Markus Andrews

Leader of the opposition Sir Keir Starmer, has again openly branded the Delta variant the “Johnson variant,” whilst criticising the prime minister’s handling of the Covid pandemic.Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Thursday, Sir Keir blamed the Boris Johnson for the spread of the Delta variant and recent surge in Covid-19 cases in the UK.He also tweeted an image of a perplexed looking Mr Johnson entitiled “JOHNSON VARIANT.”Speaking on Good Morning Britain, Sir Keir said: “The only reason we’re in restrictions today is because Boris Johnson left [the border with India] open and the Delta variant has now taken hold.”“It’s why we’re calling in the ‘Johnson variant’ because he let it in by leaving the back door open,” he added.Meanwhile in Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) on Wednesday, Mr Starmer talked about the “Johnson variant” whilst criticising Mr Johnson to the House of Commons.Sir Keir said: “Let’s be clear why infection rates are so high, because the prime minister let the Delta, or we can call it the ‘Johnson variant’, into the country.”Mr Johnson looked on in apparent annoyance, whilst many in the house appeared to agree with Mr Starmer as a chorus of “hear hear” could be heard.The Labour leader went on to brand the prime minister “reckless,” saying: “Let’s be clear why the number of cases will surge so quickly: because he is taking all protections off in one go, that is reckless.”Finally, he addressed Mr Johnson: “Is the prime minister really comfortable with a plan that means 100,000 people catching this virus every day and everything that that entails?”In response, Mr Johson highlighted the success of the country’s vaccination roll-out, adding: “We will continue with a balanced and reasonable approach.”Sir Keir responded to this saying: “We should open up in a controlled way.”On Good Morning Britain, the Labour party leader also attacked the Conservative government’s overall management of the pandemic. As well as mentioning the spread of the Delta variant, he cited “the absolute failure on care homes,” “the chaos on exams last summer” and “the chaos at Christmas with the mixing.”“Now it seems [Mr Johnson] wants to take all the restrictions off in one go and to let the variant let rip,” said Sir Keir.The news comes days after Boris Johnosn announced that he expects all Covid restrictions to be dropped in England on 19 July.This would include nightclubs reopening and the mask-wearing rule being scrapped, a move that has been heavily criticised by experts who called the move “unethical and illogical” in an open letter to medical journal The Lancet.The final decision for which restrictions will be lifted on 19 July will be announced on 12 July.Mr Johnson has however suggested that a “move away from legal restrictions” would allow people “to make their own informed decisions about how to manage the virus.” More

Surplus face-visors have been “repurposed” as food-trays in the NHS after the Department of Health and Social Care “over-estimated” the amount of personal protective equipment (PPE) in the coronavirus pandemic, MPs have been told.The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee heard that DHSC is now in negotiations to cancel or amend contracts signed at the height of the pandemic last year, to try to avoid adding billions more items to a PPE stockpile of tens of billions of masks, gowns and gloves.A senior DHSC official told MPs that a total of 32 billion items of PPE were purchased, and around 1bn are now being distributed to health and social care users.Director general of public health Jonathan Marron told MPs that 11.7bn items have been supplied and DHSC expects a further 11bn to be used.But committee member Nick Smith demanded to know what the department was doing to make savings on potentially “hundreds of millions of pounds of what may be unnecessary expenditure” on PPE deliveries still to come in.A National Audit Office report in November found that the government had budgeted an “unprecedented” £15bn of taxpayers’ money to buy PPE for England during 2020-21, paying “very high prices given the very unusual market conditions”, with hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth expected not to be used for their original intended purpose.Mr Marron today told the PAC that contracts for 1bn items with a value of £475m had already been cancelled or renegotiated to prevent the arrival of unnecessary PPE.And he said commercial discussions are under way on a further 40 contracts worth £1.2 bn relating to another 1.7 billion items which have been ordered but are not now believed to be needed.Mr Marron said that in the high-pressure environment of spring 2020, DHSC was driven by the priority of purchasing enough PPE to deal with shortages at a time when frontline health workers were complaining of having to make gowns from beanbags.“The mission was to make sure we had enough,” he told the committee. “And if we took some conservative assumptions around what we would need, it was driven by the fact we did not want to run out.”With no prior experience to draw on, Mr Marron said DHSC planners calculated need according to theoretical models of how many interactions were likely between health and care staff and Covid patients and with the general public.Planners also worked on worst-case assumptions that a proportion of orders would not be fulfilled, but in the event while many were late, the number which failed to arrive was lower than expected.Mr Marron said: “As it turns out, our model was generous on the amount of activity that would be undertaken and therefore the amount of PPE needed, so our model probably overestimated.”Around 0.5-0.8 per cent of PPE supplied was not fit for use – sometimes because it did not meet UK standards, but sometimes because it did not fit with NHS practices, such as preferring to use gowns from a roll rather than packed in boxes, he said.And he told MPs: “We started to look at repurposing that. We’ve managed to recycle some of our out-of-date visors into food trays.”Mr Marron said the UK had been left with “very significant stocks, which have allowed us to be really confident that we can meet the needs of health and social care, and indeed provide it to the wider economy, schools and transport.” More

The UK has given the EU a new deadline of two weeks to agree to axe trade checks introduced by the Brexit deal for Northern Ireland, or risk unilateral action by London.A fresh “approach” will be set out this month if talks fail to agree a breakthrough, ministers said – warning a truce over chilled meats and medicines had failed to solve the crisis caused by the Protocol.For the first time, “trade diversion” – a surge in north-south goods sales from the Republic of Ireland, because of the trade border created in the Irish Sea – was described as “one of the problems”.Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland Secretary, accused Brussels of “intransigence” in the ongoing talks and of a “lack of understanding of the sensitivities” in the province.And David Frost, the Brexit minister, revealed the new “approach” would be announced before MPs leave Westminster for their summer recess, on 22 July.“We think that’s essential for setting out how we will proceed for the rest of this year,” he told an event hosted by the Policy Exchange think-tank.But he was accused of “profound dishonesty” in denying that signing the Protocol – to force through a hard Brexit in 2019 – would create the deep problems, replying: “It’s a bit more complicated than that.”Boris Johnson has repeatedly threatened to invoke Article 16 – to suspend the flashpoint parts of the Protocol – if the EU does not give way, but has refused to scrap it altogether.The new threat will fuel EU fears that the UK is determined to dismantle the legal agreement and has simply “banked” the concessions it has made, before demanding more.Last week, Brussels agreed to the UK’s request for a three-month delay to the chilled meats ban – as well as easier rules on moving medicines and guide dogs to Northern Ireland, and for UK drivers.It insists the longer grace period must be used to arrange for retailers to obtain meats from the Republic of Ireland, as agreed in the Protocol.But Mr Lewis insisted “a permanent solution” to allow sausages to continue to be sold across the Irish Sea must be found by the autumn.The EU is urging the UK to agree a Swiss-style veterinary agreement – which might avoid the ban – but Lord Frost dismissed the proposal as “a non-starter”.The minister denied he was setting a new deadline, but said: “All options remain on the table for us.“We’re considering our next steps, we’re discussing with all those with an interest and I can say today that we will set out our approach to Parliament in a considered way on these questions before the summer recess.”The EU has accused the UK of failing to abide by the Protocol – by imposing checks at Northern Irish ports and by supplying data on cross-sea trade – but Lord Frost insisted the EU’s strict implementation was “the root of the problem”. More

A huge increase in the state pension next year could be scrapped because voters will not consider it to be “fair”, the Chancellor has suggested.The “triple lock” guarantee is set to push up pensions by around 8 per cent – costing taxpayers between £3bn and £4bn – because wages have bounced back sharply from the Covid recession.Rishi Sunak twice refused to guarantee that the increase would go ahead on that scale next April, when it was pointed out that Universal Credit payments to low-earners are about to be cut.And he said: “I do recognise people’s concerns on this. I think they are completely legitimate and fair concerns to raise.”The triple lock – introduced by the coalition government in 2010 – ensures pensions rise by whichever is the highest of earnings growth, inflation or 2.5 per cent.It has long been criticised for shielding the elderly from any of the post-Crash pain felt by younger generations, pushing up their incomes by 27 per cent in the 15 years to 2019.That impact is poised to be far greater as earnings grow sharply this year – although workers are no better off in reality, because wages dropped when the pandemic struck.Downing Street has previously insisted the triple lock will remain in place, but Mr Sunak said the decision, to be taken in the autumn, was “speculation”.“It’s wrong to make policy based on speculation, we should wait for the actual numbers to be finalised,” the Chancellor told BBC News.Asked if it was “fair” that pensions could leap by 8 per cent as Universal Credit is cut, Mr Sunak said: “I do recognise people’s concerns on this. I think they are completely legitimate and fair concerns to raise,“And, when we look at this properly at the appropriate time, your word is the right word – fairness. That will be absolutely driving what we do.“And we want to make sure that the decisions we make, and the systems we have, are fair both for pensioners and for taxpayers.”In interviews marking the “success” of his Covid jobs plan, Mr Sunak also suggested strict isolation rules for people alerted by the NHS app will be relaxed after strong criticism.Hospitality and business leaders have reacted with horror to predictions that millions of contacts of Covid cases will be told to stay at home for 10 days in the weeks to come – as infection rates soar.The Chancellor said he recognised that “most people’s concerns rest with how the app is working” – rather than being contacted by the test and trace system.“The health secretary is aware that that accounts for the majority of people who need to isolate, I understand, on the numbers,” Mr Sunak said.“He’s looking at what the most appropriate, balanced and proportionate approach to isolation is in these circumstances.” More

Successive governments have been accused of wasting a decade by failing to reform social care, with a system that remains “chronically underfunded” and vacancies up almost 80 per cent.The damning verdict from the Care and Support Alliance, representing 76 charities, comes 10 years on from the Dilnot Commission published its review of social care, which recommended a series or reforms.However, the organisation said politicians have “sat on their hands” despite repeatedly promising to act in three general elections held throughout the last decade, with nine manifesto promises to reform and refinance social care between the three major Westminster parties.During his first address to the nation as prime minister in 2019 outside No 10, Boris Johnson also said he had a “clear plan” already prepared to fix the crisis, but no proposal has emerged two years on.While ministers have promised a blueprint for reform before the end of 2021, the Care and Support Alliance said that “today social social care remains chronically underfunded, with most local councils struggling to meet the care needs of their communities”.According to a poll commissioned by the organisation, a clear majority (83 per cent) said they wanted the prime minister to fulfil his pledge made two years ago to “fix social care, once and for all”.Since 2012-13, the organisation also cited data showing that the available care workforces have “shot up by 83 per cent — 45,000 additional entry posts now”.Caroline Abrahams, the co-chair of the organisation and director of Age UK, said: “This week marks the 10th anniversary of the Dilnot Commission’s report and it’s galling to think what a wasted decade this has been for social care here, when so many other countries have put social care provision on a firm financial basis and brought it up to date.“In many respects social care has got worse here over these ten years and the huge rise in staff vaccines is big part of the reason why, since it is impossible to deliver consistently decent, reliable care if there aren’t enough care workers to do the job.”In a call to action, Ms Abrahams also urged the public to contact their constituency MPs and ensure there is “real action” on social care in 2021, “not just the warm words and excuses we’re all fed up of hearing”.“Our care workers have performed valiantly throughout the pandemic and now they deserve their reward,” she insisted.Separately, the Local Government Association (LGA) is also urging the government to set out a timetable of reform in the next fortnight and before Parliament rises for the summer recess on 22 July.The organisation, which represents councils in England, will make the demand at their annual conference on Thursday, saying social care “can play an integral part in building back better” from the Covid-19 pandemic.Chairman of the LGA’s wellbeing board Cllr David Fothergill will add: “Despite the extraordinary commitment and endeavours of all those who work in and draw upon social care, we are still waiting to see what government will produce in its proposals for a long-term, sustainable funding solution and a vision of care and support system that is fit for the 21st century”. More

Boris Johnson and other leaders should allow the World Health Organisation (WHO) to create a global standard for Covid travel rules to revive the sector, said Tony Blair.The former prime minister said it was time for the WHO to create “uniformity” in the rules by which passengers prove their Covid status to end the chaos over international travel.“The global confusion on travel requires a global solution,” said Mr Blair. “The world cannot begin to recover from Covid without people being able to move around again. This can only be done through a common global solution.”It comes as Mr Johnson’s government is expected to drop the 10-day quarantine requirement from countries on its amber list, while Germany has now lifted a travel ban on arrivals from the UK.But Mr Blair said there was still a confusing lack of agreement between countries on which vaccines are accepted as valid, different testing standards and different Covid “passports” showing someone’s status.The Tony Blair Institute has called on the WHO to take on an expanded role in bringing uniformity to vaccines, testing and Covid passports.The think tank said national governments, particularly G20 nations, should empower the WHO to take the lead on a new travel framework.In a new paper, the institute suggested that the WHO could prepare a report in time for the G20 summit this autumn in the hope of getting an agreement on a “global standard” for other countries to follow.Mr Johnson and the other G20 heads of state and government will gather in Rome on 30 October.The NHS Covid pass – showing vaccination status – is not accepted by the EU as a whole, but some countries are accepting it. The UK government hopes it will be able to forge an agreement with Brussels so it can be accepted for entry into the bloc.Mr Blair has also urged the UK government to make “Covid passports” a mandatory requirement for entry into England’s nightclubs, music festivals, sports matches and other big events this summer.The government has gone cold on the use of domestic Covid status certification – but the former PM said it could cut the number of infections in England by a third. More

Boris Johnson is facing calls to abandon plans to remove almost all remaining Covid restrictions as a coalition of over 100 scientists and doctors warn it is a “dangerous and unethical experiment”.After Sajid Javid, the health secretary, admitted daily cases could exceed 100,000 in the summer as measures are lifted on 19 July, the experts stressed there are “grave risks” involved in what they described as an “illogical” policy.The letter – published today in the medical journal The Lancet – claims ministers’ strategy amid surging cases of the Delta variant “provides fertile ground for the emergence of vaccine-resistant” variants.The 122 signatories also warn that unmitigated transmission will “disproportionately” affect children and young people who have not been offered a vaccine, with high circulation of the virus leading to “significant educational disruption” — despite the scrapping of school bubbles.It follows the prime minister’s announcement at a No 10 press conference on Monday that all rules on social distancing, including the requirement to wear masks, will be lifted in just under a fortnight if the 19 July date is rubber-stamped next week.According to the latest government statistics, the UK recorded 32,548 new infections of the virus on Wednesday — the highest daily figure since January as England endured a third lockdown. Of the adult population, over 86 per cent have now received a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine while over 64 per cent have had both jabs.While the link between infection with Covid and death has been weakened, they letter adds, it has “not be broken, and infection can still cause substantial morbidity in both acute and long-term illnesses”.The signatories include Sir David King, a former chief scientific adviser to government, Dr Chaand Nagpaul, the chair of the British Medical Association (BMA), alongside international experts and members of the Independent Sage group set up to shadow the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies.“In light of these grave risks, and given that vaccination offers the prospect of quickly reaching the same goal of population immunity without incurring them, we consider any strategy that tolerates high level of infection to be both unethical and illogical,” the letter says.“The UK government must reconsider its current strategy and take urgent steps to protect the public, including children. We believe the government is embarking on a dangerous and unethical experiment, and we call on it to pause plans to abandon mitigations on 19 July, 2021.”It adds: “As the third wave of the pandemic takes hold across England, the UK government plans to further re-open the nation.“Implicit in this decision is the acceptance that infections will surge, but that this does matter because ‘vaccines have broken the link between infections and mortality’. On July 19 2021 — branded Freedom Day — almost all restrictions are set to end. We believe this decision is dangerous and premature.”Editor-in-chief of The Lancet, Dr Richard Horton, stressed there was “no scientific consensus” over the government’s plans to scrap legal Covid restrictions in just under a fortnight.Instead, he said : “There is deep disagreement. Many scientists are sincerely concerned that with sub-optimal double-vaccination numbers and rapidly rising transmission rates, we are at a very dangerous moment in the pandemic.”Dr Horton added: “Removing mandates on July 19 will not only accelerate virus transmission, with substantial increased levels of acute illness, hospitalisation, and long COVID, but also create the conditions for the emergence of new variants that could escape vaccine protection.“The government plan is not, as some have characterised it, a reasonable gamble—it is an entirely unnecessary and self-inflicted hazard that will cause real harm to health.”Dr Nagpaul said that while the link between hospitalisations and deaths had weekend due to the rollout of the vaccination programme, “it has not been broken”.“We know that masks are effective in stopping the spread, so it is nonsensical and dangerous for the Government to abandon compulsory mask wearing in indoor public settings, such as public transport, on July 19th,” he said.“It is vital that we continue with these targeted measures to prevent the spread of this deadly virus until we have enough of the population fully vaccinated with both doses. ”The warning of a “dangerous experiment” was also echoed by experts involved in the People’s Covid Inquiry, who suggested on Wednesday that the decision to lift remaining restrictions would affect communities across the country unequally, according to The Guardian.“We’re further widening the health inequalities we’ve seen play out in the last year,” said Dr Tolullah Oni, an epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge.”A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “The success of the vaccine rollout is saving lives, having severely weakened the link between cases and hospitalisations.“We have taken a cautious approach to proceeding with the roadmap, delaying Step 4 to allow for millions more vaccinations so every person most at risk is fully protected.“Our approach after step 4 balances the need to protect both lives and livelihoods and we will only proceed on 19 July with our four tests having been met.” More

Boris Johnson has warned of an “exodus” of Jewish people from Northern Ireland as a consequence of the protocol he agreed as part of his Brexit deal.Mr Johnson told MPs the government had been approached by representatives of the Jewish community in the province who raised fears over supplies of kosher food under post-Brexit trade rules which the PM negotiated and signed in 2019 and which began coming into effect in January.Giving evidence to the House of Commons Liaison Committee, Mr Johnson again attempted to blame disruption of food supplies on the European Union’s implementation of the new regulations.He suggested that the onus was on the EU, rather than the UK, to make concessions in the joint committee set up to oversee the operations of his Northern Ireland protocol, which avoided a hard border with the Republic by effectively creating a customs border in the Irish Sea.And he insisted that the UK had “faithfully” fulfilled its side of the protocol bargain, despite the launch by Brussels of legal action over unilateral breaches by London.Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and the president of the Jewish Board of Deputies, Marie van der Zyl, joined David Kale and Michael Black of the Belfast Jewish community in a meeting with Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis on Tuesday to call for action to avoid the protocol “potentially ending Jewish life in Belfast”.They said that supplies of foods that comply with dietary guidelines set by traditional Jewish law from the British mainland will end in September under the terms of the protocol.And they warned: “If kosher food and religious artefacts cannot be supplied, the community is likely to collapse.”Mr Johnson told MPs the government had received “very serious representations” from the Jewish community that “because of the problem with the food sector, it was becoming difficult to for them to have timely access – or any access – to kosher food”.He told the liaison committee: “They are talking now about an exodus from Northern Ireland by the Jewish community.“Clearly, we want to do everything we can to avoid that and to sort it out.“But it’s going to take our friends in the joint committee to make some movement and to make that movement pretty fast.”He indicated that the UK government is not planning any concessions on its side to help resolve the situation.“I think we’ve been very clear that we are implementing the protocol,” he said. “The UK is a faithful obedient servant of the law.“The things that I have described are a direct result of what UK officials are doing in upholding the law and obeying the EU jurisdiction.“The problem is that I think – and I think any impartial listener of this conversation would think – the way the EU is trying to implement the protocol is currently grossly disproportionate and unnecessary.”Following Tuesday’s meeting, the Board of Deputies said that Mr Lewis had pledged the government’s support on the issue. Ms van der Zyl said: “The Belfast Jewish community is a great community with a rich history, but also an older and vulnerable one. We thank the minister for his time, and urge the UK and the EU to generate a creative solution which means that Jews can continue to practise their faith in Northern Ireland.” More