Category Archives: Politics

‘Good on her’: how Jackie Weaver became an internet star

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Handforth residents, a comedian and young political activists helped explosive parish council meeting go viral

It was the distraction the nation didn’t know it needed: a poor-quality recording of an online meeting of a Cheshire parish council, called by two councillors “following the refusal of the council chairman to call such a meeting”.

Normally such a congress would struggle to raise a quorum, let alone an audience of millions. Yet against all odds, December’s Extraordinary Meeting of Handforth parish council’s planning and environment committee went viral on Thursday night.

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UK Covid live: Boris Johnson to hold news briefing as Britain exceeds 10m vaccinations

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Latest updates: PM press conference comes after milestone is passed; 1,322 further deaths reported in the UK today

Boris Johnson is about to hold a press conference at No 10. He will be with Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser.

Today’s coronavirus figures for Scotland are here. There have been 88 further deaths (down from 92 a week ago today) and 978 further cases (down from 1,330 a week ago today).

Of all the new tests carried out, only 5.1% were positive. This is the lowest positivity rate since late December, and very close to the 5% target often mentioned by Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, as the benchmark set by the WHO for countries that have got Covid under control.

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Britain should welcome Hongkongers, but not the ‘good migrant’ narrative | Jeevan Vasager

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The idea that Hong Kong migration will give the UK an entrepreneurial rocket boost is based on imperial stereotypes

Ministers swell with pride as they speak of profound ties of history and friendship, while polling shows that a substantial majority of Britons are in favour and newspaper headlines are overwhelmingly positive.

Immigration has always been a contentious issue in Britain. So why, as the UK opens a path to citizenship for millions of Hong Kong residents, is it different this time?

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Boris Johnson accuses EU of appearing to cast doubt on Good Friday agreement

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Prime minister criticises Brussels for invoking article 16 of post-Brexit Northern Ireland protocol

Boris Johnson has accused the EU of appearing to “cast doubt” on the Good Friday agreement, with last week’s decision to invoke article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol.

Speaking at prime minister’s questions after a call with Northern Ireland’s first minister, Arlene Foster, Johnson said: “It was most regrettable that the EU should seem to cast doubt on the Good Friday agreement, the principles of the peace process, by seeming to call for a border across the island of Ireland.”

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‘Savage’ cuts to UK aid put children’s lives at risk, says Gordon Brown

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Former prime minister says chancellor is paying bills for Covid ‘off the backs of the poor’

The former prime minister Gordon Brown has launched a scathing attack on the unprecedented cuts to UK aid, saying they put at risk tens of thousands of children’s lives while millions more face losing an education.

Writing in the Guardian, Brown said the planned cuts of 30% – £5bn – which come into force at the end of next month meant that the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, was “paying the bills for Covid off the backs of the poor – at home and abroad”.

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Rishi Sunak is paying Covid bills off the backs of the poor. It shames our country | Gordon Brown

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A savage reversal of aid is happening at the very moment people need our help most. MPs must join together to stop it


Nothing shames our country more than Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, paying the bills for Covid off the backs of the poor – at home and abroad.

He has recently been pushed off his plan to cut £20 a week from the already low universal credit paid to 6 million of Britain’s poorest families.

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Covid-19 hinders government hitting ‘ambitious’ target for new homes

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Only 94,000 properties built in first nine months of 2020, well below the 300,000 a year promised

Covid-19 has knocked the government further off course from its housebuilding targets, a study has revealed, with only 94,000 new homes built during the first nine months of 2020.

The first wave of coronavirus led to the temporary closure of construction sites last spring, leaving output well below the 300,000 new homes a year which the Conservatives pledged in their manifesto, according to research by the Resolution Foundation thinktank.

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US tariffs on Scotch whisky ‘have cost £500m in lost exports’

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Single malt sales to US have fallen more than third since retaliatory regime was imposed, says industry body

Losses to Scotch whisky exports after tariffs were imposed by the US have reached £500m, according to an industry body.

New figures suggest exports of single malt Scotch whisky have fallen by more than a third – amounting to more than £500m – since a 25% tariff was imposed in October 2019.

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UK Covid live: Labour says community spread of South African variant means tougher border policy needed

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Latest updates: mass testing after two people with no history of travel catch variant; some care home staff yet to receive first jab

Here are some of the main points from the Downing Street lobby briefing.

In Wales parents and children may know by the end of the week whether schools in Wales will be reopening after half-term, the Welsh government minister Eluned Morgan has indicated. She told a briefing:

We’re expecting an announcement on that on Friday but of course that will be determined by those negotiations [with teaching unions] that will be held this week.

The focus will absolutely be on those children who are youngest, who find it most difficult to learn online and need that socialisation perhaps more than some of the older children.

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French minister criticises UK’s ‘risky’ Covid vaccine strategy

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Clément Beaune says French would not accept such risks, as he defends EU’s slower progress

Britain has taken “a lot of risks” in its Covid vaccination programme that would be intolerable to the French public, France’s Europe minister, Clément Beaune, has said in defence of the EU’s record on vaccines.

With 14% of the UK adult population having received a first jab, compared with 3% of people across the 27 EU member states, there is growing discontent in the bloc.

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UK may help EU before domestic vaccination programme complete, says Liz Truss

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Trade secretary had previously hinted supplies may not be diverted until UK population was vaccinated

The UK could help the EU and other nations with coronavirus vaccine supplies even before the domestic vaccination programme has been completed, the international trade secretary, Liz Truss, has said.

As ministers sought to smooth relations with Brussels after the EU’s much-criticised and swiftly rescinded decision to impose a vaccine border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, Truss sought to stress the need for international cooperation.

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Just £12,000 of £40m fund for displaced Chagos islanders has been spent

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MP representing most of UK’s Chagossians says failure to use compensation money to help those facing hardship is outrageous

Less than £12,000 of a £40m fund set up to compensate Chagos islanders who were forcibly evicted from their homeland by the British government has reached those living in the UK.

Four years after it was announced, the Foreign Office fund has distributed less than 1% of its budget in direct support to islanders forced from their homes in the Indian Ocean.

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UK to apply to join free trade pact with nations on other side of world

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Liz Truss to seek to join 11-nation trans-Pacific partnership, whose nearest member is 3,000 miles away

The British government is to formally apply to join a mammoth free-trade pact that includes Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand now that it has left the EU.

Liz Truss, the international trade secretary, will ask to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) when she speaks to ministers in Japan and New Zealand on Monday.

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EU’s vaccine blunder reopens Brexit battle over Irish border

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Tory MPs use short-lived announcement of export ban to call for overhaul of trade deal, as EU chief is attacked over U-turn

The European Union’s threat to impose a vaccine border between Northern Ireland and the Republic risks reigniting one of Brexit’s bitterest disputes, as senior Tories said the move proved the need for an immediate overhaul of the bloc’s treatment of Northern Ireland.

The renewed demands emerged with the EU facing an extraordinary backlash over its bungled announcement of potential export controls on vaccines produced within the bloc. The World Health Organization (WHO) condemned the move and the pharmaceutical industry warned that the measures would damage their vaccination efforts.

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‘Half-friends is not a concept’: UK should decide who its allies are, says Macron

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‘History and geography don’t change – I don’t think British destiny is different to ours,’ says French president

Emmanuel Macron has warned that Boris Johnson’s government has to decide who its allies are, insisting that “half-friends is not a concept”.

“What politics does Great Britain wish to choose? It cannot be the best ally of the US, the best ally of the EU and the new Singapore … It has to choose a model,” the French president said, in an interview with the Guardian and a small group of other media.

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Arlene Foster: EU limit on vaccines into Northern Ireland is ‘hostile and aggressive’ – video

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Stormont's first minister branded the EU’s triggering of article 16 of Brexit’s Northern Ireland protocol to stop the unfettered flow of inoculations from the EU into the region an 'incredible act of hostility'

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Slavery survivors moved ‘without notice, without reason’ in London lockdown

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Despite stay at home orders, vulnerable asylum seekers in Home Office accommodation say they were given as little as a day’s notice

Modern slavery survivors with young children were among refugees allegedly forced to move accommodation in London with as little as one day’s notice during coronavirus lockdowns this winter.

Women who are among the UK’s most vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers said they were given just 24 hours to pack before being moved from accommodation provided by the Home Office, often having to travel long distances across the capital, in late December and January.

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How UK spent £800m on controversial Covid tests for Dominic Cummings scheme

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US firm Innova believed to be largest beneficiary of contracts after selling millions of Covid tests that are dividing opinion

Dominic Cummings’ plan to test millions of people a day for coronavirus led the government to spend over £800m on quick turnaround tests that were later found in a pilot to give the wrong results as much as 60% of the time, the Guardian can reveal.

Operation Moonshot, a mass testing scheme championed by the prime minister’s former chief adviser, prompted the government to buy huge numbers of so-called lateral flow tests from a company owned by a little-known US private equity house.

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How quarantine rules work and what UK government is planning

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Analysis: Arrivals from high-risk countries will have to pay to isolate in a hotel under Boris Johnson’s proposals

With new hotel quarantine measures for international arrivals from high-risk countries due to be introduced to curb the spread of Covid-19, focus falls on how they will work.

Here, we look at what the rules are now and what’s being done by the UK government to toughen border controls.

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Britain and EU clash over claims to UK-produced Covid vaccine

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EU health commissioner dismisses AstraZeneca argument it is contractually obliged to supply UK first

Britain is on a collision course with the European Union over vaccine shortages after Brussels refused to accept that people in the UK have first claim on Oxford/AstraZeneca doses produced in local plants.

The EU’s health commissioner outright dismissed on Wednesday an argument made by Pascal Soriot, the Anglo-Swedish company’s chief executive, that he was contractually obliged to supply the UK first.

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