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Results suggest public are deeply unhappy with the government’s handling of Covid and Brexit
The public are deeply unhappy with the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the Brexit negotiations, a damning new poll suggests.
The poll predicts that if a general election were held tomorrow neither the Conservatives nor Labour would win an outright majority. Disturbingly for Boris Johnson, the survey says the Conservatives would lose 81 seats, wiping out the 80-seat majority they won in December 2019.
Amid confusion for lorry drivers in Kent, logistics firms call for greater transparency to help lessen disruption
Ministers are facing demands for more honesty and transparency over any logjams at the UK border in the wake of Britain’s exit from the EU, amid concerns that waves of disruption will last for six months.
Several lorry drivers are understood to have been turned away at Dover for not having the right paperwork following the end of the Brexit transition period last week. It has caused concern among logistics and manufacturing companies that more severe problems could occur as trade flows increase later this month.
Boris Johnson’s post-Brexit trade deal with Brussels has passed into law following a whirlwind 14-hour parliamentary process that has radically redrawn the UK’s ties with Europe.
The prime minister thanked MPs and peers for passing the European Union (future relationship) bill in one day, in a statement urging the nation to “seize” the moment when the transition period with the bloc ends at 11pm on Thursday.
MPs including John McDonnell say party must not ‘fall into trap of rallying around rotten deal’
Keir Starmer is facing a high-profile rebellion against Labour’s Brexit position on the eve of the vote in parliament, as prominent MPs including John McDonnell and Clive Lewis accused him of “falling into the trap of rallying around this rotten deal”.
Labour is likely to contain a major rebellion of frontbench MPs but an increasing number of prominent supporters are urging Starmer to change course. Backbenchers have also raised concerns on private WhatsApp groups that Labour’s endorsement for the deal has been given without the legislation being published.
Parliament should be recalled to deal with the crisis of coronavirus, not just that of leaving the EU
In January 1979, a beleaguered Labour prime minister, James Callaghan, returned from a Caribbean summit to a country that appeared in crisis. A week earlier, truck drivers had gone on strike, cutting off petrol supplies in the “winter of discontent”. When the prime minister arrived at London’s Heathrow airport, he held a press conference in which nothing memorable was said. Instead, in a phrase that has become code for political complacency, Callaghan became for ever associated with the following day’s Sun newspaper headline: “Crisis? What crisis?”
His fate was sealed. Callaghan lost the next general election to Margaret Thatcher. The lesson for politicians is the importance of perception in a crisis. If something feels like a crisis, it is effectively a crisis. Britain now confronts its most serious emergency since the second world war. It faces the unprecedented challenge of coronavirus while adjusting to a new diminished status outside the European Union. The country’s health service is at breaking point, and its future as a unified state is on the line. All this goes unmentioned by Boris Johnson, perhaps because he disingenuously promised that Brexit would save the NHS.
The Labour leader labels the decision on Saturday 19 December to cancel the planned Christmas relaxation of Covid restrictions an 'act of gross negligence by a prime minister who once again has been caught behind the curve'. Boris Johnson announced swaths of the south-east of England would be put in a new tier 4 to contain a new strain of the virus just days after he insisted Christmas plans could go ahead. 'We have a prime minister who is so scared of being unpopular that he is incapable of making tough decisions until it is too late,' Starmer says.
Plans to relax Covid restrictions over Christmas are an error, says the Labour leader, as swathes of England have either entered or will enter tier 3 this week, and with mounting cases and hospitalisations. But Boris Johnson has resisted calls to reverse the five-day relaxation, instead urging the public to take individual responsibility. 'The prime minister should take the hard decisions, not hand them over to individuals,' says Starmer.
Scotland came close to eliminating Covid during the first nationwide lockdown, according to genomic sequencing for Sage of 5,000 samples of the virus, the Scottish government believes.
Jason Leitch, the Scottish government’s national clinical director, said analysis by scientists in Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews on the COG-UK consortium found that around 300 different strains of the virus were circulating in Scotland during the first wave.
That allows us to say this did get us incredibly close to eliminating the virus in our communities, but as we opened up, inevitably people began to travel across the UK [and] travel abroad. New strains were imported again into Scotland.
[This] indicates that, while lockdown in Scotland is directly linked with the first wave case numbers being brought under control, travel-associated imports (mostly from Europe or other parts of the UK) following the easing of lockdown are responsible for seeding the current epidemic population.
This demonstrates that the impact of stringent public health measures can be compromised if, following this, movements from regions of high to low prevalence are not minimised.
Public Health Wales has recorded 2,238 further coronavirus cases. That is a new record daily high for recorded cases. The previous daily record was 2,021, on Monday. A week ago today the figure was 1,480.
There have also been 31 further deaths. A week ago today the figure was 51.
The rapid COVID-19 surveillance dashboard has been updated.
Boris Johnson has claimed no prime minister would be right to accept the trade terms being offered by the EU, as he prepares to fly to Brussels for last-ditch talks.
Asked in the House of Commons by the veteran Tory backbencher Edward Leigh about the prospects for a deal, Johnson said: “Our friends in the EU are currently insisting that if they pass a new law in future with which we in this country do not comply or don’t follow suit, then they want the automatic right to punish us and to retaliate.
Boris Johnson suffered his worst Commons rebellion tonight as 55 Conservative MPs opposed the government’s new coronavirus tiers despite the prime minister pleading with them as they cast their votes.
Johnson was forced to rely on Labour’s abstention from the vote to avoid defeat on a tightened system of measures that will plunge 99% of England into the strictest tiers from Wednesday.
Keir Starmer has said Labour will abstain from the the Covid tier vote as the government scrambled to contain a Tory rebellion by unveiling a multimillion-pound fund for pubs.
Starmer has decided to break with the government in a vote on Covid restrictions for the first time, but will not vote against the restrictions adding that this would 'not be in the interest of the country'.
Tuesday’s Commons vote on the tiers system is due to replace lockdown rules from Wednesday and put 99% of the country into tiers 2 and 3. The vote is still expected to pass
Leader faces resignations from his front bench in a ‘dangerous moment’ for his authority
Keir Starmer, the Labour party leader, faces the threat of resignations from his frontbench team should he order MPs to vote in favour of a Brexit deal agreed by the government.
Labour sources said that there were shadow ministers willing to step down if ordered to vote for the deal that could be agreed this week, with one describing it as a “dangerous moment” for the Starmer’s authority.
Leader planning to throw weight behind a deal if last-minute negotiations succeed in coming days
Keir Starmer is preparing to risk a party rift by throwing Labour’s weight behind a Brexit deal if last-minute negotiations succeed in the coming days.
In what he hopes will be a signal to red wall voters that the party has heard them, multiple Labour sources said Starmer, and Cabinet Office shadow minister Rachel Reeves – who has been liaising with backbenchers on the issue – are minded to impose a three-line whip in support of a deal, subject to the detail.
Allies say he aims to prove there was a deal with Keir Starmer’s office to readmit him to party
Jeremy Corbyn is to start a formal legal claim against the Labour party for suspending the whip, in a case which allies of the former Labour leader say is intended to prove there was a deal with Keir Starmer’s office to readmit him to the party.
The Guardian has seen evidence of exchanges between key members of Starmer’s office and Corbyn’s representatives, suggesting there were private meetings in the run-up to the party’s decision to lift his suspension from the party.
Most of the public would rather have a locked-down Christmas than have a new lockdown imposed in January, a new poll suggests.
With the government considering the extent to which restrictions should be lifted to limit the impact on Christmas family gatherings, the latest Opinium poll for the Observer found that the public opted for a locked-down Christmas over new January restrictions by a margin of 54% to 33%.
Internal divisions deepen as former MP quits party over treatment of former leader
The shadow chancellor, Anneliese Dodds, has blamed a “politicised” disciplinary process for Jeremy Corbyn’s readmittance to the Labour party, as a former MP quit the party and its internal rift deepened.
Dodds’ comments came after a backlash against Keir Starmer’s decision not to restore the Labour whip to Corbyn following his suspension. A panel from Labour’s governing body had let him back into the party with a written warning.
Decision means former leader will not sit as Labour MP and is likely to reignite party row
Keir Starmer has sparked a furious backlash from Labour leftwingers by refusing to readmit Jeremy Corbyn as a Labour MP, arguing that his predecessor has undermined efforts to restore the party’s reputation in the Jewish community.
A disciplinary panel of the party’s nationl executive committee (NEC) lifted the suspension of Corbyn’s party membership on Tuesday after he issued a conciliatory statement “clarifying” controversial remarks he made when the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published a damning report on Labour antisemitism.
The UK’s Covid-19 death toll has surpassed 50,000, government figures have revealed, as the nation struggles to deal with a deadly second wave.
The news served as a sobering reminder of the severity of the crisis after hopes were raised on Monday that an end may be in sight with announcement that a vaccine had been shown to be effective.