Sir Keir Starmer has predicted that “the road will run out” for Boris Johnson as the British public believe in “integrity, honesty and accountability”, with the Labour leader hinting at the possibility of anti-Tory alliances with other parties ahead of the next general election.
Claiming that the prime minister had been “really lucky” with the success of the vaccine rollout and furlough scheme during the pandemic, Sir Keir suggested that with most people now jabbed and the social protection scheme winding down, public attention would soon turn to other aspects of Mr Johnson’s record.
It came as Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner accused the government “cover up” for the second time in two days, after the government rejected a request for a search of Matt Hancock’s private email account, which Downing Street has admitted he used for official business.
Ms Rayner had on Thursday criticised an official review into the Greensill scandal – which despite finding that a “privileged few” have disproportionate access to Downing Street, suggested the current lobbying system “worked well” – as “a classic Boris Johnson cover-up and whitewash to protect the government”.
Cop26 is ‘most important event this year’, foreign affairs committee chair says
Tom Tugendhat, the Tory chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee, has described the upcoming Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow as “the most important event this year”.
Protesters gathered in Parliament Square today to urge Boris Johnson to make curbing climate breakdown his top priority ahead of the UN summit in 100 days’ time, warning that the prime minister and the chancellor are “missing in action”.
“We ask ourselves every day – where is the prime minister?” Chris Venables of the Green Alliance think-tank told The Guardian. “It’s clear that he has not grasped the scale of holding the biggest diplomatic event on UK soil since the second world war. This should be his No 1 priority.”
London’s mayor Sadiq Khan has lent his voice to those calling for the government to increase the current wage offers for public sector workers.
Nurses are currently considering action over the government’s “appalling” offer of a 3 per cent pay rise, while the Police Federation of England and Wales has said it no longer has confidence in Priti Patel over the pay freeze for police officers earning more than £24,000.
Third wave hitting care homes, Scottish Labour warns
Scottish Labour has warned that the third wave of coronavirus has hit the country’s care homes.
Figures this week showed there were 59 adult care homes with confirmed or suspected cases – which means that six per cent of the country’s care homes are potentially harbouring the virus. At the height of the second wave in January, there were 180 homes with potential outbreaks – 17 per cent of all care facilities.
“The third wave of Covid has now undeniably reached our care homes,” said Scottish Labour’s Covid recovery spokeswoman Jackie Baillie.
“The way care home residents have been failed time and time again during this pandemic is nothing short of a national scandal. We cannot let history repeat itself.
“The vaccine is doing a fantastic job of preventing another full-scale catastrophe, but there is still no room for complacency.”
Cummings’ claims over NI Protocol ‘total nonsense’, former Theresa May aide says
Lord Barwell has rejected a claim from Dominic Cummings that both the UK and EU agreed to a Northern Ireland Protocol that was “deliberately opaque”.
“Of course there were a few of the details to be tied down,” said Theresa May’s former aide. “But the government is trying to pretend that it didn’t realise when it signed up to the protocol that it was going to mean checks when goods were moving from Great Britain to North Ireland. It’s total nonsense.”
Mr Cummings claimed to the BBC this week that EU negotiators had been “prepared to fudge a bunch of crucial questions” around the protocol and had “basically punted them into the future”, adding: “Our view was that we were signing up to something in terms of Ireland that was deliberately opaque on both sides.”
Just yesterday, Boris Johnson’s former aide described the current border in the Irish Sea as “a very low priority issue”.
Meanwhile, EU Commission president Ursula Von Der Leyen has refused a plea from Boris Johnson to renegotiate the protocol, which Downing Street says is “operationally unsustainable”.
Nicola Sturgeon says critical workers in Scotland can avoid self-isolation under ‘limited’ changes
Nicola Sturgeon has announced that workers in critical roles in Scotland will be able to avoid quarantine if they have received two Covid jabs and are tested daily, Adam Forrest reports.
The SNP leader confirmed “limited” changes to self-isolation rules for Scotland to help key industries cope with significant staff shortages, as the country struggles with the so-called “pingdemic” crisis.
It follows the UK government’s announcement that firms in 16 sectors – including transport and energy – will be able to apply for special exemptions from self-isolation rules for some staff.
Government should consider bringing forward testing quarantine exemption, former minister says
Former business secretary Greg Clark has said the government should consider bringing forward quarantine exemptions for people who, after being identified as a close contact of a positive coronavirus case, test negative for the virus.
Asked what he made of the government’s critical worker self-isolation exemption list, Mr Clark – now chair of the Commons Science and Technology Committee – told BBC Radio 4’s World At One: “It is certainly an improvement but it seems to me that we have the opportunity to go further.
“My committee took evidence months ago now from Sir John Bell, the very distinguished regius professor at Oxford, who said that what should happen is, of course people testing positive for Covid need to isolate, but contacts should be able to take a test and isolate if positive, but go about their business if negative.
“That would avoid much of the disruption that we have and, actually, and Sir John made this point, would cause people to be more compliant with the advice. Many people think that 10 days isolation is pretty onerous and some of them will not comply with it.
“We know that on 16 August a new system will come in, in which you can take a test if you’re named as a contact and only isolate if you’re positive – I don’t see why we can’t begin that now on 23 July rather than wait.”
Social media is abuzz with a resurfaced clip of a G7 drinks reception, showing snippets of conversations held by Ted Heath and the Queen – during which she jokes that the late Tory prime minister is “expendable”.
Dawn Butler has hit out at a rule which saw her thrown out of parliament yesterday for accusing Boris Johnson of having lied “time and time again”.
“It’s a ridiculous rule,” the Labour MP told LBC.
Britain heading for biggest cut to social security since WWII, think tank warns
New analysis from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) shows how damaging the removal of the universal Credit uplift will be to working families – who make up the majority of those who will be affected.
In the JRF’s illustrative scenario, a family with three children, where one adult is working full-time, and the other is working part-time, living in a medium cost area, would be left £150 per month below the poverty line if the planned cuts to universal credit and the working tax credit go ahead.
“The new analysis should act as a stark warning of the immense, immediate and avoidable consequences of what amounts to the biggest overnight cut to the basic rate of social security since the Second World War,” Katie Schmuecker, deputy director of policy for the JRF.
Our chief political commentator John Rentoul is just about to hold another “Ask Me Anything” session on the current fears over a Brexit trade war, starting at 1pm.
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