Markus Andrews

Labour has warned the government’s crucial Covid booster jab programme won’t be completed until March 2022 on current trends as cases of the virus climb.Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, also hit out at Sajid Javid’s “complacent attitude” after he described the pressures facing the NHS as sustainable — despite health service leaders’ concerns.“Isn’t the truth the vaccination programme is now stalling?” Mr Ashworth said during an urgent Commons question on Thursday. “Ministers can’t blame the public while two million people haven’t even had an invitation for a booster jab.”“On current trends we won’t complete boosters until March 2022. Instead of doing 165,000 booster jabs a day, why not set a commitment to do 500,000 jabs a day and get this programme completed by Christmas, mobilising pop-up clinics and making better use of community pharmacies?” he added.“With infections running so high, ministers need to, if I may, stop vacillating and get vaccinating. The wall of defence is crumbling, we know with this virus you have to get ahead of it, otherwise it gets ahead of you.”It comes after experts suggested around five million people are at greater risk of contracting Covid as they are yet to receive their booster jabs.Under current government guidance, those aged over 50 and vulnerable groups who were double jabbed six months ago are now eligible for a booster dose, but Labour urged ministers to speed up the programme.The former Tory health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, also suggested the government should look at reducing the time to get a booster from six to five months after the second jab.“As its peak in the spring we were jabbing 400,000 people a day,” the Conservative MP said. “Now it’s less than 200,000 people a day.“If you look at the higher hospitalisations, cases and death rates, compared to countries like France and Germany, the heart of it is not actually things like mask wearing and Covid passports, it is their higher vaccine immunity.”He added: “Does it really matter when it’s only nine weeks until the Christmas holidays if someone has their booster jab after five months? And should we not look at whether there should be flexibility in that decision so we can get more people in more quickly for their booster jabs?The vaccines minister Maggie Throup, however, said: “It is incredible how many people have taken up the offer of not just the first jab but the second jab, and are now coming forward for their boosters.”Ms Throup also gave advice to people who need to get both a Covid booster and a flu jab, saying: “If you get your call for your flu jab, don’t wait for your call to get your booster jab and vice versa, get whichever jab you get invited for first and that will help to protect you and your family and the people around you.” More

Health minister Edward Argar has claimed the NHS is under “sustainable pressure” despite the alarm being raised by a major doctors’ union urging the government to introduce measures to control the spread of Covid.It comes after Sajid Javid, the health secretary, suggested the country could see 100,000 cases a day, but resisted demands to implement “plan B”, which includes advice to work from home, making face masks mandatory and vaccine passports.On Thursday evening, the British Medical Association (BMA) insisted that the “time is now” for further measures and accused ministers of being “wilfully negligent” for ignoring NHS leaders’ pleas for the implementation of “plan B”.And on the previous day the NHS Confederation — representing healthcare providers — called for a “plan B plus” and stressed that the health service was “stumbling into a crisis” and “right on the edge”.But defending the government’s approach, the health minister Mr Argar told Sky News on Thursday: “Well we continue as you expect to look at all the data.“The NHS while under huge pressure at the moment, and I pay tribute to all those working in it, is that it’s sustainable pressure at the moment.”Quizzed on how bad the situation in the health service would have to be before the government moved to “plan B”, he added it would not “be appropriate to set an arbitrary figure, X number of infections, X number of hospitalisations”.Mr Argar also dismissed reports in the Daily Telegraph that officials in the Cabinet Office were discussing a “plan C” to control the spread of the virus, including a return to a ban on household mixing indoors.A Whitehall source told the newspaper: “The focus is very much on measure that can be taken without a major economic impact, so keep shops, pubs and restaurants open but looking at other ways to reduce the risk”.But the minister told Sky News: “That’s not something I’m aware of, I checked it out and I’m told that is not a story with foundation.“Of course, as a government, you look at – as we’ve done with our plan B – alternatives and ways that you might, if you needed to, start easing that pressure.“The specifics of that and what was mooted in it as I understand it, as I only glanced at it I’m afraid on my way in this morning, about limiting household mixing, things like that … is that it isn’t something that is being actively considered.”Official figures showed 49,139 new Covid cases recorded on Tuesday, with 869 hospitalisations and 179 deaths. The total of 954 deaths over the past seven days was up 21 per cent on the previous week, while the seven-day total of 6,074 hospital admissions was up 11 per cent.Elsewhere, a former chief scientific adviser told BBC Newsnight that the government’s current strategy was not likely to work. Professor Sir Mark Walport said: “Am I worried? Yes. It’s very, very delicately poised. We’ve got a lot of cases at the moment.“Winter is coming, flu is probably coming. It’s not a good place to be. The evidence is that the current measures are probably not holding things.” More

Ministers are reportedly considering additional Covid measures that could amount to a “Plan C”, as England prepares for another winter during the Covid pandemic.While the government has so far resisted calls to implement new Covid measures, the health secretary has warned restrictions could return in England in the run-up to Christmas. According toThe Telegraph, Cabinet Office ministers are discussing proposals which could potentially form a “Plan C” involving even tougher measures than the existing “Plan B”. The newspaper reported this extra contigency plan could see a ban on household mixing. But Edward Argar, health minister, denied on Thursday there was a Plan C being considered by the government which would ban the mixing of households at Christmas.Asked about reports on Sky News, he said he was “not aware” of such plans. “That is not a story with foundation,” Mr Argar added. “Of course as a government you look at, as we have done with our Plan B, alternatives and ways that you might – if you needed to – start easing that pressure”, the health minister said.Mr Argar said limiting household mixing was not something being “actively considered”. The government has so far resisted calls from NHS bosses to implement its “Plan B” to tackle coronavirus, amid a surge in cases and fears of a winter crisis.The series of tighter measures has been drawn up as a contingency plan if the NHS comes under unsustainable pressure.It includes the reintroduction of some social distancing measures, compulsory face masks in some settings and an appeal for the public to work from home, as well as the use of vaccine passports.The health secretary said on Wednesday there were no plans to put these contigency measures into place “at the moment”, saying pressures on the NHS were not yet “unsustainable”. More

The threat facing MPs has been elevated to “substantial” in the wake of the murder of Sir David Amess, the home secretary has revealed. Addressing the Commons on Wednesday evening, Priti Patel said intelligence officers had upgraded the threat facing members of parliament.A review by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre linked to MI5 was launched after the Conservative representative for Southend West was killed on Friday at a surgery for his constituents.While it did not find any “specific or imminent threat” to MPs’ safety, Ms Patel said that the threat level to MPs was “now deemed to be substantial” and counterterror police will ensure the “change is properly reflected in the operational posture”.“While we do not see any information or intelligence which points to any credible or specific or imminent threat, I must update the House that the threat level facing members of parliament is now deemed to be substantial,” she said.“This is the same level as the current national threat to the United Kingdom as a whole, so I can assure the House that our world-class intelligence and security agencies and counterterror police will now ensure that this change is properly reflected in the operational posture.”Substantial means an attack is likely, while the lower level of moderate means an attack is possible, but not likely.The murder of the second MP in five years – after the Labour MP Jo Cox was killed by a far-right sympathiser in 2016 – has sparked concern over the safety of British politicians. More

“Countless” people in developing countries will die unnecessarily from Covid-19 due to the rich world’s failure to deliver on vaccine promises and Britain’s decision to block an initiative to enable them to produce their own, a report has warned.The report, by the People’s Vaccine Alliance of charities including Oxfam, ActionAid and Global Justice Now, found that just 261m of the 1.8bn vaccine donations promised by rich nations – 14 per cent – have so far been delivered to low and middle-income countries.Meanwhile, while Western pharmaceutical companies have provided only 12 per cent of the doses they promised to the international Covax programme to vaccinate the developing world.It came as a separate report by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact found that the UK’s assistance to developing countries hit by Covid has been undermined by Boris Johnson’s decision to slash overall aid spending from 0.7 to 0.5 per cent of GDP.The chair of the Commons International Development Committee, Sarah Champion, said that the “devastating” impact of the aid cut had been laid bare by the independent watchdog’s report, which also blasted a Foreign Office decision to withdraw health staff from developing countries during the pandemic, just as their experience and knowledge were most needed.Leaders of the world’s biggest industrial powers pledged at the G7 summit chaired by Mr Johnson in Cornwall in June to provide 1bn Covid vaccines to developing countries. US president Joe Biden later rallied support at the UN general assembly for the goal of vaccinating 70 per cent of people in every country in the world by September 2022.But today’s PVA report found that the UK has delivered only 9.6m – less than 10 per cent – of the 100m doses it promised, while taking half a million doses from Covax for itself. Other countries have also handed over only a small proportion of the promised jabs, including 3.2m out of 40m – 8 per cent – from Canada and 177m out of 1.1bn – 16 per cent from the USA, the report said.Meanwhile, latest figures show that only 120m – 12 per cent – of the 994m doses promised by major pharmaceutical companies have been handed over to Covax. The report said that Covax has received 104m – 14 per cent – of the 720m doses promised by Oxford/AstraZeneca, 16m – 40 per cent – of the 40m promised by Pfizer/BioNTech, zero doses of the 200m promised by Johnson & Johnson and zero doses of the 30m promised by Moderna.And the UK has joined the EU and Switzerland in blocking proposals from South Africa and India for an intellectual property waiver on Covid vaccines, which would allow low-income companies to set up their own facilities to produce millions of doses to recipes developed in the rich world.As a result of the “endless tide of inadequate gestures and broken promises” from rich countries and companies, just 1.3 per cent of people in low-income countries have been fully vaccinated, exposing the developing world to continuing waves of hospitalisations and deaths and rendering the global south a breeding ground for dangerous new variants, the report said.Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS, a member of the People’s Vaccine Alliance, said: “Rich nations and corporations are shamefully failing to deliver on their promises whilst blocking the actual solution – ensuring developing nations have the ability to make their own vaccines.“It is painfully clear that the developing world cannot rely on the largesse and charity of rich nations and pharmaceutical companies, and hundreds of thousands of people are dying from Covid-19 as a result. This is beyond appalling.”The Alliance said that low-income countries were suffering the results of a decision to put control over supply in the hands of a few multinational companies, which were prioritising rich-world customers.Oxfam’s Robbie Silverman said: “The failure of rich country donations and the failure of Covax have the same root cause – we have given over control of vaccine supply to a small number of pharmaceutical companies, who are prioritising their own profits.“These companies can’t produce enough to vaccinate the world, they are artificially constraining the supply, and they will always put their rich customers at the front of the line.“The only way to end the pandemic is to share the technology, and know-how with other qualified manufacturers so that everyone, everywhere can have access to these life-saving vaccines.”Meanwhile, ICAI said that while the UK made a “strong” initial aid response to the outbreak, the cuts imposed by Mr Johnson impacted heavily on many areas of coronavirus aid spending.Programmes that would have mitigated the long-term damage of the pandemic have been reduced or closed, potentially placing vulnerable groups at increased risk, the report found.And the decision to order UK aid staff to come home from numerous international postings “hampered” Britain’s aid response and left the country out of step with donors from elsewhere in the world.ICAI called on the government to accelerate the supply of vaccines to developing countries and support their equitable rollout to vulnerable populations.Ms Champion said: “The UK entered the pandemic as a global leader on aid, but any progress made was swiftly undermined by the Tories assault on the aid budget.“These cuts are self-defeating and threaten future efforts to combat Covid. We won’t be safe from Covid and any new variants in the UK until we have beaten the virus globally.“While the UK was a leader in this effort the Government’s ideological cuts, found by ICAI to have no evidential base, threaten to undermine our global reputation and recovery, as well as the international effort to halt the pandemic.”A government spokesperson said: “The UK has already delivered over 10 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, as part of the prime minister’s pledge to donate 100 million doses overseas by June next year.”“The UK government’s funding of the development of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has enabled over a billion doses to be delivered at a non-profit price around the world, and as one of the first and largest donors, the UK helped establish the COVAX scheme to ensure equal access to doses for all globally.”The director general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), Thomas Cueni, said: “The supplies are available; now all efforts should  be focused on distributing and sharing doses. “It would be our hope that the energy focused on  undermining intellectual property could be channelled into collectively addressing vaccine equity, supporting the growing political will of G20 countries to ensure the necessary, collective action to get jabs into arms; we all agree this is the right thing to do.”A spokesperson for Johnson & Johnson said: “Johnson & Johnson is dedicated to facilitating equitable global access to our Covid-19 vaccine. “Where possible, we will provide support to countries that have excess vaccine doses in their efforts to share doses with countries where they’re most urgently needed, particularly through the COVAX facility, provided that a number of conditions are met to safeguard the safety of individuals and fulfil legal, regulatory, and logistical requirements.” More

New taxes on wealth would raise up to £86bn a year, allowing the government to avoid spending cuts and “rebuild Britain”, a report by Labour MPs says.The analysis – on the eve of a spending review in which Rishi Sunak is expected to reimpose austerity on some public services – calls for a radically different approach to “transform” the country.It proposes four different tax models to grab up to £61bn a year from millionaires and billionaires whose wealth has boomed since the Covid pandemic struck.Hiking taxes on dividends and capital gains into line with income tax would raise around another £25bn – bringing the total raised to more than £86bn a year.Jon Trickett, the Jeremy Corbyn ally who ordered the research, said adopting it would “transform our public finances, making money available for our neglected public services”.“We could afford to plug the social care funding gap and to give our key workers a pay rise. We could reverse local government and education cuts. We could rebuild Britain,” the former shadow Cabinet minister said.Other leftwing Labour MPs back the study, including Mr Corbyn, who said: “It’s time we tackled the gross accumulation of wealth and growing inequality, both in terms of class and region – redistributing wealth from the very richest to working people.”John McDonnell, the former shadow Chancellor, said: “We live in a society of grotesque levels of inequality. This report not only exposes these extremes but, more importantly, shows how they can be tackled.”The call comes as Keir Starmer inches closer to backing some form of wealth tax at the next general election, saying: “I think we should look at all of these options.”The backdrop is a spending review expected to deliver further cuts to local government, further education, prisons and the courts of more than £2bn next year, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.Meanwhile, Boris Johnson’s rescue plan for social care fell flat when it quickly emerged that the crisis-ridden service will receive very little extra funds.Mr Trickett’s report, which has been reviewed by economists, puts forward four possible forms of a wealth tax:* A one off tax of 5 per cent on wealth above £500,000, as proposed by an independent Wealth Commission – to raise £52bn a year.* A one off tax on wealth above £2m on tapered rates rising from 8 per cent to 15 per cent – raising almost £40bn a year.* An annual tax on wealth above £2m, excluding main residences, on a tapered rate rising from 1 per cent to 2 per cent – raising £22bn.* A hybrid tax, including a one-off tax on wealth above £2m and an annual tax on wealth gained afterwards – raising £61bn.The MP for Hemsworth, in West Yorkshire, added: “No longer can we tinker around the edges or disguise rhetoric as action.“The hardship resulting from the pandemic has not in any way touched the very wealthy. Indeed, they have seen their wealth skyrocket.”There are now more UK billionaires than ever before – and the richest 250 people enjoyed a £106bn increase in their wealth since before the pandemic, Mr Trickett said. More

A man who confronted Michael Gove on Tuesday has been filmed apparently boasting about his right to carry arms, saying the “government should fear their people”. William Coleshill, the co-editor-in-chief for anti-lockdown YouTube channel Resistance GB, recorded himself chasing the minister down Horseferry Road in Westminster. Mr Gove was also being followed by a number of protesters and had to be protected by a ring of policemen who kept the shouting mob at bay. Mr Coleshill was one of the first people who went up to Mr Gove on Tuesday afternoon, shoving a camera in his face and demanding: “How do you justify the illegal lockdowns that have been pushed on this country?”. He was recording the incident for his anti-vaxxer media platform Resistance GB and had reportedly followed BBC Newsnight editor Nick Watt down the street on a previous occasion. Mr Coleshill was a Conservative councillor until he was suspended in 2018, the Enfield Independent has reported. In a video, linked on the Resistance GB Facebook page, Mr Coleshill appears to talk about his alleged arrest by the Metropolitan Police at an anti-lockdown rally in July of this year. The footage shows him referring to an alleged conversation with a police officer.He said: “I said well I don’t have to because the law is the law. It’s just your opinion isn’t it.“I said I’ll carry it out of the police station and I’m going to take it straight out of this plastic container and put it right back in my…pocket. All men carry knives”.It is an offence to carry any sharp or bladed instrument in a public place, with the exception of a folding pocket knife where the cutting edge of the blade is 7.62cm (3 inches) or less.In the video he appears to express his view that: “Having arms is the ultimate check on government because people should not fear their governments, governments should fear their people.”In the interview, filmed while Mr Coleshill was sitting in Parliament Square, , he said: “The Metropolitan Police is a rogue parliamentary, paramilitary standing army. We have a right to bear arms in this country. If you even have something that is within their own diktats they will attack you.”A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police, referring to protesters chasing Michael Gove, said: “During this protest, at approximately 2:20pm a group attempted to surround a Member of Parliament on Horseferry Road, acting in a hostile manner towards him. “Officers immediately intervened, safely escorting the Member of Parliament to a nearby building. Detectives are reviewing footage to see if any offences took place. “At this time, there have been no arrests specifically relating to this incident.”They added that seven arrests were made at separate events during this demonstration on Gray’s Inn Road, Camden and on Victoria Street, Westminster. The incident comes just days after the home secretary Priti Patel ordered a review into the safety of elected representatives in light of the attack on Sir David Amess MP. Mr Gove thanked the Metropolitan Police for “their swift reaction” on Tuesday, adding: “I’m grateful to their officers for their thoughtfulness.”The Independent put a number of questions to William Coleshill via email but Resistance GB declined to answer. More

Health secretary Sajid Javid has warned that coronavirus restrictions could return in England in the run-up to Christmas, as UK infections hit almost 50,000 in a single day – their highest since July.Mr Javid rejected calls from NHS bosses for the government to immediately trigger its Plan B for Covid-19 – involving mandatory masks, vaccine passports for crowded venues like nightclubs and guidance to work from home – insisting that pressures on the health service are not yet “unsustainable”.But he called for a return to the “Blitz spirit” of the early days of the pandemic, warning Britons that unless they “do their bit” by taking up the offer of vaccines and booster jabs they could lose the freedoms they have enjoyed since the lifting of lockdown in July.And he took a swipe at Conservative MPs who fail to wear masks in the House of Commons chamber, saying that they should be setting an example to everyone by following the guidance that face-coverings should still be worn in crowded and unventilated places, especially when meeting with people you do not normally mix with.Warning that daily infections could rise to 100,000 or more, Mr Javid said: “Am I saying that if we don’t do our bit… that we are more likely to face restrictions as we head into winter? I am saying that.“We’ve been really clear that we all have a role to play. If not enough people get that booster jab, if not enough people who are eligible for that original offer of a vaccine don’t come forward, if people don’t wear masks when they really should… it’s going to hit us.”As the government struggles to boost uptake of booster doses which have been available to the oldest and most vulnerable Britons since mid-September, Mr Javid announced that for the first time people can request appointments for a jab rather than wait to be invited.He also announced that thousands of vulnerable patients could be taking ground-breaking antiviral drugs to ease the symptoms of Covid-19 this winter, after the government announced deals to secure two new treatments.But he was accused of complacency by his Labour shadow Jonathan Ashworth, who said: “The so-called wall of defence against Covid is crumbling and today we needed a plan to rebuild it.”The chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, Jenny Harries, warned that evidence showed the efficacy of coronavirus vaccines waning after five months, making a booster essential for elderly individuals who may have received their first inoculation as long ago as December last year.And she cautioned that, while the vaccines show 80 per cent or more effectiveness in preventing serious illness and hospitalisation, they do not stop contagion, meaning that even double-dosed people should keep using face-coverings to avoid infecting others.In an indication of official concern that the upsurge in Covid cases is being fuelled by the public relaxing its guard and returning to normal life, she warned that – with the R rate of reproduction of the virus still hovering around the crucial level of one – “quite small behavioural differences” can make a different between the pandemic declining or spreading.Official figures showed 49,139 new Covid cases recorded on Tuesday, with 869 hospitalisations and 179 deaths. The total of 954 deaths over the past seven days was up 21 per cent on the previous week, while the seven-day total of 6,074 hospital admissions was up 11 per cent.Dr Harries said it was “worrying” to see infection rates almost as high as last winter, when the second wave of Covid hit the UK.Mr Javid called on the public to maintain voluntary preventative measures – like meeting outdoors, keeping windows open and wearing masks in busy public areas – to give Britain the chance of a Christmas without restrictions.“With winter soon upon us, these little steps make a big difference. and they’re more important now than they have ever been,” said the health secretary.“If we all play our part, then we can give ourselves the best possible chance in this race to get through this winter, and enjoy Christmas with our loved ones.”He made clear that to avoid future restrictions, it was essential for as many people as possible to take up the offer of boosters and for the 5m adults who have not yet received any vaccine to do so. So far only around 4m booster jabs have been administered.Mr Javid was speaking at the first coronavirus press conference at Downing Street for five weeks, just hours after the chief executive of the NHS Confederation called on the government to bring back restrictions to avoid “stumbling into a crisis” this winter.Matthew Taylor told the BBC Today programme: “What we’re facing here is a perfect storm. Winter is always very tight for the NHS for a number of reasons, you add in then the number of Covid patients in hospital and that number seems now to be rising.“Mask wearing in crowded places, avoiding unnecessary indoor gatherings, I think working from home if you can.“I don’t underestimate that these are inconveniences but we have to make a choice if we can see what is almost inevitable down the line.”But Mr Javid said that conditions in the NHS had not yet reached the threshold set down by prime minister Boris Johnson last month for activating his Plan B.“We don’t believe the pressures currently facing the NHS are unsustainable… at this point,” he said.But he added: “If we feel at any point the pressures are becoming unsustainable, we won’t hesitate to act.”A member of the Joint Committee of Vaccination and Immunisation, Adam Finn, said that if the public give up wearing masks and taking precautions in crowded places, “we will be back to the bad old days of being asked to stay at home”.“It feels like everyone has gone back to normal habits,” he said. “These vaccines are extremely good at stopping you ending up in hospital but their ability to stop you getting the infection at all or passing it on are modest.“It by no means solves the problem. If we want to see the figures go down we need to do more than that. It really is time people realise we can’t just go back to normal.” More