The US State Department has accused the UK of having “significant human rights issues”, including restrictions on free speech.

The unflattering assessment comes via a new version of an annual Human Rights Practices report, with its publication coinciding with Vice President JD Vance’s holiday in the Cotswolds.

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It says human rights in the UK “worsened” in 2024, with “credible reports of serious restrictions on freedom of expression”, as well as “crimes, violence, or threats of violence motivated by antisemitism” since the 7 October Hamas attack against Israel.

On free speech, while “generally provided” for, the report cites “specific areas of concern” around limits on “political speech deemed ‘hateful’ or ‘offensive'”.

Sir Keir Starmer has previously defended the UK’s record on free speech after concerns were raised by Mr Vance.

In response to the report, a UK government spokesperson said: “Free speech is vital for democracy around the world including here in the UK, and we are proud to uphold freedoms whilst keeping our citizens safe.”

The US report highlights Britain’s public space protection orders, which allow councils to restrict certain activities in some public places to prevent antisocial behaviour.

It also references “safe access zones” around abortion clinics, which the Home Office says are designed to protect women from harassment or distress.

They have been criticised by Mr Vance before, notably back in February during a headline-grabbing speech at the Munich Security Conference.

The report also criticises the Online Safety Act and accuses ministers of intervening to “chill speech” about last summer’s murders in Southport, highlighting arrests made in the wake of the subsequent riots.

Ministers have said the Online Safety Act is about protecting children, and repeatedly gone so far as to suggest people who are opposed to it are on the side of predators.

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The report comes months after Sir Keir bit back at Mr Vance during a summit at the White House, cutting in when Donald Trump’s VP claimed there are “infringements on free speech” in the UK.

“We’ve had free speech for a very long time, it will last a long time, and we are very proud of that,” the PM said.

But Mr Vance again raised concerns during a meeting with Foreign Secretary David Lammy at his country estate in Kent last week, saying he didn’t want the UK to go down a “very dark path” of losing free speech.

The US State Department’s report echoes similar accusations made by the likes of Nigel Farage and Elon Musk.

The Trump administration itself has been accused of trying to curtail free speech and stifle criticism, most notably by targeting universities – Harvard chief among them.

A would-be assassin who flew from the US to kill a Birmingham shop owner as part of a violent feud has been found guilty of conspiracy to murder.

Birmingham Crown Court heard how Aimee Betro, 45, flew from the US to murder shopkeeper Sikander Ali at point-blank range outside his home in the Yardley area of the city in September 2019.

Prosecutors alleged that Betro hid her identity using a niqab when she tried to shoot Mr Ali – but the gun jammed, allowing him to flee.

Betro – originally from Wisconsin – was part of a plot orchestrated by co-conspirators Mohammed Nabil Nazir, 31, and his father, Mohammed Aslam, 56, who were in a violent feud with Mr Ali’s family.

During her trial, Betro said she had travelled to the UK on two previous occasions, having met Nazir on a dating app.

Asked why she had paid a third visit to the UK, arriving at Manchester Airport from Atlanta around two weeks before the shooting, Betro told jurors: “To celebrate my birthday, and I won tickets for another boat party in London.”

The court was shown CCTV of Betro waiting for 45 minutes outside Mr Ali’s house on the night of 7 September 2019.

As Mr Ali arrived home, Betro approached him with a firearm, but the gun failed to fire. Mr Ali is seen jumping back into his car and reversing away, clipping Betro’s driver’s side door in the process.

The court heard Betro then goaded Mr Ali’s father, Aslat Mahumad, with whom her co-conspirators had a feud, through text messages including: “Where are you hiding?”, “Stop playing hide and seek, you are lucky it jammed,” and asking him to meet her at a nearby Asda.

Jurors were told co-conspirators Nazir and Aslam had been injured during disorder at Mr Mahumad’s clothing boutique in Birmingham in July 2018, leading them to conspire to have someone kill him or a member of his family.

In the early hours of the next morning and just hours after the failed shooting, Betro booked a taxi and returned to Mr Ali’s home, where she fired three shots at the property, which was empty at the time.

She then fled back to the US the next day before becoming involved in another of Nazir’s plots to get revenge on a rival.

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Prosecutors also said Betro sent three parcels full of ammunition and gun parts to the UK on 16 October 2019.

The court heard the parts, which were wrapped in foil and paper inside three cardboard boxes, were addressed to a man from Derby, with Nazir tipping off the police with the intent to frame him.

While the packages were intercepted and the man arrested as part of what the prosecution said was Nazir’s “devious scheme”, his involvement in the plan eventually came to light, and he was released without charge.

Betro, it said, was seen at a post office 100 miles away from her home address in the US posting the parcels under a fake name.

In the case of each of those three packages, Betro’s DNA has been found on the gun parts and ammunition inside them.

Betro had claimed it was all a coincidence, saying the woman on the CCTV was another American who looked, dressed and sounded like her.

It was alleged that Betro was in Armenia when Nazir and Aslam were jailed for 32 years and 10 years respectively in November 2024, but was extradited in January this year to face her own criminal proceedings.

Jurors deliberated for almost 21 hours before convicting Betro of conspiracy to murder, possessing a self-loading pistol with intent to cause fear of violence, and a charge of illegally importing ammunition.

She was found guilty by majority verdicts on the conspiracy to murder and firearm charges, and by a unanimous verdict on the ammunition charge.

Speaking to Sky News, Detective Chief Inspector Alastair Orencas, from West Midlands Police’s Major Crime Unit, called Betro’s crime “a brazen attempt,” adding that there “doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of effort to avoid detection”.

“I think she fell foul of a really slick, dynamic law enforcement operation over here,” he said.

“I don’t know whether that was her perspective from America, that that’s how we operate, but zero tolerance around firearms, criminality on these shores.”

Betro was remanded in custody and will be sentenced on 21 August.

Hannah Sidaway, specialist prosecutor from the Crown Prosecution Service in the West Midlands, said: “Only Betro knows what truly motivated her or what she sought to gain from becoming embroiled in a crime that meant she travelled hundreds of miles from Wisconsin to Birmingham to execute an attack on a man she did not know.”

Ministers have lined up insolvency practitioners to prepare for the potential collapse of Thames Water, Britain’s biggest water utility.

Sky News can exclusively reveal that Steve Reed, the environment secretary, has signed off the appointment of FTI Consulting to advise on contingency plans for Thames Water to be placed into a Special Administration regime (SAR).

Sources said on Tuesday that the advisory role established FTI Consulting as the frontrunner to act as the company’s administrator if it fails to secure a private sector bailout – although approval of such an appointment would be decided in court.

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Thames Water, its largest group of creditors and Ofwat, the industry regulator, have been locked in talks for months about a deal that would see its lenders injecting about £5bn of new capital and writing off roughly £12bn of value across its capital structure.

The discussions are said to be progressing constructively, although they appear to rely in part on the prospect of the company being granted forbearance on hundreds of millions of pounds of regulatory fines.

Responding to an enquiry from Sky News on Tuesday, a government spokesperson said: “The government will always act in the national interest on these issues.

“The company remains financially stable, but we have stepped up our preparations and stand ready for all eventualities, including applying for a Special Administration Regime if that were to become necessary.”

Insiders stressed that FTI Consulting’s engagement by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) did not signal that Thames Water was about to collapse into insolvency proceedings.

A SAR would ensure that customers would continue to receive water and sewage services if Thames Water collapsed, while putting taxpayers on the hook for billions of pounds in bailout costs – a scenario the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is keen to avoid at a time when the public finances are already severely constrained.

The SAR process can only be instigated in the event that a company becomes insolvent, can no longer fulfil its statutory duties or breaches an enforcement order, according to insiders.

Mr Reed has repeatedly stressed the government’s desire to avoid taking Thames Water into temporary public ownership, but that it was ready to deal with “all eventualities”.

“Thames Water must meet its statutory and regulatory obligations to its customers and to the environment–it is only right that the company is subject to the same consequences as any other water company.

The company remains financially stable, but we have stepped up our preparations and stand ready for all eventualities,” he told the House of Commons in June.

Thames Water, which has about 16m customers, serves about a quarter of the UK’s population.

It is drowning under close to £20bn of debt, and was previously owned by Macquarie, the Australian infrastructure and banking behemoth.

Its most recent consortium of shareholders, which included the Universities Superannuation Scheme and an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, have written off the value of their investments in the company.

The government’s SAR process has only been tested once before, when the energy retailer Bulb failed in 2021.

Bulb was ultimately sold to Octopus Energy with the taxpayer funding used to save and run the company since having been repaid.

Thames Water is racing to secure a rescue plan involving funds such as Elliott Management and Silver Point Capital, with a deadline of late October to appeal to the Competition and Markets Authority against Ofwat’s final determination on its next five-year spending plan.

Ofwat has ruled that Thames Water can spend £20.5bn during the period from 2026, with the company arguing that it requires a further sum of approximately £4bn.

Mike McTighe, a veteran corporate troubleshooter who chairs BT Group’s Openreach division, has been parachuted in to work with the funds.

The company said in its accounts last month that there was “material uncertainty” over whether it could be solvently recapitalised.

Earlier this year, Thames Water was fined a record £123m over sewage leaks and the payment of dividends, with Ofwat lambasting the company over its performance and governance.

In recent weeks, Thames Water has been engulfed in a row over the legitimacy of bonuses paid to chief executive Chris Weston and other bosses, even as it attempts to secure its survival.

Under new laws, Thames Water is among half a dozen water companies which have been barred from paying bonuses this year because of their poor environmental records.

The creditor group was effectively left as the sole bidder for Thames Water after the private equity firm KKR withdrew from the process, citing political and reputational risks.

The Hong Kong-based investor CK Infrastructure Holdings (CKI), which already owns Northumbrian Water, has sought to re-engage in talks about a rescue deal but has gained little traction in doing so.

News of FTI Consulting’s appointment also comes on the same day as a “nationally significant” water shortfall was declared across swathes of the country.

Last week, Sky News revealed that David Black, the Ofwat chief executive, was to step down following the publication of a government-commissioned review which recommended the regulator’s abolition.

He has been replaced by Chris Walters, another Ofwat executive, on an interim basis.