Stories related to: United Kingdom

It’s official: Pringles are legally no longer considered potato chips in England—and manufacturer Procter & Gamble couldn’t be happier, Reuters reports. In an effort to avoid the UK's tax on chips, P&G went to court to argue the tube-dwelling snacks were actually more like cakes or biscuits. It turns out Pringles aren’t even made of potatoes. More »

On the first anniversary of Gordon Brown's premiership, the Labour Party went down to a humiliating fifth-place finish in a special election near Oxford, reports the Times of London. Although the Tories had been expected to retain the seat vacated by new London mayor Boris Johnson, the ruling party came behind not only the third-party Liberal Democrats, but also the Greens and a whites-only extremist party. More »

Gordon Brown has seen his reputation collapse in his year as UK prime minister: once the colossus of the Labour Party who enjoyed buoyant poll ratings, he is now so diminished that many in his own party want him to resign. To mark the first anniversary of his elevation to prime minister, the Guardian provides an in-depth look at the event that changed everything—Brown's decision to cancel a snap election he probably would have won. More »

The massive Irish economic engine of the '90s brought decades of emigration to a screeching halt and hordes of EU immigrants flooding through open borders to lay claim to plentiful jobs. But as the Celtic Tiger begins to look like a kitty, the Wall Street Journal reports, many of those immigrants are packing their bags and heading home—where the boom times are on the rise. More »

The British government will appeal the release of a terrorism suspect described as Osama bin Laden's "right-hand man in Europe," the Telegraph reports. A judge ruled that Abu Qatada should be released because he has not been convicted of a crime and is not facing deportation. The British government has thus far failed to deport him to his native Jordan. More »

With the personal backing of Rupert Murdoch, the former editor of Britain's biggest-selling tabloid is set to run in a special election triggered by yesterday's surprise resignation of a top Tory. Kelvin MacKenzie, who edited Murdoch's Sun for more than a decade, is preparing to contest the seat vacated by David Davis. Davis quit Parliament in protest after it narrowly passed a law authorizing pretrial detention of 42 days for terrorist suspects. More »

Truck drivers for Shell have begun a four-day strike in Britain that threatens to hike already sky-high gas prices. Although the government has warned motorists not to panic-buy, gas stations were reporting a 30% spike in sales in the hours before the action; union leaders, meanwhile, have threatened that gasoline would run out "almost immediately," reports the Telegraph . More »

Prime Minister Gordon Brown prevailed in a crunch vote last night to extend Britain's period of detention without trial for terror suspects to 6 weeks, the BBC reports. Brown avoided defeat by convincing a small Northern Ireland party to support him after 36 members of his Labour Party joined the opposition to vote against the bill. More »

The British parliament is set for a nail-bitingly close vote on a law that will allow the police to hold terror suspects without charge for 42 days—by far the longest in the free world. As Gordon Brown pushes the law and attempts to prevent his first Commons defeat, John Major writes in the London Times that the law is an indefensible part of a new "siege society." More »

Watching Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson lecture some of Britain’s poorest—and hungriest—on the virtues of healthy eating on the UK show " The Duchess of Hull " may turn stomachs, but it's just the latest offering from a lengthy menu of a la carte snobbery perpetuated by today’s TV food and makeover shows, argues Rob Lyons in his Spiked column. More »

Investigators have found the culprit behind a $10 million nuclear submarine accident: Tracing paper. HMS Trafalgar struck the seabed in 2002 because a piece of tracing paper obscured key details on a nautical chart, the Guardian reports. More »

British police believe a mentally ill man who tried to blow himself up in a restaurant yesterday was taken advantage of by Islamic extremists, the Guardian reports. The recent convert to Islam walked into a busy restaurant in the West Country city of Exeter and exploded a device. The only person hurt was the bomber, who suffered serious facial injuries. The bomb and another found nearby had the capacity to cause serious harm. More »

The crushing defeat for the Labor Party yesterday in an election in a working class district of England could spell disaster for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, reports the Guardian . The opposition Tory candidate beat the ruling party choice in a by-election to fill a death vacancy by a whopping margin in the decaying northern England industrial town of Crewe—the kind of place considered a bedrock of Labor support. More »

A double-decker bus crashed into a tree this morning near Tower Bridge, one of London's most famous landmarks, leaving one woman dead and 19 people injured. The victim was believed to be a pedestrian in her early 20s. Bystanders told the Times of London that the bus windows had been smashed and that the top deck of the bus had "pretty much caved in." More »

The Dalai Lama arrived in Britain today for an 11-day visit, during which he will give lectures and meet with senior religious and political figures. Gordon Brown won acclaim at the height of the Olympic torch protests for agreeing to meet the Tibetan leader. But now, writes AFP, the PM is under fire for an element of protocol: the meeting will not take place at his residence of 10 Downing Street, but in a religious setting. More »

British authorities are targeting men who pay for sex with a hard-hitting ad campaign comparing some instances to rape, Reuters reports. Because thousands of women trafficked into the country each year are forced into prostitution, there's nothing consensual about the sex they sell, the ads suggest. "Walk in a punter, walk out a rapist," say the ads to be posted in men's rooms. More »

Pete Doherty, the perpetually troubled rock star and ex-boyfriend of Kate Moss, was released early from prison today. The frontman of the band Babyshambles had been imprisoned for violating his probation after a conviction for possession of crack, heroin and other drugs, reports the Telegraph . Doherty had served about one month of a 98-day sentence. More »

The world's first satellite navigation comedy has British drivers chuckling up and down the country's busiest highway, the Guardian reports. The "satcom," called 230 Miles of Love, features audio comedy sketches set to play when drivers reach certain points along the country's 230-mile-long M6 highway. More »

Self-described "buffoon" Boris Johnson won a hard-fought race last night to become mayor of London, the Guardian reports, dealing British PM Gordon Brown's party a stunning loss in his first election test. Johnson unseated Labour incumbent Ken Livingstone 53% to 47% after a 15-hour count that ended with a conservative taking the nation's first high-profile office in more than a decade. More »

Labor has suffered its worst showing in 40 years in local elections across England and Wales. Just one year after Gordon Brown became prime minister, his party pulled only 24% of the projected national vote, 20 points behind the Tories and behind even the third-party Liberal Democrats. As for the night's most closely watched race—for mayor of London—both parties privately project that Tory challenger Boris Johnson has won. More »