So much for the summer getaway! M4 misery for thousands of drivers stuck in TWO-HOUR queues in stifling 83F heat after lorry fire forces closure of major motorway in both directions Holidaymakers hoping for a prompt getaway ahead of weekend met with misery Both eastbound and westbound M4 carriageways between J14 and J15 closed Travellers … Read more
New Government plans to crack down on harmful content online risk stifling the free press, ‘silencing marginalised voices’ and introducing ‘state-backed censorship on a scale never seen in a liberal democracy’, campaigners have warned. The proposed Online Safety Bill is intended to make tech giants accountable for ‘harmful’ content on their platforms. But instead of … Read more
High street banks are ‘stifling’ start-up firms at birth by rejecting applications for business bank accounts because they are too busy processing Bounce Back loans for existing companies. Most banks are not accepting new applications for business accounts or warning of long delays, in a development a business group warned could strangle Britain’s economic recovery. … Read more
MEMOIR MOTHERWELL: A GIRLHOOD by Deborah Orr (Weidenfeld £16.99, 304 pp) Deborah Orr, a leading Fleet Street columnist who died of breast cancer last October aged 57, has left behind this memoir of growing up in Lanarkshire that is searing, candid, magnificently perceptive and lingeringly tragic — tragic because the story is full of conflict, … Read more