Robyn Vinter
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North of England correspondent @guardian, council estate dweller, injustice complainer, joke attempter. Fellow @risj_oxford 🏳️🌈
Articles by Robyn Vinter
Cocaine-linked crimes on the rise in Britain as consumption surges
British police are recording a growing number of crimes linked to cocaine, including assaults, domestic abuse and dangerous driving, as figures show consumption has surged across England. A Guardian investigation has found police forces across Britain recorded a 10% rise in crime rates associated with the class A drug since 2019, while the Home Office estimates cocaine usage at sites across England has risen by 26% since 2021.
How cocaine conquered the UK: in pubs, festivals and workplaces the drug has become an everyday habit
COCAINE PARTIES copy Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images Lisa* is watching Scissor Sisters at a festival in the Lake District, a can of cider in hand, dancing along to the music on a sunny afternoon. The 30-year-old has a few days off from her job as a veterinary nurse in Gateshead, where she lives with her fiance. She loves going to festivals, especially as “I love meeting new people,” she says. Sign up to read this article Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
How cocaine conquered the UK: in pubs, festivals and workplaces the drug has become an everyday habit
default Lisa* is watching Scissor Sisters at a festival in the Lake District, a can of cider in hand, dancing along to the music on a sunny afternoon. The 30-year-old has a few days off from her job as a veterinary nurse in Gateshead, where she lives with her fiance. She loves going to festivals, especially as “I love meeting new people,” she says. She is confident and makes friends at the festival very easily. The reason for that? “I’m on a bit of coke,” she says.
Cocaine-linked crimes on the rise in Britain as consumption surges
Most cocaine-associated crimes last year were drug offences, but 18% were violent crimes. Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images British police are recording a growing number of crimes linked to cocaine, including assaults, domestic abuse and dangerous driving, as figures show consumption has surged across England.
Overnight, everything was dead: the Teesside fisherman turned activist dubbed the Mr Bates of the seas
It was an otherwise typical day on 25 September 2021 when thousands of dead and dying crustaceans washed up on beaches in Yorkshire and the north-east of England. Early morning walkers and swimmers were aghast to find a sickening carpet of twitching, fitting crabs. It would be the first but not the last die-off, which would see the disappearance of vast swathes of integral native sea life along an extended stretch of coast, including seal pups.
‘Overnight, everything was dead’: the Teeside fisherman turned activist dubbed the Mr Bates of the seas
‘We just knew that there was something wrong’ … fisherman Stan Rennie in his boat in Hartlepool. Photograph: Richard Saker/The Observer It was an otherwise typical day on 25 September 2021 when thousands of dead and dying crustaceans washed up on beaches in Yorkshire and the north-east of England. Early morning walkers and swimmers were aghast to find a sickening carpet of twitching, fitting crabs.
‘Keep away from the doctor’: a visit to an influencer’s wellness event, where the advice could kill
A roar of laughter erupts from a crowd inside a large conference room at the De Vere Cranage Estate hotel. The joke? The idea that visiting the doctor could help treat a serious illness. On stage the controversial Australian proponent of natural remedies Barbara O’Neill is taking part in a question-and-answer session during a five-day wellness conference, where science mixes uncomfortably with Bible verse and potentially deadly pseudo-scientific practices.
‘Keep away from the doctor’: a visit to an influencer’s wellness event, where the advice could kill
A roar of laughter erupts from a crowd inside a large conference room at the De Vere Cranage Estate hotel. The joke? The idea that visiting the doctor could help treat a serious illness. On stage the controversial Australian proponent of natural remedies Barbara O’Neill is taking part in a question-and-answer session during a five-day wellness conference, where science mixes uncomfortably with Bible verse and potentially deadly pseudo-scientific practices.
UK national security adviser under pressure over wife's comment on supporting Palestine Action
The UK's national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, is under pressure to distance himself from a comment made by his wife, the award-winning writer Sarah Helm , in support of Palestine Action. The post was made in defence of the critically acclaimed Irish novelist Sally Rooney, who said she had been forced to pull her books from shelves in the UK after pledging proceeds from their sales to Palestine Action.
UK national security adviser under pressure over wife’s comment on supporting Palestine Action
The UK's national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, is under pressure to distance himself from a comment made by his wife, the award-winning writer Sarah Helm, in support of Palestine Action. The post was made in defence of the critically acclaimed Irish novelist Sally Rooney, who said she had been forced to pull her books from shelves in the UK after pledging proceeds from their sales to Palestine Action.
UK national security adviser under pressure over wife’s comment on supporting Palestine Action
The UK’s national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, is under pressure to distance himself from a comment made by his wife, the award-winning writer Sarah Helm, in support of Palestine Action. The post was made in defence of the critically acclaimed Irish novelist Sally Rooney, who said she had been forced to pull her books from shelves in the UK after pledging proceeds from their sales to Palestine Action.
UK national security adviser under pressure over wife’s comment on supporting Palestine Action
The UK's national security adviser Jonathan Powell is under pressure to distance himself from a comment made by his wife, the award-winning writer Sarah Helm, in support of Palestine Action. The post was made in defence of the critically acclaimed Irish novelist Sally Rooney, who said she had been forced to pull her books from shelves in the UK after pledging proceeds from their sales to Palestine Action.
UK national security adviser under pressure over wife’s comment on supporting Palestine Action
The UK's national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, is under pressure to distance himself from a comment made by his wife, the award-winning writer Sarah Helm, in support of Palestine Action. The post was made in defence of the critically acclaimed Irish novelist Sally Rooney, who said she had been forced to pull her books from shelves in the UK after pledging proceeds from their sales to Palestine Action.
UK national security adviser under pressure over wife’s comment on supporting Palestine Action
The author Sarah Helm is a former Sunday Times journalist and diplomatic editor at the Independent, and spent many years covering the Middle East. Photograph: Martin Argles/The Guardian The UK’s national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, is under pressure to distance himself from a comment made by his wife, the award-winning writer Sarah Helm, in support of Palestine Action.
‘I thought Brassed Off might be popular within a 10 mile radius of Barnsley': the director of Andy Burnham's favourite film on its 30 year anniversary
It is one of the prime minister's all-time favourite films and has endured in the hearts of the British public since it was released in 1996. Ostensibly a story about a small town colliery band's journey to the finals of Britain's biggest brass band competition at the Royal Albert Hall, Brassed Off is unashamedly political. “I think the people who went expecting a political film got the bonus of a bit of a comedy,” says its writer, Mark Herman, three decades on.
the director of Andy Burnham’s favourite film on its 30 year anniversary
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‘I thought Brassed Off might be popular within a 10 mile radius of Barnsley’: the director of Andy Burnham’s favourite film on its 30 year anniversary
It is one of the prime minister’s all-time favourite films and has endured in the hearts of the British public since it was released in 1996. Ostensibly a story about a small town colliery band’s journey to the finals of Britain’s biggest brass band competition at the Royal Albert Hall, Brassed Off is unashamedly political. “I think the people who went expecting a political film got the bonus of a bit of a comedy,” says its writer, Mark Herman, three decades on.
English far-right extremist who discussed killing Jews, Muslims and migrants is jailed
A rightwing extremist who discussed poisoning Jews and Muslims and called for the killing of migrants and minority communities has been jailed. Ivan Jennings, 46, called for the murder of hundreds of people he labelled “subhumans”, saying it was “justified and actually needed”, in extreme far-right groups over a period of three months in 2024.
Switching channels: will the Edinburgh TV festival’s magic survive the move south?
The summer sojourn to Edinburgh has been a highlight of TV executives’ calendars for half a century, allowing them an annual trip to the UK’s most spectacular city during the world’s biggest arts festival. So there was sadness when it was announced that this year’s 50th Edinburgh TV Festival would be the last to be held in the Scottish capital.
Hot ticket: UK’s first sauna theatre draws swimwear-clad audiences
Tucked away behind the Summerhall arts centre is the hottest new venue at the Edinburgh fringe … quite literally. The Sauna theatre has proved popular among theatregoers at the world’s largest performing arts festival, with shows inside its purpose-built, 80-seat sauna drawing sweaty, swimwear-clad crowds. Visitors may be forgiven for thinking the sauna is a gimmick, especially at the fringe where absurd, experimental and ludicrous performances are not uncommon.
¿Fue un crimen en Fuengirola el último asalto de una guerra de bandas que ha golpeado Glasgow durante 25 años?
Era una cálida tarde en Fuengirola, en la Costa del Sol, el año pasado, cuando dos hombres escoceses encontraron un final violento. Los clientes del bar Monaghans, situado frente al mar, apenas habían terminado de ver la final de la Champions, el 31 de mayo, cuando un coche se detuvo frente al local. Un pistolero enmascarado salió del vehículo y se dirigió a la mesa de Eddie Lyons Jr., de 46 años, disparándole a quemarropa.
‘I don't even drink whisky': Scotland reels in visitors as much of Europe swelters
For the tourist industry, 2026 has been a rocky year, with war, EU border delays, climate and economic woes gnawing away at holiday plans. But while much of Britain is feeling the loss of visitors from the Middle East and beyond, one part is thriving.
Where are the Ugandan boxers? Four are latest athletes to vanish after UK sports events
Nuhu Batte, the captain of Uganda's Commonwealth Games boxing team, is one of four Ugandan boxers who has gone missing.
Where are the Ugandan boxers? Four are latest athletes to vanish after UK sports events
Years of arduous preparation and training had come to fruition and the pressure was finally lifted. After competing for their country in the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, athletes from Uganda were afforded a couple of days' sightseeing time before catching their plane home on Tuesday. But when the flight took off, there were four empty seats. Only two of the team of six boxers returned to Uganda. Ibrahim Kemis, Emily Nakalema, Angel Katushabe and the captain, Nuhu Batte, were missing.
Scottish seabird hunt cancelled for first time in 400 years
A controversial Scottish seabird hunt will not go ahead for the first time in 400 years, in what campaigners have called a “victory for common sense”. In the annual guga hunt, up to 2,000 gannet chicks are killed over a 10-day period on the uninhabited Hebridean island of Sula Sgeir, 40 miles north of Lewis and Harris. NatureScot, which is responsible for licensing, refused to allow this year's hunt to go ahead, citing a potential “adverse impact” on gannet populations according to new modelling.
The final hit: Is Glasgow’s 25-year gruesome gangland feud finally over?
It was a warm evening in Fuengirola on the Costa del Sol last year when two Scottish men met a violent end. The punters of Monaghans seafront bar had barely finished watching the Nations League final on 8 June when a car pulled up outside. A masked gunman emerged and headed to the table of 46-year-old Eddie Lyons Jr, shooting him at point-blank range. The assassin turned the gun on Lyons' friend, the bar's owner Ross Monaghan, 43, but it jammed.
‘We’ve always been wary of working together’: Val McDermid and Jo Sharp on writing a novel as a couple
The airy, modern house on the outskirts of Edinburgh shared by Val McDermid and Jo Sharp is surrounded by greenery and feels as though it was designed to provide enough space for two minds to think. Both women are high achievers in their fields, a Scottish power couple made up of the Queen of Crime and the Scottish Geographer Royal. Happily for them, there is normally no overlap in their work.
Swathes of Cairngorms unrecognisable after 12 days of 'cataclysmic' wildfires
Robyn Vinter It is the jewel in the crown of the Highlands, one of Scotland's most impressive natural landscapes, but 12 days on from the start of an enormous wildfire that is tearing through moorland and forest, the Cairngorms national park is unrecognisable. Hectares of blackened land were visible as low cloud cleared on Sunday, with smoke billowing into the air from large areas still ablaze. In the evening, the sky glowed an eerie orange.
Swathes of Cairngorms unrecognisable after 12 days of ‘cataclysmic’ wildfires
It is the jewel in the crown of the Highlands, one of Scotland’s most impressive natural landscapes, but 12 days on from the start of an enormous wildfire that is tearing through moorland and forest, the Cairngorms national park is unrecognisable. Hectares of blackened land were visible as low cloud cleared on Sunday, with smoke billowing into the air from large areas still ablaze. In the evening, the sky glowed an eerie orange.
‘People are looking at Scotland for good fun': Glasgow prepares for Commonwealth Games
“A lot of people aren't fully aware it's happening,” says one man working on a stall selling Commonwealth Games merchandise in Glasgow city centre on Wednesday, a day before the competition begins. “It's been slow – the first two days we didn't really sell anything but it's picking up now.” The lacklustre sales of T-shirts, baseball caps and miniature mascots so far are perhaps indicative of a wider lack of fanfare over 2026's pared-back offering.
‘People are looking at Scotland for good fun’: Glasgow prepares for Commonwealth Games
“A lot of people aren’t fully aware it’s happening,” says one man working on a stall selling Commonwealth Games merchandise in Glasgow city centre on Wednesday, a day before the competition begins. “It’s been slow – the first two days we didn’t really sell anything but it’s picking up now.” The lacklustre sales of T-shirts, baseball caps and miniature mascots so far are perhaps indicative of a wider lack of fanfare over 2026’s pared-back offering.
Scottish Labour's rivals decry 'chancer' Anas Sarwar for resigning to join Andy Burnham's government
Scottish Labour's rivals in Holyrood have slammed Anas Sarwar's shock decision to resign as leader to sit in Andy Burnham's new government, calling him a “chancer” and accusing him of lying to voters. The prime minister plans to make Sarwar – who was the first senior Labour figure to call for Keir Starmer to resign – a peer and give him a ministerial post at the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade.
Scottish Labour’s rivals decry ‘chancer’ Anas Sarwar for resigning to join Andy Burnham’s government
Scottish Labour’s rivals in Holyrood have slammed Anas Sarwar’s shock decision to resign as leader to sit in Andy Burnham’s new government, calling him a “chancer” and accusing him of lying to voters. The prime minister plans to make Sarwar, who was the first senior Labour figure to call for Starmer to resign, a peer and give him a ministerial post at the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade. Scottish Green party co-leader Gillian Mackay said: “Anas Sarwar is a chancer.
Fake football shirts worth £5.5m seized in one of UK's biggest counterfeiting raids
More than 158,000 fake football strips have been seized in an operation targeting World Cup counterfeit kit and blocking criminals from trying to “cash in on fan demand”. Edinburgh's trading standards team confiscated 9 tonnes of Scotland, England and other nations' fake kits, worth an estimated £5.5m.
Inside the secret Laos shops selling pangolin scales, bear bile and tiger bones to tourists
Robyn Vinter and Frances Rankin The shop is dark and deserted. Though the door is open, there is clearly no expectation of any customers walking in off the street. Visits are likely by appointment and from a specific clientele. This shop is part of an organised crime network. What is being sold is highly illegal and incredibly unethical. Anyone wandering in would see large bags of specialist tea, local coffee, trinkets and cigarettes on the shelves.
Police warn about protest misinformation amid Glasgow disorder
Scottish police have told people to factcheck online claims before going to protests, after crowds gathered outside two homes in Glasgow this week, in one case as a result of mistaken identity. Police Scotland said that several nights of disorder in Scotland's biggest city had “clearly been orchestrated by individuals who are not from Glasgow”. It added that a further protest based on entirely false information was planned for the weekend.
Police warn against protest misinformation amid Glasgow disorder
Scottish police have warned people to factcheck online claims before going to protests, after crowds gathered outside two homes in Glasgow this week, in one case as a result of mistaken identity. Police Scotland said that several nights of disorder in Scotland’s biggest city had “clearly been orchestrated by individuals who are not from Glasgow”. It added that a further protest based on entirely false information was planned for the weekend.
‘I begged for help’: the police failings that led to UK mother’s death at hands of her daughter’s stalker
Lauris Saldana has visible scars on her face, neck, arms, hand – and many, many more hidden beneath her clothing. They are a reminder of the horrific attack in 2022 at the hands of her ex-partner that she narrowly survived, an attack in which her mother, Yolanda Saldana Feliz, was killed. It was an unlawful killing that would have been preventable, a coroner ruled, had the Metropolitan police taken Lauris’s domestic abuse case seriously.
A third of Britons believe they have changed social class, survey finds
More than a third of Britons say they have changed social class, with upper-middle and upper-class people most likely to identify as belonging to more than one class, according to a survey. Working-class people were the least likely to say they had changed class or identified with more than one, with 70% saying they were in the same social category they were born into, the study by research firm Attest found.
French woman was told by doctors hantavirus symptoms were just anxiety
The cruise ship MV Hondius docked in Tenerife on Monday as the last passengers were evacuated. Photograph: Chris McGrath/Getty Images A French woman who tested positive for hantavirus after she was evacuated from a cruise ship reported symptoms to doctors onboard but was told it was probably just anxiety, the Spanish health minister has said.
French woman was told by doctors hantavirus symptoms were just anxiety
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French woman was told by doctors hantavirus symptoms were just anxiety
This article is under editorial review A French woman who tested positive for hantavirus after she was evacuated from a cruise ship reported symptoms to doctors onboard but was told it was probably just anxiety, the Spanish health minister has said. Javier Padilla Bernáldez said the woman, who had been travelling on the ship at the centre of a deadly hantavirus outbreak, had been suffering flu-like symptoms but they appeared to be getting better and she did not have a fever.
French woman was told by doctors hantavirus symptoms were just anxiety
A French woman who tested positive for hantavirus after she was evacuated from a cruise ship reported symptoms to doctors onboard but was told it was probably just anxiety, the Spanish health minister has said. Javier Padilla told the Guardian the woman, who had been travelling on the ship at the centre of a deadly hantavirus outbreak, had been suffering flu-like symptoms but they appeared to be getting better and she did not have a fever.
‘It was either this or the pool’: hantavirus ship becomes latest Tenerife tourist attraction
On a dusty hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in the south of Tenerife, groups of tourists and locals are gathered to witness one of the island’s best new attractions. Some are gazing through binoculars while others are taking photos on their phones of a vessel only a few hundreds metres away, anchored near the Granadillo commercial port. It is the MV Hondius, the small cruise ship at the centre of a giant global commotion.
Dozens of people from cruise ship struck by hantavirus leave Tenerife
Spanish passengers wearing blue plastic ponchos and hair coverings had already been taken off the vessel by medical teams in hazmat suits after being screened for the infection. They were then taken by coach to Tenerife airport. The ship arrived in the Canary Islands in the early hours of Sunday carrying 146 people, after three people died of the virus and eight more became ill.
Cruise ship hit by hantavirus arrives in Tenerife to evacuate passengers
The cruise ship at the centre of a deadly outbreak of hantavirus has arrived in Tenerife for the evacuation of those onboard. The ship arrived in the Canary Islands in the early hours of Sunday morning carrying 146 people, after three people died of the virus and eight more became ill. While nobody onboard the vessel has symptoms, passengers and crew have been confined to their cabins in the last few days to help halt the spread of the virus, which is only transmitted through very close contact.
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