Legal advice says any challenge under equalities law would have reasonable chance of success
Government lawyers have said any legal challenge against making low-paid people take confirmatory PCR tests to get financial support during isolation would stand a high chance of success, the Guardian has learned.
Legal advice circulated within the UK Health and Security Agency (UKHSA) is understood to warn that there is a risk of a challenge under equalities law.
Continue reading...Emergence of ‘great exhibition’ messages seems to undermine ethics adviser’s finding, says Labour
Boris Johnson’s ethics adviser has been accused of failing to investigate a potential “funds for favours” scandal after the prime minister was cleared of rule-breaking over his Downing Street flat refurbishment.
Christopher Geidt shut his investigation without commenting on Johnson seeking funds for the works from a Conservative donor while promising to consider plans for a “great exhibition”. Expectations also faded that another inquiry, led by parliament’s standards commissioner Kathryn Stone, would go ahead.
Continue reading...New ONS figures reveal inequality gap growing ever wider before the coronavirus pandemic
The richest 1% of households in the UK each have fortunes of at least £3.6m, according to new official figures that show the inequality gap was yawning even before the pandemic struck.
At the other end of the scale, the poorest 10% of households have just £15,400 or less, with almost half burdened with more debts than they had in assets, according to figures released on Friday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Continue reading...Former aide says he put in writing that event – five days after photographed gathering – should not happen
Boris Johnson’s former top adviser Dominic Cummings has alleged there was a lockdown-breaking party in the Downing Street garden in May 2020 after an emailed invitation to “socially distanced drinks”.
Cummings, who left No 10 in November that year, said people were invited to the gathering by a senior Downing Street official who he said should have been removed from their job because of failings over Covid.
Continue reading...Mark Drakeford said the Welsh government was capable and determined to act to protect its population from coronavirus.
He said that in England the government was 'politically paralysed' and that Boris Johnson was unable to secure an agreement among his MPs to take actions that would keep the population safe
Darren Collins, 56, downloaded thousands of images from police databases
A police worker who illegally downloaded and took home thousands of images, including those showing murder victims and postmortems, has been jailed for three years.
Darren Collins, a digital forensic specialist from Stafford, admitted misconduct in a public office last month after being sacked by Staffordshire police for gross misconduct.
Continue reading...Antrim musician Feargal Lynn offers Royal Mail ‘hearty applause’ for successfully delivering letter to him
Sherlock Holmes might have balked, but the Royal Mail detectives came up trumps when they correctly delivered a letter with an address that was more like an episode of This Is Your Life than a conventional street name and postcode.
Writing on Twitter, the County Antrim musician Feargal Lynn said the postal system deserved “hearty applause” for successfully delivering the letter addressed by following a brief history of his family in the area.
Continue reading...It’s good for mental health, a study found, but what’s it like being an older person at the skatepark?
Skateboarding in middle age can help people feel empowered and reduce the chance of mental health issues such as depression, according to a study.
Dr Paul O’Connor, 46, who published the research and is a lecturer in sociology at the University of Exeter, said he wanted to look at the phenomenon of ageing within a subculture.
Continue reading...Free resource proves widely successful with more than 2,000 schools across the UK signing up
When 12-year-old Rose learned about the Bristol bus boycott in her history class, she felt an immense sense of pride. She knew there was a civil rights movement in the US, but wasn’t aware of the UK’s own struggle for racial justice.
“I’ve felt quite proud that there were big stands here as well,” she says. Her schoolmate Ruqiiya, also 12, agrees and spoke of her frustration of initially struggling to find more information about the boycott online. They both love learning about it in class.
Continue reading...Liz Truss and Simon Coveney meetup comes before talks on protocol with EU Brexit negotiator
The UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, and her Irish counterpart, Simon Coveney, have had a “good and friendly” first meeting over the vexed issue of the Brexit arrangements in Northern Ireland, Irish government sources have said.
They met for the first time over dinner in London on Thursday night and discussed the Northern Ireland protocol, the wider relationship with the EU, and UN security matters including the crisis in Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
Continue reading...Support, which includes 40 army doctors, shows ministers can no longer ignore scale of understaffing, union leaders say
The armed forces are being deployed to help hospitals in London deal with a surge in Covid patients because the Omicron variant is leaving so many staff sick and unable to work.
Of the 200 military personnel involved, 40 are doctors who will help NHS staff look after patients. The other 160 personnel, who have no medical training, will check in patients, ensure stocks are maintained and would also be “conducting basic checks”, the Ministry of Defence said.
Continue reading...Two other paramedics suffered serious injuries in collision with a cement lorry near Tonbridge, Kent
Tributes have been paid to a 21-year-old paramedic who died after her ambulance was involved in a crash with a cement lorry in Kent.
Alice Clark’s parents praised her as a “beautiful, kind, fun-loving daughter” who will be missed “more than words can say” while a colleague described her as “kind and dedicated”.
Continue reading...PM sought funds for flat refurb from Tory donor while promising to consider plans for mystery event
Boris Johnson has been accused of corruption after it emerged that he sought funds for his flat refurbishment from a Conservative donor while promising to consider plans for a mystery “great exhibition”.
The prime minister is facing fresh questions after newly published WhatsApp messages with the Tory peer David Brownlow show Johnson called parts of his Downing Street residence a “tip” and asked for “approvals” so his decor designer, Lulu Lytle, could “get on with it” in November 2020.
Continue reading...Comments made during a recent general audience at the Vatican criticised
Whether millennials prefer to raise plants and pets over children for financial and environmental reasons or because they’re lazy and entitled has been hotly discussed in recent years. Now Pope Francis has waded in, saying that not having children is “selfish and diminishes us” and that people are replacing them with cats and dogs.
Pet owners have reacted angrily to the comments, made during a general audience at the Vatican. They argue that animals have a lower environmental footprint than children, enable them to lead a life that is different but equally rewarding, and compensate for financial or biological difficulties in having children, rather than directly replacing them.
On social media, people pointed out that the pope himself chose not to have children and said there was hypocrisy in such comments, coming from an institution which has grappled with a legacy of child sexual abuse.
Guardian readers who responded to a call-out asking for their views were similarly critical of the pope’s comments, which were branded “out of touch” and “sexist”.
Sophie Lusby, a 48-year old NHS manager in Belfast, said they were “really naive and insensitive” and failed to reflect that not everybody can or should have children. As a Catholic, she has struggled with feelings of shame about her inability to have children for medical reasons, given her religion’s emphasis on motherhood. “That’s what’s quite triggering about the pope’s words.”
She added that although she has two pets, which are “great company when you live on your own”, she doesn’t see them as substitutes for children, and instead has found meaning in her relationships with her nephews, nieces, siblings and parents. “If Catholicism is about family, I’ve been very successful at being a great family member and I don’t need to be told off.”
Estee Nagy, a 27-year-old jeweller from London, said that “having a child in today’s world is a luxury” because of lower earning power and a more challenging labour market. “It’s easier for those who were simply lucky and are rich or have more money than an average salary, but it gets harder when there isn’t enough.”
Stef, who works in education, said that in her home town of Brighton “loads of people have dogs and treat them like kids”. She has taken her rescue dog, Boss, on holiday to 11 countries, including the Vatican, and feels that he is “part of the family”.
British former PM told Nursultan Nazarbayev to stress he ‘understood’ critics and to say reforms would ‘take time’
The newly knighted Sir Tony Blair is one of several well-paid western advisers who have burnished the image of Kazakhstan’s former ruler Nursultan Nazarbayev and his autocratic regime, now the target of angry protesters.
Narzabayev invited Blair to give him strategic advice after Kazakh security forces shot dead 14 people during the country’s December 2011 anti-government uprising. The protesters in the western oil town of Zhanaozen were demanding higher wages.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Leaked files suggest Mone and her husband were involved in business given £200m contracts
Leaked files appear to suggest the Conservative peer Michelle Mone and her husband, Douglas Barrowman, were secretly involved in a PPE business that was awarded more than £200m in government contracts after she referred it to the Cabinet Office.
Barrowman, an Isle of Man-based financier, may have played a central role in the business deal that enabled PPE Medpro to sell millions of masks and surgical gowns to the government at the start of the pandemic, documents suggest.
Continue reading...Neil Cole’s Museum of Classic Sci-Fi, hosted in cellar of his Allendale townhouse, holds costumes and props from numerous TV classics
At first glance the Northumberland village of Allendale, with its pub and post office and random parking, is like hundreds of sleepy, charming villages across the UK. It’s the Dalek that suggests something out of the ordinary.
Behind the Dalek is a four-storey Georgian townhouse. In the cellar of the house is a remarkable and unlikely collection of more than 200 costumes, props and artwork telling classic sci-fi stories of Doctor Who, Blake’s 7, Star Trek, Flash Gordon, Marvel and many more.
Continue reading...High court to review government’s decision to include subsidiary of Malaysia’s Supermax in £6bn ‘framework’ deal for buying gloves
The UK government is facing legal action over its decision to keep using a Malaysian company accused of using forced labour as a supplier of personal protective equipment (PPE) to the NHS.
Lawyers at the London-based law firm Wilson Solicitors have filed for a judicial review of the government’s decision to name the UK subsidiary of the Malaysian company Supermax as one of the approved suppliers in a new £6bn contract for disposable gloves for NHS workers.
Continue reading...Grant Shapps leads calls to change law limiting prosecution of people who damage memorials
Britain is not a country where “destroying public property can ever be acceptable”, a cabinet minister has said, as Conservative MPs vented their frustration at four people being cleared of tearing down a statue of the slave trader Edward Colston.
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, said the law would be changed to close a “potential loophole” limiting the prosecution of people who damage memorials as part of the police, crime, sentencing and courts (PCSC) bill.
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