Boris Johnson is confident that both the AstraZeneca and Pfizervaccines against Covid-19 are “safe and effective” and would be willing to take either when he is called to get his jab, Downing Street has said. The expression of faith in the vaccines came as some European nations – including the Republic of Ireland – temporarily suspended use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca product after reports...
A union representing senior civil servants has announced it is launching a judicial review seeking to “overturn” Boris Johnson’s ruling that Priti Patel did not breach the ministerial code. The intervention comes after the decision by the prime minister last year to disregard the conclusions of an internal investigation into the home secretary’s behaviour written by his independent ethics adviser....
Boris Johnson has prompted fury after wrongly suggesting all migrants barred from state support under the Home Office’s no recourse to public funds (NRPF) policy are in the UK unlawfully. The prime minister has rejected calls for the NRPF condition to be suspended during the pandemic, backing up this decision by saying it applies to people in the country...
A Cabinet minister is under fire for wrongly claiming he would curb the crippling fees charged by firms patrolling buildings at a risk of a Grenfell-style fire. Angry residents – forced to pay thousands of pounds a month for ‘waking watches’ – lashed out at Robert Jenrick for misleading the public and offering false hope. The housing secretary...
Prime Minister Boris Johnson was in a jubilant mood as he pushed his Brexit trade deal with the EU over the line just days before the transition period ended on January 1. After signing the agreement, he said: “By signing this deal, we fulfil the sovereign wish of the British people to live under their own laws, made by their...
The UK’s chief medical officers have called for the country to be moved into Covid-19 Alert Level 5 for the first time, which means the NHS is at “material risk” of being overwhelmed.’ In a joint statement alongside NHS England’s medical director, Stephen Powis, the government’s scientific advisers warned that the the NHS in all four nations is “already...
Boris Johnson has declared the new year “an amazing moment for this country,” in a message broadcast as the UK completed its departure from the European Union and most of Britain hunkered down at home under coronavirus restrictions. The prime minister, who was seeing in the new year with his immediate family at No 10, said he was...
The sharing of vital crime-fighting data will be “slower and more clunky” under Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, a former national security adviser has warned. And even the limited agreement reached with the EU will be ripped up if the UK ever pulls out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the full document reveals. Peter Ricketts, the security chief...
The infamous spy died at the age of 98, Russia announced this morning. Blake, who was born George Behar, has been in Russia since he escaped Wormwood Scrubs prison and fled the country in 1966. Rotterdam-born Blake was a British spy who was in fact a Soviet double-agent during the Cold War. He had become...
More than 1,300 households have been urged by police to evacuate their homes due to a risk of flooding in parts of Bedfordshire as large swaths of the UK brace themselves for Storm Bella. Torrential rain has brought widespread flooding to the country, with people having to be rescued from vehicles and others evacuated from...