Boris
Telegraph
Boris Johnson must resign if he broke lockdown rules, Tory politicians warned on Tuesday as support for the Prime Minister ebbed away over new Downing Street party allegations.
A poll found that 66 per cent of voters want Mr Johnson to quit after it emerged that a Number 10 garden party had been organised in May 2020 – at the height of the first lockdown.
Prominent Conservatives said it was “appalling” and “utterly indefensible” that the event took place, while Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory leader, said Mr Johnson should quit if he broke the rules or misled Parliament.
On Tuesday, Downing Street refused to answer questions about the gathering, and the Prime Minister declined to speak publicly.
Mail
By his own admission, Boris Johnson‘s mistakes ‘are too numerous to list in full’.
But as Downing Street is engulfed by yet another lockdown party scandal with the Prime Minister at its heart, even his keenest Tory supporters are in ‘despair’.
Mr Johnson’s public and private life have been littered with lies, which saw him sacked as a journalist, fired by Tory leader Michael Howard over an affair and eventually thrown out by his wife Marina, who believed he was having an illicit relationship with Carrie Symonds.
He has been accused of lying on numerous occasions including the sensational sacking as Howard’s shadow arts minister for lying about his affair with Spectator journalist Petronella Wyatt.
ITV News
Boris Johnson must resign as prime minister if he’s found to have attended a lockdown-breaking party, Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross has said.
The prime minister has repeatedly denied he attended any parties during numerous lockdowns, however ITV News understands he was present at a gathering held in his Number 10 back garden at the height of the UK’s first shutdown.
Claims by his former top aide Dominic Cummings that a party was held there on May 20, 2020, which the PM allegedly attended with his wife Carrie, were substantiated when ITV News was leaked a Number 10 email inviting more than 100 members of staff.
BBC News
Boris Johnson is to face MPs later amid mounting pressure to say whether he attended a drinks event in the Downing Street garden during the first lockdown.
Witnesses have said the PM and his wife were among 30 people at the event on the 20 May 2020.
Senior Conservatives have joined Labour in saying he must explain his actions.
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said if he was there, and he lied about it, his position is “untenable.”
The prime minister has so far declined to say whether or not he attended the event.
On Monday, ITV published a leaked email from Mr Johnson’s principal private secretary, Martin Reynolds, inviting staff to “socially distanced drinks in the No 10 garden” on 20 May 2020 – when lockdown rules in England banned large outdoor gatherings.
The invitation encouraged people to “bring your own booze” and “make the most of the lovely weather”.
Guardian
Boris Johnson is facing intense pressure from senior Conservatives to publicly confess he attended a rule-breaking garden party in Downing Street, with the Scottish Tory leader suggesting the prime minister should resign if he broke Covid rules.
A string of Conservative MPs openly expressed anger and humiliation about the “bring your own booze” gathering for up to 40 people on 20 May 2020 after it emerged in a leaked email. Others called on him to come clean and apologise on Wednesday in the hope of stemming rising fury.
Johnson has declined to say whether he and his then fiancee, Carrie Symonds, attended the event. About 100 Downing Street staff were invited by Martin Reynolds, Johnson’s principal private secretary, to “make the most of the lovely weather”.
Sky News
Boris Johnson will face the House of Commons later amid intense pressure from Conservative MPs and Tory donors – and in the face of public anger – to answer questions over a “bring your own booze” event in Downing Street during the first COVID lockdown.
The prime minister, who has so far avoided questions over fresh allegations of a lockdown-busting party in Number 10, will appear in front of MPs from noon in what is set to be one of the most important Commons moments of his political life.
Times
Boris Johnson has been urged by ministers and Tory MPs to apologise for a party in the Downing Street garden during the first lockdown at which he is said to have “gladhanded” guests.
Johnson and Carrie Symonds, his fiancée at the time, are both said to have attended the event in May 2020 and mingled with 40 Downing Street officials and advisers as people drank wine, gin and beer.
The Times has been told that one member of the government at the party joked about being caught breaking lockdown rules, asking how it would look if a drone photographed the garden. At the time people in England could meet only one other person outside and large gatherings were banned.
Fisheries
Express
DESPITE the doomsters, British fishermen are enjoying a Brexit boom with Brixham in Devon racking up its highest ever sales of £43.6million – much of it sold to continental buyers. The secrets of their success are good news for other UK exporters, defying the gloomy narrative that we’re worse off after leaving the EU.
There is good news too that a recent survey by PwC and Make UK reveals that over a third of UK manufacturers are keen to buy British rather than risk foreign supply chain costs and delays. Also, some 31 percent are looking to bring back more of their production facilities to the UK in order to secure their businesses against international turmoil.
Covid
Telegraph
The UK is the closest of any northern hemisphere country to exiting the Covid pandemic, an expert has said.
Prof David Heymann, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, suggested in a Chatham House online briefing that the UK was seeing the virus become endemic.
He said: “In general now, the countries that we know best in the northern hemisphere have varying stages of the pandemic. And probably in the UK, it’s the closest to any country of being out of the pandemic – if it isn’t already out of the pandemic – and having the disease as endemic as the other four coronaviruses.”
Times
Britain will be one of the first countries in the world to emerge from the pandemic, according to a leading public health expert.
Professor David Heymann of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said that Britain’s very high levels of immunity seem to be “keeping the virus at bay” as he predicted coronavirus would soon settle down to normal patterns of spread seen with other infections.
Hospital admissions have stopped rising across most of England. The northeast and Yorkshire is the only part of England where admissions are still clearly rising, with London seeing falls and the rest of the country broadly level or starting to decline, adding to confidence in weathering the Omicron wave.
Mail
Covid cases are now falling in every region except the North East, according to official figures which add to an ever-growing pile of evidence that the worst of the Omicron outbreak may be over.
UK Health Security Agency statistics show rates in London — which was the first area to fall victim to the highly-transmissible variant — started to trend downwards before Christmas, which sparked hopes that the rest of the nation would soon follow suit.
Now Government Covid data shows cases are finally on their way down in seven out of England’s eight other regions, suggesting the wave may have peaked across much of the country.
Experts are hopeful the Omicron crisis is starting to fizzle out naturally after spiralling to ‘unbelievable’ levels last month.
iNews
Cutting Covid self-isolation from seven to five days is expected to work “extremely well” in tackling community transmission as well as reducing widespread staffing shortages across society, a leading member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) has said.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, several Cabinet ministers and some scientific advisers are pushing the case for reducing the quarantine period due to the large numbers of workers absent in the NHS, teaching and other key sectors.
The Prime Minister is awaiting a review on the issue by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), but new research showing the effectiveness of five-day isolation will make the changes more likely.
Guardian
One in seven people who have tested positive for Covid could still be infectious if released from isolation upon receiving a negative lateral flow result after five days, new data suggests.
Across the UK people are now allowed to leave self-isolation on day seven, provided they have had two negative lateral flow tests in the past 24 hours and do not have a fever.
However, the prime minister has indicated he is in favour of further reducing the quarantine time to five days, if backed by scientific evidence. Experts have cautioned there is presently little data to back the move.
According to work previously released by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), the proportion of people estimated to remain infectious five days after the onset of Covid symptoms, or a positive Covid test, is 31%.
Telegraph
Coronavirus loses 90 per cent of its infectiousness within five minutes of becoming airborne, a new study has suggested.
Preliminary data from the University of Bristol reveals that in a real world situation the conditions of the air dry out the viral particles.
The team measured how stable SARS-CoV-2 droplets – the virus which causes Covid – are over time, ranging from five seconds to 20 minutes.
“A decrease in infectivity to approximately 10 per cent of the starting value was observable for SARS-CoV-2 over 20 minutes, with a large proportion of the loss occurring within the first 5 minutes after aerosolisation,” the scientists write in the paper.
Mail
An intensive care doctor today said every critically ill coronavirus-infected patient currently being treated at his hospital is unvaccinated.
Dr David Hepburn said there are now no vaccinated Covid patients in critical care at Grange University Hospital in Cwmbran, South Wales.
The £350million Specialist Critical Care Centre, which has 24 ICU beds, was opened four months early in November 2020 in order to tackle spiralling coronavirus cases at the time.
Dr Hepburn said the only people now in treatment are those who have chosen not to take up the offer of a vaccine.
Data from across England shows less than nine per cent of Covid patients in critical care are boosted. This compares to more than 60 per cent who are have not had a vaccine.
Telegraph
Leading British and US scientists thought it was likely that Covid accidentally leaked from a laboratory but were concerned that further debate would harm science in China, emails show.
An email from Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, on February 2 2020 said that “a likely explanation” was that Covid had rapidly evolved from a Sars-like virus inside human tissue in a low-security lab.
The email, to Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Francis Collins of the US National Institutes of Health, went on to say that such evolution may have “accidentally created a virus primed for rapid transmission between humans”.
But a leading scientist told Sir Jeremy that “further debate would do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular”.
Guardian
World Health Organization experts have warned that repeating booster doses of the original Covid vaccines is not a viable strategy against emerging variants and called for new jabs that better protect against transmission.
“A vaccination strategy based on repeated booster doses of the original vaccine composition is unlikely to be appropriate or sustainable,” the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Covid-19 Vaccine Composition (TAG-Co-VAC) said in a statement published on Tuesday.
The group of experts, who are working to assess the performance of Covid-19 vaccines, called for the development of new vaccines that not only protect people who contract Covid against falling seriously ill but also better prevent people from catching the virus in the first place, in order to deal with emerging Covid variants such as Omicron.
Education
Sun
THE number of pupils off school in England because of Covid has soared to its highest since September.
Some 315,000 children — one in 25 — are absent already this term.
And 44,000 staff — more than one in 12 are off. It is more than in the run-up to Christmas and is having a “significant impact”, say unions.
Some schools have had to create classes of 100-plus children taught in sports halls.
The crisis is fuelling calls for Covid self- isolation periods to be slashed from seven to five days, with a decision likely this week.
iNews
Children are struggling to learn in cold classrooms because schools have no alternative for fighting Covid other than keeping windows open, teachers and parents have told i.
In some areas, schools have had to open windows while it is snowing outside because they lack air purifiers, with one headteacher saying conditions were “like the Baltics”.
Schools have been calling on the Government to roll out air cleaning units to boost ventilation for months.
Pepe Di’Iasio, headteacher of Wales High School in Sheffield and president of the Association of School and College Leaders, told i that CO2 monitors provided by the Government suggested his school had “three or four” classrooms that would benefit from filters.
Times
Almost a quarter of parents have bent the rules or played the system to ensure they got a child into the school of their choice, a survey has found.
The poll discovered that 17 per cent of parents had lied, bent or broken admissions rules to try to win a place at their preferred school. A further 7 per cent said they “played the system” to their advantage.
Tactics included making “voluntary donations” to schools before a place was confirmed or even offering a bribe.
There is no evidence that such strategies work because admissions are often run by local authorities. This Saturday is the deadline for primary school applications for children who will start in September.
Smart motorways
Mail
Ministers halted the rollout of 120 miles of smart motorway last night as safety fears about the ‘death trap’ roads continued to grow after 24 deaths and scores of accidents.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps also said £390million would be spent on building 150 extra emergency laybys so drivers whose vehicles have broken down don’t have to stop in live traffic.
It will boost the number of laybys on smart motorways by about 50 per cent and mean they are no more than a mile apart.
Currently they are up to 1.5 miles apart, which motoring groups warn is unsafe.
Times
The government will pause the rollout of all future smart motorways for at least two years following concerns about their safety.
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, said no new smart motorways, on which the hard shoulder is used as a permanent live traffic lane, would be built until a full five years of safety data had been collected on stretches introduced before 2020.
The announcement was welcomed by motoring groups as a “watershed decision” in halting the spread of the roads, although 100 miles that are 50 per cent complete will still open.
Shapps told The Times: “What I can assure people is that all these stretches will open with the full stopped vehicle detection in place.
ITV News
The rollout of “all-lane-running” smart motorways is being paused amid safety concerns, the government has announced, although critics say the move does not go far enough.
However, smart motorways which are already in operation will continue to be used and those which are currently being built will be completed.
The Department for Transport on Wednesday said it will halt the expansion of the motorways, where the hard shoulder is used as a permanent live traffic lane, until five years’ worth of data has been collected to assess whether or not they are safe for drivers.
Sky News
The rollout of “all-lane-running” smart motorways is being paused amid safety concerns, following a government inquiry.
The Department for Transport (DfT) says it will pause the expansion of smart motorways, where the hard shoulder is permanently a live traffic lane until there’s five years’ worth of data on drivers’ safety.
Where work is already underway, a £390m retrofit programme will see additional emergency refuge areas and Stopped Vehicle Detection technology installed where possible.
The decision follows a recommendation by the Commons Transport Select Committee which highlighted that there wasn’t enough safety and economic data to justify continuing with the project.
Dogs
Sun
AN urgent warning has been issued for dog owners to avoid walks on several North Yorkshire beaches after more than 150 pets fall ill from “toxins” in the water.
Vet nurse Brogan Proud urged dog owners to keep their four-legged friends off Scarborough beaches after a spate of cases of diarrhoea and vomiting.
In a Facebook post on Best Days Out in Yorkshire and Yorkshire Coast Pet Care pages, the worried vet said practices she worked at were being inundated with cases of sick pets.
She wrote: “I work within several practices up and down the North East coast and we have recently been inundated with dogs coming off the beaches with vomiting and diarrhoea.
“Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any correlation other than contact with the beach so maybe ensure they don’t eat anything on the beach and wash them off if they’ve been to the beach in case it is a toxin or similar.
Express
MORE than 150 dogs have reportedly fallen ill as an urgent toxin warning has been issued across UK beaches.
Many of the dogs fell ill after walks on the beach in the Scarborough area, with local vets saying they have been “inundated” with sick dogs. In posts shared to their Facebook pages, The Best Days Out in Yorkshire and Yorkshire Coast Pet Care both expressed concerns over the recent incidents, which have been taking place across the North East. The veterinary nurse in charge of Yorkshire Coast Pet Care, Brogan Proud, said on Facebook: “I work within several practices up and down the North East coast and we have recently been inundated with dogs coming off the beaches with vomiting and diarrhoea.
Don’t agree With you on Mark Steyn, just lately he has conducted some brilliant interviews., particularly one tonight about the origins of Covid
Any chance the objectionable Grant Chapps will be relieved of his position for a second time.
I seem to remember they got rid of him as party chairman., when his bullying got out of hand.
I’ll bet Smart Motorways were his baby that he was sticking to like grim death
He’s a nasty bit of workvaltogether
Corruption in public life is rife! It is true that the problems with COVID vaccines and the NHS failings are important – as is the way that Johnson and his coterie clearly think they live on a different plane to the rest of us! These matters need to be addressed and resolved.
But when oh when will someone start to look at all the other problems that are building up across the Country! Immigration gets barely a mention; the inflated energy prices that will lead to rampant inflation across all the aspects of the economy; the absolute scandal of the ‘new build’ houses that have so many defects in them that it will be remarkable if they last very long at all – never mind the huge maintenance problems that owners will be faced with after the usual (usually unsatisfactory) NHBRC guarantee runs out; the false BREXIT whose difficulties are just now becoming a cause for major concern!
These are just a few of the things that are waiting in the wings to bring more trouble to Britain. Yet it seems that the politicians and civil serpents are simply not interested in anything to do with the actual smooth running of the Country. ‘Power’ for power’s sake is all that matters to them, especially if it brings with it the chance to make fortunes foe themselves and their friends at tax payers expense!
Britain plc is dying on its feet for want of a blood transfusion of real expertise; confidence and a belief in running the Country properly for the people! At present ‘they’ are falling over themselves to destroy everything that Britain once stood for!
Frederica. You missed out – Trying to run Britain PLC on Sun and Wind Power alone.
As far as I can tell, B.J. and his wife are the main culprits on that one. Personally, I mean.
Though obviously the P.M. is also supposed to be reponsible all the things you list.
Indeed Pauline. His submission to his globalist mates is also not what we voted for. A truly evil man hiding behind a veil of buffoonery.
PB : “Trying to run Britain PLC on Sun and Wind Power alone.”
I understand the globalists want to turn everything on the planet, water , air, wind, our bodies, everything that moves and everything that doesn’t, into their own property so that they can make trillions of profit from it. They want to farm everything including us as if we were cattle ! All sold to us under the false pretext of “saving the planet.”
Johnson is certainly to blame since he tossed us to these predators . Egged on by his lovely wife. It would have needed someone of considerable strength of character to stand up to these predators, and Johnson is not that person. The only politician I can think of who might have done was Maggie.
Frederica, There are simple organisational answers, and dozens of others However they all founder on the ambition of little leaders You only have to watch it all on display in GB news. One or two or more who cannot stop talking at speed.Whose main skill is never stopping and speaking over their guests.. All the others exhibit similar beliefs or failings in them selves, and the women are just as bad. And they mostly talk relentlessly about the same things and are so proud of themselves and their ‘original thoughts’.. I am seriously considering being forced into RT or one of the others. to see normal presenters who keep quiet. I suspect I would be similar.. ” Training “
Interesting Debbie, thanks.
So the MSM have decided Boris should resign! I wonder what is behind that. They can’t get an alternative main stream Party into power yet can they?
The W.H.O. just do not want to let go of the Covid scam do they.
Brixham in Devon are not fishing in the area E.U. are still controlling, I think.
Sorry about the dogs but anything on Facebook needs taking with a large pinch of salt.
Smart motorways – sounds like too little too late.
There is a new spherical bird feeder. It has holes in the sides as it hangs from a branch, to enable ingress and egress of aforementioned boids access to a heap of seeds on the floor.
It is also prettily coloured and continues to sell in billions.
Of course it works. obviously!..
It clearly works . How much is it. ? Is that all.? lets get three.different designs. . Don’t worry.
Get some of those pretty, deformity hiding, bad teeth , pustule breaking , runny nose disguising Masks in a nice blue. As well.
TG Spokes………do you have something in common with you best mate Boris Johnson in that you have both lost the plot somewhat. Bird feeders indeed. Is it squirrel proof as well. I don’t much care how a bird feeder is constructed, it is there to feed whoever might choose to come into my garden spherical or otherwise, and I don’t mind the local squirrel having a go either, although I do put out monkey nuts out for him/her. However if Boris Johnson came clambering over the fence holding a bottle of vintage Pol Roget champagne in search of another garden party or some seeds and nuts from the feeder, I might be tempted into pushing him back over the fence. Just make sure you are not with him……
Colin, it wouldn’t help pushing him. He’s superbly slippery, which you have to admit is an essential basic skill of all politicians. I don’t like champaign, too many bubbles,. Pouilly Fume please.
Mentioning Boris Johnson and describing him ‘superbly’ whatever the context in the same sentence, is taking things way too far. He is infinitely untrustworthy and is wholly unworthy of the title of prime minister. Setting aside the latest act of inexcusable buffoonery, he has severely let down those of us including me, who entrusted him with their vote in December 2019 on so many levels now, which include the fudge over the Trade Deal with the European Union, where he allowed Northern Ireland to be annexed by the EU with a different set of customs rules, and has allowed the EU to rule the roost over our territorial waters, has done absolutely nothing about stemming the flow of illegal migrants via the English Channel, offered a home to millions of residents of Hong Kong and Afghanistan without asking the permission of the British public, and has trashed our long held freedoms and civil liberties over a virus that has still only affected a small proportion of the population. He needs to accept that he is patently not up to the job of holding a high office of any description, and allow somebody with a bit of common sense and political backbone to take over pronto. Not tomorrow, not next week, not next month, not next year, and certainly not after the next general election. He is an unmitigated disaster and needs to step down tonight and with immediate affect. Johnson’s political career is over. In any other job he would have failed his probation ages ago and told to pack his bags and get out of the building.
And while we’re at it . The equally stupid ineffective (. .Quite clearly a perfect and simple answer for a Bolivian chinaman delegate to UN or WHO .) but it obviously works TEST AND TRACE, But of course it works. Obvious. They’ll sell millions
T+G+Spokes.
Did you perhaps, have BALLS in mind?
Public Health England Has had so many lying dangerous bureaucrat-ised positions, It has actually been forced to change its name to UKHSA , Being UK Health Security Agency…. .” Health security Agency” , What is that ? Are we in russia, ? or an american cheap film ?
TG Spokes……..I think you mean a ‘B Movie’ of old. Talking of which the continuing farce of the resident clown in Downing Street might fit into that classification as well. Very cheap and nasty, awful acting, poor scripts, and not very funny or entertaining. He needs to be binned at the earliest opportunity.
Smart lanes. Why cant they do the same re “vaccines?”
I ‘m surprised to hear that the Government stops/pauses anything because it is dangerous or bad for us the people, They don’t usually care.
Is there a deeper reason, more to do with Government’s own interests or profit? Maybe the resulting accidents are overburdening the Sacred Cow and diverting it from the really vital job of fighting Covid……..
You are right Mary, the government don’t care but somebody hasn’t received their back-hander so everybody back on the bus.