While Boris Johnson partied in the sun, I sweated in PPE, saving lives

Downing Street’s lockdown parties were a world away from life as a frontline doctor in the pandemic

Forget Annabel’s – the place to be for the professional “partygoer” is Downing Street, especially during a pandemic. But it is invitation-only for the “in crowd” of government advisers, civil servants and elected politicians prepared to bring their own booze.

With every revelation, the nation recalls what it was doing on those nights that were filled with dancing for the Downing Street set. As people isolated, courageously risked their lives caring for the sick, or died from Covid-19, the revellers remained in their alternative universe where the wine flowed and the music played on.

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Tories will oust Boris Johnson if he tries to dodge ‘partygate’ blame

Conservative MPs could force PM out within weeks after furious reaction to Downing Street gatherings

Tory MPs will be ready in sufficient numbers to force Boris Johnson out of Downing Street within weeks if he tries to dodge responsibility for rule-breaking parties at No 10, the Observer has been told.

While most Conservative MPs say they are waiting for a report into so-called “partygate” by the senior civil servant Sue Gray before deciding the prime minister’s fate, large numbers admit privately that their minds are effectively made up and that they are merely observing “due process”.

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Boris Johnson must resign in national interest, says Keir Starmer

Labour leader increases pressure on PM as more Tory politicians join calls for him to quit

Keir Starmer has ramped up the pressure on Boris Johnson as the prime minister fights to save his job, arguing that it is in the “national interest” that he steps down as he is “unable to lead”.

In a speech to the Fabian Society conference, the Labour leader accused the Conservatives of running the NHS into the ground because they are “too preoccupied defending his rule breaking”. Stressing that “waiting times were the shortest on record” when Labour left government 12 years ago, he said: “Rather than concentrating on getting through the pandemic and bringing down waiting lists, this self-indulgent Tory party is instead having a fight about a leader who they should have known from the start is not fit for office.”

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Psychiatrists warn of police and crime bill’s impact on young people

Academics and clinicians say bill ‘will have a profound negative impact on young people’s mental health’

Hundreds of clinical psychiatrists and psychologists have warned that the police and crime bill reaching its final stages in parliament “will have a profound negative impact on young people’s mental health”.

“We cannot think of better measures to disempower and socially isolate young people,” they say in an open letter signed by more than 350 academics and clinicians and published online.

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Woman jailed for death threats to Bradford MP Naz Shah

Sundas Alam’s threats led to Shah's children fleeing home and innocent family being arrested at gunpoint

A woman whose death threats led to an MP’s children fleeing their home in the middle of the night, and an innocent family being arrested at gunpoint, has been jailed for three and a half years.

Bradford West MP Naz Shah has described how she rang 999 about “an immediate firearms threat” in a disguised email sent by Sundas Alam in April last year that threatened her with a “bullet in her head”.

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Prince Andrew faces calls to pay for his own security

Growing clamour for royal to lose dukedom and taxpayer-funded Scotland Yard security detail

The Duke of York faces calls to pay for his own security and relinquish his dukedom after being stripped of his military affiliations and royal patronages in the fallout over the civil sexual assault case against him.

The calls come as his accuser, Virginia Giuffre, welcomed the New York court ruling that paved the way for her lawsuit against Prince Andrew to proceed to trial, as she pledged to “continue to expose the truth”.

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No 10 apologises to Queen over parties on eve of Prince Philip funeral

Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says ‘it’s deeply regrettable that this took place at a time of national mourning’

Downing Street was forced to issue an unprecedented public apology to the Queen on Friday over parties held in No 10 on the eve of her husband’s funeral, amid mounting fury from grassroots Tories.

Conservative MPs will hold crisis talks over the weekend about how to respond to allegations of a party culture in Westminster while the rest of the country was in lockdown.

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How No 10’s alleged parties took place as UK Covid death toll rose – interactive

A timeline of alleged lockdown parties and UK deaths, what Covid rules were in place at the time and what Boris Johnson said

The UK government and the Conservative party have been rocked by a series of claims about staff parties held in Downing Street and elsewhere in Whitehall. Some have argued the “partygate” scandal could ultimately topple the prime minister.

With more than 175,000 Covid deaths to date, the Guardian plots the UK death toll against dates on which the staff parties are alleged to have occurred, as well as previous controversies involving alleged breaches of lockdown rules and Johnson’s recent comments on the 2020 gatherings.

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Renewed calls for PM to resign over parties on eve of Philip funeral

Queen followed Covid rules at husband’s funeral, sitting alone in face mask away from rest of family

Further allegations of Downing Street parties taking place on the eve of the Duke of Edinburgh’s socially distanced funeral have been met with widespread anger across the political spectrum, bookending a turbulent week for Boris Johnson, who is facing renewed calls to resign.

Prince Philip’s funeral took place in the private chapel at Windsor Castle on Saturday 17 April, the day after two leaving dos were reportedly held at No 10 at a time when such mixing was banned. The Queen, in mourning black, wearing a face mask and sitting alone to maintain social distancing, became one of the defining images of the national lockdown.

Covid restrictions had a substantial impact on the proceedings, with the guest list trimmed from 800 to 30.

The Queen attended the funeral wearing a face mask and socially distanced from the rest of her family, who were seated in their respective household bubbles, at the service in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.

Those in the funeral procession were required to put on face masks before entering the chapel.

Bottles of hand sanitiser featured alongside the traditional dressing of floral arrangements and family wreaths.

Original plans for military processions through London or Windsor were scrapped, with the royal family asking the public not to gather at the castle or other royal residences.

The choir was also limited to four singers, while the few guests were banned from singing in line with Covid regulations.

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Intoxicating, insidery and infuriating: everything I learned about Dominic Cummings from his £10-a-month blog

Since he left Downing Street, Boris Johnson’s former adviser has been setting out his worldview – and settling scores – on his Substack. Could it help us understand the most notorious man in British politics?

Who is the most interesting writer about politics in Britain today? No question, it’s Dominic Cummings. The Substack blog he started in June last year is not cheap – £10 a month for an erratic and irregular output via email – but it’s worth it. Whenever and whatever he does post, you can be sure it will contain plenty of extraordinary ideas, unexpected insights and eye-popping indiscretions. Cummings appears to have little or no filter on his thoughts, with the result that his writing offers as clear a view into the dark heart of contemporary politics as is available anywhere. He has no time for any of the usual pieties. What you get is a voracious intellect – Cummings is interested in everything from 19th-century German history to quantum physics – coupled with a tireless curiosity about anything that lies outside the conventional wisdom. It’s a revelation.

As Boris Johnson’s former right-hand man – and the architect of Brexit and the Tories’ 2019 election landslide – Cummings is nothing if not divisive. Since Johnson fired him in late 2020, Cummings has turned on the prime minister and made it his mission to force him out of office. If your enemy’s enemy is your friend, this makes it hard for many of Cummings’ former critics to know what to think of him now.

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Chinese national trying to improperly influence politicians, says MI5

Warning circulated to MPs and peers about woman targeting parliamentarians

A security warning from MI5 has been circulated to MPs and peers claiming that a female Chinese national has been seeking to improperly influence parliamentarians.

The “interference alert” names an individual “knowingly engaged in political interference activities on behalf of the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist party” with MI5’s logo at the top.

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Boris Johnson unlikely to be seen in public for a week, says Downing St

Period stuck inside No 10 comes at arguably fortuitous time for PM facing intense scrutiny over ‘partygate’

Boris Johnson is unlikely to be seen in public for the next week after a member of his immediate family tested positive for Covid, Downing Street has said.

While self-isolation for contacts of coronavirus cases is no longer mandatory, Johnson’s spokesman said the prime minister would heed guidance to limit outside contacts as much as possible for seven days after the test.

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Covid isolation to be cut to five full days in England, says Sajid Javid

Health secretary confirms reduction in self-isolation period, in decision that could help address staff shortages

The health secretary, Sajid Javid, has confirmed that the minimum time people with Covid in England have to spend in self-isolation is to be cut to five full days.

From Monday, people would be able to leave isolation on day six if they tested negative on days five and six, Javid told the Commons.

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Boris Johnson does not believe he broke Covid rules at party, says minister

Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis defends PM as he pulls out of public engagement in Lancashire

The Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, has insisted the prime minister was “very, very sincere” when he apologised for attending an alcohol-fuelled gathering in the Downing Street garden, but did not believe he had broken the rules.

Boris Johnson told MPs on Wednesday he thought he was at a “work event” when he dropped into what his own principal private secretary had called “socially distanced drinks”.

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‘Disgrace’: what the papers said as Boris Johnson faces calls to resign

Amid the derision, supportive papers try to rally around the PM but report that ‘ambitious’ Rishi Sunak is waiting in the wings

The newspaper front pages have piled the pressure on Boris Johnson as the prime minister fights for his political life over the scandal of the “bring your own booze” lockdown-era party at Downing Street.

The Mirror’s banner headline on Thursday is “Disgrace”, set below a picture of Johnson giving his humiliating apology to the Commons for “not realising” the event in the back garden of 10 Downing Street on 20 May 2020 was a party.

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Senior backbench MP joins Scottish Tory leader in calling for Johnson to resign over No 10 lockdown party – live

William Wragg says Boris Johnson is damaging reputation of party as Douglas Ross calls for him to stand down after prime minister admits attending party

Another journalist who is very well plugged in to the thinking of Tory MPs is the Conservative Home editor Paul Goodman, a former MP himself. In what might be a rather ominous development for Johnson, Goodman devotes his main ConHome article this morning to discussing the process by which the Conservative party might go about replacing him (although he does not describe Johnson’s resignation as inevitable).

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, has said Boris Johnson should resign. He told BBC Breakfast:

Boris Johnson is now incapable of leading our country through this public health crisis - I actually think he is a threat to the health of the nation, because no-one will do anything he says because he has now shown to have been deceitful, so Boris Johnson must now resign ...

He said to parliament and to the country before Christmas when he was apologising that he didn’t know about the parties, and now we know he was at at least one of those parties.

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France poised to lift blanket ban on UK travellers ‘by end of the week’

Skiing holidays could soon be given the green light, following the ease of travel restrictions in the ‘next few days’

British skiers could soon be able to return to French slopes after an announcement that France is due to lift its blanket ban on non-essential travel from the UK.

The French government’s official spokesman, Gabriel Attal, said after a weekly cabinet meeting on Wednesday that Paris would ease travel restrictions from the UK to France in the next few days.

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‘The party’s over’: Keir Starmer derides Boris Johnson’s apology at PMQs – video

The Labour leader has said the prime minister's apology for attending what he claimed he thought was a 'work event' in the garden at No 10 in May 2020, when the country was in full lockdown, was 'offensive to the British public'. Keir Starmer called for Boris Johnson to 'do the decent thing' and resign before either his party or the public drove him out of office

UK politics: latest updates

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Russia’s belief in Nato ‘betrayal’ – and why it matters today

The idea that the Soviet Union was tricked in 1989-90 is at the heart of Russia’s confrontation with the west

The current confrontation between Russia and the west is fuelled by many grievances, but the greatest is the belief in Moscow that the west tricked the former Soviet Union by breaking promises made at the end of the cold war in 1989-1990 that Nato would not expand to the east. In his now famous 2007 speech to the Munich Security Conference, Vladimir Putin accused the west of forgetting and breaking assurances, leaving international law in ruins.

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Ditching the hard shoulder proved too hard a sell to MPs and motorists

Analysis: the UK government has bowed to the inevitable and shelved the expanded rollout

Pausing the rollout of smart motorways suggests the government has finally bowed to the inevitable, faced with the collective outrage of motoring groups, bereaved families, newspapers, MPs – and indeed a former minister who signed off the schemes.

Not, though, that the small print guarantees drivers have in any way seen the end of the hard shoulderless highways: ongoing major works will be completed, and even design work will go ahead for more stretches, in case the mood changes by 2025.

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