Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
There was a clear and lasting “Cummings effect” on public confidence in the government’s handling of coronavirus after the prime minister’s senior aide appeared to break lockdown rules, new analysis has found.
The research found a significant decrease in public confidence in the government after the Guardian and Daily Mirror revealed that Dominic Cummings had travelled 264 miles to Durham with his sick wife and child despite official advice that people “should not be visiting family members who do not live in your home”.
Nicola Sturgeon has warned that an emergency lockdown in Aberdeen could extend to other towns in the region after health officials linked 32 pubs and golf courses to the outbreak in the city.
The first minister said all pubs and restaurants in the city had to close from 5pm on Wednesday, as she barred people from visiting other households indoors and urged residents to avoid non-essential journeys greater than five miles.
Former prime minister Tony Blair said a mass testing regime, which includes people who are not displaying coronavirus symptoms, is essential to avoid the need for another lockdown.
He told Times Radio:
On some estimates 70% of people with the disease are asymptomatic, so if you are only testing people with symptoms you are losing the majority of people from your testing strategy
From the very beginning, mass testing has been the only thing that gets you through this, avoids the severity of the very blunt instrument of lockdown and gets you to a place where you can more or less get your economy moving whilst containing the disease.
Exclusive: crisis has led to 500% increase in Britons taking up citizenship in an EU state
The number of British nationals emigrating to other EU countries has risen by 30% since the Brexit referendum, with half making their decision to leave in the first three months after the vote, research has found.
Analysis of data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Eurostat shows that migration from Britain to EU states averaged 56,832 people a year in 2008-15, growing to 73,642 a year in 2016-18.
Over the past two decades GRU spies have stolen classified information from numerous targets around the world. According to Reuters, last summer they broke into Fox’s email account. They made off with secret US-UK trade documents later dumped out before the 2019 election.
Hackers reportedly accessed account last year and obtained dossier cited by Jeremy Corbyn during election campaign
Classified documents relating to US-UK trade talks are believed to have been hacked by Russians from an email account belonging to the former minister Liam Fox, it has emerged.
A report from Reuters said Russian hackers accessed Fox’s account several times between July and October last year and obtained a dossier that ultimately ended up in the hands of Jeremy Corbyn during the election campaign. The then Labour leader said the 451-page dossier showed the NHS “was on the table” in trade talks with the US.
Downing Street accused of flouting rules while FDA claims ministers will be forced to accept special advisers picked by PM
Downing Street is being accused by Labour of flouting Whitehall rules to hire a new White House-style spokesperson to host daily government press conferences on live TV.
A new special adviser is being recruited to reply to questions from journalists including rebuffing criticisms from opposition politicians.
Architect of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign reveals admiration for Boris Johnson’s aide in interview on dark politics
Steve Bannon, who has previously backed a range of notorious far-right political figures, has publicly endorsed Dominic Cummings for the first time, calling him a “brilliant guy”.
Donald Trump’s former chief strategist also said that Boris Johnson will become an increasingly populist prime minister after jettisoning his political positioning as a “globalist” to “opportunistically jump on Brexit”.
So much, yet so little, has happened since lockdown, not least Grant Shapp’s ruined holiday
Monday
You can’t help but feel a little sorry for Grant Shapps’s family. After all, if you can’t trust the transport secretary not to ruin his own holiday, then who can you? Back in April, Grant told the Today programme that he definitely wouldn’t be travelling abroad this summer, but some time between then and last Saturday he must have changed his mind after having negotiated safe “air corridors” between Britain and various countries.
At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the government failed to heed warnings from other countries, writes Giselle Green – it must not do so again. Plus letters from Phil Coughlin,Geoff Naylor, Heather Massie and David Wilkinson
Instead of waiting to see which countries experience a surge in coronavirus cases, I would hope that the government is actively looking into the reasons why. Among the factors being blamed for Spain’s spike are “a rush out of lockdown, opening the borders, patchy compliance with physical distancing, and inadequate contact tracing”, with outbreaks emerging from bars and clubs, and seasonal fruit and vegetable pickers (Why are travellers to the UK from Spain being asked to quarantine?, 28 July). With the exception of reopening nightclubs, it appears we are making the same mistakes as our Spanish neighbours. Right at the start of the pandemic we ignored the lessons of other countries, with devastating consequences. Let’s not do so again. Giselle Green London
• You report that scientists are “concerned” and “anxious” that a surge in Covid-19 infections in the coming winter months could be exacerbated by “normal winter illnesses” (Covid-19 new cases and deaths will remain high for weeks, warn UK health leaders, 29 July). I wonder if they have taken into account that the measures taken to control Covid-19, such as social distancing, hand washing and use of face masks, should be equally effective at reducing the spread of winter coughs, colds and flu, which hopefully may result in a less cataclysmic winter than they are forecasting. Phil Coughlin Houghton-le-Spring, Tyne and Wear
Lawyers argue human rights of ‘extremely vulnerable’ woman were breached by Home Office access to personal and confidential details
A British victim of trafficking is bringing a case against the home secretary, Priti Patel, arguing that her department unlawfully accessed personal information including details of her intimate thoughts.
If the case succeeds it could have implications for tens of thousands of others who may also have had their personal information accessed by officials. Five other survivors of trafficking have threatened the minister and her office with legal proceedings on this issue.
UK and EU at odds over role of European court of justice in settling disputes
Boris Johnson is facing a major Brexit test with the future of Eurotunnel operations at stake, it has emerged.
The EU wants the UK to drop its opposition to a role for the European court of justice in British affairs to ensure trains keep running between France and the UK after Brexit is implemented on 1 January.
Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, levels of hunger and poverty are going to rise. Given this, the abolition of DfID is a serious mistake
This week’s warning from Unicef is stark. Without immediate action, children under five will die in their tens of thousands in the coming year as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The UN agency estimates that an additional 6.7 million children will become dangerously under-nourished unless at least $2.4bn can be mobilised. The risk is that 10,000 more children a month will die.
Hunger is not confined to poor countries: the call for 1.5 million more children in England to get free school meals is evidence of that. Ministers ought to act at home. But acute hunger is a much more acute problem in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia. What’s more, Unicef is far from alone in pointing out the vulnerability of the world’s poorest people to coronavirus. The World Bank is pencilling in the first increase in poverty in two decades. The International Monetary Fund says deep recessions in advanced countries are having a marked impact of remittances – worth $360bn in 2018 – into low income and fragile states.
Here are the main points from Nicola Sturgeon’s press briefing earlier.
I want to give people hope. I think there’s a lot right now that should give all of us hope. It’s been painful, it’s been hard, but we’ve got this virus to really low levels.
But I don’t do my job, I don’t discharge my responsibilities and ultimately I don’t do anybody any favours if I give false hope, or if I get so desperate, as I am to get everybody back to normal, that I forget about the risks that we face, and then I’m standing here in a few weeks and we’re going backwards.
My biggest concern right now is that there are things that all of us can do to keep this under control that we’re all maybe getting a bit lax at doing.
Sometimes one person’s political issue is another person’s very legitimate issue, part and parcel of dealing with Covid. And the fiscal flexibility of the government to deal with the overall consequences of Covid [an issue raised by the reporter] I would put into the latter category.
The all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus, which is chaired by the Lib Dem MP Layla Moran, is holding its own inquiry into the lessons to be learnt from coronavirus, and today it has holding its first oral evidence session. Niall Dickson, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents NHS leaders, told the group that NHS managers were very worried about a second wave. He said:
I would say in relation to the second spike issue or something coming, the levels of concern among our members - the people who are leading NHS trusts, who are leading in primary care and all levels in the systems - is very high.
I mean, of course, there’s real concern about winter and the compounding factors there, but also about an earlier spike.
Both sides seeking deal to secure continuous trade once Brexit implemented on 1 January
The UK is close to sealing a “continuity” trade deal with Japan that will mirror that of the EU pact that Britain will no longer be part of next January.
But in order to strike an agreement in time for it to be ratified by the Japanese parliament, the international trade secretary, Liz Truss, has had to drop her ambitions for preferential treatment for British food exports.
The abrupt closure of the Spain-UK air bridge came from nowhere for thousands of British tourists and an industry trying to get back on its feet.
Whitehall sources insist the swift and blanket nature of the decision – to advise against non-essential travel to Spain and impose quarantine measures on travellers arriving from the country - came because government scientists had been concerned by the coronavirus infection figures from Spain.
Both Brussels and London have moved in talks, and both grasp the political advantages of even a minimal free trade agreement
• Charles Grant is the director of the Centre for European Reform
After six rounds of talks, the UK and the EU are far from reaching an accord on their future relationship. Both sides are warning that failure – meaning that Britain would leave after the transition period on 31 December without a deal – is a real prospect. Those working for Michel Barnier, the EU negotiator, complain that the British have wasted July by refusing to offer meaningful compromises.
Failure is certainly possible. But a deal this year is more likely, for several reasons. First, there has been more progress than one might suppose from the public comments of Barnier and David Frost, the UK negotiator. The EU has hinted at a softer line on fisheries and state aid, and agreed that an arbitration mechanism rather than the European court of justice should adjudicate on disputes.
Pet owners should not be alarmed by the news that a cat has tested positive for coronavirus, the government says. This is from Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England:
This is the first case of a domestic cat testing positive for Covid-19 in the UK but should not be a cause for alarm.
Tests conducted by the Animal and Plant Health Agency have confirmed that the virus responsible for Covid-19 has been detected in a pet cat in England.
This is a very rare event with infected animals detected to date only showing mild clinical signs and recovering within in a few days.
Here is more from the Defra news release about the pet cat testing positive for coronavirus.
The pet cat was initially diagnosed by a private vet with feline herpes virus, a common cat respiratory infection, but the sample was also tested for SARS-CoV-2 as part of a research programme. Follow-up samples tested at the APHA laboratory in Weybridge confirmed the cat was also co-infected with SARS-CoV2 which is the virus known to cause Covid-19 in humans.
Pet owners can access the latest government guidance on how to continue to care for their animals during the coronavirus pandemic.
Exclusive: Matt Hancock is advocate of plan to raise tax to cover cost of care in later life
Everyone over 40 would start contributing towards the cost of care in later life under radical plans being studied by ministers to finally end the crisis in social care, the Guardian can reveal.
Under the plan over-40s would have to pay more in tax or national insurance, or be compelled to insure themselves against hefty bills for care when they are older. The money raised would then be used to pay for the help that frail elderly people need with washing, dressing and other activities if still at home, or to cover their stay in a care home.
Dominic Raab has defended the government's sudden decision to impose restrictions on holidaymakers returning from Spain after a surge in coronavirus cases in the country. Travellers will have to self-isolate for two weeks upon their return. The foreign secretary said the government would not 'make apologies' for the move as inaction could have risked a second wave in the UK