Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
European commission president says key issues are level playing field and fisheries
Trade and security negotiations between the UK and the EU are making good progress, Ursula von der Leyen has said in the most optimistic comments to date on the state of the Brexit talks.
As the negotiations moved to Brussels after seven days in London, the European commission president said: “We’re making good progress but [there are] two critical issues: level playing field and the fisheries, [where] we would like to see more progress.
As the row over the discharge of Covid-positive patients into Scotland’s care homes during the early days of the pandemic deepens, health secretary Jeane Freeman has insisted that a new report does not diminish government accountability, writes Libby Brookes, the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent.
The report – which concluded the risk of an outbreak linked to discharge of positive or untested patients was “not statistically significant” - prompted anger from opposition parties, care chiefs and unions, who argued that it failed to properly explain why dozens of patients who tested positive for coronavirus, along with thousands who went untested, were discharged from Scottish hospitals into care homes in April and May.
For relatives and families of people who have died in care homes during this pandemic, I want them to know really clearly that I am not saying that this report says there is no accountability here or that I think that report in any way offers them comfort. It’s a very technical report and it comes to a statistical conclusion but that doesn’t take away from the human impact of this virus…
Angela Merkel faced shouts and heckles in Germany’s parliament this morning as she outlined her government’s plans for a “soft” second lockdown, writes Philip Oltermann, the Guardian’s Berlin bureau chief.
From Monday, bars, restaurants, theatres, swimming pools and fitness studios will close for a month, and public gatherings be limited to two households or up to ten people. Unnecessary travel is discouraged and hotels advised not to host tourists. Schools, nurseries and shops will stay open, however.
Equality and Human Rights Commission report finds party is responsible for three breaches of the Equality Act
Labour responsible for harassment and discrimination, EHRC finds
The full Equality and Human Rights Commission report is online here.
The EHRC’s interim chair writes in its foreword that the report is being published during a time like no other in recent memory.
Politicians have been asked to show leadership to steer the country out of an unprecedented crisis, and we are being asked to put our trust in them to do so.
Trust should be at the heart of a political party’s relationship with its members, and with the wider general public; yet what this investigation has shown is a clear breakdown of trust between the Labour Party, many of its members and the Jewish community.
The equalities watchdog found evidence of political interference in the complaints process, with 23 instances of inappropriate involvement by the Leader of the Opposition’s Office (LOTO) and others in the 70 files looked at.
It said this included LOTO staff influencing decisions on complaints, especially decisions on suspensions or to investigate a claim. Some decisions were made because of likely press interest rather than any formal criteria.
The Labour Party adopted a practice of political interference in certain complaints and the evidence indicates that it occurred more regularly in antisemitism cases.
A transparent and independent antisemitism complaints process, where all cases of alleged discrimination, harassment or victimisation are investigated promptly, rigorously and without interference is an essential part of the reforms needed to rebuild trust.
Experienced fell runner Chris Smith, 43, missing in Perthshire hills since Tuesday
The family of Chris Smith, an experienced fell runner and Team GB member who has gone missing in the Perthshire hills, have appealed for help to find him.
Smith, 43, was last seen on Tuesday afternoon when he left his family’s holiday accommodation to go running in the Glen Lyon and Loch Tay area and had been due to return that evening.
Cross-party group files claim to force inquiry into Russian interference in UK elections
A cross-party group of MPs and peers including a former national security adviser are taking legal action against Boris Johnson over his government’s refusal to order an inquiry into Russian interference in UK elections.
The group filed a claim in the high court in an attempt to force the prime minister to carry out an independent investigation or public inquiry. It is the first legal action of its kind over alleged national security failures.
Temporary, timely and targeted. That was how Rishi Sunak described the government’s strategy for coping with the impact of Covid-19 when he gave his budget speech on 11 March.
Less than two weeks later the UK was in lockdown and the chancellor sought to deliver on his pledge with the Treasury’s job retention scheme, or the furlough as it has become known.
First research to collate figures documents the people who have lost their lives, with drownings during sea crossings on the rise
Almost 300 asylum seekers including 36 children have died trying to cross the Channel to the UK in the past 20 years, according to the first analysis to collate deaths.
The Institute of Race Relations research, due to be published next month and seen by the Guardian, details the cases of 292 people who have died trying to cross by vehicle, tunnel and over the water since 1999.
The Covid pandemic has reached a “critical” stage in England, with prevalence doubling since last month with the fastest increases in the south where the R number has risen above 2, research has found.
While cases remain highest in northern England, a dramatic increase in infections has been recorded across all areas, according to the latest interim findings from the React-1 study from Imperial College London.
Operation Moonshot, the government’s mass testing mission to screen millions of asymptomatic people every week, is having a bumpy lift-off.
The project only emerged because of a leak last month and such was the stated ambition – £100bn to deliver 10m tests a day – that MPs laughed when Matt Hancock talked about it in parliament.
Nottinghamshire will be placed under tier 3 coronavirus measures from Friday, it was confirmed on Wednesday night, with a series of extra rules including the UK’s first virus-related ban on off-licence alcohol sales after 9pm.
West Yorkshire is set to follow suit within days – meaning more than 11 million people in England will soon be under the toughest level of restrictions.
Interview with conspiracy theorist leaves streaming service in awkward position
Joe Rogan, Spotify’s biggest podcast star, has left the platform in an awkward position after conducting a lengthy interview with Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist banned by Swedish streaming company for producing “hate content”.
Rogan, the libertarian host of the long-running and wildly popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast, uploaded a three-hour discussion on Tuesday featuring Jones, the founder of the conspiracy site Infowars.
Rasul Iran Nezhad and Shiva Mohammad Panahi drowned along with their children Anita and Armin
Four Iranian Kurds who died trying to cross the Channel in high winds were members of one family who paid smugglers thousands of euros after two failed attempts to reach Britain, the Guardian has been told.
Rasul Iran Nezhad and his wife, Shiva Mohammad Panahi, both 35, and two of their children, Anita, nine, and Armin, six, drowned as they tried to reach Britain by boat, according to a relative of the family and the Iranian-Kurdish human rights organisation Hengaw.
British-Iranian dual national told she will be returned to prison after Monday’s hearing
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman sentenced to five years imprisonment in Iran in 2016, has been told she will stand trial on fresh charges next Monday.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was released to house arrest in March due to the coronavirus outbreak, was also told she would be returned to Evin prison after the hearing.
A public inquiry into undercover policing is poised to reveal details of how police repeatedly spied on black justice groups, including several run by grieving families whose relatives were killed by police or died in custody.
The judge-led inquiry was launched six years ago by the home secretary at the time, Theresa May, after the Guardian revealed police covertly monitored the campaign for justice over the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence.
Manuscript including lives of the Irish saints and a translation of Marco Polo was captured during a siege of Kilbrittain Castle in the 1640s
A 15th-century medieval manuscript, one of the “great books of Ireland”, is returning home almost 400 years after it was captured in a siege.
The Book of Lismore, which has been donated to University College Cork by the trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement, was compiled for Fínghin Mac Carthaigh, the Lord of Carbery from 1478 to 1505. It consists of 198 large vellum folios containing some of medieval Irish literature’s greatest masterpieces, including the lives of Irish saints, the only surviving Irish translation of the travels of Marco Polo, and the adventures of the hero Fionn mac Cumhaill, or Finn MacCool.
The number of coronavirus patients in UK hospitals could pass the spring peak by the end of November without further lockdown measures, a leading government scientific adviser has warned.
Sir Mark Walport, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said it was “not unrealistic” that there would be 25,000 people in hospital with Covid by the end of next month – higher than the April peak.
I’m handing over now to my colleague Jessica Murray, who will cover the Macron address. It’s been a day of worrying numbers all over Europe, and severe new measures in an attempt to bring the pandemic under control. Here’s a summary of the day’s main events.
•The number of new cases recorded across Europe and beyond continued to grow, with new highs in cases or deaths in many countries, including Italy, Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, Switzerland, Greece, Portugal, Iran, and Russia.
The French public is preparing for Emmanuel Macron’s address at 8pm local time (about 20 minutes from the timestamp on this post), in which he is expected to announce a raft of new measures to combat the spread of coronavirus.
With many doctors calling for a nationwide lockdown, France 24 reports damning comments from Frederic Valletoux, president of the French Hospital Federation:
The government didn’t take into account what the first wave was and didn’t learn all its lessons... this wave will be much more devastating for the hospital system. Hospitals won’t manage if we don’t take drastic measures.
London force accepts watchdog advice over flawed tactics undermining community confidence
The Metropolitan police force has been getting its use of stop and search wrong with multiple errors that have undermined its legitimacy, the police watchdog has found.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct said police in one case stopped and searched two black men who were innocently fist bumping, because officers wrongly thought they were drug dealing.
A further 367 people have died in the UK in the last day, the highest daily increase in five months and 50% higher than the daily increase last week.
The figure is more than six times the daily death toll of 54 announced on 23 March when the national lockdown began. It confirms fears about the escalating second wave of the pandemic and brings the total of those who died within 28 days of testing positive to 45,365.