Stuart Hamlin urges people to stay inside in an emotional video filmed hours after his mother died from the coronavirus. He describes his pain just four days after Tracy was admitted to hospital with Covid-19 symptoms.
'Losing someone is hard enough, but not being able to hold your family close when you do is the most gut-wrenching pain I've ever felt in my life,' he says.
Continue reading...Michael Gove has said the rate of coronavirus infections in the UK is doubling every three to four days. The Conservative politician gave the update during the government’s daily Covid-19 briefing after Boris Johnson was diagnosed with the virus
Continue reading...For Corinne Fowler, the clapping event transcended the bitter rows of the last few years, but also caused a pang of sorrow
The mass clapping event (Millions of Britons clap for carers on coronavirus frontline, 26 March) was bittersweet and loaded with irony. It was an unprecedented show of collective gratitude, inspired by a Dutch woman living in the UK, by a nation whose Brexit vote caused a shortage of medical staff as it sent EU citizens away. A clapping nation whose government created a “hostile environment” to banish the Windrush generation, who made vital contributions to the NHS.
I also thought of supermarket workers on low wages now risking life and limb, generally with no gloves or masks. There is little consideration for their safety. If it weren’t for them we would not be eating.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson said he was shaking hands with coronavirus patients just weeks before he tested positive for Covid-19. The prime minister confirmed he had entered self-isolation on Friday 27 March. Early this month, he insisted that people would be 'pleased to know' that the virus would not stop him greeting hospital patients with a handshake
Kremlin-backed channel fails to overturn Ofcom ruling that also related to Syria coverage
The Kremlin-backed news channel RT has lost a high court challenge to overturn a ruling by the UK media regulator that it broadcast biased programmes relating to the novichok poisoning in Salisbury and the war in Syria.
Ofcom fined RT £200,000 after determining that seven programmes, including two presented by the former MP George Galloway, were in breach of UK broadcasting rules relating to due impartiality regarding matters of political controversy.
Continue reading...Poll highlights issues such as excessive control shortly after furore surrounding Priti Patel
Thousands of Home Office employees claim they have been discriminated against, bullied or harassed at work, according to the results of a staff survey.
The Home Office people survey, which was conducted in autumn 2019 and was completed by 21,095 employees, is part of a civil service-wide assessment.
Continue reading...In the Lake District, full of leech gatherers and idiot boys, I missed the boozy roar of my parents’ pub
“Alone, alone. All, all alone” – Samuel Taylor Coleridge
PG Wodehouse, interned in a lunatic asylum in Upper Silesia, rose buoyantly to the situation and wrote Joy in the Morning. “Weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning.”
Continue reading...A heavily pregnant woman with coronavirus has begged the public to stop going out in an emotional video from her hospital bed. Karen Mannering, 39, said she had pneumonia in both lungs and had been ill for two weeks. 'I'm fighting for me and my baby,' she said. 'I've got three kids at home and a husband I can't see. Just don't go out, it's not worth it.'
Continue reading...Council workers take advantage of the empty streets to spruce up the crossing featured on the cover of the 1969 Beatles album
The iconic Abbey Road zebra crossing made famous by the 1969 Beatles album of the same name has been repainted while the streets of London are empty because of the coronavirus pandemic.
A highways maintenance crew quietly repainted the normally busy zebra crossing on 24 March, the day after the prime minister ordered Britain to go on lockdown in an attempt to stem the spread of the virus.
Continue reading...This blog is closed. Please follow live coverage on our new blog here
I’m handing over to the team in Australia now. Thanks so much for joining me. Here are the developments in the global coronavirus outbreak this evening:
After many delays, and then a series of tweets earlier today, US President Donald Trump is invoking the Defense Production Act to compel General Motors to built ventilators for hospitals, he announced at the White House’s daily coronavirus briefing.
The Defense Production Act gives the president powers to direct domestic industrial production to provide essential materials and goods needed in a national security crisis. It allows the president to require businesses and corporations to prioritize and accept contracts for required materials and services.
Related: Coronavirus US live: Trump signs $2.2tn stimulus bill after invoking Defense Production Act
Continue reading...At 8pm on Thursday, millions of people stood at their front doors and open windows, in gardens and on balconies, to raise a thunder of gratitude for those working on the frontline of the fight against coronavirus
Continue reading...People across the UK have taken part in a mass round of applause in support of the NHS workers battling the coronavirus pandemic.
In the Clap For Carers initiative people took to their doorsteps and balconies applauding, banging pans and letting off fireworks. Notable buildings around the country were also lit up in blue
Continue reading...Fare (Family Action in Rogerfield and Easterhouse) delivers food parcels to vulnerable families in the Greater Easterhouse area, east of Glasgow’s city centre.
It has also taken on the role of a food bank during the coronavirus crisis, delivering provisions to self-isolating elderly people
Continue reading...Brussels laments London’s failure to table comprehensive legal text to work on
Planned negotiating rounds on the UK’s future relationship with the EU have been abandoned as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, with Boris Johnson’s government still to table a comprehensive legal text for both sides to work on.
During a European commission briefing on Thursday, envoys for the EU capitals were told that holding negotiations via video-conferencing had so far proved impossible.
Continue reading...Rishi Sunak announced a new self-employed income support scheme on Thursday to help those struggling with the consequences of the coronavirus lockdown in the UK. Under the scheme, the government will pay the self-employed a taxable grant based on their previous earnings over the last three years, worth up to 80% of earnings, and capped at £2,500 a month
Continue reading...Elephant will launch on Disney+ days after Sussexes step back from being senior royals
The Duchess of Sussex is to narrate a Disney film which documents the journey of a family of elephants across the Kalahari desert in southern Africa, which will launch three days after she and Prince Harry “step back” from being senior royals.
Meghan will voice the Disneynature documentary Elephant, which will be available on Disney+ from 3 April, and is her first major acting role since becoming a royal.
Continue reading...Derbyshire police have defended using a drone to shame people into staying away from a national park during the lockdown. The force tweeted footage taken near Curbar Edge in the Peak District, insisting members of the public should not be driving there to walk their dogs or take photographs. 'It's not Big Brother,' a spokesman said. 'It's just to illustrate the fact that people are going out and making these journeys against the government's rules.'
Seven ships remained off UK coast for unusually long time this month
Nine Royal Navy ships were involved in a major operation shadowing seven Russian vessels who had lingered in the Channel for several days this month as the coronavirus crisis was beginning to worsen in the UK.
The unusually high level of Russian activity concluded about a week and a half ago and navy officials said they believed it was primarily a response to western exercises in Europe rather than to a perception that the disease was leaving the UK vulnerable.
Continue reading...A 40-year-old pastor suspected of having coronavirus has issued a plea from his hospital bed over social distancing. Struggling to speak, Mark McClurg, from County Down in Northern Ireland, said the virus 'wants to kill you' and 'take all the life out of your lungs'. 'Don't think for one moment that this is just a wee cold and cough you'll get', he warned
Continue reading...Offences including burglary and violence fall by as much as 20% in some areas
The coronavirus crisis has led to a drop in recorded crime, by as much as 20% in some areas.
Offences such as burglary and violence were down last week compared with the previous seven days, after Boris Johnson made his first request for people to stay home on the Monday.
Continue reading...