UK furlough scheme pays out millions to foreign states and tax exiles

Qatari owners of Harrods and the Ritz claimed £3m alongside payouts to Saudi royals and British National party from Covid job support scheme

Billionaire tax exiles, the British National party, Saudi royals and oil-rich Gulf states have claimed millions of pounds in taxpayer-funded furlough money, the Guardian can disclose.

The revelations, based on analysis of government information, have sparked dismay among MPs at the use of a scheme designed to support struggling businesses and prevent mass unemployment, with one complaining of public money being scattered “like confetti”.

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Threat of no-deal Brexit remains, peers say, as EU relations sour

Exclusive: Lords committee chair highlights concern EU parliament may delay trade deal ratification

The Brexit deal signed in December has been thrown into jeopardy because of the recent breakdown of relations with the EU, an influential House of Lords committee is warning.

The European Union committee says “the threat of no deal remains”, with the European parliament now declining to set a date for its vote on the trade agreement sealed on Christmas Eve.

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Revealed: the data that shows how Covid bounced back after UK’s lockdowns

As we exit a third national lockdown, analysis shows how infections surged again after the first two

When the UK went into coronavirus lockdown a year ago, few people thought it would need to bounce in and out of the strictest curtailment of freedoms in memory several more times.

Now a Guardian data analysis shows how, while all three national lockdowns were successful in reducing infection rates, each was lifted when cases in at least some areas were too high, leading to rebounds.

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England considering Covid ‘certificates’ for larger events after lockdown

Culture secretary Oliver Dowden says government is piloting different methods while review is under way

Coronavirus “certificates” that would show whether people have had a vaccine or a negative test are being considered by the government as a way of getting people back to larger events, the culture secretary has said.

Oliver Dowden told Sky News that he hoped people would be able to return “in significant numbers” from 21 June if “all goes to plan”.

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Clot theory curdles into junkets for migrants on Isle of Man

PM welcomes vaccine safety vow, then spots new offshore home for folk trafficked here under false pretence – of getting a welcome

After a morning spent painting flowers at a primary school in his Uxbridge constituency, Britain’s prize clot returned to Downing Street to lead a press conference on clots. Blood clots to be precise.

Following the decision of some countries to suspend their Oxford AstraZeneca vaccination programmes over concerns of blood clot side-effects, Boris Johnson was happy to report that the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency had declared the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine to be absolutely safe.

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Dominic Raab ‘totally misunderstands’ Northern Ireland Brexit terms, warns EU

European vice-president Maroš Šefčovič says claim about Brussels trying to erect barrier down Irish Sea undermines UK’s reputation

Britain’s foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has been accused by Brussels of displaying a “total misunderstanding” of the Brexit deal after claiming the EU was trying to erect a barrier between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

Maroš Šefčovič, the European commission’s vice-president, said Raab’s comments raised major questions, and warned that Britain was tarnishing its global reputation by ignoring the terms of its agreements with Brussels.

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China may need Britain more than it cares to admit | Jeevan Vasagar

The value of British cultural capital in China makes the souring of relations all the more painful

When it is fully open later this year, the Londoner Macao hotel will be a kitsch recreation of tourist Britain, with a facade modelled on the Houses of Parliament, actors in bearskin hats performing the changing of the guard, and an English fried breakfast served at a restaurant called Churchill’s Table.

The new casino resort in China is one of the more tacky examples of the country’s fondness for British culture. Alongside the US and the Gulf, China is a crucial overseas market for English Premier League football broadcast rights. Britain’s heritage attractions, private schools and designer brands are immensely popular with China’s elite. The UK is also a favoured destination for higher education: numbers of Chinese students at UK universities soared by 56% from 2015 to 2019.

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Matt Hancock confirms dip in UK Covid vaccine supply for April

Health secretary says stocks will be affected by need to retest 1.7m doses and delay from India

Matt Hancock has said there will be a significant dip in vaccine supply in April, confirming supplies have been hit by a need to retest 1.7m doses and a delay in arrival of imports from India.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Hancock stressed the overall target timetable for vaccinations would not change but said he wanted to give more information, following the “speculation we’ve seen overnight”, after he was criticised for a press conference on Wednesday where the drop in supply went unexplained.

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UK’s Cop26 president calls for world to get on track to hit net zero by 2050

Alok Sharma sets out UK’s aims as host of climate talks, including new emissions targets for 2030

The world must be put on a path to reaching net zero by 2050 if the goal of holding global temperature rises below 1.5C is to be kept within reach, the UK host of this year’s climate talks has said.

Alok Sharma, the president of the UN Cop26 climate summit, said that for the talks in Glasgow in November to be judged a success, governments must urgently set out their targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade including announcing an end to new coal power plants and commitments to phase out existing ones. Sharma is also urging countries to end the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles.

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Asylum seekers ‘could be sent abroad by UK to be processed’

Reports suggest using Gibraltar, the Isle of Man or paying third countries in an Australian-style system

Asylum seekers could be sent to processing centres abroad under the home secretary’s plans to overhaul the immigration system, according to reports.

The British overseas territory of Gibraltar is a location under consideration by officials, according to the Times, as well as the Isle of Man and other islands off the British coast.

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Dominic Raab accuses EU of ‘brinkmanship’ over vaccine supply threat – video

The UK's foreign secretary said the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, needed to explain herself after she threatened to ban exports of Covid-19 vaccines to the UK. Raab said such a move would cut across previous assurances. 'Frankly, I'm surprised we're having this conversation,' Raab said. 'It's normally the UK and the EU [who] team up to object when other countries with less democratic regimes than our own engage in that kind of brinkmanship'

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Boris Johnson says UK wants to work with China, though it poses ‘great challenges for an open society’ – live

Latest updates: PM says UK’s greatest ally will be US as he makes statement to MPs on defence review

In his Sky News interview Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative chair of the Commons defence committee, said the security and defence review said that the UK could use nuclear weapons to respond to an attack with chemical or biological weapons. That was a “big change” in policy, he said.

He was referring to this passage on page 77 of the document (pdf).

The UK will not use, or threaten to use, nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons 1968 (NPT). This assurance does not apply to any state in material breach of those non-proliferation obligations. However, we reserve the right to review this assurance if the future threat of weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical and biological capabilities, or emerging technologies that could have a comparable impact, makes it necessary.

Here is the Scottish government’s summary of the latest plans for easing lockdown restrictions in Scotland. And here is a graphic summarising what it says.

Scotland’s indicative route out of lockdown. If we all stick with it and get the virus more under control as the vaccines do their work, there is hope for a much better summer on the horizon ☀️ pic.twitter.com/gTKHtJTNn5

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Pressure mounts on Boris Johnson to launch coronavirus inquiry

Exclusive: scientific advisers and ex-Whitehall chief join bereaved families, medics and ethnic minority leaders in calling for inquiry

Senior doctors, government scientific advisers and a former head of the civil service have spoken out in favour of a public inquiry into the UK’s handling of Covid-19, raising pressure on Boris Johnson to finally launch the process as the UK’s coronavirus fatalities rose to almost 126,000.

Thousands of bereaved families, nurses and ethnic minority leaders also backed calls for an inquiry into everything from lockdown tactics to test and trace after the UK’s handling of the pandemic resulted in the worst death toll per capita of any of the world’s large economies.

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MPs will not get vote on cut to UK aid spending, says Boris Johnson

PM confirms cut temporary amid opposition from his own party including former ministers

MPs will not get a vote on the government’s plans to slash aid spending, Boris Johnson has said in the of Commons, confirming that the cut is intended to be temporary.

The former shadow international development secretary Andrew Mitchell said Johnson was at risk of setting an illegal budget if it did not meet the legal obligation to spend 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) on aid.

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UK defence policy review lacks clarity on China and Indo-Pacific

Analysis: focus shifts away from cooperation with the EU but fails to balance far east investment and security issues

Prof John Bew, the historian appointed by Boris Johnson to write the foreign and defence security review, has privately insisted the document should not be seen as an apology for Brexit or a turning away from Europe, the charge sometimes levelled by pro-EU critics such as the former national security adviser Lord Ricketts and Sir Simon Fraser, the former foreign office permanent secretary.

It is instead intended as a hard-headed look at the new collective security threats facing Britain, many of which, notably the rise of China, the spread of authoritarianism, the challenge of the climate crisis and the ubiquity of cyberwarfare, the UK would have faced in or out of the European Union.

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First pictures released of Boris Johnson’s new £2.6m briefing room

No 10 intends the studio, hosted by Allegra Stratton, to be focal point of new media strategy

After £2.6m and a seven-month wait, the curtains have finally opened on a studio based inside Downing Street where the prime minister’s press secretary will address the nation in new White House-style TV briefings.

The first glimpses of the room revealed by ITV showed the podium that Allegra Stratton, a former BBC and Guardian journalist who also worked as communications director for the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, will stand behind as she fields questions from journalists.

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Biden urges UK and EU to preserve Northern Irish peace amid Brexit row

Remarks follow EU formally launching legal action over protocol arrangements in the region

The White House has urged London and Brussels to work together to preserve the peace in Northern Ireland, after the EU formally launched legal action against the UK over Brexit arrangements in the region.

Joe Biden’s spokesperson said: “We continue to encourage both the EU and the UK government to prioritise pragmatic solutions to safeguard and advance the hard-won peace in Northern Ireland.”

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Why Britain is tilting to the Indo-Pacific region

Critics warn of imperial fantasy but the economic and political forces pulling the UK back to the region are real

Some will call it a tilt, others a rebalancing and yet others a pivot but, either way, the new big idea due to emerge from the government’s foreign and defence policy review on Tuesday will be the importance of the Indo-Pacific region – a British return east of Suez more than 50 years after the then defence secretary Denis Healey announced the UK’s cash-strapped retreat in 1968.

Boris Johnson and his admirals are billing the focus on a zone stretching through some of the world’s most vital seaways east from India to Japan and south from China to Australia as Britain stepping out in the world after 47 years locked in the EU’s protectionist cupboard. Others warn Johnson is indulging a hubristic and militarily dangerous imperial fantasy.

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Cressida Dick refuses to quit over vigil policing and dismisses ‘armchair critics’

Metropolitan police chief stands firm after criticism from London mayor and home secretary

Britain’s most senior police chief defied pressure to resign as she dismissed “armchair” critics amid widespread outrage over officers manhandling women who were mourning the killing of Sarah Everard.

Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan police commissioner, was publicly rebuked by the home secretary, Priti Patel, and the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, for providing an unsatisfactory explanation of why police broke up a vigil for Everard in London’s Clapham Common on Saturday, near where she was allegedly abducted before being murdered.

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