United Kingdom

Self-isolation for holidaymakers who have received two coronavirus vaccines could be scrapped as soon as August, a report says. The Times reports that confirmation of the plan, which Health Secretary Matt Hancock has confirmed ministers are considering, is expected at the next international travel review on 24 June. The rules change could see those who have been double-jabbed undergoing daily testing rather than quarantining before and after travelling to England from non-green list destinations this summer. Meanwhile, mental health minister Nadine Dorries has claimed that some people enjoyed lockdown and that the pandemic’s impact on mental health isn’t all doom and gloom. I know the outlook about the pandemic and the impact on mental health, if you read the media, is all doom and gl...

Boris Johnson is at odds with his chancellor Rishi Sunak over Treasury plans to suspend the triple lock on pensions for a year, with frustration over the prime minister’s desire to make expensive policy pledges, according to reports. The Sunday Times claimed that officials were said to be examining plans to prevent a rise in average wages over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic leading to a 6 per cent increase in the state pension costing the government £4bn. It added that there was growing consternation over Mr Johnson’s habit of announcing plans that would cost billions of pounds when there is no means to pay for them. It came as Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said he believed his party could win a large number of Tory constituencies in the south of England, where the Conservatives had...

Manchester Arena suicide bomber Salman Abedi should have been identified as a threat on the night of the attack by those in charge of security, a public inquiry into the May 2017 attack has found. In his report examining security arrangements at the venue where 22 people were murdered and hundreds were injured at the end of an Ariana Grande concert, inquiry chairman Sir John Saunders found there were a number of missed opportunities to prevent or minimise the "devastating impact". Sir John said he considered it likely Salman Abedi would still have detonated his device if confronted but the loss of life and injury is highly likely to have been less. He said that there were serious shortcomings in the security provided by the British Transport Police (BTP) among others as well as mistake...

MPs have voted by a margin of 461 to 60 to back Boris Johnson’s plan to extend lockdown restrictions in England to 19 July, despite a rebellion by Tory backbenchers in the House of Commons. It means limits on numbers for sports events, theatres and cinemas will remain in place, nightclub doors will remain closed and people will be asked to continue working from home where possible. Several furious Tories rounded on the prime minister for the four-week delay, which he said was forced on him by surging cases of the highly contagious Delta variant of Covid-19. That variant could push the R rate up to 7 if left to spread without any restrictions, Susan Hopkins, a Public Health England chief warned. Any value above 1 means the virus is spreading exponentially. Another 9,055 new Covid-19 ca...

More than 30 million people in the UK are now fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the government. A total of 30,209,707 people have had both doses of a coronavirus vaccine (57.4% of the adult population). And 41,831,056 have received a first jab (79.4%). It comes as the UK reported more than 7,000 daily COVID cases for a seventh day in a row. Another 7,673 infections have been recorded in the latest 24-hour period, along with 10 more coronavirus-related deaths. The figures compare with 7,742 infections and three fatalities announced on Monday, while 6,048 cases and 13 deaths were recorded this time last week. NHS England has now extended the offer of a vaccine to everyone over the age of 23. And all over-18s in England will be able to book a first dose by the end of this w...

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has called for a bit of respect from EU leaders as he claimed the bloc's senior figures serially talk about Northern Ireland as if it were somehow a different country from the UK. The UK and EU are currently at loggerheads over the implementation of post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland known as the Northern Ireland Protocol ahead of the end of a "grace period" for some border checks at the end of this month. The row has threatened to overshadow the UK's hosting of the G7 summit in Carbis Bay, Cornwall, this weekend - during which Prime Minister Boris Johnson has claimed some in the EU needed to get into their heads that the UK is a single country. The prime minister's ire is reported to have been raised during his bilateral talks with French Pre...

Boris Johnson has admitted he is less optimistic about the easing of lockdown restrictions than he was last month and offered a strong hint he will delay the 21 June reopening. The prime minister, speaking to Sky News at the G7 summit in Cornwall, said he was prepared to be "cautious" over the fourth and final stage in his roadmap for lifting COVID measures. Although Mr Johnson previously hoped to remove all remaining legal restrictions on social contact on 21 June, it has been suggested he could now delay step four of his roadmap by as much as a month. The prime minister said it was "clear" the Delta variant of COVID, first discovered in India, was "more transmissible" with coronavirus cases and the number of people in hospital increasing in the UK. Now we don't know to what extent ...

Boris Johnson is set to delay the lifting of remaining coronavirus restrictions in England for a month after his chief medical adviser pressed him to postpone the move following a surge in Covid-19 cases. The restrictions are meant to be removed on June 21, but Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, has sought a four-week delay. The prime minister is due to make an announcement on Monday. The expected delay to lifting restrictions comes as the NHS races to vaccinate more adults amid a sharp rise in Covid-19 infections and hospitalisations across the UK due to the coronavirus variant named Delta. Almost 15m adults in England remain unvaccinated, including 2m people aged over 50, according to Financial Times analysis. Nine in every 10 new Covid-19 cases are the Delta variant, ac...