Category Archives: UK news

Mare of Easttown finale review – Kate Winslet drama is a stunning, harrowing success

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The actor’s turn as a complex, fallible detective has been a privilege to witness, in a murder mystery that kept us guessing right to the profoundly moving end

In interviews, Kate Winslet always said it wasn’t a thriller. And she was right. Yes, Mare of Easttown (Sky Atlantic) began with a murder in a small, bleak Pennsylvania town and Winslet’s police detective Mare Sheehan being called upon to investigate. But it was almost immediately clear that the seven-part drama was setting up to be so much more – and even clearer soon after that it was likely to succeed in all its endeavours.

It was a character study, of how a woman ground down by life after the loss of a son to drugs and suicide, the consequent divorce from her husband and raising of her grandson in the face of a custody battle with his mother (her son’s former girlfriend, rehabbed but fragile) endures.

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MPs tell Johnson: you have a duty to help vaccinate the world

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Exclusive: group urges prime minister to tackle ‘desperate shortage’ in developing nations

Boris Johnson has a “moral duty” to immediately start matching each vaccine administered at home with a donated dose to poorer countries across the world, a cross-party group of MPs and peers has said.

Several Tory backbenchers joined the call, which puts further pressure on the prime minister to boost supplies given to developing nations facing a “desperate shortage” of jabs.

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Search for boy in Thames two miles from where woman’s body was recovered

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Emergency services are seeking a teenager who was seen getting into difficulty in the water

Emergency services were searching the Thames on Monday for a teenage boy who was seen getting into difficulty in the water, hours after the body of a woman was recovered from the river two miles away.

Thames Valley police said on Twitter that officers were at the river between Bourne End, Buckinghamshire, and Cookham, Berkshire on Monday, following a report of a fear-for-welfare incident.

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Britons face one-month deadline to retain rights in four EU countries

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Tens of thousands have yet to apply for post-Brexit residence in countries with 30 June cut-off date

Tens of thousands of British nationals in four EU member states have yet to apply for post-Brexit residence, meaning they risk losing the right to live and work there unless they file their demands within 30 days.

UK citizens living in France, Malta, Luxembourg and Latvia have until 30 June to apply to secure their post-Brexit rights. The Netherlands did have the same deadline, but on Monday extended it to 1 October.

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Attractiveness of British military for far right continues to be a threat

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Analysis: There have been multiple investigations under the Prevent counter-terrorism programme

The attractiveness of the armed forces for the far right is as old as British fascism’s earliest incarnations.

During the extreme right’s periodic postwar resurgences, groups such as Oswald Mosley’s Union Movement and later the National Front also coveted recruits from the military’s ranks.

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If India variant starts a third wave, England’s Covid rules may have to stay

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Analysis: hopes of restrictions ending on 21 June are dwindling as highly transmissible variant spreads

Heralded as “freedom day”, 21 June has been a date circled in the diary by businesses, families and communities alike – a moment when coronavirus restrictions in England are expected to finally end, hopefully in a blaze of summer sunshine.

But new data has revealed that the variant of concern first detected in India, known as B.1.617.2, has continued to spread across England, with samples containing the variant now found from Cornwall to Canterbury, Bury to Bromley.

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Covid: France enforces tighter restrictions on travel from UK

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Rules on non-essential journeys toughened amid concerns over spread of India variant from Britain

France has begun restricting non-essential travel from the UK due to concerns over the spread of the coronavirus variant first identified in India.

The regulations were announced last week but came into force from Monday when entry to France from Britain is permitted only for EU nationals, French residents or people travelling for “compelling reasons”. The rules apply to all air, car, ferry and train passengers, and to people who have been vaccinated.

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In rich countries, vaccines are making Covid-19 a manageable health issue | Devi Sridhar

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For the UK and elsewhere the pandemic’s end is in sight, but less fortunate parts of the world urgently need help

When Covid-19 began to spread rapidly in January 2020, governments across the world had limited strategies to deal with it. Without a vaccine or proven treatments for the disease, or even access to mass testing, the only choice political leaders faced was taking the least bad option available.

There were four approaches that different governments took during the beginning of the pandemic. China, New Zealand, Vietnam and Thailand chose to eliminate the virus at the cost of stopping international travel. Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea suppressed the virus through rigorous testing, tracing and isolating while avoiding harsh lockdowns. Sweden allowed the virus to spread through the population before realising health systems could not cope with an influx of Covid-19 patients. Meanwhile, European countries including England and France controlled the virus through a cycle of lockdown measures while keeping borders largely open. This resembled a holding pattern for a plane running out of fuel: people grew tired of continual restrictions, the economy suffered and Covid-19 was never fully suppressed.

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‘Right thing to do’: Afghan interpreters allowed to resettle in UK over safety fears – video

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Moves to relocate hundreds of Afghans who worked for the British military and government will be accelerated owing to fears for their safety as foreign forces prepare to leave the country. More than 3,000 Afghans, including their relatives, are expected to settle in the UK. The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said it was ‘the right thing to do’, adding that ‘they sacrificed a lot to look after us and now we’re going to do the same’

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Coronavirus live news: Japan mulls tests for Olympics fans; India posts lowest case numbers since April

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Japan may require Games fans to test negative or show vaccine proof; India reports lowest case numbers since 11 April; signs UK is facing third wave

China today re-imposed anti-coronavirus travel controls on its southern province of Guangdong, announcing anyone leaving the populous region must be tested for the virus following a spike in infections that has alarmed authorities, the Associated Press reports. .

Guangdong, which borders Hong Kong, recorded 20 new confirmed cases, all contracted locally, in the 24 hours through to midnight yesterday.

Guangdong’s numbers are low compared with many places in the world, but the rise has rattled Chinese leaders who thought they had the disease under control.

Hello, this is Haroon Siddique. I’ll be updating the blog for the next few hours.

Burkina Faso, one of several countries in Africa that has yet to launch a Covid-19 vaccination campaign, received its first shipment under the global vaccine-sharing scheme Covax yesterday, Reuters reports, citing the country’s health ministry.

The 115,200 AstraZeneca doses were flown into the airport of the capital Ouagadougou and were welcomed by a local delegation led by health minister Charlemagne Ouedraogo.

“In a few weeks other vaccines will probably arrive to supplement what we have,” Ouedraogo said.

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More Afghans who worked for British forces to resettle in UK

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Government will step up scheme saving interpreters and others from reprisals as international troops leave

Moves to relocate to the UK hundreds of Afghans who worked for the British military and government will reportedly be accelerated as foreign forces leave the country.

The Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy was launched this year, allowing the Afghans, who mostly worked as interpreters, to settle in Britain. More than 1,400 Afghans and their families have already relocated to the UK, and hundreds more received funding for education and training.

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‘Shocking’: the London cemetery with listed monuments and a protruding limb

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Campaigners want urgent action to save neglected and vandalised graves in West Norwood Cemetery

Its beautiful Grade II* listed monuments were erected in memory of leading members of the Greek community in 19th-century London, but the graves in West Norwood cemetery are now in a dire state of neglect – with one decaying casket recently photographed covered in a thick layer of pigeon droppings, with a limb protruding.

Lambeth council, which compulsorily purchased the cemetery more than 50 years ago, recently withdrew security to save money and campaigners are calling for urgent action to protect listed monuments from ruin.

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Third wave of Covid may be under way in UK, scientists say

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With new infections at level last seen in March, experts have cautioned against lifting restrictions too soon

Scientists have warned ministers that a third wave of coronavirus may have already begun in Britain, casting doubt on plans in England to lift all lockdown restrictions in three weeks’ time.

Experts cautioned that any rise in coronavirus hospital admissions could leave the NHS struggling to cope as it battles to clear the huge backlog in non-Covid cases.

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Partner of Lord Ashcroft’s son questioned over killing of Belize police officer

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Jasmin Hartin was arrested near to location of body with ‘what appeared to be blood on her arms’

The partner of the son of Lord Ashcroft, a Conservative party donor and former treasurer, is being questioned in Belize over the killing of a police officer.

Jasmine Hartin was arrested on Friday following the discovery of the body of Supt Henry Jemmott on a pier in the resort town of San Pedro.

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Covid live news: UK considering compulsory vaccination for NHS staff; Malaysia to increase immunisation efforts

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Latest updates: UK government considering mandatory jabs for health workers; Malaysia to set up more mega vaccination centres

South Korea will get 1m doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine this week mainly to inoculate military personnel, after the United States almost doubled a pledge made earlier this month, prime minister Kim Boo-kyum said on Sunday.

South Korea has reported a lower death toll than many comparable developed countries from Covid-19, but the government has come under criticism for a comparatively slow rollout of vaccines, Reuters reports. Less than 11% of its 52 million people have so far received a first dose.

On care homes, UK vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi today defended the government approach.

Boris Johnson’s former aide Dominic Cummings claimed the health secretary, Matt Hancock, had lied to the prime minister over tests being carried out on those discharged into care homes – a charge denied by Hancock.

Matt Hancock was very much focused on delivery, I think it’s worth putting this in context … in the sense that in the eye of the storm, we were only able to do 2,000 tests a day. The diagnostics industry was almost non-existent in the UK.

We can sit here and sort of argue the toss about asymptomatic transmission … and when we really knew about that.

The whole point is you use every resource available to you, to the best of your ability, to save and to protect as many people as possible.

When the inquiry is held, and we will look at all these things in detail, we will of course examine where we could do better.

But to say that we didn’t deal with them to the best of our capability, with the resources that were available to us, is a mistake, is wrong.

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Produce evidence Matt Hancock lied on Covid, Dominic Cummings to be told

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Select committee chiefs to demand PM’s former aide backs up explosive claims

Dominic Cummings will be asked by senior MPs this week to produce evidence that Matt Hancock lied repeatedly about policy on Covid-19 before the health secretary’s appearance in front of a parliamentary committee early next month.

Jeremy Hunt and Greg Clark, the chairs of the joint select committee which took seven hours of explosive testimony from Cummings last week, will write to the former adviser to the prime minister in the next few days asking that he produce the evidence within the next fortnight.

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Alarm at secret court scheme in UK-Australia trade deal

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Campaigners concerned by controversial plans for tribunals where firms can seek compensation for effect of government policies

A free trade deal between the UK and Australia is on course to include a controversial system of secret courts that will allow businesses to seek compensation if their profits are hit by government policies.

In a move that has alarmed trade unions and anti-poverty campaigners, trade minister Greg Hands said UK negotiators were in talks with Australian officials over proposals to include a scheme that will arbitrate on disputes behind closed doors.

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Scotland’s best island? Orkney wins first place in survey

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Prehistoric sites, dramatic scenery and sandy beaches earn the island the top spot for visitors, with Shetland coming second

The ancient standing stones and neolithic settlements of Orkney have earned it the title of best Scottish island, according to a survey from Which?

Readers were asked to rate 14 of the biggest of the hundreds of islands in Scotland’s waters, with 10 of them receiving an impressive visitor score of 80% or more.

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Why is the new Covid variant spreading? | David Spiegelhalter and Anthony Masters

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The virus is now in a race with the vaccines and the victor is increasingly uncertain

The UK’s fine performance in sequencing Sars-CoV-2 genomes allows Public Health England to publish detailed analyses on the progress of variants and the latest report represents the changing of the guard. The B.1.1.7 lineage, first identified in Kent, had been dominant in the UK, but the B.1.617.2 lineage, first identified in India, comprised 58% of the most recent sequences, up from 44% the week before. There are strong regional differences, with under 10% of cases in Yorkshire and the Humber being the Indian-identified variant, while in north-west England that share is over 60%.

The main concern is about increased risk of transmission and reports also include estimates of what is known as the “secondary attack rate” (SAR), which simply means the proportion of an infected person’s contacts who also get infected. Using NHS test-and-trace data for recent non-travel cases, the estimated SAR for the B.1.1.7 variant was 8.1% (+/- 0.2%), while for the variant identified in India it was substantially higher at 13.5% (+/- 1.0%) – although these are likely to understate the true values due to the limitations of contact tracing.

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More boats on canals and rivers than in 18th century as thousands opt for life afloat

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Rising house prices and restrictions on overseas travel are leading to a surge in popularity for houseboats

Little more than six months ago, Paul and Anthony Smith-Storey were still living in a three-bedroom semi-detached house near St Helens in Merseyside. But now the couple – and their dog, Dexter – have traded it all in for a life afloat in a two-metre-wide narrowboat on Peak Forest Canal in Derbyshire.

“We took the equity out of the house, bought the boat and thought we’d enjoy it while we were still alive,” said Anthony, 48, an NHS sonographer. They are not the only ones.

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