Category Archives: Rishi Sunak

Matt Hancock ‘was not told about eat out to help out scheme until day it was announced’ – as it happened

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Hancock is now deploying the defence previewed in the Observer on Sunday. (See 9.58am.)

He says from the middle of January the DHSC was “trying to effectively raise the alarm”. He says:

We were trying to wake up Whitehall to the scale of the problem and this wasn’t a problem that couldn’t be addressed only from the health department. Non-pharmaceutical interventions cannot be put in place by a health department. A health department can’t shut schools. It should have been grasped and led from the centre of government earlier. And you’ve seen evidence that repeatedly the department and I tried to make this happen.

And we were on occasions blocked, and at other times our concerns were not taken as seriously as they should have been until the very end of February.

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Sunak rejects von der Leyen’s comments that UK could rejoin EU

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European Commission president said Brexit could be fixed because leaders had ‘goofed it up’

Rishi Sunak has rejected the suggestion that Brexit could be in peril after Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, claimed that the UK could be on a path to rejoining the European Union.

At an event in Brussels on Tuesday night, von der Leyen admitted that European leaders had “goofed up” over the departure of Britain from the bloc and suggested the younger generation could “fix” it.

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Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer clash over immigration and Parthenon marbles at PMQs – UK politics live

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Prime minister’s record shows he has the ‘reverse Midas touch’, Keir Starmer says

Back at the home affairs committee, Tim Loughton (Con) has just had another go at getting answers about the number of asylum applications that have been withdrawn. (See 10.38am.)

He said, when he said earlier 95% of withdrawn applications were categorised as withdrawn for “other” reasons (and not because the claims were not substantiated), he was quoting figures for the last quarter.

Whilst the prospect is perhaps what none of us would wish to plan for, I believe the reality will be that we will need to discharge Covid-19 positive patients into residential care settings for the reason you have noted.

This will be entirely clinically appropriate because the NHS will triage those to retain in acute settings who can benefit from that sector’s care.

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Sunak accuses Greek PM of ‘grandstanding’ over Parthenon marbles

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Prime minister escalates row with Athens counterpart in first public comments after cancelling their meeting

Rishi Sunak has intensified his diplomatic spat with his Greek counterpart, accusing Kyriakos Mitsotakis of using his recent trip to London to “grandstand” over the issue of the Parthenon sculptures.

The prime minister told MPs on Wednesday he had cancelled a planned meeting with Mitsotakis in London on Tuesday because the Greek prime minister had reneged on a promise not to use the trip as an opportunity to advocate for the sculptures’ return.

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V&A director says museum trustees ‘infantilised’ amid row over Parthenon marbles

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Tristram Hunt says trustees should be able to ‘make case’ for items to be retained or returned to countries of origin

Museum trustees should be able to “make the case” whether items in their collections should be retained or returned to their countries of origin, but instead were being “infantilised” and “hidebound” by legislation, Tristram Hunt, the director of the V&A, has said.

He was speaking as a diplomatic row between the UK and Greece over the future of the Parthenon marbles, held at the British Museum, blew up this week after Rishi Sunak abruptly cancelled a meeting with the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

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Sunak accused of trying to ‘reset’ climate credentials at Cop28

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British PM to tell UN summit of plans for rainforests and new national park – but green groups remain sceptical

Rishi Sunak is to announce a new package of green measures as the Cop28 UN climate summit begins in Dubai, including a search for a national park, a strategy on British rainforests and landscape recovery projects with farmers.

But green groups have told the Guardian the package is greenwashing and an attempt by the UK prime minister to “reset” his reputation after previously opposing environmental measures.

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Parthenon marbles row raises fresh fears over fraught UK-EU relations

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War of words between Athens and London escalates after Rishi Sunak’s snub to Greek prime minister

Rishi Sunak’s snub of his Greek counterpart over the Parthenon marbles raised fresh questions about Britain’s fraught relations with its European neighbours as a war of words between Athens and London escalated on Tuesday.

A meeting on Tuesday between Sunak and Kyriakos Mitsotakis was cancelled because the Greek prime minister reneged on assurances that he would not use a UK visit as a “public platform” to lobby for the return of the marbles to Athens, Downing Street said. The Greek side has denied any such assurances were given.

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Michael Gove delivers apology to Covid victims and their families for ‘mistakes made by government’ – UK politics live

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Levelling up secretary breaks away from evidence at Covid inquiry to apologise for ‘errors I and others made’

Gove breaks away from the line of questioning to issue an apology.

I want to take this opportunity, if I may, to apologise to the victims who endured so much pain, the families who’ve endured so much loss, as a result of the mistakes that were made by government in response to the pandemic.

And as a minister, responsible for the Cabinet Office, and who was also close to many of the decisions that were made, I must take my share of responsibility for that.

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Greek leader declines meeting with UK deputy PM after Rishi Sunak’s snub

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Kyriakos Mitsotakis ‘deeply disappointed’ after Sunak talks cancelled amid Parthenon sculptures row

The Greek prime minister has declined a meeting with the UK deputy prime minster, Oliver Dowden, after it was offered in place of talks with Rishi Sunak, amid an escalating row over repatriation of the Parthenon sculptures.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece’s prime minister, said he was “deeply disappointed” by the abrupt cancellation of a meeting on Monday with Sunak in London, at which he had planned to raise the issue of the sculptures.

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Greek PM criticises Rishi Sunak for cancelling planned meeting at No 10

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Tory source says ‘it became impossible for meeting to go ahead’ after Kyriakos Mitsotakis urged return of Parthenon marbles to Athens

Greece’s prime minister has criticised the decision of his British counterpart Rishi Sunak to cancel planned talks at which he had hoped to raise the issue of the Parthenon marbles, as disagreements over the antiquities erupted with renewed vigour.

As aides described Sunak’s move as “wrong and undignified”, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who is visiting London, voiced irritation at the scheduled Downing Street meeting being called off at the 11th hour.

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Andy Burnham claims government note shows Covid tier 3 restrictions imposed on Manchester as ‘punishment beating’ – as it happened

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Covid tier system introduced in October 2020 and imposed different restrictions on English regions in effort to contain spread of virus. This live blog is closed

At the Covid inquiry Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, said that he was not getting information from the government in February about Covid. He said he was “disappointed” by that.

In late February and early March he was getting information from other cities around the world instead, he said. He said this happened even though his foreign affairs team consisted of just three people.

The government generally does give us information about a variety of things happening. I’m disappointed the government weren’t giving us information in February about what they knew then.

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UK will not return to Cameron era’s close ties with China, Sunak says

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At summit to drum up foreign investment PM says he does not intend to change policy towards Beijing

Rishi Sunak has said the UK will not return to the close relationship with China pursued under David Cameron, as the prime minister met business leaders in an effort to drum up foreign investment.

The government on Monday said £29.5bn of new investment had been earmarked for the UK, including projects by the ScottishPower owner, Iberdrola, and BioNTech, the German company that partnered with Pfizer on its Covid vaccine.

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Greek PM bemoans lack of progress on return of Parthenon marbles

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Kyriakos Mitsotakis to raise issue of ‘reunification’ of sculptures when he meets Rishi Sunak this week

Talks over a possible return of the Parthenon marbles from the British Museum to Greece are not advancing quick enough, the Greek prime minister has said before his meeting with Rishi Sunak this week.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis likened the British Museum’s possession of the sculptures – also known as the Elgin marbles – to the Mona Lisa painting being cut in half, saying it was not a question of ownership but “reunification”.

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Rishi Sunak vows to ‘clamp down’ on immigration amid Tory anger

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PM says there is ‘much more to do’ on manifesto pledge to bring numbers as down as net migration to UK hits record high

Rishi Sunak has vowed to “clamp down” on immigration and conceded, in the face of growing Tory anger about his past performance, that there is “obviously a lot more to do” to reduce the record numbers of people emigrating to the UK.

Earlier this week, official figures showed net migration is running at a record high, triggering Boris Johnson, Suella Braverman and other right-wing Conservatives to attack Sunak for failing to honour the government’s 2019 Tory manifesto pledge to bring overall migration numbers down.

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Former UK health secretary Matt Hancock’s early Covid warnings were ignored by No 10, say allies

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Ex-cabinet minister set to hit back at inquiry after being made a scapegoat for government failings

Matt Hancock and his officials bombarded Downing Street with early warnings about Covid-19 but were treated with ridicule and contempt, according to senior Whitehall figures, who believe that the former health secretary is unfairly being made a scapegoat by civil servants and scientists during the official inquiry into the pandemic.

Attempts by the Department of Health, in mid to late January 2020, to raise the alarm were dismissed out of hand by senior staff working for the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, because they believed Hancock was mainly seeking publicity and exaggerating the dangers, the insiders say.

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Sunak risks ripping up Good Friday agreement over Rwanda, senior Tories say

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Concerns echo White House remarks that blocking human rights laws could undermine Northern Ireland peace process

Rishi Sunak risks ripping up the Northern Ireland peace process if he blocks human rights laws so the UK can deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, senior Conservatives have said.

After similar concerns from the White House on Thursday, the MPs said widely reported plans from Downing Street to disregard parts of the Human Rights Act could undermine the Good Friday agreement and damage UK-US relations.

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Sideways tool use gets Rishi Sunak unfairly hammered on social media

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Apparently incorrect use of a basic tool shows the prime minister is out of touch with everyday life, Labour suggests

It may not be the most complicated of tools to master. But Rishi Sunak was mocked on social media for ostensibly having difficulty handling a hammer – after being told to use it sideways as part of a craft session.

Sunak was taking a lesson in hammering jewellery in Farsley in West Yorkshire during a visit.

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Rishi Sunak says immigration must fall but declines to say which new measures he backs – as it happened

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Net migration to the UK in 2023 is estimated at 672,000, and the PM says a more ‘sustainable’ level is needed. This live blog is closed

When Nigel Farage was leading the Brexit party, it was considerably influential for a party with no MPs, winning the European elections in 2019 and helping to push the Conservative party into a harder position on Brexit. After the 2019 election it was renamed Reform UK, Richard Tice took over as leader and it became much more marginal. But in an interview on the Today programme this morning Tice claimed that the government’s failure to bring down immigration was presenting it with an opportunity. He told the programme:

The British people voted to control immigration, and the government have betrayed the people’s promises. And that’s why so many thousands of people, former Tory members, are joining us. Our polling numbers – we got record polling last week, four different polls where we’re in double figures. This week, we’ve had Tory donors joining us. Frankly, I fully expect Tory MPs who are furious and angry with the government to be calling me next week.

[Cleverly] has made the point that he says that it was not aimed at a particular place. Knowing James well, he’s not the sort of person, in my opinion, who would have made that kind of remark in that kind of context.

But he has accepted that this was certainly unparliamentary language and he has rightly apologised.

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Autumn statement live: Jeremy Hunt cuts national insurance as OBR downgrades UK growth forecast

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Chancellor cuts employee national insurance to 10% while abolishing class 2 national insurance

Keir Starmer has said that a pause in hostilities between Israel and Hamas must be used to tackle the “urgent and unacceptable humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza.

Welcoming the deal, which is expected to involve the release of 50 hostages being held by Hamas and a number of women and teenagers from Israeli jails, the Labour leader said his party had been calling for “a substantial humanitarian pause”. He said:

There must be immediate access to aid, food, water, fuel and medicine to ensure hospitals function and lives are saved. Aid and fuel need to not just get in but be distributed widely and safely.

We must also use the space this pause creates to take more steps on a path towards a full cessation of hostilities rather than an escalation of violence.

The real function of the projected spending squeeze is as a trap for Labour. If the opposition rejects the Tory trajectory, it will be accused of planning a profligate spree with public money. And if it pledges adherence to impossible targets, it will enter government with its hands bound too tight to deliver prompt satisfaction to the people who voted for it.

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have so far operated a sensible policy of not walking into traps of this kind. That approach restored swing voters’ trust in Labour as stewards of the economy. But it tests the patience of an activist base that sees reversal of austerity as a moral imperative and can smell the incipient disappointment in promises of fiscal discipline.

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Chris Whitty says No 10 decision-making ‘chaotic’ under Boris Johnson but other countries were similar – UK Covid inquiry live

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Chief medical officer for England and chief UK medical adviser says civil servants did good job but PM took ‘unique’ decisions

Q: Was there no aspect on the pandemic on which you did not advise?

Whitty says he would not put it like that. He says he felt it important to advise on issues where advice from a scientist or doctor would be useful.

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