The United Kingdom will make new coins this year to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein’’ as well as commemorate a century since women started gaining the right to vote. Designs on special two-pound coins will also honor the end of the First World War and the creation of the Royal Air Force in 1918, the U.K.’s Royal Mint said in a statement.
The UK's aid budget will be shifted to projects that promote its interests, the foreign secretary Boris Johnson said underlining the money will be more sensibly distributed to support foreign policy aims such as denying safe havens to Islamist militants.
Ex prime minister Margaret Thatcher spurned the photo opportunity of sharing a transatlantic, Concorde flight to Washington with a giant panda, newly released files from the National Archives have revealed, according to an article from The Guardian..
Britons will feel “renewed confidence and pride” in 2018, Prime Minister Theresa May has said in her New Year message. The prime minister said that while Brexit will be “crucial” in the coming year, it is “not the limit” of the government's ambitions, and it will focus on schools, the police and NHS to change people's daily lives.
Labour is “staking out the centre ground in British politics”, British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn has said in a New Year message. Mr. Corbyn said the prospect of a “new Britain” was “closer than ever” and he was leading a “government in waiting”.
The United Kingdom government is facing new calls to release confidential studies drawn up by officials looking at the potential impact of Brexit on the economy. Twenty-five Labour MPs have written to Chancellor Philip Hammond calling on him to release the material after he disclosed the work was being carried out during a recent session of the Commons Treasury Committee.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has insisted she is more than Madame Brexit, having been given the title by Poland's prime minister. She said there were other things she wanted to achieve apart from delivering a successful exit from the EU - such as improvements to education and training, and insisted she was in it for the long-term, shrugging off suggestions she had had a bad year.
Damian Green, one of British Prime Minister Theresa May's closest allies, has been sacked from the cabinet after an inquiry found he had breached the ministerial code. He was asked to quit after he was found to have made inaccurate and misleading statements over what he knew about claims pornography was found on his office computer in 2008.
In a personal Christmas message to Falkland Islanders, Prime Minister Theresa May emphasized that she would not allow anyone to compromise Islanders’ right to self determination. Her full message follows:
Britain has no major warships deployed on operations beyond home waters in what has been described as an “unprecedented” absence of the vessels on the world stage. All six of the Royal Navy’s Type 45 destroyers are docked in Portsmouth, while 12 of 13 Type 23 frigates are either at Portsmouth or Devonport.