Markus Andrews

Boris Johnson has refused to apologise for remarks making light of Margaret Thatcher’s closure of coal mines, as his spokesman said that the prime minister “recognises the huge impact and pain” it caused to communities across the UK.Mr Johnson sparked fury in former coal-mining communities on Thursday when he joked that the UK had been given a head-start in moving away from polluting fossil fuels by his Tory predecessor’s decision to shut pits.He faced demands to apologise from Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who described his comment as a “slap in the face for communitites still suffering from the devasatating effects of Margaret Thatcher’s callous actions”, and from Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon, who branded it “crass and deeply offensive”.Sir Keir said: “The prime minister has shown his true colours yet again.“I’m proud to have always stood with our coalfield communities. I represented the miners in court as the Tories tried to close the pits. These communities contributed so much to the success of our country, and then were abandoned.“The Tories didn’t care then, and they don’t care now. For Boris Johnson to treat the pain and suffering caused to our coalfield communities as a punchline shows just how out of touch with working people he is. The prime minister must apologise immediately.”But asked if the PM would apologise , Mr Johnson’s official spokesman said only: “The prime minister recognises the huge impact and pain closing coal-mines had in communities across the UK.”Mr Johnson made the off-the-cuff remarks to reporters as he was pressed during a visit to a wind farm in Scotland on whether he would set a deadline for ending fossil fuel extraction.He hailed existing action to move to greener forms of power, stating that when he was a child 70 to 80 per cent of all electricity had been coal-generated.“Since then, it’s gone right down to 1 per cent, or sometimes less,” he said. “We’ve transitioned away from coal in my lifetime.“Thanks to Margaret Thatcher, who closed so many coal mines across the country, we had a big early start and we’re now moving rapidly away from coal altogether.”Mrs Thatcher’s decision to shut down dozens of pits with little support for their communities prompted the bitterly divisive miners’ strike of 1984-85.One former miner, interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, invited the prime minister to visit some of the communities affected to view the long-term damage inflicted during the Thatcher years.Asked whether the PM would take up the invitation, his spokesperson said: “We’re investing significantly to support those working in these industries as they transition away from that work so they can move into green jobs.“That’s the focus, and we think that’s the right thing to do.”Ms Sturgeon said: “Lives and communities in Scotland were utterly devastated by Thatcher’s destruction of the coal industry which had zero to do with any concern she had for the planet,” she tweeted.“To treat that as something to laugh about is crass and deeply insensitive.”And Welsh first minister Mark Drakeford told the Today programme: “Those remarks are both crass and offensive. The damage done to Welsh coal-mining areas 30 years ago was incalculable, and here we are, 30 years later, the Tories are still celebrating what they did.” More

Downing Street has said it “sympathises” with the owner of alpaca Geronimo, but insisted that there are “no plans for any further tests” to save the animal from being put down after it twice tested positive for bovine TB.Farmer Helen Macdonald has pleaded for the life of her animal, but fears he will be taken to slaughter “any minute” after she lost her High Court battle last week to save him.A new warrant was issued for Geronimo’s death on Thursday, with a “kill window” of 30 days. But his owner insists that the eight-year-old stud male has been “completely fit and healthy” over the last two years, and not infected by bovine tuberculosis (bTB).Ms Macdonald, a veterinary nurse, who breeds alpacas at her farm in Gloucestershire, has disputed the results of the bTB tests since 2017.Her unsuccessful judicial review relied on a new test result showing that Geronimo has not had bTB.Asked whether a new test could be arranged to give Geronimo another chance of life, Boris Johnson’s official spokesperson said: “The test used on Geronimo is highly specific, it is validated, it is reliable and the risk of a false positive is extremely low.“A retest after two consecutive positive test results wouldn’t invalidate the previous tests.“So, there’s no plans for any further tests.”He added: “We recognise how distressing this clearly is for Ms Macdonald, as it is for farmers who have had to put cattle down – 27,000 had to be put down last year alone.“We need disease control measures to be applied consistently if we are able to tackle it and obviously that’s why we need to move ahead now.“We have done these highly accurate tests and we’ve no plans to change that.”The spokesperson added: “We know how distressing losing animals to TB is for farmers and our sympathies are with Ms Macdonald and everyone with animals affected by this terrible disease.“The Environment Secretary has looked at this case very carefully multiple times over the last few years, and has interrogated all the evidence with expert vets alongside the Animal and Plant Health Agency.“But, sadly, Geronimo has tested positive twice for TB using highly specific, reliable and validated tests.”The spokesman said the government would “continue to do everything that we can” to eradicate bovine TB. More

Boris Johnson’s decision to slash the UK’s overseas aid spending could see £1 billion cut from education for girls in the poorest parts of the world over the next four years, impacting on as many as 5 million girls around the globe, new analysis has found.The prime minister frequently cites girls’ education as his personal priority for aid spending, last week describing it as the “Swiss Army knife, complete with Allen key, a screwdriver and everything else” tool for tackling poverty.But Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson Layla Moran said he should “hang his head in shame” at the sums being plundered from girls’ education due to his decision to reduce annual aid spending from 0.7 to 0.5 per cent of GDP – equivalent to around £4 billion a year.The precise amount lost due to the decision is dependent on how well the UK economy does, but analysis by the House of Commons Library suggests the total could be £19bn between 2021/22 and 2024/25.If girls’ education programmes are cut proportionally as a share of the total aid budget, the Lib Dems calculate that they could lose £272m this year and around a quarter of a billion pounds in each of the following three, reaching a total of around £1bn by the time of the next general election scheduled for 2024.This far outweighs the £430m pledged by Mr Johnson to the Global Education Partnership over the coming five years at a recent summit he chaired in London, when he said he was “proud of what the UK has been able to contribute in spite of the difficult financial circumstances that we’re all going through”.“This government should hang its head in shame,” said Ms Moran.“Whilst Boris Johnson gallivants around global summits boasting about his commitment to girls’ education, in reality his broken promise is ending the hopes and dreams for some of the most vulnerable girls in the world.“Education gives many girls in developing countries an escape route out of poverty, domestic violence and forced labour. Yet this government has turned their back on them in their greatest hour of need.“Due to the pandemic, girls in the poorest parts of the world are more at risk than ever before.“Boris Johnson used to call girls’ education a priority. Now this commitment has been exposed as a sham, for all the world to see. It’s shameful.“Put simply, this is not the honest and decent thing to do. We made a promise to the poorest and most vulnerable children in the world who, through no fault of their own, face a life of danger and oppression. But now this Conservative government has gone back on its word. It is ruinous to Britain’s global reputation, and the most disadvantaged girls in the world are those who will pay the price.”Rose Caldwell, chief executive of aid charity Plan International UK, said:  “These figures should embarrass the prime minister. He was elected on a manifesto that included pledges on both overseas aid and girls’ education, but these promises have all been broken. “Covid-19 has created the biggest education emergency of our lifetime, and we know that in times of crisis, girls are less likely than boys to return to school. They face a greater risk of early marriage, sexual exploitation, and pregnancy at a young age. For many, the chance for an education will be lost forever.“We need funding that reflects the scale and urgency of this crisis. The G7 resulted in strong political commitments, but they need more funding, especially as the UK-hosted Global Education Summit missed its target by nearly £720m.“If the UK government is to salvage its reputation in this area, it must reverse the shameful cuts to overseas aid and urgently top up its funding for global education.”There was no immediate response from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to requests for a comment. More

Universities in England have been given permission to grant more places on medicine and dentistry courses for the coming academic year, amid expectations that more students than ever will get top A-level results.Applications for the highly sought-after courses have increased by 20 per cent compared to last year, meaning numbers of would-be undergraduates far outstrip the places on offer under a cap system.Education secretary Gavin Williamson has made funding available for a total 9,000 places in the academic year 2021/22, up from 8,340 in 2019 and around 8,750 last year, when the cap was lifted in response to chaos in the school exam system resulting from the coronavirus pandemic.The decision to scrap formal A-level exams for a second successive year is expected to continue the grade inflation seen in 2020, with qualifications awarded next week on the basis of teacher assessment and school tests.The Department for Education said that for the coming academic year, universities that can accommodate an increase to medical and dentistry places for students that have met the grades and hold a firm offer at a university with pressure on places will be supported to do so.Labour accused ministers of being in “panic mode” with the announcement, just days before results day.The shadow education secretary, Kate Green, said: “Young people getting their results have worked incredibly hard in unprecedented circumstances.“The prime minister has let them down with a second year of chaos and confusion, he must guarantee every student getting their results will be able to progress with their education or employment.“If the government can create these additional healthcare places at just days’ notice, it begs serious questions about why they have not acted sooner to tackle the ongoing workforce crisis in the NHS.”Mr Williamson said: “Students have worked incredibly hard over the past 18 months and we have continued to put their best interests first to ensure they can progress on to the next stage of their education training or career.“Throughout this pandemic our NHS heroes have been at the forefront of the response and their resilience, dedication and perseverance has clearly inspired the next generation.“Medicine and dentistry have always been popular courses and we have seen significant demand for places this year alongside other subjects like engineering and nursing. We want to match student enthusiasm and ensure as many as possible can train this year to be the doctors and healthcare professionals of the future.”Health secretary Sajid Javid said: “As we look beyond the pandemic, it’s incredibly important we safeguard the future of our NHS by ensuring there is a pipeline of high-quality staff to bolster the workforce in the years ahead.“Working closely with universities, we’re helping more students who meet the bar to get a place this year to study medicine or dentistry and join these fantastic professions.”The chief executive of university application service UCAS, Clare Marchant, welcomed the increase in places.“It gives more students the opportunity to study their first choice of course next year,” said Ms Marchant.“Students applying for medicine and dentistry have been ambitious with their choices, and continued to stretch themselves during the pandemic to prepare for challenging study and rewarding future careers.”In anticipation of a greater interest in places this year on popular courses that are key to the country’s recovery from the pandemic, up to £10 million in additional grant funding will be provided to universities through the Office for Students to help them to increase capacity in medical, dentistry, nursing, STEM and other high-cost subjects, said DFE. More

The government has still not fully implemented new rules designed to prevent corruption and sleaze, ministers have admitted.Labour said the government was “polluting politics” with inaction after Michael Gove’s deputy in the House of Lords was forced to apologise for misleading peers. Last year the Boardman Review recommended the creation of a centralised register of contracts, and proper logs for all declarations of interests – following criticism of the governments PPE procurement.Contracts were handed to friends and acquaintances of Tory MPs after ministers set up a “VIP lane” for people who were known to government ministers.But the Cabinet Office admitted this week that four of the key recommendations from the review remained unimplemented.The government is yet to create a central register of all contracts, or a log of declarations of interests. It has also so far failed to give data protection training to owners of declaration logs and set up a single point of contact.Meanwhile, Lord True has written to peers for wrongly claiming on 1 July that “there was no high priority lane for assessing PPE suppliers”.In an apology letter, he said: “I would like to clarify that there was a triaging process in place, which meant that different lanes did exist. “However, I can assure you that all offers under each lane went through the same eight step assessment process.”The government says it has implemented other recommendations from the Boardman Review and has accepted the ones it has not yet implemented. Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader told The Independent: “This shows that Tory Ministers will not tackle the sleaze, crony contracts and dodgy deals that are polluting our politics and seeing billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money handed out to Tory donors and mates.“They’ve broken the law, broken the Ministerial Code and now they’ve broken their promises to implement the changes called for by their own review. It appears that Lord True needs a new title, like Boris Johnson he seems to have a casual relationship with the truth“Labour will stamp out Tory sleaze and cronyism by establishing a single Ethics and Integrity Commission, fully independent from Number 10 and Ministers, to investigate wrongdoing and uphold the rules on anti-corruption, integrity and ethics in our politics.”Cabinet office minister Julia Lopez said: “The Cabinet Office commissioned Nigel Boardman in September 2020 to undertake a review of departmental procurement. “This review made 28 specific recommendations, which we have accepted in full. The review was, however, specifically focused on a small number of contracts within the Government Communications Service business area and so while we are embedding the Boardman recommendations widely across the Cabinet Office, many were and are already standard practice in many areas of the department and across government.”As at 5 July 2021, the department has completed 24 of the 28 recommendations (86 per cent). The remaining four recommendations are by their nature dependent on sourcing and on-boarding additional systems / resources. All four are in progress and expected to be completed by the end of the calendar year.”A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “The independent Boardman review addressed several areas in the procurement of contracts and we have already made progress in implementing these changes.“We accepted all of the specific recommendations in the Review, and have so far completed 24 out of 28 of these recommendations.“The remaining four are dependent on the implementation of new systems and we are working towards completing them by the end of the calendar year.” More

Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to “turn the Labour party inside out” and relaunch his leadership in order to win the next election.In an interview with the Financial Times, the Labour leader said he wanted to demonstrate how serious he was about winning power.He added that Labour MPs needed to “get real” about internal rows that were damaging the party’s credibility with voters and said members had to embrace Tony Blair’s legacy Disputes within the Labour party have often been blamed for distracting from challenging the Conservatives in election races and have resulted in multiple calls for party unity.Sir Keir told the newspaper he had one goal: “To win the next election”.He said: “We have to turn the Labour party inside out and that’s what we’ve been doing for the last 18 months”.“Too many of our members and supporters think winning an internal argument in the Labour party is changing the world – it isn’t. We’ve got to get real.”He added that Labour should be “very proud” of what had been achieved under its former prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.“We have to be proud of that record in government and not be an arm’s length or distant about it,” he said.Labour has lost the last four general elections, with the party witnessing its worst result in 84 years in the 2019 election under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.Sir Keir’s leadership has been doubted by some on the party’s left-wing since he took over from Mr Corbyn last April.Since then, the Tories took the former Labour heartland constituency of Hartlepool in a May by-election.In July however, the tides appeared to turn for Labour under Sir Keir, when Kim Leadbeater won the by-election in Batley and Spen in Yorkshire. More

Boris Johnson has defended the use of costly PCR tests on Britons returning home from holidays as many of his own Conservative MPs call for them to be scrapped or switched for cheaper lateral flow tests.Speaking after the relaxation of restrictions on travel from destinations like France, Germany and Dubai under the government’s traffic light system, the prime minister admitted that holidays remain “trickier” than normal this summer and appealed for “patience” from the public.But he faced a wave of demands for action on the PCR tests, which have been branded “a £100 tax on flights” by the aviation industry and continue to make holidays unaffordable for many families with children.The chair of the House of Commons Transport Committee, Huw Merriman, said passengers were being “ripped off” for the tests to the tune of more than £10m a week. And he said that claims they were needed to allow for sequencing of variants coming into the country were undermined by NHS Test and Trace figures which show that, of 500,000 taken over a three-week period, just 6,977 were positive and only 354 were sequenced.The committee called on the government, in a report in April, to “facilitate an affordable testing regime that supports public health and safe travel for everyone by maximising the role of antigen tests and ensuring the provision of affordable PCR tests where required”.Senior Tory backbencher Sir Roger Gale told The Independent he believed there was a groundswell of opposition to the tests among MPs who fear they are holding back the recovery of aviation.“We are woefully lagging behind France and Germany in the recovery of our aviation industry,” said the North Thanet MP. “We have got to get Britain flying again and to do that we have to address the issue of tests.“The Americans require a PCR test before departure, but not on arrival, for fully-vaccinated people. That would be sufficient to protect the country from the importation of the virus, and it would be a lot cheaper for travellers. It is the requirement for a test within two days of return that pushes the price up, because PCR tests are far more expensive in the UK than elsewhere in Europe. It’s become a licence to print money for the private firms providing the tests.”Prices currently quoted by suppliers listed by the Foreign Office range from around £20 to an eye-watering £399 for PCR tests, but many of the cheaper offers require travel to a lab for in-person swabs and some have hidden charges. For postal tests the cost can easily mount up to £100 a head.Travellers from green list countries and vaccinated people arriving from amber-list countries must take a PCR test within two days of arrival, while non-vaccinated arrivals coming from amber-list areas must taken a second after eight days. But some destinations also require a test before flying out for a holiday, and the government is urging all UK nationals returning from Spain to take another before departing for the UK, potentially meaning a total of four for people without full vaccination.The chief executive of tourism trade body UKInbound, Joss Croft, said: “The cost of testing, which can easily run into hundreds of pounds for a family, continues to be an unnecessary and significant barrier to travel.”And private test providers Project Screen by Prenetics called on chancellor Rishi Sunak to waive VAT on the tests, a move which they said could save a family of four holidaying in Spain as much as £166 from a total cost of £1,328 – enough to pay for their flights.But Mr Johnson insisted that current levels of testing were “sensible” and urged the public to be patient.“We understand how important people’s holidays are and I’ve always said that we wanted people to have holidays this summer, though I always stressed it was going to be not the same as any other summer, unfortunately, because of the pandemic,” said the prime minister during a visit to Scotland.Urging the public to follow guidance on testing, Mr Johnson added: “We want people to get away if they possibly can. We’re just saying that, obviously, this year is going to be a bit trickier than usual.“We just ask for a bit of a bit of patience. But we’ve got to balance the two objectives. We want people to be able to travel, we want the travel industry to get going again, we want to see tourists coming back to our country – a very, very important part of our economy – but you’ve got to balance that against the need to protect ourselves against the pandemic.”Mr Johnson’s comments came as pressure increased for further simplification of the traffic light scheme of travel restrictions, with the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) calling for the abolition of the “amber list” covering most popular tourist destinations in Europe in favour of a straightforward red-or-green division between countries which are deemed safe to visit and those which are not.BCC director of policy James Martin said: “Businesses need the confidence and clarity provided by a system which places countries in either green or red categories, removing the ambiguity of the amber designation, which now relies on very different rules for the vaccinated and non-vaccinated.“The government should also step-up efforts to drive down the cost of tests required by the system; limited progress has been made in this area so far and the cost remains a significant barrier to both business and leisure travellers.”The CBI said that the addition of seven countries to the quarantine-free green list and the removal of France’s “amber-plus” status from 8 August offered “some relief” for hard-pressed travel companies.But the organisation’s chief policy director Matthew Fell warned that the sector faces “a long road to full recovery” and called for an urgent move to a strategy which allows a more comprehensive resumption of travel in a way which is “safe, simple and certain”. More

Live events are to be helped by a government-backed £750m insurance scheme to reduce Covid cancellations, but industry leaders say it’s too late to save many events and Labour said the scheme was the “bare minimum.”Industry figures have been calling for such a scheme to help plan events without the risk of a Covid-19 outbreak leaving them out of pocket.The government says it has partnered with Lloyd’s to deliver the Live Events Reinsurance Scheme as part of the Treasury’s Plan for Jobs.But Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) chief executive Paul Reed said the scheme does not cover events that could be hit by the reintroduction of social distancing rules.“We are pleased that government has listened, and we welcome this intervention to address the insurance market failure,” he said. “The scheme doesn’t, however, cover a festival needing to reduce capacity or cancel due to social distancing restrictions being reintroduced, so it remains imperative that government continues to work with the sector in areas such as Covid certification to try and avoid such an eventuality and ensure that organisers can plan with increased confidence for 2022.”Labour’s shadow culture secretary Jo Stevens said the plan was the “bare minimum”.“Anything less than lockdown, like the reintroduction of social distancing or artists or crew having to self-isolate, isn’t covered,” he said. “Yet again the government has dithered, delayed and come up with a solution that doesn’t address the problem. Under this scheme, the government essentially takes no risk and the live events sector carries it all.”Meanwhile, the chief executive of Live, Greg Parmley, an organisation representing the interests of those in the live music business, also welcomed the announcement. He explained that his organisation has “been calling for since the start of the pandemic”.“We look forward to working together over the coming weeks to determine the final shape of the policy and to ensure it can support the full return of the sector in the face of the most likely impacts of Covid.”Jamie Njoku-Goodwin, the chief executive of UK Music, said“The inability to obtain insurance has already caused many cancellations this summer – these have been devastating for the entire music industry and there were fears that without action we would have seen major cancellations continuing well into next year too.”Chairman of the Concert Promoters Association, Phil Bowdery, said that although the insurance scheme “won’t cover all our risk, this intervention will help protect the industry that we all know and love”.“This is welcome news from DCMS. The sector has been calling out for the government to act for over a year and now we have something tangible,” he added.Chair of the DCMS Committee, Julian Knight, also welcomed the move, saying: “It is really welcome that the government has acted on a key recommendation from our inquiry into the future of UK music festivals,” he said.“We have been calling on ministers to introduce this safety net since January.“Though it is a shame that it has come too late for some this summer, this scheme will provide the confidence the sector needs to plan and invest in future events.”According to the Treasury., the live events sector is worth more than £70 billion annually to the economy. It also supports more than 700,000 jobs. More