Category Archives: UK news

UK Covid passports – who’s for and who’s against?

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Labour leftwingers and Tory libertarians oppose them, while Keir Starmer’s position appears flexible

One of the most significant political controversies of the coronavirus period is likely to be over the idea of Covid “passports” – app-based, biometric certificates that would allow people entry to potentially crowded spaces. While they are sometimes referred to as “vaccine passports”, these would not just show vaccination status. Other ways people could prove they were safe to mingle would be a sufficiently recent test showing significant Covid antibodies, or a very recent negative test for the virus.

These are distinct from the idea of a proof of vaccination to be allowed to enter overseas countries, which is less contentious.

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The dogs keeping office workers company through lockdown

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Owners say taking four-legged friends to work helps tackle loneliness and livens up Zoom calls

“Dogs are just like ‘play, eat, sleep’ – they bring me back into the moment. I think we can all learn something from that,” says Carole Henderson, who has been taking her “furry backup” to the office for the last few months.

They are not so good at making the tea and things get a bit rowdy when the delivery man comes round, but Henderson’s labradors Barney and Rusty, and labradoodle Lily, have been her sidekicks for the last decade. As well as being excellent foot-warmers, they have helped her emotionally with getting through solo months in the office.

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Credit Suisse executives depart after Archegos and Greensill losses

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Directors’ bonuses scrapped as chief risk officer and investment bank chief exit

Credit Suisse has cancelled the bonuses of its directors, slashed its dividend and announced the departure of two senior executives as the bank revealed £3.4bn in losses from the collapse of the Archegos investment fund.

The Swiss bank is reeling from heavy exposure to Archegos and the business bank Greensill, which suffered successive but unrelated financial blow-ups.

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Family of Captain Sir Tom Moore issue charity challenge to nation

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People encouraged to set fundraising goal that echoes Moore’s 100 garden laps on his 101st birthday weekend

Captain Sir Tom Moore made it his mission to raise money for the NHS by doing 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday.

Now, one year and nearly £39m later, his family are asking people to follow in his footsteps and come up with their own challenge based around the number 100 that they can complete over what would have been his 101st birthday weekend.

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‘Very intimidating’: teachers on sexual harassment by pupils

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Teachers highlight toxic culture of sexual harassment and abuse they face in school

“I’ve had threats of rape. I’ve had someone say: ‘I’m going to seek out your daughter and rape her.’ You’re called a slag and a slut. Sometimes it’s banter and they all think it’s funny. Sometimes it’s anger directed at you.”

Anne, who doesn’t want to give her real name, worked in a pupil referral unit with excluded pupils in south-west England until she quit her job because of post-traumatic stress disorder, and is one of many teachers to bear witness to the toxic culture of sexual harassment and abuse within schools.

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UK faces difficult path as it resumes courtship with India

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Boris Johnson is hoping to improve relations with rising superpower but many roadblocks stand in his way

George Osborne, the former British chancellor, tells the story of how, soon after Narendra Modi had been elected prime minister of India in 2014, he and the then foreign secretary, William Hague, alighted on a plan to fly immediately to India to make sure they were the first through the door to congratulate the new leader of the world’s largest democracy.

They decided to take the only British politician who seemed to know Modi well, Priti Patel, now home secretary, then recently appointed the government’s “India diaspora champion”. There was a pushback in the Whitehall system due to Modi’s record of stirring up inter-community violence in Gujarat – a Republican president in 2005 even banned him from travelling to the US – but the pair decided that the Anglo-Indian relationship was finally ready to shed the layers of imperial legacy. “If we are not going to engage with India, who are we going to engage with?” Osborne asked.

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Man charged with causing death of baby in pram hit by car in West Midlands

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Two-week-old Ciaran Leigh Morris was being pushed along the pavement by his family when Sunday’s crash occurred

A man has been charged with causing the death of a two-week-old baby boy who died when his pram was hit by a car in Brownhills, West Midlands.

Ciaran Leigh Morris was being pushed along the pavement by his family when Sunday’s crash occurred and was taken to hospital with serious injuries, where he died.

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What are Covid-status certificates and how might they work?

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Domestic vaccine passports could be used to help the UK economy reopen, but a broad coalition of MPs are opposed to the idea

After months of speculation regarding whether Covid-status certificates – domestic vaccine passports – will come into force in the UK, it appears that the government is taking steps to draw up a scheme. An official document published on Monday states a commitment to examining “whether and how Covid-status certification might be used to reopen our economy, reduce restrictions on social contact and improve safety”.

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Mecca to accept only ‘immunised’ pilgrims from Ramadan

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Worshippers must be vaccinated against Covid or have recovered from the virus, say Saudis

From the start of Ramadan, only Muslims immunised against Covid-19 will be allowed to perform the umrah pilgrimage, Saudi authorities have said.

Unlike hajj, the shorter umrah pilgrimage is non-compulsory and can be performed at any time of year.

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Telling the story of the Freshwater Five: ‘Millions are debating their innocence’

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Huge numbers of listeners have been tuning in to our podcast series about the fishermen imprisoned on drugs charges

Four members of the Today in Focus team – presenter Anushka Asthana, producer Josh Kelly, executive producer Phil Maynard, and composer and sound designer Axel Kacoutié – talk about the success of our audio miniseries. You can listen to the Freshwater Five series here.

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How will England’s Covid restrictions be changing from 12 April?

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Next stage of easing of lockdown will mean non-essential retail can reopen, among other changes

England is gearing up for the next stage of coronavirus restrictions being eased from 12 April. So far, step 1 of the proposed roadmap has been completed: on 8 March, pupils and college students returned to the classroom, and care home residents were allowed to receive one regular, named visitor; then on 29 March, outdoor gatherings of up two six people, or two households, were allowed, outdoor sports continued, and the official “stay at home” advice came to an end.

There is a minimum of five weeks between each stage, with four weeks to collect and assess data and then a week for people and businesses to prepare for the next step.

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A year on, Keir Starmer’s grand vision is still in question | Letters

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Dr Anthony Isaacs thinks the Labour leader must unite the party and restore the whip to Jeremy Corbyn, but Bruce Sawford has lost hope

No new opposition leader could have been expected to gain much media attention in their first year against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the government has clearly benefited from the vaccine rollout. But after a promising start, Keir Starmer’s declining poll ratings (Keir Starmer: one year in, Labour leader’s popularity has plunged, 2 April) indicate that his cautious style and lack of defined policies have failed to gain traction. The pandemic has, paradoxically, opened the way to an alternative agenda that plays to Labour’s strengths of promoting social solidarity and investment in public services. Starmer must embrace the opportunity of the waning infection rates to move the fight away from equivocation and abstention over Tory culture wars to ground of Labour’s own choosing.

Your editorial (2 April) points to Labour’s need for a transformative agenda that both rallies the party and speaks to the wider public. To bring this about, Starmer must first unite the party. Restoring the whip to Jeremy Corbyn would be an important symbolic gesture, opening the way for the party’s factions to work together in devising popular policies to combat the corruption and market failures epitomised by our current government. The second task is to unite opposition parties around an electoral strategy as the only hope of preventing continued Tory dominance. That will be a true test of leadership.
Dr Anthony Isaacs
London

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Northern Ireland clashes reflect loyalists’ fear of marginalisation

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Analysis: Brexit terms and handling of funeral seen as latest in a litany of perceived or real concessions

A Sinn Féin funeral was the spark but loyalists in Northern Ireland have been throwing petrol bombs and burning cars partly because they fear political marginalisation.

The union flag no longer flutters daily over Belfast city hall, a trade border separates the region from the rest of the UK and the police are allegedly beholden to Sinn Féin. Add to this a criminal gang’s resentment at recent arrests and you have the context for three consecutive nights of rioting in several towns that have left dozens of police officers injured, including five on Sunday night.

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Cutting aid will damage UK leadership of G7 and Cop26 summit, PM told

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Ex-ministers and serving Tory MPs among those criticising decision to cut UK foreign aid by a third

Boris Johnson has been told by a number of Tory former ministers and serving MPs that he risks jeopardising Britain’s leadership at the G7 and the Cop26 climate summit this year if he goes ahead with plans to cut UK aid by a third over two years.

Sir David Lidington, who was Theresa May’s de facto deputy prime minister, will tell an Institute for Government conference on the G7 on Tuesday: “Sadly, the proposal to drop the UK’s commitment to 0.7% [of gross national income] will make it harder to achieve the prime minister’s ambitious objectives for both the G7 and the climate summit.”

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Sanctions only escalate tensions. It’s time to tackle the Uyghurs’ plight differently | David Brophy

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The west needs to make a credible case that its opposition to China’s policies is not geopolitical manoeuvring

“Wholly counterproductive”, was how Newcastle academic Joanne Smith Finley described China’s sanctions on her, along with a series of British politicians and lawyers, as punishment for their advocacy for the Uyghurs. That was putting it mildly. But is it the case that western sanctions on China will be, by contrast, productive? Sadly, that seems unlikely.

International outrage at China’s policies of incarceration and social coercion in Xinjiang continues to grow. As someone who has been engaged with the region for two decades, I see that as much needed. But it’s crucial the energy being generated is put to good use. The gloves may be off, but what is the strategy?

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Actor Thandiwe Newton reclaims original spelling of her name

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Westworld actor tells Vogue she is reverting to Zulu spelling, saying ‘I’m taking back what’s mine’

The actor formerly known as Thandie Newton has said she will reclaim the original Zulu-derived spelling of her name for use in her professional career, declaring: “I’m taking back what’s mine.”

For more than 30 years, the actor, born Melanie Thandiwe Newton Parker, has been known by an anglicised version of her name since the “w” was dropped “carelessly” from her first acting credit.

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As a sense of normality returns, we must not forget what this last year has been like for the NHS

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I’m an NHS consultant. We barely had the resources to keep people alive – let alone cope with longer effects of Covid

One year ago, lockdown had just come in. A creeping sense of dread was spreading across the hospital. We were focused on the first wave of admissions, the peak of which for us occurred in early April. We were desperately learning how to keep people from dying due to this new disease. The longer-term consequences were the last thing on our minds.

Now, a year on, there is a superficial sense of normality returning. Our respiratory support unit, for so long hidden behind closed doors with “STOP: CORONAVIRUS” signs and staffed by hooded figures in head-to-toe PPE, has turned back into the bright, airy ward it used to be. Nurses, doctors, porters are back in their usual clothes instead of uniform scrubs; conversation has replaced the incessant hiss of Cpap machines. Our ITU is shrinking back to its normal size. It is easy to forget how things were even a couple of months ago.

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Labour calls for changes to lobbying law after Greensill row

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Party says rules should be widened to include ‘in-house’ roles such as that carried out by David Cameron

The law must be changed to prevent the type of lobbying undertaken by David Cameron on behalf of the financier Lex Greensill, Labour has argued, after more details emerged about the extent of Greensill’s influence inside Cameron’s government.

Only external lobbyists who deal with the government are required to be on a formal industry register, and not so-called “in-house” lobbyists like Cameron, who took an advocacy role for Greensill Capital after leaving Downing Street.

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Covid certificates on the cards for use in England since December

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Report shows government was considering plan months before ministers went public

A government-commissioned report in December examined how Covid certificates could be used to decide whether people should be allowed into sports events, pubs and other crowded spaces, months before ministers publicly confirmed the plan.

A document prepared for NHS test and trace and seen by the Guardian shows that the research also looked into whether certificates could be made a condition of entry for family events such as weddings or even small casual gatherings.

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