Category Archives: UK news

Covid live news: official cases in Africa pass 10m; UK minister says cutting self-isolation would be ‘helpful’

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South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Ethiopia and Libya among countries hardest hit; Nadhim Zahawi says he supports reducing isolation to five days

More on the Philippines, after the country set a record for new 28,707 Covid infections for a second consecutive day.

A senior government official confirmed an increase in hospital beds and medical resources in and around the capital Manila have been ordered, Reuters reports.

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Nicola Sturgeon urged to scrap census asking teenagers about anal sex

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Chief of Scottish parents’ organisation says health and wellbeing survey ‘not fit for purpose’

Scotland’s largest parents’ organisation is calling for the SNP government to withdraw its schools’ health and wellbeing census, which has attracted opprobrium for asking 14-year-olds about their experience of anal sex.

The controversial poll has united rightwing pro-family campaigners and progressive children’s rights advocates, with both groups fearing it may end up causing harm to the young people it intends to help.

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Nadhim Zahawi denies there is plan to end free lateral flow Covid tests

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Education secretary ‘puzzled’ by reports government will start charging for tests in England in few weeks

Ministers are “absolutely not” planning to scrap free rapid Covid tests, amid reports the government will start charging for them in England in the next few weeks.

The Sunday Times reported free lateral flow tests (LFTs) could be limited to high-risk settings – such as care homes, hospitals and schools – and to people with symptoms.

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Brexit decision left UK firms paying 10% more than EU rivals for emissions

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Government refusal to link carbon market to EU’s has led to higher cost for British businesses

British businesses are paying substantially more to produce carbon dioxide than their EU rivals because of the government’s refusal to link the UK carbon market to the bigger European market after Brexit.

The difference is putting UK industry at a significant competitive disadvantage to European rivals, at a time of soaring energy prices, but does not result in any additional benefit to the environment.

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Coronavirus: should the UK make vaccination mandatory?

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With more countries ready to oblige citizens to receive the Covid jab, what are the key questions in the debate?

In Italy, it is now obligatory for people aged 50 or over to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Greece is pondering a similar move. In France, which has seen record numbers of positive cases, President Emmanuel Macron has also announced that he wants to “piss off” the unvaccinated, while Austria is contemplating a law to make the vaccine mandatory for all its citizens. By contrast, in the UK, Boris Johnson has confined himself to accusing anti-vaxxers of talking “mumbo-jumbo”.

But is that enough? Should the UK take a harder line on those who refuse to be vaccinated? After all, this is a virus that threatens to overwhelm the NHS. As doctors continue to point out, hospital beds are now filling up with more and more seriously ill Covid patients, many of whom are unvaccinated. So, should vaccines against Covid be made mandatory, not just in certain workplace settings but for all individuals?

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Global spread of autoimmune disease blamed on western diet

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New DNA research by London-based scientists hopes to find cure for rapidly spreading conditions

More and more people around the world are suffering because their immune systems can no longer tell the difference between healthy cells and invading micro-organisms. Disease defences that once protected them are instead attacking their tissue and organs.

Major international research efforts are being made to fight this trend – including an initiative at London’s Francis Crick Institute, where two world experts, James Lee and Carola Vinuesa, have set up separate research groups to help pinpoint the precise causes of autoimmune disease, as these conditions are known.

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Art historian discovers that £65 painting on his wall is work of Flemish master

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Picture of Isabella Clara Eugenia, Infanta of Spain, is likely to be by Sir Anthony van Dyck, finds Courtauld’s report

As a leading art historian, Christopher Wright has uncovered several old master paintings in public and private collections over five decades. Now he has discovered that a copy of a painting by Sir Anthony van Dyck, which he bought for himself for £65 in 1970, may actually be an original by the 17th-century Flemish court painter to King Charles I.

“I bought it from a jobbing dealer in west London,” he said. “I was buying it as a copy, as an art historian. I took no notice of it, in a strange way. The syndrome is the cobbler’s children are the worst shod. So the art historian’s collection is the least looked at.” Wright estimated the painting might be worth around £40,000, although some Van Dycks have fetched seven-figure sums.

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Two teenagers charged over death of woman, 88, in east London fire

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Eighteen-year-old and 15-year-old to appear at Thames magistrates court after incident in October

Two teenagers have been charged with manslaughter and arson after an 88-year-old woman was killed in a fire in east London.

Metropolitan police officers were called to reports of a fire at a residential address in Queens Park Road, Romford, in October where Josephine Smith was pronounced dead at the scene.

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Royals await anxiously the fallout from Prince Andrew’s disgrace

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The Queen’s favourite child, under siege in the press as he awaits a critical court ruling, is not the first obnoxious royal. But he has damaged ‘the Firm’ – and it will have to change

Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, KG, GCVO, CD, ADC, turns 62 next month. It is long past the age at which a man is expected to stop being a cause of concern and embarrassment to his parents. And yet Andrew, who is said to be the Queen’s favourite child, has exposed his mother to the greatest threat to the royal family’s reputation in living memory.

As he awaits the decision of a New York judge, Lewis Kaplan, in the sex assault case brought by Virginia Giuffre, the prince finds himself in the deeply unedifying position of trying to evade court with a secret silencing deal struck by his late friend and convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein.

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Desmond Tutu’s funeral and Kazakhstan clashes: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to Hong Kong

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Gemma Chan on the truth about her father’s life at sea: ‘He knew what it was like to have nothing’

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The actor knew her father had served in the merchant navy, but it wasn’t until she read about Britain’s mistreatment of Chinese seamen in the 40s that she understood just how much his experiences had shaped her family

“Take the rest of the noodles and the pak choi and you can have it for your lunch tomorrow.” My dad pushed the takeaway containers and their remaining contents across the table towards me.

“I’ve got loads of food at mine, why don’t you and Mum keep it?” I protested. I knew he’d insist I take the leftovers with me. This routine would always play out at the end of family dinners once I’d left home and, this time around, it felt both familiar and oddly comforting – because it had been a while since our last dinner.

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Requiring PCR tests for isolation funds may fail legal test, UK officials told

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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.

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‘Funds for favours’: Geidt pressed to reopen investigation into PM’s flat

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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.

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Richest 1% of UK households are worth at least £3.6m each

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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).

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Dominic Cummings makes new claim of party in No 10 garden in lockdown

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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.

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England ‘global outlier’ in terms of Covid policy, says Welsh first minister – video

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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


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Staffordshire police worker jailed for storing murder and postmortem images

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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.

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‘Lives across from the Spar’: bizarrely labelled letter finds way to UK address

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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.

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Skateboarding in middle age: ‘It helps me switch off’

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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.

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‘I’ve felt quite proud’: the diverse curriculum inspiring school pupils

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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.

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