Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Cllr Mark Blake says an enforcement approach to curb youth violence will fail, while Prof Saville Kushner says stop and search will undermine democratic policing. Plus letters from Mary Jones, TG Ashplant, Susan Ellery, Lynn Beudert and Christopher Reilly
As a councillor in Haringey who previously led on the council’s work with the Metropolitan police, I’m filled with dread at the thought of the Met ramping up stop and search in some supposedly “evidenced” response to knife crime.
The prime minister, Boris Johnson, said it was important that people did not draw premature conclusions about several days of better Covid case data and urged the public to remain cautious.
'I've noticed that obviously that we're six days into some better figures, but it is very, very important that we don't allow ourselves to run away with premature conclusions about this,' Johnson said.
'People have got to remain very cautious and that remains the approach of the government.'
Downing Street says Brussels overtures are insufficient and ‘comprehensive’ solutions needed
Boris Johnson has rejected Brussels’ latest attempt to iron out problems with the post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland, insisting that the withdrawal agreement signed last year must be renegotiated.
PM wants to echo Blair’s promise of an ‘opportunity society’ and energise those who feel left behind
Boris Johnson intends to mimic aspects of Tony Blair’s political project in the hope of winning over more voters in former Labour heartlands, Downing Street sources have revealed.
While the Conservatives’ 2019-intake MPs are more likely to model themselves on Margaret Thatcher than the former Labour prime minister, No 10 insiders said Johnson had been studying Blair’s approach.
A scientist advising the government has accused ministers of allowing infections to rip through the younger population in an effort to bolster levels of immunity before the NHS faces winter pressures.
The allegation comes after England’s remaining Covid restrictions were eased on Monday, with nightclubs throwing open their doors for the first time in the pandemic and all rules on social distancing and mask wearing dropped even as infections run high.
Often, the political week heading into the Commons summer recess can feel almost soporific, with the thoughts of ministers and MPs geared more towards holiday sunbeds than rows. But the last seven days has been different, and not only because of the ongoing political flux of coronavirus, with the government seeming to flail from one controversy, U-turn or misstep to the next, day after day.
EU has already proposed changes to lessen impact on Northern Irish citizens, say officials
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has rejected Boris Johnson’s move to renegotiate the Northern Irish protocol, raising the temperature of a simmering Brexit row.
“The EU will continue to be creative and flexible within the protocol framework. But we will not renegotiate,” she said after a call with the prime minister on Thursday.
BBC interview reveals people decided Johnson was unfit to be PM within weeks of 2019 election victory
Boris Johnson’s closest aides decided he was unfit to be prime minister within weeks of his 2019 election victory and began plotting to oust him, Dominic Cummings has claimed.
In his first TV interview since quitting as one of the most senior advisers in No 10, Cummings levelled repeated criticism of his former boss, saying aides feared Johnson had no plan to run the country and was only obsessed with “stupid” infrastructure projects.
Former aide says Boris Johnson held out on October lockdown because those ‘dying are essentially all over 80’
Boris Johnson denied the NHS would be overwhelmed and said he was not prepared to lock down the country to save people in their 80s, texting his adviser “get Covid and live longer,” according to new WhatsApp messages released by Dominic Cummings.
In his first TV interview, the prime minister’s former chief adviser said Johnson held out on reimposing Covid restrictions because “the people who are dying are essentially all over 80.”
Analysis: making fully vaccinated travellers returning from places with lower infection rates quarantine, while the virus runs wild here, is difficult to comprehend
Boris Johnson’s pendulum swing from “freedom day” to unlocking with “extreme caution” relayed a shift in the government’s thinking – that the relaxation of almost all restrictions at this stage comes with significant risk. The move to make fully vaccinated people returning from France continue to quarantine – because of the risk of the Beta variant – appears to be another sign of panic setting in.
Delta, the dominant variant in the UK, is far more transmissible than the Beta variant, which was first identified in South Africa. But the danger of Beta has long been its ability to thwart any vaccine shield, particularly the AstraZeneca jab. Beta actually preceded Delta – it was first recorded in the UK in December but never quite took off. In South Africa, it has dominated. It also accounts for about one in 10 new infections in France, but that data includes the French territories of Réunion and Mayotte, where the variant is almost dominant.
The prime minister has said he briefly considered not isolating after coming into contact with the health secretary, who has contracted Covid-19 but thinks it is ‘far more important that everybody sticks to the same rules’. Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak had initially tried to avoid isolation by saying they were part of a daily-test pilot scheme, prompting an outcry from members of the public and backbench Conservative MPs
Following the announcement of stricter social distancing measures being introduced in Vietnam’s capital city, the country’s health ministry has confirmed that daily Covid cases have reached a record high.
The country reported 5,926 cases on Sunday, according to Reuters, as the country battles its worst outbreak so far. Vietnam has reported 53,830 cases overall, with 254 deaths.
Tony Blair has called on ministers to drop the requirement for people who are fully vaccinated to self-isolate if they come into contact with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19, PA Media reports.
The former prime minister said the current system was “not rational” and he understood why people were deleting the NHS Covid app from their mobile phones.
We’re at risk of moving in two contradictory directions.
On the one hand we’re going to open everything up, free restriction altogether, and on the other hand we’ve still got this pinging track and trace system where people have got to go into complete isolation if they’re pinged in circumstances where probably the vast majority of those people do not need to do so.
I don’t want the prime minister of the country to be in isolation at the moment, I need him at his desk doing his job.
He’s double-vaccinated, he’s actually had Covid, he’s testing and presumably the tests are coming back negative. The point is to do this for everyone.
As women and children lose out on programmes that could change their lives, Britain’s reputation has been diminished
Bukola Onyishi was delighted when she found out that the British government was going to help her realise a dream in one of the poorest parts of Nigeria. With a grant agreement that was meant to last for three years, she was finally going to be able to launch a female empowerment programme for the women of Bauchi state in the country’s north-east, many of whom had fled the militant Islamist group Boko Haram and were now living in abject poverty in camps for the internally displaced.
“The grant made us very happy,” says Onyishi, country director for Women for Women International. “[Bauchi] was the right place to be.” Setting it up was not easy: Onyishi and her colleagues had a job to persuade community elders of the project’s value, encountering deep-seated patriarchal beliefs that surprised even her in their obstinacy. But they came round in the end, and the first 12-month empowerment programme began, teaching 1,200 carefully selected women about everything from their basic human rights to numeracy and business skills.
Sajid Javid was self-isolating on Saturday after testing positive for Covid, as senior public health leaders from across the UK accused Boris Johnson today of “letting Covid rip” by relaxing legal restrictions.
The health secretary, who is fully vaccinated, said he had mild symptoms and confirmed the result of a lateral flow test with a positive PCR test. “I will continue to isolate and work from home,” he tweeted.
Boris Johnson has said caution is “absolutely vital” before the abandonment of virtually all formal Covid restrictions as ministers toughen their language amid expectations of soaring infection rates.
The Guardian understands that ministers have been told to brace for at least one to two million new cases of coronavirus in the coming weeks, though the vaccination programme means far smaller proportions of those infected will be hospitalised and die than in previous waves.
The prime minister seems intent on lifting England’s remaining Covid restrictions on 19 July. But many in the NHS fear it could be overwhelmed – and tourist hotspots are fearful too
With foreign holidays still in doubt and Cornwall filling up by the day, Jessica Webb has a unique perspective on “freedom day”. With her sister, Naomi, and her father, Spence, she helps run Falmouth Surf School and Watersports on Maenporth beach. Bookings for surf lessons are strong, and Jessica, 38, has started running yoga classes on paddleboards anchored in the cove to cope with excess demand.
She is also a part-time healthcare assistant in the A&E department at Cornwall’s only major hospital, in Treliske. “Even now, before the summer holidays have started, we don’t have enough staff in the hospital, people are waiting hours at A&E, the ambulances are all parked up outside,” she says. “There’s just so little capacity and so few beds – even for the people that live here all the time, let alone all the holidaymakers.
Boris Johnson is expected on Monday to urge the public to behave responsibly as he confirms plans for the 19 July reopening in England amid government jitters about the risks of the big-bang approach.
The final decision about 19 July will be taken on Monday morning, based on modelling from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) about Covid cases and pressures on the NHS.
Brussels’ accounts reveal amount expected, but London says: ‘We don’t recognise that figure’
The government has rejected claims it owes the European Union £41bn for a Brexit “divorce bill”, even as it emerged the first payments have been made.
Brussels and Westminster reopened a dispute about the size of the bill, after the publication of the EU’s 2020 accounts revealed the European Commission expected €47.5bn (£40.8bn) from the UK, a sum higher than British estimates.
Boris Johnson has announced the end of Britain’s military mission in Afghanistan, following a hasty and secretive exit of the last remaining troops 20 years after the post-9/11 invasion that started the 'war on terror'. Speaking in the Commons, the prime minister confirmed to MPs that the intervention, which claimed the lives of 457 British soldiers, would end even as the insurgent Taliban have been rapidly gaining territory in rural areas as UK and other forces withdraw
Lifting the final Covid restrictions in England on 19 July is a gamble for the government. Even without further easing, cases are on course to surpass 50,000 a day by mid-July. Thereafter they could swiftly exceed the winter peak of 81,000 and hit 100,000 or more, the health secretary has said. What the next wave means for lives and the NHS is still deeply uncertain – but the science offers some clues.