 

"I couldn't see the man, he was surrounded by women."

She added: "It's sad a young man lost his life today."

Passer-by Chad O’Carroll said: “Looked pretty serious.

“They were holding back a tall man who was yelling at the police and looked like he was in a state of shock.”

Commuters pouring out of Peckham Rye station were met with a massive police cordon as officers and police cars blocked the road at the corner with Blenheim Grove.

A swathe of road was taped off by police as officers directed people around the crime scene.

The victim’s next of kin have been informed and a post-mortem examination is scheduled to take place on Saturday afternoon.

Formal identification is yet to take place.

There have been no arrests and enquiries continue.

English secondary schools 'facing perfect storm of pressures'

Educational reporter(wp):

Secondary schools in England are facing a “perfect storm” of pressures that could have severe consequences for children, headteachers have said.

Budget cuts, changes to exams, problems recruiting teachers and Brexit are causing major upheaval, according to the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT).

The union is also expected to argue against government proposals to expand grammar schools at its annual conference this weekend.

Speaking ahead of the Telford meeting, the NAHT general secretary, Russell Hobby, said: “The combination of challenges facing secondary schools and their students has never been greater.

“Many school leaders are concerned about maintaining high standards in the face of simultaneous upheaval on so many fronts. It’s a perfect storm. The government is loading more uncertainty onto the secondary system than ever before. There is a real risk it will break.”

Hobby repeated warnings that schools are facing “unacceptable levels of financial pressure”, with an NAHT survey showing that 72% of headteachers believe that school budgets will be unsustainable in two years’ time.

"This is a result of the government’s choice to freeze spending and keep it at 2010 levels for each pupil. The 2010 cash isn’t going as far as it used to. You can’t expect it to. But the government is flatly refusing to admit the reality.”

Ministers have argued that school funding is at record levels, and that this will increase further as pupil numbers rise. The outgoing NAHT president, Kim Johnson, attacked suggestions that schools need to make efficiency savings.

“It’s quite insulting to have ministers say to you: ‘You need to renegotiate your photocopying contract, perhaps think about the paper you’re getting in, club together with six other schools and you’ll get it cheaper.’”

are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit and retain staff, the NAHT said, particularly in key subjects such as maths, science and languages.

“Year after year, the government has missed its own targets for teacher recruitment,” Hobby said. “Thirty per cent of new teachers leave the profession after five years.

“NAHT’s own research shows school leaders have struggled or failed to recruit in eight out of 10 cases this year. Recruitment has never been more challenging.”

Schools are also dealing with exam changes this summer, including a new GCSE grading system. There are also concerns about a government expectation that 90% of pupils will study English Baccalaureate subjects – English, maths, science, history or geography and a language - narrowing the curriculum, the NAHT said, and uncertainty about how Brexit will affect the thousands of EU nationals who work in schools.

The NAHT’s motion on selective schools says the union should “campaign vigorously to reject the proposed expansion of selection” in the absence of “any compelling evidence that it promotes social mobility”.

Theresa May has said the policy will help to create a place at a good school for every child and argued that many children’s school choices are determined by where they live or their parents’ wealth.

Acclaimed breast surgeon with 'God complex' harmed patients with unnecessary operations

Pic:Ian Paterson has been convicted of 17 counts of wounding with intent and three counts of unlawful wounding

Health reporter(wp/es):

A breast surgeon who carried out numerous "completely unnecessary" operations on female patients – possibly for financial gain – has been convicted of 17 counts of wounding with intent.

Acclaimed surgeon Ian Paterson, who was also convicted of three counts of unlawful wounding, sobbed as he was found guilty.

He was described as having a “God complex” and the court heard how he lied to patients and exaggerated - or invented - the risk of cancer to convince them to go under the knife.

The 59-year-old did so for "obscure motives" which may have included a desire to "earn extra money", his trial at Nottingham Crown Court heard.

The Scottish-born surgeon had maintained that all the operations were necessary – but the jury agreed with the prosecution that Paterson carried out "extensive, life-changing operations for no medically justifiable reason".

And figures revealed the NHS has paid out nearly £18 million, of which £9.5 million was damages, following claims from nearly 800 patients of Paterson.

Paterson's seven-week trial heard harrowing testimony from 10 patients treated between 1997 and 2011, with one victim telling jurors: "That person has ruined my life."

The victims told the court they believed they were seriously ill after seeing Paterson, with one patient saying she was described as a "cancer ticking bomb" and another convinced she had cancer - rather than merely being at risk of developing it.

Others who suffered at his hands included Leanne Joseph, who is said to have agreed to two "unnecessary operations", leaving her unable to breastfeed, after he told her it was a "small price to pay for her life".

The mother - aged 25 when she had the operations in 2006 - was left paranoid and developed OCD after later giving birth, fearing for the immune system of her daughter who is now eight years old.

Another victim, Joanne Lowson, was left with a "significant deformity in her visible cleavage area" after a pair of unneeded operations on her left breast by Paterson in 2010. 

Detective Sergeant Dale Robertson said: "They (the victims) have been traumatised, they have been subjected to a very uncomfortable experience.” 

He said that Paterson's motives "remained obscure", adding: "We have considered elements, obviously financial being one.

“We can speculate with regards to hubris, over-confidence in his own status as a top breast surgeon, excessive pride in his work, playing God with people's lives, enjoying being able to tell someone he has saved their life.”

Judge Jeremy Baker released Paterson on conditional bail ahead of sentencing in May. The maximum sentence for wounding with intent is life.

Man left fighting for life after being stabbed with screwdriver in ‘vicious and shocking’ attack

Crime reporter(wp/es):

A man was left fighting for life after he was stabbed during a “vicious” mugging in front of horrified parents and children in a busy park.

The 31-year-old victim was attacked with what is believed to be a screwdriver in Dulwich Park, south London, just after 1pm on Thursday.

The Italian national, who lives in south east London, had been sitting on a patch of grass with a fellow dog walker when the man on the bicycle demanded his phone then stabbed him.

The friend who was with him, who had her handbag stolen by the thief, told the Weastar Times: “It was a vicious and shocking attack… now my friend is in intensive care and we are praying he will be ok.”

“Me and my friend were just sitting on the lawn with our dogs who were playing by us,” she said. “I noticed a guy on his bike crossing the grass.

“He returned within a few seconds, got off his bike and raised a sharp objected and said to my friend ‘give me your phone’.

“My friend just said ‘what?’ then he stabbed him in the head. There was no time for him to even get out his phone and give it to him.

“The guy shouted at me ‘you don’t move’ and I raised my handbag towards him as if to say ‘just take my bag’.

“Then the guy stabbed my friend again, this time in the left side, took my bag and rode off.”

The freelance writer described how she used her scarf to stem blood coming from her friend’s head, before other members of the public came over and helped him before emergency services arrived.

An air ambulance landed near a packed children’s playground less than 100 yards away and the man was rushed to King’s College Hospital in Denmark Hill where he remained in a critical condition today.

Parents said top private schools in the area including Alleyn’s and Dulwich College sent a message warning them not to allow their children to go to the park because of the incident.

The man was seen cycling out of the park at Court Lane. Police believe he attempted to use the woman’s contactless payment card in a nearby shop.

Gerry Fletcher, who was in the park with a friend, said: “It’s just horrific. It’s such a lovely, peaceful park and the playground would have packed with children. We just hope the man is going to be ok.”

A parks worker told the Standard: “We were told by police to look out for any screwdrivers that might be in bins. Police are checking all the bins this morning. It’s a shocking thing to have happened.”

The victim appealed for any witnesses to anyone who knows anything to come forward.

“It was over a phone, my bag, which had just £50 inside" she said. “And now my friend is fighting for his life."

There have been no arrests. The stabbing is being investigated by Southwark Police.

A Met Police spokesman said: “The man was taken to a south London hospital where his condition is described as critical. His next of kin have been informed.

“It is believed the stabbing may have followed the robbery of a woman by a third party a short distance away.”

Facebook and Google were conned out of $100m in phishing scheme

Pic:google&facebook
ICT reporter(wp):

Google and Facebook were phished for over $100m, it has been reported, proving not even the biggest technology companies in the world are immune from the increasingly sophisticated attacks of online scammers.

Last month it was reported that two major tech companies were tricked by a Lithuanian man into sending him over $100m (£77m). Evaldas Rimasauskas, 48, was charged with wire fraud, money laundering and aggravated identity theft for impersonating Quanta Computer – a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer that includes Google, Facebook and Apple as clients.

Now an investigation by Fortune has shown that the two firms Rimasauskas reportedly sent fraudulent invoices to were Facebook and Google, who both paid out over $100m.

Facebook said in a statement: “We recovered the bulk of the funds shortly after the incident and has been cooperating with law enforcement in its investigation.” Likewise Google said it had “detected this fraud against our vendor management team and promptly alerted the authorities. We recouped the funds and we’re pleased this matter is resolved.”

The case shows just how big an issue phishing and online fraud has become, with phishing attacks conning people and companies all over the world out of significant sums of money.

Where the age old Nigerian Prince scams still operate with bogus claims of money, techniques used by the thieves have become increasingly sophisticated. The National Audit Office warned in December that the UK was ill prepared for online fraud and that it cost UK consumers at least £14.8bn last year, of which £4.2bn is thought to be hidden and unreported losses from crime such as mass marketing fraud and counterfeit goods.

In January, accountants KPMG recorded the value of fraud committed in the UK last year reported to the court system to have exceeded £1.1bn – a 55% year-on-year rise highlighting a dramatic rise in cybercrime.

From costly conveyancing scams to fake IT support, it’s more important than ever to double-check anything asking for personal details or money. But when not even Facebook and Google, who make technology that is meant to help protect against online scammers, get tricked, it paints a grim picture for your average user.

UK GDP growth slower than expected as inflation bites

Business reporter(wp):

The UK economy suffered a sharp slowdown in the opening months of this year, as the post-referendum rise in living costs took its toll on British households and hit consumer spending.

GDP growth fell more than expected to 0.3% in the first quarter from 0.7% in the previous quarter, the Office for National Statistics said.

The official figures add to signs that the UK economy’s resilience in the wake of the Brexit vote is now waning and will come as a blow to Theresa May’s government as it banks on a solid victory in the snap election on 8 June. 

Many economists expect the slowdown to continue as higher inflation dents consumer spending, a key driver for the UK economy. But the deterioration is still far off the Brexit-related slump some commentators had predicted.

“The first quarter’s slowdown was led by consumers, whose incomes are under pressure from slowing employment and wage growth as well as rising inflation,” said Samuel Tombs, the chief UK economist at the consultancy Pantheon Macroeconomics.

“One quarter of slow growth is not definitive proof that the economy is on the ropes. But the pressure on consumers’ incomes looks set to build this year as retailers pass on higher import prices.”

The figures suggested consumer-facing sectors such as shops and hotels have been hurt in recent months by the squeeze on Britons’ spending power from the pound’s plunge since the Brexit vote. Sterling’s weakness makes imports to the UK such as food and fuel more expensive. That factor combined with higher crude oil prices has lifted inflation to its highest level for more than three years.

Economists had predicted a more modest slowdown to 0.4% growth, according to a Reuters poll.

The 0.3% growth rate was the slowest for a year. There was also a sharp slowdown in GDP per head, which adjusts for the size of the population and is generally seen as a better guide to prosperity than mere GDP. It edged up just 0.1% in the first quarter after rising 0.5% in the previous quarter.

Statisticians said the biggest drag on growth was the retail sector, echoing other signs shoppers are cutting back. Growth in the services sector, which makes up more than three quarters of the UK economy, slowed markedly to a two-year low of 0.3% from 0.8% in the final quarter of 2016.

A leading thinktank underscored the pressures on household budgets as it noted the weakness in wage growth started long before the Brexit vote. After adjusting for inflation, employees’ average earnings were still substantially below pre-recession levels, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said in a new analysis. On current forecasts, earnings would still not have fully recovered by the end of the next parliament.

“A period of this length over which earnings have fallen is unprecedented in modern times. They had started to recover a little between 2014 and 2016, but rising inflation linked to the fall in the value of the pound since the EU referendum has put a stop to that modest recovery,” said IFS senior research economist Jonathan Cribb.

The ONS figures showed industrial production and construction output also slowed in the first quarter. But economists noted that their fortunes could yet improve over coming months. There have been signs that the weak pound has already helped exporters by making their goods and services more competitive overseas.

“The long-awaited slowdown is finally coming but I’d be wary of over-interpreting today’s numbers,” said Ian Stewart, the chief economist at Deloitte.

“Quarterly GDP growth is choppy and prone to revision. Inflation will continue to squeeze the consumer but the outlook for manufacturing and exports has brightened. Growth is slowing, but this looks like a cooling, not collapse, in UK activity.”

Alan Clarke, an economist at Scotiabank, was also cautiously optimistic about the UK’s longer-term prospects.

“The fears leading up to Brexit were that growth would stall due to a dive in confidence, hiring and investment. That hasn’t happened. What did happen is the pound dived, pushing inflation sharply higher and that is causing consumer spending and hence overall growth to slow,” he said.

“The good news is that the surge in inflation is probably temporary and the squeeze on growth should pass. However, it is probably going to take another year before growth is back on an upwards trajectory.”

Economists at Barclays said GDP growth had come in weaker than the Bank of England had expected and strengthened the case for keeping interest rates at their record low of 0.25% this year and next.

NHS needs £25bn in emergency cash, Theresa May told

Staff reporter(wp):

NHS leaders are urging Theresa May to give the health service an emergency cash injection of £25bn before 2020 or risk a decline in the quality of care for patients and lengthening delays for treatment.

An influential group representing NHS trusts says that the care provided by hospitals and GP surgeries will suffer over the next few years unless the prime minister provides an £5bn a year for the next three years – and a further £10bn of capital for modernising equipment and buildings.

NHS Providers is preparing to release its own manifesto next week, calling on the Conservatives and Labour to end what it calls the austerity funding of the health service. Saffron Cordery, the director of policy and strategy , said its analysis showed that there was a “revenue gap” of £4.5bn-£5bn a year in 2017-18 and “each of the subsequent two years as well”.

Hospitals needed that sum, said Cordery, to get rid of their deficits of £800m-£900m a year, fulfil new NHS commitments on cancer and mental health and improve their performance against key waiting time targets.

The NHS also needed a further £10bn for capital spending on building and repairing premises, buying new equipment and modernising how care is provided, she added. That is the sum which a recent report commissioned by the Department of Health said the service needed for those purposes.

May inherited a pledge from David Cameron and George Osborne to provide a £10bn real-terms increase between April 2014 and April 2021. So far in the election campaign, the prime minister has refused to be drawn on how she might fund the health service, telling journalists that they would have to wait for the publication of the party’s manifesto.

A second group, the NHS Confederation, which represents hospitals and ambulance and mental health services, urged May to commit to giving the NHS £8bn-a-year annual budget increases after 2020-21, when the current funding settlement expires. The DH’s budget is due to reach £133.1bn by March 2021.

Niall Dickson, its chief executive, said NHS services were so stretched that it would have to go back to getting at least the 4%-a-year budget increases it enjoyed historically between its creation in 1948 and 2010. After that, the coalition government limited rises to 1% annually.

“It’s quite unsustainable for the shackles to remain on the health and care system and for society to expect the levels of need that will arrive over the next 10-15 years to be met unless it is willing to fund them,” Dickson said. “If we aren’t ready to put significant extra resources into the NHS then difficult choices will need to be made about things that we are going to do.”

Prof John Appleby, the chief economist of the Nuffield Trust thinktank, said that returning to 4% a year rises “would require a cash increase of around £8bn in 2021-22”.

While Tory backing for such large sums was unlikely, “this could change if the NHS continues to miss its headline performance targets and the concern the public are starting to express about the NHS continues to rise”, he added.

The two interventions put pressure on May on an issue that some polls show is top of voters’ list of priorities in the general election, even ahead of Brexit.

Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, has said several times that the NHS budget will need to rise by a significant amount after the current funding schedule ends in March 2021. For example, last October he told the Commons health select committee: “It is a given that over coming decades we will need to put more into the health and social care system … if we want a high quality healthcare service, yes, we need to continue investing more.”

Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, has voiced concern that per capita health funding will decline in 2018-19 and 2019-20. It is due to fall from its current level of £2,223 a head this year by £16 next year and £7 in 2019.

Anita Charlesworth, the director of research at the Health Foundation thinktank, said the NHS could no longer make ends meet by holding down pay and reducing investment in equipment and facilities. “Cracks are evident – access to new drugs is being restricted, waiting times have increased and recruitment and retention are growing problems across the NHS. The health service can always be more efficient but it cannot bridge the gap between pressures rising at 4% and funding at 1% for much longer without quality and access suffering,” she said.

A Conservative spokesman said: “A strong NHS needs a strong economy. Only Theresa May and the Conservatives offer the strong and stable leadership we need to secure our growing economy in future and with it funding for the NHS and its dedicated staff.

“We’ve protected and increased the NHS budget and got thousands more staff in hospitals – but we know that progress is on the ballot paper at this election.”