Category Archives: Rishi Sunak

UK coronavirus live: Boris Johnson holds news briefing on first day of England’s new lockdown

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Latest updates: PM gives televised address after Sunak extends furlough until end of March

Q: What is your response to concerns about the data presented by government? (See 4.11pm.)

Johnson says the government is happy to share the data it has.

Q: Won’t we have to live with restrictions for some time?

Stevens says the NHS is prepared for coronavirus.

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Rishi Sunak announces extension of UK’s coronavirus furlough scheme – video

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The chancellor has announced that the government will extend the UK's furlough scheme until March as the second wave of Covid-19 infections and new lockdown threaten to push up unemployment. In a major climbdown, Rishi Sunak said the Treasury would continue to pay 80% of workers’ wages

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Understanding how this catastrophe occurred is of critical importance

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The catastrophe facing the UK is a direct result of our government’s obsession with libertarian issues. Now we must avoid repeating the same mistakes

Six weeks ago, the government was given a stark warning that the nation faced a “very large epidemic with catastrophic consequences”. Only by imposing an immediate two-week “circuit breaker” lockdown could it hope to reduce the spread of coronavirus, the Sage group of scientific advisers told ministers.

“As over 90% of the population remain susceptible, not acting now to reduce cases will result in a very large epidemic with catastrophic consequences in terms of direct Covid-related deaths and the ability of the health service to meet needs,” the group warned.

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Temporary, timely and targeted. Furlough has proved to be just one of these

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As mark 1 gives way to mark 2, scheme has prevented return to dole queues of 1980s– for now

Temporary, timely and targeted. That was how Rishi Sunak described the government’s strategy for coping with the impact of Covid-19 when he gave his budget speech on 11 March.

Less than two weeks later the UK was in lockdown and the chancellor sought to deliver on his pledge with the Treasury’s job retention scheme, or the furlough as it has become known.

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Sunak’s £12bn scheme for self-employed was ‘terribly targeted’, says analysis

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Review finds testing flaws meant support went to many workers who lost no income but not to others who had

Rishi Sunak’s flagship scheme to help the self-employed through the pandemic has handed £1.3bn to workers who saw no loss of income while giving nothing to 500,000 people left without work, new analysis has revealed.

In a sign of major flaws in the £12.7bn self-employment income support scheme (SEISS), more than 400,000 workers were able to claim support despite losing no income in the crisis.

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Room for improvement with test and trace, says Patrick Vallance – video

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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

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New furlough scheme may not be enough, say north of England firms

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Covid measures are designed to help businesses forced to close their doors over the winter

Hospitality businesses in the north of England have said they will struggle to survive on the new support package unveiled by the chancellor if they are forced into weeks of local lockdowns.

Carol Ross, the landlady of the Roscoe Head pub in Liverpool, said the new jobs support package- which includes the government paying 67% of employee salaries if businesses are forced to shut down and a further £3,000 a month in cash grants towards other costs – was not enough.

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Rishi Sunak announces expansion of coronavirus job support scheme – video

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Rishi Sunak has said the government will cover two-thirds of workers’ wages at businesses forced to close during new coronavirus lockdowns. The chancellor said the government would subsidise pay by providing grants to companies forced to shut – most likely pubs, bars and restaurants.

Under the expansion, firms whose premises are legally required to shut for a period over winter as part of local or national restrictions can receive grants to pay up to 67% of employees’ salaries

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Welcome to libertarian Covid fantasy land – that’s Sweden to you and me | Nick Cohen

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The right fails to recognise that the Swedes’ real virtue in this pandemic is their social cohesion

Sweden is to the 21st-century right what the Soviet Union was to the 20th-century left. Conservatives have transformed it into a Tory Disneyland where every dream comes true. On the shores of the Baltic lies a country that has no need to curtail civil liberties and wreck the economy to curb Covid-19. “I have a dream, a fantasy,” sang Abba. “To help me through reality.” For much of the right, that fantasy is called Sweden.

Let the leader of the Conservative backbenchers stand for the Tory press and innumerable ideologues inside and outside Westminster. Sir Graham Brady ruined a perfectly good argument that parliament must have the power to scrutinise Johnson’s emergency decrees by announcing that there was no emergency. We could look to a country that merely had a ban on gatherings of more than 50, restrictions on visiting care homes, a shift to table-only service in bars and see that “Sweden today is in a better place than the United Kingdom”. Or as the Sun explained on Thursday as Boris Johnson met Anders Tegnell, the Swedish public health “mastermind”, a do-little strategy has spared Sweden a second wave of Covid-19 infections.

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What’s missing from the chancellor’s new scheme to save jobs?

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Five measures absent from the chancellor’s winter economy plan

Rishi Sunak’s winter economy plan prioritises additional support for “viable” jobs. However, critics have warned that other measures are still needed to help people who have already lost their jobs or will lose them despite the new government scheme.

Here are five measures that could help keep workers in jobs, but were missing from the chancellor’s winter economy plan:

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Rishi Sunak could do worse than copy Germany

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There is evidence that scheme under which Berlin tops up wages of those put on short-time working is effective

It all looked so different for Rishi Sunak three weeks ago. After a bleak early spring in which the economy was sacrificed for health reasons, there were signs that the worst might be over.

Related: Germany’s furlough scheme saves firms from freefall

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‘Hands. Face. Space’: UK government to relaunch Covid-19 slogan

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Ad campaign promoting hygiene and social distancing will run across TV, radio, print and more

A new government campaign is being launched to remind people to wash their hands, cover their faces and keep their distance, in a bid to keep infections down as the winter months approach.

With the slogan “Hands. Face. Space”, advertising will run across TV, radio, print, social and digital display advertising, as well as on community media channels, the Department of Health and Social Care has said.

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Desperate Boris Johnson to step up personal attacks on Keir Starmer

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Prime minister said to be ‘furious’ after being asked in the House of Commons to withdraw comments about the Labour leader

An increasingly desperate Boris Johnson has ordered his staff to step up personal attacks on the Labour leader Keir Starmer and his record as a lawyer, as confidence in the prime minister’s leadership collapses among Tory party members.

The Observer has been told that Johnson was so furious after last Wednesday’s prime minister’s questions – where he was asked to withdraw comments he made about the Labour leader and the IRA by the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle – that he turned on his staff for leaving him under-prepared, and asked them to come up with more attack lines on the Labour leader’s career as a lawyer.

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Prevent ‘tsunami’ of job losses when furlough ends, TUC urges Sunak

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UK should adopt German-style wage support for short-time working, unions say

Rishi Sunak has been urged by union leaders to launch a wage subsidy scheme to prevent a “tsunami” of unemployment when furlough comes to an end this autumn.

Demanding the chancellor follows the examples of other leading European countries to avert a looming jobs crisis, the Trades Union Congress said a continental-style system of “short-time working” wage support could be used in Britain to save millions of jobs from redundancy.

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Covid-19: UK economy plunges into deepest recession since records began

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GDP falls 20.4% – the worst of any G7 nation in the three months to June

Britain has entered the deepest recession since records began as official figures on Wednesday showed the economy shrank by more than any other major nation during the coronavirus outbreak in the three months to June.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said gross domestic product (GDP), the broadest measure of economic prosperity, fell in the second quarter by 20.4% compared with the previous three months – the biggest quarterly decline since comparable records began in 1955.

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Fingers crossed at France’s brasseries and cafes as tourist quarantines loom

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Numbers of foreign visitors are already down – and the fresh surge of Covid cases could spell the end for the holiday season

In a normal August, the much-loved miniature tourist train in the French port city of Sète would be full of tourists from Britain and elsewhere, enjoying the ride.

Optimistically, the manager, Romiy Priore, took steps to make his attraction safe for Covid times. “With the virus, we decided to order disposable earphones for the start of the season on 23 June – 100 of them,” he says, huddling behind a Perspex screen in a cool cabin on the quayside. “It’s August, and I still have 70 left. That tells you how many foreign tourists we currently have.”

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Brexit will deliver double shock to UK economy, study finds

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Exclusive: LSE report says even sectors unscathed from coronavirus crisis will be severely affected

A Brexit hit is looming for sectors that have emerged relatively unscathed from the Covid-19 pandemic, analysis by the London School of Economics suggests.

The LSE report says Brexit will deliver a double shock to the economy – with business conditions worsening for those sectors that have survived the impact of coronavirus and lockdown measures – whether Boris Johnson secures a deal with the EU or not.

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Liz Truss warns Boris Johnson over Brexit border plans

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International trade secretary tells PM and chancellor plans risk smuggling and damage to UK reputation

An extraordinary cabinet row has erupted over Brexit with Liz Truss warning that Boris Johnson’s border plans risk smuggling, damage to the UK’s international reputation and could face a legal challenge from the World Trade Organization.

The international trade secretary wrote to the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, and Michael Gove on Wednesday warning of four “key areas of concern” over their plans for the border next January.

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‘Advisers advise’: Sunak says 2-metre rule is for ministers not scientists to decide on – video

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The chancellor has said a decision on whether to ease the 2-metre physical distancing rule in England will be for ministers rather than the government’s chief scientific advisers to take. Rishi Sunak said the public would take confidence from the fact ministers were being advised by Sir Patrick Vallance and Prof Chris Whitty

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Coronavirus furlough scheme to be gradually withdrawn, Sunak says – video

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The UK chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has announced that the furlough scheme put in place during lockdown will start to change from August, when employers will be asked to resume paying their staff's national insurance and employer pension contributions. They will then have to pay 10% of wages in September and 20% in October

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