Scrutiny of procedures urged following fatal shooting of officer in Croydon police station
Police officers believe there needs to be an urgent review of the stop and search protocols used when arresting suspects, following the fatal shooting of Sgt Matiu Ratana.
As the Metropolitan police and the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) launch investigations into the death of the popular 54-year-old custody sergeant, questions remain as to how it happened.
Continue reading...The right fails to recognise that the Swedes’ real virtue in this pandemic is their social cohesion
Sweden is to the 21st-century right what the Soviet Union was to the 20th-century left. Conservatives have transformed it into a Tory Disneyland where every dream comes true. On the shores of the Baltic lies a country that has no need to curtail civil liberties and wreck the economy to curb Covid-19. “I have a dream, a fantasy,” sang Abba. “To help me through reality.” For much of the right, that fantasy is called Sweden.
Let the leader of the Conservative backbenchers stand for the Tory press and innumerable ideologues inside and outside Westminster. Sir Graham Brady ruined a perfectly good argument that parliament must have the power to scrutinise Johnson’s emergency decrees by announcing that there was no emergency. We could look to a country that merely had a ban on gatherings of more than 50, restrictions on visiting care homes, a shift to table-only service in bars and see that “Sweden today is in a better place than the United Kingdom”. Or as the Sun explained on Thursday as Boris Johnson met Anders Tegnell, the Swedish public health “mastermind”, a do-little strategy has spared Sweden a second wave of Covid-19 infections.
Continue reading...Demonstrators gathered in Trafalgar Square in central London to protest against the government's recently toughened Covid-19 restrictions. Protesters waved placards and flouted government guidelines on social distancing, opting not to wear masks. The police moved in and attempted to disperse them
Continue reading...‘We need to make sure that transmission comes down now,’ says Prof Graham Medley
The UK’s daily coronavirus death toll will rise from 34 to 100 a day in three to four weeks’ time, an expert on the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) has warned.
Infectious disease modelling expert Prof Graham Medley said there is little that can be done now to prevent daily deaths climbing to 100 – but “we need to make sure transmission comes down now” to prevent the figure increasing further.
Continue reading...Alexandra Wilson says legal system should introduce ambitious measures to tackle discrimination in profession
The barrister who was mistaken for a defendant three times in one day at court has called for compulsory anti-racism training at every level of the UK legal system.
Alexandra Wilson, who specialises in criminal and family cases, put in a complaint on Wednesday and spoke of her frustration about the incident on Twitter. Her tweets, which quickly went viral, resulted in an apology by the head of the courts service in England and Wales.
Continue reading...France’s total cases now 527,446; London mayor condemns ‘unacceptable’ demonstration. Follow all the developments live
Coronavirus cases in Colombia, which is nearly a month into a national reopening after a long quarantine, surpassed 800,000 on Saturday, a day after deaths from Covid-19 climbed above 25,000.
The country has 806,038 confirmed cases of the virus according to the health ministry, with 25,296 reported deaths. Active cases number 78,956.
Queen Elizabeth II will recognise the work of hundreds of doctors, nurses, fundraisers and volunteers during the pandemic when the her annual birthday honours list is published next month.
The list, which was due to be published in June, was postponed in order to add nominations for people playing key roles in the early months of the outbreak. It will be released on 10 October.
We all have to play our part, but the dedication, courage and compassion seen from these recipients, be it responding on the frontline or out in their communities providing support to the most vulnerable, is an inspiration to us all.
We owe them a debt of gratitude and the 2020 Queen’s Birthday honours will be the first of many occasions where we can thank them as a nation.
Continue reading...Long-serving police sergeant, originally from New Zealand, described as ‘an inspiration’
Police have named the officer killed at Croydon police station as Matiu Ratana.
The 54-year-old sergeant, known as Matt, had served with the Metropolitan police for nearly 30 years. Ratana, originally from Hawke’s Bay in New Zealand, came to London in 1989, two years before joining the force.
Continue reading...EU sources fear Boris Johnson hasn’t yet got backing for compromises on state aid to business
Brussels has sought to puncture an outbreak of optimism over an imminent Brexit deal, amid fears Boris Johnson has not secured the backing of key advisers and his party for the compromises needed in the final stretch of negotiations.
With the UK government yet to offer a way forward on the most contentious issues, and trust in Downing Street at a low ebb, senior EU officials treated with scepticism reports that the UK could see a way to secure a deal.
Continue reading...Researchers will test length of time virus stays infectious in different climatic conditions
It is the question scientists around the world are trying to answer: how long can the coronavirus survive in the tiny aerosol particles we exhale? In a high-security lab near Bristol, entered through a series of airlock doors, scientists may be weeks from finding out.
On Monday, they will start launching tiny droplets of live Sars-CoV-2 and levitating them between two electric rings to test how long the airborne virus remains infectious under different environmental conditions.
Continue reading...Spanish government calls for Madrid lockdown; Netherlands records worst day for new cases; cases in Reykjavík linked to two French visitors
The UK government has been continuing to source medical gloves used as PPE by frontline healthcare workers from a manufacturer in Malaysia repeatedly accused of forcing its workers to endure “slave-like conditions” in its factories, the Guardian can reveal.
Top Glove, the world’s biggest producer of rubber medical gloves, has faced multiple allegations of exploitation from migrant workers mostly from Bangladesh and Nepal.
Related: NHS sourcing PPE from company repeatedly accused of forced labour
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
Continue reading...New infections in UK growing by 4% to 8% every day; measures to come into force in three areas in Wales this weekend; London placed on watchlist
A further 33 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 29,871, NHS England said on Friday.
The patients were aged between 56 and 93 and all except two, aged 84 and 88, had known underlying health conditions.
The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has called for financial support from the government for areas under extra restrictions.
At his weekly press conference, he told reporters:
These restrictions in our case have been in place for a number of weeks, getting on for seven to eight now, and they are having an impact on people’s lives but also on people’s jobs and people’s businesses.
There was not any compensatory support for many of those people announced yesterday and I think this is an unacceptable situation.
Swansea and Llanelli are expected to go into lockdown on Saturday, and Cardiff on Sunday, after a spike in coronavirus cases, the Welsh health minister, Vaughan Gething, has announced.
Meetings between extended households, known as ‘bubbles’, will be suspended. Travel will be monitored and can only be for essential reasons
Continue reading...Consultant and photographer Nick Mason shares his experience and that of colleagues at the Royal Gwent hospital in Newport, offering a unique perspective documenting the impact of Covid-19 on the NHS frontline
Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” TS Eliot, Burnt Norton
Human memory is fickle. Only a few brief months ago, many intensive care units (ICUs) across Britain came close to being overwhelmed by patients with a novel coronavirus, unknown to medicine before January of this year, and causing potentially life-threatening lung disease in up to 20% of those it infects. With the relaxation of the lockdown, however – only possible because it had been so effective – and the good summer weather in which we have been encouraged by Westminster to eat, drink and be merry, we have begun to forget. We have rapidly forgotten the fear and anxiety that rightly held Britain in their grip throughout the spring of 2020, the 40,000 people who died from a single infectious disease within a few brief months and the incalculable suffering caused to their families. We have forgotten that more than 600 health and social care workers died as a result of their work caring for others.
Continue reading...Exclusive: proposed rewriting of data protection rules said to put vital cooperation in doubt
A radical “pro-tech” plan championed by Dominic Cummings to rewrite Britain’s data protection laws is endangering future cooperation with the EU worth billions to the British economy, Brussels has warned.
The government’s newly published national data strategy, promising a “transformation” long sought by Boris Johnson’s chief adviser and the former Vote Leave director, has sparked concern at a sensitive time with the continued flow of data between the UK and EU member states in question.
Continue reading...Experts say that while contested ‘light touch’ response warrants study each country must find right approach for them
EU governments that locked down are increasingly emulating the one that did not, but experts warn that Sweden’s Covid approach, relying more on voluntary compliance than coercion, will not suit all – and big questions remain over whether it has worked for Sweden.
As infections surge in several European countries, France, which is currently averaging nearly 12,000 cases a day, has ruled out another national lockdown, instead pursuing a strategy the prime minister, Jean Castex, calls “living with the virus” and imposing local measures.
Continue reading...Cryptome also published documents that are at centre of Julian Assange extradition case
US authorities have never asked a WikiLeaks rival to take down unredacted cables that have been among those at the centre of the legal battle to send Julian Assange to the US, his extradition hearing has been told.
The evidence was given by a veteran internet activist whose website, Cryptome, published more than 250,000 classified documents a day before WikiLeaks began placing them online.
Continue reading...Mixed feelings as icon of working-class London and Europe’s first ever large indoor retail centre makes way for development
After 55 years the final few traders were packing up their shops and stalls at the Elephant and Castle shopping centre in south London with mixed feelings about what the future might hold.
“It’s time for a change, because really everything has to be different,” Luz Villamizar, a “60-something” trader said with tears in her eyes. “It’s time because this is not a nice building now, anymore.”
Continue reading...Media criticise PM’s Covid strategy, as UK adopts job support scheme similar to Germany’s own
The UK followed in the footsteps of the German government by adopting a jobs support scheme on Thursday. The announcement came as German commentators spoke of their confusion at the zig-zag approach to tackling the coronavirus, describing a nation caught up in feelings of panic, disbelief and disillusionment.
“Military intervention to control coronavirus rules a possibility,” ran one banner headline in the business daily Handelsblatt this week, while an editorial in the Süddeutsche Zeitung was titled: “Johnson’s skittishness endangers his country.”
Continue reading...Five measures absent from the chancellor’s winter economy plan
Rishi Sunak’s winter economy plan prioritises additional support for “viable” jobs. However, critics have warned that other measures are still needed to help people who have already lost their jobs or will lose them despite the new government scheme.
Here are five measures that could help keep workers in jobs, but were missing from the chancellor’s winter economy plan:
Continue reading...Pushback comes after PM’s suggestion UK’s Covid-19 infection rate was worse than Italy because Britons loved their freedom more
Italy’s president, Sergio Mattarella, said its citizens “also love freedom, but we also care about seriousness”, responding to Boris Johnson’s suggestion that the UK’s rate of coronavirus infection was worse than both Italy and Germany’s because Britons loved their freedom more.
Mattarella’s comments came at the end of a ceremony in Sardinia, in memory of the former Italian president Francesco Cossiga.
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