The number of hotels amongst businesses named by the government as paying employees less than the national minimum or living wage rate has risen from 4 out of 197 in August last year to 14 out of 359 this February.

This equates to nearly double the percentage caught, with the amount underpaid by the hotels rising from £10,533 last August to £87,334 this February. In August last year the hotels named, with the underpayment and the number of workers involved were: Continue reading →

A former receptionist at Premier Inn, Cardiff has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 23 years for the murder of a former girlfriend and her current boyfriend.

Andrew Saunders, 21, stabbed to death Zoe Morgan, 21, and Lee Simmonds, 33 , last September in a premeditated killing that featured Saunders researching sick internet sites and threatening the couple.

The Attorney General’s Office is currently considering whether the sentence was unduly lenient.

Relatives of the 38 British tourists killed in the June 2015 terrorist massacre in Sousse Tunisia have claimed that Tui, the parent company of travel agent Thompson instructed its sales staff to play down the risk of terrorist attacks in the country, despite warnings from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).

A coroner has obtained an internal Tui document that was published two days after the Bardo museum massacre in March 2015, when 22 European tourists were shot, which instructed Tui staff to tell customers “Tunisia remains a popular destination for us and customers are enjoying their holidays as normal”.

Three months after Tui’s reassuring words 38 more tourists were shot in Tunisia.

Following our piece in last month’s issue about Liverpool streets, such as Penny Lane, named after slave traders, a row has broken out over a building in another UK seafaring city famous for its slave traders.

Colston Hall, a music and event venue in Bristol was named after Edward Colston, deputy governor of the Royal African Company which got very rich indeed from 1672 to 1698 transporting around 100,000 captured Africans to plantations in America and the West Indies, with thousands dying and being dumped in the sea. Colston, who also has half a dozen streets, pubs, three schools and student flats named after him, as well as a stained glass window dedicated to him in Bristol Cathedral latterly made lots of friends in Bristol with generous philanthropy. His bronze statue in the city centre has a plaque describing the slaver as “virtuous” and “wise”. Continue reading →

Those who admire our pillar of political integrity and judgement, Speaker John Bercow, might well spot him at his favourite curry house, Madhu’s at the Sheraton Skyline hotel, Heathrow Airport.

Bercow opened Madhu’s in 2014, and four weeks later accepted a £5,000 donation from them to his 2015 re-election fund.

Now some unkind Westminster types are saying that the arrangement is a bit smelly, and not specifically in the vindaloo sense.

As if…