Source says aide’s instant departure came after he was accused of briefing against PM
Boris Johnson has ordered Dominic Cummings to leave Downing Street with immediate effect, in a dramatic end to a tumultuous era which leaves a void at the heart of Downing Street.
Cummings and his ally Lee Cain – both ardent Brexiters blamed by MPs for a macho culture and a series of communications crises – were asked to step down on Friday instead of staying in place until Christmas.
Continue reading...Broadcaster claimed document proved royal was not coerced into doing 1995 interview
The BBC says it has found the handwritten note from Princess Diana that it claimed clears Martin Bashir of wrongdoing in relation to his landmark 1995 interview with the royal.
The broadcaster had previously said it had lost the crucial piece of paper, which it used to explain away Bashir’s use of fake bank statements to gain an introduction to Diana.
Continue reading...Investigation aimed at Continuity IRA involved man named in connection with Omagh bombing
Seven leading Irish republican dissidents have been jailed following an MI5 bugging operation aimed at the Continuity IRA.
The seven CIRA hardline republicans include Patrick “Mooch” Blair, who was named in the House of Commons in 2002 as the man who built the bomb that caused the Omagh massacre – the largest single atrocity of Northern Ireland’s Troubles.
Continue reading...Ruling could halt deportation of hundreds of asylum seekers who arrived in UK during pandemic
The deportation of hundreds of asylum seekers who arrived in the UK on small boats could be halted after a judge ruled that the home secretary was departing from her own policy on identifying victims of trafficking.
The high court case was brought by three potential victims of trafficking – one from Eritrea and two from Sudan – who recently arrived in the UK on small boats. Trafficking in Libya is well-documented, and there is a particular risk that asylum seekers who have passed through the country have been trafficked.
Continue reading...The doom spiral has been interrupted. Could it be that, by the spring, things will actually be better than they are now?
After five years of wanting to move, about two years of having to move and eight months of really urgently needing to move, the kids being so large and teen now that we could all smell each other across two floors of our titchy house, we finally moved. The sheer number of small, troublesome questions this prompted – have we traumatised the rabbit? Will the dog definitely die if he runs on to the A3, and will the resulting pile-up be legally my fault? What’s at the bottom of this pan we packed, oh God no, it’s curdled milk, who moves house without washing up first? Me, that’s who – completely clouded my vision. It was days before I realised something good had happened.
The US elections unfolded at the same time, following the same pattern. Lots of facts, and counting, and more facts, and revised counting, and nebulous fretting, until finally, wait … this is actually good. Something good has happened. This would have been a really fortuitous day to buy a lottery ticket, I thought on Saturday evening; with so much improbable good fortune, the chances of me winning a million quid are probably pretty high. I didn’t follow that up because I was too busy drinking and whatnot. Then two days later, a vaccine.
Continue reading...‘Zero chance’ mRNA can alter genes, says expert, adding that vaccine can ‘top up’ immune response from infection
“The concerted efforts put into developing a vaccine are wonderful but they can’t possibly know about long-term adverse effects. I’ll have it if it’s offered to me, and at my age long-term effects are irrelevant. I just hope it doesn’t turn out to be a latter-day thalidomide.” Jenny Walters, retired teacher, Ashburton
Continue reading...It will take months to roll out immunisation, and the PM’s top adviser is leaving just in time to avoid his Brexit aftermath
Monday
As many of you will know, my default responses to most situations are mistrust and despair. Yet today I listened to the news and felt something approaching hope. My mood had lifted over the weekend when it became clear Joe Biden had won the US presidential election and that the world was going to be a safer and more stable place after four years of Donald Trump. That feeling was deepened this morning when I heard that there was a genuine contender for a successful coronavirus vaccine in the near future. There’s sure to be a biopic of Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci – the husband and wife team behind BioNTech – already in development. Suddenly it felt like there was a way back to normality that didn’t involve repeated lockdowns and testing. It would be so nice to wake up in the morning without a feeling of both intense anxiety and loneliness. I have missed my work friends and colleagues dreadfully and hadn’t realised how much I depended on them. Then, of course, I had to spoil the moment by doing the maths. The UK has secured 40m doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine – enough for 20 million people – and I wasn’t sure whether I would make the cut as I was only in tier 8 (out of 11) in order of priority to get the jab. I then read that even working flat out, the government estimated it would only be able to give about 1m vaccinations a week, meaning that it would take the best part of a year to roll out the current stocks – even if other vaccines proved successful in the interim. Still, the hope was nice while it lasted.
Tuesday
Today is the 25th birthday of our son – our youngest child – and somehow it feels far more significant than either his 18th or his 21st because back then he was at university and had yet to give much thought to what sort of life or career he might want. Robbie is now indisputably an adult – he’s far more grown up and sorted than I was at his age – and though I take pleasure and pride in the man he’s become I can’t help missing the younger, more dependent version who was happy, among other things, to come along to football matches with me. I’m also not entirely sure where all the intervening years have gone though his actual birth is etched in my memory as, like his sister before him, he was whisked off to intensive care moments after he was born – though thankfully he wasn’t in anything like the critical state Anna had been. Still, at least it has never been hard knowing what to give Robbie for his birthday as he’s always in need of cash. All year he has been saving for the moment he turned 25 and his car insurance became cheaper. What he really wants is a van (a 2004 Toyota Hiace with 100,000 miles on the clock) in which he and his girlfriend can bung some surfboards and a sleeping bag so they can spend their weekends and holidays at campsites by the sea with a few other friends in their vans. Now the moment has arrived when that possibility becomes more of a financial reality and he has spent much of the last month eyeing up potential contenders. May the van of his dreams rise up to meet him.
Italy also registers 40,000 new infections; Germany records 23,542 new cases; Russia reports its worst day for new infections; Sweden’s hits daily record
Health authorities in the Australian state of NSW have released a list of three key “venues of concern” in Auckland as they check arrivals from New Zealand since 5 November.
•A-Z Collection, Auckland CBD: 10.30am-6.30pm on 8 November, 10.30am-6.30pm on 9 November, or 10.30am-6.30pm 11 November
•The Vincent Residences, Auckland Central: 12am on 7 November to 12pm 12 November
•Red Pig Restaurant, Auckland CBD: 6-8.30pm on 7 November
NSW Health is contacting 455 people who have arrived from New Zealand since 5 November following a locally acquired case of COVID 19 in Auckland. These passengers have been sent a message alerting them to a number of venues of concern in Auckland. pic.twitter.com/Gpd6avauBJ
News agency Reuters is reporting the latest case numbers from Brazil, one of the world’s worst-hit countries.
The country’s health ministry has reported 29,070 new Covid-19 cases and a further 456 deaths from the disease.
Continue reading...Serial killer was serving 20 life terms for murder of 13 women across north of England in late 1970s
Peter Sutcliffe, the serial killer known as the Yorkshire Ripper, has died in hospital, a Prison Service spokesman said.
Sutcliffe, 74, was serving 20 life terms at Frankland prison in County Durham for murdering 13 women and attempting to kill seven more in the late 1970s.
Continue reading...Adviser repeats that he wants to be ‘largely redundant’ by end of 2020, after departure of Lee Cain
Boris Johnson’s most senior adviser, Dominic Cummings, is to leave his Downing Street position by the end of this year in a signal of a major change of direction for the government.
Whitehall sources confirmed he will follow Johnson’s communications director, Lee Cain, in leaving No 10.
Continue reading...Growing numbers face a winter of destitution as the Home Office withdraws accommodation provided during first lockdown
Homeless charities are calling for evictions of asylum seekers to be suspended as growing numbers are being left destitute as winter approaches.
While many asylum seekers were temporarily accommodated and tested for Covid-19 during the first lockdown under the government’s “everyone in” scheme, the Home Office restarted evictions in September. This group has no right to work and no recourse to public funds or statutory homelessness services.
Continue reading...Leading scientists and campaigners say cutting emissions alone is not enough
Leading scientists, academics and campaigners have called on governments and businesses to go beyond “net zero” in their efforts to tackle the escalating climate and ecological crisis.
The former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and the leading climate scientist Michael Mann are among a group of prominent environmentalists calling for the “restoration of the climate” by removing “huge amounts of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere”.
Continue reading...Independent monitors say migrants arriving at Dover are moved with untreated injuries amid serious documentation errors
Asylum seekers who have crossed the Channel in small boats are being subjected to “inhumane treatment”, independent monitors have said, with individuals moved between detention centres with untreated broken bones, burns and cancer.
Evidence collated by four separate independent monitoring boards, which scrutinise prisons and immigration detention facilities, found that people arriving at Dover were being kept in crowded conditions – with no social distancing – and that serious errors were being included in their documentation.
Continue reading...Some trials of lateral flow test from US firm Innova found it was much less accurate than the government said it was
The lateral flow test bought by the UK government for mass testing in Liverpool, and potentially the whole country, could miss up to half of those who have Covid-19, according to experts.
The government has great expectations of the Innova test, having signed two contracts with the California-based company behind it. Innova told the Guardian it was now shipping more than one million tests a day to the UK.
Continue reading...Thousands of ordinary people around Britain volunteered to take part in the Imperial College London coronavirus vaccine trial. Who are they, what motivated them to take part, and what’s it been like?
Exhibition explores how surrealist movement influenced culture and design in 20th century
Anyone tiring of the many mundane strictures of the new normality can, in Madrid at least, escape temporarily into a world where hands serve as chairs, tables spin on bicycle wheels and horses obligingly proffer lamps from their heads.
An exhibition in the Spanish capital examines the countless ways in which the surrealist movement has influenced culture and design over the past century, from the sofa Salvador Dalí modelled on Mae West’s lips, to the music videos of Björk.
Continue reading...Britain may lack ‘bandwidth to move forward’ as Brexit transition nears end, say PM
Canada could easily negotiate a post-Brexit trade deal with the UK, Justin Trudeau has said, but he warned that talks could be delayed because British negotiators are so out of practice.
Speaking at an online event hosted by the Financial Times, the Canadian prime minister said he remained upbeat about the prospect of a trade deal between the two countries before the end of the year.
Continue reading...Undercover officers attended planning meeting of anti-Vietnam war protesters
Nine police officers were covertly deployed to spy on an open public meeting that decided the route of a major anti-war demonstration, a public inquiry has heard.
The officers attended the meeting in 1968 at which about 250 campaigners against the Vietnam war had gathered to draw up plans for a large-scale demonstration.
Continue reading...In recent years, Africans on the continent and in the diaspora have become leading voices in black culture – in music, film, fashion, social media, comedy and even our memes. When Grace Shutti was growing up, black culture usually referred to African Americans. But from Beyoncé's visual album, Black is King, to Marvel's Black Panther and musician Diddy executive producing the Nigerian pop star Burna Boy's album, the shift to embrace African art has been seismic. Grace investigates how this came about
Continue reading...Caitlin McNamara says she will appeal the Crown Prosecution Service’s decision not to pursue Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan for the alleged attack in Abu Dhabi
The British woman who accused a United Arab Emirates senior royal of sexually assaulting her has vowed to fight on after the Crown Prosecution Service declined to prosecute him last month, saying that the CPS decision sends “a clear message to this man and those committing similar crimes that as long as they’re of economic value to the UK, they can do whatever they want”.
Caitlin McNamara, who was the curator of the first Hay festival in Abu Dhabi in February, went public with her accusations last month. She alleges that Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, the UAE’s minister of tolerance, had attacked her shortly before the festival, which his department had funded. McNamara had believed she would be attending a business meeting with the royal, who denies the allegations through a London lawyer: “Our client is surprised and saddened by this allegation, which arrives eight months after the alleged incident and via a national newspaper. The account is denied.”
Continue reading...