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 and his health secretary, Matt Hancock, acted “unlawfully” when appointing three key figures – including the head of NHS Test and Trace, Dido Harding – to posts in the fight against Covid-19, according to a legal challenge submitted by campaigners to the high court.
The Observer has seen details of documents from those pursuing the case – and initial responses from government lawyers – relating to the call for a judicial review into the appointment of Baroness Harding, who is a Tory peer, and into those of Kate Bingham to the post of head of the UK’s vaccine taskforce and Mike Coupe to the role of director of testing at NHS Test and Trace.
When Boris Johnson ordered the phased reopening of England’s shops and schools in July after a gruelling three-month lockdown, he gave the public permission to hope for a “more significant return to normality” in time for Christmas.
Four months on, and as so often in this crisis, the prime minister’s optimism appears at best premature.
The UK Statistics Authority has rebuked the government over its lack of transparency around projected Covid-19 deaths and hospital admissions, saying it could cast doubt over official figures.
A range of estimates were used to make the case for a second English lockdown in a press conference on 31 October. However, the UKSA said “the data and assumptions for this model had not been shared transparently”, potentially undermining confidence in official figures.
The UK’s first mass-testing trial is under way in Liverpool as part of the government’s Operation Moonshot drive to test up to 10 million people a day.
Six new testing centres opened their doors to Liverpudlians at noon on Friday as the city’s health chief urged the city’s 500,000-strong population to volunteer for a coronavirus test over the next fortnight.
The UK should be braced for at least a third wave of the coronavirus pandemic and further lockdowns, a minister has said as Tory sceptics warned they would not vote to extend England’s four-week shutdown.
Penny Mordaunt, the paymaster general, told MPs on Tuesday that there could yet be a rolling series of lockdowns – but argued this was not evidence that the measure was ineffective.
The government has published the full regulations for England’s second national lockdown, which is to begin on Thursday and will last for four weeks. A number of details had already emerged, and some are sufficiently complex to have puzzled even ministers.
Michael Gove has said the new coronavirus lockdown in England could be extended beyond four weeks if the number of infections does not fall far enough. Gove told Sky's Sophy Ridge on Sunday show that measures would be reviewed on 2 December and could last longer if the virus has not been contained
Boris Johnson has bowed to pressure from his scientific advisers for new national lockdown restrictions, which are expected to be announced early next week, the Guardian has been told.
Sir Patrick Vallance and Prof Chris Whitty, who head the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), are understood to have warned the prime minister that the time has come for national action across England. Sage scientists presented Johnson with evidence at a meeting in Downing Street, where they explained that Covid-19 is spreading significantly faster than their worst-case scenarios.
Nottinghamshire will be placed under tier 3 coronavirus measures from Friday, it was confirmed on Wednesday night, with a series of extra rules including the UK’s first virus-related ban on off-licence alcohol sales after 9pm.
West Yorkshire is set to follow suit within days – meaning more than 11 million people in England will soon be under the toughest level of restrictions.
The number of coronavirus patients in UK hospitals could pass the spring peak by the end of November without further lockdown measures, a leading government scientific adviser has warned.
Sir Mark Walport, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said it was “not unrealistic” that there would be 25,000 people in hospital with Covid by the end of next month – higher than the April peak.
A further 367 people have died in the UK in the last day, the highest daily increase in five months and 50% higher than the daily increase last week.
The figure is more than six times the daily death toll of 54 announced on 23 March when the national lockdown began. It confirms fears about the escalating second wave of the pandemic and brings the total of those who died within 28 days of testing positive to 45,365.
Sir Patrick Vallance said there was ‘room for improvement’ with test and trace in the UK as only about two-thirds of the close contacts reached are done so within 48 hours of the case entering the system, according to performance figures released on Thursday.
Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak presented a new package of government support grants during a televised briefing and also discussed vaccines and local restrictions
The idea of a normal Christmas this year with large family gatherings is “fiction” and people should be “digital-Christmas ready”, Nicola Sturgeon’s public health adviser has said.
Jason Leitch, the Scottish government’s national clinical director, who regularly flanks Sturgeon in her daily coronavirus briefings, told BBC Radio Scotland it was too early to say what the situation would be in late December. But Christmas would “absolutely” not be normal.
Greater Manchester will be moved into the highest tier of coronavirus restrictions from midnight on Thursday, Boris Johnson has confirmed as he refused to say whether a £60m offer of support for the region remains on the table following failed negotiations.
Speaking at a Downing Street press conference, the prime minister did not specify how much support the region would get. Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, had sought £90m in support for businesses and staff affected by the measures, dropping the request to £65m, but ministers offered £60m and ended the talks without a deal.
The strictest Covid restrictions will be imposed on nearly 3 million people across Greater Manchester if no deal is reached by midday on Tuesday, the government has said in a dramatic ultimatum.
The communities secretary, Robert Jenrick, warned northern leaders late on Monday night that if they fail to agree to pub closures and a ban on household mixing, the tier 3 measures will be brought in unilaterally.
The dispute between the UK government and Greater Manchester continued on Sunday after the Cabinet Office minister, Michael Gove, said its mayor, Andy Burnham, was risking lives by opting for 'press conferences and posturing' rather than agreeing to new coronavirus rules. Burnham has accused Boris Johnson of exaggerating the severity of the Covid-19 situation in Greater Manchester
Downing Street must urgently strike a deal with Greater Manchester leaders to introduce tougher Covid restrictions before hospitals are overwhelmed, the shadow education secretary, Kate Green, has said.
Deputy mayors and other civic leaders in the metropolitan region said in a joint statement on Friday they were “ready to meet at any time” with the prime minister to agree a way forward over the introduction of a tier 3 lockdown. They say the government’s initial proposals did not provide adequate financial support.
From my colleagues Pamela Duncan and Niamh McIntyre
From tonight over half the population of England will be living in areas classed as “high risk” or “very high risk” under the government’s three-tier system, equivalent to 28.4m people.
All of Lancashire county (Lancashire, Blackburn with Darwen and Blackpool council areas) are to move from tier 2 to the higher tier 3 category from midnight, meaning more than 3m people are now living in the highest-risk areas.
Trade negotiations often involve threats to walk away, and dire forecasts, before both side agree to compromise, and Brexit-watchers have been waiting for the UK-EU trade talks to this moment. It came this morning, when Boris Johnson used a TV statement (see 12.29pm) to say that there would no deal without a “fundamental change” in the EU’s approach.
But threats only work if people take them seriously and Johnson’s comments do not seem to have been taken as a sincere statement of intent to talk away. It was telling that, despite being asked twice if he was saying the talks were over, he would not use those words. (See 12.41pm.) If the foreign exchange markets thought Johnson was abandoning hopes of a deal, the pound would have fallen (as it has repeatedly in key moments in the Brexit drama since 2016). But it didn’t. “Market participants see comments from Boris Johnson as mainly political posturing at this stage,” an analyst told Bloomberg.
There’s no point in trade talks if the EU doesn’t change its position. The EU effectively ended the trade talks yesterday.
Only if the EU fundamentally changes its position will it be worth talking.
What I would say to that is there is only any point in Michel Barnier coming to London next week if he’s prepared to discuss all of the issues on the basis of legal text in an accelerated way without the UK being required to make all of the moves, or if he’s willing to discuss practicalities of areas such as travel and haulage which the PM mentioned in his statement.
Our position is a clear one. Only if the EU fundamentally changes position will it be worthwhile talking.
Wales is facing a “circuit breaker” lockdown of two or three weeks to stop hospitals being overwhelmed, as the country reaches what the government described as a “critical point”.
Ministers will spend the weekend coming to a final decision on their next steps, but the Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, said on Friday a “fire-break” or circuit breaker for the whole country was the option most actively being considered.
The health secretary told the Commons that several areas of England were being moved to the tier 2 level of coronavirus restrictions designed for high-risk areas. The new rules will come into force at one minute past midnight on Saturday, for an undetermined amount of time, in areas including London, Essex, York and north-east Derbyshire