Category Archives: UK news

‘Half-friends is not a concept’: UK should decide who its allies are, says Macron

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‘History and geography don’t change – I don’t think British destiny is different to ours,’ says French president

Emmanuel Macron has warned that Boris Johnson’s government has to decide who its allies are, insisting that “half-friends is not a concept”.

“What politics does Great Britain wish to choose? It cannot be the best ally of the US, the best ally of the EU and the new Singapore … It has to choose a model,” the French president said, in an interview with the Guardian and a small group of other media.

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Explainer: what is article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol?

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The Brexit deal clause has been triggered by the EU to place controls on the export of Covid vaccines to NI

Under Brexit’s Northern Ireland protocol, all products are normally permitted to be exported from the EU to Northern Ireland without checks, as NI remains in the single market for goods and continues to operate under EU custom rules.

The protocol was a resolution to the sticky Irish border question and was designed to avoid a return of checkpoints along the politically sensitive frontier and minimise potential disruption of cross-border trade.

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‘We had to go it alone’: how the UK got ahead in the Covid vaccine race

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Early partnership between Oxford and AstraZeneca, plus upfront funding, proved vital headstart

When it became clear the China coronavirus outbreak might lead to a global pandemic, Oxford University’s life scientists convened a crisis meeting. It took place on Thursday 30 January last year, and if the rest of the world hadn’t yet realised the potential consequences of what was unfolding in Wuhan, they had.

Around the table in the Nuffield Department of Medicine were experts from in and around the university, gathered for a moment they had feared would one day come.

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Everyday Covid mistakes we are all still making

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Can we do more as individuals to help slow the spread of coronavirus? We ask the experts

Covid-19 infections in the UK are reducing but remain stubbornly high, despite a month of lockdown measures. So could we be doing more as individuals to curb transmission of the virus? A virologist, a psychologist and a public health expert share their views on some of the Covid-19 mistakes that we are all still making.

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AstraZeneca must deliver vaccine doses from UK to EU, says Von der Leyen

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Commission president says company legally obliged to use UK plants to help deliver on order

Ursula von der Leyen has said it is “crystal clear” that AstraZeneca is bound by its contract to deliver coronavirus vaccine doses produced in the UK to the EU to make up for a shortfall in production in Belgium.

The European commission president dismissed the arguments of AstraZeneca’s chief executive, Pascal Soirot, that the British government had a first claim on doses produced in Oxford and Staffordshire.

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Hong Kong: China will no longer recognise British national overseas citizens

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Move comes after UK says people with status can move to Britain and eventually settle

China has announced it will no longer recognise the passports of British national overseas citizens just hours after the UK launched its scheme to give passport holders a path to residency as political freedoms decline in Hong Kong.

“From 31 January, China will no longer recognise the so-called BNO passport as a travel document and ID document, and reserves the right to take further actions,” foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters, according to AFP.

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EU ‘not fit for purpose’ to reduce poverty in Europe, says UN envoy

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Brexit risks exacerbating poverty issues, says human rights envoy after two-month investigation

The European Union is “not fit for purpose” in the task of reducing poverty in Europe and Brexit risks exacerbating the problem, the UN’s special envoy on human rights has said after a two-month investigation.

Prof Olivier De Schutter, who was given access to senior officials across the bloc’s institutions, said the EU’s “constitutional framework” was driving a race to the bottom in corporation and income tax and salary levels.

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How effective is the Novavax Covid vaccine and will it work against variants?

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Everything you need to know about the trial results for a new coronavirus vaccine

In an interim analysis of a phase 3 clinical trial conducted in the UK, the vaccine has shown 89% efficacy, with 27% of participants in the trial – almost 4,000 people – older than 65. That trial suggested 95.6% efficacy against the original coronavirus and 85.6% efficacy against the more recent UK strain. Those results were based on the first 62 cases of Covid-19 identified among volunteers, with 56 cases among those given a placebo against just six in those given the vaccine.

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Novavax Covid vaccine nearly 90% effective in UK trial – video

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Another Covid vaccine, trialled in the UK and bought by the government, has been shown to be nearly 90% effective and work against the UK and South African variants of the virus.

Stanley Erck, CEO of Novavax, has said numbers show 'dramatic demonstrations' of the new vaccine's ability to develop an immune response against different strains of Covid-19.

The UK vaccines taskforce has bought 60m doses of the Novavax vaccine which will be manufactured on Teesside in the UK

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Slavery survivors moved ‘without notice, without reason’ in London lockdown

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Despite stay at home orders, vulnerable asylum seekers in Home Office accommodation say they were given as little as a day’s notice

Modern slavery survivors with young children were among refugees allegedly forced to move accommodation in London with as little as one day’s notice during coronavirus lockdowns this winter.

Women who are among the UK’s most vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers said they were given just 24 hours to pack before being moved from accommodation provided by the Home Office, often having to travel long distances across the capital, in late December and January.

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Man arrested over abusive comments to staff in Covid hospital ward

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Man, 45, from Kent, arrested after a video of a group of people trying to remove patient was posted online

A 45-year-old man has been arrested after a group of people became abusive to hospital staff when they attempted to remove a Covid-19 patient.

The man, of Maidstone, Kent, has been arrested on suspicion of causing a public nuisance and is in custody, said Surrey police.

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EU could block millions of Covid vaccine doses from entering UK

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European commission says new mechanism will give national regulators power to refuse exports

Millions of doses of coronavirus vaccine could be blocked from entering Britain from the EU within days after Brussels said it had to respond to shortages emerging in member states.

Following reports of a lack of doses across the bloc, the European commission announced plans to give national regulators the power to reject export requests. The development raises concerns over the continued flow of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, for which the UK has a 40m-dose order, from its plant in Belgium.

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WHO team exits Wuhan quarantine to start Covid fact-finding mission

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Mission is politically charged as China seeks to avoid blame for alleged missteps in outbreak response

An international team of World Health Organization experts has emerged from quarantine in the Chinese city of Wuhan, to begin much-delayed fieldwork into the origins of the Sars-CoV-2 virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic.

The fact-finding mission has been beset by controversy after the WHO accused China of dragging its heels over arrangements. The team arrived more than a year after doctors in the city first raised the alarm about a mystery new illness spreading among their patients.

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GameStop shares plunge after ban by Robinhood app

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Meteoric rise fizzles out after small investors are barred from trading in groups that had soared in value

Small investors mounting an assault on Wall Street speculators suffered a setback on Thursday as trading platforms banned them from buying more shares in GameStop, spawning conspiracy theories, political intervention and at least one lawsuit.

Amateur trading app Robinhood stopped users from investing any further in GameStop – a US chain of video games stores – and seven other companies on Thursday, after an extraordinary rise in their value, spurred by users of the chat forum website Reddit, that cost some hedge funds billions of dollars.

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‘A bit like The Great Escape’: activists hold out in Euston tunnel

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HS2 protesters describe how they built tunnel, as officials warn of danger from gas and water pipes

Environmental activists have held out for their second night in the Euston tunnel, but eviction officers have said the tunnel is close to gas and water pipes and that the activists are putting their own lives at risk.

The tunnellers described how they constructed what is thought to be one of the largest tunnel networks to be occupied by protesters in one of the busiest parts of London without being detected.

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How UK spent £800m on controversial Covid tests for Dominic Cummings scheme

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US firm Innova believed to be largest beneficiary of contracts after selling millions of Covid tests that are dividing opinion

Dominic Cummings’ plan to test millions of people a day for coronavirus led the government to spend over £800m on quick turnaround tests that were later found in a pilot to give the wrong results as much as 60% of the time, the Guardian can reveal.

Operation Moonshot, a mass testing scheme championed by the prime minister’s former chief adviser, prompted the government to buy huge numbers of so-called lateral flow tests from a company owned by a little-known US private equity house.

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Doe-eyed Kristen Stewart might just take the crown as Princess Diana

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In a highly competitive field, the American actor has perfected the put-upon princess look for Spencer, the latest royal biopic

Some films have to work harder than others to get bums on seats. Some can charm audiences with big stars, or the lure of a continuing franchise, or the promise of a scene where King Kong takes a swing at Godzilla like he’s half-cut in a Wetherspoons car park. And then, right at the other end of the scale, is Spencer.

Make no mistake, Spencer will have to be brilliant to make people go and see it. Better than brilliant, even. It will have to be the perfect movie; entertaining and fun and moving and so technically accomplished that film historians will come to view it as the moment that cinema entered a new epoch. Anything less than that and Spencer is done for.

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‘They said I wasn’t hot enough’: Carey Mulligan hits out again at magazine review

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Variety review of black comedy Promising Young Woman prompts actor to speak out on industry’s institutionalised sexism

Carey Mulligan has said she was alarmed after a major publication ran a review of her new film questioning whether she was attractive enough for the role.

Related: Variety's apology to Carey Mulligan shows that the critic's ivory tower is toppling | Peter Bradshaw

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Mining giant Glencore faces human rights complaint over toxic spill in Chad

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Dozens of villagers, including children, claim they suffered severe burns and sickness after contact with contaminated water

The UK government has accepted a human rights complaint against mining and commodities giant Glencore regarding a toxic wastewater spill in Chad, where dozens of villagers – among them children – claim they suffered severe burns, skin lesions and sickness after contact with contaminated water.

The complaint, brought by three human rights groups on behalf of affected communities, alleges environmental abuses and social engagement failures by the FTSE-100 company in relation to two spillages, the wastewater spill and an alleged oil spill, both in 2018.

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Government lawyer tells court M15 officers could authorise murder

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Admission came hours before bill allowing continuation of controversial powers passed the Commons

Government lawyers have told a court that MI5 officers could authorise an informer to carry out a murder under controversial powers that ministers want to see continued contained in a bill that passed the Commons hours later.

The admission came in a court of appeal hearing on Wednesday when Sir James Eadie, representing the government, was asked if there was “a power for a Security Service officer to authorise an agent to execute an extremely hostile individual”.

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