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Friday 12 June 2020 12:16
Boris Johnson has said it is “absurd and shameful” the Winston Churchill national monument is at risk of attack by protesters this weekend, and warned Black Lives Matter supporters that the responsible thing do “stay away from these protests.”
The prime minister went further and claimed the tearing down of statues constitutes “lying about our history”, adding: “We cannot now try to edit or censor our past.”
It comes as government is set to backtrack on its plan to introduce full border checks with the EU from 1 January over fears of the impact of coronavirus. The latest GDP figures show the British economy shrank more than 20 per cent during the first full month of lockdown.
The EU ‘will blink again’, claims Francois
Remember Mark Francois? The Tory MP hasn’t had much reason to appear on TV for a while, but today is one such day.
Asked about the idea the government backtrack on its plan to introduce full border checks with the EU from 1 January, Francois largely ignored the question and talked about getting a deal.
“We’ve got until the end of December to come up with an agreement. [The EU has] blinked once, and I believe if we hold our nerve they will blink again.”
Francois said “we’ve got plenty of time – what we need is political will”.
‘Stay away from these protests,’ says Johnson
Boris Johnson went on to say in his lengthy Twitter thread that the “only responsible action” was to stay away from planned Black Lives Matter protests this weekend.
“As for the planned demonstrations, we all understand the legitimate feelings of outrage at what happened in Minnesota and the legitimate desire to protest against discrimination.
“Whatever progress this country has made in fighting racism – and it has been huge – we all recognise that there is much more work to do.
“But it is clear that the protests have been sadly hijacked by extremists intent on violence. The attacks on the police and indiscriminate acts of violence which we have witnessed over the last week are intolerable and they are abhorrent.
“The only responsible course of action is to stay away from these protests.”
‘We cannot now try to edit or censor our past’
Boris Johnson has tweeting his thoughts on the removal of monuments said that tearing down statues constitutes “lying about our history”, adding: “We cannot now try to edit or censor our past.”
He wrote: “The statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square is a permanent reminder of his achievement in saving this country – and the whole of Europe – from a fascist and racist tyranny.
“It is absurd and shameful that this national monument should today be at risk of attack by violent protesters. Yes, he sometimes expressed opinions that were and are unacceptable to us today, but he was a hero, and he fully deserves his memorial.
“We cannot now try to edit or censor our past. We cannot pretend to have a different history. The statues in our cities and towns were put up by previous generations.
“They had different perspectives, different understandings of right and wrong. But those statues teach us about our past, with all its faults. To tear them down would be to lie about our history and impoverish the education of generations to come.
PM: ‘Absurd and shameful’ that Churchill statue at risk
Boris Johnson has said it is “absurd and shameful” the Winston Churchill national monument is at risk of attack by protesters.
The prime minister has said that tearing down statues constitutes “lying about our history”.
Keir Starmer’s latest poll rating matches Tony Blair
Labour leader Keir Starmer holds best net satisfaction score for any leader of the opposition since Tony Blair, new Ipsos Mori poll has found.
The +31 satisfaction score mirrors the score Blair achieved in December 1994.
Boris Johnson still leads Starmer on the question of who would make the “most capable” prime minister, however.
‘Betrayal’: Farage reacts to expected U-turn on border checks
The Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has responded to the news the government is set to backtrack on its plan to introduce full border checks with the EU from 1 January
“The first betrayal, this is a very bad sign,” he tweeted. Farage also called the boarding up of the Winston Churchill statue as “surrender to the mob”.
Relatives of Covid-19 victims call for inquiry now
The famility members of nearly 500 people who have died from coronavirus are calling for an immediate snap public inquiry into the government’s handling of the pandemic so lessons can be learned quickly to prevent further deaths.
The founder of the group said he believed his own father’s death could have been prevented. Matt Fowler told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “He was only 56, so he has gone way, way before his time.”
Our Whitehall editor Kate Devlin has more details.
Death rates twice as high in England’s deprived areas, new figures show
People living in more deprived areas are experiencing coronavirus death rates more than double those living in wealthier parts of the country, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Covid-19 mortality rates more than halved in all but two regions in England between April and May, the latest ONS figures show.
Yet the statisticians pointed to an ongoing trend which has seen the poorest parts of the country hardest hit by the disease.
There were 128.3 deaths per 100,000 people in the most deprived council areas – 118 per cent higher than the 58.8 deaths per 100,000 in the least deprived parts of the country.
Sarah Caul, head of mortality analysis at the ONS, said: “People living in more deprived areas have continued to experience Covid-19 mortality rates more than double those living in less deprived areas.
“General mortality rates are normally higher in more deprived areas, but Covid-19 appears to be increasing this effect.”
EU experts see some risk of return to lockdown in second wave
The risk of a second wave of coronavirus infections big enough to require European lockdowns to be re-imposed is moderate to high, EU health experts have said.
A pandemic risk assessment by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) also predicted a moderate pick-up in infection rates in the coming weeks, although it said transmission has passed its peak in most European countries.
“The pandemic is not over,” ECDC director Andrea Ammon said in a statement accompanying the assessment.
She said that while there are decreasing trends of Covid-19 infections across Europe, efforts are still needed to limit the spread of the disease.
Covid-19 infections continue to fall
The number of people with Covid-19 in England “has decreased in recent weeks”, new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show.
The number of average infections per day since the end of April has fallen from 5,600 new infections per day to 4,500, according to the latest figures.
The ONS publishes snapshot data on how many people at any one time are infected with Covid-19 based on swab results from households across the country. The figures look at community infections and do not include care homes or hospitals.
Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon has said that further suppression of the virus must come before any talk of relaxing the two-metre social distancing rule.
Runnymede Trust director and a member of the independent Sage group of scientists Dr Zubaida Haque has raised questions about the government’s failure to publish recommendations of how to reduce disproportionate ethnic minority deaths from coronavirus.
Asking whether equalities minister Kemi Badenoch misled parliament with her statement that PHE were “not able to” make recommendations within the published report, she added: “This is exactly what the Black Lives Matter protests are about: it is about the lives of BME people being perceived as expendable and it is about not being heard.”
Airlines launch legal action against government
British Airways, easyJet and Ryanair have now launched legal action against the government’s “flawed” 14-day quarantine policy.
The airlines announced they have asked for a judicial review to be heard “as soon as possible”, claiming the measures introduced this week will have a “devastating effect on British tourism and the wider economy”.
They said they have seen no evidence of when proposed air bridges between the UK and other countries will be implemented.
Instead, they want the government to re-adopt the policy it introduced on March 10, which saw passengers from countries deemed at high risk of coronavirus infection being order to self-isolate on arrival in the UK.
Among the claims made by the airlines in their legal challenge to the quarantine are:
– The guidelines are more stringent than those applied to people confirmed to have Covid-19.
– There was no consultation on scientific evidence provided for “such a severe policy”.
– People from overseas commuting weekly to the UK are exempt.
Violent protesters ‘could be jailed within 24 hours’
Any protesters deemed violent could be jailed within 24 hours of being arrested as authorities attempt to deter trouble at marches across the UK, according to reports.
The fast-track court plans come as more Black Lives Matter demonstrations, as well as far-right counter-protests, are expected this weekend.
Justice secretary Robert Buckland has told magistrates to use a similar model to the one used in the response to the 2011 riots, according to The Times.
The plans could lead to people suspected of causing vandalism, criminal damage or assaulting a police officer being jailed within 24 hours of their arrest in an attempt to defuse disorder.
Scaffolding placed around Churchill statue ahead of protests
The Winston Churchill statue in Parliament Square is among the memorials being protected by authorities ahead of fresh protests.
Scaffolding was filmed being put up around the statue on Thursday evening. It came amid fears of clashes on Saturday between right-wing groups who vowed to “defend” selected memorials and Black Lives Matter demonstrators.
A spokesperson for the Mayor of London said: “The statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square is being temporarily covered for its protection.
“The overwhelming majority of protests have been peaceful, but after recent damage the decision was taken by the Greater London Authority City Operations Unit to cover it.”
Contact-tracing app ‘isn’t the vital part’ of NHS Test and Trace, claims minister
Asked about the development of the track and trace app, health minister Edward Argar told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme “It’s a complex piece of technology, and we continue to develop it and work to refine it.
“But, actually, as Dido Harding, who heads up the test, track and trace programme, has said, in a sense, the app is the cherry on the cake for this programme.”
“It is the human contact. It is the tracing that’s been done … that is the core part of making this programme work.
“So, the app has the potential, in the future, to be another step forward. But, it isn’t the vital part of it. The vital part of it is this human tracing that we have already got running.”
Some people ‘simply didn’t feel like answering the phone’ to contact tracers, says minister
Health minister Edward Argar has said one third of people who tested positive for coronavirus and were transferred to the NHS Test and Trace app were not successfully contacted because they “simply didn’t feel like answering the phone”.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast on Friday, Argar said: “Some people won’t necessarily have answered their phone, you and I know what it’s like if you have flu for example, and Covid-19 is a much, much nastier disease than that, you sometimes simply don’t feel like answering the phone or responding to much at all.”
“This is the first week of this new scheme and I think it has started off very, very well,” he added.
Argar said the government will “continue to chase up those who didn’t respond.”
The government has been accused of “suppressing” a report into the disproportionate threat posed by Covid-19 to BAME communities, which Public Health England has now said it will publish next week.
The BBC and Sky News reported on the existence of the second report last night – which contained recommendations for how to limit the impact of the virus on ethnic minorities.
Prof Raj Bhopal from Edinburgh University, who had been asked to review the 64-page document told the BBC that “parliament had not been told the full truth” and called for the report’s immediate release.
While equalities minister Kemi Badenoch had told the Commons that Public Health England “did not make recommendations because they were not able to do so”, citing a lack of data, the government has now told the BBC that she was not referring to this second report, only the first.
The government has now told the BBC and Sky News that the recommendations will be published next week, saying the report had been conducted “in parallel” with the first but was not part of the same document.
A Labour spokesperson said: “The government’s decision to block this report is scandalous and a tragedy. The recommendations it makes could have saved lives. The minister should now explain what she knew about it and when.”
A new group set up for families of people who have died from coronavirus victims wants an urgent inquiry into the crisis to help prevent further deaths.
The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK group’s lawyer Elkan Abrahamson said an early inquiry should be held prior to any complete formal proceeding, which is expected to take place once the pandemic is over.
“What we need to look at straightaway are the issues which are life-and-death decisions,” he told the BBC. “We expect there will be a second spike. We want to know what the government is going to do when that happens.”
The group’s request comes after Scotland’s former chief scientific adviser Professor Dame Anne Glover said an inquiry must be held before a second wave of the virus hits the UK.
|A government spokesperson said: “At some point in the future there will be an opportunity for us to look back, to reflect and to learn some profound lessons. But at the moment, the most important thing to do is to focus on responding to the current situation.”
Government ‘lifelines’ will help economy recover, says Rishi Sunak
The coronavirus pandemic has had a severe impact on Britain’s economy – GDP shrank more than 20 per cent in April – but chancellor Rishi Sunak claimed the steps the government has taken, including supporting salaries, grants and tax cuts will help it to recover
“In line with many other economies around the world, coronavirus is having a severe impact on our economy,” he said.
“The lifelines we’ve provided with our furlough scheme, grants, loans and tax cuts have protected thousands of businesses and millions of jobs are giving us the best chance of recovering quickly as the economy reopens.”
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