Category Archives: UK news

Covid response ‘one of UK’s worst ever public health failures’

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Early handling and belief in ‘herd immunity’ led to more deaths, Commons inquiry finds

Britain’s early handling of the coronavirus pandemic was one of the worst public health failures in UK history, with ministers and scientists taking a “fatalistic” approach that exacerbated the death toll, a landmark inquiry has found.

“Groupthink”, evidence of British exceptionalism and a deliberately “slow and gradualist” approach meant the UK fared “significantly worse” than other countries, according to the 151-page “Coronavirus: lessons learned to date” report led by two former Conservative ministers.

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Covid rates lower in western Europe than parts of central and eastern Europe

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Slower vaccination rates in east lead to dramatic surge in cases, while UK remains outlier in west as cases rise despite vaccinations

Higher vaccination rates are translating to lower Covid infection and death rates in western Europe than in parts of central and eastern Europe, the latest data suggests – except in the UK, where case numbers are surging.

Figures from Our World In Data indicate a clear correlation between the percentage of people fully vaccinated and new daily cases and fatalities, with health systems in some under-inoculated central and eastern EU states under acute strain.

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Met officer denies bias hampered investigation into Stephen Port’s first victim

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Inquest asked DCI Christopher Jones if initial delays were because Anthony Walgate was a young gay escort

A senior Metropolitan police officer has denied that unconscious bias affected his investigation into the death of serial killer Stephen Port’s first victim because he was “young, gay and working as an escort”.

DCI Christopher Jones, from the Met murder investigation team, declared the death of Anthony Walgate, 23, a fashion student from Hull, to be “unexplained” rather than “suspicious”, an inquest heard.

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New treatment destroys head and neck cancer tumours in trial

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Exclusive: combination of drugs causes tumours to vanish in some terminally ill patients, study finds

A new cancer treatment can wipe out tumours in terminally ill head and neck cancer patients, scientists have discovered.

In a landmark trial, a cocktail of immunotherapy medications harnessed patients’ immune systems to kill their own cancer cells and prompted “a positive trend in survival”, according to researchers at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), London, and the Royal Marsden NHS foundation trust.

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Met decision to drop Prince Andrew inquiry ‘no surprise’, says ally

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Source close to royal speaks as Met says it will take no further action over Virginia Giuffre’s allegations of sexual assault

The Metropolitan police’s decision to take no further action over Virginia Giuffre’s allegations of sexual assault against Prince Andrew “comes as no surprise”, a source close to the royal has said.

The force said on Sunday it had dropped the investigation after reviewing several documents, including one relating to an ongoing US civil lawsuit concerning Giuffre, who alleges she was forced to have sex with the prince when she was 17 years old.

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Cop26: world poised for big leap forward on climate crisis, says John Kerry

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Exclusive: upbeat US climate envoy anticipates big announcements from key players at Glasgow talks

The world is poised to make a big leap forward at the UN Cop26 climate summit, with world leaders “sharpening their pencils” to make fresh commitments that could put the goals of the 2015 Paris agreement within reach, John Kerry has said.

Kerry, special envoy for climate to Joe Biden, gave an upbeat assessment of the prospects for Cop26, which begins in Glasgow at the end of this month, saying he anticipated “surprising announcements” from key countries.

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EU ‘close to the end of the road’ over Northern Ireland protocol

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Point will come when EU says ‘enough, we cannot compromise any more’, warns Irish foreign minister

The EU is close to the end of the road with the UK over the Northern Ireland protocol, accusing David Frost, the Brexit minister, of trying to undermine serious attempts to solve the problem, the Irish foreign minister has said.

Simon Coveney said he had spoken to Lord Frost’s counterpart, the European Commission vice-president, Maroš Šefčovič, on Sunday. They have agreed there would come a point when “the EU will say: enough, we cannot compromise any more”, Coveney said.

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Covid live news: Wales to keep home working and mandatory masks until 2022; Australia planning to allow international travel

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Welsh first minister expects Covid measures to continue until next year; Australia’s PM planning to fast-track international travel

Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, the man regarded as the “father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb”, has died aged 85 after being hospitalised with Covid-19, the BBC reports.

Khan was hailed as a national hero for transforming his country into the world’s first Islamic nuclear power.

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NHS staff face rising tide of abuse from patients provoked by long waits

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Chronic underfunding, Covid and staff shortages blamed for increase in physical and verbal assaults

NHS staff across the UK are facing a “growing tide of abuse” including assaults from patients, which they say is being caused by frustration at long waits for care.

In a strongly worded joint statement, which has been shared with the Guardian, six key medical bodies and staff groups blame patients’ increasingly long delays in receiving treatment on years of successive governments underinvesting in the NHS and not fixing severe workforce shortages.

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Rishi Sunak to save billions by counting IMF cash as aid for poor

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Exclusive: chancellor criticised by former Tory international development secretaries for planned use of $27.4bn windfall

Rishi Sunak is to save billions of pounds by counting as aid financial assistance to poor countries being provided as a result of a windfall Britain has received from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In a move that has been condemned by former Conservative international development secretaries, the chancellor has chosen not to use the UK’s share of a new $650bn IMF global fighting fund to increase the share of national output spent on aid.

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Harvey Weinstein PA says abusers still have the legal power to silence victims

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Outrage ensued when Zelda Perkins revealed her non-disclosure agreement in 2017 but the expected reforms never came

In the weeks after she first broke her non-disclosure agreement, Zelda Perkins, Harvey Weinstein’s former personal assistant, felt dizzy with optimism.

After an appearance on Newsnight in 2017, in which she spoke publicly about the oppressive non-disclosure agreement (NDA) she had been silenced by as a 24-year-old two decades earlier, Perkins found herself feted in parliament. The end of the use of NDAs as a means to cover up abuse was, she thought, in sight.

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Squid Game’s success reopens who pays debate over rising internet traffic

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Demand for capacity grows on back of hit Netflix shows, online games and more

The breakout success of the South Korean drama Squid Game has prompted a local broadband provider to launch legal action to force the maker, Netflix, to help pay for the huge surge in traffic, the latest flashpoint in the argument over who should carry the burden of the spiralling costs of data fuelled by the global streaming boom.

From Netflix’s latest global sensation and livestreamed Premier League football matches on Amazon Prime Video, to bandwidth-busting traffic when hit online games such as Fortnite or Call of Duty are updated, the demand for internet capacity has undergone unprecedented growth in recent years.

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Capsule of 1765 air reveals ancient histories hidden under Antarctic ice

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Polar Zero exhibition in Glasgow features sculpture encasing air extracted from start of Industrial Revolution

An ampoule of Antarctic air from the year 1765 forms the centrepiece of a new exhibition that reveals the hidden histories contained in polar ice to visitors attending the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow.

The artist Wayne Binitie has spent the past five years undertaking an extraordinary collaboration with scientists of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), who drill, analyse and preserve cylinders of ice from deep in the ice sheet that record past climate change.

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‘It was John who wanted a divorce’: McCartney sets the record straight on Beatles split

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Rock history has painted Paul McCartney as the man who broke up the band. Now he reveals that it was Lennon who was first to look for a way out

It remains the most analysed break-up in rock history: the one that set the template. When the Beatles split more than 50 years ago and Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr went their separate ways, it was McCartney who shouldered most of the blame.

But now McCartney is setting the record straight for good. “I didn’t instigate the split. That was our Johnny,” he has insisted in a candid and detailed interview to be broadcast later this month.

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Nursing crisis sweeps wards as NHS battles to find recruits

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Lack of EU staff adding to shortages: ‘There aren’t enough to deliver care we need’

Ministers are being warned of a mounting workforce crisis in England’s hospitals as they struggle to recruit staff for tens of thousands of nursing vacancies, with one in five nursing posts on some wards now unfilled.

Hospital leaders say the nursing shortfall has been worsened by a collapse in the numbers of recruits from Europe, including Spain and Italy.

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Trade war looms as UK set to spurn EU offer on Northern Ireland

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EU leaders urged to push back against No 10’s brinkmanship over role of European Court of Justice

Fears that the UK is heading for a trade war with the EU have been fuelled by strong indications from the government that proposals to be unveiled in Brussels on Wednesday over Brexit arrangements do not go far enough.

The Brexit minister, Lord Frost, will use a speech in Portugal on Tuesday to say that scrapping its prohibition on British sausages to resolve the dispute over the Northern Ireland protocol do not meet the UK and unionists demands.

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Priti Patel’s fury as Johnson blocks public sexual harassment law

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Home Office fears PM views aggressive targeting of women and girls as ‘mere wolf whistling’ amid moves to create specific offence

Boris Johnson has infuriated the home secretary by overruling attempts to make public sexual harassment a crime. This has prompted concern at the Home Office that the prime minister views the issue as mere “wolf whistling”, rather than the aggressive targeting of women and girls going about their daily lives.

Sources say tensions have emerged between Johnson and Priti Patel, and other senior Home Office figures, after he blocked plans to make public sexual harassment a specific offence.

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TfL granted injunction against Insulate Britain protesters after arrests

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Civil banning order applies to 14 locations around London after police arrest 35 climate activists

London’s transport network has been granted a high court injunction against Insulate Britain protesters aimed at preventing them from obstructing traffic.

Transport for London (TfL) said the civil banning order, granted on Friday afternoon, applies to 14 locations around the capital including some of its busiest roads and it follows several previous injunctions against members of the group.

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Zimbabwean who cleared Falklands mines urges rethink on 75% cut to clearance programmes

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Cuthbert Mutukwa fears disastrous consequences for home country if UK cuts go ahead as it nears ‘mine-free’ status

A Zimbabwean man who helped clear hundreds of landmines from the Falkland Islands has urged Britain not to go ahead with cuts that would see the government pull funding from his home country just as it nears “mine-free” status.

Cuthbert Mutukwa, 42, left his family in Zimbabwe to work for two years de-mining the Falkland Islands, the British overseas territory that was peppered with about 13,000 mines by Argentinian forces during the 1982 war.

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