Category Archives: UK news

Coronavirus live news: France sees 14,000 new cases; police clash with anti-lockdown protesters in London

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France’s total cases now 527,446; London mayor condemns ‘unacceptable’ demonstration. Follow all the developments live

Coronavirus cases in Colombia, which is nearly a month into a national reopening after a long quarantine, surpassed 800,000 on Saturday, a day after deaths from Covid-19 climbed above 25,000.

The country has 806,038 confirmed cases of the virus according to the health ministry, with 25,296 reported deaths. Active cases number 78,956.

Queen Elizabeth II will recognise the work of hundreds of doctors, nurses, fundraisers and volunteers during the pandemic when the her annual birthday honours list is published next month.

The list, which was due to be published in June, was postponed in order to add nominations for people playing key roles in the early months of the outbreak. It will be released on 10 October.

We all have to play our part, but the dedication, courage and compassion seen from these recipients, be it responding on the frontline or out in their communities providing support to the most vulnerable, is an inspiration to us all.

We owe them a debt of gratitude and the 2020 Queen’s Birthday honours will be the first of many occasions where we can thank them as a nation.

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Croydon police killing: Met officer named as Matt Ratana

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Long-serving police sergeant, originally from New Zealand, described as ‘an inspiration’

Police have named the officer killed at Croydon police station as Matiu Ratana.

The 54-year-old sergeant, known as Matt, had served with the Metropolitan police for nearly 30 years. Ratana, originally from Hawke’s Bay in New Zealand, came to London in 1989, two years before joining the force.

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Brexit: Brussels punctures optimism that deal is in sight

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EU sources fear Boris Johnson hasn’t yet got backing for compromises on state aid to business

Brussels has sought to puncture an outbreak of optimism over an imminent Brexit deal, amid fears Boris Johnson has not secured the backing of key advisers and his party for the compromises needed in the final stretch of negotiations.

With the UK government yet to offer a way forward on the most contentious issues, and trust in Downing Street at a low ebb, senior EU officials treated with scepticism reports that the UK could see a way to secure a deal.

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UK scientists begin study of how long Covid can survive in the air

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Researchers will test length of time virus stays infectious in different climatic conditions

It is the question scientists around the world are trying to answer: how long can the coronavirus survive in the tiny aerosol particles we exhale? In a high-security lab near Bristol, entered through a series of airlock doors, scientists may be weeks from finding out.

On Monday, they will start launching tiny droplets of live Sars-CoV-2 and levitating them between two electric rings to test how long the airborne virus remains infectious under different environmental conditions.

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Coronavirus live news: full lockdown recommended for Madrid; new record cases in Netherlands

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Spanish government calls for Madrid lockdown; Netherlands records worst day for new cases; cases in Reykjavík linked to two French visitors

The UK government has been continuing to source medical gloves used as PPE by frontline healthcare workers from a manufacturer in Malaysia repeatedly accused of forcing its workers to endure “slave-like conditions” in its factories, the Guardian can reveal.

Top Glove, the world’s biggest producer of rubber medical gloves, has faced multiple allegations of exploitation from migrant workers mostly from Bangladesh and Nepal.

Related: NHS sourcing PPE from company repeatedly accused of forced labour

Here are the key developments from the last few hours:

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UK coronavirus live: R number rises to between 1.2 and 1.5; new restrictions for Cardiff, Swansea and Llanelli

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New infections in UK growing by 4% to 8% every day; measures to come into force in three areas in Wales this weekend; London placed on watchlist

A further 33 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 29,871, NHS England said on Friday.

The patients were aged between 56 and 93 and all except two, aged 84 and 88, had known underlying health conditions.

The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has called for financial support from the government for areas under extra restrictions.

At his weekly press conference, he told reporters:

These restrictions in our case have been in place for a number of weeks, getting on for seven to eight now, and they are having an impact on people’s lives but also on people’s jobs and people’s businesses.

There was not any compensatory support for many of those people announced yesterday and I think this is an unacceptable situation.

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Cardiff, Swansea and Llanelli face lockdown after coronavirus cases rise in Wales – video

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Swansea and Llanelli are expected to go into lockdown on Saturday, and Cardiff on Sunday, after a spike in coronavirus cases, the Welsh health minister, Vaughan Gething, has announced.

Meetings between extended households, known as ‘bubbles’, will be suspended. Travel will be monitored and can only be for essential reasons

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Inside a Welsh ICU during the coronavirus pandemic – photo essay

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Consultant and photographer Nick Mason shares his experience and that of colleagues at the Royal Gwent hospital in Newport, offering a unique perspective documenting the impact of Covid-19 on the NHS frontline

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” TS Eliot, Burnt Norton

Human memory is fickle. Only a few brief months ago, many intensive care units (ICUs) across Britain came close to being overwhelmed by patients with a novel coronavirus, unknown to medicine before January of this year, and causing potentially life-threatening lung disease in up to 20% of those it infects. With the relaxation of the lockdown, however – only possible because it had been so effective – and the good summer weather in which we have been encouraged by Westminster to eat, drink and be merry, we have begun to forget. We have rapidly forgotten the fear and anxiety that rightly held Britain in their grip throughout the spring of 2020, the 40,000 people who died from a single infectious disease within a few brief months and the incalculable suffering caused to their families. We have forgotten that more than 600 health and social care workers died as a result of their work caring for others.

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Dominic Cummings’ data law shake-up a danger to trade, says EU

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Exclusive: proposed rewriting of data protection rules said to put vital cooperation in doubt

A radical “pro-tech” plan championed by Dominic Cummings to rewrite Britain’s data protection laws is endangering future cooperation with the EU worth billions to the British economy, Brussels has warned.

The government’s newly published national data strategy, promising a “transformation” long sought by Boris Johnson’s chief adviser and the former Vote Leave director, has sparked concern at a sensitive time with the continued flow of data between the UK and EU member states in question.

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What lessons can Europe learn from Sweden’s Covid-19 experience?

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Experts say that while contested ‘light touch’ response warrants study each country must find right approach for them

EU governments that locked down are increasingly emulating the one that did not, but experts warn that Sweden’s Covid approach, relying more on voluntary compliance than coercion, will not suit all – and big questions remain over whether it has worked for Sweden.

As infections surge in several European countries, France, which is currently averaging nearly 12,000 cases a day, has ruled out another national lockdown, instead pursuing a strategy the prime minister, Jean Castex, calls “living with the virus” and imposing local measures.

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US has never asked WikiLeaks rival to remove leaked cables, court told

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Cryptome also published documents that are at centre of Julian Assange extradition case

US authorities have never asked a WikiLeaks rival to take down unredacted cables that have been among those at the centre of the legal battle to send Julian Assange to the US, his extradition hearing has been told.

The evidence was given by a veteran internet activist whose website, Cryptome, published more than 250,000 classified documents a day before WikiLeaks began placing them online.

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‘We’re going to miss the community’: Elephant and Castle shopping centre closes after 55 years

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Mixed feelings as icon of working-class London and Europe’s first ever large indoor retail centre makes way for development

After 55 years the final few traders were packing up their shops and stalls at the Elephant and Castle shopping centre in south London with mixed feelings about what the future might hold.

“It’s time for a change, because really everything has to be different,” Luz Villamizar, a “60-something” trader said with tears in her eyes. “It’s time because this is not a nice building now, anymore.”

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‘Mr Brexit to Mr U-turn’: German commentators befuddled by Johnson’s zig-zagging

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Media criticise PM’s Covid strategy, as UK adopts job support scheme similar to Germany’s own

The UK followed in the footsteps of the German government by adopting a jobs support scheme on Thursday. The announcement came as German commentators spoke of their confusion at the zig-zag approach to tackling the coronavirus, describing a nation caught up in feelings of panic, disbelief and disillusionment.

“Military intervention to control coronavirus rules a possibility,” ran one banner headline in the business daily Handelsblatt this week, while an editorial in the Süddeutsche Zeitung was titled: “Johnson’s skittishness endangers his country.”

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What’s missing from the chancellor’s new scheme to save jobs?

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Five measures absent from the chancellor’s winter economy plan

Rishi Sunak’s winter economy plan prioritises additional support for “viable” jobs. However, critics have warned that other measures are still needed to help people who have already lost their jobs or will lose them despite the new government scheme.

Here are five measures that could help keep workers in jobs, but were missing from the chancellor’s winter economy plan:

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Italian president rebuts Johnson’s ‘freedom’ remarks over restrictions

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Pushback comes after PM’s suggestion UK’s Covid-19 infection rate was worse than Italy because Britons loved their freedom more

Italy’s president, Sergio Mattarella, said its citizens “also love freedom, but we also care about seriousness”, responding to Boris Johnson’s suggestion that the UK’s rate of coronavirus infection was worse than both Italy and Germany’s because Britons loved their freedom more.

Mattarella’s comments came at the end of a ceremony in Sardinia, in memory of the former Italian president Francesco Cossiga.

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Female voices ‘drowned out’ in reporting on Covid-19, report finds

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Analysis of stories across six countries including UK found fewer than a fifth of experts quoted on the pandemic were women

Women’s voices have been “worryingly marginalised” in reporting of the coronavirus, partly due to the war-like framing of the pandemic, according to a report analysing stories across six countries.

Each woman’s voice in news coverage of the crisis is “drowned out” by at least three men, it said.

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Coronavirus live news: global deaths pass 975,000 as Israel plans for stricter lockdown

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Israel announces plans for stricter lockdown; Paris to unveil tighter restrictions; Follow the latest updates

Israel is tightening its coronavirus lockdown after an alarming spike in new cases, the cabiney decided on Thursday morning.

Bejamin Netanyahu, prime minister, has voiced alarm that a surge in infections was pushing the nation to “the edge of the abyss”.

Rarely can there have been a more low-key beginning to the cricket season in Australia. It’s usually a time of optimism as spring blooms and sports grounds are transformed from hosting football codes of different types into cricket ovals.

But of course 2020 is different and, as Australia’s Megan Schutt explains here, it’s all a bit surreal knowing that the teams have to put on a big show despite the lack of ceremony or razzamatazz in the Covid-era.

Related: Surreal and a little bit scary: cricket returns to Australia in the Covid era | Megan Schutt

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Coronavirus live news: Spain passes 700,000 cases as Madrid braces for ‘tough weeks ahead’

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Daily deaths in Spain at highest level since early May; Portugal to extend restrictions; Netherlands hits record of 2,544 daily cases; 1,136 new infections in Poland

The French government may be pushing for people to download its Covid-19 contact-tracing app, but when asked whether he had done so, prime minister Jean Castex said he had not because he does not take the metro.

The app was launched at the start of June to much fanfare from the government, but three months later only 2.4 million people out of a 67 million population have downloaded it

Brazil has recorded 32,817 additional confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, and 831 deaths from the disease.

South America’s largest country has registered more than 4.6 million cases of the virus since the pandemic began, according to ministry data, ranking it as the third worst outbreak in the world after the US and India.

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UK set to introduce bill allowing MI5 agents to break the law

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Government says bill is not a ‘licence to kill’ but critics call for limits on agents’ activities

A bill allowing confidential informants working for MI5 and the police to break the law will be introduced on Thursday amid a row about whether committing crimes such as murder and torture should be explicitly banned.

The government says that the covert human intelligence sources bill does not amount to a “licence to kill” because it will be compliant with the European convention on human rights, which safeguards the right to life and prohibits torture.

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Public not to blame for second wave of Covid-19, says Keir Starmer

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Labour leader points to government mismanagement of virus in televised address

The public are not to blame for a resurgence of coronavirus and have been let down by the government, Keir Starmer has said in a televised address following the prime minister’s broadcast on Tuesday night.

The Labour leader’s remarks pointing the finger at government incompetence come in stark contrast to Boris Johnson’s address, where he appeared to suggest that “freedom-loving” Britons would be to blame if more draconian restrictions were applied.

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