Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Report also says government’s process for managing lobbying is insufficiently transparent
The businessman Lex Greensill was given “extraordinarily privileged” access to government while the government’s process for managing lobbying is insufficiently transparent and allows access to a “privileged few”, a report into the Greensill lobbying scandal commissioned by the prime minister has concluded.
The former prime minister David Cameron and the late cabinet secretary Jeremy Heywood have been criticised in the 141-page review drawn up by the City solicitor Nigel Boardman.
Trading arrangements continue to be a significant flashpoint in relations with Dublin and Brussels
Just seven months after it came into force, the Northern Ireland protocol is proving once again a significant flashpoint in the UK’s relations with Dublin and Brussels.
On Wednesday, the UK published a “command paper” on the protocol. Some will see it as an attempt to tear up the agreement Boris Johnson struck in 2019, others will see it as a serious attempt to fix a deal they argue was flawed from the beginning but signed to help the British prime minister to get Brexit done, as he had promised.
Blueprint for alternative arrangement published as sources say protocol was flawed at conception
The UK has launched an audacious bid to rewrite a key plank of the Brexit deal, saying the Northern Ireland protocol was flawed at conception but served its purpose to get the UK out of the EU as “one country”.
The European Commission immediately ruled out a renegotiation of the deal, which was trumpeted by Boris Johnson as a solution to the Irish border impasse two years ago. The commission is understood to be open to some changes on the special arrangements for Northern Ireland, however.
Tory MP criticises home secretary over £55m deal with France to double number of patrols off its coast
Handing £55m to French authorities to clamp down on migrants crossing the Channel in small boats is “throwing good money after bad”, the home secretary has been told by a Conservative colleague as she was grilled by MPs.
Priti Patel revealed late on Tuesday that she had agreed to pay the sum as part of a deal with the French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, to double the number of officers patrolling the French coast.
Conservative MPs believe Boris Johnson faces a major rebellion over Covid vaccine passports but could be supported by Labour, who were on Tuesday night wavering over whether to back them.
Tory MPs opposed to the plan for Covid passes to enter nightclubs and other crowded indoor venues said more than 40 Conservatives were prepared to defy the prime minister over civil liberties concerns, particularly as No 10 has refused to rule out extending the passes to pubs and other sectors.
They only wanted to enjoy themselves on the sunny Sardinian coast last summer after a tough two-month lockdown. But instead, young Italians, who had frequented nightclubs, returned home either with Covid-19 or laden with feelings of guilt, regret or anger at the authorities.
Nightclubs, such as those in Spain, France, the UK, Austria and Thailand, have triggered coronavirus outbreaks since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.
BBC interview reveals people decided Johnson was unfit to be PM within weeks of 2019 election victory
Boris Johnson’s closest aides decided he was unfit to be prime minister within weeks of his 2019 election victory and began plotting to oust him, Dominic Cummings has claimed.
In his first TV interview since quitting as one of the most senior advisers in No 10, Cummings levelled repeated criticism of his former boss, saying aides feared Johnson had no plan to run the country and was only obsessed with “stupid” infrastructure projects.
The west is acting like the empires of old and failing to help poor people stand on their own two feet, says Benny Dembitzer
The debate in the Guardian (Outrage aimed at No 10 as MPs back £4bn cut to foreign aid budget, 13 July; Letters, 15 July) over the past few days has only contributed to the continuation of a fundamental error that is literally costing millions of lives in the global south. None of the politicians or correspondents who have intervened in the discussions have emphasised the profound conflict between aid and development. The two are usually presented as synonymous – they are not.
Because we have nurtured very little development to enable poor people in poor countries to stand on their own two feet, we have had to give them more aid. We have not helped them develop their own agency. We have not enabled them to develop agriculture to meet their own needs, encouraged governments to undertake land reform, educated women farmers, facilitated local seed multiplication or created local agricultural colleges.
Then US leader also turned down Chequers dinner because he wanted to ‘be a tourist’, archives show
Bill Clinton turned down tea with the Queen and dinner at Chequers because he wanted to “be a tourist” and try out an Indian restaurant during his first official visit to the UK with Tony Blair as prime minister, formerly classified documents reveal.
Downing Street wanted to pull out all the stops for a visit seen as crucial to “establishing a good working relationship” between the new prime minister and the then US president. Buckingham Palace contacted No 10 to say “HM the Queen would be very pleased” to invite the Clintons to tea at 5pm on their brief one-day detour from summits in Paris and The Hague.
Former aide says Boris Johnson held out on October lockdown because those ‘dying are essentially all over 80’
Boris Johnson denied the NHS would be overwhelmed and said he was not prepared to lock down the country to save people in their 80s, texting his adviser “get Covid and live longer,” according to new WhatsApp messages released by Dominic Cummings.
In his first TV interview, the prime minister’s former chief adviser said Johnson held out on reimposing Covid restrictions because “the people who are dying are essentially all over 80.”
The documents have long been a fascination of the prime minister, who touted their use for pubs and theatres back at the start of 2021, but acknowledged the moral dilemma they posed in a country that has always prided itself on opposition to a European-style “papers, please” regime.
Children in the UK will get a Covid vaccine only if they are over 12 and extremely vulnerable, or live with someone at risk, as scientists raised concerns about inflammation around the heart linked to the Pfizer jab.
Sajid Javid, the health secretary, said he accepted the advice of scientific advisers that only children over 12 with severe neuro-disabilities, Down’s syndrome, immunosuppression and multiple or severe learning disabilities should be allowed to get the Pfizer vaccine. Children over 12 who live in the same house as people who are immunosuppressed will also be eligible for jabs.
Analysis: making fully vaccinated travellers returning from places with lower infection rates quarantine, while the virus runs wild here, is difficult to comprehend
Boris Johnson’s pendulum swing from “freedom day” to unlocking with “extreme caution” relayed a shift in the government’s thinking – that the relaxation of almost all restrictions at this stage comes with significant risk. The move to make fully vaccinated people returning from France continue to quarantine – because of the risk of the Beta variant – appears to be another sign of panic setting in.
Delta, the dominant variant in the UK, is far more transmissible than the Beta variant, which was first identified in South Africa. But the danger of Beta has long been its ability to thwart any vaccine shield, particularly the AstraZeneca jab. Beta actually preceded Delta – it was first recorded in the UK in December but never quite took off. In South Africa, it has dominated. It also accounts for about one in 10 new infections in France, but that data includes the French territories of Réunion and Mayotte, where the variant is almost dominant.
Following the announcement of stricter social distancing measures being introduced in Vietnam’s capital city, the country’s health ministry has confirmed that daily Covid cases have reached a record high.
The country reported 5,926 cases on Sunday, according to Reuters, as the country battles its worst outbreak so far. Vietnam has reported 53,830 cases overall, with 254 deaths.
Tony Blair has called on ministers to drop the requirement for people who are fully vaccinated to self-isolate if they come into contact with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19, PA Media reports.
The former prime minister said the current system was “not rational” and he understood why people were deleting the NHS Covid app from their mobile phones.
We’re at risk of moving in two contradictory directions.
On the one hand we’re going to open everything up, free restriction altogether, and on the other hand we’ve still got this pinging track and trace system where people have got to go into complete isolation if they’re pinged in circumstances where probably the vast majority of those people do not need to do so.
I don’t want the prime minister of the country to be in isolation at the moment, I need him at his desk doing his job.
He’s double-vaccinated, he’s actually had Covid, he’s testing and presumably the tests are coming back negative. The point is to do this for everyone.
Sajid Javid was self-isolating on Saturday after testing positive for Covid, as senior public health leaders from across the UK accused Boris Johnson today of “letting Covid rip” by relaxing legal restrictions.
The health secretary, who is fully vaccinated, said he had mild symptoms and confirmed the result of a lateral flow test with a positive PCR test. “I will continue to isolate and work from home,” he tweeted.
TV station also hit by internal dispute over its direction after Guto Harri dropped for ‘taking the knee’
Nigel Farage is to take centre stage at GB News in a victory for the rightwing faction at the beleaguered television channel. The former leader of Ukip is to host a nightly primetime show from Monday as part of a reboot of programming designed to attract more viewers.
The new channel is facing plummeting viewing figures and a split in management between those angling to keep broader-based regional news coverage and those planning to boost coverage of the “culture wars”.
The health secretary for England, Sajid Javid, has announced in a video on Twitter that he has tested positive for coronavirus and has mild symptoms.
In a video, Javid said: “This morning I tested positive for Covid. I’m waiting for my PCR result, but thankfully I have had my jabs and symptoms are mild.”
Tory councillors are accused of censorship over installation on atom bomb tests in Australia in a Southend park
An Australian artist has accused a group of Conservative councillors of using “bullying strategies” to silence and censor her work after an installation she created to highlight Britain’s “identity as a colonial nuclear state” was removed from a park in Essex.
The councillors threatened to “take action against the work” if it was not removed, according to Metal, the arts organisation that commissioned and then removed the installation from Gunners Park in Southend.
Up to 1.6 million people in England have been told to isolate in a single week, Guardian analysis has found as the government said the Covid app is unlikely to be changed for weeks.
The number of new UK coronavirus cases climbed to 48,553 on Thursday – the highest since mid-January and the start of the third lockdown – with the upward curve showing no signs of abating, raising fears of a summer of chaos as businesses and households are hit by self-isolation. Sixty-three people were reported on Thursday to have died from the virus.
Leaders of £24m Stocksbridge fund include local MP, her husband, and others with personal or business links to plans
Labour has raised concerns about the management of a flagship levelling up scheme after it emerged that decisions about one local £24m fund were primarily led by a group including the local MP, her husband, and others with personal or business links to some of the plans.
Documents also show that the towns fund board for Stocksbridge in South Yorkshire, co-chaired by Conservative MP Miriam Cates, met for eight months before members began filing details of personal interests, and that the scheme of governance was only published after more than a year.