Daily Archives: 2 November 2025

More than 50 child asylum seekers still missing after disappearing from Kent care

Spread the love

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/nov/01/more-than-50-child-asylum-seekers-still-missing-after-disappearing-from-kent-care

Border Force officers assisting a child. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

Council data obtained by the Guardian shows 345 children have gone missing in recent years, many probably taken by traffickers

More than 50 lone child asylum seekers who disappeared soon after arriving in the UK and while in the care of the authorities are still missing, according to data obtained by the Guardian.

Many of the missing children arrived in small boats or hidden in the backs of lorries and are thought to have been taken by traffickers. Kent is often the place where they arrive.

Freedom of information data from Kent county council (KCC), which is controlled by Reform UK, has documented 345 children going missing from their area, with 56 of those still missing.

Between 2021 and 2023, when the Home Office operated two hotels for children in Kent, along with hotels in other areas, 132 children went missing from those two hotels. Of these, 108 were later found but 24 are still missing. Between 2020 and August 2025, 213 children went missing from the council’s reception centres for this group of children, with 182 found and 32 still missing.

…

Esme Madill, of the Migrant and Refugee Children’s Legal Unit at Islington Law Centre, said: “These figures are shocking. Behind each number is a frightened child who will already have experienced egregious human rights abuses before arriving in the UK seeking safety. When we represent children who have escaped after being trafficked whilst ‘missing’ in the UK, we see how their mental and physical health is permanently harmed by the abuse they experience during this time.

“For one child to go missing represents an abject failure of the state to protect the most fragile and abused in their care. These numbers are in the hundreds.”

…

Original article at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/nov/01/more-than-50-child-asylum-seekers-still-missing-after-disappearing-from-kent-care

Continue ReadingMore than 50 child asylum seekers still missing after disappearing from Kent care

Delivery firm DPD accused of ‘revenge’ sacking drivers who criticised pay cuts

Spread the love

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/nov/01/delivery-firm-dpd-accused-of-revenge-sacking-drivers-who-criticised-pay-cuts

DPD reported pre-tax profits of nearly £200m last year. Photograph: Alamy

Exclusive: Labour peer calls for change in the law after company terminates contracts of strike ‘ringleaders’

The delivery firm DPD has been accused of “revenge” sackings after workers spoke out against a plan to cut thousands of pounds from their earnings, including their Christmas bonus.

The company, which reported pre-tax profits of nearly £200m last year and plays a significant role in the festive rush to have gifts and parcels delivered, has even threatened to withhold money from some staff to pay for the cost of replacing them, the Guardian has learned.

DPD confirmed it had dismissed workers after an estimated 1,500 self-employed drivers chose not to take on any work for a three-day period in protest at the plans.

It emerged earlier this month that the company had told workers it planned to cut 65p from the rate it pays for most of its deliveries on 29 September.

Drivers said the cut, which came to as much as £25 a day, and the loss of a £500 Christmas bonus, was likely to add up to more than £6,000 a year for each worker – and as much as £8,000 for those who take on a lot more deliveries over Christmas.

Many drivers indicated they were choosing not to work for the company for three days. After a meeting with workers’ representatives, the firm agreed to defer the rate-cut until after Christmas, but insisted it would still be implemented. Within weeks of the meeting, drivers have said, management have started to move against people they deemed “ringleaders”.

…

Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/nov/01/delivery-firm-dpd-accused-of-revenge-sacking-drivers-who-criticised-pay-cuts

Continue ReadingDelivery firm DPD accused of ‘revenge’ sacking drivers who criticised pay cuts

Reform UK Just Won Britain’s Least-Prestigious Award – For ‘Promoting Pseudoscience’

Spread the love

https://bylinetimes.com/2025/10/29/reform-uk-just-won-britains-least-prestigious-award-for-promoting-pseudoscience/

Nigel Farage’s party was recognised for “widespread embrace of climate change denialism and antivaccine misinformation”

Skeptic magazine editor Michael Marshall presents the Rusty Razor Award to an absent Reform party. Photo: Dave Hughes. / The Skeptic

Reform UK has received an award for being the organisation that engaged in the “most prolific promotion of pseudoscience” during 2025.  

Each year the UK’s long-running publication for analysis of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory and claims of the paranormal, The Skeptic magazine, names their pseudoscientist of the year, and awards them the Rusty Razor prize.

The Rusty Razor this year went to Reform UK in recognition of “their widespread embrace of climate change denialism and antivaccine misinformation.” 

The award was announced in front of an audience of around 700 people at the QED science and skepticism conference in Manchester on Saturday night. 

In the Rusty Razor Award category, Nigel Farage’s party was recognised for ‘promoting pseudoscientific claims’.

…

Michael Marshall, Editor of The Sceptic, said: “Whilst the political positions Reform UK put forward are outside of the scope and remit of The Skeptic and our awards, their positions on science are not. 

“On current polling, Reform UK is the party with the most support in the country, yet they have shown that they have no problem with spreading pseudoscientific misinformation that aligns with the interests of their donors, no interest in vetting their members and candidates for holding dangerously misguided views about science and health, and no issue with fostering and indulging all manner of conspiracy theories if they think there’s a vote in it.”

Marshall branded Reform “a threat to science and reason, and deserving of being singled out as winners of our 2025 Rusty Razor award.”

…

https://bylinetimes.com/2025/10/29/reform-uk-just-won-britains-least-prestigious-award-for-promoting-pseudoscience/

Nigel Farage reminds you that he's the man that brought you Brexit and asks what could possibly go wrong.
Nigel Farage reminds you that he’s the man that brought you Brexit and asks what could possibly go wrong.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.
Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.
Continue ReadingReform UK Just Won Britain’s Least-Prestigious Award – For ‘Promoting Pseudoscience’