No 10 says Russian president ‘has killed thousands of people, both innocent Ukrainians and his own people’

Downing Street has rejected the description of Vladimir Putin as a “humanitarian” made by Donald Trump’s chief negotiator on the Ukraine war.

Steve Witkoff met the Russian president in St Petersburg on Wednesday as he sought to make a new push to end the invasion of Ukraine, with the US putting pressure on Kyiv to agree to a settlement.

Some 32 government services are offline while work is carried out to address potential cybersecurity issues, a minister has said

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The Office for National Statistics has also published a report on the gender pay gap. It says:

The gender pay gap for full-time employees has continued to decline in the UK. It was 6.8% in April 2026, down from 7.2% in April 2025. This compares with 9.4% a decade ago and 16.4% 25 years ago.

Secondly, I asked Healey whether he sees the banks as making excessive profits, which would be the coherent justification for him to increase the surcharge on bank profits – as he is expected to do in the Budget next week.

He said: “You know the banks are the engine of investment in this country. The banks are doing well at the moment and that is good to see.