Category Archives: Politics

UK coronavirus live: indoor mixing ban extended to Merseyside, Warrington, Hartlepool and Middlesbrough

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Government recommends no social mixing between people from different households in these areas; NHS Test and Trace going backwards

Council leaders and MPs from Merseyside have issued a joint statement describing today’s new restrictions as “a step in the right direction”.

But they are also saying the government should publish the scientific evidence showing why the government thinks these measures will be enough.

The measures announced today are a step toward restricting the spread but we need to understand if they are enough to arrest the rise cases across our region.

We're asking for Government to share their scientific evidence and provide us with more substantial financial support. pic.twitter.com/8gV1uJs87n

Graham Morgan, the leader of Knowsley council, says the new restrictions announced for Merseyside this morning may not be enough.

I'm still concerned that these new COVID-19 restrictions won't be enough to stop the spread of the virus here. We're at a critical point & need swift, effective solutions to protect our residents. Our conversations with Government will continue. https://t.co/Z5DZ8azYDl

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British Virgin Islands commits to public register of beneficial owners

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Announcement follows years of tax evasion scandals involving BVI shell companies

The government of the British Virgin Islands has finally committed to introducing public registers of beneficial ownership for companies incorporated in the tax haven.

The announcement, made in the islands parliament, comes in the wake of years of tax evasion and money laundering scandals, in which shell companies incorporated in the territory regularly played a central role.

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Brexit: EU launches legal action against UK for breaching withdrawal agreement

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UK put on formal notice over internal market bill, which ministers admit breaks international law

The EU has launched legal action against the UK after Boris Johnson failed to respond to Brussels’ demand that he drop legislation that would overwrite the withdrawal agreement and break international law.

Ursula von der Leyen, the European commission president, announced that the UK had been put on formal notice over the internal market bill tabled by the prime minister last month.

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UK asylum detention: top civil servant says ‘all options on the table’

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Matthew Rycroft tells MPs civil service is considering all ways to improve migration system

The top civil servant at the Home Office has said “all options are on the table” for the migration system, in response to reports officials were asked to consider proposals to hold refugees in offshore detention centres, including remote islands in the south Atlantic.

Matthew Rycroft, the department’s permanent secretary, said the Cabinet Office would lead an inquiry into the leak of documents that revealed officials were asked to consider “possible options for negotiating an offshore asylum processing facility similar to the Australian model in Papua New Guinea and Nauru”.

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Russia spreading lies about Covid vaccines, says UK military chief

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Head of armed forces says both China and Russia trying to undermine cohesion in west

Russia is seeking to destabilise countries around the world by sowing disinformation about coronavirus vaccines that is shared rapidly across social media, the head of the armed forces has warned.

Gen Sir Nick Carter, the chief of defence staff, said the propaganda tactic reflected a strategy of “political warfare” aggressively undertaken by Beijing as well as Moscow “designed to undermine cohesion” across the west.

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UK coronavirus: ‘We will not hesitate to take further measures’ if pandemic worsens, PM warns – as it happened

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News updates: PM promises more frequent press conferences on Covid situation; MPs vote by 330 to 24 to renew Coronavirus Act

Related: Coronavirus live news: Italian senate suspended as lawmakers test positive; Covid travel slump could cost 46m jobs

The government has this evening ruled out giving refunds to people holding railcards they have been unable to use – or granting a time extension – despite ongoing travel restrictions in place as a result of coronavirus.

There are an estimated 5.1m railcards in circulation in the UK, typically triggering discounts of about a third on ticket prices, and valid for a year.

After careful consideration, the government has confirmed to us that railcards will remain non-refundable and will not be extended.

We understand that this decision may not be the news our customers had been hoping for. Refunding or extending railcards for over 5.1m customers would come at a significant cost to the taxpayer at a time when the focus must be on maintaining rail services to support the country’s recovery from the pandemic.

Passengers bought railcards in good faith and will be disappointed by the decision not to extend them or offer a discount on renewal to make up for the period when we were encouraged not to travel.

While the Government continues to provide high levels of support to make sure the day to day railway keeps operating, it seems a pity some slack could not be given on this issue to encourage people back to rail travel.

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Bloody Sunday families reject decision to charge only one soldier

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Relatives of some of the 14 people killed to challenge ruling by Northern Ireland Public Prosecution Service

The families of those who died in the 1972 Bloody Sunday killings in Derry are to challenge a legal decision not to prosecute any more former soldiers in connection with the shootings.

Relatives expressed dismay after a review by the Northern Ireland Public Prosecution Service (PPS), published on Tuesday, confirmed that only one former member of the Parachute Regiment, known as Soldier F, should face charges.

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UK coronavirus news: Johnson faces backlash over ‘chaotic’ announcement of latest local lockdown

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Live updates: PM gives speech about post-18 education as part of ‘levelling up’ agenda but faces backlash from council leaders in north east England over new restrictions

The Office for National Statistics has published its weekly death figures for England and Wales. Here are the key points.

In an interview with the BBC this morning Nick Forbes, the leader of Newcastle city council, expanded on the criticisms of the government’s handling of the lockdown announcement that he made last night. (See 9.15am.)

The problem that we’ve got is not just that the secretary of state has made an announcement without any kind of understanding about the impact on affected businesses, and the potential for job losses. But also, by doing it in a very knee-jerk way, it means that we haven’t got the right communication messages in place locally, and as a result confusion and chaos spreads which actually undermines the very messages that we are trying to get across to the public.

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Brexit: warnings for care sector in pandemic as freedom of movement ends

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Wages should rise to make jobs more attractive to UK staff say government advisers

The end of freedom of movement will increase pressure on the social care sector in the midst of a pandemic unless ministers make jobs more attractive to UK workers by increasing salaries, government advisers have warned.

The Migration Advisory Committee (Mac) has warned of the “stark consequences” of low wages in social care with most frontline role ineligible for the post-Brexit skilled worker immigration route or on the official list for job shortages in the UK.

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Boris Johnson’s Covid-19 policy critics: who says what?

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A selection of comments from across the political divide on PM’s handling of pandemic

The brewing rebellion among Tory backbenchers over the lack of scrutiny afforded to parliament on Covid-19 restrictions – as well as concerns about their impact – has left Boris Johnson facing criticism from within and outside his party. Here are some of the more pointed comments levelled against the prime minister and his policies from across the political divide.

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Confidence in UK’s global role plunges after Brexit, poll finds

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Belief that Britain is force for good in world is down 10 points from April 2019 in UK

Belief that Britain is a force for good in the world has plunged in the last 18 months, a national poll has found, with under half of the UK now convinced of the country’s positive impact.

As negotiations on the UK’s future relationship enter a key week in Brussels and with the country set to leave the EU’s single market and customs union at the end of the year, a poll by Ipsos Mori suggests there is a lack of confidence in Britain’s global role.

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Lockdowners v libertarians: Britain’s coronavirus divide

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As Covid cases rise, an increasingly heated debate has emerged over whether to readopt stringent measures or return to ‘the business of living’

Britain has reached a Covid crossroads – and its leaders are being pressed to pick one of two stark options. Are they going to return to the lockdown days that brought life to a standstill six months ago, but succeeded in halting the rapid spread of the disease? Or are they going to turn their backs on “an authoritarian nightmare” that is preventing the nation from getting on with “the business of living”?

This is the basic division that has emerged over the summer in an increasingly heated debate between two unlikely groupings of scientists, columnists, campaigners and politicians.

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Firms plead for Brexit deal as coronavirus leaves industry reeling

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With only three months until the transition ends businesses say they have been unable to prepare for restrictions on EU trade


Almost half of British companies have warned that their Brexit preparations have been hit by the pandemic, as business leaders demanded a last-minute compromise to reach a trade deal and avert chaos at the border.

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Boris Johnson faces revolt over forcing through Covid measures

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Amendment calling for votes on new restrictions is winning cross-party support

Boris Johnson is facing a massive parliamentary revolt over the way he is imposing Covid-19 restrictions on the British people without first consulting MPs – amid new signs that confidence in his leadership is collapsing in the Conservative party and across the country.

An extraordinary cross-party backlash against Johnson’s “rule by diktat” from Downing Street was taking shape on Saturday – ahead of a key vote on Wednesday – as a new poll by Opinium for the Observer showed Labour has overtaken the Tories for the first time since Keir Starmer became leader in April.

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Hardline BBC critics reportedly offered top media roles

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Former Daily Mail editor could head Ofcom, while ex-Daily Telegraph editor considers BBC chairman job

Boris Johnson is reported to have offered jobs at the head of two of Britain’s most important media organisations to two outspoken critics of the BBC.

Paul Dacre, former editor of the Daily Mail, has been asked to run the national broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, while Lord Moore, the former editor of the Daily Telegraph and biographer of Margaret Thatcher, is believed to be considering accepting the role of chairman of the BBC.

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Labour takes poll lead as parties see major switch in fortunes

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Keir Starmer ahead by four points on who would be better prime minister, as underlying figures suggest government failings in pandemic to blame for reversal

Labour has recorded its first poll lead since Boris Johnson became prime minister, marking an extraordinary changes in fortunes for the two main parties.

Keir Starmer’s party now has a three-point lead over the Conservatives, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer. In a result that will stir more unrest among Tory MPs over the performance of the prime minister, the poll put Labour on 42% support, with the Conservatives on 39%.

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Welcome to libertarian Covid fantasy land – that’s Sweden to you and me | Nick Cohen

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The right fails to recognise that the Swedes’ real virtue in this pandemic is their social cohesion

Sweden is to the 21st-century right what the Soviet Union was to the 20th-century left. Conservatives have transformed it into a Tory Disneyland where every dream comes true. On the shores of the Baltic lies a country that has no need to curtail civil liberties and wreck the economy to curb Covid-19. “I have a dream, a fantasy,” sang Abba. “To help me through reality.” For much of the right, that fantasy is called Sweden.

Let the leader of the Conservative backbenchers stand for the Tory press and innumerable ideologues inside and outside Westminster. Sir Graham Brady ruined a perfectly good argument that parliament must have the power to scrutinise Johnson’s emergency decrees by announcing that there was no emergency. We could look to a country that merely had a ban on gatherings of more than 50, restrictions on visiting care homes, a shift to table-only service in bars and see that “Sweden today is in a better place than the United Kingdom”. Or as the Sun explained on Thursday as Boris Johnson met Anders Tegnell, the Swedish public health “mastermind”, a do-little strategy has spared Sweden a second wave of Covid-19 infections.

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Coronavirus UK: Sage expert warns of 100 deaths a day within four weeks

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‘We need to make sure that transmission comes down now,’ says Prof Graham Medley

The UK’s daily coronavirus death toll will rise from 34 to 100 a day in three to four weeks’ time, an expert on the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) has warned.

Infectious disease modelling expert Prof Graham Medley said there is little that can be done now to prevent daily deaths climbing to 100 – but “we need to make sure transmission comes down now” to prevent the figure increasing further.

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Brexit: Brussels punctures optimism that deal is in sight

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EU sources fear Boris Johnson hasn’t yet got backing for compromises on state aid to business

Brussels has sought to puncture an outbreak of optimism over an imminent Brexit deal, amid fears Boris Johnson has not secured the backing of key advisers and his party for the compromises needed in the final stretch of negotiations.

With the UK government yet to offer a way forward on the most contentious issues, and trust in Downing Street at a low ebb, senior EU officials treated with scepticism reports that the UK could see a way to secure a deal.

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UK coronavirus live: R number rises to between 1.2 and 1.5; new restrictions for Cardiff, Swansea and Llanelli

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New infections in UK growing by 4% to 8% every day; measures to come into force in three areas in Wales this weekend; London placed on watchlist

A further 33 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 29,871, NHS England said on Friday.

The patients were aged between 56 and 93 and all except two, aged 84 and 88, had known underlying health conditions.

The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has called for financial support from the government for areas under extra restrictions.

At his weekly press conference, he told reporters:

These restrictions in our case have been in place for a number of weeks, getting on for seven to eight now, and they are having an impact on people’s lives but also on people’s jobs and people’s businesses.

There was not any compensatory support for many of those people announced yesterday and I think this is an unacceptable situation.

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