Author: Sumon Admin

Pressure is mounting on ministers to outlaw no jab, no job policies being implemented by companies, amid warnings firms could be hit by a wave of legal action due to claims of discrimination. After major US businesses including Google and Facebook announced plans to only allow fully vaccinated staff to set foot in their offices due to the spread of the Delta variant already rampant in the UK, senior government figures on this side of the Atlantic appeared relaxed about other businesses following suit. The move was welcomed by the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, who called it a good idea and said the reality was that some firms would require employees to be fully vaccinated though he added legislation would not be passed to make it mandatory. But advice from the Chartered Institute o...

An estate agent has admitted assaulting England's Chief Medical Officer in a video which went viral online. Lewis Hughes, 24, pleaded guilty to assault at Westminster Magistrates’ Court after England’s Professor Chris Whitty was accosted in St James’s Park in central London on June 27. He was sentenced to eight weeks in prison, suspended for two years, and ordered to pay £100 in compensation. Earlier in June, he was confronted in a street in Oxford by a man accusing him of lying to the public about coronavirus, while in February a man accosted him in Westminster. Kalsoom Shah, from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said Hughes showed little regard for Prof Whitty or social distancing rules when he accosted the Government's Chief Medical Officer in the street. His behaviour was both...

The Labour MP Apsana Begum has been cleared by a jury over claims of housing fraud, in a prosecution brought by Tower Hamlets council, which claimed she had withheld information about her circumstances to obtain social housing. The Poplar and Limehouse MP, who was first elected in 2019 with a 28,904 majority, was acquitted on three counts of housing fraud between 2013 and 2016 at Snaresbrook crown court in east London following a week-long trial. The council accused Begum of costing it almost £64,000 by not notifying it she was no longer living in overcrowded housing, as was the case when she first sought social housing, because she had moved in with her partner, Ehtashamul Haque. But Begum said she had notified the council for council tax purposes, that she was in a difficult persona...

Boris Johnson risks allowing a new Covid variant to run rampant through the country by further easing restrictions for EU and US travellers, Labour has claimed. England is to allow people visiting from the US and the EU who are fully vaccinated against coronavirus to enter without the need to quarantine. The new rules will be in place from 4am on Monday, with Transport Secretary Grant Shapps expressing hopes that the US will become more relaxed about allowing Britons to visit in time. But following an encouraging few days in which Covid-19 case numbers in the UK have fallen from above 50,000 on July 17 to 27,734 by 9am on Wednesday, Labour sounded warnings over the impact of the travel changes. Shadow transport secretary Jim McMahon said: The Government’s track record on our borders ha...

Full vaccinated travellers coming from the United States and the European Union will be exempt from having to quarantine on arrival in England, ministers have decided. The policy change came at a top-level Covid meeting on Wednesday afternoon. It was reported overnight that Boris Johnson is concerned that the EU is enabling international travel faster than the UK, and that Britain is squandering its vaccine bonus. Under existing rules, people who have been fully vaccinated in the UK do not need to isolate when travelling back from amber list countries – with the exception of France. But this exemption does not apply to people who have been vaccinated abroad. As a result, people arriving in the UK have to quarantine on arrival. This has limited the appeal of international tourism, but ...

Torrential rain has flooded parts of London and the South after thunderstorms struck. Areas including Hackney Wick, Newham and Barking were affected by the downpours, with videos showing cars driving through deep water and people walking nearly knee-deep at times. Another video showed Pudding Mill Lane DLR station in Stratford under water after heavy rainfall on Sunday. Two hospitals reported issues with their emergency departments due to the weather. Whipps Cross Hospital in Leytonstone said it was experiencing "operational issues due to the heavy rainfall", while Newham Hospital said its A&E department had flooded in some areas. A spokesperson for Barts Health NHS Trust said on Sunday evening: "We are experiencing operational issues at Whipps Cross Hospital and Newham Hospital du...

British government is trapped again by the picaresque politics of Boris Johnson. When the pandemic has subsided, the legacy of 2021 could yet be something more long-lasting – the permanent scarring of the landscape, courtesy of the 2019 parliament. Last spring, the prime minister trumpeted the “tearing down” of English town and country planning regulations, in place since the 1940s. That was enough to have him pummelled at last month’s Chesham and Amersham byelection. The planning minister, Robert Jenrick, then protested that “tearing down” did not mean “ripping up”, whatever that means. He is now wrestling with a shambles of reform. At the root lies Johnson’s perfectly commendable ambition to “level up” the north and south. Britain has one of the most regionally divided economies in t...

Rail leaders across the country are planning to reduce train services from next week because of staff shortages caused by the “pingdemic”. Transport for London announced that no trains will run on the Circle or Hammersmith and City lines this weekend, as more than 300 staff members are currently self-isolating. This follows the closure of the Metropolitan line, due to staff shortages, last weekend. London Northwestern Railway is set to introduce a new timetable with fewer services from Saturday in order to run “a more reliable and consistent timetable for passengers,” a spokesperson said. Avanti West Coast is set to cut services between London Euston and Manchester, Birmingham and North Wales, and Thameslink and Southern rail services are also set to cut their weekday timetables on fi...

A bus driver was punched in the head after confronting a passenger who refused to wear a face mask, police have revealed. Officers were called to reports of the driver, a man in his 30s, being injured on board his bus outside North Harrow tube station at 4pm on May 5. It is understood the bus driver had challenged the passenger over his refusal to wear a face covering. Police released a CCTV image on Thursday of a man they want to speak to in connection with the assault. London Ambulance Service attended alongside Metropolitan Police officers, and the bus driver was taken to hospital and received treatment. He has since been discharged and has fully recovered. Detectives from the Met’s Roads and Transport Policing Command are investigating and have recovered CCTV from the bus. Passeng...

Three people have been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after two police officers were ‘slashed’ in West Bromwich. The male officers were injured after being attacked at New Square Shopping Centre on Wednesday morning. Both officers were treated at the scene for non-serious injuries before being taken to hospital for further checks. West Midlands Police said the officers had been patrolling the town centre when they noticed two people acting suspiciously. When they approached the two men, they became aggressive and attacked the officers. Two men, aged 41 and 37, and a 31-year-old woman have been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. Three people have been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after two police officers were ‘slashed’ in West Bromwich. The male officers...