unpaid work from five o clock today unless ordered to do so, amid a pay dispute. xijinping defends china s model of ruling hong kong during a visit to mark 25 years since britain handed over control but the territory s final governor, chris patten, labels the comments absurd . cheering in sport, britain s heather watson is through to the last 16 of wimbledon after beating kaja juvan in straight sets. and coming up on the film review later, if you want some comedy the minions are back. find out why marco made loves them so much. that s coming up at 5:45pm mark kermode. good afternoon and welcome to bbc news. downing street has insisted that boris johnson was not aware of specific allegations against chris pincher before he appointed him as the conservative party s deputy chief whip. the prime minister is also facing calls to suspend the mp who s alleged to have groped two men. chris pincher resigned as deputy chief whip after admitting he had drunk far too much a
we start with the soaring cost of living because there s a warning home energy bills here in the uk could rise even higher than previously feared this winter. wholesale gas prices have jumped back to near record highs after a further squeeze on europe s gas supplies by russia. our global trade correspondent dharshini david has the details. this is being claimed as the first truly global energy crisis, the result of moscow weaponising fossil fuels in europe has been the key target. this is the wholesale price paid for gas there. 4a8% higher than a year ago because traditionally it got to 40% of its gas from russia. that latest rise reflects a focus on this, this is nord stream one, the pipeline carrying bird of europe s russian gas supply all the way to germany, that flow has now dropped to just a fifth of normal levels, russia blames that on the impact of sanctions on vital equipment, opponents say it s an attempt to blackmail by turning down those taps. those concerns have a
rain. this is what happened through the small hours, these thunderstorms developed to the south, pushed northwards. we ve seen around 5000 lightning strikes so far today and a lot of rain as you can see from the radar picture. in some places but not in all places. however, where it has been wet, take this figure, bury saint edmonds, above 70 millimetres of rain so far, that is more than that place would normally expect in the whole month of august, so it has been an exceptionally wet day so far but this rain is now starting to clear eastwards, taking a while to do so i have to say but generally improving through the midlands and eastern england this afternoon. sunny spells elsewhere although cloud bringing showers for northern ireland and western scotland and asked that rain clears through a fresh feel than we have had of late and certainly cooler and fresher overnight. with all the moisture on the ground, could see some fog patches developing across parts of the midlands and