New leader brings in one former rival for key post but no role yet for Rebecca Long-Bailey
Keir Starmer has made Lisa Nandy, one of the candidates he defeated to become Labour leader, his shadow foreign secretary, and Anneliese Dodds, who became an MP only in 2017, his shadow chancellor.
Speaking before the first tranche of top appointments, the new Labour leader promised he would create a shadow cabinet balanced between the various wings of the party.
Continue reading...Maternity rights groups report surge of interest in unassisted childbirth
When Victoria Gianopoulos-Johnson got a call from her midwife to say her home birth would be cancelled, panic took hold. She says she “lost it” for two days, crying constantly, gripped by uncertainty and then anger.
The 33-year-old from the Highlands, whose baby boy is due at the end of April, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after the birth of her first child and wants to avoid a hospital delivery at all costs. Now she has reached the decision to have a free birth, also known as unassisted childbirth.
Continue reading...As warm weekend weather arrived in the UK, Matt Hancock said people needed to follow the rules on coronavirus or the government would be forced to ban all exercise outside
Continue reading...Site will reduce recommendations of videos promoting misinformation
YouTube will reduce the amount of content spreading conspiracy theories about links between 5G technology and the coronavirus that it recommends to users and actively remove videos that breach its policies, the company has said.
Content that is simply conspiratorial about 5G mobile communications networks, without mentioning coronavirus, is still allowed on the site. YouTube said those videos may be considered “borderline content” and subjected to suppression, including loss of advertising revenue and being removed from search results on the platform.
Continue reading...The health secretary has said people should not go outside to sunbathe, even if they practise social distancing.
Speaking to Sophy Ridge on Sky News, Matt Hancock said: 'We are absolutely clear that you should not leave your home unless it is for one of four reasons: for medical reasons, to buy food, to go to work if you can't work at home, or for exercise. We're crystal in the guidance on what people should do – that guidance is backed up by law. It is not a request, it is a requirement in law'
Better and faster joined-up data systems are key to coping with and preventing pandemics such as Covid-19 – as well as more everyday diseases
Covid-19 has exposed the deficiencies of national disease detection and prevention systems in many countries of Europe, and in the United States. In the UK, contact tracing was abandoned early due to lack of capacity. Just three weeks ago the government was prepared to let thousands of Scots travel through England to Wales and back for a rugby match, and it has taken a month to develop a strategy for scaled-up testing. After a decade of austerity and decentralisation, we are trying to recover the lost muscle memory of the public health response.
It will not be 100 years until the next pandemic. Population growth, human invasion of animal habitats and the resumption of fast travel between continents will take care of that. More urgently, we need a system in place after the lockdown to prevent a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic being worse than the first.
Continue reading...I cheered the role of BAME medics in the battle against Covid-19 – but I didn’t expect the torrent of abuse that followed
“Little China girl.” “Paki doctor.” “Black bitch.” These are just some of the racist slurs directed at NHS nurses and doctors as they work on the frontline. I remember feeling sick when I first read an ITV report detailing these incidents at the end of last year. And it was at the front of my mind as I whooped in support of our carers on Thursday night.
I returned to that report last week after posting what I thought was an uncontroversial tweet, noting the fact that all four doctors who had tragically lost their lives to coronavirus at that point were people of colour, and that it was a reminder of how much the NHS relies on BAME and migrant doctors and nurses. Just over four in 10 NHS medical staff are BAME, and almost one in three doctors are not from the UK. From the first Caribbean nurses who arrived after the second world war, the NHS has been built on the backs of both migrant and British workers; in the late 1960s, half of all doctors below consultant level were non-British.
Continue reading...Thomas Watson recognised by literary scholars as the Bard’s forgotten 16th-century collaborator
He was one of the most celebrated English playwrights of the 16th century, yet none of his plays survived, and today the name of Thomas Watson is virtually unknown. Now the writer, poet and pioneer of the English madrigal – who also saved the life of the playwright Christopher Marlowe in a street brawl – is being seen in a new light.
Watson has been identified as the most likely primary author of Arden of Faversham, the first domestic tragedy in English, which was published anonymously in 1592. Many scholars believe that five of the play’s scenes were co-authored with William Shakespeare.
Continue reading...In a rare TV broadcast, the monarch will praise public efforts and thank the NHS and other frontline workers
The Queen will praise the nation for its “self-discipline” and “resolve” during the coronavirus pandemic in a rare televised address broadcast on Sunday night.
In what is described as a “deeply personal” message, she will reflect on her own experience in other difficult times during the broadcast at 8pm. It was filmed under strict measures to protect the monarch, who will be 94 this month.
Continue reading...Trail runner Rory Southworth launched a challenge to climb the height of Everest, an altitude of 5,364 metres, in five days in and about trekkers' homes. The virtual basecamp challenge was taken up by a team of about 30 climbers, who completed the task on the evening of 3 April. Southworth said: 'There was a lot of negativity among the outdoor community about being confined at home and I wanted to give people a reason to exercise indoors.'
Continue reading...Spain, Germany and UK among countries to says measures could stay in place as deaths in Italy push past 15,000
Officials from Germany to Spain said they expect the stringent lockdown conditions to stretch for weeks longer as Italy saw its deaths from the coronavirus pandemic push past 15,000 and infections in the United States neared 300,000.
The virus has claimed 15,362 lives in Italy, officials said on Saturday, while the total number of confirmed cases in the country rose to 124,632.
Continue reading...Overwhelming vote grants new leader strong mandate to take party in his own direction
Sir Keir Starmer has promised to rebuild the nation’s trust in the Labour party after winning a stunning victory to succeed Jeremy Corbyn as leader.
Related: A conference call with his defeated rivals – then Keir Starmer was straight down to business
Continue reading...Duke of York will not appear in upcoming Lifetime film on Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and sex offender
Prince Andrew will reportedly not agree to be interviewed for a forthcoming documentary about the financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The Duke of York has been repeatedly criticized for associating with Epstein, who died in custody in New York following his July 2019 arrest on sex trafficking charges.
Continue reading...Death toll increases by 708 in one day, largest amount since outbreak began
A five-year old child is among 708 people whose deaths with coronavirus were announced on Saturday in the UK, as Britain’s death toll rose to 4,313, the biggest increase since the outbreak began.
The latest figures show the recorded death toll from the virus in the UK has risen by 20%, and above 4,000 for the first time.
Continue reading...At the daily Downing Street press conference on Friday, England’s chief nursing officer, Ruth May, invoked the deaths of nurses Areema Nasreen and Aimee O’Rourke as she urged members of the public to stay at home. 'This weekend is going to be very warm and it will be very tempting to go out and enjoy those summer rays,' she said. 'But please, I ask you to remember Aimee and Areema. Please stay at home for them.'
Gordon Jackson was filmed on train talking about Salmond and sexual assault trial
The lawyer who helped secure Alex Salmond’s acquittal over allegations of sexual assault has quit as the head of Scotland’s advocates body after a furore over remarks he made about Salmond and his accusers.
Gordon Jackson QC announced on Friday he was standing down as the dean of the Faculty of Advocates, one of the most powerful posts in Scotland’s legal profession, because he is under investigation for professional misconduct.
Continue reading... As Corbyn prepares to step down as leader, Alvarez says Labour failed to ‘pull together’
Laura Alvarez, the wife of Jeremy Corbyn, has said she regrets Labour failed to “pull together” to win elections, condemning the media and his opponents in the party on his last day as leader of the party.
In a rare public statement, Alvarez said it had been “incredibly hard” for her to watch her husband vilified by the media and even harder to watch him be attacked by his own party.
Continue reading...Certificates to prove people are immune to Covid-19 could ease restrictions. How would such as scheme work in Britain?
No 10 has pointed to immunity passports as a way to end the lockdown. How would the policy work in practice?
Continue reading...People across the UK stood at their front doors, outside their windows, on balconies for the second week in a row, to clap, cheer and bang pots and pans for healthcare staff and all key workers dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.
In Scotland, many bagpipers joined in a 'pipe up for key workers' tribute and in London, the prime minister, Boris Johnson, who is still in self-isolation, stepped out of No 10 to join in the clapping
Continue reading...The health secretary wrote off £13bn of NHS debt, promised 100,000 tests and acted like a grownup
For much of the week, it’s been as if the government has gone out of its way to appear wilfully clueless. First, the psychotically unstable Dominic Raab, then the pathologically untrustworthy Michael Gove, culminating with the shambolically underprepared Alok Sharma. History repeating itself first as tragedy, then as farce. It was as if the only real contingency plans the government had made were for the postponement of this year’s climate change conference. Sometimes, doing absolutely nothing proves to be entirely the right option.
But cometh the hour … There are some words I thought I’d never write. Like “Thank God for Matt Hancock”. But thank God for Matt Hancock. It seemed a high-risk strategy to send out the health secretary for the daily Downing Street press conference as it was only six days since he announced that he had contracted coronavirus. And the official NHS guidance is for anyone with symptoms to self-isolate for a week.
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