Category Archives: UK news

Coronavirus live news: global death toll nears one million as WHO warns number is likely an underestimate

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WHO says global toll is likely to be over one million already; travel in and out of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague may be banned

The percentage of Covid-19 tests taken in New York state that have come back positive has inched up to 1.5%, governor Andrew Cuomo said, a worrisome trend for the former centre of the US coronavirus epidemic.

The rise in positivity in New York above the 1% target comes as 27 other states recorded increases in the number of cases for two straight weeks.

MEPs won’t yet be returning to Strasbourg due to rising coronavirus infections in France, the European parliament speaker said, despite a plea by the French president, Emmanuel Macron.

The European parliament has its headquarters in Strasbourg in eastern France, where MEPs usually based in Brussels travel every month for 12 plenary sessions a year.

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‘Like the English civil war’: Covid crisis inflames neighbour disputes

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Professional mediators report a surge in requests for help as community tensions boil over

A couple are having raucous parties in flagrant breach of the “rule of six”. An elderly woman with symptoms faces the fury of other residents by touching a communal door. A music teacher is imposing her students’ discordant notes on the flat downstairs. And a small child following an exercise routine has prompted a neighbour to declare: “I want to kill Joe Wicks.”

Over six months of the coronavirus crisis, community relations have been strained to the point that one concerned retiree in the south-west told the Guardian: “It’s like the English civil war.”

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Confidence in UK’s global role plunges after Brexit, poll finds

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Belief that Britain is force for good in world is down 10 points from April 2019 in UK

Belief that Britain is a force for good in the world has plunged in the last 18 months, a national poll has found, with under half of the UK now convinced of the country’s positive impact.

As negotiations on the UK’s future relationship enter a key week in Brussels and with the country set to leave the EU’s single market and customs union at the end of the year, a poll by Ipsos Mori suggests there is a lack of confidence in Britain’s global role.

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New Covid fines of up to £10,000 come into force in England

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People refusing to self-isolate will face penalties starting at £1,000, and police will act on tip-offs from neighbours

A new, more robust chapter in English coronavirus regulations begins on Monday, with fines of up to £10,000 for people who refuse to self-isolate when asked, and enforcement including tip-offs from people who believe that others are breaching the rules.

The changes come with the duty to self-isolate moving into law. It becomes a legal obligation if someone is told to do so by test-and-trace staff, but not for those simply using the Covid-19 phone app, which is anonymous.

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Suspect in killing of Croydon police officer named

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Met chief pays tribute to Matiu Ratana as suspected culprit remains in hospital in critical condition

The suspect in the fatal shooting of a custody sergeant at Croydon police station on Friday is 23-year-old Louis de Zoysa, sources have told the Guardian. He remains in hospital in a critical condition, the Metropolitan police said on Sunday, after the force’s chief commissioner, Cressida Dick, paid tribute to the fallen officer.

A second man has been arrested on suspicion of supplying the revolver used in the fatal incident, and is being held in a south London police station, the force added.

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Coronavirus live news: concern over case clusters at French schools and universities; Melbourne lifts curfew

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Le Monde reports 32% of outbreaks in France found in schools or universities; Victoria ends curfew

Families are counting down the days to moving into new homes in a Hong Kong estate that had been used as a Covid-19 quarantine centre in what had become a lightning rod for discontent, the South China Morning Post reports.

They included L.N. Siu, her husband and daughter, who were overjoyed when they were finally allocated a public housing flat at the Chun Yeung Estate in Hong Kong last December. They had been waiting eight years.

Romanians go to the polls on Sunday to choose mayors and local councillors, but a Covid-19 surge is threatening to hit the first electoral test after years of political turbulence with a high abstention rate.

Nationwide, the east European country of almost 19 million people has 43,000 seats to fill in the single-round election seen as a test ahead of national polls in December.

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Follow Covid rules so students can go home for Christmas, says minister

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Oliver Dowden says everyone must follow rules after Labour urges promise on ‘unfair’ restrictions

University students should be able to return home to their families at Christmas if the country “pulls together” and observes the new coronavirus rules, a cabinet minister has said.

The government is under pressure to guarantee young people are not confined to their halls of residence over the festive period because of Covid-19 outbreaks on campuses.

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Regular UK lockdowns could help control Covid, says Sage expert

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Strategy of repeated ‘circuit breakers’ would reduce total number of cases, according to leading scientific adviser

One of the government’s scientific advisers has said repeated “mini lockdowns” could be effective as a tool to bring Covid-19 cases under control.

The suggestion from Professor John Edmunds, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), comes amid growing evidence the virus’s prevalence is growing among older, more vulnerable people.

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Lockdowners v libertarians: Britain’s coronavirus divide

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As Covid cases rise, an increasingly heated debate has emerged over whether to readopt stringent measures or return to ‘the business of living’

Britain has reached a Covid crossroads – and its leaders are being pressed to pick one of two stark options. Are they going to return to the lockdown days that brought life to a standstill six months ago, but succeeded in halting the rapid spread of the disease? Or are they going to turn their backs on “an authoritarian nightmare” that is preventing the nation from getting on with “the business of living”?

This is the basic division that has emerged over the summer in an increasingly heated debate between two unlikely groupings of scientists, columnists, campaigners and politicians.

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Firms plead for Brexit deal as coronavirus leaves industry reeling

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With only three months until the transition ends businesses say they have been unable to prepare for restrictions on EU trade


Almost half of British companies have warned that their Brexit preparations have been hit by the pandemic, as business leaders demanded a last-minute compromise to reach a trade deal and avert chaos at the border.

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Shirking from home? Staff feel the heat as bosses ramp up remote surveillance

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As management seeks more oversight of workers away from the office, campaigners fight for privacy to be respected

For many, one of the silver linings of lockdown was the shift to remote working: a chance to avoid the crushing commute, supermarket meal deals and an overbearing boss breathing down your neck.

But as the Covid crisis continues, and more and more employers postpone or cancel plans for a return to the office, some managers are deploying increasing levels of surveillance in an attempt to recreate the oversight of the office at home.

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Frontline workers to be recognised in Queen’s birthday honours

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Recipients’ ‘dedication and compassion’ amid pandemic praised by PM

Hundreds of frontline and community heroes who played a key role in the coronavirus pandemic response will be recognised in the Queen’s birthday honours next month, Boris Johnson has said.

The prime minister praised the “dedication, courage and compassion” shown by the recipients, whose contributions to national life will be honoured, alongside people recognised for a broad range of achievements, on 10 October.

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Boris Johnson faces revolt over forcing through Covid measures

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Amendment calling for votes on new restrictions is winning cross-party support

Boris Johnson is facing a massive parliamentary revolt over the way he is imposing Covid-19 restrictions on the British people without first consulting MPs – amid new signs that confidence in his leadership is collapsing in the Conservative party and across the country.

An extraordinary cross-party backlash against Johnson’s “rule by diktat” from Downing Street was taking shape on Saturday – ahead of a key vote on Wednesday – as a new poll by Opinium for the Observer showed Labour has overtaken the Tories for the first time since Keir Starmer became leader in April.

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Hardline BBC critics reportedly offered top media roles

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Former Daily Mail editor could head Ofcom, while ex-Daily Telegraph editor considers BBC chairman job

Boris Johnson is reported to have offered jobs at the head of two of Britain’s most important media organisations to two outspoken critics of the BBC.

Paul Dacre, former editor of the Daily Mail, has been asked to run the national broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, while Lord Moore, the former editor of the Daily Telegraph and biographer of Margaret Thatcher, is believed to be considering accepting the role of chairman of the BBC.

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Labour takes poll lead as parties see major switch in fortunes

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Keir Starmer ahead by four points on who would be better prime minister, as underlying figures suggest government failings in pandemic to blame for reversal

Labour has recorded its first poll lead since Boris Johnson became prime minister, marking an extraordinary changes in fortunes for the two main parties.

Keir Starmer’s party now has a three-point lead over the Conservatives, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer. In a result that will stir more unrest among Tory MPs over the performance of the prime minister, the poll put Labour on 42% support, with the Conservatives on 39%.

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Police call for tougher stop and search rules after officer’s death in Croydon

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Scrutiny of procedures urged following fatal shooting of officer in Croydon police station

Police officers believe there needs to be an urgent review of the stop and search protocols used when arresting suspects, following the fatal shooting of Sgt Matiu Ratana.

As the Metropolitan police and the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) launch investigations into the death of the popular 54-year-old custody sergeant, questions remain as to how it happened.

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Welcome to libertarian Covid fantasy land – that’s Sweden to you and me | Nick Cohen

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The right fails to recognise that the Swedes’ real virtue in this pandemic is their social cohesion

Sweden is to the 21st-century right what the Soviet Union was to the 20th-century left. Conservatives have transformed it into a Tory Disneyland where every dream comes true. On the shores of the Baltic lies a country that has no need to curtail civil liberties and wreck the economy to curb Covid-19. “I have a dream, a fantasy,” sang Abba. “To help me through reality.” For much of the right, that fantasy is called Sweden.

Let the leader of the Conservative backbenchers stand for the Tory press and innumerable ideologues inside and outside Westminster. Sir Graham Brady ruined a perfectly good argument that parliament must have the power to scrutinise Johnson’s emergency decrees by announcing that there was no emergency. We could look to a country that merely had a ban on gatherings of more than 50, restrictions on visiting care homes, a shift to table-only service in bars and see that “Sweden today is in a better place than the United Kingdom”. Or as the Sun explained on Thursday as Boris Johnson met Anders Tegnell, the Swedish public health “mastermind”, a do-little strategy has spared Sweden a second wave of Covid-19 infections.

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Clashes erupt as thousands attend anti-lockdown protests in London – video

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Demonstrators gathered in Trafalgar Square in central London to protest against the government's recently toughened Covid-19 restrictions. Protesters waved placards and flouted government guidelines on social distancing, opting not to wear masks. The police moved in and attempted to disperse them

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Coronavirus UK: Sage expert warns of 100 deaths a day within four weeks

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‘We need to make sure that transmission comes down now,’ says Prof Graham Medley

The UK’s daily coronavirus death toll will rise from 34 to 100 a day in three to four weeks’ time, an expert on the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) has warned.

Infectious disease modelling expert Prof Graham Medley said there is little that can be done now to prevent daily deaths climbing to 100 – but “we need to make sure transmission comes down now” to prevent the figure increasing further.

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UK barrister mistaken for defendant calls for compulsory anti-racism training

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Alexandra Wilson says legal system should introduce ambitious measures to tackle discrimination in profession

The barrister who was mistaken for a defendant three times in one day at court has called for compulsory anti-racism training at every level of the UK legal system.

Alexandra Wilson, who specialises in criminal and family cases, put in a complaint on Wednesday and spoke of her frustration about the incident on Twitter. Her tweets, which quickly went viral, resulted in an apology by the head of the courts service in England and Wales.

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