Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Boris Johnson believes a mass testing programme is “our only hope for avoiding a second national lockdown before a vaccine”, according to leaked official documents setting out plans for “Operation Moonshot”.
The prime minister is said to be pinning his hopes on a project that would deliver up to 10m tests a day – even though the current testing regime is struggling to deliver a fraction of that number and is beset by problems.
Ad campaign promoting hygiene and social distancing will run across TV, radio, print and more
A new government campaign is being launched to remind people to wash their hands, cover their faces and keep their distance, in a bid to keep infections down as the winter months approach.
With the slogan “Hands. Face. Space”, advertising will run across TV, radio, print, social and digital display advertising, as well as on community media channels, the Department of Health and Social Care has said.
Altering terms of withdrawal agreement on Northern Ireland could damage relations under Biden presidency
Senior Democrats have warned that any attempt by the UK government to backtrack on the Brexit agreement on Northern Ireland would jeopardize a future US-UK free trade deal and could hobble bilateral relations across the board if Joe Biden wins the presidency.
Biden, an Irish American, is a staunch defender of the Good Friday Agreement, of which the US is the guarantor, and which requires an open border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The government has announced emergency action to try to stem a feared autumn resurgence of coronavirus, tightening laws to ban virtually all gatherings of more than six people in England.
Amid concerns that the current rules are both widely misunderstood and too difficult for police to implement, Boris Johnson will hold a hastily arranged Downing Street press conference on Wednesday to outline the new restrictions.
Brandon Lewis tells MPs internal market bill will ‘clarify’ Northern Ireland protocol
The government has admitted that its plan to reinterpret the special Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland will break international law.
The Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, astonished backbenchers when he told the House of Commons: “Yes, this does break international law in a very specific and limited way. We’re taking the powers to disapply the EU law concept of direct effect … in a certain very tightly defined circumstance.”
Brussels suspicions come as European commission chief warns Britain to abide by Northern Ireland protocol
Brussels’ plummeting trust in Boris Johnson has been laid bare in leaked diplomatic cables obtained by the Guardian, as the Brexit negotiations reopen in London with a warning from the European commission president that Britain must respect international law.
Ursula von der Leyen made her extraordinary intervention on Monday as Downing Street struggled to control the damage from disclosures suggesting it was backtracking on agreements made last year to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.
The Department for Transport press release about Grant Shapps’ announcement has now arrived. This is what it says about the inclusion of the seven Greek islands on the quarantine list for England.
The first changes under the new process were also made today, with seven Greek islands to be removed from exemption list – Lesvos, Tinos, Serifos, Mykonos, Crete, Santorini and Zakynthos. People arriving in England from those islands from Wednesday 9 September 04.00am will need to self-isolate for two weeks. Data from the Joint Biosecurity Centre and Public Health England has indicated a significant risk to UK public health from those islands, leading to Ministers removing them from the current list of travel corridors.
At the same time, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) has updated its travel advice for Greece to advise against all but essential travel to Lesvos, Tinos, Serifos, Mykonos, Crete, Santorini and Zakynthos. The rest of Greece remains exempt from the FCDO’s advice against all non-essential international travel.
Shapps says he is not lifting quarantine for Spain’s Canary or Balearic islands.
He says there might have been a case for this when quarantine was imposed on Spain. But the number of cases in country has risen sharply, he says, and now it has 127 cases per 100,000. He say it is not safe to reduce quarantine for those islands.
Lesvos, Tinos, Serifos, Mykonos, Crete, Santorini and Zakynthos removed from air corridor exemption list.
Barbara Pomfret came to aid of group left homeless in Madrid after forced removal from UK
A British woman living in Spain who helped 11 Syrian asylum seekers who were left homeless and hungry on the streets of Madrid after being forcibly removed from the UK has said she is ashamed of the UK government’s behaviour.
The all-male group were left destitute after being put on a flight to Madrid by the Home Office last week. They had arrived in the UK in small boats from Calais and are part of a Home Office plan to remove almost 1,000 such arrivals.
UK on collision course with EU and Ireland over unilateral powers for British ministers
Downing Street has defended plans to give British ministers unilateral powers over Brexit arrangements in Northern Ireland, putting them on a collision course with the EU and Irish leaders in a week of crunch negotiations.
A No 10 spokesman said the measures were “limited and reasonable” and insisted the UK would remain compliant with the Northern Ireland protocol – despite anger from Brussels and Dublin at the plans leaked overnight.
The UK has recorded a massive rise in the number of people testing positive for coronavirus, amid concerns the government has lost control of the epidemic just as people are returning to work and universities prepare to reopen.
Labour has demanded the health secretary, Matt Hancock, give an urgent statement to the House of Commons to explain the increase and why some people are still being told to drive hundreds of miles to have a test.
Gavin Barwell angered by David Frost’s suggestion that May government ‘blinked’ in negotiations
Theresa May’s former chief of staff has accused the UK’s chief Brexit negotiator, David Frost, of having a “brass neck” after he said the UK government had “blinked first” in negotiations.
Gavin Barwell, a key member of the former prime minister’s negotiating team, said Boris Johnson’s withdrawal agreement was “95% the work of his predecessors” and a deal had only been secured by conceding to the EU’s demand for some customs checks between Northern Ireland and the rest of Great Britain, which May’s team had not agreed to.
David Frost says the country is fully ready for Australia-style agreement with the EU
The UK’s chief negotiator has said the government is not scared of walking away from talks with the European Union without a deal and vowed not to blink in the final phase.
David Frost is due to hold another round of key negotiations in London with his counterpart, Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, next week as they look to agree a trade deal before autumn sets in.
Prime minister said to be ‘furious’ after being asked in the House of Commons to withdraw comments about the Labour leader
An increasingly desperate Boris Johnson has ordered his staff to step up personal attacks on the Labour leader Keir Starmer and his record as a lawyer, as confidence in the prime minister’s leadership collapses among Tory party members.
The Observer has been told that Johnson was so furious after last Wednesday’s prime minister’s questions – where he was asked to withdraw comments he made about the Labour leader and the IRA by the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle – that he turned on his staff for leaving him under-prepared, and asked them to come up with more attack lines on the Labour leader’s career as a lawyer.
Flag-waving extremists and white nationalists block roads in protest over migrant Channel crossings
Just after 1pm, below the white cliffs of Dover, Nigel Marcham offered his take on one of the summer’s most potent symbols. “Take a knee for the brethren of this fucking country,” Marcham screamed into his megaphone.
Around him a ragtag collection of far-right supporters, white nationalists and neo-nazis knelt on the A20 outside Dover’s Eastern Docks. “Thanks for taking a fucking knee in the proper way,” he said, clearly delighted with his perversion of the global peaceful protest symbol adopted by millions following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
PM is intrigued by Trump’s ‘relationship with the truth’, Kim Darroch writes in new book
Kim Darroch, a former British ambassador to the US, has said Boris Johnson is fascinated and inspired by Donald Trump, and is intrigued by the US president’s patchy relationship “with the facts and the truth”.
In a new book serialised in the Times, Lord Darroch said Johnson must share the blame for his resignation as ambassador to Washington, which followed the leaking of diplomatic cables disparaging Trump.
Calls for Australian government to regard him as a foreign agent and explain how he can possibly work on a post-Brexit trade deal
The controversial appointment of Australian former prime minister Tony Abbott as an official trade adviser for the UK has sparked questions as to how he will manage conflicts of interest.
Meeting of EU leaders this month will instead focus on post-Covid recovery and China relations
Boris Johnson’s hopes of a Brexit deal have been dealt a fresh blow as Brussels ruled out EU leaders intervening in the troubled negotiations at a summit this month.
According to EU diplomats, both the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, and Downing Street have lobbied for 27 heads of state and government to seize control of the talks given the current impasse.
Critics say Abbott’s views on women and homosexuality and the climate crisis make him unfit for role
Boris Johnson has appointed Tony Abbott as an official UK trade adviser, defying widespread condemnation of the former Australian prime minister’s record of misogyny and homophobia and his views on the climate emergency.
Abbott, whose consideration for the role prompted criticism from opposition parties, charities and LGBT and environmental activists, is among nine external advisers appointed to the Board of Trade. The board, revived by Theresa May, is intended to help shape post-Brexit trade policy.
National Audit Office study also highlights failure to get to grips with scale of challenge
Excessive secrecy about the government’s Brexit negotiating objectives and a failure to get to grips with the scale of the challenge hindered preparations for the UK’s exit from the EU, according to Whitehall’s spending watchdog.
Departments issued non-disclosure agreements when discussing plans that were meant to inform the public and the business community, the National Audit Office said. More than 22,000 workers were deployed across Whitehall departments on the preparations, which cost £4.4bn.
Rishi Sunak has been urged by union leaders to launch a wage subsidy scheme to prevent a “tsunami” of unemployment when furlough comes to an end this autumn.
Demanding the chancellor follows the examples of other leading European countries to avert a looming jobs crisis, the Trades Union Congress said a continental-style system of “short-time working” wage support could be used in Britain to save millions of jobs from redundancy.