Category Archives: Politics

UK government puts animal welfare policies on pause

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Delayed legislation includes ban on trophy hunting imports and stricter sentences for puppy thieves

Some of the government’s most prized new animal welfare policies are being put on pause in what supporters see as a sneaky attempt to ditch the “woke” measures altogether.

Senior sources in the Conservative party have confirmed to the Guardian that a series of policies including a ban on trophy hunting imports, stricter sentences for puppy thieves and a ban on live exports of livestock have been put on pause after a campaign led by Mark Spencer, the chief whip.

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‘In the name of God, go’: Tory fury spills over as Boris Johnson clings on

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Former minister demands PM’s resignation in Commons, one Conservative MP defects and others clamour for concessions

Boris Johnson has faced a defection and a demand to quit from one of his most senior MPs during a dramatic day in Westminster, with even allies of the prime minister warning the current situation cannot go on.

David Davis caused shockwaves when he told Johnson in the Commons: “In the name of God, go.” Less than an hour earlier, Christian Wakeford, the MP for Bury South, quit the Conservatives and joined Labour in fury at the Downing Street parties scandal.

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UK Covid live: end to England’s plan B measures next week ‘a milestone, not a finish line’, says Sajid Javid

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Latest updates: health secretary leads coronavirus update after Boris Johnson says England’s Omicron measures to end next week

Boris Johnson is expected to instruct millions to return to workplaces across England as he tries to placate furious MPs with a review of Covid restrictions that could end all rules introduced to combat Omicron.

The cabinet will meet on this morning to examine Covid data and review plan B restrictions imposed in December amid the rapid spread of the variant, with Johnson set to update the Commons later in the day.

I think they are a crucial building block of our baseline, a bit like Test and Trace, Test and Protect for us in Scotland, the alcohol gels, the vaccinations, I think these are what we’re going to be left with post-Omicron.

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The 2019ers: Tory unease as some of party’s newest MPs turn on Boris Johnson

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Members of old guard may refer to 2019 intake disparagingly, but they could hold PM’s fate in their hands

They were once among Boris Johnson’s most loyal defenders. Many of the army of the more than 100 MPs who sat in Westminster for the first time in December 2019 felt they owed the prime minister their seat.

So they were initially on their best behaviour, keen in a much-expanded parliamentary party to stand out from their peers and secure early promotion to the lowest rungs of the ministerial ladder. And most still feel that way.

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Plans to allow ‘double-jobbing’ in Northern Irish politics dropped

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PM says amendment is being pulled after Tory Northern Ireland affairs committee chair spoke out against it

The UK government has abandoned plans to introduce a law that would have allowed the leader of the Democratic Unionist party to potentially “double-job” in the Stormont assembly while remaining a Westminster MP.

Before a debate on the legislation in the Lords on Wednesday afternoon, Boris Johnson told the Commons that an amendment enabling dual mandates was being withdrawn.

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Work from home and and mandatory mask rules to be dropped as England moves back to plan A – video

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Boris Johnson has announced updates to Covid regulations as plan B measures are due to expire. The work-from-home mandate will be dropped, as will mandatory face mask-wearing, including in classrooms. Rules over self-isolation after a positive Covid test remain in place 

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David Davis tells Boris Johnson ‘in the name of God, go’ at chaotic PMQs

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Tory grandee calls on Johnson to resign at PMQs featuring fierce exchanges between PM and Keir Starmer

The Tory grandee David Davis told Boris Johnson: “In the name of God, go,” during an often chaotic prime minister’s questions overshadowed by intense doubt about Johnson’s future.

After a fierce set of exchanges between Johnson and Keir Starmer, Davis rose to tell Johnson that he had spent weeks defending him from “angry constituents”, but that repeated reports about lockdown-breaching parties were too much.

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‘I put my arms around her’: doctor’s story captures anger at No 10 parties

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Prit Buttar, who tweeted about comforting grieving woman, says he wanted to show difference in experience between ordinary people and Downing Street

When Dr Prit Buttar, a retired GP, decided to break social distancing rules and offer his embrace to a bereaved woman, it was a gesture of core humanity. “Everybody on the team would have done exactly the same, Covid or no Covid,” he said from his study near Kirkcudbright.

He did not envisage, a year on, that his recollection of that moment would inspire a cathartic outpouring of similar memories from people across the UK, or that he would become a reluctant – though passionate – advocate for the fury and dismay of ordinary people at the boozy rule-breaking in the seat of power.

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Lying to parliament a resigning matter, says Raab, amid claims PM misled MPs

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Justice secretary says allegations that Boris Johnson lied about No 10 lockdown party are ‘nonsense’

Dominic Raab has admitted that lying to parliament is “normally” a resigning matter, amid claims that the prime minister deliberately misled MPs over his knowledge of a Downing Street party.

Boris Johnson’s former senior aide Dominic Cummings had earlier accused the prime minister of lying when No 10 denied Johnson had been warned against allowing a “bring your own booze” garden party during lockdown.

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‘We’ve been forgotten’: the British embassy security guard in Kabul

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Abdullah says guards who risked their lives for the British cannot understand why they have been abandoned

Abdullah*, 34, was a security guard for the British embassy, employed under contract by GardaWorld, and had a senior management role, looking after other locally employed embassy guards. He and about 180 colleagues had hoped to be evacuated to the UK at the end of August, but the evacuation was stopped by a bomb at the airport. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) made a clear commitment that all GardaWorld staff would be allowed to travel to the UK, but this has not happened.

We’ve heard nothing from the Home Office or the FCDO and life is becoming very hard for everyone who worked for the British embassy. Surviving when there is no income and no work is very difficult. We’re still hoping we will get an email about evacuation plans, but we haven’t heard anything. The UK government is helping footballers and writers to leave the country, but there has been no help for us. We feel like we should be first in line because we risked our lives for the British government. It’s a huge disappointment for all of us.

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‘Massive anger’: 40% of grassroots Tories want Boris Johnson to quit

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Survey finds widespread discontent as MPs inundated with emails about Downing Street parties scandal

There is “massive anger” among grassroots Conservative party supporters over the Downing Street parties scandal, the head of a leading group has said as its survey found 40% thought Boris Johnson should resign.

Ed Costelloe, chairman of Grassroots Conservatives, said it had been years since the group last polled its supporters and followers but it felt compelled by the “unique” nature of the public mood.

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Covid live: Boris Johnson broke the law, says Keir Starmer; UK records 70,924 new cases

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Latest updates: UK Labour leader says PM broke lockdown rules and then lied; latest daily UK figures do not include Scotland

Streeting tells Trevor Phillips that the Labour party isn’t calling for a vote of no confidence in the government as it would rally the Conservatives.

“We could call a motion of no confidence in the government - we’ve been around the block with this before, that would galvanise the Conservative party.”

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Is it the end for Boris Johnson?

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Last week’s ridicule is not the worst sign of the PM’s plummeting standing. The anger of families who have suffered in the pandemic will not go away. It’s now just a question of how long he survives

After another dreadful week for Boris Johnson that was dominated by news of yet more rule-breaking parties at No 10, the comedian Andy Zaltzman opened BBC Radio 4’s News Quiz at 6.30pm on Friday by announcing his two teams. One he named “team apologise” and the other “team pack of lies”.

Zaltzman added: “This show is best listened to when not at work. If you are unsure whether you are at work or not at work, please check whether anyone you normally work with has turned up with a bottle of wine and is getting hammered.”

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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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