Analysis: Arrivals from high-risk countries will have to pay to isolate in a hotel under Boris Johnson’s proposals
With new hotel quarantine measures for international arrivals from high-risk countries due to be introduced to curb the spread of Covid-19, focus falls on how they will work.
Here, we look at what the rules are now and what’s being done by the UK government to toughen border controls.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson has said that 8 March is the earliest schools could reopen, but warned the date depended on ‘lots of things going right’. A firm decision will be taken in the week of 22 February after reviewing infection and vaccination data, the prime minister said
Continue reading...EU health commissioner dismisses AstraZeneca argument it is contractually obliged to supply UK first
Britain is on a collision course with the European Union over vaccine shortages after Brussels refused to accept that people in the UK have first claim on Oxford/AstraZeneca doses produced in local plants.
The EU’s health commissioner outright dismissed on Wednesday an argument made by Pascal Soriot, the Anglo-Swedish company’s chief executive, that he was contractually obliged to supply the UK first.
Continue reading...First minister also says UK government’s hotel quarantine plans ‘do not go far enough’
Nicola Sturgeon has questioned whether Boris Johnson’s planned trip from London to Scotland on Thursday is “genuinely essential”, suggesting his visit makes it harder to convince the public to stick to travel restrictions.
At her daily briefing, when she also warned that the UK government’s hotel quarantine plan for travellers “does not go far enough”, Scotland’s first minister said that while she was sure the prime minister and his advisers would take care to make sure no laws were broken, “we all have to make judgments on what we genuinely think is essential”.
Continue reading...The UK’s Civil Aviation Authority will certify the plane separately
Boeing’s 737 Max aircraft has been given the green light to return to the skies in the EU by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), after a 22-month grounding following two fatal crashes.
Marking a crucial step in its return to service, a modified version of the US company’s previously bestselling aeroplane has been given permission to fly again, although not until a package of checks and training is completed.
Continue reading...The Mermaid of Black Conch’s author explains why she expected ‘a quiet life’ for the formally daring, magical realist novel that has been declared book of the year
After two decades of splashing around in the shallows of success, Monique Roffey was taking no chances with The Mermaid of Black Conch. The novel, which won the Costa book of the year award on Tuesday, is written in a Creole English and uses a patchwork of forms, from poetry to journal entries and an omniscient narrator, and “employs magical realism to the max”. Even its title was against it, she realised. “You’re either going to read a novel about a mermaid or you aren’t.”
Any one of these, she says, would scare away most publishers. So when one, the independent Peepal Tree Press, did bite, she launched a crowdfunder to enable her to hire her own publicist. It’s a mark of the esteem in which the 55-year-old author and university lecturer is held by those familiar with her work that 116 people chipped in, raising £4,500 within a month. Then, two weeks before the novel was due to be published, the UK went into lockdown, shutting bookshops and forcing the cancellation of a tour that was particularly important for a writer who has always swum between two continents and two cultures.
Continue reading...The UK needs to learn from the lessons of the past year and come up with a concrete plan to avert a disastrous third wave
Yesterday Britain passed a grim milestone. A further 1,631 deaths from Covid-19 were recorded, taking the official tally above 100,000, though data from the Office for National Statistics suggests the total number will now be nearer 120,000. In a briefing, Boris Johnson has said his government did everything it could to minimise the loss of life, but these deaths were far from inevitable. While the number of UK deaths has entered the hundreds of thousands, New Zealand has recorded only 25 deaths from Covid-19 so far. Taiwan has recorded seven, Australia 909, Finland 655, Norway 550 and Singapore 29. These countries have largely returned to normal daily life.
In the first year of the pandemic, the UK faced three big challenges. Our national government had no long-term strategy for suppressing the virus beyond a continual cycle of lockdowns. Even now we still don’t know what the government’s plans for the next six months are. In the early days of the pandemic, the UK treated Covid-19 like a bad flu. The government halted testing, and the initial plan seemed to be allow the virus to run unchecked through the population (the “herd immunity” approach). Finally, ministers have pitted the economy against public health, instead of realising that the health of the economy depends upon a healthy population.
Continue reading...Decision to reduce overseas aid represents a ‘major challenge’ to partner countries’ Covid responses, FCDO warned
The British government’s decision to slash at least 50% in overseas aid within the next few weeks has been called a “gut punch” to the world’s poorest.
Reacting to the news that diplomats had been ordered to cut billions in aid over the next six weeks, experts warned that many lives would be lost and the UK stood to lose its reputation as a global “force for good”.
Continue reading...Nail art dates back millennia, taking in complex social codes, cultural appropriation, modern slavery and the sexism of lockdown rules for beauty salons
“How to Take a Nail Selfie!” “Fruity Manicure Inspo!” “Kylie Jenner Slammed by Fans for Nearly Poking Out Stormi’s Eyes With Ridiculous Claw Nails.”
The glut of hyperbolic nail-related headlines online points to our obsession with the endless possibilities open to the plate at the top of our fingers. In the internet age, the manicure, in all its incarnations, is a traffic winner. It peppers a plethora of Pinterest boards; the hashtag #nails has been posted 151m times on Instagram; nail artists are stars in their own right; and countless women will assert that manicures are a form of self-care. Detractors dismiss it all as frivolity.
Continue reading...Chief executive of pharmaceutical giant says the firm will honour UK’s earlier contract despite EU anger over shortfall
AstraZeneca’s chief executive has insisted the UK will come first for vaccines as he rejected calls to divert doses to the European Union following a breakdown in supply.
Amid a growing row, Pascal Soriot, the French head of the pharmaceutical giant, said the UK was benefiting from being early to sign a contract for 100m doses.
Continue reading...Changes in policy since 2016 have led to an overly risk-averse approach, court of appeal hears
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has been accused of “systemic illegality” in its approach to charging rape cases in a landmark judicial review into how the crime is prosecuted.
On the opening day of the hearing at the court of appeal, lawyers for the Centre for Women’s Justice (CWJ) and End Violence Against Women (EVAW) accused the CPS of “raising the bar” for rape prosecutions, which they argued had led to a steep drop in the number of cases being charged.
Continue reading...‘Man in Havana’ role usually taken by experienced diplomats goes to ex-trade minister George Hollingbery
Boris Johnson’s government has been accused of fostering a culture of cronyism after the appointment of a former Conservative MP to become the ambassador to Cuba.
George Hollingbery, the former minister and MP until 2019, was announced on Tuesday as the UK’s new “man in Havana”, a post usually taken up by experienced diplomats.
Continue reading...Analysis: there are a string of reasons that have contributed to that extraordinary number
On nearly every metric, the UK death toll from coronavirus has now exceeded 100,000. Here, we look at why that figure is so high.
Continue reading...It was asking too much for the PM to show genuine humility and remorse, but even he could not shrug this off
You’ve got to hand it to Priti Patel.
Either she is completely shameless or totally clueless. Though one shouldn’t rule out the possibility that she’s both. Most of us distinctly remember the home secretary causing problems for Boris Johnson a few weeks ago by saying she had been calling for stricter border controls last March to control the coronavirus pandemic.
Continue reading...Officials have just weeks to slash costs, prompting fears that speed of cuts could cost lives
British diplomats have been instructed to find at least 50% cuts in UK overseas bilateral aid in the next few weeks in advance of the next financial year, the Labour party has said.
Sarah Champion, the Labour chair of parliament’s international development select committee, said: “Our ambassadors have today been instructed by the Foreign Office to cut 50-70% from the aid budget.”
Continue reading...Boris Johnson said it was ‘difficult to compute the sorrow’ for every life lost to Covid as the official UK death toll passed 100,000. The prime minister said he took ‘full responsibility’ for the government's response to the crisis, and insisted the government 'did everything we could' to limit deaths
Ian Samson, originally from Edinburgh, describes his experience of Hong Kong’s strict isolation rules for travellers
I have a pile of 20 bananas in my hotel room here in Hong Kong, a spin bike I’ve had delivered and some rapidly dying flowers that the hotel gave me on the first day as a morbid reminder of how little sunlight I would be getting for the next 21 days.
Continue reading...Analysis: Drug company and scientific partners at Oxford University have strongly pushed back against German press report
A row has broken out after German newspapers suggested the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine might have a lower efficacy among the over-65s. Below we take a look at the claims, and whether we should be concerned.
Continue reading...Netflix drama’s use of string versions of Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish hits has tripled streaming figures for Vitamin String Quartet
The success of Netflix’s Bridgerton has produced some unexpected trends, such as huge increases in people searching online for Regency fashion items including corsets. But the latest is a dramatic rise in the number of people streaming classical cover versions of contemporary pop songs.
Vitamin String Quartet, the group that provide most of the classical versions of Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish and Maroon 5 songs in the modernised costume drama, have had a 350% increase in the number of people streaming their work since the show was released in December.
Continue reading...Commission president says firms must deliver on orders after AstraZeneca warns of shortfall
The EU “means business”, Ursula von der Leyen has said, as the bloc doubled down on plans for tighter monitoring of vaccine exports to countries outside of the union, such as the UK.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum, the president of the European commission said the EU had invested billions and “companies must now deliver” to the 27 member states.
Continue reading...