Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
The planned reopening of schools in England has descended into disarray, as unions advised teachers not to return to the classroom, heads took legal action over the government’s plans and senior Tories warned that school gates may have to remain shut for weeks to come.
With warnings that some primary heads would arrive at work on Monday morning unsure about whether they would be able to reopen to pupils, teachers accused the government of making an “utter shambles” of school reopening and demanded a last-minute delay. Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, was also facing renewed calls to resign over the chaos.
Gavin Williamson told LBC's Nick Ferrari that the UK was the first country to approve a Covid-19 vaccine, ahead of the EU and the US, because, "we're much better".
"I just think we have the very best people in this country and we've got the best medical regulators. Much better than the French have, much better than the Belgians have, much better than the Americans have," he added when pushed on whether Brexit played a part
The education secretary, Gavin Williamson, has claimed the UK was the first country in the world to clinically approve a coronavirus vaccine because the country has “much better” scientists than France, Belgium or the US.
Williamson said he was not surprised the UK was the first to roll out the immunisation because “we’re a much better country than every single one of them”.
Exclusive: students would be told to remain on campus and all teaching done online
Ministers want to place universities in England into lockdown for two weeks before Christmas, with students told to remain on campus and all teaching carried out online, the Guardian has learned.
Under the government’s plan, which is in its early stages, universities would go into lockdown from 8 December until 22 December, when all students would be allowed to return to their home towns.
The education commitee has published the written submission it has received from Roger Taylor, chair of Ofqual, about the exam grade debacle. There is a link to it here.
We have received this written statement from @ofqual.
1. New restrictions have come into effect in Glasgow City, West Dunbartonshire & East Renfrewshire. I know residents in these areas - I am one - feel frustrated and are wondering why we have done X and not Y...so I thought it would be helpful to set out some of the rationale...
3. Our data suggests that spread in and between households is driving much of the transmission just now. That doesn’t mean there are no cases in pubs etc - but unlike in Aberdeen, pub clusters don’t appear, at this stage, to be main driver. That analysis has guided decisions...
4. Based on data, clinical advice is that restricting household gatherings indoors - where it is most difficult to keep physical distance - is vital. Closing pubs wouldn’t be an alternative to that - but an additional measure which, for now, they don’t consider proportionate
8. Data has also told us in recent days that we’ve had a number of positive cases amongst people returning from Greece - that’s why we’ve had to add Greece to quarantine list. Given uncertainties of situation, my advice remains to avoid non essential foreign travel for now
9. Finally, I know how difficult all this is. I hate having to take these decisions and you all hate the impact of them. My plea is that we treat yesterday’s developments as a wake up call and take seriously our individual responsibilities to stop #COVID spreading. Thank you!
Boris Johnson is facing a showdown with furious Conservative MPs over his government’s chaotic handling of Covid-19, as a new poll shows the Tories have surrendered a massive lead over Labour in just five months.
As MPs prepare to return to Westminster on Tuesday, Charles Walker, who is vice-chair of the 1922 committee of Conservative backbenchers, told the Observer that a recent string of U-turns had left many colleagues in despair, with some struggling to support and defend their government to constituents. Governing by U-turn in this way, he said, was unsustainable.
My colleagues Pamela Duncan and Tobi Thomas from the Guardian’s data unit report discrepancies in today’s GCSE results:
A rising tide lifts all boats and this year’s algorithm-to-teacher-graded-U-turn has resulted in an increase in top grades across every subject. However, some subjects’ boats were lifted higher than others.
After all the uncertainty of the exams fiasco, head teachers across the country are celebrating their pupils’ GCSE success, but they say recent experiences have damaged relations with the Department for Education (DfE).
Jules White, head teacher of Tanbridge House secondary school in Horsham, West Sussex and leader of the Worth Less? education funding campaign, was with pupils this morning, watching with delight as they found out their grades.
Here’s a roundup of this afternoon’s key UK coronavirus developments:
Pizza Express has confirmed plans to close 73 of its restaurants, impacting 1,100 members of staff, as part of a major business rescue plan.
The chain has formally launched a proposal to reduce its restaurant estate and rental cost base through a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA).
Today we have confirmed that 73 of our pizzerias are proposed to close permanently.
“In most cases, there is another Pizza Express nearby, either already open or reopening soon, to welcome our customers. Our focus is on our people whose jobs are impacted and we will be doing everything we can either to redeploy them or to support them in finding roles elsewhere.
Gavin Williamson has tried to lay the blame for the exams fiasco at the door of the regulator Ofqual after a humiliating climbdown that overturned up to 2.3m grades but left thousands of pupils in limbo.
Two days after saying there would be “no U-turn, no change”, the education secretary apologised and ordered a complete reversal whereby pupils in England will be able to revert to the A-level grades recommended by their teachers, if those are higher.
Children’s groups call for meal provision to extend to families barred from UK state support
Thousands of children from migrant families are at risk of hunger when schools reopen in the UK unless the free meal provision is extended, according to a group of 60 organisations.
The Children’s Society, Action for Children, Project 17 and Unison are among the organisations that have written to the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, calling on him to extend free school meals to pupils from low-income migrant families classed as having “no recourse to public funds”.
A “partial reopening” of the tourism sector in Wales is to take place over the next few weeks as long as rates of coronavirus continue to fall, the Welsh government has announced.
The Labour-led government has asked visitors to enjoy their time in the country – but to respect local communities.
Tourism is a vital part of the Welsh economy at a national, regional and local level. I’d like to thank all our industry partners for working with us to carefully reopen the visitor economy.
A successful, safe and phased return will give businesses, communities and visitors confidence to continue with the recovery of the visitor economy.
NHS England has recorded a further 35 coronavirus hospital deaths in England. The full figures are here.
For comparison, here are the equivalent daily figures announced by NHS England over the past fortnight.
The education secretary has pledged that all children in all year groups in England will return to school in September. He said he understood parents' anxiety about the move, but that safety measures including protective bubbles would be in place to limit the risk of transmitting Covid-19
The Guardian’s just published a leader on Labour’s universal credit policy, concluding that the “plan makes sense”.
The shocking failings of universal credit are justly blamed on the government having listened to the wrong people when setting it up. The sensible reforms set out by Labour show that the opposition has been listening to the right ones. Never mind that the package of changes announced by Jeremy Corbyn on Saturday was misleadingly described as a plan to “scrap” universal credit. His party’s proposals to end the five-week wait for initial payments, scrap the benefit cap and two-child limit (and heinous “rape clause”) are sound. So are promises to review the sanctions system, ditch the “digital only” approach and hire 5,000 new advisers to help those who struggle with online applications.
The army’s zero-tolerance drugs policy has been scrapped less than a year after it was introduced, the defence secretary has confirmed.
Speaking at a ConservativeHome fringe event at the Conservative party conference in Manchester, Ben Wallace told Tory members he had changed the policy because it should be for commanding officers, and not the government, to decide to strip an individual of their job.
I changed it. I took the view that some people are young and irresponsible and it should be up to their commanding officers to decide, whether it’s a young lad or girl who’s made a mistake, whether they should be allowed to remain in the armed forces or not.
And people who have left and want to rejoin, the same should apply to them as well. I think, you know, that doesn’t mean to say you should be able to do drugs in the armed forces.
It should be up to commanding officers to understand their workforce, to understand whether that individual is the problem, or if there’s a medical problem and they think they need help, or whether indeed it was a mistake.
View in Whitehall: the leak from the National Security Council is not being referred to the police because a judgment was made that a crime was not committed
Defence secretary was fired by prime minister after investigation into Huawei leak
Gavin Williamson has claimed that he is the victim of a “kangaroo court” after being dramatically sacked by Theresa May over the leak from the National Security Council of Huawei’s involvement in the UK’s 5G network.
May was told of what she called “compelling” evidence of Williamson’s involvement before she was due to face a grilling from the backbench liaison committee. The defence secretary was later summoned to May’s House of Commons office, where she confronted him with the evidence, offered him the opportunity to resign – and when he refused, immediately fired him.
Official commemorations of the battle on 6 June to honour the ‘enormous sacrifice’
The defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, has urged veterans to continue to pass their stories on to future generations, as the 100-day countdown to the 75th anniversary of D-day begins.
Beijing’s might and ambitions, and the approach of Brexit, make the path ahead more difficult. It’s time for careful thought
A few years ago, George Osborne announced that Britain’s relations with China were entering a “golden era”. On Thursday, his successor as chancellor gave a more measured assessment: they are “complex”, Philip Hammond said, noting that they “had not been made simpler” by the defence secretary Gavin Williamson’s threat to deploy an aircraft carrier in the South China Sea.
Britain, blanching as Brexit approaches, is more anxious than ever to keep Chinese cash flowing. Diplomats from other nations say London is already less willing to criticise Beijing because it knows how much it will need it. Yet some of the lustre is coming off bilateral dealings, as it is from China’s relationships elsewhere. The Trump administration is viscerally hostile, but Beijing’s increasingly repressive turn at home and forcefulness abroad has alarmed many who were more sympathetic to it.
Philip Hammond’s planned trip to Beijing reportedly scuppered by defence secretary’s remarks
Philip Hammond is not going to China this weekend for trade talks, following reports that Beijing scuppered advanced preparations for a meeting after the defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, threatened to deploy a warship in the Pacific.
The UK chancellor was expected to meet the Chinese vice premier, Hu Chunhua, but Treasury sources said the trip was never confirmed. It is believed that there is an internal row brewing between the Treasury and the defence department over Williamson’s remarks, which the former chancellor George Osborne described as a throwback to an era of “gunboat diplomacy”.