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Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Supreme court justice will not retire after cancer diagnosis - BBC News
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2020-07-17
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The court's most senior liberal justice has a recurrence of cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy.
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US & Canada
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Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the court's most senior liberal justice, and her health is closely watched
US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has said she is undergoing chemotherapy for a recurrence of cancer, but will not be retiring.
In a statement, the 87-year-old judge said the treatment was having "positive results" and she was "fully able" to continue in her post.
Ms Ginsburg said a scan had revealed lesions on her liver, but the chemotherapy had helped to reduce them.
As the court's most senior liberal justice, her health is closely watched.
She has received hospital treatment a number of times in recent years but has returned swiftly to work on each occasion.
"On May 19, I began a course of chemotherapy to treat a recurrence of cancer," Ms Ginsburg said in her statement.
"The chemotherapy course... is yielding positive results," she added. "My most recent scan on 7 July indicated [a] significant reduction of the liver lesions and no new disease.
"I am tolerating chemotherapy well and am encouraged by the success of my current treatment," she said. "I will continue bi-weekly chemotherapy to keep my cancer at bay."
Supreme Court justices serve for life or until they choose to retire, and supporters have expressed concern that if anything were to happen to Ms Ginsburg a more conservative judge might replace her while President Donald Trump, a Republican, remains in office.
"I have often said I would remain a member of the Court as long as I can do the job full steam," Ms Ginsburg said in the statement. "I remain fully able to do that."
The Supreme Court justices pose for their official portrait in 2018
Mr Trump has appointed two judges since taking office, leaving the current bench with a 5-4 conservative leaning.
In May, Ms Ginsburg underwent non-surgical treatment for a benign gallbladder condition, and participated in the Supreme Court's oral arguments from hospital. She has been treated for cancer four times in 20 years, including two separate bouts last year.
Earlier this week, she was released from Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Hospital after a day of treatment for a possible infection. Ms Ginsburg is now "home and doing well", the court said on Tuesday.
Despite her several health setbacks, Ms Ginsburg had not missed a single day of oral arguments in her 25 years on the court until last January, when she worked from home while recovering from surgery.
Joan Ruth Bader was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1933 to Jewish immigrant parents. At 17 years old, she lost her mother to cancer.
She attended Cornell University, where she met her husband, Marty Ginsburg. The pair had two children and remained together for 56 years, until Marty's death in 2010.
The progressive hero has grown into a pop icon in recent years
Both attended Harvard Law School. When Justice Ginsburg attended in 1956, one year behind her husband, she was one of nine women to enrol. While there, she and her female cohort were famously asked by the dean to justify taking the spot of a man in his school.
Ms Ginsburg later transferred to Columbia Law School in New York, becoming the first woman to work at both school's law reviews.
Despite her academic success, she struggled to find work.
"Not a law firm in the entire city of New York would employ me," she once said. "I struck out on three grounds: I was Jewish, a woman and a mother."
She went on to become a professor at Rutgers Law School in 1963, and co-founded the Women's Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). As the ACLU's general counsel, Ms Ginsburg took up a series of gender discrimination cases, six of which saw her arguing before the Supreme Court.
In part due to her husband's enthusiastic lobbying, Ms Ginsburg was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1993 by then President Bill Clinton. She became the second woman in US history nominated to the august body.
Justice Ginsburg was the second woman in US history to be nominated to the Supreme Court
During her years on the court, as the bench has become more conservative, she has increasingly moved to the left, gaining a reputation for her spirited dissents.
And in recent years, she has grown into a pop culture phenomenon.
In part due to her scathing dissents, Ms Ginsburg became the subject of a Tumblr account called Notorious RBG - a nod to the late rapper, The Notorious BIG. She has been played by actress and comedian Kate McKinnon on Saturday Night Live, and has her likeness painted on T-shirts, mugs and posters.
"I'm 84 years old," Ms Ginsburg says about her newfound fame in the 2018 documentary RBG.
"And everyone wants to take their picture with me."
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Christopher Kapessa: A mum’s fight for justice for her son - BBC News
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2020-07-13
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Evidence shows the teen was pushed into a river and died - so why hasn't the suspect been prosecuted?
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Stories
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. "He had so much passion for football"
Alina Joseph remembers sitting with her son Christopher Kapessa in their living room watching the 2018 Fifa World Cup on the telly.
It was a scorcher of a day but Christopher was glued to the screen watching Cristiano Ronaldo playing for Portugal.
He knew his mum wasn't really a football fan but he couldn't resist telling her which team was the best, what the rules were and who his favourite player was.
When she went upstairs to have a lie-down, it wasn't long before she was woken up by the huge racket coming from downstairs.
"He had so much passion for football," Alina tells me. "His younger brother misses him so much, especially when it comes to football, because Christopher was teaching him how to play."
Christopher was 13 when his body was found in the River Cynon in Rhondda Cynon Taff, south Wales, on 1 July last year.
He'd been out with a group of other young people on a really hot day when it happened. He was the only black child there.
Within 24 hours, South Wales Police had told his mum there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding his death - it was a tragic accident.
But the family and their lawyer raised concerns about how the investigation was handled and it was taken on by the force's major crime unit.
Then in February this year, Alina got a letter from the Crown Prosecution Service.
It said there was "clear evidence" that Christopher - who couldn't swim - had been pushed into the river.
It said there was "sufficient evidence to support a charge of unlawful act of manslaughter" but they weren't going to prosecute the 14-year-old suspect because it wasn't in the "public interest".
Christopher's family have accused the police and the CPS of institutional racism.
"If this had been 14 black youths and a white victim we have no doubt that the approach of the police and outcome would have been different," Alina said at the time.
Alina Joseph has questioned why the suspect hasn't been prosecuted over her son's death
I'm chatting to Alina on the phone a day before the first anniversary of her son's death.
Three days earlier, I'd been at a remembrance event where friends and family gathered to share their memories of Christopher.
His 14-year-old friend Cobi spoke through tears as he described how much Christopher meant to him.
"Christopher wasn't just a friend, he was more or less family. He was always cheeky - in a good way," he told the crowd.
I've reported on many stories about people who've died - and there are some that just really hit you without warning.
I was there writing notes of what Cobi was saying when I just had to stop because I welled up.
This young lad was so upset but from somewhere he found the strength to speak up for his friend.
"To see the same joy that he gave me as his mum, he was able to give to somebody else's heart - that was deep," Alina tells me.
Cobi paid tribute to Christopher wearing a football shirt with his friend's surname on it
At times, you can hear the pride in Alina's voice when she talks about her son - it feels just like a very normal conversation.
She tells me how he loved watching YouTube videos about history and how he had this certain way of saying "Mummy" which meant he wanted a fiver from her.
Then there were the constant arguments with his six brothers and sisters over sharing the PlayStation - because he wanted to play Minecraft and Fortnite.
Oh, and then there were all the times he broke his glasses.
"He slept with his glasses, we'd have to go in and take them off," Alina tells me.
"Everybody knew we needed to help him with his glasses because we were sure that the opticians had had enough.
"I remember one time he was in the shower and he was having a shower in the glasses. I said 'Christopher!' and he said 'Mum I can't really see properly'.
"Christopher was just funny in his own way."
Flowers were left near to the place where Christopher died a year on from his death
It was a sunny morning when Alina woke up on the day Christopher died.
"I don't like beautiful mornings anymore because it's like you know something bad is just gonna end up happening," she tells me.
The memory of that day must be so strong in her mind - she talks me through it in such detail.
Christopher had come in from school and a few minutes later he told his mum he was going out to play football.
Alina agreed he could go - but never got to say "see you later" or "goodbye".
"I hate that word now, or goodnight. What's good about it?" she says.
Later on, Alina was on the phone to her sister in Africa when there was a knock on the door.
"We were chatting away, we were laughing - he was there dying," she says through tears.
It was Christopher's sports coach. "We can't find Christopher, apparently he's jumped off a bridge," he told her.
Police focused on a bridge over the River Cynon a part of their investigation
Time is a bit blur for her after that.
Alina started to go down to the river where he was last seen, but the roads were blocked off and she was told to wait at home as the police were on their way.
But the officers couldn't tell her anything so she tried to keep busy by washing the dishes. Eventually some news came in.
"We need to go to the hospital. We've found him," an officer told Alina.
As we continue talking about it over the phone, the emotion of it all just overwhelms her.
Hearing a mum wail down the phone for her son is absolutely heartbreaking - and we take a little break from the interview.
But then she agrees to carry on - she's ready to tell me what happened next.
"I was blocking it, saying that he's fine, everything's fine. I'm actually gonna tell him off," she recalls.
"I was sweating like mad and every sound of that siren just made the situation even worse."
Alina releases a dove in memory of her son at his remembrance event
Alina was taken into a grey room - the atmosphere was so bad. No-one could give her any information about Christopher.
Frustrated and angry, she left and set off down the hospital corridor.
"I just started walking. I started crying. I just started walking, not knowing I was even actually walking in the right direction.
"Everybody was just lined up. The more I approached, they had their heads down. He was asleep. The only difference was he didn't have his glasses. And I knew.
"I tried calling his name. Normally he'd be like 'Yes Mama, I'm OK, Stop fussing, Mama. Mama, I didn't do it, it wasn't me.'
"Nothing like that was coming out."
Alina then goes on to tell me how the family had so many questions that weren't getting answered.
Where exactly did he jump off the bridge? Why wasn't he wearing the same clothes in the morgue as he had been when he had left the house? How many people were actually there when Christopher fell into the river?
Christopher's friends and family brought balloons with messages to his remembrance event
It took seven months for Alina to find out exactly what evidence there was about how her son had died.
"There was clear evidence that the suspect pushed Christopher in the back with both hands causing him to fall into the river," the letter from the CPS said.
"That push was an unlawful act and it was clearly dangerous in that on an objective standard it created a danger of some harm."
It said that the evidence suggested the push was "not in an effort to harm someone" but "ill considered" and the suspect was "mature and intelligent for his age" and had a "good school record".
It said the suspect "will have learnt the very harshest of lessons from this experience, which will act as a deterrent from further offending".
It also explained the decision not to prosecute had considered the best interest of the suspect and the adverse impact on his future prospects.
"Christopher had so much going for him, so for that to be taken away and then to be told that somebody else's future is of more value than of his, that's very painful," Alina told the BBC at the time.
Christopher's family came together for his remembrance event on 27 June
During our chat, Alina told me her family had experienced racism since moving from London to south Wales in 2011.
They'd had "hate letters" sent to the house, her children have been "peed on" and once Christopher had been left in a "pool of blood" after being attacked in a shop.
I've seen the comments some people have posted on Facebook about this case and they're honestly tough to read.
"Pulling the race card is disgusting, total disrespect for the emergency services, sadly the boy has lost his life. People have donated thousands of pounds for his funeral, a little bit of gratitude is in order," one woman wrote.
"It's more of a worry that mum gave the boy permission to go swimming and he couldn't swim. It wasn't as if it was a swimming pool where lifeguards could have been at hand," another wrote.
"Sad to hear this, but pulling out the race card cheapens and demeans the issue and loses respect," said one man.
And these are not from anonymous trolls. They're from people from around the community where Christopher lived.
Some of the Facebook comments I've seen about this case have been tough to read
The lack of compassion and nastiness that comes across in the comments must be so difficult for Alina to get her head around.
She's a mum who has lost her 13-year-old child. Imagine if it was your son, your brother, your nephew? Would you just accept what had happened?
Christopher's mum has been supported by anti-racism charity The Monitoring Group ever since the tragedy happened.
"This isn't playing the race card," its director Suresh Grover tells me.
"This is the lived experience of a large number of black people which tells you that when there are a large number of black people or children in the majority, and there are accusations of crimes, inevitably, they're mostly charged.
"And when black people are in the minority and suffer racial violence with a group of white people, we have cases which show that white people are never charged.
'I think for those people who say it's the 'race card' I just would say stop denying the reality that is so prevalent for black people in this country."
Suresh says there are still so many questions the family want answering.
"I think racism is a factor that can't be taken out and has to be examined by the police.
"For us, what's important is what exactly was said to Christopher before he was pushed in? What are the circumstances that led to his death? Was he afraid before he was pushed in? Was he being goaded before he was pushed in?
"What's very clear is that had Christopher been the only white person, I think the investigation wouldn't have come to the conclusion so quickly that it was an accident."
Suresh Grover is leading the Justice For Christopher Kapessa campaign
Christopher's family have asked for the CPS's decision not to prosecute the suspect to be reviewed. They're currently waiting for the outcome.
A crowdfunding page has raised nearly £20,000 to help with the family's legal fees and an online petition demanding "Justice For Christopher Kapessa" has more than 50,000 signatures.
"For Alina, justice looks like having confidence in the police to investigate properly and for the CPS to put the evidence in front of the jury, and for her boy's life to be treated on equal terms with any other person, not as somebody who has less worth or less value or less rights," Suresh says.
I contacted the CPS but they told me it couldn't comment because its decision not to prosecute the suspect is still under review. They wouldn't tell me when the family might hear the outcome.
South Wales Police said it's also waiting for the decision to be made.
It added: "South Wales Police has also referred the investigation to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) who will examine our response and subsequent investigation into the tragic circumstances surrounding Christopher's death.
"We will be absolutely committed to implementing any opportunities for learning by South Wales Police."
The IOPC said its investigation has made "good progress" but is partially suspended while the CPS's decision is under review.
For now, Alina just has to wait.
I think back to Christopher's remembrance event and there's one thing that his friend Coby says that really sticks out in my mind.
It's something I think is important to remember, whatever happens next.
"Christopher Kapessa was an amazing person and he didn't deserve this."
Cherry Wilson is a proud northerner who recently moved back to Stockport, Greater Manchester, where she grew up.
She studied journalism in Sheffield and was the first in her family to go to university. Her passion is telling the stories of the people and communities behind the headlines, exploring issues that matter to them.
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https://bbc.co.uk/news/stories-53312489
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Priti Patel sets out post-Brexit immigration plan - including health and care visa - BBC News
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2020-07-13
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The new points-based system has a visa for health staff but most care home workers will be excluded.
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UK Politics
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A fast-track health and care visa has been unveiled as part of the UK's plans for a points-based immigration system when freedom of movement with the EU ends in January.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said employers would be encouraged to invest in workers from within the UK.
But the new system, she added, would also allow them to "attract the best and brightest from around the world".
Unions have expressed concerns that the visa will exclude social care workers.
The health and care visa will be open to workers who have a confirmed job offer in one of a series of "skilled" roles within the NHS or care sector - or for NHS service providers, such as doctors, nurses, radiographers, social workers and paramedics.
However, the GMB union, representing NHS staff, described the new rules as an "embarrassing shambles", criticising the exclusion of frontline care home workers and contractors, and pointing out that a minimum salary threshold meant many cleaners, porters and support staff would also not qualify.
The new visa system is set to come into force on New Year's Day, immediately ending freedom of movement with the EU.
Under the government's plans when the Brexit transition period ends, those wishing to live and work in the UK must gain 70 points.
There is a mandatory requirement for visa applicants to have an offer of a job on a list of eligible occupations and speak English - earning them 50 points.
There is a minimum salary requirement of £20,480.
Further Points would be awarded for meeting criteria such as holding a PhD relevant to the job, or earning more than a "general salary threshold" of £25,600.
Those with job offers in "shortage occupations" such as nursing and civil engineering would also be able to earn extra points.
The home secretary said it would be simpler for businesses to access talent
In a written ministerial statement to the House of Commons, Ms Patel said: "At a time where an increased number of people across the UK are looking for work, the new points-based system will encourage employers to invest in the domestic UK workforce, rather than simply relying on labour from abroad.
"But we are also making necessary changes, so it is simpler for employers to attract the best and brightest from around the world to come to the UK to complement the skills we already have."
Labour said it would scrutinise the proposals "very carefully", saying the government had "rushed through immigration legislation with very little detail in the middle of a global pandemic".
One of the biggest arguments for leaving the EU is that it would allow the UK to sets its own immigration policy.
The government's aim is a system that provides flexibility for employers - so the minimum salary threshold starts at just over £20,000 and there's no need to prove that a job couldn't have been offered to someone already living in the country.
But there are restrictions too: the vast majority of vacant positions in the social care sector will not be filled from immigration as these workers are not classed as skilled - and they're not eligible for the rebranded NHS and care workers fast track visa.
In short, care workers won't be able to apply for a visa dedicated to care.
Ministers say immigration can't solve the care sector's problems which, they argue, are down to poor pay and career prospects - making the job unattractive to British workers who could be capable of filling the roles.
The new health and care visa will have a reduced fee. Those applying for it should expect a reply within three weeks, the government said.
Caroline Abrahams at charity Age UK said it was a "care visa in name only. Care will scarcely benefit at all since the vast majority of care workforce roles are ineligible".
The union Unison said the work of the social care sector was in crisis long before the coronavirus pandemic and failing to include care workers was a "disastrous mistake that will make existing problems spiral".
Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said: "To exclude care workers from the health visa is a clear signal that this government does not appreciate the skill and dedication these roles involve... it is yet another insult from this Tory party to those who have been at the frontline of this crisis."
However, the prime minister's official spokesman said the government wanted employers in the sector to invest more in training and development for people already in the UK - including EU citizens - to become care workers, and it had provided additional funding to support it.
"Our independent migration advisers have said that immigration is not the sole answer here," he added.
The home secretary said frontline health workers would not have to pay the Immigration Health Surcharge - the fee of up to £400 a year that most migrants who have not been granted permanent residency in the UK need to pay to receive NHS care.
Ms Patel also said the visa process for students was being refined, with a new graduate route being launched next summer to "help retain the brightest and the best students to contribute to the UK post-study".
International students would be able to stay for a minimum of two years after finishing their studies, she said.
The paper also confirms that foreign criminals who have been jailed for more than a year could be banned from coming to the UK and foreign nationals already in the UK who have been sentenced to a year or more in prison "must be considered for deportation".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53382818
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Manchester City overturn two-year ban from European competition on appeal to Cas - BBC Sport
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2020-07-13
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Manchester City successfully overturn their two-year ban from European club competitions.
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Manchester City have successfully overturned their two-year ban from European club competitions.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) announced the club were cleared of "disguising equity funds as sponsorship contributions".
Uefa issued the ban in February after ruling City had committed "serious breaches" of Financial Fair Play regulations between 2012 and 2016.
City's fine has been cut from 30m euros (£26.9m) to 10m euros.
In delivering the ruling on Monday, Cas said City did "fail to cooperate with Uefa authorities" but overturned the decision by Uefa's club financial control body (CFCB) to ban them.
City said the decision was "validation of the club's position and the body of evidence that it was able to present".
"The club wishes to thank the panel members for their diligence and the due process that they administered," City added.
What did the ruling say?
Cas' ruling means City, who are guaranteed to finish second in the Premier League this season, will play in the 2020-21 Champions League.
In this year's competition, Pep Guardiola's side face Real Madrid in their last-16 second leg at Etihad Stadium on 7 August. They lead 2-1 from the first leg and will face Juventus or Lyon if they progress.
Cas, who will provide full written reasons for the ruling "in a few days" said the decision "emphasised that most of the alleged breaches reported by the adjudicatory chamber of the CFCB were either not established or time-barred".
It added that in clearing City of the more serious charges surrounding "dishonest concealment" of sponsorship deals it was "not appropriate to impose a ban on participating in Uefa's club competitions" for the lesser charge of "obstructing the CFCB's investigations".
On reducing the fine, Cas said that, while it considered "the importance of the co-operation of clubs in investigations conducted by the CFCB" and Manchester City's "disregard of such principle and its obstruction of the investigations", the Cas panel "considered it appropriate to reduce Uefa's initial fine by two-thirds".
It added: "The final award with reasons will be published on the Cas website in a few days."
Uefa said it noted there was "insufficient conclusive evidence to uphold all of the CFCB's conclusions in this specific case and that many of the alleged breaches were time-barred".
The governing body added: "Over the last few years, Financial Fair Play has played a significant role in protecting clubs and helping them become financially sustainable and Uefa and the European Club Association remain committed to its principles."
Privately, City are hugely satisfied with today's decision. For, while the verdict is being viewed as a major blow for the whole FFP concept, senior sources at the club insist their argument - and resistance to complying with the initial hearing - was because of opposition to the process they were being judged by, not the regulation itself.
City could not see how it was fair that the evidence being used against them was obtained illegally particularly as, in their view, it created a distorted picture of the reality. It is also being stressed the non-compliance aspect of this case was with the Uefa process, not case.
And, given the vehemence with which they repeatedly argued that the emails used as evidence against them was obtained illegally, it is not hard to work out what the major area of non-compliance might have been.
Even as their two-year ban was being announced in February, the club were confident it would be overturned if they were given what, in their eyes, constituted a fair hearing and they now feel vindicated at how the situation has unfolded.
No-one from the club is saying so but you get the sense the first line of CAS' statement is the most pleasing from their point of view because it addresses the very crux of the argument City were trying to make, namely, they did not cheat the system by inflating their deals.
What were City accused of?
Uefa launched an investigation after German newspaper Der Spiegel published leaked documents in November 2018 alleging City had inflated the value of a sponsorship deal, misleading European football's governing body.
Reports alleged City - who have always denied wrongdoing - deliberately misled Uefa so they could meet FFP rules requiring clubs to break even.
On 14 February, the independent adjudicatory chamber of the CFCB said City had broken the rules by "overstating its sponsorship revenue in its accounts and in the break-even information submitted to Uefa between 2012 and 2016".
It added that City had "failed to cooperate in the investigation".
City, who have been owned by Sheikh Mansour since 2008, were fined £49m in 2014 for a previous breach of regulations.
City failed in an initial bid to have Cas halt Uefa's investigation in November last year.
After the two-year ban was announced, City said the process that led to it was "flawed" and "prejudicial" and immediately announced their intention to appeal.
They alleged they had been the victim of an illegal hack by people who had the express intention of damaging their reputation and that the emails were being used as the basis for reports which were being taken out of context.
City also believed the CFCB was not independent and ended up being distrustful of it, partly because of the amount of secretive information the club felt was leaked to the media.
City boss Guardiola had said on Friday that he was "fully confident about what the club has done".
Uefa could appeal against the decision in the Swiss federal courts. But BBC Sport understands that is not a route Uefa is keen to go down.
It is unlikely that any such appeal would be heard before the 2020-21 Champions League starts.
The Premier League could have looked to take action as well if the ban had been upheld because their own FFP rules are similar - but not exactly the same - as Uefa's.
Over the last decade, City have been the dominant force in the English game, but few results have been as important as this one.
An upheld two-year ban would have been disastrous for the club's finances, their chances of keeping their best players and, above all, their reputation.
Instead, City can breathe a huge sigh of relief, and the uncertainty instead surrounds Uefa and its financial rules.
The credibility off FFP lies in tatters. After all, how can FFP survive after one of the world's richest clubs, having been found guilty of obstructing a Uefa investigation, a club that was found to have breached the rules in 2014, walk away with just a 10m euros fine?
Many will wonder what kind of deterrent that sets for other clubs, especially clubs with such financial resources. It shows how difficult it has become for governing bodies to enforce the rules.
The language that Cas uses is important. Uefa noted that Cas found "insufficient conclusive evidence" to uphold all of its conclusions, not 'no evidence'. And some allegations were dismissed because they were more than five years old. And, because City were found to have failed to co-operate, this falls short of a full exoneration.
But City are unlikely to care too much about that and what a story it would be if they can follow this up with a first Champions League success.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53387306
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Coronavirus: Tom Hanks 'has no respect' for people not wearing masks - BBC News
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2020-07-07
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The actor strongly criticises people who don't wear face coverings amid the coronavirus pandemic.
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Entertainment & Arts
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Tom Hanks criticised those who refuse to wear facemasks
Tom Hanks, who recovered from Covid-19 earlier this year, has said he "has no respect" for people who decline to wear a mask in public during the pandemic.
The actor and his wife Rita Wilson tested positive for coronavirus while filming in Australia in March.
Many governments now recommend face coverings, but they are not mandatory in most places.
Hanks said: "I don't get it, I simply do not get it, it is literally the least you can do."
The actor was speaking to the Associated Press about face coverings while promoting his latest film.
"If anybody wants to build up an argument about doing the least they can do, I wouldn't trust them with a driver's licence," he said.
"I mean, when you drive a car, you've got to obey speed limits, you've got to use your turn signals [indicators], you've got to avoid hitting pedestrians. If you can't do those three things, you shouldn't be driving a car.
"If you can't wear a mask and wash your hands and social distance, I've got no respect for you, man. I don't buy your argument."
Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson tested positive for coronavirus in March
The refusal of some members of the public to wear masks is a particular issue in the US, which leads the world in coronavirus deaths and infections.
US President Donald Trump had previously voiced his opposition to them, but he changed his tone last week, telling Fox News he is "all for masks".
Hanks is a two-time Oscar winner, taking home the best actor prize for both Philadelphia and Forrest Gump in the 1990s.
His new film, Greyhound, was originally due to be released in cinemas but will now be screened on Apple TV instead.
Many cinemas around the world remain closed to slow the spread of infections amid the pandemic, but they are now allowed to open in the UK.
"We are all heartbroken that this movie is not playing in cinemas," Hanks told AFP. "But with that removed as a possibility, we were left with this as a reality."
In another interview with Reuters, Hanks said Greyhound was made for "a big, massive, immersive experience that can really only come out when you're in a movie theatre with at least 100 other people".
But with the coronavirus pandemic, "we've got to roll with these punches" and put it online for home viewing, he said.
Tom Hanks was named the recipient of the Cecil B DeMille award at the Golden Globes earlier this year
In the movie, Hanks plays Commander Ernest Krause, a naval officer embarking on his first mission of World War Two.
Hanks also wrote the screenplay, adapting it from the 1955 CS Forester novel The Good Shepherd.
In his three-star review of the film, Empire's Ian Freer said the film was "a serious, well-intentioned slice of WWII naval history full of compelling detail and good action but lacking the dimensions and dynamics to make you truly feel it".
Digital Spy's Gabriella Geisinger noted: "Greyhound really suffers from the small screen. It is meant to be a naval epic, whose high-seas stakes and battles, with gunfire through the dark as sea-spray washes aboard, is made less visceral on a small screen in your relatively-well-lit living room."
"Greyhound is an efficient, satisfying war film," wrote Kevin Crust in the Los Angeles Times. "In that regard, it's a fresh telling of familiar elements, buoyed by the powerfully understated performances."
He added: "It's understandable that Sony opted to go the digital route in selling Greyhound "to Apple TV+, but it would have been an especially good film to experience on the big screen in an auditorium."
Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.
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Johnny Depp's lawyers say video shows Amber Heard 'attacked' sister - BBC News
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2020-07-25
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The video was shown to the High Court, after being provided by an anonymous source on Thursday.
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UK
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Unused reality TV footage shows a woman asking Whitney Henriquez, "did you get in a fight?"
A video which Johnny Depp's lawyers say shows his ex-wife Amber Heard "attacked" her sister has been shown to the High Court.
In the video, which was given to his legal team on Thursday night, friends of Whitney Henriquez suggest her sister had "beat" her and appear to inspect her body for bruises.
Mr Depp, 57, is suing the publisher of the Sun over an online article that labelled him a "wife beater".
The paper insists it was accurate.
In the video, which was shown to the court on the 14th day of the hearing in London, Ms Henriquez is talking with friends by a pool.
One friend is heard saying, "did you get in a fight?" and then "I can't believe Amber beat your ass."
One woman appears to inspect Ms Henriquez's cheek and arm, and Ms Henriquez is heard saying she is not going to talk about it.
Amber Heard arrives at the High Court on Friday, after giving evidence the previous day
Mr Depp's barrister, David Sherborne, said his team received the video from "an anonymous source", after Ms Henriquez said in court that her sister had never attacked her.
He said the video was captured during the filming of a reality television show in 2006 or 2007 and was not for broadcast, but was "the rushes" - the unedited, raw footage.
He told the court: "We were contacted to explain that Ms Amber Heard had a history of violence and attacking people and this video, which was attached, of her sister Whitney was taken shortly after Amber Heard had attacked her, and Ms Whitney was filmed with people commenting on the bruises on her face and body."
Mr Sherborne said the newly disclosed video material "demonstrates Ms Whitney was lying yesterday" and that she had "tailored" her evidence "to meet her sister's evidence".
Returning to the witness stand, Ms Henriquez told the court she had been referring in the video to a verbal argument she had had with her sister and denied it had been physical.
She said her friends were "inferring, trying to make a storyline - albeit a bad one - interesting, nothing more".
On Thursday, Ms Henriquez said Ms Heard had never hit her and denied being "frightened" of her sister.
She said she had seen Mr Depp punch Ms Heard "really hard in the head... multiple times" in Los Angeles in March 2015. Ms Henriquez acknowledged that Ms Heard had punched Mr Depp on that occasion - but said it was only "in my defence" because Ms Heard believed Mr Depp was going to push Ms Henriquez down the stairs.
Addressing the court on Friday, Mr Sherborne said Ms Henriquez's evidence about the so-called "stairs incident" was "the only occasion on which any other human being is supposed to have witnessed" Mr Depp being violent towards Ms Heard.
"The reliability of Ms Whitney is critical," he added.
Mr Depp denies allegations he was violent towards Ms Heard
Mr Sherborne said Ms Heard's evidence was that "she was never violent, she (has not) physically attacked Mr Depp... and the only occasion is said to be when she was acting in self-defence".
"Evidence that Ms Heard was violent towards her sister is relevant to that issue," he said.
Sasha Wass QC, who represents the Sun's publisher, News Group Newspapers (NGN), said she had not been aware of the video until Mr Sherborne told the court about it and argued it was "meaningless".
"This is an undated piece of film footage in circumstances which appear to be some sort of reality TV programme, which is flippant, certainly not serious," she told the court.
"This is a light-hearted exchange, there is no evidence of any injuries and it will take the matter... no further."
However, Mr Sherborne, representing Mr Depp, argued: "We say it is quite clear from that video that not only did Ms Amber Heard assault her sister, but it was quite clear also that the injuries that were suffered by Ms Whitney Heard are being examined by the individual that we see on the tape.
"There is no denial of the fact that Ms Amber Heard 'beat up' Ms Whitney Heard and that there are injuries."
Ms Heard's acting coach Kristina Sexton has also been giving evidence by video link from Australia.
In a written witness statement, Ms Sexton said she had met the actress in 2009 and the pair became friends "quite quickly".
She said Ms Heard became a "nervous wreck" about choosing film roles because she was "so worried" about Mr Depp's reaction.
Ms Sexton alleged Mr Depp "dictated" his ex-wife's work and told her not to take certain jobs because he did not want her doing "whore parts".
Giving evidence, Ms Sexton confirmed to Mr Depp's lawyer, Eleanor Laws QC, that she had not seen the actor "hit, kick or throw anything" at Ms Heard.
Under questioning from NGN's lawyer, Ms Wass, Ms Sexton said she had previously been aware of "verbal fights" between the pair but in April 2016, Ms Heard told her Mr Depp had been hitting her and had tried to strangle her.
The libel case, which is due to finish next week, centres on an article published on the Sun's website in April 2018 under the headline "Gone Potty: How can JK Rowling be 'genuinely happy' casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?".
The article related to allegations made by Ms Heard, which Mr Depp denies.
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Amazon-owned Whole Foods in Black Lives Matter legal claim - BBC News
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2020-07-22
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The Amazon-owned supermarket is accused of discriminating against black staff over BLM face masks.
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Business
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Workers at Whole Foods are suing the US supermarket for punishing them for wearing Black Lives Matter masks.
The federal lawsuit says the firm discriminated against black staff by selectively enforcing its dress code.
Whole Foods, owned by tech giant Amazon, forbids staff from wearing clothes with messages that are not company-related.
It denied firing a worker over the issue, but would not comment on the legal action.
"While we cannot comment on pending litigation, it is critical to clarify that no Team Members have been terminated for wearing Black Lives Matter face masks or apparel," the company said in a statement.
The lawsuit says more than 40 Whole Foods employees at locations across the country have been punished for wearing the Black Lives Matter masks, which became popular amid the outcry over George Floyd's death at the hands of police.
Staff wearing clothing with other messages, such as LGBTQ pins or sports team apparel, had not faced such discipline in the past, the lawsuit says.
"Whole Foods' selective enforcement of its dress code in disciplining employees who wear apparel expressing support for the Black Lives Matter movement constitutes unlawful discrimination," the lawsuit says.
The complaint asks the court to strike down Whole Foods' policy and bar the company from taking further action or retaliating against the workers. It also seeks back-pay for workers sent home for wearing the masks,
The lawsuit was filed by 14 employees as a class action suit on behalf of all Whole Foods staff. One of the workers claims she was fired for organising mask wearing and leading protests against the company's response.
In a statement, Whole Foods denied that claim, saying the employee, Savannah Kinzer, had been dismissed for "repeatedly violating our time and attendance policy by not working her assigned shifts, reporting late for work multiple times in the past nine days and choosing to leave during her scheduled shifts.
"It is simply untrue that she was separated from the company for wearing a Black Lives Matter face mask. As an employer we must uphold our policies in an equitable and consistent manner. Savannah had full understanding of our policies and was given a number of opportunities to comply," the firm said.
Shannon Liss-Riordan, the lawyer representing the workers, said the firm was "falsely attacking" Ms Kinzer.
"Their decision to retaliate against employees expressing support for this racial justice movement was bad enough, but their efforts to disparage an amazing activist and leader are beyond the pale," she said. "We look forward to making our argument in federal court."
She told the BBC the workers who filed the suit were angry in part over apparent hypocrisy, after Amazon and Whole Foods expressed public support for the Black Lives Matter movement.
"So many companies today are doing everything they can to profess how progressive they are... but when it actually comes to letting their employees express these same sentiments they get muzzled," she said.
The lawsuit is the latest clash involving Amazon and its workers.
The firm has faced repeated calls to do more to protect its supermarket and warehouse workers during the pandemic and been accused of retaliating against staff speaking out over the firm's environmental policies and coronavirus protections.
Earlier this year, an engineer quit, citing firings as evidence of a "vein of toxicity running through the company's culture".
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Coronavirus: Boris Johnson says response shows 'might of UK union' - BBC News
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2020-07-22
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Boris Johnson visits Scotland as the SNP says he is worried about support for independence.
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Scotland politics
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The response to the coronavirus pandemic has shown the "sheer might" of the UK union, Boris Johnson has said during a visit to Scotland.
Mr Johnson was in Orkney and the north of Scotland one year on from the day he took office as prime minister.
He said the work of the military and Treasury job retention schemes had proved the "merits of the union".
But the SNP said the visit showed Mr Johnson was "in a panic" about rising support for Scottish independence.
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon did not meet Mr Johnson during the trip but said she would continue to work with his government on the "immediate priority" of tackling coronavirus.
Ms Sturgeon said she did not think anyone should be "championing and celebrating a pandemic that has taken thousands of lives" to make a constitutional argument.
Mr Johnson said he "pledged to be a prime minister for every corner of the United Kingdom" when he entered Downing Street one year ago, adding that the response to the pandemic had shown his government's commitment to the whole of the UK.
The UK government has coordinated much of the country's economic response to the virus, including the coronavirus job retention furlough scheme.
But devolved governments have had control over most public health measures and have been able to set more local timetables and messaging.
Nicola Sturgeon said she was "always happy to meet the prime minister"
Although the whole of the UK entered lockdown in the same week, each constituent part has eased restrictions at a different rate.
Phase 3 of Scotland's "route map" out of lockdown began last week, as pubs, restaurants, hairdressers and barbers were allowed to reopen.
They were allowed to reopen in England slightly earlier on 4 July, along with holiday accommodation - including hotels, B&Bs, cottages, campsites and caravan parks.
Boris Johnson must have found recent opinion polls conducted in Scotland to be awkward reading.
Surveys suggesting rising support for Scottish independence and a significant gap between his approval ratings and those of Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, appear to have prompted him to make his first visit to Scotland since last year's general election.
The prime minister wants to use the trip to remind people in Scotland just how much cash the UK treasury has spent in response to the coronavirus crisis.
He is stressing that it is the Westminster government that has supported 900,000 people who might have otherwise lost their jobs and produced billions of pounds in extra spending for the NHS.
The SNP don't look too worried about a prime ministerial trip denting support for their cause.
On her 50th birthday, on Sunday, Nicola Sturgeon tweeted that a visit for Boris was the best birthday pressie she could hope for.
Every time the PM tells voters that it is only as part of the UK that Scottish businesses and public services could afford to cope with the pandemic, the SNP will reply that they are sick of being told that Scotland is "too wee, too poor and too stupid" to be independent.
Speaking in Orkney, where he met local fishermen, Mr Johnson said the "merits of the union" had been "proved throughout this crisis", citing the work of the military and the Treasury's support for workers and firms.
The UK government says the furlough and self-employment schemes have supported 900,000 jobs in Scotland, and that £4.6bn of additional funding was being provided to the Scottish government.
The prime minister also said not enough time had passed for another independence referendum to be held, saying the 2014 vote was a "once in a generation" event.
He said: "What I'm saying is that the union is a fantastically strong institution. It's helped our country through thick and thin.
"It's very, very valuable in terms of the support we've been able to give to everybody throughout all corners of the UK, and we had a referendum on breaking up the union a few years ago - I think only six years ago. That is not a generation by any computation and I think what people really want to do is see our whole country coming back strongly together, and that's what we're going to do."
Ms Sturgeon tweeted that the prime minister's visit to Scotland "highlighted the argument for Scottish independence".
However she said politicians should remain focused on tackling the coronavirus pandemic and "not use it as a political weapon".
At her coronavirus briefing on Thursday, Ms Sturgeon said she had "worked very hard to have a collaborative approach to the other governments of the UK".
She said financial support from the Treasury was "very welcome", but said it should be clear that "this is borrowed money" which would have to be repaid by Scottish taxpayers too - "it's not some kind of favour that has been done".
The first minister said UK-wide actions by Mr Johnson's administration were a reflection of where powers lie, saying that "if we held the powers we would be doing these things ourselves".
She added: "I just don't think any of us should be championing and celebrating a pandemic that has taken thousands of lives as some example of the pre-existing political cases we want to make.
"This has been a heart-breaking crisis that we are not out of yet. Too many people people have died and all of us have a really solemn responsibility to focus on and get our countries through, and that's what I'm going to continue to do.
"Campaigning right now is not my priority. Boris Johnson has every right to be on a campaign visit but in his shoes it's not what I would do."
Mr Johnson was greeted by a small group of protestors during his visit to Orkney
Mr Johnson also announced £50m of funding from the UK government for Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles - the latest in a series of "city and region deals" which see Scottish and UK ministers each pledge cash to various areas for spending on new infrastructure and local development schemes.
The Scottish government has also committed £50m to the "Islands growth deal", which will target sectors including tourism, energy and skills.
The timing of Mr Johnson's visit comes amid a "perfect storm" over Scottish independence, according to Sir Tom Devine, an emeritus professor of Scottish history at Edinburgh University.
Sir Tom told BBC Two's Newsnight the union is in its most fragile condition since 1745, and that opinion polling suggesting increasing support for independence in Scotland has been consistent for some time.
Newsnight's political editor Nick Watt added that a senior SNP source had told him they believed the party's moment "is at last arriving".
At Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, the SNP's Westminster leader Ian Blackford said Mr Johnson was visiting due to recent polls suggesting support for independence was on the rise.
Mr Blackford told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the prime minister's message would go down "particularly badly" in Scotland.
"I think what we've demonstrated over the course of the last few months [is] that in the areas of devolved responsibility, in the areas of public health, the leadership that's been shown by our first minister is in sharp contrast to the bluster that we've seen from Boris Johnson," he said.
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Priti Patel sets out post-Brexit immigration plan - including health and care visa - BBC News
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2020-07-14
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The new points-based system has a visa for health staff but most care home workers will be excluded.
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UK Politics
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A fast-track health and care visa has been unveiled as part of the UK's plans for a points-based immigration system when freedom of movement with the EU ends in January.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said employers would be encouraged to invest in workers from within the UK.
But the new system, she added, would also allow them to "attract the best and brightest from around the world".
Unions have expressed concerns that the visa will exclude social care workers.
The health and care visa will be open to workers who have a confirmed job offer in one of a series of "skilled" roles within the NHS or care sector - or for NHS service providers, such as doctors, nurses, radiographers, social workers and paramedics.
However, the GMB union, representing NHS staff, described the new rules as an "embarrassing shambles", criticising the exclusion of frontline care home workers and contractors, and pointing out that a minimum salary threshold meant many cleaners, porters and support staff would also not qualify.
The new visa system is set to come into force on New Year's Day, immediately ending freedom of movement with the EU.
Under the government's plans when the Brexit transition period ends, those wishing to live and work in the UK must gain 70 points.
There is a mandatory requirement for visa applicants to have an offer of a job on a list of eligible occupations and speak English - earning them 50 points.
There is a minimum salary requirement of £20,480.
Further Points would be awarded for meeting criteria such as holding a PhD relevant to the job, or earning more than a "general salary threshold" of £25,600.
Those with job offers in "shortage occupations" such as nursing and civil engineering would also be able to earn extra points.
The home secretary said it would be simpler for businesses to access talent
In a written ministerial statement to the House of Commons, Ms Patel said: "At a time where an increased number of people across the UK are looking for work, the new points-based system will encourage employers to invest in the domestic UK workforce, rather than simply relying on labour from abroad.
"But we are also making necessary changes, so it is simpler for employers to attract the best and brightest from around the world to come to the UK to complement the skills we already have."
Labour said it would scrutinise the proposals "very carefully", saying the government had "rushed through immigration legislation with very little detail in the middle of a global pandemic".
One of the biggest arguments for leaving the EU is that it would allow the UK to sets its own immigration policy.
The government's aim is a system that provides flexibility for employers - so the minimum salary threshold starts at just over £20,000 and there's no need to prove that a job couldn't have been offered to someone already living in the country.
But there are restrictions too: the vast majority of vacant positions in the social care sector will not be filled from immigration as these workers are not classed as skilled - and they're not eligible for the rebranded NHS and care workers fast track visa.
In short, care workers won't be able to apply for a visa dedicated to care.
Ministers say immigration can't solve the care sector's problems which, they argue, are down to poor pay and career prospects - making the job unattractive to British workers who could be capable of filling the roles.
The new health and care visa will have a reduced fee. Those applying for it should expect a reply within three weeks, the government said.
Caroline Abrahams at charity Age UK said it was a "care visa in name only. Care will scarcely benefit at all since the vast majority of care workforce roles are ineligible".
The union Unison said the work of the social care sector was in crisis long before the coronavirus pandemic and failing to include care workers was a "disastrous mistake that will make existing problems spiral".
Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said: "To exclude care workers from the health visa is a clear signal that this government does not appreciate the skill and dedication these roles involve... it is yet another insult from this Tory party to those who have been at the frontline of this crisis."
However, the prime minister's official spokesman said the government wanted employers in the sector to invest more in training and development for people already in the UK - including EU citizens - to become care workers, and it had provided additional funding to support it.
"Our independent migration advisers have said that immigration is not the sole answer here," he added.
The home secretary said frontline health workers would not have to pay the Immigration Health Surcharge - the fee of up to £400 a year that most migrants who have not been granted permanent residency in the UK need to pay to receive NHS care.
Ms Patel also said the visa process for students was being refined, with a new graduate route being launched next summer to "help retain the brightest and the best students to contribute to the UK post-study".
International students would be able to stay for a minimum of two years after finishing their studies, she said.
The paper also confirms that foreign criminals who have been jailed for more than a year could be banned from coming to the UK and foreign nationals already in the UK who have been sentenced to a year or more in prison "must be considered for deportation".
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Johnny Depp 'insulted by Amber Heard during Bahamas trip', says his employee - BBC News
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2020-07-14
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The sixth day of a libel case hears that Amber Heard "berated" her then partner on a Christmas trip.
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UK
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Amber Heard insulted Johnny Depp during a Christmas trip to the Bahamas, his estate manager has claimed.
Tara Roberts told London's High Court that Ms Heard, 34, called Mr Depp, 57, "washed up" and "fat".
Mr Depp is suing the publisher of the Sun over an article that labelled him a "wife beater" - but the newspaper insists it was accurate.
He denies 14 domestic violence allegations which News Group Newspapers is relying on in its defence.
In her witness statement at the High Court, Ms Roberts, who is the estate manager of Mr Depp's Caribbean home, claimed she had seen Ms Heard screaming at and berating the actor as he yelled at her to "go away".
Ms Roberts, who has worked for Mr Depp since December 2008, added that she saw a "red, swelling gash" on his nose, and that he had told her Ms Heard had thrown a can of lacquer thinner into his face.
She went on to describe Mr Depp as an "unusually kind man", saying she had never seen him be "violent or aggressive" with Ms Heard, or anyone else.
Ms Roberts alleged that she saw Ms Heard "lunge violently at Johnny, pull his hair, and commit other aggressive physical acts against him".
Ms Roberts said that on 29 December 2015, when the couple were staying on the island with his two children and a friend, the pair had an argument.
In her statement, she said: "While I could not hear what caused the fight, Amber repeatedly berated him with increasing ferocity.
"She was insulting him, calling him names, and in the middle of this onslaught I heard her say specifically 'your career is over', 'no one is going to hire you', 'you're washed up', 'fat', 'you will die a lonely man', and also screaming things that were incomprehensible."
Ms Roberts claimed Mr Depp tried to leave, repeatedly asking for the key to a vehicle, which Ms Heard refused to give back, adding it was later found in the couple's house.
She said during the entire incident, she "never saw" Mr Depp hit or push Ms Heard, and "nor did he physically react to the attacks".
She said on walking Mr Depp to a café later on, she saw he had "a red, swelling gash on the bridge of his nose".
"Amber, Johnny then told me, had thrown a quart sized can of lacquer thinner into Johnny's face, causing a gash," her witness statement said.
Ms Roberts claimed she did not see any signs of injury on Ms Heard's face or body during the trip.
Mr Depp and Ms Heard were married for two years until 2017
Sasha Wass QC, representing Sun publisher News Group Newspapers, asked her about the former couple's Bahamas stay, and Ms Roberts said she was not aware their relationship was very difficult at that time.
Ms Wass said: "As far as you were concerned, you have suggested that it was Ms Heard who was the most violent, is that right?"
She was shown a photograph from around that time of Ms Heard with bruising on her face but said she had not seen this bruising when she saw the pair after the row.
During an exchange with Mr Depp's barrister David Sherborne, Ms Roberts said that she "never saw" the actor being violent or aggressive towards Ms Heard on the island.
Mr Sherborne asked the estate manager whether she was "lying" to protect Mr Depp because she was "worried" about losing her job. She replied that she was not.
Hollywood stylist Samantha McMillen told the court Ms Heard had "no visible" injuries the day after the actress alleges Mr Depp was violent towards her in a separate incident in late 2015.
Ms McMillen said she spent "much of the afternoon and early evening" with Ms Heard on 16 December 2015 as she prepared to appear on a US late-night talk show.
In a witness statement, Ms McMillen said she saw Ms Heard "in good light, at close range, wearing no make-up", adding: "I could see clearly that Ms Heard did not have any visible marks, bruises, cuts, or injuries to her face or any other part of her body."
The stylist said after the programme Ms Heard said to her: "Can you believe I just did that show with two black eyes?"
Ms McMillen said: "Ms Heard did not have any black eyes, and had been visibly uninjured throughout the day and at that moment."
The libel case arose out of the publication of an article on the Sun's website headlined: "Gone Potty: How can JK Rowling be 'genuinely happy' casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?".
The Sun's original article related to allegations made by the actress, who was married to the film star from 2015 to 2017.
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Johnny Depp accuses Amber Heard of severing finger tip - BBC News
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2020-07-10
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The Hollywood star tells a libel hearing his ex-wife threw a bottle of vodka at him during a fight.
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UK
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Johnny Depp told a court his ex-wife Amber Heard told "porkie pies" about him
Johnny Depp has accused his ex-wife Amber Heard of severing the tip of his finger, as his libel claim against the Sun newspaper continues.
The actor told the High Court Ms Heard, 34, threw a vodka bottle at him which cut the top of his finger and "crushed the bones".
Mr Depp, 57, is suing for libel over a Sun article that called him a "wife beater" - but the newspaper maintains the story was accurate.
The April 2018 piece by journalist Dan Wootton was about the casting of Mr Depp in the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them film franchise.
Mr Depp's lawyers say the article made "defamatory allegations of the utmost seriousness", by accusing him of committing serious assaults on Ms Heard.
On the third day of proceedings at London's High Court, Sasha Wass QC, representing Sun publisher News Group Newspapers, said Ms Heard had been subjected to a "three-day ordeal" during which Mr Depp had "completely destroyed" the house they were staying in during a drug-fuelled rage.
Ms Wass said Mr Depp had accused the actress of having affairs with her "leading man" while the couple were in Australia where he was filming one of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise in March 2015. He then threw Ms Heard against a ping-pong table and pushed her up against a fridge, Ms Wass said.
Mr Depp denied the accusation, adding: "After the incident where Ms Heard threw the vodka bottle, the second vodka bottle at me, which severed the top of my finger and crushed the bones, that's when I began what I feel was probably some species of a breakdown, a nervous breakdown or something."
Mr Depp said he then began to write on mirrors and walls using the injured finger, saying he "didn't want to live at that time".
Johnny Depp said his finger was injured when Amber Heard threw a bottle of vodka at him
Ms Wass said to Mr Depp: "At one stage when you were in the kitchen, screaming at Ms Heard, you picked up the wall-mounted telephone."
She said Mr Depp had the phone in his right hand and was "repeatedly smashing it against the wall".
He added: "I remember ripping the phone off the wall."
Ms Wass asked: "By this stage, you were really, really angry, weren't you?"
Mr Depp said: "I had just lost the top of my finger and as a musician - as a human being and as a musician - it is upsetting."
Ms Wass asked Mr Depp about previously saying that he had been responsible for losing the top of his finger.
He said he had said that to "protect Ms Heard" when he had to tell the production company he could not work.
Ms Heard has previously denied injuring Mr Depp's finger saying he injured it while pulling the phone off the wall.
Ms Wass said Ms Heard had come down to a "state of complete carnage" in the house with Mr Depp holding up his injured hand and saying "Look what you made me do." He said that was "incorrect".
Mr Depp admitted he had said their relationship as "a crime scene waiting to happen" on several occasions.
The hearing also focussed on a detox trip Mr Depp and Ms Heard took to his private island in the Bahamas in August 2014.
The trip is one of 14 occasions on which incidents of domestic violence, all denied by Mr Depp, are alleged to have taken place - and which NGN are using in their defence against the actor's libel claim.
Mr Depp was asked during cross-examination if he had "hit and pushed" Ms Heard, to which he said: "I didn't push Ms Heard or attack her in any way, as certainly I was not in any condition to do so."
The court heard medical notes suggesting Ms Heard believed Mr Depp was jealous of her professional work with another actor, James Franco.
She said one doctor wrote: "Her movie with JF [James Franco] precipitated a binge that put JD in the hospital. Everyone around J [Johnny Depp] seems to be intimidated by his power and money. No-one stands up to him."
Mr Depp said: "I think she was telling porky pies with her psychiatrist."
Amber Heard has attended every day of the court case so far
Earlier, Ms Wass read out medical notes by Mr Depp's own doctor, David Kipper, which said the actor "romanticises the entire drug culture and has no accountability for his behaviour".
The doctor also wrote that Mr Depp paid "lip service" to people like Sir Elton John "more for their celebrity than their struggle with sobriety".
During another argument at their Los Angeles penthouse Mr Depp admitted "accidentally" headbutting Ms Heard but claimed she was "flailing and punching" him.
In a recorded conversation shortly after the incident, which was played to the the High Court, Mr Depp appeared to say he had headbutted his ex-wife in the forehead and added: "That doesn't break a nose."
He told the court he had tried to get hold of her "to stop her flailing and punching me" and as he did so "it seems there was a collision".
Ms Heard and Mr Depp were married in 2015 and separated two years later
The case arose out of the publication of an article on the Sun's website headlined: "Gone Potty: How can JK Rowling be 'genuinely happy' casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?"
The Sun's original article related to allegations made by the actress, who was married to the Pirates of the Caribbean star from 2015 to 2017.
Witnesses including Mr Depp's former partners Vanessa Paradis and Winona Ryder are expected to give evidence via video link, and the hearing is expected to last for three weeks.
Mr Depp, has been Oscar and Bafta-nominated and won a Golden Globe in 2008 for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
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Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Supreme court justice will not retire after cancer diagnosis - BBC News
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2020-07-18
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The court's most senior liberal justice has a recurrence of cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy.
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US & Canada
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Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the court's most senior liberal justice, and her health is closely watched
US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has said she is undergoing chemotherapy for a recurrence of cancer, but will not be retiring.
In a statement, the 87-year-old judge said the treatment was having "positive results" and she was "fully able" to continue in her post.
Ms Ginsburg said a scan had revealed lesions on her liver, but the chemotherapy had helped to reduce them.
As the court's most senior liberal justice, her health is closely watched.
She has received hospital treatment a number of times in recent years but has returned swiftly to work on each occasion.
"On May 19, I began a course of chemotherapy to treat a recurrence of cancer," Ms Ginsburg said in her statement.
"The chemotherapy course... is yielding positive results," she added. "My most recent scan on 7 July indicated [a] significant reduction of the liver lesions and no new disease.
"I am tolerating chemotherapy well and am encouraged by the success of my current treatment," she said. "I will continue bi-weekly chemotherapy to keep my cancer at bay."
Supreme Court justices serve for life or until they choose to retire, and supporters have expressed concern that if anything were to happen to Ms Ginsburg a more conservative judge might replace her while President Donald Trump, a Republican, remains in office.
"I have often said I would remain a member of the Court as long as I can do the job full steam," Ms Ginsburg said in the statement. "I remain fully able to do that."
The Supreme Court justices pose for their official portrait in 2018
Mr Trump has appointed two judges since taking office, leaving the current bench with a 5-4 conservative leaning.
In May, Ms Ginsburg underwent non-surgical treatment for a benign gallbladder condition, and participated in the Supreme Court's oral arguments from hospital. She has been treated for cancer four times in 20 years, including two separate bouts last year.
Earlier this week, she was released from Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Hospital after a day of treatment for a possible infection. Ms Ginsburg is now "home and doing well", the court said on Tuesday.
Despite her several health setbacks, Ms Ginsburg had not missed a single day of oral arguments in her 25 years on the court until last January, when she worked from home while recovering from surgery.
Joan Ruth Bader was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1933 to Jewish immigrant parents. At 17 years old, she lost her mother to cancer.
She attended Cornell University, where she met her husband, Marty Ginsburg. The pair had two children and remained together for 56 years, until Marty's death in 2010.
The progressive hero has grown into a pop icon in recent years
Both attended Harvard Law School. When Justice Ginsburg attended in 1956, one year behind her husband, she was one of nine women to enrol. While there, she and her female cohort were famously asked by the dean to justify taking the spot of a man in his school.
Ms Ginsburg later transferred to Columbia Law School in New York, becoming the first woman to work at both school's law reviews.
Despite her academic success, she struggled to find work.
"Not a law firm in the entire city of New York would employ me," she once said. "I struck out on three grounds: I was Jewish, a woman and a mother."
She went on to become a professor at Rutgers Law School in 1963, and co-founded the Women's Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). As the ACLU's general counsel, Ms Ginsburg took up a series of gender discrimination cases, six of which saw her arguing before the Supreme Court.
In part due to her husband's enthusiastic lobbying, Ms Ginsburg was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1993 by then President Bill Clinton. She became the second woman in US history nominated to the august body.
Justice Ginsburg was the second woman in US history to be nominated to the Supreme Court
During her years on the court, as the bench has become more conservative, she has increasingly moved to the left, gaining a reputation for her spirited dissents.
And in recent years, she has grown into a pop culture phenomenon.
In part due to her scathing dissents, Ms Ginsburg became the subject of a Tumblr account called Notorious RBG - a nod to the late rapper, The Notorious BIG. She has been played by actress and comedian Kate McKinnon on Saturday Night Live, and has her likeness painted on T-shirts, mugs and posters.
"I'm 84 years old," Ms Ginsburg says about her newfound fame in the 2018 documentary RBG.
"And everyone wants to take their picture with me."
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Johnny Depp denies slapping ex-wife for laughing at his tattoo - BBC News
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2020-07-08
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The Hollywood star tells a libel hearing his ex-wife had been "building a dossier" against him.
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UK
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Johnny Depp arriving at the High Court in London on Wednesday morning
Johnny Depp has denied he slapped ex-wife Amber Heard after she laughed at one of his tattoos, as he appeared at a hearing at London's High Court.
He accused Ms Heard of "building a dossier" against him after the court heard she wrote an email describing him as a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde character.
Mr Depp, 57, is suing the publisher of the Sun newspaper over an article that referred to him as a "wife beater".
The Sun has defended the accuracy of its story.
It had referred to "overwhelming evidence" that Mr Depp attacked Ms Heard, 34, during their relationship - which he strenuously denies.
Mr Depp is suing News Group Newspapers (NGN) and its executive editor Dan Wootton over the article, published in 2018.
Ms Heard claims that Mr Depp first hit her in early 2013 - one of 14 separate allegations of domestic violence, all denied by Mr Depp, which are being relied on by NGN in their defence.
On the second day of the hearing, NGN's lawyer Sasha Wass QC began by asking Mr Depp about an alleged incident in March 2013 involving one of his tattoos which reads "Wino Forever".
It had originally said "Winona Forever" in reference to his relationship with actress Winona Ryder, but he had changed it when they split in 1993.
Ms Wass said Ms Heard - who was also in court - had made a joke out of the tattoo at a time when he was drinking heavily after about 160 days of sobriety.
Ms Wass said the actor then slapped his ex-wife across the face, a total of three times. He denied this.
The barrister then put it to Mr Depp that he "broke down" after coming to his senses and realising what he had done, to which he said: "I didn't hit Ms Heard."
The High Court also heard details of the email Ms Heard wrote to the actor - but never sent - saying he lived "in a world of enablers".
It it, she said: "It's like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Half of you, I love. Madly. The other half scares me."
She wrote that she knew she was "dealing with the monster" when he had been drinking.
In response, Mr Depp, 57, said the "dossier" was being built up from early on "that appears to be an insurance policy for later".
He agreed he would describe the allegation he was a serial domestic abuser as a "hoax", adding the claims were "patently untrue".
Amber Heard was also at the High Court in London for the second day of the case
The court heard about another alleged incident that month when Ms Heard claims Mr Depp hit her several times after an argument about a painting by her ex-partner, Tasya van Ree, which was hanging in her Los Angeles home.
Ms Wass read out part of Mr Depp's witness statement in which he said he had asked Ms Heard to remove the painting "as a courtesy" to him.
He said she hadn't taken it down it but denied allegations put to him by Ms Wass that he tried to remove the painting and to set fire to it, saying each time they were "not true".
Mr Depp was asked whether he would describe himself as jealous. He responded: "I am, yes. I can be jealous."
Ms Wass asked Mr Depp about an alleged incident on a flight from Boston to Los Angeles in May 2014.
The barrister put it to Mr Depp that he had been "screaming obscenities" at Ms Heard on the plane and brought up the subject of fellow actor James Franco - whom Mr Depp "suspected" was having an affair with his partner.
Ms Wass said Mr Depp threw ice cubes at Ms Heard, and was "in a blind rage", becoming so angry he slapped her across the face.
Mr Depp denied that happened, or that he called Ms Heard a "slut" and a "whore".
The barrister suggested the actor went to the toilet of the plane, where he passed out.
Mr Depp said in response: "As Ms Heard was berating me, screaming at me and whatnot, as is her wont, she began to get physical."
He added that he then "grabbed a pillow from the couch and slept on the bathroom floor".
Ms Wass asked about an incident in which Ms Heard's dog "had eaten some hash, some cannabis - quite a lot".
The actor replied: "The puppy got a hold of a little ball of hashish and just scooped it up before I could get to it."
The court has also heard about an alleged incident in which it is claimed Mr Depp held another of Ms Heard's dogs out of a car window, which he dismissed as "utter falsity".
Amber Heard and Johnny Depp, pictured in 2015, were married for two years
On the first day of the libel case the court heard that Mr Depp denied being violent towards his ex-wife and accused Ms Heard of being violent towards him.
NGN previously tried to have the case thrown out, but Mr Justice Nicol ruled last week the case could go ahead.
The case arose out of the publication of an article on the Sun's website headlined: "Gone Potty: How can JK Rowling be 'genuinely happy' casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?"
The Sun's original article related to allegations made by the actress, who was married to the Pirates of the Caribbean star from 2015 to 2017.
Witnesses including Mr Depp's former partners Vanessa Paradis and Winona Ryder are expected to give evidence via video link, and the hearing is expected to last for three weeks.
Mr Depp, has been Oscar and Bafta-nominated and won a Golden Globe in 2008 for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
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Coronavirus: Ministers pledge to double staff in job centres - BBC News
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2020-07-05
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The chancellor is expected to announce plans to recruit 13,500 extra staff at job centres.
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UK Politics
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The government is pledging to double the number of frontline staff at job centres in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak is expected to pledge £800m to recruit 13,500 extra staff as part of an economic recovery package announced on Wednesday.
The Treasury says 4,500 of them will be in position by October, with more following later in the year.
Labour has called for more targeted support to prevent job losses.
The announcement comes after UK companies announced thousands of job cuts this week, with many firms cutting jobs now to reduce costs.
Job centres are set for more face-to-face meetings with jobseekers from Monday, as lockdown restrictions are eased.
The government says its furlough scheme, currently paying 80% of the wages of more than nine million workers, has already stemmed job losses from a sharp economic decline following the Covid-19 crisis.
However, the scheme is due to be pared back from August, and is set to finish at the end of October.
Shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds said schemes to support jobs should be better tailored to individual sectors and tied to the easing of lockdown restrictions.
"There's a strong argument for continuing to provide support in areas where there would be viability for the future," she told the BBC's Andrew Marr show.
"We want to make sure that people are in that kind of situation for as short a period as possible," she said.
"The problem is, we don't have those alternative opportunities yet available, we don't have the support packages there."
Higher unemployment is inevitable as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, that much the government admits.
The impact of the crisis is already all too clear, with companies in various sectors announcing significant redundancies over the last few weeks.
What is not yet clear is how far the chancellor is willing to go to limit the number of people losing their jobs.
Labour criticise the government's "one size fits all" economic approach and say current support should continue through local lockdowns.
A further extension to the job retention scheme has been ruled out, beyond that Chancellor Rishi Sunak has promised "bold" action to restart the economy.
With recession looming and further job cuts expected he will be under significant pressure to deliver on that.
The Treasury is committing to increase the total number of mentors working in job centres in Great Britain to 27,000, double the current 13,500.
A spokesperson added that the extra staff would provide "expert advice" to those seeking work to help jobseekers "make the most of their skills".
The chancellor is also expected to pledge an extra £32m for recruiting extra careers advisors, and £17m for work academies in England.
PCS union general secretary Mark Serwotka said the recruitment of extra staff for job centres was welcome, but the announcement "falls well short of what is required".
He also accused the government of being "reckless" by sending job centre staff back to work "when Covid-19 is still a threat".
"Some job centres have no screens installed and we have reports that some are so flimsy they can easily be knocked over," he said.
"Risk assessments have not been agreed with the union and our members say PPE and hand santisers are in short supply."
• None UK businesses cut more than 12,000 jobs in two days
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53297306
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Change in Dominican Republic as opposition wins presidency - BBC News
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2020-07-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Early results in the general election give opposition candidate Luis Abinader an unassailable lead.
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Latin America & Caribbean
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Luis Abinader will replace Danilo Medina, whose party has been in power for 16 years
Early results in the presidential election in the Dominican Republic give the opposition candidate, Luis Abinader, an unassailable lead.
His two main rivals have conceded defeat and the outgoing president has congratulated Mr Abinader on his win.
His victory puts an end to 16 years in power of the centre-left Dominican Liberation Party (PLD).
Voter turnout was high despite the election being conducted during the coronavirus pandemic.
With about 60% of the votes counted, Luis Abinader of the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) had 53% of the votes.
Luis Abinader has won the top job on his second attempt
In second place is the candidate for the Dominican Liberation Party, Gonzalo Castillo, with 37% of the votes.
Mr Abinader needed to have more than 50% of the votes to stave off a second round of voting on 26 July.
While votes are still being counted, Mr Abinader's comfortable lead prompted both Mr Castillo and third-placed candidate Leonel Fernández to concede defeat.
Mr Castillo said that the official count "shows that there is an irreversible trend and that from now on we have a president-elect... Our congratulations to Mr Luis Abinader".
Gonzalo Castillo of the governing PLD party has conceded defeat
Outgoing President Danilo Medina, who has served two consecutive terms and could therefore not run for a third, said that democracy in the Dominican Republic had "emerged stronger" from the election and wished his successor every success.
Mr Abinader said that "all Dominicans had won by voting for change".
Opinion polls had predicted a victory for Mr Abinader after an acrimonious split in the governing Dominican Liberation Party.
Former President Leonel Fernández left the party, which had chosen Gonzalo Castillo as its presidential candidate, and ran for the presidency for the People's Force party.
He is currently in a distant third place with less than 9% of the vote.
Mr Abinader celebrated the early results with his supporters while urging them to await the official announcement from the electoral board.
He appealed for unity, saying that he owed his victory to the Dominican people, who he said had "all won tonight".
It is the second time Mr Abinader, a US-educated economist, ran for the top job in the Caribbean nation.
In 2016 he lost to Danilo Medina in the second round.
Some analysts think he benefitted from discontent among Dominicans with the way the government has handled the coronavirus pandemic.
The election was postponed from its original date in May because of the outbreak.
The Dominican Republic is one of the worst-affected countries in the Caribbean, with more than 37,000 confirmed cases and almost 800 deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
Mr Abinader and his wife were among those who tested positive for coronavirus and he had to temporarily stop campaigning while he recovered.
Local media reported that the election proceeded smoothly except for one incident in which a person was shot dead outside a polling station when an argument erupted between rival party supporters.
One of the main challenges for Mr Abinader in his new job will be to revive the country's tourism industry which has been battered by the travel restrictions imposed to curb the spread of Covid-19.
His own family operates major tourism projects in the Dominican Republic.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-53268860
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South African church attack: Five dead after 'hostage situation' - BBC News
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2020-07-11
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The church, on the outskirts of Johannesburg, was attacked amid reports of fighting over leadership.
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Africa
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Police released images of suspects lying on the ground
Five people have been killed after attackers stormed a South African church, reportedly amid an argument over its leadership.
South African police said they had rescued men, women and children from a "hostage situation" on the outskirts of Johannesburg on Saturday morning.
They have also arrested at least 40 people, and seized dozens of weapons.
Eyewitnesses say the men who stormed the International Pentecostal Holiness Church were part of a splinter group.
The church's leadership has reportedly been the subject of infighting since its former leader died in 2016. Police had previously been called to the church following a shoot out between members in 2018, South Africa's IOL reports.
The year before, the church's finances had come under the spotlight, amid allegations some 110m rand ($6.5m; £5.2m) had gone missing, according to The Sowetan newspaper.
On Saturday, police were called to the church in Zuurbekom in the West Rand at 03:00 local time (01:00 GMT).
A number of weapons have been recovered by police
According to national police spokesperson Brigadier Vish Naidoo, a group of attackers indicated to those inside "that they were coming to take over the premises".
He said four people had been found shot and burnt to death in cars, while a security guard, who was thought to have been responding to the incident, was also fatally shot.
Five rifles, 16 shotguns and 13 pistols, along with other weapons, were found at the church, which police have been combing for evidence.
The South African Police Service (SAPS) said that among those arrested were members of SAPS, the South African National Defence Force, the Johannesburg Metro Police Department and the Department of Correctional Services.
The International Pentecostal Holiness Church is thought to have about three million members in Southern Africa.
While the International Pentecostal Holiness Church, one of the largest churches in that region, has made tabloid headlines over missing money and its leadership squabbles in the last few years, what happened on Saturday took many by surprise - including authorities.
Now police say they have launched a high-level investigation looking into the exact circumstances around the shooting - not least, who ordered the attack.
Part of the investigation is trying to ascertain whether the four people who were killed and burnt inside a car were part of the group who had earlier stormed into the church.
"We've arrested all those we reasonably believed are suspects. They have been taking in for questioning," said police spokesperson Vish Naidoo.
As night falls, police officers have been deployed to monitor the safety of hundreds of congregants living on the church premises who are said to be fearful of another attack.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-53375607
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Johnny Depp and Amber Heard: Couple rowed 'like schoolchildren', says ex-employee - BBC News
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2020-07-15
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A former employee tells a libel case that the couple's arguments escalated from "banal beginnings".
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UK
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Johnny Depp and Amber Heard argued "like schoolchildren", his former estate manager has claimed.
Ben King told London's High Court that their rows started from "banal beginnings" and escalated.
Mr Depp, 57, is suing the publisher of the Sun over an article that referred to him as a "wife beater" - but the newspaper maintains it was accurate.
He denies 14 domestic violence allegations which News Group Newspapers is relying on for its defence.
Mr King worked for Mr Depp for three separate periods between 2014 and 2016, in Australia, London and Vancouver, Canada.
In witness statements, Mr King said he "frequently witnessed" Ms Heard, 34, "goading and attempting to provoke" Mr Depp, who he never saw "be violent or unkind towards Ms Heard, or indeed towards anyone else".
He said: "Of what I heard of their arguments, they could start from very banal beginnings.
"On one occasion in London, I recall Ms Heard complained that Mr Depp had removed his hand from hers, and she complained along the lines of 'maybe you don't love me'."
Mr King continued: "The argument then carried on and escalated seriously. The way they argued could make them seem like schoolchildren."
Reflecting on periods in London and Australia, he said he "saw Ms Heard as the antagoniser" while Mr Depp "seemed keen to walk out of, or away from, arguments".
"I want to make clear that I did not see any violence at any time. I do not want to accuse Ms Heard of anything, but this was what I saw of the pattern of their arguments," he said.
Mr King also claimed that on a number of occasions, Mr Depp "left notes downstairs before he went to work, saying things like 'let's not do this again' and 'I love you'."
Mr Depp and Ms Heard were married for two years until 2017
He also spoke about the couple's trip to Australia in March 2015, during which it is alleged Mr Depp assaulted Ms Heard and "completely destroyed" a house in a drink and drug-fuelled rage, which the actor denies.
Mr Depp alleges his finger was severed by Ms Heard throwing a vodka bottle at him, which she denies.
Mr King said he was summoned to the house the couple were renting, where he found a "significant amount of damage" and discovered Mr Depp's severed finger tip on the floor.
He said that on the flight back to Los Angeles from Australia with Ms Heard, she asked him "have you ever been so angry with someone that you just lost it?"
He said: "I replied that that had never happened to me. She seemed incredulous and asked again, 'you have never been so angry with someone that you just lost it?'
"Again, I answered that I had not and Ms Heard did not continue on this topic. This question seemed alarming to me, given the severity of the damage I had earlier witnessed at the house and the apparent serious injury to Mr Depp's finger."
Mr King also said Mr Depp was teetotal when he interviewed for the job and he was "surprised" when the couple brought "a relatively large number of cases of wine" to a house in London.
He also said that during their London stay in October 2014, he did not see Mr Depp drink, but he believed Ms Heard "would regularly drink at least one or two bottles a night".
In later testimony, via video link from Los Angeles, Ms Heard's former personal assistant, Kate James, claimed the actress would send a "barrage of drunk text messages between the hours of two and four in the morning... on an almost daily basis".
Ms James accused Ms Heard of deleting all the "abusive" texts after the actress terminated her employment.
When Sasha Wass QC, barrister for the News Group Newspapers, suggested Ms James had been "encouraged" by Mr Depp and his associates to give "vicious evidence" against Ms Heard, she denied the accusation - adding she was "here for my own reasons".
In her witness statement, Ms James said she had discovered the Aquaman actress had "stolen" her own account of being "violently raped" at machete-point in Brazil in the 1990s and "twisted it into her own story to benefit herself".
"This of course caused me extreme distress and outrage that she would dare to attempt to use the most harrowing experience of my life as her own narrative.
"I'm a sexual violence survivor and that's very, very serious to take that stance if you are not one and I am one.
"That's the reason I'm here, because I take offence."
Also on Wednesday, Kevin Murphy - Mr Depp's current estate manager, who gave evidence via video link - said Mr Depp "would never hit a woman".
Mr Murphy was asked about a text message sent to him by Mr Depp, in which the actor offered his "profound thanks" and referred to wanting to "rid this fraud of the ability to hurt all womankind".
He said Mr Depp felt that Ms Heard's allegations were "not only a fraud against him, but a fraud against women in general".
The case arose out of the publication of an article on the Sun's website headlined: "Gone Potty: How can JK Rowling be 'genuinely happy' casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?".
The Sun's original article related to allegations made by the actress, who was married to the film star from 2015 to 2017.
Witnesses including Mr Depp's former partners Vanessa Paradis and Winona Ryder are expected to give evidence via video link, and the hearing is expected to last for three weeks.
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Ruth Bader Ginsburg: US Supreme Court oldest justice treated for possible infection - BBC News
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2020-07-15
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The 87-year-old underwent a procedure to clean out a bile duct stent in Baltimore's hospital.
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US & Canada
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Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the court's most senior liberal justice, and her health is closely watched
US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been released from hospital after "treatment of a possible infection", the court has said.
It said she "underwent an endoscopic procedure... to clean out a bile duct stent that was placed last August", in Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Ms Ginsburg, 87, "is home and doing well," the court said on Tuesday, one day after she was admitted in Maryland.
As the court's most senior liberal justice, her health is closely watched.
She has received hospital treatment a number of times in recent years, but has returned swiftly to work on each occasion.
In May, she took part in legal argument from her hospital bed, just a day after she was admitted with a gallbladder condition.
In August 2019, Ms Ginsburg was treated for a cancerous tumour on her pancreas. She received treatment for colon cancer in 1999, and pancreatic cancer in 2009.
And in December 2018, she had surgery to remove two cancerous nodules from her lung. She has also suffered fractured ribs from falls.
Supreme Court justices serve for life or until they choose to retire, and supporters have expressed concern that if anything were to happen to Ms Ginsburg then a more conservative judge might replace her.
President Donald Trump has appointed two judges since taking office, and the current court is seen to have a 5-4 conservative majority in most cases.
Reacting to the news that Ms Ginsburg was taken to hospital, Mr Trump said: "She's actually giving me some very good rulings… I wish her the absolute best".
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What's Boris Johnson worried about in Scotland? - BBC News
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2020-07-23
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A rise in support for Scottish independence and approval of Nicola Sturgeon lead the prime minister north.
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Scotland
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Boris Johnson became prime minister exactly one year ago
Boris Johnson must have found recent opinion polls conducted in Scotland to be awkward reading.
Surveys suggesting rising support for Scottish independence and a significant gap between his approval ratings and those of Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, appear to have prompted him to make his first visit to Scotland since last year's general election.
The prime minister wants to use the trip to remind people in Scotland just how much cash the UK treasury has spent in response to the coronavirus crisis.
He is stressing that it is the Westminster government that has supported 900,000 people who might have otherwise lost their jobs and produced billions of pounds in extra spending for the NHS.
The SNP don't look too worried about a prime ministerial trip denting support for their cause.
On her 50th birthday, on Sunday, Nicola Sturgeon tweeted that a visit from Boris was the best birthday pressie she could hope for.
Every time the PM tells voters that it is only as part of the UK that Scottish businesses and public services could afford to cope with the pandemic, the SNP will reply that they are sick of being told that Scotland is "too wee, too poor and too stupid" to be independent.
Scotland's first minister Nicola Sturgeon will not be meeting the prime minister during his visit
It's a line from the 2014 referendum that seems to have developed extra resonance at a time when people seem to have far more confidence in Nicola Sturgeon's handling of the crisis than Boris Johnson's.
Rising support for the uncertain path of independence is not what you might expect at a time of deep economic uncertainty.
Opinion polls have been suggesting more people in Scotland have been turning towards "Yes" for many months.
Long before the coronavirus crisis, Brexit was driving Remain voters in to the nationalist camp.
It will take more than arguments about the deep pockets of the UK exchequer to win back hearts and minds in Scotland.
Which is why that the PM says that the UK is more than "simply a lifeboat to which our four nations can cling in times of peril".
The emotional case for keeping the UK united is something government ministers will need to work on if they are planning many more Scottish visits.
Boris Johnson has clearly stated that he will not allow another Scottish referendum.
And the Scottish government would need agreement from Westminster to make the process legally watertight.
So what is the PM worrying about?
Well, he may find it much harder to refuse another independence vote if the SNP win a majority in the Scottish elections due in May 2021. And the same polls that are suggesting growing support for independence are predicting a very good result for Nicola Sturgeon's party next year.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53513001
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Coronavirus: Boris Johnson says response shows 'might of UK union' - BBC News
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2020-07-23
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Boris Johnson visits Scotland as the SNP says he is worried about support for independence.
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Scotland politics
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The response to the coronavirus pandemic has shown the "sheer might" of the UK union, Boris Johnson has said during a visit to Scotland.
Mr Johnson was in Orkney and the north of Scotland one year on from the day he took office as prime minister.
He said the work of the military and Treasury job retention schemes had proved the "merits of the union".
But the SNP said the visit showed Mr Johnson was "in a panic" about rising support for Scottish independence.
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon did not meet Mr Johnson during the trip but said she would continue to work with his government on the "immediate priority" of tackling coronavirus.
Ms Sturgeon said she did not think anyone should be "championing and celebrating a pandemic that has taken thousands of lives" to make a constitutional argument.
Mr Johnson said he "pledged to be a prime minister for every corner of the United Kingdom" when he entered Downing Street one year ago, adding that the response to the pandemic had shown his government's commitment to the whole of the UK.
The UK government has coordinated much of the country's economic response to the virus, including the coronavirus job retention furlough scheme.
But devolved governments have had control over most public health measures and have been able to set more local timetables and messaging.
Nicola Sturgeon said she was "always happy to meet the prime minister"
Although the whole of the UK entered lockdown in the same week, each constituent part has eased restrictions at a different rate.
Phase 3 of Scotland's "route map" out of lockdown began last week, as pubs, restaurants, hairdressers and barbers were allowed to reopen.
They were allowed to reopen in England slightly earlier on 4 July, along with holiday accommodation - including hotels, B&Bs, cottages, campsites and caravan parks.
Boris Johnson must have found recent opinion polls conducted in Scotland to be awkward reading.
Surveys suggesting rising support for Scottish independence and a significant gap between his approval ratings and those of Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, appear to have prompted him to make his first visit to Scotland since last year's general election.
The prime minister wants to use the trip to remind people in Scotland just how much cash the UK treasury has spent in response to the coronavirus crisis.
He is stressing that it is the Westminster government that has supported 900,000 people who might have otherwise lost their jobs and produced billions of pounds in extra spending for the NHS.
The SNP don't look too worried about a prime ministerial trip denting support for their cause.
On her 50th birthday, on Sunday, Nicola Sturgeon tweeted that a visit for Boris was the best birthday pressie she could hope for.
Every time the PM tells voters that it is only as part of the UK that Scottish businesses and public services could afford to cope with the pandemic, the SNP will reply that they are sick of being told that Scotland is "too wee, too poor and too stupid" to be independent.
Speaking in Orkney, where he met local fishermen, Mr Johnson said the "merits of the union" had been "proved throughout this crisis", citing the work of the military and the Treasury's support for workers and firms.
The UK government says the furlough and self-employment schemes have supported 900,000 jobs in Scotland, and that £4.6bn of additional funding was being provided to the Scottish government.
The prime minister also said not enough time had passed for another independence referendum to be held, saying the 2014 vote was a "once in a generation" event.
He said: "What I'm saying is that the union is a fantastically strong institution. It's helped our country through thick and thin.
"It's very, very valuable in terms of the support we've been able to give to everybody throughout all corners of the UK, and we had a referendum on breaking up the union a few years ago - I think only six years ago. That is not a generation by any computation and I think what people really want to do is see our whole country coming back strongly together, and that's what we're going to do."
Ms Sturgeon tweeted that the prime minister's visit to Scotland "highlighted the argument for Scottish independence".
However she said politicians should remain focused on tackling the coronavirus pandemic and "not use it as a political weapon".
At her coronavirus briefing on Thursday, Ms Sturgeon said she had "worked very hard to have a collaborative approach to the other governments of the UK".
She said financial support from the Treasury was "very welcome", but said it should be clear that "this is borrowed money" which would have to be repaid by Scottish taxpayers too - "it's not some kind of favour that has been done".
The first minister said UK-wide actions by Mr Johnson's administration were a reflection of where powers lie, saying that "if we held the powers we would be doing these things ourselves".
She added: "I just don't think any of us should be championing and celebrating a pandemic that has taken thousands of lives as some example of the pre-existing political cases we want to make.
"This has been a heart-breaking crisis that we are not out of yet. Too many people people have died and all of us have a really solemn responsibility to focus on and get our countries through, and that's what I'm going to continue to do.
"Campaigning right now is not my priority. Boris Johnson has every right to be on a campaign visit but in his shoes it's not what I would do."
Mr Johnson was greeted by a small group of protestors during his visit to Orkney
Mr Johnson also announced £50m of funding from the UK government for Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles - the latest in a series of "city and region deals" which see Scottish and UK ministers each pledge cash to various areas for spending on new infrastructure and local development schemes.
The Scottish government has also committed £50m to the "Islands growth deal", which will target sectors including tourism, energy and skills.
The timing of Mr Johnson's visit comes amid a "perfect storm" over Scottish independence, according to Sir Tom Devine, an emeritus professor of Scottish history at Edinburgh University.
Sir Tom told BBC Two's Newsnight the union is in its most fragile condition since 1745, and that opinion polling suggesting increasing support for independence in Scotland has been consistent for some time.
Newsnight's political editor Nick Watt added that a senior SNP source had told him they believed the party's moment "is at last arriving".
At Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, the SNP's Westminster leader Ian Blackford said Mr Johnson was visiting due to recent polls suggesting support for independence was on the rise.
Mr Blackford told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the prime minister's message would go down "particularly badly" in Scotland.
"I think what we've demonstrated over the course of the last few months [is] that in the areas of devolved responsibility, in the areas of public health, the leadership that's been shown by our first minister is in sharp contrast to the bluster that we've seen from Boris Johnson," he said.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-53485651
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Leicester lockdown: No plans for extra Covid cash, minister says - BBC News
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2020-07-09
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Local businesses and politicians say they were expecting more financial support from the government.
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Leicester
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Leicester's local lockdown is not due to be reviewed until 18 July
The first city in the UK to be put in local lockdown will not receive special financial support from the government.
Businesses in Leicester had expected extra help after they were ordered to close on 30 June following a spike in Covid-19 cases.
But a letter from Business Minister Nadhim Zahawi said there were no plans to change or extend any current schemes.
Labour MP Liz Kendall said she was "so angry" at the development.
Chris Hobson, from East Midlands Chamber of Commerce, said not giving extra help was a "massive mistake".
The latest weekly figures from Public Health England, released on Thursday, showed 116 new cases per 100,000 people in the city in the week up to 5 July.
This is down from 141 per 100,000 the week before, but still far ahead of any other area of England.
Businesses in Leicester were ordered to close on 30 June following a spike in Covid-19 cases
Shadow social care minister Ms Kendall, who released a letter from Mr Zahawi about the government's stance, said it was "a warning for future local lockdowns".
"People in Leicester have made huge sacrifices and everybody is hanging on in there," she said.
"I think it is wrong the government isn't saying 'you're in lockdown for longer, you'll get the help for longer'."
Ms Kendall, the MP for Leicester West, urged Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Prime Minister Boris Johnson to "think again".
Mr Hobson said there were businesses "which are fundamentally sound but are struggling with cash flow through no fault of their own".
"You have lots of businesses which have picked themselves up again and again and some will not be able to continue to do that," he said.
"This is going to put Leicester at a long-term disadvantage, there is a danger of seeing a two-tier recovery."
Restaurant owner Dharmesh Lakhani said many in the community felt "betrayed"
Dharmesh Lakhani, owner of Bobby's restaurant in the city, said they had been led to expect more help.
"It was a bit of a hammer blow, we felt betrayed," he said.
"We were looking forward to 4 July and had put in a lot of preparation, so it was a shock to be told we couldn't open.
"And then we, businesses and councillors, were quite certain there would be more help and without that, I can see some of the smaller, independent businesses going under."
Stuart Fraser said the Leicester Outdoor Pursuits Centre had launched an appeal to raise money
Stuart Fraser, manager of Leicester Outdoor Pursuits Centre, said the lack of extra funding was "a blow" and called for clarity on when the lockdown would be lifted.
"We have already had to cancel the first week of our holiday scheme," he said.
"And we have staff putting pressure on, saying they may have to look elsewhere for work, and this is trained staff who, if we lose them, will affect our ability to reopen at all."
Mr Fraser said the centre, a registered charity, had launched a fundraising campaign to "help it survive".
Leicester Mayor Sir Peter Soulsby said he was "absolutely furious" the expected funds had not materialised and described the lack of extra measures as "brutal".
Weekly figures released by Public Health England show there were 116 new cases per 100,000 people in the week ending 5 July.
This is down from 141 cases per 100,000 people the week before, but still at more than three times more than the next highest in England.
The rate of cases in Bradford has fallen faster than Rochdale, which was second highest after Leicester.
New cases of coronavirus in Leicester came quickly during June, having previously started falling the month before.
So far, 24 June has seen the highest number of positive tests in Leicester of any day since the pandemic started with 97 confirmed results.
The data combines tests in hospitals and those done in the community, the latter of which has only recently been added to the local figures and showed for the first time how Leicester really compares with other areas.
As of Wednesday, the city has the highest rate of confirmed coronavirus per head of population in England with 1,136 cases per 100,000 population. The next highest is Bradford with nearly 792 per 100,000.
Last week, Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the BBC there would be extra financial support for Leicester businesses affected by the local lockdown.
"We have given support to both the county council and the city council to make sure they have discretionary funds available to support businesses, if that's what's needed," he said.
In his letter, Mr Zahawi claimed the city council had spent less than £500,000 of a £3.5m discretionary grant awarded to it.
He went on to write: "I hope the lockdown is temporary and that affected businesses in Leicester are able to re-open soon."
But Ms Kendall added: "I don't think you can tell people one thing one day and tell them something else the other. It is just not right."
A government spokesman said: "The circumstances of individual lockdowns will continue to be carefully assessed before appropriate action is taken."
On Wednesday it was revealed a county-wide lockdown was considered.
County council leader Nick Rushton said that during discussions over where to put the edge of the lockdown zone, "there was even an argument that the boundary could have included the whole of Leicestershire" but it would have "created even more angst".
Newly released data shows, since the beginning of the pandemic, Leicester had a positive test rate of 1,116 per 100,000 of population, compared to 294 in nearby Melton, 475 in neighbouring Charnwood and a national average of 440 per 100,000.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-53343197
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Johnny Depp accuses Amber Heard of severing finger tip - BBC News
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2020-07-09
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The Hollywood star tells a libel hearing his ex-wife threw a bottle of vodka at him during a fight.
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UK
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Johnny Depp told a court his ex-wife Amber Heard told "porkie pies" about him
Johnny Depp has accused his ex-wife Amber Heard of severing the tip of his finger, as his libel claim against the Sun newspaper continues.
The actor told the High Court Ms Heard, 34, threw a vodka bottle at him which cut the top of his finger and "crushed the bones".
Mr Depp, 57, is suing for libel over a Sun article that called him a "wife beater" - but the newspaper maintains the story was accurate.
The April 2018 piece by journalist Dan Wootton was about the casting of Mr Depp in the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them film franchise.
Mr Depp's lawyers say the article made "defamatory allegations of the utmost seriousness", by accusing him of committing serious assaults on Ms Heard.
On the third day of proceedings at London's High Court, Sasha Wass QC, representing Sun publisher News Group Newspapers, said Ms Heard had been subjected to a "three-day ordeal" during which Mr Depp had "completely destroyed" the house they were staying in during a drug-fuelled rage.
Ms Wass said Mr Depp had accused the actress of having affairs with her "leading man" while the couple were in Australia where he was filming one of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise in March 2015. He then threw Ms Heard against a ping-pong table and pushed her up against a fridge, Ms Wass said.
Mr Depp denied the accusation, adding: "After the incident where Ms Heard threw the vodka bottle, the second vodka bottle at me, which severed the top of my finger and crushed the bones, that's when I began what I feel was probably some species of a breakdown, a nervous breakdown or something."
Mr Depp said he then began to write on mirrors and walls using the injured finger, saying he "didn't want to live at that time".
Johnny Depp said his finger was injured when Amber Heard threw a bottle of vodka at him
Ms Wass said to Mr Depp: "At one stage when you were in the kitchen, screaming at Ms Heard, you picked up the wall-mounted telephone."
She said Mr Depp had the phone in his right hand and was "repeatedly smashing it against the wall".
He added: "I remember ripping the phone off the wall."
Ms Wass asked: "By this stage, you were really, really angry, weren't you?"
Mr Depp said: "I had just lost the top of my finger and as a musician - as a human being and as a musician - it is upsetting."
Ms Wass asked Mr Depp about previously saying that he had been responsible for losing the top of his finger.
He said he had said that to "protect Ms Heard" when he had to tell the production company he could not work.
Ms Heard has previously denied injuring Mr Depp's finger saying he injured it while pulling the phone off the wall.
Ms Wass said Ms Heard had come down to a "state of complete carnage" in the house with Mr Depp holding up his injured hand and saying "Look what you made me do." He said that was "incorrect".
Mr Depp admitted he had said their relationship as "a crime scene waiting to happen" on several occasions.
The hearing also focussed on a detox trip Mr Depp and Ms Heard took to his private island in the Bahamas in August 2014.
The trip is one of 14 occasions on which incidents of domestic violence, all denied by Mr Depp, are alleged to have taken place - and which NGN are using in their defence against the actor's libel claim.
Mr Depp was asked during cross-examination if he had "hit and pushed" Ms Heard, to which he said: "I didn't push Ms Heard or attack her in any way, as certainly I was not in any condition to do so."
The court heard medical notes suggesting Ms Heard believed Mr Depp was jealous of her professional work with another actor, James Franco.
She said one doctor wrote: "Her movie with JF [James Franco] precipitated a binge that put JD in the hospital. Everyone around J [Johnny Depp] seems to be intimidated by his power and money. No-one stands up to him."
Mr Depp said: "I think she was telling porky pies with her psychiatrist."
Amber Heard has attended every day of the court case so far
Earlier, Ms Wass read out medical notes by Mr Depp's own doctor, David Kipper, which said the actor "romanticises the entire drug culture and has no accountability for his behaviour".
The doctor also wrote that Mr Depp paid "lip service" to people like Sir Elton John "more for their celebrity than their struggle with sobriety".
During another argument at their Los Angeles penthouse Mr Depp admitted "accidentally" headbutting Ms Heard but claimed she was "flailing and punching" him.
In a recorded conversation shortly after the incident, which was played to the the High Court, Mr Depp appeared to say he had headbutted his ex-wife in the forehead and added: "That doesn't break a nose."
He told the court he had tried to get hold of her "to stop her flailing and punching me" and as he did so "it seems there was a collision".
Ms Heard and Mr Depp were married in 2015 and separated two years later
The case arose out of the publication of an article on the Sun's website headlined: "Gone Potty: How can JK Rowling be 'genuinely happy' casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?"
The Sun's original article related to allegations made by the actress, who was married to the Pirates of the Caribbean star from 2015 to 2017.
Witnesses including Mr Depp's former partners Vanessa Paradis and Winona Ryder are expected to give evidence via video link, and the hearing is expected to last for three weeks.
Mr Depp, has been Oscar and Bafta-nominated and won a Golden Globe in 2008 for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53347044
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Johnny Depp denies slapping ex-wife for laughing at his tattoo - BBC News
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2020-07-09
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The Hollywood star tells a libel hearing his ex-wife had been "building a dossier" against him.
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UK
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Johnny Depp arriving at the High Court in London on Wednesday morning
Johnny Depp has denied he slapped ex-wife Amber Heard after she laughed at one of his tattoos, as he appeared at a hearing at London's High Court.
He accused Ms Heard of "building a dossier" against him after the court heard she wrote an email describing him as a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde character.
Mr Depp, 57, is suing the publisher of the Sun newspaper over an article that referred to him as a "wife beater".
The Sun has defended the accuracy of its story.
It had referred to "overwhelming evidence" that Mr Depp attacked Ms Heard, 34, during their relationship - which he strenuously denies.
Mr Depp is suing News Group Newspapers (NGN) and its executive editor Dan Wootton over the article, published in 2018.
Ms Heard claims that Mr Depp first hit her in early 2013 - one of 14 separate allegations of domestic violence, all denied by Mr Depp, which are being relied on by NGN in their defence.
On the second day of the hearing, NGN's lawyer Sasha Wass QC began by asking Mr Depp about an alleged incident in March 2013 involving one of his tattoos which reads "Wino Forever".
It had originally said "Winona Forever" in reference to his relationship with actress Winona Ryder, but he had changed it when they split in 1993.
Ms Wass said Ms Heard - who was also in court - had made a joke out of the tattoo at a time when he was drinking heavily after about 160 days of sobriety.
Ms Wass said the actor then slapped his ex-wife across the face, a total of three times. He denied this.
The barrister then put it to Mr Depp that he "broke down" after coming to his senses and realising what he had done, to which he said: "I didn't hit Ms Heard."
The High Court also heard details of the email Ms Heard wrote to the actor - but never sent - saying he lived "in a world of enablers".
It it, she said: "It's like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Half of you, I love. Madly. The other half scares me."
She wrote that she knew she was "dealing with the monster" when he had been drinking.
In response, Mr Depp, 57, said the "dossier" was being built up from early on "that appears to be an insurance policy for later".
He agreed he would describe the allegation he was a serial domestic abuser as a "hoax", adding the claims were "patently untrue".
Amber Heard was also at the High Court in London for the second day of the case
The court heard about another alleged incident that month when Ms Heard claims Mr Depp hit her several times after an argument about a painting by her ex-partner, Tasya van Ree, which was hanging in her Los Angeles home.
Ms Wass read out part of Mr Depp's witness statement in which he said he had asked Ms Heard to remove the painting "as a courtesy" to him.
He said she hadn't taken it down it but denied allegations put to him by Ms Wass that he tried to remove the painting and to set fire to it, saying each time they were "not true".
Mr Depp was asked whether he would describe himself as jealous. He responded: "I am, yes. I can be jealous."
Ms Wass asked Mr Depp about an alleged incident on a flight from Boston to Los Angeles in May 2014.
The barrister put it to Mr Depp that he had been "screaming obscenities" at Ms Heard on the plane and brought up the subject of fellow actor James Franco - whom Mr Depp "suspected" was having an affair with his partner.
Ms Wass said Mr Depp threw ice cubes at Ms Heard, and was "in a blind rage", becoming so angry he slapped her across the face.
Mr Depp denied that happened, or that he called Ms Heard a "slut" and a "whore".
The barrister suggested the actor went to the toilet of the plane, where he passed out.
Mr Depp said in response: "As Ms Heard was berating me, screaming at me and whatnot, as is her wont, she began to get physical."
He added that he then "grabbed a pillow from the couch and slept on the bathroom floor".
Ms Wass asked about an incident in which Ms Heard's dog "had eaten some hash, some cannabis - quite a lot".
The actor replied: "The puppy got a hold of a little ball of hashish and just scooped it up before I could get to it."
The court has also heard about an alleged incident in which it is claimed Mr Depp held another of Ms Heard's dogs out of a car window, which he dismissed as "utter falsity".
Amber Heard and Johnny Depp, pictured in 2015, were married for two years
On the first day of the libel case the court heard that Mr Depp denied being violent towards his ex-wife and accused Ms Heard of being violent towards him.
NGN previously tried to have the case thrown out, but Mr Justice Nicol ruled last week the case could go ahead.
The case arose out of the publication of an article on the Sun's website headlined: "Gone Potty: How can JK Rowling be 'genuinely happy' casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?"
The Sun's original article related to allegations made by the actress, who was married to the Pirates of the Caribbean star from 2015 to 2017.
Witnesses including Mr Depp's former partners Vanessa Paradis and Winona Ryder are expected to give evidence via video link, and the hearing is expected to last for three weeks.
Mr Depp, has been Oscar and Bafta-nominated and won a Golden Globe in 2008 for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53332148
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Johnny Depp's lawyers say video shows Amber Heard 'attacked' sister - BBC News
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2020-07-24
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The video was shown to the High Court, after being provided by an anonymous source on Thursday.
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UK
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Unused reality TV footage shows a woman asking Whitney Henriquez, "did you get in a fight?"
A video which Johnny Depp's lawyers say shows his ex-wife Amber Heard "attacked" her sister has been shown to the High Court.
In the video, which was given to his legal team on Thursday night, friends of Whitney Henriquez suggest her sister had "beat" her and appear to inspect her body for bruises.
Mr Depp, 57, is suing the publisher of the Sun over an online article that labelled him a "wife beater".
The paper insists it was accurate.
In the video, which was shown to the court on the 14th day of the hearing in London, Ms Henriquez is talking with friends by a pool.
One friend is heard saying, "did you get in a fight?" and then "I can't believe Amber beat your ass."
One woman appears to inspect Ms Henriquez's cheek and arm, and Ms Henriquez is heard saying she is not going to talk about it.
Amber Heard arrives at the High Court on Friday, after giving evidence the previous day
Mr Depp's barrister, David Sherborne, said his team received the video from "an anonymous source", after Ms Henriquez said in court that her sister had never attacked her.
He said the video was captured during the filming of a reality television show in 2006 or 2007 and was not for broadcast, but was "the rushes" - the unedited, raw footage.
He told the court: "We were contacted to explain that Ms Amber Heard had a history of violence and attacking people and this video, which was attached, of her sister Whitney was taken shortly after Amber Heard had attacked her, and Ms Whitney was filmed with people commenting on the bruises on her face and body."
Mr Sherborne said the newly disclosed video material "demonstrates Ms Whitney was lying yesterday" and that she had "tailored" her evidence "to meet her sister's evidence".
Returning to the witness stand, Ms Henriquez told the court she had been referring in the video to a verbal argument she had had with her sister and denied it had been physical.
She said her friends were "inferring, trying to make a storyline - albeit a bad one - interesting, nothing more".
On Thursday, Ms Henriquez said Ms Heard had never hit her and denied being "frightened" of her sister.
She said she had seen Mr Depp punch Ms Heard "really hard in the head... multiple times" in Los Angeles in March 2015. Ms Henriquez acknowledged that Ms Heard had punched Mr Depp on that occasion - but said it was only "in my defence" because Ms Heard believed Mr Depp was going to push Ms Henriquez down the stairs.
Addressing the court on Friday, Mr Sherborne said Ms Henriquez's evidence about the so-called "stairs incident" was "the only occasion on which any other human being is supposed to have witnessed" Mr Depp being violent towards Ms Heard.
"The reliability of Ms Whitney is critical," he added.
Mr Depp denies allegations he was violent towards Ms Heard
Mr Sherborne said Ms Heard's evidence was that "she was never violent, she (has not) physically attacked Mr Depp... and the only occasion is said to be when she was acting in self-defence".
"Evidence that Ms Heard was violent towards her sister is relevant to that issue," he said.
Sasha Wass QC, who represents the Sun's publisher, News Group Newspapers (NGN), said she had not been aware of the video until Mr Sherborne told the court about it and argued it was "meaningless".
"This is an undated piece of film footage in circumstances which appear to be some sort of reality TV programme, which is flippant, certainly not serious," she told the court.
"This is a light-hearted exchange, there is no evidence of any injuries and it will take the matter... no further."
However, Mr Sherborne, representing Mr Depp, argued: "We say it is quite clear from that video that not only did Ms Amber Heard assault her sister, but it was quite clear also that the injuries that were suffered by Ms Whitney Heard are being examined by the individual that we see on the tape.
"There is no denial of the fact that Ms Amber Heard 'beat up' Ms Whitney Heard and that there are injuries."
Ms Heard's acting coach Kristina Sexton has also been giving evidence by video link from Australia.
In a written witness statement, Ms Sexton said she had met the actress in 2009 and the pair became friends "quite quickly".
She said Ms Heard became a "nervous wreck" about choosing film roles because she was "so worried" about Mr Depp's reaction.
Ms Sexton alleged Mr Depp "dictated" his ex-wife's work and told her not to take certain jobs because he did not want her doing "whore parts".
Giving evidence, Ms Sexton confirmed to Mr Depp's lawyer, Eleanor Laws QC, that she had not seen the actor "hit, kick or throw anything" at Ms Heard.
Under questioning from NGN's lawyer, Ms Wass, Ms Sexton said she had previously been aware of "verbal fights" between the pair but in April 2016, Ms Heard told her Mr Depp had been hitting her and had tried to strangle her.
The libel case, which is due to finish next week, centres on an article published on the Sun's website in April 2018 under the headline "Gone Potty: How can JK Rowling be 'genuinely happy' casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?".
The article related to allegations made by Ms Heard, which Mr Depp denies.
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South African church attack: Five dead after 'hostage situation' - BBC News
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2020-07-12
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The church, on the outskirts of Johannesburg, was attacked amid reports of fighting over leadership.
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Africa
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Police released images of suspects lying on the ground
Five people have been killed after attackers stormed a South African church, reportedly amid an argument over its leadership.
South African police said they had rescued men, women and children from a "hostage situation" on the outskirts of Johannesburg on Saturday morning.
They have also arrested at least 40 people, and seized dozens of weapons.
Eyewitnesses say the men who stormed the International Pentecostal Holiness Church were part of a splinter group.
The church's leadership has reportedly been the subject of infighting since its former leader died in 2016. Police had previously been called to the church following a shoot out between members in 2018, South Africa's IOL reports.
The year before, the church's finances had come under the spotlight, amid allegations some 110m rand ($6.5m; £5.2m) had gone missing, according to The Sowetan newspaper.
On Saturday, police were called to the church in Zuurbekom in the West Rand at 03:00 local time (01:00 GMT).
A number of weapons have been recovered by police
According to national police spokesperson Brigadier Vish Naidoo, a group of attackers indicated to those inside "that they were coming to take over the premises".
He said four people had been found shot and burnt to death in cars, while a security guard, who was thought to have been responding to the incident, was also fatally shot.
Five rifles, 16 shotguns and 13 pistols, along with other weapons, were found at the church, which police have been combing for evidence.
The South African Police Service (SAPS) said that among those arrested were members of SAPS, the South African National Defence Force, the Johannesburg Metro Police Department and the Department of Correctional Services.
The International Pentecostal Holiness Church is thought to have about three million members in Southern Africa.
While the International Pentecostal Holiness Church, one of the largest churches in that region, has made tabloid headlines over missing money and its leadership squabbles in the last few years, what happened on Saturday took many by surprise - including authorities.
Now police say they have launched a high-level investigation looking into the exact circumstances around the shooting - not least, who ordered the attack.
Part of the investigation is trying to ascertain whether the four people who were killed and burnt inside a car were part of the group who had earlier stormed into the church.
"We've arrested all those we reasonably believed are suspects. They have been taking in for questioning," said police spokesperson Vish Naidoo.
As night falls, police officers have been deployed to monitor the safety of hundreds of congregants living on the church premises who are said to be fearful of another attack.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-53375607
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Amber Heard: Johnny Depp 'threatened to kill me many times' - BBC News
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2020-07-20
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Amber Heard claims ex-husband Johnny Depp "was pressing so hard on my neck I couldn't breathe".
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UK
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Amber Heard and Johnny Depp were at London's High Court for day 10 of the case
Actor Johnny Depp "threatened to kill" ex-wife Amber Heard "many times", the US actress has claimed.
She described a "three-day hostage situation" during which she claimed Mr Depp was on a "drug and alcohol binge".
Mr Depp, 57, is suing the publisher of the Sun over an article that referred to him as a "wife beater" - but the newspaper maintains it was accurate.
He denies 14 allegations of domestic violence on which News Group Newspapers is relying for its defence.
Ms Heard took to the witness stand at London's High Court on the 10th day of the case, and her written witness statement was also submitted to the court.
In it, she accused Mr Depp of verbal and physical abuse including screaming, swearing, issuing threats, punching, slapping, kicking, head-butting and choking her, as well as "extremely controlling and intimidating behaviour".
"Some incidents were so severe that I was afraid he was going to kill me, either intentionally, or just by losing control and going too far," she said.
Under cross-examination, Ms Heard later said that although there were times when she "lost her cool" with Mr Depp, it was only in self-defence.
Ms Heard, 34, claimed Mr Depp had a "unique ability to use his charisma to convey a certain impression of reality" and "he is very good at manipulating people".
"He would blame all his actions on a self-created third party instead of himself, which he often called 'the monster'.
A court artist sketch shows Amber Heard giving evidence, as ex-husband Johnny Depp looks on
She said at the beginning of their relationship, he would be "intensely affectionate, warm and charming" and it felt like she was "dating a king".
Ms Heard, who was married to the film star from 2015 to 2017, said Mr Depp had pursued her romantically while they were filming The Rum Diary in 2009 but nothing happened between them then because she was in a relationship.
She said they next saw each other whilst promoting the same film in 2011, which was when their "romantic relationship" began.
Ms Heard said the pre-nuptial agreement was left on Mr Depp's team's desk and "no-one did anything"
Her witness statement added: "When Johnny puts his attention on you, with all his intensity and darkness, it is unlike anything I've ever experienced.
"When I say he was dark, he had a violent and dark way of speaking: the way he talked about our relationship being 'dead or alive' and telling me that death was the only way out of the relationship."
In her statement, Ms Heard also described visiting Mr Depp in Australia in March 2015, while he was filming Pirates of the Caribbean, and described the trip as "like a three-day hostage situation".
She said during this time, there were "extreme acts" of "psychological, physical, emotional and other forms of violence".
"It is the worst thing I have ever been through. I was left with an injured lip and nose, and cuts on my arms."
She claimed Mr Depp grabbed her neck, shoved her against the fridge, tore off her nightgown and pushed her against a bar.
"He was pressing so hard on my neck I couldn't breathe. I was trying to tell him that I couldn't breathe. I remember thinking he was going to kill me in that moment," she said.
Johnny Depp is bringing the case against the Sun over an article published in 2018
She added that she later found her nightgown, saying: "There were pieces of it wrapped round something and I realised it was the steak I had planned to cook.
"He had also gone around and painted on all my clothes in the closet," she said.
The court previously heard from Mr Depp, who said the top of his finger was severed when Ms Heard threw a vodka bottle at him during the trip to Australia.
In her statement, Ms Heard said: "I didn't actually see the finger being cut off, but I was worried that it had happened the night before.
"I figured it might have happened when he was smashing the phone on the wall by the fridge."
Ms Heard also said Mr Depp accused her of having affairs with fellow actors, and claimed she had to justify to him why she accepted film roles.
"He accused me of having affairs with each of my co-stars, movie after movie: Eddie Redmayne, James Franco, Jim Sturgess, Kevin Costner, Liam Hemsworth, Billy-Bob Thornton, Channing Tatum; even women co-stars like Kelly Garner.
"He also accused me of having affairs with stars I auditioned with, like Leonardo DiCaprio. He would taunt me about it - especially when he was drunk or high - and had derogatory nicknames for every one of my male co-stars he considered a sexual threat.
"For example, Leonardo DiCaprio was 'pumpkin-head'. Channing Tatum was 'potato-head'."
Earlier, from the witness stand, Ms Heard told the court that she had been subjected to repeated and regular physical violence by the time of the couple's marriage in 2015.
Mr Depp's lawyer, Eleanor Laws QC, asked her about her allegations regarding an argument in January 2015, and suggested it was over discussions with lawyers about a pre-nuptial agreement between herself and Mr Depp.
"There was an argument in a hotel room in Tokyo that resulted in Johnny kneeling on my back and hitting me on the back of the head," Ms Heard told the court.
She added: "But then Johnny was also accusing me of having an affair with a co-star and that is what led to the actual argument."
Ms Heard said Mr Depp had told her he did not want a pre-nuptial agreement but it was his sister, Christi Dembrowski, who wanted the couple to get one.
Ms Heard added that she had hired a lawyer who worked on a draft pre-nuptial agreement and it was sent to Mr Depp's team but never signed.
She denied that she was interested in Mr Depp's money, saying: "I never had been, I never was."
She said she did not have a "problem" with controlling her temper, when challenged by Mr Depp's lawyer, who also suggested that Ms Heard would have "outbursts of rage and anger".
Ms Heard said "there were times when, yes, I lost my cool with Johnny in our fights..."
Ms Laws referred to a medical note written by a nurse, Erin Boerum, who wrote that Ms Heard had reported "experiencing increased anxiety and agitation and has had several outbursts of anger and rage", and also that she was "nervous about being alone while husband is working on movie set in London (and) dealing with feelings of insecurity and jealousy".
Asked by Ms Laws if she felt "insecure and jealous" when she wasn't in Mr Depp's presence, Ms Heard said she had expressed "concerns" about his travel because it was a "trigger" for him, when they were apart.
Ms Laws asked Ms Heard if she ever "got violent" with Mr Depp, to which the actress replied "no", adding that he put her in situations where she was faced with "unimaginable frustrations and difficulties, often that were life-threatening to me".
She added that she would "try to defend myself when he got serious and when I thought my life was threatened, but I was never violent towards him".
Ms Heard said it was "years into the relationship" before she tried to defend herself; adding "before that" she had "just checked out".
Ms Heard was then played a recording of a conversation between her and Mr Depp, in which Mr Depp can be heard to say that he is not the one who "throws pots".
In the recording, she can be heard saying that she has "thrown pots and pans". When questioned by Ms Laws on this admission, she said she threw things "only to escape" Mr Depp.
The lawyer put it to Ms Heard that she was "not injured at all" as a result of anything that happened on the night of 21 May 2016.
Ms Heard had alleged that Mr Depp had thrown her mobile phone at her face, hit her in the eye, pulled her hair and grabbed her face.
Ms Laws suggested that Mr Depp "didn't cause any damage whatsoever in that penthouse", to which Ms Heard said the actor had "caused damage to multiple apartments and my face... he did a significant amount of damage to the property".
Ms Laws showed Ms Heard a photograph taken days after the 21 May incident, and after Ms Heard was said to have had "a four-hour meeting with your legal team".
The lawyer said: "It doesn't appear as if you have got any marks on your face at all there".
Ms Heard said the photo was a "paparazzi shot with long lenses", adding: "If I went out in Los Angeles, I would wear makeup, except for my court appearance."
Ms Laws then suggested that, in earlier photos which are said to show injuries, she had put bruises on "yourself through makeup or lighting or any other means - it wasn't any injury from Mr Depp".
Ms Heard said she disagreed "wholeheartedly" with this, adding that she had been forced to "cover up many bruises" as it was "embarrassing" to be seen with them.
The lawyer added that "far from being petrified of Mr Depp", Ms Heard had, between 21 May and 27 May, contacted Mr Depp on the phone.
Ms Heard she had been "attempting to", and Ms Laws said: "You were not displaying any signs of being fearful of him in those texts." Ms Heard replied: "No."
Ms Laws suggested that, by the time Ms Heard and Mr Depp met in July 2016 in San Francisco, "you were no longer petrified of him".
Ms Heard denied this. She alluded to her earlier statement that it was "the monster" in the relationship that she was "terrified of" and not "Johnny" whom she "loved".
The libel case centres on an article published on the Sun's website in April 2018 headlined: "Gone Potty: How can JK Rowling be 'genuinely happy' casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?".
The article related to allegations made by Ms Heard. The hearing is expected to last for three weeks.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53472114
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news_uk-53472114
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Geoffrey Rush: Sydney newspaper loses appeal over defamation payout - BBC News
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2020-07-02
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Actor Geoffrey Rush will receive a record sum from an Australian newspaper, after it lost an appeal.
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Australia
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Geoffrey Rush won a defamation case against The Daily Telegraph last year
An Australian newspaper has lost its appeal against a record defamation payout awarded to actor Geoffrey Rush.
Mr Rush was awarded A$2.9m (£1.57m; US$1.99m) last April after winning his case against Nationwide News, a publisher owned by Rupert Murdoch.
Its newspaper, Sydney's Daily Telegraph, had run stories accusing Mr Rush of behaving inappropriately towards a former theatre co-star.
The publisher lost its appeal against the judgement and the size of payout.
Lawyers for Nationwide News had argued the payout - the largest ever awarded to a single person in Australia - was "manifestly excessive".
But three Federal Court judges ruled the sum was "appropriate high" given the "extremely serious" allegations and the harm caused to Mr Rush's reputation.
The original front page story carried the headline "King Leer" and detailed accusations from a 2015 Sydney Theatre Company production of King Lear.
It alleged Mr Rush had acted inappropriately towards a co-star, later revealed to be actress Eryn Jean Norvill.
The Federal Court agreed with the original trial judge's assessment that Ms Norvill - who gave evidence for the newspaper at the trial - was an unreliable witness and "prone to exaggeration".
In doing so, it rejected the publisher's arguments that the story should be exempt from a defamation finding because the allegations were "substantially true".
Ms Norvill testified to the court last year
It also dismissed an argument that the judge had been wrong not to allow evidence of another actress who came forward with allegations about Mr Rush.
The actress, Yael Stone, has accused Mr Rush of acting inappropriately towards her - allegations he denies.
Nationwide News was ordered to pay Mr Rush A$850,000 for general and aggravated damages, more than A$1m for past economic losses, A$919,678 in future economic losses and A$43,000 in interest.
This and other high-profile defamation cases have also sparked wider debate about Australia's tough defamation laws.
Australia puts the legal onus on a person making allegations to prove that they are true. This is different to the US, for example, where the onus is on the accused person to prove an allegation was made with malice.
Critics have argued Australia's laws have a "silencing effect" on media companies to publish stories which may be in the public interest.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-53259355
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news_world-australia-53259355
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Megan Thee Stallion claims Tory Lanez shot her in feet - BBC News
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2020-08-21
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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The rapper called the shooting "the worst experience of my life" in a tearful Instagram live.
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Newsbeat
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Megan Thee Stallion has accused Tory Lanez of shooting her in both feet in a July incident.
"Tory shot me" after an argument in a car, rapper Megan claimed in an Instagram live.
Singer Tory Lanez - whose real name is Daystar Peterson - was later charged with carrying a concealed weapon.
Megan claimed she feared police would start shooting if she said a gun was involved, so she told them she'd stepped on broken glass.
"I didn't tell the police nothing, because I didn't want us to get in no more trouble than we was about to get in."
Tory was arrested at the time - 12 July - on the open charge of carrying a concealed firearm. He was released later that day.
Megan Thee Stallion has had two UK top 10 singles this year
Tory Lanez has been quiet since the incident but Megan Thee Stallion accused his team of spreading misinformation online.
"Stop acting like black women is aggressive when all they be doing is speaking the... facts, and you... can't handle it," she said.
She spoke about being called a "snitch" online - and also disputed claims that she hit Tory Lanez before the shooting.
Megan has received support from JoJo and Kehlani.
In response to questions from her fans, US singer JoJo confirmed Tory Lanez will not be appearing on the deluxe version of recent album Good to Know.
It follows Kehlani saying the same about a track on her album that featured the Canadian singer.
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"As someone with a large platform, as someone that people look up to, as a woman that makes other women feel safe and empowered, people were asking me, 'Are you going to keep somebody on it who doesn't necessarily make us feel safe or empowered as a woman?'" Kehlani told Chicago radio station WGCI.
"This is not an industry friendship. That's really my friend and someone I say I love you to," she added about Megan Thee Stallion.
Megan, whose real name is Megan Pete, has previously described the incident but didn't say who shot her.
"I had to get surgery to get it taken out, get the bullets taken out, and it was super scary," she said in July.
She told her followers about what happened and referred to her family. Her mum - also her manager - died in March 2019.
"It was just the worst experience of my life, and it's not funny," she said.
"It's nothing to joke about and it's nothing for y'all to go and be making fake stories about.
"I didn't put my hands on nobody. I didn't deserve to get shot."
Megan Thee Stallion said she had surgery to remove the bullets
Despite being shot at least twice, she said her injuries weren't serious.
"And thank God that the bullets didn't touch bones, they didn't break tendons," she said previously.
"I know my mama and my daddy and my granny had to be looking out for me with that one, because where the bullets hit at, they missed everything, but they were in there.
"And it's not that I was protecting anybody, I just wasn't ready to speak."
Megan previously described it as an act "with the intention to physically harm me," in an Instagram post following the incident.
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The Los Angeles Times quoted the LA Police Department at the time as saying one person was taken to the hospital "with a foot injury".
Newsbeat has contacted the LA District Attorney, whose spokesperson told Billboard it was considering whether to file charges against Tory Lanez.
Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-53566830
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news_newsbeat-53566830
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Coronavirus: Tighter rules for Oldham, Pendle and Blackburn - BBC News
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2020-08-21
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Residents of Oldham and parts of Pendle and Blackburn face stricter Covid-19 restrictions.
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England
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People will still be able to go shopping and go to work
Oldham and parts of Blackburn and Pendle are facing extra restrictions to stem the spread of Covid-19.
Residents in those areas are not allowed to socialise with anyone from outside their household, as of midnight on Saturday.
Workplaces, childcare facilities and businesses, including restaurants and pubs, will remain open.
Since July, the government has been introducing extra restrictions after a spike in coronavirus cases.
People will be advised to avoid using public transport except for essential travel
But tighter rules in Wigan, Darwen and Rossendale are to be dropped on 26 August.
Wigan and Rossendale originally faced tighter restrictions along with the rest of Greater Manchester and east Lancashire because of the wider region's overall infection rate and concerns that the virus was being spread between households.
However, both have maintained low infection rates compared with other areas.
The additional measures in Oldham and parts of Pendle and Blackburn will not prevent people from shopping, going to work or attending child-care settings including schools, which open from 1 September.
However, any social activities indoors and outdoors can only be shared with people you live with and are in your immediate household.
Residents will be advised to avoid using public transport except for essential travel, and the number of people who can attend weddings, civil partnerships and funerals will be limited to household members and close family, with no more than 20 people.
Restaurants will also be encouraged to halt walk-ins, and only seat people who make reservations in advance.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: "To prevent a second peak and keep Covid-19 under control, we need robust, targeted intervention where we see a spike in cases.
"Our approach is to make the action we take as targeted as possible, with the maximum possible local consensus."
This will allow local councils to focus resources on the wards that need more targeted intervention, he added.
The new restrictions on household gatherings and socialising will apply to the following areas of Blackburn with Darwen: Audley & Queen's Park, Bastwell & Daisyfield, Billinge & Beardwood, Blackburn Central, Little Harwood & Whitebirk, Roe Lee, Shear Brow & Corporation Park, Wensley Fold.
Areas in Blackburn with Darwen where all restrictions have been lifted are: Blackburn South & Lower Darwen, Blackburn South East, Darwen East, Darwen South, Darwen West, Ewood, Livesey with Pleasington, Mill Hill & Moorgate, West Pennine
Existing restrictions in Pendle remain but the new rules apply to the following areas: Whitefield, Walverden, Southfield, Bradley, Clover Hill, Brierfield, Marsden
Councillor Sean Fielding, leader of Oldham Council, welcomed the announcement the town would not face business closures.
"Over the last few days we've made a clear argument that an economic lockdown was not the answer for Oldham," he said.
"Instead we put forward a strong case to [the] government for a different approach - one where we increase testing, use our powers to drive compliance and enforcement among those not currently following guidelines, and carry out intensive door-to-door engagement in areas with higher cases."
He added that he believed the tightened measures would "help reduce the spread of the virus".
Tightened Covid-19 measures have been imposed in Oldham, Pendle and Blackburn
Greater Manchester Metro Mayor Andy Burnham said: "I think we've come to a sensible agreement with the government and I'm grateful to them for listening.
"We didn't want to see a lockdown in Oldham and we are pleased the government worked with us on that one - and we are glad the restrictions have been lifted in Wigan."
Mr Burnham added that he wanted to see "further relaxation" in Greater Manchester next week as "we are also seeing cases coming down in Trafford and Stockport".
"We are balancing protecting people against letting people live their lives - it is a really difficult question and I don't envy the government on this one," he said.
With the exception of Northampton, Oldham, Blackburn and Pendle have the highest rate of new infections.
They are seeing between 70 and 90 cases per 100,000 people. That is about half the rate Leicester was in when it was put into lockdown.
This move is about taking pre-emptive action before infections spiral out of control.
What testing shows is that in these places - and a number of other areas in the north west and West Yorkshire for that matter - there is community transmission, often focussed in specific neighbourhoods.
Northampton, which has the highest rate, is quite different as the cases are largely linked to a workplace.
But alongside these extra restrictions, there is also a great deal of work being done that does not get the headlines.
Council staff working hand-in-hand with community groups are knocking on doors, encouraging residents to get tested and stay safe. To help with this, extra testing facilities are opening up.
The targeted testing of people in high infection areas who are not ill is also beginning - one of the major difficulties in fighting this virus is that significant numbers do not show symptoms.
But one issue that keeps cropping up is how to get people to isolate when they have mild symptoms and staying at home means they do not get paid. Many on the ground say this needs to be resolved urgently.
The spike in Northampton was "almost solely down to an outbreak linked to the workforce at the Greencore Factory", a Department for Health spokesperson said.
Nearly 300 workers have tested positive, and employees and their households are required to isolate at home for two weeks.
The number of cases has also been "rising quickly" in Birmingham, where the majority of new cases have been among those aged between 18 and 34, a government spokesperson said.
The city recorded about 30 cases per 100,000 residents over the past week.
It has been categorised as an 'area of enhanced support', which means it will get additional testing, more local contact tracing, and targeted community engagement.
The mayor of the West Midlands believes "some people have not been strict enough" with coronavirus measures.
Andy Street said the city was in "an extremely challenging situation".
Birmingham City Council leader Ian Ward added that the watch list should be a "wake-up call for everyone".
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Tenet: Will Gompertz reviews Christopher Nolan's epic ★★★★☆ - BBC News
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2020-08-21
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Will Gompertz reviews Christopher Nolan's Tenet, the first major cinema release since the pandemic.
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Entertainment & Arts
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US actor John David Washington plays a character known as The Protagonist
Christopher Nolan is that rare beast: an art house auteur making intellectually ambitious blockbuster movies that can leave your pulse racing and your head spinning.
Ridley Scott had the same knack, as did Stanley Kubrick: the wit to combine a vivid imagination with unabashed showmanship in order to explore complex ideas such as time and space and consciousness in the context of an epic, all-action movie.
To this, Nolan adds a mastery of mixing genres. Inception was a sci-fi-heist movie, The Dark Knight a comic-book thriller.
He's at it again with Tenet, which is a globe-trotting sci-fi-spy drama starring John David Washington as The Protagonist, who is given the not insignificant task of saving humanity from certain radioactive Armageddon in a looming World War III.
It's a big ask, but arguably not as big a challenge as the one Nolan has been set with Tenet - which is basically to save the world of cinema from the potentially terminal twin threats of streaming giants and Covid-19. It's a combination of an unseen, mutating enemy and an insurgent fifth column, which, in terms of themes, sounds like a Nolan movie.
Tenet is the first major film to be screened in cinemas since the coronavirus outbreak
Tenet is a big movie (shot on a mixture of Imax cameras and 70mm film) with a big budget (reported at around $200m/£153m), which is designed to be seen on the big screen. It is a piece of what is now called "event" cinema, an immersive experience to stimulate all the senses, which it does, from Ludwig Göransson's throbbing Wagnerian score to visual effects company DNEG's eye-boggling CGI.
In terms of spectacle, Tenet delivers. The stunts, the camera work and the scale are impressive. As is Nolan's appetite to use blockbuster entertainment as a platform to seriously consider existential threats, the unconscious mind, and cutting-edge physics.
In the past, he's given us esoteric stories of implanted dreams (Inception) and alternative universes (Interstellar), both of which felt more like fiction than science. That's not the case with Tenet, in which Nolan - who is both writer and director - grapples with the concept of time in a manner that made the incredible seem credible.
Frankly, there's a lot to get your head around. The clue is in the movie's title, which not only refers to the ethical codes of conduct (tenets) expected by the ultra-secret society into which Washington's Protagonist has unwittingly been inducted, but also to its palindromic form, an allusion to the way in which Nolan is asking us to think about time. That is, it goes both ways - forwards and backwards, sometimes simultaneously.
The upshot of which being, events that occur in the future can be revisited in the past, an idea illustrated in the Grandfather Paradox, which posits if a person travels back in time and kills their own grandfather before his or her parents were conceived, it would prevent the time-traveller's existence.
Nolan has previously directed Inception, Memento, Interstellar, Dunkirk and The Dark Knight
That's at the easier end of the temporal concepts Nolan has us grapple with, which include entropy reversal, time inversion, temporal pincer movements, and reverse cryogenology (I might have misheard that one).
If that all sounds a tad complicated, you should try showing it on film. There are car chases in which The Protagonist is going forwards when all else is in reverse, fist fights that take place over millennia but happen in the same time and space, and bullets that seal rather than penetrate.
Nolan is challenging our preconceptions of time and suggesting there might be an alternative way of looking at it beyond a limited notion of linear progression. It's confusing to begin with, but by about mid-way through the film starts to make narrative sense, to such an extent that plot twists at the end are rather predictable (or, maybe that's some super clever meta-narrative device that validates the film's conceptual argument).
In fact, the entire plot is rather predictable, which I suppose makes room for all the thinky physics stuff.
It's a Bond-like set-up. The Protagonist is the goodie: a Western agent working for a morally sound, state-backed, above-the-board secret service. The baddie is Andrei Sator, an unscrupulous Russian businessman played with great vigour but not a lot of subtlety by Kenneth Branagh.
He is married to the glamorous Kat (Elizabeth Debicki), a British art expert working for an international auction house, who foolishly gave her husband a fake Goya: a professional and personal misjudgement that has allowed the evil Andrei to blackmail her into not leaving him. Unless, that is, she agrees never to see their little son Max (Laurie Shepherd) ever again, thereby depriving her of the joy of picking him up from his posh north London prep school.
Elizabeth Debicki, recently cast as Princess Diana in The Crown, plays Kat
Andrei is hell-bent on putting together the wherewithal to erase the past, present and future of the world. The Protagonist is heaven-sent to stop him. Kat is the key, a love triangle plot device that might work on paper but doesn't in the film where there is little emotional spark or screen chemistry between her and either Andrei or The Protagonist - or Max for that matter.
You're left wondering why the two men are willing to stake everything that has ever been or will ever be on a bit of a cold fish with whom neither appear remotely enamoured.
I'm not sure why there is such an apparent lack of connection between the main players. Maybe it's the script, or possibly that the characters are too simplified, although Washington does a good job in fleshing out The Protagonist, as does Robert Pattinson in his role as an English adventurer type, Neil.
Perhaps it's the high-definition filming and extreme close-ups, which show every pore in the actors' skin, that leads to some scenes having a mannered awkwardness.
Robert Pattinson, best known for Twilight, and John David Washington
To that extent, it's certainly not Bond, but then, it's not not Bond either. There are action sequences with Bond-like levels of spectacle, and interior scenes in which you sense The Protagonist actively putting his tanks on 007's lawn with his own bone-dry quips (asked how he would like to die, he replies: "Old").
What differentiates Tenet are the bigger ideas in which Nolan is framing his story. It turns what could have been a sub-Bond action-packed spy movie into an inventive, bold and thought-provoking interrogation into our perception of time.
It won't leave you shaken, but your mind will be stirred. And that has to be worth a trip to the cinema.
Tenet is released in the UK on Wednesday, 26 August.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-53862695
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Victoria Derbyshire: My father was violent - I understand the terror of lockdown - BBC News
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2020-08-17
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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The BBC's Victoria Derbyshire looks at what life has been like for those trapped with an abusive partner.
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UK
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Growing up, I remember my whole body tensing every time I heard my father's key in the back door.
What mood would he be in when he came home from work? Would he provoke an argument? Would it lead to him hitting me, whipping me with his belt or just slapping me round the back of my head?
I was fortunate I could escape sometimes to my best friend's house down the road to get out of his way.
And the next day my father would go to work again, and I'd go to school, which meant respite from the disruptive shouting and cruel violence.
The love in our lives came from my amazing mum who did everything she could to make up for his failings.
This article contains descriptions of violence some readers may find disturbing.
Me as a child growing up in Lancashire
When the prime minister told us all to stay at home because of coronavirus, one of my first thoughts was for those living in abusive households - women, men and children, essentially trapped, forced to stay inside week after week. What would happen to them?
Spending the last few months finding out about the reality of domestic abuse under lockdown has been shocking - but I've also met women who've courageously escaped during the most challenging circumstances.
I've spent time inside refuges which were full, meeting support workers on the ground who were under pressure, and talking to people who were subjected to levels of abuse they often hadn't experienced before.
Jess* had been with her violent husband for many years. During their relationship he'd assaulted her multiple times - punching her, strangling her, controlling what she wore and how she styled her hair.
She says she had to ask his permission to make a cup of tea and even go to the loo. But when lockdown was imposed, the violence escalated to more extreme levels.
Like most of us, Jess and her husband were watching Boris Johnson as he instructed the nation to stay at home to stop the spread of Covid-19. It was then that he turned to her and said chillingly, 'Let the games begin'.
Her story is one of the most brutal I've ever heard.
She told me he raped her more than a hundred times. "Curtains would get closed, TV would be up loud, front door would be locked, music would be turned up so nobody could hear me screaming," she recalls. He burned the top of her legs with cigarettes 'so no-one would ever want her'.
BBC Panorama has learned the intensity of abuse escalated in lockdown - offences included poisoning and strangulation.
Women's Aid has been working on the first in-depth research project about the effect confinement had on domestic abuse. Of the people they spoke to, almost two-thirds of those living with their abuser said the violence got worse, and three-quarters said lockdown had made it harder for them to escape.
Meanwhile, calls to the Respect Men's Advice Line for male victims increased by 65% during the first three months of restrictions.
For some, the pandemic was used by their abuser as a form of control.
When I asked Jess what the 'stay at home' message meant to her, she simply said: "Death."
Three weeks into lockdown her husband declared 'today will be the last day you see daylight'. She knew she had to get out or she feared she'd be leaving her home "in a wooden box".
For me school was a respite from my father's violence
When I was around 12 years old, I remember running to the police station after my father locked my mum in their bedroom and began beating her up.
I was scared he was going to kill her.
Our phone had been cut off because he hadn't paid the bill - another way of trying to isolate us from friends and family.
I ran as fast as I could the mile or so to the station and, out of breath, pleaded with the officer behind the desk to come and help.
But in lockdown, some of those in violent relationships struggled to even pick up the phone to dial 999, let alone run for help, because their abuser was at home 24/7.
Jess knew she had to get through to the police somehow in order to save her life, but she couldn't alert her husband.
While he slept on the sofa, she googled 'how to contact the police without calling them', terrified he would wake up. After texting REGISTER to 999 and receiving an initial response, she sent them her address. Officers arrived within minutes.
Panorama has found in the first seven weeks of UK lockdown someone called police for help about domestic abuse every 30 seconds - that's both female and male victims.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. I returned to the house where I grew up, for the first time in 35 years, for BBC Panorama
It took the Westminster government 19 days after imposing restrictions to announce a social media campaign to encourage people to report domestic abuse, as well as an extra £2m for domestic abuse helplines.
Fiona Dwyer, chief executive of Solace, one of the biggest providers of refuge spaces told me, "the government's inaction and slowness to respond made an incredibly challenging period even more challenging".
"If you look at who was in the Cabinet, it's a lot of very privileged men. So maybe it's not an issue they think about," she says.
I haven't met one survivor, charity worker or domestic abuse advocate in the last few months who said they had seen any evidence the government in England had considered the effect lockdown would have on those living in an abusive household.
But safeguarding minister Victoria Atkins denied they were too slow to act. The government was "alive to the risks of domestic abuse", was talking to charities in the early days and "very much responding" she told me.
Women told me Covid-19 had been used against them as a form of control
In the nearly three weeks between the introduction of lockdown and the government launching its You Are Not Alone campaign, 11 women, two children and one man were killed in alleged domestic abuse cases.
Responsibility for those deaths lies with the perpetrators, but could lives have been saved had the government acted more quickly?
"There will be time to reflect on lessons to be learned across the pandemic", Ms Atkins told me. She said she was working to scrap the October deadline requiring charities to spend the emergency government funding they received.
Jess had to leave her home and her only option was to try to find a place in a refuge. Her life since she arrived at one in Wales run by the charity Llamau has been transformed - thanks to support from the dedicated staff and caring fellow survivors.
The UK potentially faces a further coronavirus spike and more local lockdowns as we head towards winter. Solace's Fiona Dwyer said the UK government has to make sure there is "robust sustainable funding for future services".
My parents got divorced when I was 16 and that's when we escaped the violence. But not all domestic abuse survivors leave their home. Why should they have to? Others can't because they are terrified their abuser will come after them; many simply can't afford to go because they aren't financially independent.
For those like Jess who did take that step during lockdown, it has been liberating. "I feel safe. I don't feel threatened. I can go to bed at night knowing nothing's going to happen to me."
If you've been affected by domestic violence you can get help by calling the National Domestic Abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247 and in Scotland 0800 027 1234. There is also the Respect Men's Advice Line on 0808 801 0327.
You can watch BBC Panorama 'Escaping my Abuser' on BBC One at 19:30 BST and on BBC iPlayer.
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A-level and GCSE results: 'Improved' schools can challenge grades - BBC News
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2020-08-07
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The exam regulator broadens rights of appeal amid concerns about unfair results in the pandemic.
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Family & Education
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A combination of teachers' predictions and a school's recent results will be calculated to provide students with their grades this year
Schools in England can appeal if they can show this year's GCSE and A-level results do not reflect recent improvements, the exams watchdog says.
Ofqual's announcement comes amid concern that the manner in which grades are calculated in the absence of exams could penalise some pupils.
In Scotland there were claims that a similar system marked down poorer pupils more heavily.
Individual pupils will not be able to challenge their grades, however.
With exams cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, A-level results on 13 August and GCSE results a week later are being calculated by combining teachers' estimated grades for individual pupils with a statistical model based on the school's past results.
Basically, it means that if the evidence suggests a school has been a little too generous in how it thinks pupils would have performed, the school's results will be adjusted downwards.
Some head teachers had criticised the "narrow" right of appeal that was initially in place: it stated that schools could only challenge the results if there had been a technical error in calculating a particular grade.
This week saw Scotland's exam results' day overtaken by disappointment and anger that so many disadvantaged students appear to have had their teachers' estimates downgraded.
Ahead of A-levels results' day in England next week, the exams regulator has made, what many might consider, a strategic shift.
It's still no easier for a student to appeal - they can only do that on technical grounds of process, or if they have clear evidence of discrimination.
But, in theory at least, the shift makes it easier for a school to challenge results if they think the school's past history of poor exam grades is being unfairly applied.
That doesn't mean that many will succeed - the exams regulator in England has made it clear it thinks these cases will be rare.
In the short term, at least, it may take just some of the political sting out of results' day if it turns out as many students in England as in Scotland have had their teachers' estimates downgraded.
There have been no GCSEs or A-level exams this year, meaning results will be based on estimated grades
Labour's shadow education secretary, Kate Green, said that system risked "baking in inequality" if results are based on a "computer algorithm" rather than "merit".
When Scottish pupils received their results on Tuesday, there were warnings of a "deluge" of appeals after 125,000 grades were lowered - a quarter of the total - while only about 9,000 were adjusted upwards.
Since then, Ofqual has said schools and colleges in England can challenge the results basing their arguments on a number of other grounds, including if the school has been through a major change of leadership which has turned around recent performances in the classroom.
Schools which can show evidence they were expecting different results because they have an exceptional group of students this year can also contest the grades.
Other grounds for appeal might be that past results were distorted by a "monumental event", such as a flood or fire, or the school has changed from a single-sex school to a mixed one.
But the exam regulator said it expects challenges to the way it calculates grades to be rare.
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said: "It is vital that students with exceptional circumstances are not held back by the way grades have been calculated."
Although students cannot appeal directly to the exam boards over their calculated grades, they can submit allegations about bias or discrimination in the way their teachers estimated their grade.
In addition, students who are unhappy with the grades awarded also have the option of sitting A-level exams in October, or GCSE exams in November.
Ofqual has previously said it expects results to be higher this year than in previous summers, although lower than the "optimistic" predictions of teachers.
It also said it is confident that the results will show there was no "unconscious bias" in the predicted grades from teachers which might disadvantage ethnic minorities or poorer students.
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Coronavirus: Tighter rules for Oldham, Pendle and Blackburn - BBC News
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2020-08-22
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Residents of Oldham and parts of Pendle and Blackburn face stricter Covid-19 restrictions.
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England
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People will still be able to go shopping and go to work
Oldham and parts of Blackburn and Pendle are facing extra restrictions to stem the spread of Covid-19.
Residents in those areas are not allowed to socialise with anyone from outside their household, as of midnight on Saturday.
Workplaces, childcare facilities and businesses, including restaurants and pubs, will remain open.
Since July, the government has been introducing extra restrictions after a spike in coronavirus cases.
People will be advised to avoid using public transport except for essential travel
But tighter rules in Wigan, Darwen and Rossendale are to be dropped on 26 August.
Wigan and Rossendale originally faced tighter restrictions along with the rest of Greater Manchester and east Lancashire because of the wider region's overall infection rate and concerns that the virus was being spread between households.
However, both have maintained low infection rates compared with other areas.
The additional measures in Oldham and parts of Pendle and Blackburn will not prevent people from shopping, going to work or attending child-care settings including schools, which open from 1 September.
However, any social activities indoors and outdoors can only be shared with people you live with and are in your immediate household.
Residents will be advised to avoid using public transport except for essential travel, and the number of people who can attend weddings, civil partnerships and funerals will be limited to household members and close family, with no more than 20 people.
Restaurants will also be encouraged to halt walk-ins, and only seat people who make reservations in advance.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: "To prevent a second peak and keep Covid-19 under control, we need robust, targeted intervention where we see a spike in cases.
"Our approach is to make the action we take as targeted as possible, with the maximum possible local consensus."
This will allow local councils to focus resources on the wards that need more targeted intervention, he added.
The new restrictions on household gatherings and socialising will apply to the following areas of Blackburn with Darwen: Audley & Queen's Park, Bastwell & Daisyfield, Billinge & Beardwood, Blackburn Central, Little Harwood & Whitebirk, Roe Lee, Shear Brow & Corporation Park, Wensley Fold.
Areas in Blackburn with Darwen where all restrictions have been lifted are: Blackburn South & Lower Darwen, Blackburn South East, Darwen East, Darwen South, Darwen West, Ewood, Livesey with Pleasington, Mill Hill & Moorgate, West Pennine
Existing restrictions in Pendle remain but the new rules apply to the following areas: Whitefield, Walverden, Southfield, Bradley, Clover Hill, Brierfield, Marsden
Councillor Sean Fielding, leader of Oldham Council, welcomed the announcement the town would not face business closures.
"Over the last few days we've made a clear argument that an economic lockdown was not the answer for Oldham," he said.
"Instead we put forward a strong case to [the] government for a different approach - one where we increase testing, use our powers to drive compliance and enforcement among those not currently following guidelines, and carry out intensive door-to-door engagement in areas with higher cases."
He added that he believed the tightened measures would "help reduce the spread of the virus".
Tightened Covid-19 measures have been imposed in Oldham, Pendle and Blackburn
Greater Manchester Metro Mayor Andy Burnham said: "I think we've come to a sensible agreement with the government and I'm grateful to them for listening.
"We didn't want to see a lockdown in Oldham and we are pleased the government worked with us on that one - and we are glad the restrictions have been lifted in Wigan."
Mr Burnham added that he wanted to see "further relaxation" in Greater Manchester next week as "we are also seeing cases coming down in Trafford and Stockport".
"We are balancing protecting people against letting people live their lives - it is a really difficult question and I don't envy the government on this one," he said.
With the exception of Northampton, Oldham, Blackburn and Pendle have the highest rate of new infections.
They are seeing between 70 and 90 cases per 100,000 people. That is about half the rate Leicester was in when it was put into lockdown.
This move is about taking pre-emptive action before infections spiral out of control.
What testing shows is that in these places - and a number of other areas in the north west and West Yorkshire for that matter - there is community transmission, often focussed in specific neighbourhoods.
Northampton, which has the highest rate, is quite different as the cases are largely linked to a workplace.
But alongside these extra restrictions, there is also a great deal of work being done that does not get the headlines.
Council staff working hand-in-hand with community groups are knocking on doors, encouraging residents to get tested and stay safe. To help with this, extra testing facilities are opening up.
The targeted testing of people in high infection areas who are not ill is also beginning - one of the major difficulties in fighting this virus is that significant numbers do not show symptoms.
But one issue that keeps cropping up is how to get people to isolate when they have mild symptoms and staying at home means they do not get paid. Many on the ground say this needs to be resolved urgently.
The spike in Northampton was "almost solely down to an outbreak linked to the workforce at the Greencore Factory", a Department for Health spokesperson said.
Nearly 300 workers have tested positive, and employees and their households are required to isolate at home for two weeks.
The number of cases has also been "rising quickly" in Birmingham, where the majority of new cases have been among those aged between 18 and 34, a government spokesperson said.
The city recorded about 30 cases per 100,000 residents over the past week.
It has been categorised as an 'area of enhanced support', which means it will get additional testing, more local contact tracing, and targeted community engagement.
The mayor of the West Midlands believes "some people have not been strict enough" with coronavirus measures.
Andy Street said the city was in "an extremely challenging situation".
Birmingham City Council leader Ian Ward added that the watch list should be a "wake-up call for everyone".
Why not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk
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Tenet: Will Gompertz reviews Christopher Nolan's epic ★★★★☆ - BBC News
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2020-08-22
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Will Gompertz reviews Christopher Nolan's Tenet, the first major cinema release since the pandemic.
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Entertainment & Arts
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US actor John David Washington plays a character known as The Protagonist
Christopher Nolan is that rare beast: an art house auteur making intellectually ambitious blockbuster movies that can leave your pulse racing and your head spinning.
Ridley Scott had the same knack, as did Stanley Kubrick: the wit to combine a vivid imagination with unabashed showmanship in order to explore complex ideas such as time and space and consciousness in the context of an epic, all-action movie.
To this, Nolan adds a mastery of mixing genres. Inception was a sci-fi-heist movie, The Dark Knight a comic-book thriller.
He's at it again with Tenet, which is a globe-trotting sci-fi-spy drama starring John David Washington as The Protagonist, who is given the not insignificant task of saving humanity from certain radioactive Armageddon in a looming World War III.
It's a big ask, but arguably not as big a challenge as the one Nolan has been set with Tenet - which is basically to save the world of cinema from the potentially terminal twin threats of streaming giants and Covid-19. It's a combination of an unseen, mutating enemy and an insurgent fifth column, which, in terms of themes, sounds like a Nolan movie.
Tenet is the first major film to be screened in cinemas since the coronavirus outbreak
Tenet is a big movie (shot on a mixture of Imax cameras and 70mm film) with a big budget (reported at around $200m/£153m), which is designed to be seen on the big screen. It is a piece of what is now called "event" cinema, an immersive experience to stimulate all the senses, which it does, from Ludwig Göransson's throbbing Wagnerian score to visual effects company DNEG's eye-boggling CGI.
In terms of spectacle, Tenet delivers. The stunts, the camera work and the scale are impressive. As is Nolan's appetite to use blockbuster entertainment as a platform to seriously consider existential threats, the unconscious mind, and cutting-edge physics.
In the past, he's given us esoteric stories of implanted dreams (Inception) and alternative universes (Interstellar), both of which felt more like fiction than science. That's not the case with Tenet, in which Nolan - who is both writer and director - grapples with the concept of time in a manner that made the incredible seem credible.
Frankly, there's a lot to get your head around. The clue is in the movie's title, which not only refers to the ethical codes of conduct (tenets) expected by the ultra-secret society into which Washington's Protagonist has unwittingly been inducted, but also to its palindromic form, an allusion to the way in which Nolan is asking us to think about time. That is, it goes both ways - forwards and backwards, sometimes simultaneously.
The upshot of which being, events that occur in the future can be revisited in the past, an idea illustrated in the Grandfather Paradox, which posits if a person travels back in time and kills their own grandfather before his or her parents were conceived, it would prevent the time-traveller's existence.
Nolan has previously directed Inception, Memento, Interstellar, Dunkirk and The Dark Knight
That's at the easier end of the temporal concepts Nolan has us grapple with, which include entropy reversal, time inversion, temporal pincer movements, and reverse cryogenology (I might have misheard that one).
If that all sounds a tad complicated, you should try showing it on film. There are car chases in which The Protagonist is going forwards when all else is in reverse, fist fights that take place over millennia but happen in the same time and space, and bullets that seal rather than penetrate.
Nolan is challenging our preconceptions of time and suggesting there might be an alternative way of looking at it beyond a limited notion of linear progression. It's confusing to begin with, but by about mid-way through the film starts to make narrative sense, to such an extent that plot twists at the end are rather predictable (or, maybe that's some super clever meta-narrative device that validates the film's conceptual argument).
In fact, the entire plot is rather predictable, which I suppose makes room for all the thinky physics stuff.
It's a Bond-like set-up. The Protagonist is the goodie: a Western agent working for a morally sound, state-backed, above-the-board secret service. The baddie is Andrei Sator, an unscrupulous Russian businessman played with great vigour but not a lot of subtlety by Kenneth Branagh.
He is married to the glamorous Kat (Elizabeth Debicki), a British art expert working for an international auction house, who foolishly gave her husband a fake Goya: a professional and personal misjudgement that has allowed the evil Andrei to blackmail her into not leaving him. Unless, that is, she agrees never to see their little son Max (Laurie Shepherd) ever again, thereby depriving her of the joy of picking him up from his posh north London prep school.
Elizabeth Debicki, recently cast as Princess Diana in The Crown, plays Kat
Andrei is hell-bent on putting together the wherewithal to erase the past, present and future of the world. The Protagonist is heaven-sent to stop him. Kat is the key, a love triangle plot device that might work on paper but doesn't in the film where there is little emotional spark or screen chemistry between her and either Andrei or The Protagonist - or Max for that matter.
You're left wondering why the two men are willing to stake everything that has ever been or will ever be on a bit of a cold fish with whom neither appear remotely enamoured.
I'm not sure why there is such an apparent lack of connection between the main players. Maybe it's the script, or possibly that the characters are too simplified, although Washington does a good job in fleshing out The Protagonist, as does Robert Pattinson in his role as an English adventurer type, Neil.
Perhaps it's the high-definition filming and extreme close-ups, which show every pore in the actors' skin, that leads to some scenes having a mannered awkwardness.
Robert Pattinson, best known for Twilight, and John David Washington
To that extent, it's certainly not Bond, but then, it's not not Bond either. There are action sequences with Bond-like levels of spectacle, and interior scenes in which you sense The Protagonist actively putting his tanks on 007's lawn with his own bone-dry quips (asked how he would like to die, he replies: "Old").
What differentiates Tenet are the bigger ideas in which Nolan is framing his story. It turns what could have been a sub-Bond action-packed spy movie into an inventive, bold and thought-provoking interrogation into our perception of time.
It won't leave you shaken, but your mind will be stirred. And that has to be worth a trip to the cinema.
Tenet is released in the UK on Wednesday, 26 August.
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A-levels: Labour call for government U-turn over 'exams fiasco' - BBC News
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2020-08-14
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Give pupils their teacher grades, says Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.
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Family & Education
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There has been widespread concern about the fairness of the 'calculated' results
Labour has called on ministers to act immediately to sort out an "exams fiasco" in England and stop thousands of A-level students being "betrayed".
It said it was unacceptable that a "flawed system" had led to 280,000 pupils having their marks downgraded.
Sir Keir Starmer said ministers must follow the lead of Scotland and allow teacher assessed marks to be accepted.
Ministers say this risks "grade inflation" and disadvantaged pupils had not been disproportionately affected.
But some Tory MPs have challenged the fairness of how grades have been decided.
Schools North East, representing over 1,100 schools in the north east of England, also backed the use of teacher assessments.
But they said if that was not possible there needed to be a much more rapid and transparent way for schools to appeal, saying that using mock grades or relying on autumn exams was inadequate.
In London a group of protestors gathered outside 10, Downing Street to express their anger at the results while petitions, calling for more weight to be given to teacher assessments, gained tens of thousands of signatures.
Protestors angry at the exam grading system gathered outside 10, Downing Street on Friday
After exams were cancelled due to the pandemic, grades were awarded using a controversial modelling system, with the key factors being the ranking order of pupils and the previous exam results of schools and colleges.
This produced more top grades than have ever been seen before in A-levels, with almost 28% getting A* and As, but head teachers have been angry about "unfathomable" individual injustices in the downgrading of some results.
This year's A-level results are higher than even before
In England, 36% of entries had grades lower than their teacher assessments and 3% were down two grades.
There are now calls to switch away from this system and to use teacher assessments, in the way that the government U-turned in Scotland.
But England's exam watchdog Ofqual has warned that using teachers' estimates would have artificially inflated results - and would have seen about 38% of entries getting A*s and As.
Labour said the lack of consistency in individual results was "heartbreaking" for those affected and the government was squarely to blame for sticking with a "fatally flawed results system".
"Across the last 24 hours the scale of the injustice has become clear," said Sir Keir.
"Young people and parents right across the country, in every town and city, feel let down and betrayed.
"The unprecedented and chaotic circumstances created by the UK government's mishandling of education during recent months mean that a return to teacher assessments is now the best option available," said the Labour leader.
"No young person should be at a detriment due to government incompetence."
Labour's education spokeswoman Kate Green also called for appeals to be able to be made by individual students, not only through schools.
The Equalities and Human Rights Commission has urged the exams regulator Ofqual to consider the equality impacts of all their actions and mitigate against any potential negative affect on disadvantaged and minority groups.
EHRC Chief Executive, Rebecca Hilsenrath, called on the watchdog to publish a full breakdown of the differences between teacher assessed grades and the final grade.
"Students who have been downgraded must be able to appeal directly if they believe their grades are unfair," she said.
Figures from Ofqual showed independent schools had disproportionately benefited from the rise in top grades - up by five percentage points, compared with two percentage points for comprehensives and 0.3 percentage points for further education colleges.
The chairman of the Education Select Committee, Tory MP Robert Halfon, urged Ofqual to "explain properly how their model has worked and whether it has been fair".
Mr Halfon also said exam appeals "should be no cost" to students.
Writing on his website, the former children's minister Tim Loughton said the results had been "extraordinarily distressing" for some students and urged ministers to "look at the algorithm again for those who have missed out on their place in further education".
Another, Tory MP. Robert Syms, asked the government to "go on teacher recommendation" arguing that grade inflation would be less unfair than failing students who did not have the chance to take exams.
And Conservative Peer, Lord Porter of Spalding, called the process for awarding grades "shambolic" and said it made him ashamed to be a member of the party.
Lord Porter also criticised fees for appeals which can be more than £100 for an unsuccessful appeal.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has defended what he said were a "robust set" of grades and said that pupils who believed they were treated unfairly would be able to appeal or, if they wanted, sit exams in the autumn.
Schools can appeal for an upgrade if their pupils' mock grades were higher than their allocated results.
But the exam regulator Ofqual has still to say how a mock exam result can be validated - and head teachers have warned that mocks are not standardised or taken by all pupils, and could not be used as a fair way of deciding final exam results.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Transport Minister Grant Shapps rejected suggestions this year's exam system had been tougher on students from poorer backgrounds.
"More students from disadvantaged backgrounds are going to university and overall we've got more accepted to university than previously as well," said Mr Shapps.
The latest figures from the Ucas admissions service do not show any significant increase in students deferring for a year.
There will still be places to be decided through clearing, but so far almost 430,000 places have been accepted.
• None What's next in the arguments over exam results?
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Bestival death: Ceon Broughton manslaughter conviction overturned - BBC News
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2020-08-18
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Ceon Broughton was jailed following the death of his girlfriend, the daughter of a Holby City actor.
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Dorset
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Louella Fletcher-Michie was found dead in a wooded area on the edge of the Bestival site
A man who gave his girlfriend drugs at a music festival and filmed her as she died has had his conviction for manslaughter overturned.
Ceon Broughton, 31, was jailed for eight-and-a-half years in 2019 over the death of Louella Fletcher-Michie, 24.
The daughter of Holby City actor John Michie died after taking the hallucinogenic class A drug 2-CP at Bestival in Dorset in 2017.
Three judges at the Court of Appeal ruled to overturn the conviction.
Miss Fletcher-Michie was found dead in woodland, 400m from the festival's hospital tent in the early hours of 11 September 2017, the day she was due to turn 25.
During Broughton's trial, the jury was shown video shot by the rapper - who used the stage name CeonRPG - in which Miss Fletcher-Michie became "disturbed, agitated, and then seriously ill".
Broughton, of Enfield, north London, was found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence and supplying a class A drug at Winchester Crown Court in February last year.
Ceon Broughton was found guilty of manslaughter and supplying a Class A drug in 2019
Delivering the Court of Appeal's ruling, Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett said the prosecution had failed to prove that Miss Fletcher-Michie could have lived if her boyfriend had called for help.
He added: "In respectful disagreement with the judge, we conclude that the appellant's main argument, that the case should have been withdrawn from the jury, is established.
"Taken at its highest, the evidence adduced by the prosecution was incapable of proving causation to the criminal standard of proof.
"The appeal against conviction for manslaughter must be allowed."
Ms Fletcher-Michie's father is actor John Michie, who starred in Holby City and Coronation Street
Lord Burnett said the jury had to rely on one expert's evidence when deciding if Broughton's actions contributed "significantly" to his girlfriend's death.
He said the expert had suggested Miss Fletcher-Michie would have had a 90% chance of survival if she had been given medical treatment at 21:10 - nearly five hours after she took the drug.
Given that the criminal standard of proof requires jurors to be sure "beyond reasonable doubt", Lord Burnett said the expert's evidence was "not enough" and therefore the issue of whether Broughton caused death by gross negligence should not have been for the jury to decide.
The court ruled there should not be a retrial for the manslaughter conviction - which accounted for seven years of Broughton's sentence.
His conviction for supplying his girlfriend with the class A drugs stands.
It is believed Broughton will now be released.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. In footage shown to jurors by the defence, Louella Fletcher-Michie was filmed playing with fairy lights in a tent at the festival
A statement issued by the rapper's lawyers said: "The Court of Appeal has today found that Louella's death occurred not as a result of criminal negligence but was instead a tragic accident.
"He has always wished that he could have done more to save her.
"He loved Louella and she him, but he knows that no words will ever be sufficient to convey his sense of responsibility for what happened or to begin to remove the pain that others have been caused."
The Crown Prosecution Service said it would fully consider the judgement and the points raised.
Head of special crime and counter terrorism Jenny Hopkins, said: "We respect the decision the Court of Appeal has made in the case of Ceon Broughton and are considering the next steps following today's judgment.
"Our thoughts remain with the family of Ms Fletcher-Michie at this difficult time."
A spokesperson for Mr Michie told the BBC he would not be commenting.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-53818931
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news_uk-england-dorset-53818931
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Harry Maguire: I feared for my life during arrest in Greece - BBC Sport
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2020-08-27
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[]
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Manchester United's Harry Maguire says he feared for his life when Greek police arrested him last week.
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Manchester United defender Harry Maguire said he feared for his life when Greek police arrested him last week as he thought he was being kidnapped.
The England international told BBC sports editor Dan Roan that plain-clothed police officers, who did not identify themselves, pulled over his group's minibus in Mykonos, threw him off the bus, hit him on his legs and told him his career was over.
The 27-year-old said he tried to run away - with one handcuff on - because he had no idea who the men were.
On Tuesday, Maguire was given a suspended sentence of 21 months and 10 days in prison after his trial on the Greek island of Syros.
He was found guilty of repeated bodily harm, attempted bribery, violence against public employees and insult after arrest on Mykonos.
On Wednesday, his legal team lodged an appeal against the verdict. In accordance with Greek law, the appeal nullifies Maguire's conviction and there will be a full retrial in a more senior court.
• None Listen to the full Maguire interview on BBC Sounds
• None Why Maguire's trial went so fast
An emotional Maguire, who broke down during the interview, said hearing the guilty verdict was "horrible" and that he "couldn't quite believe it".
The centre-back, who denies throwing any punches or trying to bribe the police, added: "I don't feel I owe an apology to anybody.
"An apology is something when you have done something wrong."
He said: "I don't wish it on anybody. Obviously the situation has made it difficult for one of the biggest clubs in the world, so I regret putting the fans and the club through this, but I did nothing wrong.
"I found myself in a situation where it could have happened to anybody and anywhere."
Asked how badly he was hurt, Maguire said: "They hit me a lot on the legs. It wasn't on my mind. I was in that much of a panic. Fear. Scared for my life."
Maguire said his family are suffering more than him and that his "conscience is clear".
"I know what happened that night. I know the truth," he added.
"When I speak about it I get worked up but that's because it just makes me feel a bit angry inside. I will move on. I am mentally strong enough."
Maguire - an £80m signing from Leicester City in 2019 - was named United's permanent captain in January after the departure of Ashley Young to Inter Milan, and he is likely to remain skipper this season.
"It is such a huge honour to be captain of Manchester United - something I am really proud of," he said. "It is a massive privilege to play for the club, never mind captain.
"It is not my decision to make but the one thing I will say is how supportive the club has been from top to bottom. They have been great with me and I thank them for that."
On Tuesday, Maguire was withdrawn from the England squad for September's Nations League matches against Iceland and Denmark.
He said: "I love playing for my country. Physically and mentally I am ready to play. I'm disappointed but of course I understand."
How Maguire says the night unfolded
• None Maguire was on holiday with his fiancee Fern, his younger sister Daisy, his brother and his brother's girlfriend, and two friends and their girlfriends.
• None They were out for drinks in Mykonos and texted their minibus driver to pick them up to take them home.
• None The driver was "20 minutes late" and Maguire said the group were tired and planning to head back to the villa.
• None Two men approached Daisy and asked her where she was from before Fern saw "my little sister's eyes rolling to the back of her head. She ran over, she was fainting, in an out of consciousness."
• None At this point Maguire said "everyone was shouting and were screaming", when three Greek men dressed in plain clothes got involved.
• None Maguire said they were not trying to "cause an argument or a scuffle", but "it was just a lot of shouting, a lot of commotion. No fighting, as has been reported. No punches thrown."
• None Maguire said the Greek men were just trying to calm it down but they were "a little bit aggressive".
• None The minibus arrived. Maguire said they got Daisy on the bus and "literally that was it - it wasn't what everyone's made it out to be. Don't get me wrong - there was a lot of shouting, a big panic, but no fighting or anything."
• None They told the driver to take them back to the villa and planned to go to the hospital, but Daisy recovered "pretty quickly".
• None The bus drove for "5-10 minutes" and stopped and parked up alongside this road. "We looked outside and there were eight men surrounding the bus, all in plain clothes."
• None The doors were opened and Maguire and a friend were "thrown off the bus".
• None Maguire said the men did not say anything to them. It was at this point that Maguire thought they were being kidnapped.
• None Maguire and his friend ran to the main road, from where he rang his agent to ask for help, leaving messages on a group WhatsApp.
• None Maguire said when he turned to walk back to the bus, he and his friend had been circled by the men, who started walking towards them.
• None Maguire said: "We got down on our knees, put our hands in the air. And they just started hitting us. They got one of my hands in the handcuff. They were hitting my legs, saying my career's over - 'no more football; you won't play again'. "At this point I thought there's no chance these are police. I've no idea who they are. So I tried to run away. I had one hand in the handcuff - I was moving my hand. This is where the charges have come from - this is what they are saying is resisting arrest and this is what the assault is - no punches have been thrown. I didn't believe they were the police."
Greek police dispute this version of events and in court the prosecution said Maguire, his brother and friend then physically and verbally attacked police officers.
• None Maguire said he was taken into the police station and was put in a cell. "That was the time I felt a little bit of relief, as crazy as that sounds. There were other people in the cell telling me to calm down and it felt like relief because that was the first time I actually believed I was in prison."
More from Maguire's interview with Dan Roan
It was horrible. It was such a quick turnaround it was incredible. We got the pages for the transcript for the court on the evening before. A big document, all in Greek. I hardly had any chance to speak to my lawyer. We were confident the case would be adjourned, to give us more time to prepare and get the witnesses and the evidence that we have.
For it to all happen so quickly... we obviously didn't expect the trial to go ahead.
The court heard that you abused the police. Is that true?
From their statement I am pretty sure they said I hurt a policeman's back and arm. I had the hand in the air, handcuffed, when I tried running away, I didn't realise they were police at the time and thought I was getting kidnapped. I don't think I hurt him. Put it this way: I didn't hurt him as much as they hurt me.
The court heard you tried to bribe the police, that you said 'do you know who I am'. Did you?
No, for sure. 'Do you know who I am?' I knew they knew who I was. Five minutes before they were beating me up saying my career is over, so I knew they knew who I was. As soon as I saw that statement... just ridiculous.
There was definitely no bribe involved. At that moment we were sat in the entrance of the prison, we were so distraught, we were crying. We still didn't believe where we were.
What do you put it down to - their actions?
A lot of things have gone through my mind but the answer is I don't know. I can't pinpoint what or why. Whether, like you say, it was jealously, stitched up, misunderstanding, I really don't know.
You have appealed. How confident are you that you will eventually clear your name?
I have great faith in the Greek law. The retrial rule will give us more time to prepare, gather the evidence, allow witnesses into the court, and I am really confident the truth will be told and come out.
You are a high-profile guy. There are plenty of places you can go. Do you accept you were in a way asking for trouble being in that place that night?
No. I think it could have happened anywhere. I love Greece; I love the people there. I have been to six, seven, eight Greek islands. I go most years on my time off. Me and my family love Greece. I don't feel like I would have done anything different in terms of regret going to Mykonos. I have been before and had a great time.
I think us footballers get a bit of stick for trying to stay away from everything and the public eye. It's not how I want to live my life. I've always been really open. I was away with my family in couples. If someone wanted a picture, they could have a picture or something signed. It's probably changed my mind on that.
Were you worse for wear? Were you drunk? Was that a factor in all this?
I'm not going to sit here and say I didn't have a drink all day. I had a few drinks. Anyone who knows me who has been out with me knows how I am after I have a few drinks. I am always aware; I always stay in control. I definitely wasn't drunk. I knew what was going off. I just found myself in a bad situation.
How much harm have you done to your reputation and do you regret that?
It's not nice seeing bad reports against yourself. No-one knew what went off that night. Either you believe it or you don't. Even after the court case still the stories coming out of the court case are so far away from the truth it is incredible. So, no, my character and personality will stay the same. I am strong mentally and I will get over this.
My conscience is clear. I know exactly what happened that night.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53941208
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rt_football_53941208
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Abuse victim accused of 'grooming' teacher awarded £1m - BBC News
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2020-08-11
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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His convicted rapist teacher argued that the 13-year-old had groomed him - not the other way round.
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UK
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A man sexually abused as a schoolboy has been awarded more than £1m from his teacher's employer.
Haringey Council's insurers argued unsuccessfully the assaults by Andrew Adams had caused no long-term trauma.
Despite pleading guilty to criminal charges, Adams argued in a civil case 13-year-old "James" had groomed him.
Haringey said it had "strongly condemned" Adams's actions, adding the appeal had been brought by its insurers to determine the level of damages.
Scared and confused, he confided in his teacher at Highgate Wood School, in north London.
Adams told him the rape proved he was gay, everyone would hate him but he would be his friend.
And he proceeded to groom and then sexually abuse James for years.
Speaking exclusively to BBC News, in his first interview since the ruling in February, James, who asked not to use his real name, said: "Adams assaulted me in the school changing rooms, the gym and outside of term time in the school's VW van.
"He was admired, no-one questioned him."
After school, Adams would take him to the home he shared with his mother and rape him while she was in the house.
Afterwards, Adams would make himself a sandwich and eat it while James watched him, hungry.
Adams also took James to Hampstead Heath and public lavatories and made him watch men having sex.
"His thing was assaulting you in public places and getting away with it," James said.
"He sexually assaulted me in Regent's Park mosque.
"And I'm sure it was just for titillation, to get away with it."
James believes other staff at the school suspected Adams - but no-one investigated.
The teenager became distant from his friends and family.
And the abuse and sexual activity continued until he was 21.
He felt utterly alone with his secret.
And, even though he was successful in the IT industry, James had two breakdowns.
Meanwhile, Adams thrived, becoming deputy head of Highgate Wood and even having a wing of the school named after him.
Eventually, when talking to a psychiatrist, James disclosed the abuse.
He then went to the police.
And in 2014, Adams pleaded guilty to charges of assault and buggery against James.
He was sentenced to 12 years in prison, later reduced to eight years on appeal.
By this point, James was so mentally damaged by the legacy of what had happened he could no longer work.
But in court Adams said it was James who had groomed him.
And James had to spend two days in the witness box.
"The idea that I, as a 13-year-old pre-pubescent boy, could somehow instigate or groom a 35-year-old teacher - I was shocked," he said.
James was shocked at the claim a 13-year-old could have groomed a teacher
"All I could do was deny it."
Haringey had sought to have James's claim dismissed in its entirety on the basis it was time barred.
The council's insurers argued Haringey was not responsible for Adams's acts after James had:
And the assaults could not have caused any long-term trauma because they had not been violent.
But the Court of Appeal rejected all the arguments raised on behalf of the local authority.
James was shocked at the council's attitude.
"It felt like I was under attack," he said.
"I felt tremendously let down by Haringey.
James feels let down by Haringey Council
"I thought they were dishonest in pretending to the public that they actually care, because when they are confronted with someone who has suffered from abuse from one of their staff, and the long-term consequences of that, they want to say it's nothing to do with them."
His solicitor, David McClenaghan, from the firm Bolt Burdon Kemp, told BBC News: "James can be incredibly proud of himself.
"The Court of Appeal has roundly accepted his case that it was impossible for him to consent to sexual activity with his teacher, given the background of manipulation and grooming that he was subjected to.
"So other victims and survivors of child abuse are unlikely to face these kinds of arguments from defendants like Haringey or people like Andrew Adams."
A Haringey Council official said: "Our sincere sympathies remain with the victim following these incidents at Highgate Wood School back in the 1980s.
"We have previously strongly condemned the actions of Andrew Adams.
"And that position has not changed.
"To be clear, Andrew Adams was jailed in 2014 for admitted criminal acts.
"This civil case was an appeal brought by our insurers, not the council, in order to decide the level of damages to be awarded."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53475927
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news_uk-53475927
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Medical dream student 'over the moon' with grades U-turn - BBC News
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2020-08-11
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Olivia Biggart says she is "over the moon" she will now get the five As she needs to apply to medical school.
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Glasgow & West Scotland
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Olivia Biggart got A grades in her prelims but her final results did not reflect what teachers recommended
A Motherwell student whose dream of becoming a doctor was shattered by downgraded Higher results, is "over the moon" she will now get her five As.
Olivia Biggart believed she was downgraded because her school is in a deprived area.
The 16-year-old told BBC Scotland she cheered at John Swinney's announcement that candidates' estimated grades would replace those awarded last week.
She will now be able to apply for medical school in October.
"I am over the moon because finally there is justice and I can pursue my career," she said.
"I am happy with what he said - and glad he apologised to us."
She added: "The only thing I didn't like is that students who were over-graded will keep their results but that will all even out over time. But overall I am happy."
"I don't think he had many options. They couldn't reassess every single candidate's results.
"My dream to become a doctor is still alive."
Education Secretary John Swinney said pupils had shown "tremendous resilience" and apologised for the failed grading system
The government U-turn follows an outcry from pupils after moderation by the SQA led to 125,000 estimated results being downgraded.
All results that were downgraded will now be withdrawn and replaced by the original estimates made by teachers.
The move affects about 75,000 pupils across Scotland.
Olivia achieved five As in her Higher prelims and was predicted by her teachers to be awarded the same. But despite having spent the summer studying for the University Clinical Aptitude Test (Ucat), she was awarded two As and three Bs.
Without five As, she would have been unable to apply to medical school and would have to choose a completely different path.
She is now looking forward to getting her head down and working towards entry exams.
David Biggart believes his daughter would have been awarded different grades if her school was in an affluent area
Despite it being what she described as "the most stressful week of her life" she still attended her medic preparation course on Friday.
She said: "So many people on the course were in exactly the same position as me and now they will all be able to continue."
John Swinney said in his speech that the Scottish government "did not get it right" and he apologised to the pupils involved.
He said he had noted the anger and frustration as well as the impressive arguments made by young people like Olivia.
Olivia's father David Biggart said: "I think he has listened. I felt sorry for him because it takes a lot to stand up in parliament, in front of the kids he has let down, and say he got it wrong.
"It was quite humiliating. But show me a man that has never made a mistake and I will show you a man that's never worked.
"He is human and I take my hat off to him for saying he was wrong.
"Everyone makes mistakes and I hope everyone learns from this.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-53733830
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news_uk-scotland-glasgow-west-53733830
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Coronavirus in Scotland: All downgraded results scrapped - BBC News
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2020-08-11
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Education Secretary John Swinney says that the downgraded results belonging to 76,000 candidates in Scotland "will be withdrawn".
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Scotland
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The significance of the Scottish government’s decision cannot be overestimated.
By simply accepting all teacher estimates, pass rates for National 5s, Highers and Advanced Highers are now dramatically higher than normal. This year’s Higher pass rate of 89.2% is 14.4 percentage points up on last year.
The risk of this is that the pass rates this year are so much higher than normal that they would seem to some to be simply implausible.
One important aim of the validation process was to try to ensure that qualifications obtained this year would stand the test of time and stand up to proper scrutiny.
Against this, there is the argument that this year is so difficult and exceptional for young people and the education system that allowances have to be made.
But ultimately this was as much about politics as it was about education.
The SNP sees itself as a progressive centre-left party committed to improving the attainment of young people from disadvantaged areas.
These are the young people for whom education is about a route out of poverty towards a better life – not simply a way of fulfilling ambitions or finding a dream job.
For the party to appear to be defending a system which had disproportionately marked down those youngsters, risked alienating many of their natural supporters.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-scotland-53678627
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news_live_uk-scotland-53678627
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Facial recognition: What led Ed Bridges to take on South Wales Police? - BBC News
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2020-08-11
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Ed Bridges took action after seeing a facial recognition police van while he was on a protest.
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Wales
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Ed Bridges has had his image captured twice by AFR technology, which he said breached his human rights
What leads a man to take a police force to the High Court?
Father-of-two Ed Bridges decided to contact civil rights group Liberty after twice being caught on camera by South Wales Police's automatic facial recognition (AFR) van.
"I didn't wake up one morning and think, you know what I really want to take my local police force to court," he said.
"It wasn't the case that I had planned to get particularly involved in, but it developed organically."
On Tuesday, the Court of Appeal ruled the use of automatic facial recognition (AFR) technology by South Wales Police was unlawful.
Mr Bridges, a former Liberal Democrat councillor for Gabalfa in Cardiff says his image was first captured while he was on his lunch break in Cardiff city centre in 2017.
But it was after it happened for a second time, a few months later while he was on a peaceful protest at an arms' fayre at Cardiff International Arena, that he decided to take action.
"On that occasion the facial recognition van was parked across the street from us," he said.
Mr Bridges is a former Liberal Democrat councillor for Gabalfa in Cardiff
"We felt it was done to try and deter us from using our rights to peaceful protest.
"I take the view that in this country we have policing by consent and the police should be supporting our right to free protest, rather than trying to intimidate protesters.
"And so it was at that point that I got in touch with Liberty."
The technology does not capture and store the images of those who are not on a watchlist - something Mr Bridges, who works in public affairs, feels the force had not communicated effectively to the public.
"I certainly think South Wales Police might have made life a lot easier for themselves if they had done a proper public consultation," he said.
"I would rather not have to bring this case. But we brought it because there was no other route for us to challenge the way that this technology is being used," he said.
"As a law abiding member of the public who just wants to have their privacy respected, I feel that this is oppressive mass surveillance being deployed on our streets."
The 37-year-old, who crowd funded towards the costs of the legal action, said he wanted the UK government to act to ensure "discriminatory technology like this is banned for good".
"We have policing by consent in this country," he said.
Police demonstrated the technology when it was first introduced
"The police need to have the support of the public in what they do and my concern is that by using a technology that is discriminatory and not being used in accordance with the law, that actually the police then lose the support of the public. And that's not in anyone's interest."
He is sympathetic to the task facing UK police forces: "Our argument has always been that we recognise the police are doing a difficult job with dwindling resources, but there is a balance to be struck between their need to fight crime and the public's need to feel reassured, and that their rights are being respected.
"The court of appeal was really clear that that balance has not been struck properly at the moment."
But could he ever have imagined that a decision made at a protest would lead to a landmark ruling?
"I'm not sure at the start I realised just how significant that the case was going to be," he said.
"But what matters, really, is that the point of legal principle that we helped to demonstrate.
"I'm very pleased to have brought it and to have made a small mark on our legal history, but it's the legacy of the case that I hope will matter."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-53742099
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news_uk-wales-53742099
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Halifax 'choke' video arrest man Hassan Ahmed feared for life - BBC News
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2020-08-19
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Hassan Ahmed was "afraid" for his life as he was held on the ground in Halifax by the police officer.
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Leeds & West Yorkshire
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Hassan Ahmed says he was not resisting arrest
A man who was filmed apparently being choked by a police officer during an arrest believed he was going to die.
A video of the arrest, shared on social media, shows Hassan Ahmed being held on the ground with an arm around his neck.
The 27-year-old, from Halifax, has since been released under investigation and says he was not resisting arrest.
The officer involved has been suspended by West Yorkshire Police pending an investigation
Speaking to the BBC Mr Ahmed said: "I was afraid for my life, I thought 'that's it, he's going to end up killing me'.
"I honestly thought it was my final moments, I was in shock, I was really scared."
He said the arrest came after he was called to the area by a family member and got into an argument with a man, in which he admitted punching him.
"He did push me as if he were going to arrest me, I complied, I didn't resist him, I complied all the way. I even had my hand by my sides."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The officer pictured initially restraining the man has been suspended, say West Yorkshire Police
During the video, a voice can be heard saying "chill out or I'll choke you out, chill out or you're going to sleep".
Mr Ahmed is seen tapping on the floor and another voice can be heard saying "I give up" before he is told to "turn over now", with another officer helping to detain him.
"I was just thinking about my family, I thought 'He's not going to let go, he's going to keep going, he's going to finish me'," Mr Ahmed said.
"I was in pain, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't feel anything, I couldn't even gasp for air.
"He carried on, then he punched me in my face."
Mr Ahmed says the incident has left him unable to sleep or work.
His sister Safyah, earlier joined a demonstration outside Halifax police station by about 100 protesters.
She said she had felt sickened when she saw the video.
The protesters carried signs which read "Stop police brutality" and "You're not above the law".
"It's obviously struck a chord with everyone from every background," Safyah said.
West Yorkshire Police said that after it had been made aware of the video that was circulating, the officer involved was suspended pending an investigation.
"We immediately reviewed the footage and looked into it as a matter of urgency to establish the full circumstances," the force said in a statement.
"We have reviewed the actions of the officers involved and a referral has been made to the Force's Professional Standards Directorate.
"Our investigation remains ongoing and we have made a voluntarily referral to the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC).
"The officer involved has been removed from frontline operational duties."
Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-53842456
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news_uk-england-leeds-53842456
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Grace Millane killer appeals against conviction and sentence - BBC News
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2020-08-06
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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The 28-year-old, who cannot be named, was jailed for at least 17 years in February for murder.
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Essex
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Grace Millane was last seen alive on the eve of her 22nd birthday in Auckland, New Zealand
The man who killed British backpacker Grace Millane in New Zealand has begun an appeal against his murder conviction and sentence.
The 28-year-old, who cannot be named, was jailed for at least 17 years after a jury found him guilty of murdering Ms Millane in an Auckland hotel in 2018.
After her death he hid her body in a suitcase and buried her in bushland.
His appeal is based around elements of the trial process as well as the length of the minimum non-parole period.
At his trial last year, the killer claimed Ms Millane, who was last seen on the night before her 22nd birthday, had died accidentally, after the pair engaged in rough sex that went too far.
But a jury in November rejected that argument and found him guilty of murder.
New Zealand media outlet Stuff said the appeal was based around how much emphasis was placed on the element of consent, expert evidence, probability, and the negative evidence given by other women about his character.
Ms Millane, from Wickford, Essex, met her killer on dating app Tinder while travelling in Auckland in December 2018.
The trial heard the pair spent the evening drinking before returning to the man's room in the CityLife hotel in central Auckland where he killed her.
He then disposed of her body by burying it in a suitcase in the Waitākere Ranges, a mountainous area outside the city.
After he was sentenced in February, Ms Millane's mother Gillian told the killer she was "absolutely heartbroken that you have taken my daughter's future and robbed us of so many memories that we were going to create".
Defence lawyer Rachael Reed QC reportedly told the appeal hearing: "I do not in any way seek to condone or excuse his actions after Miss Millane's death. I cannot and will not do so - they are inexcusable."
But according to the New Zealand Herald, she argued the jury should have had more direction around consent issues and "more balanced" direction on the expert evidence, and said the sentence was "manifestly unjust".
Crown prosecutors said the appeal grounds around consent instructions were "flimsy" and the sentence was not manifestly excessive, the Herald reported.
The appeal court has reserved its decision.
The killer's identity is suppressed under New Zealand law
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-53674248
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news_uk-england-essex-53674248
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Facial recognition: What led Ed Bridges to take on South Wales Police? - BBC News
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2020-08-12
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Ed Bridges took action after seeing a facial recognition police van while he was on a protest.
|
Wales
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Ed Bridges has had his image captured twice by AFR technology, which he said breached his human rights
What leads a man to take a police force to the High Court?
Father-of-two Ed Bridges decided to contact civil rights group Liberty after twice being caught on camera by South Wales Police's automatic facial recognition (AFR) van.
"I didn't wake up one morning and think, you know what I really want to take my local police force to court," he said.
"It wasn't the case that I had planned to get particularly involved in, but it developed organically."
On Tuesday, the Court of Appeal ruled the use of automatic facial recognition (AFR) technology by South Wales Police was unlawful.
Mr Bridges, a former Liberal Democrat councillor for Gabalfa in Cardiff says his image was first captured while he was on his lunch break in Cardiff city centre in 2017.
But it was after it happened for a second time, a few months later while he was on a peaceful protest at an arms' fayre at Cardiff International Arena, that he decided to take action.
"On that occasion the facial recognition van was parked across the street from us," he said.
Mr Bridges is a former Liberal Democrat councillor for Gabalfa in Cardiff
"We felt it was done to try and deter us from using our rights to peaceful protest.
"I take the view that in this country we have policing by consent and the police should be supporting our right to free protest, rather than trying to intimidate protesters.
"And so it was at that point that I got in touch with Liberty."
The technology does not capture and store the images of those who are not on a watchlist - something Mr Bridges, who works in public affairs, feels the force had not communicated effectively to the public.
"I certainly think South Wales Police might have made life a lot easier for themselves if they had done a proper public consultation," he said.
"I would rather not have to bring this case. But we brought it because there was no other route for us to challenge the way that this technology is being used," he said.
"As a law abiding member of the public who just wants to have their privacy respected, I feel that this is oppressive mass surveillance being deployed on our streets."
The 37-year-old, who crowd funded towards the costs of the legal action, said he wanted the UK government to act to ensure "discriminatory technology like this is banned for good".
"We have policing by consent in this country," he said.
Police demonstrated the technology when it was first introduced
"The police need to have the support of the public in what they do and my concern is that by using a technology that is discriminatory and not being used in accordance with the law, that actually the police then lose the support of the public. And that's not in anyone's interest."
He is sympathetic to the task facing UK police forces: "Our argument has always been that we recognise the police are doing a difficult job with dwindling resources, but there is a balance to be struck between their need to fight crime and the public's need to feel reassured, and that their rights are being respected.
"The court of appeal was really clear that that balance has not been struck properly at the moment."
But could he ever have imagined that a decision made at a protest would lead to a landmark ruling?
"I'm not sure at the start I realised just how significant that the case was going to be," he said.
"But what matters, really, is that the point of legal principle that we helped to demonstrate.
"I'm very pleased to have brought it and to have made a small mark on our legal history, but it's the legacy of the case that I hope will matter."
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Halifax 'choke' video arrest man Hassan Ahmed feared for life - BBC News
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2020-08-20
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Hassan Ahmed was "afraid" for his life as he was held on the ground in Halifax by the police officer.
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Leeds & West Yorkshire
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Hassan Ahmed says he was not resisting arrest
A man who was filmed apparently being choked by a police officer during an arrest believed he was going to die.
A video of the arrest, shared on social media, shows Hassan Ahmed being held on the ground with an arm around his neck.
The 27-year-old, from Halifax, has since been released under investigation and says he was not resisting arrest.
The officer involved has been suspended by West Yorkshire Police pending an investigation
Speaking to the BBC Mr Ahmed said: "I was afraid for my life, I thought 'that's it, he's going to end up killing me'.
"I honestly thought it was my final moments, I was in shock, I was really scared."
He said the arrest came after he was called to the area by a family member and got into an argument with a man, in which he admitted punching him.
"He did push me as if he were going to arrest me, I complied, I didn't resist him, I complied all the way. I even had my hand by my sides."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The officer pictured initially restraining the man has been suspended, say West Yorkshire Police
During the video, a voice can be heard saying "chill out or I'll choke you out, chill out or you're going to sleep".
Mr Ahmed is seen tapping on the floor and another voice can be heard saying "I give up" before he is told to "turn over now", with another officer helping to detain him.
"I was just thinking about my family, I thought 'He's not going to let go, he's going to keep going, he's going to finish me'," Mr Ahmed said.
"I was in pain, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't feel anything, I couldn't even gasp for air.
"He carried on, then he punched me in my face."
Mr Ahmed says the incident has left him unable to sleep or work.
His sister Safyah, earlier joined a demonstration outside Halifax police station by about 100 protesters.
She said she had felt sickened when she saw the video.
The protesters carried signs which read "Stop police brutality" and "You're not above the law".
"It's obviously struck a chord with everyone from every background," Safyah said.
West Yorkshire Police said that after it had been made aware of the video that was circulating, the officer involved was suspended pending an investigation.
"We immediately reviewed the footage and looked into it as a matter of urgency to establish the full circumstances," the force said in a statement.
"We have reviewed the actions of the officers involved and a referral has been made to the Force's Professional Standards Directorate.
"Our investigation remains ongoing and we have made a voluntarily referral to the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC).
"The officer involved has been removed from frontline operational duties."
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Egypt tells Elon Musk its pyramids were not built by aliens - BBC News
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2020-08-02
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Egypt invited the billionaire to visit, after he appeared to tweet support for conspiracy theorists.
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Africa
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The tombs of the pharaohs were constructed thousands of years ago
Egypt has invited billionaire Elon Musk to visit the country and see for himself that its famous pyramids were not built by aliens.
The SpaceX boss had tweeted what appeared to be support for conspiracy theorists who say aliens were involved in the colossal construction effort.
But Egypt's international co-operation minister does not want them taking any of the credit.
She says seeing the tombs of the pyramid builders would be the proof.
The tombs discovered in the 1990s are definitive evidence, experts say, that the magnificent structures were indeed built by ancient Egyptians.
On Friday, the tech tycoon tweeted: "Aliens built the pyramids obv", which was retweeted more than 84,000 times.
This Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Elon Musk This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
Egypt's Minister of International Co-operation Rania al-Mashat responded on Twitter, saying she followed and admired Mr Musk's work.
But she urged him to further explore evidence about the building of the structures built for pharaohs of Egypt.
This Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Rania A. Al Mashat This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass also responded in a short video in Arabic, posted on social media, saying Mr Musk's argument was a "complete hallucination".
"I found the tombs of the pyramids builders that tell everyone that the builders of the pyramids are Egyptians and they were not slaves," EgyptToday quotes him as saying.
Mr Musk did later tweet a link to a BBC History site about the lives of the pyramid builders, saying: "This BBC article provides a sensible summary for how it was done."
There are more than 100 surviving pyramids but the most famous is the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt - standing at more than 450ft (137m).
Most of them were built as tombs - a final resting places for Egypt's royalty.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Who is Elon Musk? Meet the meme-loving magnate behind SpaceX and Tesla...published in 2021
Mr Musk is known for his prolific and at times erratic tweeting. He once told CNBC: "Twitter's a war zone. If somebody's gonna jump in the war zone, it's, like, 'Okay, you're in the arena. Let's go!'"
• None How were the pyramids made?
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Nick Kyrgios withdraws from US Open because of coronavirus concerns - BBC Sport
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2020-08-02
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Nick Kyrgios withdraws from the US Open citing safety fears caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
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Last updated on .From the section Tennis
Nick Kyrgios has withdrawn from the US Open because of the coronavirus pandemic, saying it "hurts me at my core" to miss the tournament.
Fellow Australian and women's world number one Ashleigh Barty withdrew earlier this week.
In a video on social media, Kyrgios, 25, also criticised the behaviour of some players during the pandemic.
"Let's take a breath here and remember what's important, which is health and safety as a community," said Kyrgios.
"We can rebuild our sport and the economy, but we can never recover lives lost."
• None Why a lack of fans could mean better behaviour on court - and why tennis loves a bit of player rage
The world number 40 added: "It hurts me at my core not to be out there competing in one of the sport's greatest arenas, Arthur Ashe Stadium.
"But I'm sitting out for the people, for my Aussies, for the hundreds and thousands of Americans that have lost their lives, for all of you. It's my decision."
Last month, the Australian said the United States Tennis Association (USTA) was "selfish" for staging the New York tournament, which starts on 31 August.
The event is set to be held without fans at Flushing Meadows with players having to follow strict measures.
Murray 'willing to risk' playing in US after injury problems
Britain's former world number one Andy Murray is planning to play, saying he is "willing to take a risk" after being hampered by injury in recent years.
The 33-year-old Scot has played singles in only two of the past 10 Grand Slams, stretching back to Wimbledon in 2017, after two major hip operations.
"The situation I've been in the last few years I've not had the opportunity to play in many Slams," said Murray, who won the first of his three Grand Slam titles at the 2012 US Open.
"I don't know how many opportunities I'll have left to play in Slams, so while I'm feeling relatively decent, I want to try and play in them and enjoy the biggest events again. I've missed that a lot."
Kyrgios says he does not have a problem with the USTA or for players wanting to compete "so long as everyone acts appropriately and acts safely".
Kyrgios has been a critic of men's world number one Novak Djokovic's decision to stage exhibition events during the pandemic, with a number of players who took part then testing positive for the virus, including the Serb.
"Tennis players, you have to act in the interest of each other and work together," added Kyrgios.
"You can't be dancing on tables, money grabbing your way around Europe or trying to make a quick buck hosting an exhibition. That's just so selfish. Think of the other people for once, that is what this virus is about, it doesn't care about your world ranking or how much money you have."
Kyrgios' decision is no surprise, but the timing very pertinent on the day the Australian city of Melbourne announced a nightly curfew.
Another Australian, the world number one Ashleigh Barty, withdrew from the US Open last week, and there are likely to be more omissions when the entry list is published in the next few days.
Kyrgios does not take issue with the US Open itself going ahead: his argument is with those playing fast and loose with the rules.
And once again, in this social media post, he highlights what he considers irresponsible and selfish behaviour by some of those involved in recent exhibition matches in Europe and the United States.
• None Alerts: Get tennis news sent to your phone
• None Listen to sets from the biggest names in dance
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Covid-19: UK could face 50,000 cases a day by October without action - Vallance - BBC News
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2020-09-21
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"Speed" and "action" are required to halt the rise in cases, the UK's chief scientific adviser warns.
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UK
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Chief Scientific Officer Sir Patrick Vallance says measures must be taken to stop the spread of Covid-19
The UK could see 50,000 new coronavirus cases a day by mid-October without further action, the government's chief scientific adviser has warned.
Sir Patrick Vallance said that would be expected to lead to about "200-plus deaths per day" a month after that.
It comes as the PM prepares to chair a Cobra emergency committee meeting on Tuesday morning, then make a statement in the House of Commons.
On Monday, a further 4,368 daily cases were reported in the UK, up from 3,899.
A further 11 people have also died within 28 days of a positive test, although these figures tend to be lower over the weekend and on Mondays due to reporting delays.
Speaking at Downing Street alongside chief medical adviser, Prof Chris Whitty, Sir Patrick stressed the figures given were not a prediction, but added: "At the moment we think the epidemic is doubling roughly every seven days.
"If, and that's quite a big if, but if that continues unabated, and this grows, doubling every seven days... if that continued you would end up with something like 50,000 cases in the middle of October per day.
"Fifty-thousand cases per day would be expected to lead a month later, so the middle of November say, to 200-plus deaths per day.
"The challenge, therefore, is to make sure the doubling time does not stay at seven days.
"That requires speed, it requires action and it requires enough in order to be able to bring that down."
Prof Whitty added that if cases continued to double every seven days as Sir Patrick had set out, then the UK could "quickly move from really quite small numbers to really very large numbers because of that exponential process".
"So we have, in a bad sense, literally turned a corner, although only relatively recently," he said.
Prof Whitty and Sir Patrick also said:
The government's most senior science and medical advisers are clearly concerned about the rise in cases that have been seen in recent weeks.
The warning about 50,000 cases a day by mid-October is stark. We don't know for sure how many cases there were at the peak in spring (as there was very limited testing in place) although some estimates put it at 100,000.
However, they were also at pains to point out it was not a prediction - for one thing the 'rule of six' which came in just a week ago has not had time to have an impact.
Even among the government's own advisers there is disagreement over whether what we are seeing is the start of an exponential rise or just a gradual increase in cases, which is what you would expect at this time of year as respiratory viruses tend to circulate more with the reopening of society.
Spain and France, which both started seeing rises earlier than the UK, have not seen the sort of rapid trajectory that was presented by the advisers.
Instead, what was quite telling was the clear social messaging. Even those who are not at a high risk of complications should, they say, play their part in curbing the spread of the virus - because if it spreads then difficult decisions will be needed that have profound societal consequences.
But the big unanswered question is what ministers will do next. There is talk of further restrictions being introduced.
A couple of things are in our favour that were not in the spring. Better treatments for those who get very sick are now available, while the government is in a stronger position to protect the vulnerable groups.
Should ministers wait and see what happens? Or should they crack down early, knowing that will have a negative impact in other ways?
Prof Whitty also said that even though different parts of the UK were seeing cases rising at different rates, and even though some age groups were affected more than others, the evolving situation was "all of our problem".
He added that evidence from other countries showed infections were "not staying just in the younger age groups" but were "moving up the age bands".
He said mortality rates from Covid-19 were "significantly greater" than seasonal flu, which killed around 7,000 annually or 20,000 in a bad year.
Meanwhile, restrictions on households mixing indoors will be extended to all of Northern Ireland from 18:00 BST on Tuesday.
Areas in north-west England, West Yorkshire, the Midlands and four more counties in south Wales will also face further local restrictions from Tuesday.
And additional lockdown restrictions will "almost certainly" be put in place in Scotland in the next couple of days, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said.
"Hopefully this will be with four-nations alignment, but if necessary it will have to happen without that," she said.
Welsh Health Minister Vaughan Gething added: "It may be the case that UK-wide measures will be taken but that will require all four governments to exercise our varying share of power and responsibility to do so."
Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke with leaders of the devolved administrations on Monday afternoon.
Meanwhile, Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced a new exemption to local restrictions in England for formal and informal childcare arrangements, covering those looking after children under the age of 14 or vulnerable adults.
"It does not allow for play-dates or parties, but it does mean that a consistent childcare relationship that is vital for somebody to get to work is allowed," he told the Commons.
It is not a question of "if".
Downing Street will have to introduce extra restrictions to try to slow down the dramatic resurgence of coronavirus.
You would only have to have dipped into a minute or two of the sober briefing from the government's most senior doctor and scientist on Monday morning to see why.
What is not yet settled however, is exactly what, exactly when, and indeed, exactly where these restrictions will be.
Here's what it is important to know:
The government is not considering a new lockdown across the country right now.
The prime minister is not about to tell everyone to stay at home as he did from the Downing Street desk in March.
Ministers have no intention at all to close schools again.
Nor, right now, are they planning to tell every business, other than the non-essential, to close again.
What is likely is some kind of extra limits on our huge hospitality sector.
On Sunday, the prime minister held a meeting in Downing Street with Prof Whitty, Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Matt Hancock to discuss possible further measures for England.
Asked about reports of disagreements among cabinet ministers about whether or not to impose a second lockdown, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told BBC Breakfast: "A conversation, a debate, is quite proper and that is exactly what you'd expect.
"Everyone recognises there is a tension between... the virus and the measures we need to take, and the economy and ensuring people's livelihoods are protected."
Prof Peter Horby, a member of the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said there was a risk the UK could face a repeat of the "catastrophic events" around the world early this year, with intensive care units "rammed full of very sick patients".
"I really don't buy that argument that we should slow down... the mistakes that were made in March were nearly all being too cautious and too slow," he told BBC Radio 4's World at One.
However, Prof Karol Sikora, from the University of Buckinghamshire and former director of the World Health Organization's cancer programme, said blanket restrictions were "not the way forward".
"The most important thing is to target the groups that we need to protect and to let everybody else get on with their business - schools, shops and so on," he told the programme.
Labour, meanwhile, has also urged the government to avoid a second national lockdown.
"This rapid spike in infections was not inevitable, but a consequence of the government's incompetence and failure to put in place an adequate testing system," shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said.
"The government must do what it takes to prevent another lockdown, which would cause unimaginable damage to our economy and people's wellbeing."
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Tony Abbott: Ministers defend ex-Australian PM over Brexit trade role - BBC News
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2020-09-03
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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The former Australian prime minister has had talks about working for the UK government.
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UK Politics
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Ministers have defended former Australian PM Tony Abbott amid reports that he is being lined up for a role in post-Brexit trade talks.
Trade Minister Greg Hands told MPs he welcomed Mr Abbott's desire to "help this country out".
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said he had "real concerns" and "wouldn't appoint" Mr Abbott if he were PM.
Mr Abbott says he has had talks with UK ministers about a role but it has yet to be officially confirmed.
Opposition and some Tory MPs say he is unfit to represent the UK due to his views on climate change and past "misogynist" and "homophobic" comments.
A group of equality activists - including actor Sir Ian McKellen and Doctor Who writer Russell T Davies - have also written an open letter against Mr Abbott's appointment, saying: "This man is not fit to be representing the UK as our trade envoy."
Mr Abbott's position would be as a member of the UK board of trade, a panel of experts that is being put together to advise International Trade Secretary Liz Truss.
Asked about the potential appointment in the Commons, Mr Hands said: "No appointments have been confirmed, but personally I welcome the fact that a former prime minister of Australia is willing to help this country out."
On Thursday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock was asked on Sky News about concerns surrounding Mr Abbott's attitude towards women and homosexuality.
Mr Hancock said he did not believe Mr Abbott is homophobic or misogynistic, and when pushed, he added: "He is also an expert on trade."
Reports that Mr Abbott, who was Australia's prime minister between 2013 and 2015 is being lined up to work alongside Liz Truss have been met with anger from UK opposition parties and some Conservative MPs.
Labour MPs Chris Bryant and Wes Streeting, who are both gay, accused Mr Hancock of hypocrisy after the health secretary tweeted about the "fantastic" new LGBT-inclusive relationships and sex education programme introduced in schools.
Mr Bryant said: "So why on earth would you countenance Tony Abbott as a trade envoy?"
Mr Streeting tweeted: "Matt, we know you're a social liberal with a decent voting record on LGBT equality. That's why your defence of Tony Abbott was even more nauseating."
Sir Keir said: "I have real concerns about Tony Abbott, I don't think he's the right person for the job. If I was prime minister, I wouldn't appoint him."
Labour MP Marie Rimmer added: "Surely there's trade experts who aren't homophobic and misogynists? Britain deserves better than Tony Abbott representing us on the world stage."
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Mr Abbott's coronavirus views were "deeply offensive and wrong" and he was not fit to be a trade envoy.
"But Tony Abbott, before these comments, is a misogynist, he's a sexist, he's a climate change denier," she told Sky News.
"Trade, in many respects, should reflect our values - there should be ethics attached to any country's trading profile."
Liz Truss is in charge of negotiating trade deals with other countries
International Trade Secretary Liz Truss was later asked in the Commons about the possible appointment.
Following criticism from Labour MP Ruth Cadbury, Ms Truss said: "I think it's absolute hypocrisy to hear this type of argument from the Labour Party.
"This is a party that has never elected a female leader despite having the opportunity time and time again.
"The reality is they'd rather virtue signal and indulge in tokenism rather than take real action to improve the lives of women."
Labour's Christian Matheson said: "The appointment of the sexist and homophobic Tony Abbott is also the appointment of a climate change denier.
"So does this indicate the government is moving away from any commitment in trade deals to maintain environmental protection? And if not, why have you put him in the job?"
Ms Truss replied: "The reality is that those on the left of politics are always intolerant of anyone who doesn't agree with them but are prepared to defend anything from their own friends."
Conservative MP and chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee Tom Tugendhat was asked about the criticism of Mr Abbott.
Speaking on BBC News, he said: "I would like to see people from the United Kingdom representing the regions and nations.
"Businessmen, politicians and industry leaders from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the different regions from Cornwall and Kent and wherever else in between, making the case that isn't simply trade based on a few narrow industries."
Mr Abbott who led Australia's Liberal Party between 2009 and 2015, was challenged about some of his past comments at a hearing of Mr Tugendhat's select committee on Tuesday.
Labour MP Claudia Webbe quoted remarks attributed to him in 2012, that men were by physiology or temperament, more adapted than women to exercise authority and issue commands, and asked if, in the light of that opinion, he would have difficulty accepting the authority of Liz Truss.
Mr Abbott said he "wasn't sure" he had ever used those words, and that it "doesn't sound like anything I've said".
The former Australian prime minister is said to have struck up a friendship with Boris Johnson when he was foreign secretary.
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HS2 rail project work begins with pledge of 22,000 jobs - BBC News
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2020-09-03
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Work on the controversial rail line formally starts on Friday, with Boris Johnson saying it will "fire up growth".
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Business
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The Prime Minister visited an HS2 construction site on Friday
Construction work on HS2 officially begins on Friday, with companies behind the controversial high-speed rail project expecting to create 22,000 jobs in the next few years.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said HS2 would "fire up economic growth and help to rebalance opportunity".
He endorsed the rail link in February, with formal government approval granted in April despite lockdown.
But critics said HS2 will also cost jobs, and vowed to continue protesting.
HS2 is set to link London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. It is hoped the 20-year project will reduce passenger overcrowding and help rebalance the UK's economy through investment in transport links outside London.
HS2 Ltd chief executive Mark Thurston said the reality of high-speed journeys between Britain's biggest cities had moved a step closer.
When the project was mooted in 2009, it was expected to cost an estimated £37.5bn and when the official price tag was set out in the 2015 Budget it came in at just under £56bn.
But an official government report has since warned that it could cost more than £100bn and be up to five years behind schedule.
Some critics of HS2 describe it as a "vanity project" and say the money would be better spent on better connections between different parts of northern England. Others, such as the Stop HS2 pressure group, say it will cause considerable environmental damage.
The prime minister said HS2 was at the heart of government plans to "build back better" and would form "the spine of our country's transport network".
"But HS2's transformational potential goes even further," he added. "By creating hundreds of apprenticeships and thousands of skilled jobs, HS2 will fire up economic growth and help to rebalance opportunity across this country for years to come."
HS2's main works contractor for the West Midlands, the Balfour Beatty Vinci Joint Venture, has said it expects to be one of the biggest recruiters in the West Midlands over the next two years.
Up to 7,000 skilled jobs would be required to complete its section of the HS2 route, it said, with women and under-25s the core focus for recruitment and skills investment.
HS2 Ltd's Mr Thurston said the railway would be "transformative" for the UK.
"With the start of construction, the reality of high speed journeys joining up Britain's biggest cities in the North and Midlands and using that connectivity to help level up the country has just moved a step closer," he added.
Special tunnelling machines will be needed for sections of the line
Campaign group Stop HS2 said Boris Johnson and others who hail the creation of 22,000 jobs are "rather less keen to mention that HS2 is projected to permanently displace almost that many jobs".
Stop HS2 campaign manager Joe Rukin said: "Trying to spin HS2 as a job creation scheme is beyond desperate. Creating 22,000 jobs works out at almost £2m just to create a single job."
But speaking on the BBC's Breakfast programme, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps disputed those figures.
"I can't see how there's an argument that making it easier to get about this country is somehow going to destroy jobs, quite the opposite in fact. It's clearly going to make the economy level up", he said.
"Find those left behind areas, that have found themselves too disconnected before and join it together."
Stop HS2 chairwoman Penny Gaines called the project "environmentally destructive" to wildlife: "This is why there are currently hundreds of activists camped out along the HS2 route. We don't expect them to go away any time soon."
However, the Northern Powerhouse Partnership (NPP), which fights for investment in the regional economy, said such major infrastructure projects are transformative and called for the planned extensions of HS2 to be started as soon as possible.
"Increasing capacity on the North's rail network and better connecting our towns and cities will be vital in the economic regeneration of the Northern Powerhouse - both now and long in the future," said Henri Murison, director of the NPP.
This is an important symbolic move for HS2, but in the real world it changes very little.
Work preparing for the new line - demolishing buildings and clearing sites for example - has already been going on for the past three years. And in some areas, construction work has also begun.
But the arguments over whether or not the railway should actually be built are continuing to rage.
The government has long insisted that it will help re-balance the country's economy, by promoting investment outside London. It now says the jobs created by the scheme will support the post-Covid recovery.
But opponents claim that lockdown has undermined the case for HS2 - by showing how easily people can work remotely, and how little business travel is really needed.
Same dispute, new arguments. But now shovels are - officially - in the ground.
The government has also defended itself against criticism that the new line will no longer be needed, as people travel less as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr Shapps acknowledged more people are working at home, but said the government was looking at the country's long term transport needs:
"We're not building this for what happens over the next couple of years or even the next 10 years, whilst we're building it. We're building this, as with the west coast and the east coast main lines, for 150 years and still going strong.
"I think it actually shows a lot of faith in the future of this country," he added.
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US Open 2020: Naomi Osaka beats Victoria Azarenka to win third Grand Slam title - BBC Sport
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2020-09-13
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Naomi Osaka fights back against Victoria Azarenka in a gripping US Open final to claim her third Grand Slam title with a 1-6 6-3 6-3 victory.
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Last updated on .From the section Tennis
Naomi Osaka demonstrated her growing maturity to fight back against Victoria Azarenka in a compelling US Open final and claim her third Grand Slam title.
Japanese fourth seed Osaka, 22, won 1-6 6-3 6-3 for her second US Open title.
Osaka was overwhelmed in the first set and in danger of trailing 3-0 in the second but then won 10 of the next 12 games to seize the momentum.
The Belarusian, 31, in her first major final since 2013, was broken for 5-3 in the decider before Osaka served out.
Osaka shrieked with joy as she took her second match point, then calmly lay on the court and stared at the New York sky as she contemplated her latest achievement.
Osaka's level raised considerably as Azarenka was unable to maintain the intensity she showed in a one-sided opening set.
The fightback ensured Osaka, who won the 2018 US Open and 2019 Australian Open, maintained her record of winning every Grand Slam final she has played in.
"I don't want to play you in any more finals, I didn't really enjoy that, it was a really tough match for me," Osaka jokingly told Azarenka.
She added: "It was really inspiring for me because I used to watch you play here when I was younger. I learned a lot, so thank you."
• None Re-live how Osaka won her second US Open title
• None 'I've tried to mature' - Osaka on how coronavirus break helped her win US Open
Another US Open title for Osaka - but a contrasting occasion
Osaka's maiden victory at Flushing Meadows two years ago came in straight sets against Serena Williams in a hostile environment following the American's infamous argument with umpire Carlos Ramos.
It left Osaka in tears as she stood on the podium waiting to collect her first Grand Slam trophy.
This second success could not have been more different.
Here she had to fight back from a set down against an inspired Azarenka - and navigate a tricky decider which could have swung either way - on an Arthur Ashe Stadium left virtually empty because of the coronavirus pandemic.
And even in what were still strange circumstances, Osaka could this time enjoy the moment with a beaming smile as she lifted the prize in the company of her team and rapper boyfriend Cordae - even if she had to take the trophy from the table herself rather than be presented with it because of social distancing rules.
Osaka looked a little lost as Azarenka overwhelmed her in a fast start, hitting 13 unforced errors and struggling to cope with the Belarusian's proactive play and controlled aggression.
Draping a towel over her head at changeovers was a sign of Osaka's concerns. Her attempts to collect her thoughts and regain her composure did not initially work, however.
Another wayward forehand prompted a frustrated Osaka to throw her racquet to the floor in disgust.
Eventually, though, the mental resilience which she says she has developed over recent months came to the fore.
"I just thought it would be embarrassing to lose this under an hour," said Osaka, who will rise to third in the world after her win.
That resulted in a major momentum shift in her favour as Azarenka threatened to move 3-0 ahead in the second set.
A rasping forehand by Osaka at 40-30 proved pivotal, not only in the game, but ultimately in the whole match as she seized control to level.
The former world number one maintained that level in the decider to earn a 4-1 lead, but was unable to convert one of four break points to move 5-1 ahead.
That might have proved costly when Azarenka immediately put the set back on serve, only for Osaka to battle back again by winning what proved to be the final two games.
Not only has Osaka impressed on court during the Cincinnati Masters-US Open bubble in the past month, she has also won many admirers for her activism in the fight against racism and police brutality in the United States.
A few days before the start of the US Open, Osaka pulled out of her Western and Southern Open semi-final in protest at the shooting of Jacob Blake, a black man, by police in Wisconsin.
Before her US Open first-round match, she wore a face mask with the name of Breonna Taylor, a black woman who was shot dead by a policeman in March.
Osaka, who has Japanese and Haitian parents and was brought up in the United States, said she had seven masks with seven different names.
Her target was to reveal all of them by reaching Saturday's final and that provided her with extra motivation to win the title, according to her coach Wim Fissette.
"I felt the point was to make people start talking," Osaka said after her victory.
"I've been inside the bubble and not sure what's going on in the outside world. The more retweets it gets, the more people talk about it."
Azarenka wins hearts but falls short of another Slam
Former world number one Azarenka was aiming to complete a remarkable renaissance by landing her first Grand Slam title since defending her Australian Open crown in 2013.
Few had predicted she would compete for the sport's biggest prizes again after a turbulent past few years.
Azarenka took time away from the sport to give birth in December 2016 and had her comeback stalled by a lengthy custody battle over son Leo.
Last week she admitted she had thought about quitting when the WTA Tour was suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic.
She had won only one match in the previous year going into last month's restart, but came back from the enforced break reinvigorated and possessing a fresh perspective on life.
That enabled her to win a first WTA title in four years when Osaka pulled out of their scheduled Western & Southern Open final with a hamstring injury - and she continued her form in the Grand Slam.
Ultimately though, she could not become the fourth mother to win a major title as Osaka consigned her to a third defeat in a US Open final.
When Osaka won the title two years ago, boos rang around the Arthur Ashe Stadium as Serena Williams had been docked a game.
This time virtual silence greeted her triumph - but again she had to do it the hard way.
Azarenka played an almost flawless first set, and it was only when four games from defeat that Osaka found her range and some serious power.
The 22-year-old has taken some knocks over the past 18 months as she came to terms with life as one of the world's highest profile athletes.
A first-round defeat at last year's Wimbledon was perhaps the hardest to take - but look at her now.
Not only is she playing with supreme confidence once again, but is also able to use her influence to promote social justice in a very assured and unassuming way.
• None Comedians try to make sense of 2020
• None Go behind the scenes with West Ham Women
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/54132546
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Coronavirus: The story of the big U-turn of the summer - BBC News
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2020-09-13
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The Department of Education and Ofqual will face public scrutiny to explain the exam confusion, the colossal U-turn and resignations. What went wrong?
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Family & Education
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A-level results day started terribly for Grace Kirman. The sixth former in Norwich had been waiting anxiously to hear whether she would get the grades needed for her dream university place.
But it was bad news and a rejection email had arrived. The grades produced by the exam algorithm had been lower than her teachers predicted - and the offer to study biochemistry at Oxford University was disappearing before her eyes.
"It wasn't my fault and it was really unfair," said the student from Notre Dame High School.
She'd worked extremely hard for her A-levels, it had been her big ambition, she'd been on a university outreach scheme for disadvantaged youngsters, and she'd been quietly confident of getting the A* and two A grades needed.
But this summer's exams had been cancelled by the Covid-19 pandemic - and England's exam watchdog Ofqual had produced an alternative way of calculating grades.
Her teachers had expected three A*s - but the algorithm produced results of three As. It might be a small margin for a statistician, but it was a difference that she said "could change her life".
"I was so disappointed, I knew I was equally intelligent," she said. And she was angry too at the way doors suddenly seemed to be closing.
Brian Conway, chief executive of the St John the Baptist academy trust responsible for the school, was beginning to see other inexplicable results arriving.
"The tragedy of results day was when people you would bet your house on getting a grade C were given a U grade," he said.
Something was going badly wrong - and the school decided to challenge the results, and in Grace's case, to get in touch with Oxford to try to overturn the rejection.
There were problems with exams across the UK this summer, but in England it's the Department for Education and Ofqual which will face public scrutiny to explain the confusion, the colossal U-turns and resignations.
The algorithm for replacement grades mostly relied on two key pieces of information - how pupils had been ranked in order of ability and the results of schools and colleges in previous years.
Of less influence were teachers' predictions and how individual pupils themselves had done in previous exams.
It was designed to stop grade inflation and in effect replicated the results of previous years - but it meant a serious risk of disadvantage for talented individuals in schools that had a history of low results.
It would be like being told you'd failed a driving test on the grounds that people from where you lived usually failed their driving test. That might be the case, but it's hard to take when you hadn't even started the car.
But if the aim was to keep grades in line with previous years, the opposite happened. There were stratospheric increases particularly at A-level - with more than half of students getting A*s and As in some subjects.
While the scrutiny will focus on what went wrong in past weeks, the bigger fallout could be from what it changes in the future. A major unintended consequence could be a radical shake-up of England's university admissions, with plans believed to be in the pipeline.
This summer has shown the problems with estimated grades - raising the issue of whether such predictions should still be used for university offers, rather than waiting until students have their actual results.
Schools Minister Nick Gibb this week described as "compelling" the argument made by former universities minister Chris Skidmore that the "entire admissions system to university should now be reformed". Also expect in the forthcoming months to hear some big questions about the future role of Ofqual.
England's Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, facing calls for his resignation over the exams fiasco, will have to defend himself in front of the Education Select Committee this week.
The committee's chairman, Robert Halfon, likened the exam problems to the Charge of the Light Brigade, where no-one, particularly Ofqual, seemed able to heed the warnings to stop.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who originally called the results "robust" and then blamed a "mutant algorithm", has accused critics of relying on "Captain Hindsight". But more evidence of foresight in warnings is emerging too.
Barnaby Lenon, chairman of the Independent Schools Council, told the BBC he had warned in stakeholder meetings with Ofqual about the dangers of attaching so much weight to schools' previous results, and so little to teachers' estimates. "It was always going to be a hashed job," he said.
He thinks Ofqual and the Department for Education had begun to prioritise sounding publicly confident rather than being open about the shortcomings. Mr Lenon, a former head teacher of Harrow School and former Ofqual board member, had made his concerns public.
On 7 July, at the Festival of Higher Education at the University of Buckingham, he predicted unreliability and unfairness in the results and warned Ofqual was being asked to do a "terrible thing" in producing these calculated grades.
Danger signals couldn't be dismissed as politically motivated. On 26 May, a warning was sent from the New Schools Network, which supports free schools and has strong ties to Conservative education policy.
The group's director Unity Howard, wrote to Sally Collier, the now resigned head of Ofqual, and to Gavin Williamson: "It is easy to bury these arrangements in scientific modelling, but the issues here will affect at least a generation of children, but more likely those that come after it too."
It included warnings from seven schools and trusts - and it's understood the group held a meeting with Ofqual.
The Northern Powerhouse, a lobby group for the north of England chaired by former Tory chancellor George Osborne, had also been flagging concerns about BTec vocational exams as well as A-levels and GCSEs.
Frank Norris, working with the Northern Powerhouse on education, told the BBC the "proposed algorithm design was always going to put the average performance of schools above individual merit".
With worries not allayed, the Northern Powerhouse wrote to Sally Collier on 9 August, drawing attention to their high level of concern about a disproportionate impact on poorer communities. On 11 July, the Education Select Committee pointed to unanswered questions about the fairness of how grades would be calculated.
Ofqual was not unaware of these worries, not least because the regulator says it was giving its own advice to ministers about the risks - and right to the top.
Julie Swan, Ofqual's executive director of general qualifications, said 10 Downing Street had been briefed on 7 August, highlighting risks over so-called "outlier students" - the bright pupils whose grades might be reduced because they were in low-performing schools.
There were also weekly meetings with education minister Nick Gibb. Kate Green, Labour's Shadow Education Secretary, said in the House of Commons this week the exam controversy had caused "huge distress to students and their parents" - and asked Mr Gibb why he had failed to respond to warnings. "These warnings were not ignored," said Mr Gibb. "Challenges that were made by individuals were raised with Ofqual and we were assured by the regulator that overall the model was fair," he told MPs. It was only when grades were published that "anomalies and injustices" became apparent, said Mr Gibb.
A common thread to the warnings was although the results might work smoothly in terms of national statistics, maintaining a similar pattern to previous years, this would be at the cost of individual unfairness. The standardisation process, which tended to push down teachers' grades, would also not apply to subjects with smaller numbers of entries, such as classics and modern languages - with accusations this would benefit independent schools.
Grace Kirman was one of these "anomalies" - her future hanging in the balance. But when had this year's exams really begun to go into tailspin? If you wanted to pinpoint a moment, it might be about 36 hours before Grace and hundreds of thousands of young people were finding out their results.
That was the heatwave night of Tuesday 11 August, ahead of A-level results being released on Thursday. In Scotland there had been a U-turn on grades, and pressure was building for a response in England.
When it came, it left Ofqual completely wrong-footed and unable to explain how it would work. The Department for Education had informed them of a major change that would allow schools to appeal over grades on the basis of their mock test results. It was announced late in the evening as an extra "safety net" and "triple lock", but was eventually ditched within the week.
But head teachers, who had been on a low-boil all summer, went into volcanic mode - attacking this last-minute change as "panicked and chaotic". This sudden rule change meant a school could appeal for an upgrade if a mock test had been higher than the calculated grade about to be issued.
This infuriated head teachers who said mocks were carried out in many different and inconsistent ways. Sometimes they had been deliberately marked down as a scare tactic and some schools had not taken them at all. Therefore, they said, they could not be used to decide such important results.
Heads' leader Geoff Barton said at that point he knew this approach to exams had become "unsustainable". It had been "fatally undermined" by an unworkable decision, which he said represented a "complete failure of leadership". Mr Halfon said it also raised the fundamental question about who was really in charge - and if Ofqual wasn't really acting independently, then what was its purpose?
Results day on 13 August added to the confusion. These calculated grades produced the highest results in the history of A-levels - but in the background was a growing volume of protest over the algorithm reducing 40% of grades below teachers' predictions. MPs saw emails arriving in their in-trays, upset parents took to Twitter, lawyers warned of multiple legal challenges, universities didn't know if grades were going to be changed on appeal and marchers were waving placards demanding a U-turn.
On Saturday 15 August, matters became even more bizarre. Ofqual published plans for appeals over mock tests - but in the evening Gavin Williamson rang Sally Collier disagreeing with the guidance and it was taken down again from the website.
According to Ofqual chairman Roger Taylor, the situation was "rapidly going out of control" - and on Sunday the watchdog took the momentous decision to switch to centre assessed grades - the results estimated by schools.
This biggest U-turn of the summer was made public the next day and the education secretary told students he was "incredibly sorry".
Sally Collier, who has talked of her admiration for Edith Cavell, the nurse executed during the First World War, later stepped down as chief regulator and has made no comment since.
At the Department for Education, it was the senior civil servant, Jonathan Slater, who lost his job, with accusations that he had been "scapegoated". The blame game had begun almost immediately. Ofqual's argument has been they knew the risks of the iceberg ahead, but they had warned ministers and been told not to change direction.
The politicians in turn say they had heard the iceberg warnings, but Ofqual had assured them it would be safe. "The finger of blame is pointed at everyone else," says heads' leader Mr Barton.
What has baffled school leaders is why, with almost five months between the cancellation of exams and the issuing of calculated grades, there wasn't a more thorough attempt to test the reliability of results in advance, including with real schools. Ofqual's defence to all of this, according to Mr Halfon, could be summed up as: "Not me, guv."
There are also questions about the delays for results for BTec students - and MP Shabana Mahmood said it was disgraceful how they had been "left languishing at the back of the queue". There is another uncomfortable truth from the U-turn, which Barnaby Lenon said will have created a "different kind of injustice". Schools which were over-generous in their predictions will have got better grades than those which were more painstaking.
Things eventually turned out well for Grace
Mr Conway, leader of Notre Dame's academy trust where Grace was at school, said his staff had put a "huge effort" into making sure every estimated grade was accurate and evidence based - and carried out their own moderation process to guard against grade inflation. But there are persistent rumours of other exam centres which have ended up with implausibly high grades for many of their students.
Pupils could have unfairly been "bumped off" university places as a result, said Mr Lenon. When Mr Williamson faces the select committee this week he is likely to argue that no-one wanted to cancel exams, but the pandemic forced them to find an alternative - and when there were problems his department took swift action.
"It was not a decision that was taken lightly. It was taken only after serious discussions with a number of parties, including, in particular, the exam regulator, Ofqual," he told MPs this week. "We have had to respond, often at great speed, to find the best way forward, given what we knew about the virus at the time."
Other education ministers around the UK faced similar problems and eventually came up with similar answers, said Mr Williamson.
And Grace got her place back at Oxford. "I just couldn't believe it. It's been a dream of mine for so long. "I wish I could have woken up to an acceptance - but I appreciate it now even more. "It was a flawed system," she said. "And they could have been kinder, especially after everything over the summer."
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-54103612
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news_education-54103612
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Brexit: Despite bitter row can deal still be done? - BBC News
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2020-09-13
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Last-minute agreements have been reached before, but right now it feels like a long shot.
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Europe
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EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier is in London this week for Brexit talks
When it comes to Brexit, all negotiations are inter-linked: EU-UK trade talks, the process to implement their divorce deal, negotiations on fishing rights and Brussels' deliberation on UK financial service.
What happens in one area very much affects progress in the others. You cannot separate them entirely.
Which is why this week, as the war of words and wills between Brussels and Downing Street raged over the government's threat to throw a grenade at key parts of the divorce deal, everyone's thoughts turned immediately to the trade talks between the two sides.
In fact, they limp on. Negotiations are set to resume in Brussels on Monday. This, despite the EU ending the week by threatening Downing Street with legal action unless it rowed back on its threats to the Withdrawal Agreement by the end of the month.
The government insists it will not budge. So it is significant that the EU stopped short of threatening to press the nuclear button - shutting down trade talks altogether.
Why is that, when we know the EU is furious?
First of all, Brussels still wants a deal with the UK, if at all possible, this autumn.
Secondly, the sense in Brussels is that the government is trying to provoke the EU into abandoning the trade negotiations.
"We're not going to give them that satisfaction," a high-level EU diplomat told me. "We refuse to be manipulated."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. UK vs EU: Johnson and Michel Barnier set out competing visions on trade
So, despite bitter arguments over legislation on the one hand, and a huge list of outstanding issues still to be ironed out in bilateral trade talks; despite time and trust running out on both sides; neither the EU nor the UK seem to want to be the first ones to walk out the door.
It is still possible, of course, that the government's bill is stopped in the House of Lords or even beforehand by rebel MPs.
It is possible for the EU and UK to iron out their differences over the divorce deal and in trade talks. Concessions can always be "dressed-up" to look like victories, after all.
It has been done before. Remember last autumn? Finding agreement on the divorce deal seemed nigh on impossible - until it was not and a deal was signed.
But, right now that feels like a long shot. The chatter on both sides of the Channel is that "no deal" is becoming more likely by the day.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54099257
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news_world-europe-54099257
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'Firm and strong' EU response expected - Taoiseach Martin - BBC News
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2020-09-13
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Taoiseach Micheál Martin cautioned the UK government over "playing politics" with negotiations.
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Europe
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Taoiseach (Irish PM) Micheál Martin has cautioned against "playing politics" with the Brexit negotiations
Taoiseach (Irish PM) Micheál Martin has said the UK should expect a "firm and strong" response from the EU to the proposed Internal Markets Bill.
Speaking on Sunday, Mr Martin also cautioned against "playing politics" with negotiations.
The proposed bill would go against the Withdrawal Agreement, signed by the UK and EU earlier this year.
Mr Martin also stated categorically there would be "no return of a hard border" on the island of Ireland.
During the week, Boris Johnson said part of the reason for the Internal Markets Bill was to protect the Good Friday Agreement and Northern Ireland peace process.
"There's a very firm and strong view emanating from Brussels in how to manage and deal with this," said Mr Martin, speaking to Irish broadcaster RTÉ's Week in Politics programme.
"Whatever ploy or strategic approach is intended for the UK side, will be met with a very measured, firm and strong response from the European Union side," he said.
He described the way the proposed law had been introduced as "no way to do business".
Speaking earlier in the week, Mr Martin said he was not optimistic of a Brexit deal in light of the UK proposal to override parts of the Withdrawal Agreement.
His comments followed earlier remarks by Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney, who said said the UK government was behaving in an "extraordinary way" over Brexit.
Despite this, Mr Coveney said a free trade deal was still a possibility.
Speaking to BBC's Andrew Marr programme, he suggested it would be difficult for trade talks between the two sides to continue if the Internal Markets Bill passes through parliament.
"How then can the EU proceed with these negotiations, and put a new agreement in place, which will be the basis for a new relationship, if existing agreements, which aren't even a year old, are being legislated against?" he said.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Simon Coveney: "The reputation of the UK... is being damaged in a very serious way"
Boris Johnson has said the European Union is threatening to impose a customs border in the Irish Sea, separating Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.
Mr Coveney rejected the suggestion that the EU's position on having a customs border between Northern Ireland and Britain had hardened after the agreement was signed, calling this a "completely bogus argument".
Prime Minister Johnson has said an agreement on trade must be done by 15 October, to be ready in time for the conclusion of the transition period at the end of this year.
"In my view it is possible to get a trade agreement, it will probably be a basic, pretty thin trade agreement, but it is possible to do that," said Mr Coveney.
People protesting between Newry and Dundalk about a possible hard border, in March 2019
On Sunday there was further local and international reaction.
Alliance MP Stephen Farry said the UK's admission it could breach international law was "completely outrageous" and that the proposed legislation could be damaging to Northern Ireland.
Sinn Féin MLA Caoimhe Archibald said the British government was "acting in bad faith and shows clear intent to disregard the protocol in the withdrawal agreement".
The EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, said the EU could not have been "clearer" when the two sides agreed the Brexit withdrawal agreement last year what the implications would be for Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
Responding to Mr Barnier's comments, the UK's chief Brexit negotiator, David Frost, tweeted: "On the Protocol, we indeed negotiated a careful balance in order to preserve peace and the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement.
"It is precisely to ensure this balance can be preserved in all circumstances that the government needs powers in reserve to avoid it being disrupted."
Earlier on Sunday, former Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Sir John Major urged Parliament to reject Boris Johnson's attempt to override parts of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement.
Writing in the Sunday Times, Sir John and Mr Blair - former Conservative and Labour prime ministers respectively - said the government's actions were "irresponsible, wrong in principle and dangerous in practice"
The DUP's East Antrim MP Sammy Wilson dismissed their claims as "nonsense", but said his party will table amendments to the Internal Markets Bill.
"The Internal Market Bill as published is not the finished product but it is a massive step forward for business in Northern Ireland," he added.
Ulster Unionist leader Steve Aiken described the Irish government and EU concerns as "self-serving hypocrisy".
He said they were "content to raise the spectre of a land border as anti-Belfast Agreement, whilst at the same time ignoring the anti-agreement reality of an Irish Sea Border".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54137649
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news_world-europe-54137649
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Global warming driving California wildfire trends - study - BBC News
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2020-09-25
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Climate change is behind the scale and impact of recent wildfires in the western US, scientists say.
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Science & Environment
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Firefighting resources have been stretched to the limit by the scale and extent of the wildfires
Climate change is driving the scale and impact of recent wildfires that have raged in California, say scientists.
Their analysis finds an "unequivocal and pervasive" role for global heating in boosting the conditions for fire.
California now has greater exposure to fire risks than before humans started altering the climate, the authors say.
Land management issues, touted by President Donald Trump as a key cause, can't by themselves explain the recent infernos.
The worst wildfires in 18 years have raged across California since August.
They have been responsible for more than 30 deaths and driven thousands of people from their homes.
The cause of the fires have become a political football, with California Governor Gavin Newsom blaming climate change for the conflagrations.
President Trump, on the other hand, has dismissed this argument, instead pointing to land management practices as the key driver.
Now, a review of scientific research into the reasons for these fires suggests rising temperatures are playing a major role.
Earlier this year, the same research team published a review of the origins of Australia's dramatic fires that raged in the 2019-2020 season.
That study showed that climate change was behind an increase in the frequency and severity of fire weather - defined as periods of time with a higher risk of fire due to a combination of high temperatures, low humidity, low rainfall and high winds.
The new review covers more than 100 studies published since 2013, and shows that extreme fires occur when natural variability in the climate is superimposed on increasingly warm and dry background conditions resulting from global warming.
"In terms of the trends we're seeing, in terms of the extent of wildfires, and which have increased eight to ten-fold in the past four decades, that trend is driven by climate change," said Dr Matthew Jones from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, who led the review.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'It will get cooler': President Trump responds to warnings about climate change and wildfires
"Climate change ultimately means that those forests, whatever state they're in, are becoming warmer and drier more frequently," he told BBC News.
"And that's what's really driving the kind of scale and impact of the fires that we're seeing today."
In the 40 years from 1979 to 2019, fire weather conditions have increased by a total of eight days on average across the world.
However, in California the number of autumn days with extreme wildfire conditions has doubled in that period.
The authors of the review conclude that "climate change is bringing hotter, drier weather to the western US and the region is fundamentally more exposed to fire risks than it was before humans began to alter the global climate".
The researchers acknowledge that fire management practices in the US have also contributed to the build-up of fuel.
Normally, fire authorities carry out controlled burnings in some areas to reduce the amount of fuel available when a wildfire strikes - but these have also suffered as a result of rising temperatures.
"When you do prescribed burns, you can only do it when the conditions aren't too hot and dry, because you need to be able to control the fire," said Prof Richard Betts from the UK Met Office and the University of Exeter who was part of the review team.
"But once you've passed the point where you've got hot, dry conditions for much of the year, you've lost your opportunity to do lots of prescribed burnings. So that makes matters worse and makes the land management challenge even greater."
Another factor in California has been the encroachment of human settlements into forested areas. This has put many more homes at risk of these blazes.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Five ways that show the scale of California's 2020 wildfires
Between 1940 and 2010, there was around a 100-fold increase in the number of houses built in dangerous fire zones in the western US.
"It's like building on floodplains as well, you know, people are putting themselves in harm's way, based on past statistics, which are no longer true," said Prof Betts.
"The past is no longer a guide to the future, for flooding and for fire and lots of other ways in which climate change is played out."
The researchers say that the conditions for wildfire are likely to continue to grow into the future, and according to Dr Jones, the resulting fires will likely get worse.
"It's pointing towards increases in fire weather that become increasingly intense, widespread and dramatic in the future," he said.
"And the more that we can do to limit the degree to which temperatures rise, is fundamental to how frequently we see dangerous fire weather in the future."
Full details of the review can be found here.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54278988
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news_science-environment-54278988
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Coronavirus: Ministers balance science and politics in latest rules - BBC News
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2020-09-22
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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The appetite inside the Conservative party for sweeping new Covid-19 restrictions has dimmed.
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UK Politics
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It's not a day for optimists, even though the prime minister himself is one of that tribe.
Tomorrow, it will be six months exactly since he told the nation to stay at home.
This time, Boris Johnson stopped well short of slamming the country's doors shut.
But what really stood out in his long statement in a miserable-looking Commons was his message that the limits put in place today will last another six months.
Even if you are very fond of your own company, lucky enough to have a secure job you enjoy and a comfy spare room where you can do it, it is quite something to contemplate.
The government now expects that all our lives will be subject to restrictions of one kind or another for a whole year - March 2020 to March 2021.
As each month ticks by, it becomes harder to imagine a return to anything like normal political life, or, more importantly, the way we all live.
We may not be waiting for a return to life as we knew it, but grinding through a moment of change.
But if you were listening carefully, something else was different too.
The country became familiar with the slogan "Stay At Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives" - it was emblazoned on government lecterns, repeated again and again by government ministers in interview after interview, on bus shelters, pop-up ads on the internet, wherever you looked.
That phrase was retired after the most intense period of the lockdown, but echoed today with one important additional condition.
Boris Johnson's driver today was to "save lives, protect the NHS" and "shelter the economy".
As we discussed here yesterday, concerns about the economy played more strongly in Downing Street after fierce resistance from backbenchers, and arguments from the next-door neighbour in No 11 of the economic risks of a short, sharp closure programme.
Fears about how the country makes a living have always been part of the decision-making process for the government, grappling with these acute dilemmas.
But the political appetite inside the Tory party for sweeping restrictions has certainly dimmed.
The changes announced today do make economic recovery harder, the "bounce back" the government dreamt of looks harder to achieve, but they are not as draconian as they may otherwise have been.
The choices made by Nicola Sturgeon to restrict social lives much further than in England, as in Northern Ireland, point to that difference.
Ministers used to make great play of following the science, now they are certainly following the politics too.
Only the unknowable progress of the disease will, in time, suggest which call was right.
• None What's the guidance for Covid in the UK now?
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54253980
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news_uk-politics-54253980
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Brexit: Boris Johnson says powers will ensure UK cannot be 'broken up' - BBC News
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2020-09-14
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But Labour accuses PM of "trashing" the UK's international reputation as MPs debate post-Brexit bill.
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson: "I have absolutely no desire to use these measures"
Boris Johnson has said the UK must reserve the right to override the Brexit deal to protect the country's "economic and political integrity".
The PM said legislation was needed to resolve "tensions" in the EU-UK deal.
He said it would ensure the UK could not be "broken up" by a foreign power and the EU was acting in an "extreme way", by threatening food exports.
Labour said the PM had caused the "mess" by reneging on a deal he had previously called a "triumph".
The Internal Market Bill is expected to pass its first parliamentary test shortly, when MPs vote on it at about 22.00 BST, despite the reservations of many MPs that it gives the UK the power to break international law.
A number of Conservative MPs have said they will not support the bill as it stands and some could register their concerns by abstaining.
The UK left the EU on 31 January, having negotiated and signed the withdrawal agreement with the bloc.
A key part of the agreement - which is now an international treaty - was the Northern Ireland Protocol, designed to prevent a hard border returning to the island of Ireland.
The Internal Market Bill proposed by the government would override that part of that agreement when it comes to movement of goods between Northern Ireland and Britain and would allow the UK to re-interpret "state aid" rules on subsidies for firms in Northern Ireland, in the event of the two sides not agreeing a future trade deal.
Speaking at the start of the five-hour debate, the PM said the bill should be "welcomed by everyone" who cares about the "sovereignty and integrity of the UK".
He said the UK had signed up to the "finely balanced" withdrawal agreement, including the Northern Ireland Protocol, in "good faith" and was committed to honouring its obligations, including the introduction of "light touch" checks on trade between Britain and Northern Ireland.
But he said additional "protective powers" were now necessary to guard against the EU's "proven willingness" to interpret aspects of the agreement in "absurd" ways, "simply to exert leverage" in the trade talks.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ed Miliband says it is not an argument of Leave versus Remain, but “an argument about right versus wrong”.
"What we cannot tolerate now is a situation where our EU counterparts seriously believe they have the power to break up our country," he told MPs.
"We cannot have a situation where the very boundaries of our country can be dictated to by a foreign power or international organisation."
He also suggested the EU was threatening not to allow British firms to export products of animal origin to either the continent or Northern Ireland.
"Absurd and self-defeating as that action would be...the EU still have not taken this revolver off the table," he told MPs.
However, he sought to reassure MPs that the powers were an "insurance policy" and Parliament would be given a vote before they were ever invoked, insisting "I have absolutely no desire to use these measures".
But former Labour leader Ed Miliband, standing in for Sir Keir Starmer after the Labour leader was forced to self-isolate at home, said the "very act of passing the law" would constitute a breach of international law.
He told MPs the PM "could not blame anyone else", having drawn up and signed the Brexit deal himself.
"It is his deal, it is his mess, it is his failure," he said. "For the first time in his life, it is time to take responsibility and to fess up," he said. "Either he was not straight with the country in the first place or he did not understand it."
He added: "This is not just legislative hooliganism on any issue, it is on the most sensitive issue of all."
Among Tory MPs to speak out were ex-ministers Andrew Mitchell, Sir Bob Neill and Stephen Hammond, all of whom urged the government to settle differences with the EU through the arbitration process in the Agreement.
Conservative MP Charles Walker said the EU was a "pain in the neck" but urged the government not to "press the nuclear button" before all other options had been exhausted.
"I am not going to be voting for this bill at second reading because if you keep whacking a dog, don't be surprised when it bites you back," he said.
And Former Chancellor Sajid Javid has joined the ranks of potential rebels, saying he could not see why it was necessary to "pre-emptively renege" on the withdrawal agreement.
"Breaking international law is never a step that should be taken lightly," he tweeted.
This Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Sajid Javid This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
A senior government source told the BBC "all options are on the table" in terms of possible action against Tory MPs who do not support the bill.
The bill, which sets out how trade between different nations of the UK will operate after the UK leaves the EU single market on 31 December, is likely to face more difficulties in its later stages, especially in the House of Lords.
The DUP's Sammy Wilson welcomed the bill, but said his party still had concerns and would be tabling amendments to "ensure Northern Ireland is not left in a state aid straight jacket and our businesses are not weighed down by unnecessary paperwork when trading within the United Kingdom".
The SNP's Ian Blackford said the bill was the "greatest threat" to devolved government in Scotland since the establishment of the Scottish Parliament 20 years ago.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. David Cameron said he has “misgivings about what is being proposed”
"We are discussing the details of a bill which this government casually and brazenly admits breaks international and domestic law, he said.
Five former prime ministers have raised concerns about the bill, including Boris Johnson's predecessor Theresa May - who is absent from Monday's debate as she is on a visit to South Korea.
Speaking earlier on Monday, David Cameron said "passing an act of Parliament and then going on to break an international treaty obligation...should be the absolute final resort".
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Coronavirus: Children will stay part of rule of six, says Gove - BBC News
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2020-09-14
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The new restrictions on gatherings have public support, the Cabinet Office minister insists.
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UK
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Children are included in the new limits for social gatherings in England
The "rule of six", the latest limits on social gatherings in England, will not be changed to exempt children under 12, Michael Gove has insisted.
The new rules, which limit six people to meeting indoors and outdoors, come into effect on Monday.
Similar rules in Wales and Scotland do not include children under 11 and 12 respectively. But Mr Gove said the England rules were "absolutely right".
It comes as one scientist warned UK could lose control of the virus.
"One would have to say that we're on the edge of losing control," Prof Sir Mark Walport, a member of the government's Sage scientific advisory group told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"You've only got to look across the Channel to see what is happening in France and what's happening in Spain."
Prof Walport said it was very important that children go to school and students return to university - but social interactions would have to be limited in other areas.
"The only way to stop the spread of this infection is to reduce the number of people we all come into contact with," he added.
Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove said the rule of six was "well-understood" as a public health message and had the public's support.
"As ever, the important thing is balance - eating out, seeing friends - that is fine, provided we do so in a way that is socially responsible, that's what the rule of six is about."
He said some people had "unwittingly" contributed to the spread of the virus because of the way they had interacted, adding: "So therefore, a clear message - as simple as possible - makes it easier for all of us to do what is helpful to others."
Speaking on Radio 4, he added that there needed to be "a degree of self-discipline and restriction" in order to deal with the challenges posed by the rising number of coronavirus cases across England - and the escalating R number, which measures the rate at which the virus is transmitted.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast. he urged the public to behave in "a responsible fashion" amid fears people might treat it as a "party weekend", ahead of the new restrictions coming into effect next week.
"These rules and regulations are there for our protection, but also for the protection of the most vulnerable in society", citing the elderly or those with underlying health conditions "who face far grimmer consequences" if they contract Covid-19.
"The onus is on all of us to do everything we can to make sure we abide by those rules.
"Then we can ensure, in due course, that these restrictions can be relaxed - and my hope, like so many, is that we can have a proper Christmas."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What is the R number and what does it mean?
In the immediate future, Mr Gove agreed fines could be necessary to enforce regulations. It follows a story in the Times, which says the government is looking at introducing fines for people who refuse to self-isolate when required.
"I don't want to see fines being levied, but even more I do not want to see people behaving in a way that puts the most vulnerable at risk," Mr Gove told Radio 4.
Asked about Prof Walport's statement that the UK was "losing control", Mr Gove said it was "a warning to us all".
"There's a range of scientific opinion, but one thing on which practically every scientist is agreed is that we have seen an uptick in infection and therefore it is appropriate we take public health measures."
There are fears people will treat this weekend as a "party weekend" ahead of the new restrictions
Sage found that only about 20% of people who have symptoms or live in a household where someone else has symptoms adhere to self-isolation requirements.
"Sometimes there's an argument that's depicted, as though this is pernicious of the liberty of freedom-loving people - well there are restrictions, and I love freedom, but the one thing I think is even more important is that you exercise freedom with responsibility," said Mr Gove.
Some Conservative backbenchers have protested about enhanced regulations, such as the rule of six, and pressed the government to follow Wales and Scotland in exempting young children.
On Friday, ex-minister Steve Baker said the latest government action amounted to "arbitrary powers without scrutiny" and MP Desmond Swayne said it was "outrageous" not to have a Parliamentary debate.
"This is not a fit legal environment for the British people," Mr Baker told the BBC.
"It's time to move to a voluntary system, unless the government can demonstrate otherwise and it is time for us to start living like a free people."
Senior Conservative backbenchers are reported to be lobbying Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle to make sure that legislation is being reviewed every month, not every six months.
What do you think about the decision to include children under 12 in the "rule of six" in England? How does it affect you? Tell us about your experience by emailinghaveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.
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Fifth ex-PM speaks out against post-Brexit bill - BBC News
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2020-09-14
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David Cameron says he has "misgivings" about the proposed law to override the withdrawal agreement.
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UK Politics
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. David Cameron said he has “misgivings about what is being proposed”
David Cameron has become the fifth former prime minister to criticise a new bill attempting to override the Brexit withdrawal agreement.
No 10 says the Internal Market Bill was a "critical piece of legislation for the UK".
But Mr Cameron said he had "misgivings" over it and breaking an international treaty should be the "final resort".
Former Tory PMs Theresa May and Sir John Major, and Labour's Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have condemned the plan.
However, Boris Johnson's official spokesman said the bill delivered a "vital legal safety net" so the government can "take the necessary steps to ensure the integrity of UK's internal market" - steps it hoped never to have to use.
MPs have begun debating the bill at its second reading, with the PM making the opening remarks, and it is expected to pass this early stage after a vote at around 22:00.
But the legislation is likely to face more difficulties in its later stages, especially when the bill heads for debate in the Lords.
Former Attorney General Geoffrey Cox accused Mr Johnson of doing "unconscionable" damage to Britain's international reputation and said he would "withhold" his support for the bill in its current form.
The PM's special envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief, Tory MP Rehman Chishti, has resigned over the proposed law, saying: "I have always acted in a manner which respects the rule of law... [and] voting for this bill as it currently stands would be contrary to the values I hold dearest."
A senior government source told the BBC "all options are on the table" in terms of possible action against Tory MPs who do not support the bill.
Mr Miliband will stand in for Sir Keir Starmer at the opposition dispatch box after the Labour leader was forced to self-isolate at home when a member of his household developed possible coronavirus symptoms.
The UK left the EU on 31 January, having negotiated and signed the withdrawal agreement with the bloc.
The two sides are now in the closing weeks of negotiations for a post-Brexit trade deal before the transition period ends on 31 December - with informal talks taking place in Brussels this week.
A key part of the withdrawal agreement - which is now an international treaty - was the Northern Ireland Protocol, designed to prevent a hard border returning to the island of Ireland.
The Internal Market Bill proposed by the government would override that part of that agreement when it came to goods and would allow the UK to modify or re-interpret "state aid" rules on subsidies for firms in Northern Ireland, in the event of the two sides not agreeing a future trade deal.
Last week, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis said the bill would "break international law" in a "specific and limited way", leading to swathes of criticism from all sides of the political spectrum.
Here we go again... a Brexit deadline looms, there's a whole lot of noise about it in Westminster, and the UK and the EU can't agree.
And yes, yet again, there is a swirling soup of jargon every other sentence.
Take a few steps back though, and here is what this all amounts to - how the UK will trade with its nearest neighbours from January next year onwards and how the different parts of the UK will trade with each other.
This matters economically - and matters politically too.
The Brexit process has long exposed the tensions between the UK and Brussels, but don't underestimate the tensions it places on the UK as well.
Those in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales who have long argued to be unshackled from London, as they see it, argue Brexit is the ultimate case study to illustrate their argument.
And so the government at Westminster's delicate task is to extricate the UK from one union, the EU, while holding together another one, the UK.
All of these rows have that central aim at their core.
Mr Cameron - who called the EU referendum when he was PM - said he had "misgivings about what is being proposed".
Speaking to reporters, he said: "Passing an act of Parliament and then going on to break an international treaty obligation is the very, very last thing you should contemplate. It should be the absolute final resort."
Mr Cameron said the "bigger picture" was about trying to get a trade deal with the EU, urging the government to "keep that context [and] that big prize in mind."
The comments follow stronger criticism by the four other surviving former prime ministers of the UK.
Mrs May, who still sits as an MP in the Commons, said breaking international law would damage "trust" in the UK, while Mr Brown said it would be akin to "self-harm" for the country.
Sir John and Mr Blair - who were both in office during key periods of the Northern Ireland peace process - wrote a joint article in the Sunday Times accusing Mr Johnson of "embarrassing" the UK and urging MPs to reject the "shameful" attempt to override parts of the withdrawal agreement.
Earlier, Policing Minister Kit Malthouse called the bill a "practical" step, saying it "solves the problem that we're faced with" over the future of trade with the EU.
He told BBC Breakfast: "What we've done is to say transparently that this is a situation which we think may occur - certainly that's what's being intimated from the EU. It's a problem we have to solve so here's a bill that solves it.
"In the end those people that oppose this bill have to tell us what the resolution is."
On Sunday, Justice Secretary Robert Buckland told the BBC the bill was an "insurance policy" in case the UK and EU do not agree a post-Brexit trade deal.
He said he hoped powers being sought by ministers would never be needed, and that he would resign if the UK ended up breaking international law "in a way I find unacceptable".
But Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer accused government ministers of handing out "misinformation" over the weekend and "spinning" the reasons they were pursuing the new bill.
He told LBC: "[Mr Johnson] is making a mistake reneging on a treaty - that will have reputational damage for the UK.
"I would say to the prime minister, look go away, go back to the drawing board, drop these problems, don't act in this reckless and wrong way and we'll look again at the legislation."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Robert Buckland: "If I see the rule of law being broken in a way that I find unacceptable then of course I will go"
The bill has split opinion on the Tory backbenches.
MP Sir Desmond Swayne said he would be supporting the bill, praising the government for preparing in case no trade deal is agreed by the end of the year.
He told BBC News: "If the government didn't take precautions against that possibility, it would be utterly negligent. It is right it arm itself with the powers just in case."
But his colleague, and chair of the Justice Select Committee, Sir Bob Neill, said the government and its supporters needed to "calm the language".
He said there was already a mechanism for addressing the government's concerns, but he was willing to "meet them half-way" with an amendment to the bill - only allowing the elements that would break international law to be used if Parliament signs it off.
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Brexit: EU ultimatum to UK over withdrawal deal changes - BBC News
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2020-09-10
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Drop plans to rewrite withdrawal agreement by end of month or risk scuppering trade deal, UK is told.
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UK Politics
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The EU is demanding the UK ditches plans to change Boris Johnson's Brexit deal "by the end of the month" or risk jeopardising trade talks.
The UK has published a bill to rewrite parts of the withdrawal agreement it signed in January.
The EU said this had "seriously damaged trust" and it would not be "shy" of taking legal action against the UK.
But cabinet minister Michael Gove said the UK had made it "perfectly clear" it would not withdraw the bill.
The government says Parliament is sovereign and can pass laws which breach the UK's international treaty obligations.
EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said "trust and confidence are and will be key", after the latest round of UK-EU trade talks wrapped up in London on Thursday.
His UK counterpart David Frost said "significant" differences remained over a free trade deal, but added discussions would continue in Brussels next week.
The source of the EU's concern is Mr Johnson's proposed Internal Market Bill, which was published on Wednesday.
It addresses the Northern Ireland Protocol - an element of the withdrawal agreement designed to prevent a hard border returning to the island of Ireland.
The bill proposes no new checks on goods moving from Northern Ireland to Great Britain. It gives UK ministers powers to modify or "disapply" rules relating to the movement of goods that will come into force from 1 January, if the UK and EU are unable to strike a trade deal.
The publication of the bill prompted emergency talks between Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove and Maros Šefčovič, the European Commission Vice-President.
After two sets of meetings today - one on the trade talks and the other on the government's plans to rewrite part of the agreed treaty from last year - there has been nothing less than a diplomatic explosion.
The EU issued a statement that was about as furious as any I've ever seen in this kind of context - demanding that the UK government withdraw the controversial plans to override the deal done with the EU last year by the end of the month, and threatening to take legal action if it doesn't happen.
Essentially saying that there's no chance of trade talks, and hence no chance of a deal, unless the UK backs down.
At this stage, however, anyone with more than a passing acquaintance with this government would know that's inconceivable.
It is not, of course, impossible that further down the track the government may give way, or concede in quite a big way.
But right now, the chances of a move are slim to none.
Following the discussions, the EU issued a strongly-worded statement warning that the withdrawal agreement was a legal obligation, adding that "neither the EU nor the UK can unilaterally change, clarify, amend, interpret, disregard or disapply the agreement".
The EU rejected the UK's arguments that the bill is designed to protect peace in Northern Ireland arguing that "it does the opposite".
Mr Šefčovič said that if the bill were to be adopted, it would constitute an "extremely serious violation" of the withdrawal agreement and of international law.
He urged the government to withdraw the bill "by the end of the month", adding that the withdrawal agreement "contains a number of mechanisms and legal remedies to address violations of the legal obligations contained in the text - which the European Union will not be shy in using".
Germany's UK ambassador said he had not experienced "such a fast, intentional and profound deterioration of a negotiation" in his diplomatic career.
"If you believe in partnership between the UK and the EU like I do then don't accept it," he tweeted.
Michael Gove arrives at the Cabinet Office ahead of talks with EU officials
In its response, the UK government said it would "discharge its treaty obligations in good faith", but added that "in the difficult and highly exceptional circumstances in which we find ourselves, it is important to remember the fundamental principle of parliamentary sovereignty".
"Parliament is sovereign as a matter of domestic law and can pass legislation which is in breach of the UK's treaty obligations. Parliament would not be acting unconstitutionally in enacting such legislation.
"Treaty obligations only become binding to the extent that they are enshrined in domestic legislation. Whether to enact or repeal legislation, and the content of that legislation, is for Parliament and Parliament alone."
Mr Gove "said that, during the talks, he had "made it perfectly clear that we would not be withdrawing this legislation", adding that the government was "absolutely serious".
The Internal Market Bill will be formally debated by MPs in Parliament for the first time on Monday, 14 September.
It has come under increasing criticism from Conservative parliamentarians.
Former party leader Lord Howard said it would damage the UK's "reputation for probity and respect for the rule of law", while former Chancellor Lord Lamont asked ministers to "think again".
But Mr Gove said: "I'm looking forward to the second reading of the bill next week. It's an opportunity for the government to set out in detail why we have this legislation."
He promised to fight for "unfettered access for goods from Northern Ireland to the rest of the United Kingdom".
Mr Johnson has defended the bill, saying it would "ensure the integrity of the UK internal market" and hand power to Scotland and Wales, while protecting the Northern Ireland peace process.
But critics say the move will damage the UK's international reputation after a minister admitted the plans break international law.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer urged the government to consider "the reputational risk that it's taking in the proposed way forward".
Meanwhile, the latest round of formal talks over a post-Brexit trade deal concluded in London on Thursday.
Speaking afterwards, Mr Barnier said the EU had "shown flexibility" in an effort to "find solutions", but the UK had not "not engaged" on some "major issues".
For the UK side, Lord Frost said "challenging areas remain and the divergences on some are still significant".
He said the UK negotiators "remain committed" to reaching a deal by the middle of October and officials would "continue discussions" next week.
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Brexit: PM defends planned changes to Withdrawal Agreement - BBC News
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2020-09-10
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The government publishes a bill which overwrites key parts of the Withdrawal Agreement with the EU.
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UK Politics
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Boris Johnson has urged MPs to support a bill which modifies the Brexit deal he signed with the EU in January.
The PM said the Internal Markets Bill would "ensure the integrity of the UK internal market" and hand power to Scotland and Wales.
He also claimed it would protect the Northern Ireland peace process.
Critics say the move will damage the UK's international standing after a minister admitted the plans break international law.
The Scottish government has not ruled out legal action to prevent it becoming law.
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: "The Tories' proposed bill for a so-called UK internal market is an abomination. It is a naked power grab which would cripple devolution."
The Taoiseach (Ireland's prime minister) Micheál Martin has spoken to Mr Johnson "in forthright terms" about "the breach of an international treaty, the absence of bilateral engagement and the serious implications for Northern Ireland", the Irish government said.
Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove will hold emergency talks in London on Thursday with EU Commissioner Maros Sefcovic to discuss the contents of the bill.
The European Commission had requested a meeting as soon as possible to clarify what the legislation means for the Brexit deal.
Meanwhile, the latest scheduled round of negotiations on securing a post-Brexit trade deal with the EU are also due to wrap up on Thursday.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tweeted: "Very concerned about announcements from the British government on its intentions to breach the Withdrawal Agreement. This would break international law and undermines trust."
Downing Street said the EU Withdrawal Agreement - repeatedly described as "oven ready" by Mr Johnson during last year's general election - contained "ambiguities" and lacked clarity in "key areas".
The PM's spokesman said it had been agreed "at pace in the most challenging possible political circumstances" to "deliver on a decision by the British people".
It had been signed "on the assumption that subsequent agreements to clarify these aspects could be reached", the spokesman added.
The new bill sets out rules for the operation of the UK internal market - trade between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - after the end of the Brexit transition period in January.
The bill explicitly states that these powers should apply even if they are incompatible with international law.
Ministers say the legislation is needed to prevent "damaging" tariffs on goods travelling from the rest of the UK to Northern Ireland if negotiations with the EU on a free trade agreement fail.
But senior Conservatives have warned it risks undermining the UK's reputation as an upholder of international law.
Former PM Sir John Major fears the UK will lose its reputation for keeping its word
Former Prime Minister Sir John Major said: "For generations, Britain's word - solemnly given - has been accepted by friend and foe. Our signature on any treaty or agreement has been sacrosanct."
He added: "If we lose our reputation for honouring the promises we make, we will have lost something beyond price that may never be regained."
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer urged the government to consider "the reputational risk that it's taking in the proposed way forward".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sir Keir Starmer says the UK government should consider the “reputational risk” in its approach.
But Sir Keir - who campaigned for a second Brexit referendum - added that the "way forward" now was to get a trade deal, adding "if you fail to get a deal, prime minister, you own that failure".
"The outstanding issues are not difficult. They can be resolved. So what I say to the prime minister is, you promised a good deal, get on, negotiate it," he added.
"That's what's in the national interest and focus then on the issue in hand which is tackling this pandemic."
In the withdrawal agreement with the EU, Northern Ireland is still in the UK, but it has to follow elements of the EU's customs code.
This bill will be seen by the EU as a pretty brazen attempt to override the deal that has been done.
The bill contains the words "notwithstanding" - that basically means this law sets aside a law we have already agreed.
That was described to me earlier in the week as being a completely nuclear option.
And they have pressed it.
This row isn't going to go away.
The Democratic Unionist Party, which has been pressing for changes to the Withdrawal Agreement, said the bill was a "step forward" but the government must ensure Northern Ireland is not "restrained in a state aid straight jacket unlike the rest of the UK".
But the deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein's Michelle O' Neill, said the Withdrawal Agreement protected the Good Friday Agreement and it was "astounding" the UK government "thinks its fine" to wreck an international treaty they had signed up to.
Speaking at Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Johnson said: "My job is to uphold the integrity of the UK but also to protect the Northern Ireland peace process and the Good Friday Agreement.
"And to do that, we need a legal safety net to protect our country against extreme or irrational interpretations of the Protocol, which could lead to a border down the Irish Sea, in a way that I believe would be prejudicial to the interests of the Good Friday Agreement and prejudicial to the interests of peace in our country. And that has to be our priority."
Commenting on a similar argument by Health Secretary Matt Hancock, a former minister told the BBC: "I cannot allow anyone to get away with saying the government is doing this to protect the peace process. This does the precise opposite."
The legislation will see Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland handed powers in areas such as air quality and building efficiency currently regulated at EU level.
It will also set up a new body - the Office for the Internal Market - to make sure standards adopted in different parts of the UK do not undermine cross-border trade.
The Scottish government fears the UK single market will cut across areas that are usually devolved.
For example, if the UK government decides some food imports are acceptable in England then they would also be allowed in Scotland, even though agriculture is devolved.
The new body will be able to issue non-binding recommendations to the UK Parliament and devolved administrations when clashes emerge.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ian Blackford asks Boris Johnson if he thinks he is above the law regarding a bill on future trade.
The SNP's leader at Westminster, Ian Blackford, described the Internal Markets Bill as "nothing short of an attack on Scotland's parliament and an affront to people of Scotland".
Mr Johnson said the bill would protect jobs and growth - and was a "massive devolutionary act" that would represent a "very substantial transfer of power and sovereignty" to Scotland and Wales.
But his words did not prevent the resignation of a senior Conservative in Wales, where the party is in opposition.
David Melding, shadow Counsel General, said in his resignation letter that the PM's actions in the past few days had "gravely aggravated" the dangers facing "our 313-year-old Union".
• None What are the sticking points in Brexit trade talks?
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HS2 rail project work begins with pledge of 22,000 jobs - BBC News
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2020-09-04
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Work on the controversial rail line formally starts on Friday, with Boris Johnson saying it will "fire up growth".
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Business
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The Prime Minister visited an HS2 construction site on Friday
Construction work on HS2 officially begins on Friday, with companies behind the controversial high-speed rail project expecting to create 22,000 jobs in the next few years.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said HS2 would "fire up economic growth and help to rebalance opportunity".
He endorsed the rail link in February, with formal government approval granted in April despite lockdown.
But critics said HS2 will also cost jobs, and vowed to continue protesting.
HS2 is set to link London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. It is hoped the 20-year project will reduce passenger overcrowding and help rebalance the UK's economy through investment in transport links outside London.
HS2 Ltd chief executive Mark Thurston said the reality of high-speed journeys between Britain's biggest cities had moved a step closer.
When the project was mooted in 2009, it was expected to cost an estimated £37.5bn and when the official price tag was set out in the 2015 Budget it came in at just under £56bn.
But an official government report has since warned that it could cost more than £100bn and be up to five years behind schedule.
Some critics of HS2 describe it as a "vanity project" and say the money would be better spent on better connections between different parts of northern England. Others, such as the Stop HS2 pressure group, say it will cause considerable environmental damage.
The prime minister said HS2 was at the heart of government plans to "build back better" and would form "the spine of our country's transport network".
"But HS2's transformational potential goes even further," he added. "By creating hundreds of apprenticeships and thousands of skilled jobs, HS2 will fire up economic growth and help to rebalance opportunity across this country for years to come."
HS2's main works contractor for the West Midlands, the Balfour Beatty Vinci Joint Venture, has said it expects to be one of the biggest recruiters in the West Midlands over the next two years.
Up to 7,000 skilled jobs would be required to complete its section of the HS2 route, it said, with women and under-25s the core focus for recruitment and skills investment.
HS2 Ltd's Mr Thurston said the railway would be "transformative" for the UK.
"With the start of construction, the reality of high speed journeys joining up Britain's biggest cities in the North and Midlands and using that connectivity to help level up the country has just moved a step closer," he added.
Special tunnelling machines will be needed for sections of the line
Campaign group Stop HS2 said Boris Johnson and others who hail the creation of 22,000 jobs are "rather less keen to mention that HS2 is projected to permanently displace almost that many jobs".
Stop HS2 campaign manager Joe Rukin said: "Trying to spin HS2 as a job creation scheme is beyond desperate. Creating 22,000 jobs works out at almost £2m just to create a single job."
But speaking on the BBC's Breakfast programme, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps disputed those figures.
"I can't see how there's an argument that making it easier to get about this country is somehow going to destroy jobs, quite the opposite in fact. It's clearly going to make the economy level up", he said.
"Find those left behind areas, that have found themselves too disconnected before and join it together."
Stop HS2 chairwoman Penny Gaines called the project "environmentally destructive" to wildlife: "This is why there are currently hundreds of activists camped out along the HS2 route. We don't expect them to go away any time soon."
However, the Northern Powerhouse Partnership (NPP), which fights for investment in the regional economy, said such major infrastructure projects are transformative and called for the planned extensions of HS2 to be started as soon as possible.
"Increasing capacity on the North's rail network and better connecting our towns and cities will be vital in the economic regeneration of the Northern Powerhouse - both now and long in the future," said Henri Murison, director of the NPP.
This is an important symbolic move for HS2, but in the real world it changes very little.
Work preparing for the new line - demolishing buildings and clearing sites for example - has already been going on for the past three years. And in some areas, construction work has also begun.
But the arguments over whether or not the railway should actually be built are continuing to rage.
The government has long insisted that it will help re-balance the country's economy, by promoting investment outside London. It now says the jobs created by the scheme will support the post-Covid recovery.
But opponents claim that lockdown has undermined the case for HS2 - by showing how easily people can work remotely, and how little business travel is really needed.
Same dispute, new arguments. But now shovels are - officially - in the ground.
The government has also defended itself against criticism that the new line will no longer be needed, as people travel less as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr Shapps acknowledged more people are working at home, but said the government was looking at the country's long term transport needs:
"We're not building this for what happens over the next couple of years or even the next 10 years, whilst we're building it. We're building this, as with the west coast and the east coast main lines, for 150 years and still going strong.
"I think it actually shows a lot of faith in the future of this country," he added.
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Apple fires back in Fortnite App Store battle - BBC News
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2020-09-08
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The tech giant said its dispute with the firm behind the game was a "basic disagreement over money".
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Business
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Fortnite and Apple have been locked in legal battle since August
Apple has fired back against claims by the maker of the Fortnite game that its control of the App Store gives it a monopoly.
In a response to the August lawsuit filed by Epic Games, Apple called those arguments "self-righteous" and "self-interested".
It denied that its 30% commission was anti-competitive and said the fight was "a basic disagreement over money".
Apple also said Epic Games had violated its contract and asked for damages.
The filing is the latest in a legal battle that started last month, after Fortnite offered a discount on its virtual currency for purchases made outside of the app, from which Apple receives a 30% cut.
In response, Apple blocked Epic's ability to distribute updates or new apps through the App Store, and Epic sued, alleging that Apple's App Store practices violate antitrust laws.
The court allowed Apple's ban on updates to continue as the case plays out, but the existing version of Fortnite still works, as does Epic's payment system.
Apple had said it would allow Fortnite back into the store if Epic removed the direct payment feature to comply with its developer agreement.
But Epic has refused, saying complying with Apple's request would be "to collude with Apple to maintain their monopoly over in-app payments on iOS."
In its filing, Apple said Epic has benefited from Apple's promotion and developer tools, earning more than $600m (£462m) through the App Store.
Apple accused the firm, which it noted is backed by Chinese tech giant Tencent, of seeking a special deal before ultimately breaching its contract with the update.
"Although Epic portrays itself as a modern corporate Robin Hood, in reality it is a multi-billion dollar enterprise that simply wants to pay nothing for the tremendous value it derives from the App Store," it said in the filing.
The legal battle between the two companies comes as Apple faces increased scrutiny of its practices running the App Store.
At a hearing in Washington over the summer, politicians also raised concerns that Apple's control of the app store hurt competition.
The European Union is also investigating whether Apple's App Store practices violate competition rules.
Apple has denied those claims, arguing that its App Store has made it easier and cheaper for developers to distribute products.
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Northern Ireland Secretary admits new bill will 'break international law' - BBC News
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2020-09-08
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Brandon Lewis says a new post-Brexit law will go against agreements in a "specific and limited way".
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UK Politics
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Brandon Lewis says Northern Ireland customs rules legislation do “break international law in a very specific and limited way”
A government minister has said a new bill to amend the UK's Brexit deal with the EU will "break international law".
Concerns had been raised about legislation being brought forward which could change parts of the withdrawal agreement, negotiated last year.
Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis conceded it would go against the treaty in a "specific and limited way".
Former PM Theresa May warned the change could damage "trust" in the UK over future trade deals with other states.
The permanent secretary to the Government Legal Department, Sir Jonathan Jones, has announced he is resigning from government in light of the bill, making him the sixth senior civil servant to leave Whitehall this year.
Sir Jonathan, who is the government's most senior lawyer, is understood to have believed the plans went too far in breaching the government's obligations under international law.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer condemned the bill and accused No 10 of "reopening old arguments that had been settled", saying the "focus should be on getting a [trade] deal done" with the EU.
No 10 revealed on Monday that it would be introducing a new UK Internal Market Bill that could affect post-Brexit customs and trade rules in Northern Ireland.
Downing Street said it would only make "minor clarifications in extremely specific areas" - but it worried some in Brussels and Westminster that it could see the government try to change the withdrawal agreement, which became international law when the UK left the EU in January.
The row also comes at the start of the eighth round of post-Brexit trade deal talks between the UK and the EU.
The two sides are trying to secure a deal before the end of the transition period on 31 December, which will see the UK going onto World Trade Organisation rules if no agreement is reached.
Irish Foreign Affairs Minister, Simon Coveney, called Mr Lewis' comments "gravely concerning", adding: "Any unilateral departure from the terms of the withdrawal agreement would be a matter of considerable concern and a very serious step."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sir Keir Starmer says planned government legislation over Northern Ireland is “wrong”
The UK's chief Brexit negotiator, Lord David Frost, called for "realism" from his EU counterparts, saying he would "drive home our clear message that we must make progress this week if we are to reach an agreement in time".
The EU said it would "do everything in [its] power to reach an agreement" with the UK, but "will be ready" for a no-deal scenario.
On Monday, Boris Johnson said if a deal hadn't been done by the time the European Council meets on 15 October, the two sides should "move on" and accept the UK's exit without one.
Shadow Northern Ireland secretary, Louise Haigh, said it was "deeply concerning" that the prime minister "appeared to be undermining the legal obligations of his own deal" with the introduction of the new law while the negotiations are taking place.
The text of the new bill will not be published until Wednesday, although the government has confirmed it will deal with the issue of the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol - an element of the withdrawal agreement designed to prevent a hard border returning to the island of Ireland after Brexit.
The practicalities of the protocol - which will deal with issues of state aid (financial support given to businesses by governments) and whether there needs to be customs checks on goods - is still being negotiated by a joint UK and EU committee.
But Mr Lewis said the bill would take "limited and reasonable steps to create a safety net" if the negotiations failed.
Speaking during an urgent question on the bill, chair of the Justice Committee and Tory MP Bob Neill said the "adherence to the rule of law is not negotiable".
He asked Mr Lewis: "Will he assure us that nothing proposed in this legislation does or potentially might breach international obligations or international legal arrangements?"
The Northern Ireland secretary replied: "Yes. This does break international law in a very specific and limited way."
He said the government was still working "in good faith" with the EU joint committee to overcome its concerns for the future of trade in Northern Ireland, but said there was "clear precedence for UK and indeed other countries needing to consider their obligations if circumstances change".
Sir Bob later told BBC Radio 4's PM the decision was "troubling", adding: "Britain is a country which prides itself on standing by the rule of law... whether it is inconvenient or convenient for us.
"Whatever we seek to do, if we find something we signed up to 'inconvenient', I am afraid this doesn't mean we can renege on our contract... as that would damage our reputation long term."
This was an extremely unusual statement - a minister standing up in Parliament to say the government is planning to break international law.
Brandon Lewis told the House of Commons that "there are clear precedents for the UK and other countries needing to consider their international obligations as circumstances change".
That may suggest, says Catherine Barnard, professor of law at the University of Cambridge, that the government is looking at Article 62 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which enables a state to get out of its treaty obligations when circumstances change radically.
But those changed circumstances have to be pretty dramatic - something like the dissolution of Yugoslavia, when a recognised country ceases to exist.
In the case of the Northern Ireland Protocol, it is less than a year since the government negotiated the treaty in full knowledge of the sensitivity of the situation.
And if the government does go ahead with legislation which appears to contradict the withdrawal agreement?
"There is a chance," says Prof Barnard, "that the EU will decide to trigger the dispute resolution mechanism in the withdrawal agreement, which could lead to arbitration and a case before the European Court of Justice."
Theresa May - who stood down as prime minister last year after her own Brexit deal failed to get the support of Parliament - said: "The United Kingdom government signed the withdrawal agreement with the Northern Ireland Protocol.
"This Parliament voted that withdrawal agreement into UK legislation. The government is now changing the operation of that agreement."
"How can the government reassure future international partners that the UK can be trusted to abide by the legal obligations of the agreements it signs?"
The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Sir Ed Davey, also called it a "sad and shocking state of affairs for our country".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. BBC Reality Check’s Chris Morris looks at where the UK and EU are struggling to agree on their future relationship
Sammy Wilson, who acts as Brexit spokesman for the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party, said he was "pleased" to have the new bill that could deal with some of the issues that could affect his constituents - such as state aid and customs checks.
But he said the DUP had "warned ministers of the impact of the withdrawal agreement" early on, saying it was a "union splitting, economy destroying and border creating agreement that has to be changed and replaced".
He added: "We will judge this bill on whether it delivers on these kind of issues."
However, Claire Hanna, a Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) MP for Belfast South, said the protocol was "a symptom… of four years of terrible political decision making".
She added: "It is now the law. This government is obliged to implement it in full."
She also "cautioned" Mr Lewis "not to use the threat of a border on the island of Ireland or the hard won impartiality of the Good Friday Agreement as a cat's paw in this or any other negotiation."
But former Conservative leader, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, said the act that brought the withdrawal agreement into law in the UK allowed the government to "reserve the right to make clarifications under the sovereignty clause".
Mr Lewis agreed, saying the law would "clarify... the points about what will apply in January if we are not able to get satisfactory and mutually suitable conclusions" in negotiations.
He added: "It is reasonable and sensible to give that certainty and clarity to the people and businesses of Northern Ireland."
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Brexit: UK to unveil planned changes to Withdrawal Agreement - BBC News
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2020-09-08
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The government faces a backlash from senior Tories after admitting the bill breaks international law.
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UK Politics
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The government will later publish plans which could override key elements of its Brexit deal with Brussels, in breach of international law.
The Internal Market Bill will set out how powers currently held by the EU will be shared out after the post-Brexit transition period ends.
But it has faced a backlash from senior Tories and prompted the resignation of a top civil servant.
It comes as the talks over a trade deal with the EU continue in London.
The Internal Market Bill could override parts of the Withdrawal Agreement that secured the UK's exit from the EU in January.
Ministers say it is needed to prevent "damaging" tariffs on goods travelling from the rest of the UK to Northern Ireland if negotiations with the EU on a free trade agreement fail.
But senior Conservatives have warned it risks undermining the UK's reputation as an upholder of international law.
Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the Commons Defence Committee, said the UK would "lose the moral high ground" if the government went through with the changes.
Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said: "Our entire economy is based on the perception that people have of the UK's adherence to the rule of law."
Health Secretary Matt Hancock insisted the changes were necessary to protect the Northern Ireland peace process if the UK failed to get a free trade deal with the EU.
"The decision we've made is to put the peace process first, first and foremost as our absolute top international obligation," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
A former Cabinet minister, involved in putting together the Withdrawal Agreement, reacted furiously to Mr Hancock's claim.
The former minister, who did not want to be named, told the BBC: "I cannot allow anyone to get away with saying the government is doing this to protect the peace process. This does the precise opposite.
"It is about the internal market in the UK and is more likely to lead to a hard border [between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland] which will imperil the peace process."
The permanent secretary to the Government Legal Department, Sir Jonathan Jones, has resigned from his role over concerns about the government breaching its obligations under international law.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Brandon Lewis has said the bill contains powers that would break international law.
In the Commons on Tuesday, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis admitted the bill would break international law in a "very specific and limited way".
It would allow the UK government to "dis-apply" the EU legal concept of "direct effect" - which gives EU law supremacy over UK law in areas covered by the Withdrawal Agreement - in "certain, very tightly defined circumstances," he told MPs.
The Scottish government, meanwhile, has said it will not consent to a change in the law along these lines, arguing that it would undermines devolution.
The bill has also been attacked by the Welsh Brexit minister, Labour's Jeremy Miles, who accused the government of "stealing powers from devolved administrations".
"This bill is an attack on democracy and an affront to the people of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland," he added.
The legislation will see Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland handed powers in areas such as air quality and building efficiency currently regulated at EU level.
It will also set up a new body - the Office for the Internal Market - to make sure standards adopted in different parts of the UK do not undermine cross-border trade.
The new body will be able to issue non-binding recommendations to the UK Parliament and devolved administrations when clashes emerge.
However, plans to hand UK ministers extra powers to ensure the application of customs and trade rules in Northern Ireland have prompted a row over the UK's legal obligations in its exit deal.
Under the UK's withdrawal agreement, Northern Ireland is due to stay part of the EU's single market for goods in a bid to avoid creating a hard border with the Irish Republic.
In parallel with talks over a post-Brexit trade deal, the UK and EU are negotiating the precise nature of new customs checks that will be required.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has accused Downing Street of "reopening old arguments that had been settled" and said the government should instead focus on securing a deal with the EU.
Former Conservative PM Theresa May warned the legislation could damage "trust" in the UK over future trade deals with other states.
And French MEP Nathalie Loiseau said: "The prime minister has promised to put a tiger in the tank in the negotiations. It seems for the time being he is putting an elephant in the china shop."
• None What are the sticking points in Brexit trade talks?
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Coronavirus: Support grows for rebel MPs over law - BBC News
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2020-09-27
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Labour hints it could back Conservatives trying to increase MP scrutiny over lockdown restrictions.
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UK Politics
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Labour is "very sympathetic" to a bid by Conservative MPs to increase parliamentary scrutiny over coronavirus restrictions in England, shadow justice secretary David Lammy has said.
Tory Sir Graham Brady wants MPs to have a say on changes to lockdown rules.
Ex-Commons Speaker John Bercow and Steve Baker, a former Brexit minister, have also spoken in favour of the move.
The government says it wants to work with MPs while ensuring ministers can react quickly to suppress the virus.
It has also said MPs will get the chance to vote retrospectively on the 'rule of six', which puts a limit on the number of people at social gatherings.
Mr Lammy told the BBC's Andrew Marr he was "very sympathetic" to the amendment.
"We need more transparency... and we should be debating the regulations and rules for the country," he said.
However he avoided committing support to Sir Graham, pointing out that Labour would table its own amendment and would wait and see if it was selected by Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle this week.
In March, Parliament passed the Coronavirus Act. It gave the government powers to respond to the pandemic, including moves such as postponing local elections, closing down pubs and allowing courts to use live links.
The powers granted by the act were time-limited and can only be extended with the House of Commons' approval.
MPs will be asked to renew the powers on Wednesday but several have expressed concern and Sir Graham has tabled an amendment that would give Parliament a say over new national restrictions before they are brought into force.
Speaking to Sky News' Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme Conservative MP and former Brexit Minister Mr Baker said: "How do people think that liberty dies? It dies like this with government exercising draconian powers, without parliamentary scrutiny in advance, undermining the rule of law by having a shifting blanket of rules that no-one can understand."
BBC parliamentary correspondent Mark D'arcy says the initial steer is that it is unlikely the Speaker would select Sir Graham's amendment, meaning it would not be put to a vote.
But, he says, the Speaker does consider the breadth of support for an amendment, including its level of cross-party appeal, so support from Labour figures would influence his decision.
Sir Graham, who is chairman of the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers, has support from a wide spectrum of MPs including 50 other Conservatives, an ex-party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith and former-Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman.
The DUP also supports the move, while the SNP is said to be considering it.
The amendment also has support from Mr Bercow, former Speaker of the House of Commons.
Speaking to The World This Weekend on BBC Radio 4, he said the House of Commons had initially been prepared to "cut the government some slack" given the circumstances.
But, he said, since then 50 laws with potential and actual criminal sanctions had come into force, without Parliament having a say.
"That cannot continue if we are to call ourselves a democracy," he said.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said he would "almost certainly" vote for the amendment and accused the government of failing to come to Parliament "when it should have done".
However he added that the amendment "did not go far enough" arguing that the original Coronavirus Act "failed people".
Specifically he pointed to a clause in the law which took away parts of councils' duty to provide care for disabled people.
"For the government to legislate to take away peoples' rights to care I think is outrageous," he said.
The government has said it is "determined to take the right steps to protect" those who are most vulnerable to the disease and that the care provisions implemented in the Coronavirus Act are only intended to be used when absolutely necessary.
The numbers don't look good for Downing Street.
Forty-plus Conservative MPs, combined with opposition parties, is enough to overturn Boris Johnson's majority.
And there are now easily enough Tories behind the Brady amendment - while opposition groups are making some supportive sounds, albeit at various volumes.
However, a big question mark hangs over this particular political showdown; namely whether the amendment will even be selected by the Speaker.
But even if this amendment falls, the grievance doesn't.
It's not hard to find an unhappy Tory MP wandering around Westminster at the moment.
Some think that the dial has moved too far back towards restricting people's liberty.
Or that parliament is being all-too-often ignored by ministers; even eroded as a democratic institution.
There's a view too that policies might emerge in better shape if they were stress-tested by the Commons.
A counter argument is that - in an emergency - ministers don't want to hang about waiting for Parliament's permission to act.
No. 10 knows it's facing trouble and has been trying to stress that it's engaging with MPs.
But some of those MPs are past the point of being "engaged" with. They want a real say.
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Brexit: EU ultimatum to UK over withdrawal deal changes - BBC News
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2020-09-11
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Drop plans to rewrite withdrawal agreement by end of month or risk scuppering trade deal, UK is told.
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UK Politics
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The EU is demanding the UK ditches plans to change Boris Johnson's Brexit deal "by the end of the month" or risk jeopardising trade talks.
The UK has published a bill to rewrite parts of the withdrawal agreement it signed in January.
The EU said this had "seriously damaged trust" and it would not be "shy" of taking legal action against the UK.
But cabinet minister Michael Gove said the UK had made it "perfectly clear" it would not withdraw the bill.
The government says Parliament is sovereign and can pass laws which breach the UK's international treaty obligations.
EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said "trust and confidence are and will be key", after the latest round of UK-EU trade talks wrapped up in London on Thursday.
His UK counterpart David Frost said "significant" differences remained over a free trade deal, but added discussions would continue in Brussels next week.
The source of the EU's concern is Mr Johnson's proposed Internal Market Bill, which was published on Wednesday.
It addresses the Northern Ireland Protocol - an element of the withdrawal agreement designed to prevent a hard border returning to the island of Ireland.
The bill proposes no new checks on goods moving from Northern Ireland to Great Britain. It gives UK ministers powers to modify or "disapply" rules relating to the movement of goods that will come into force from 1 January, if the UK and EU are unable to strike a trade deal.
The publication of the bill prompted emergency talks between Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove and Maros Šefčovič, the European Commission Vice-President.
After two sets of meetings today - one on the trade talks and the other on the government's plans to rewrite part of the agreed treaty from last year - there has been nothing less than a diplomatic explosion.
The EU issued a statement that was about as furious as any I've ever seen in this kind of context - demanding that the UK government withdraw the controversial plans to override the deal done with the EU last year by the end of the month, and threatening to take legal action if it doesn't happen.
Essentially saying that there's no chance of trade talks, and hence no chance of a deal, unless the UK backs down.
At this stage, however, anyone with more than a passing acquaintance with this government would know that's inconceivable.
It is not, of course, impossible that further down the track the government may give way, or concede in quite a big way.
But right now, the chances of a move are slim to none.
Following the discussions, the EU issued a strongly-worded statement warning that the withdrawal agreement was a legal obligation, adding that "neither the EU nor the UK can unilaterally change, clarify, amend, interpret, disregard or disapply the agreement".
The EU rejected the UK's arguments that the bill is designed to protect peace in Northern Ireland arguing that "it does the opposite".
Mr Šefčovič said that if the bill were to be adopted, it would constitute an "extremely serious violation" of the withdrawal agreement and of international law.
He urged the government to withdraw the bill "by the end of the month", adding that the withdrawal agreement "contains a number of mechanisms and legal remedies to address violations of the legal obligations contained in the text - which the European Union will not be shy in using".
Germany's UK ambassador said he had not experienced "such a fast, intentional and profound deterioration of a negotiation" in his diplomatic career.
"If you believe in partnership between the UK and the EU like I do then don't accept it," he tweeted.
Michael Gove arrives at the Cabinet Office ahead of talks with EU officials
In its response, the UK government said it would "discharge its treaty obligations in good faith", but added that "in the difficult and highly exceptional circumstances in which we find ourselves, it is important to remember the fundamental principle of parliamentary sovereignty".
"Parliament is sovereign as a matter of domestic law and can pass legislation which is in breach of the UK's treaty obligations. Parliament would not be acting unconstitutionally in enacting such legislation.
"Treaty obligations only become binding to the extent that they are enshrined in domestic legislation. Whether to enact or repeal legislation, and the content of that legislation, is for Parliament and Parliament alone."
Mr Gove "said that, during the talks, he had "made it perfectly clear that we would not be withdrawing this legislation", adding that the government was "absolutely serious".
The Internal Market Bill will be formally debated by MPs in Parliament for the first time on Monday, 14 September.
It has come under increasing criticism from Conservative parliamentarians.
Former party leader Lord Howard said it would damage the UK's "reputation for probity and respect for the rule of law", while former Chancellor Lord Lamont asked ministers to "think again".
But Mr Gove said: "I'm looking forward to the second reading of the bill next week. It's an opportunity for the government to set out in detail why we have this legislation."
He promised to fight for "unfettered access for goods from Northern Ireland to the rest of the United Kingdom".
Mr Johnson has defended the bill, saying it would "ensure the integrity of the UK internal market" and hand power to Scotland and Wales, while protecting the Northern Ireland peace process.
But critics say the move will damage the UK's international reputation after a minister admitted the plans break international law.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer urged the government to consider "the reputational risk that it's taking in the proposed way forward".
Meanwhile, the latest round of formal talks over a post-Brexit trade deal concluded in London on Thursday.
Speaking afterwards, Mr Barnier said the EU had "shown flexibility" in an effort to "find solutions", but the UK had not "not engaged" on some "major issues".
For the UK side, Lord Frost said "challenging areas remain and the divergences on some are still significant".
He said the UK negotiators "remain committed" to reaching a deal by the middle of October and officials would "continue discussions" next week.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54097320
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Brexit: Despite bitter row can deal still be done? - BBC News
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2020-09-11
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Last-minute agreements have been reached before, but right now it feels like a long shot.
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Europe
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EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier is in London this week for Brexit talks
When it comes to Brexit, all negotiations are inter-linked: EU-UK trade talks, the process to implement their divorce deal, negotiations on fishing rights and Brussels' deliberation on UK financial service.
What happens in one area very much affects progress in the others. You cannot separate them entirely.
Which is why this week, as the war of words and wills between Brussels and Downing Street raged over the government's threat to throw a grenade at key parts of the divorce deal, everyone's thoughts turned immediately to the trade talks between the two sides.
In fact, they limp on. Negotiations are set to resume in Brussels on Monday. This, despite the EU ending the week by threatening Downing Street with legal action unless it rowed back on its threats to the Withdrawal Agreement by the end of the month.
The government insists it will not budge. So it is significant that the EU stopped short of threatening to press the nuclear button - shutting down trade talks altogether.
Why is that, when we know the EU is furious?
First of all, Brussels still wants a deal with the UK, if at all possible, this autumn.
Secondly, the sense in Brussels is that the government is trying to provoke the EU into abandoning the trade negotiations.
"We're not going to give them that satisfaction," a high-level EU diplomat told me. "We refuse to be manipulated."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. UK vs EU: Johnson and Michel Barnier set out competing visions on trade
So, despite bitter arguments over legislation on the one hand, and a huge list of outstanding issues still to be ironed out in bilateral trade talks; despite time and trust running out on both sides; neither the EU nor the UK seem to want to be the first ones to walk out the door.
It is still possible, of course, that the government's bill is stopped in the House of Lords or even beforehand by rebel MPs.
It is possible for the EU and UK to iron out their differences over the divorce deal and in trade talks. Concessions can always be "dressed-up" to look like victories, after all.
It has been done before. Remember last autumn? Finding agreement on the divorce deal seemed nigh on impossible - until it was not and a deal was signed.
But, right now that feels like a long shot. The chatter on both sides of the Channel is that "no deal" is becoming more likely by the day.
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Brexit: Boris Johnson says powers will ensure UK cannot be 'broken up' - BBC News
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2020-09-15
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But Labour accuses PM of "trashing" the UK's international reputation as MPs debate post-Brexit bill.
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UK Politics
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson: "I have absolutely no desire to use these measures"
Boris Johnson has said the UK must reserve the right to override the Brexit deal to protect the country's "economic and political integrity".
The PM said legislation was needed to resolve "tensions" in the EU-UK deal.
He said it would ensure the UK could not be "broken up" by a foreign power and the EU was acting in an "extreme way", by threatening food exports.
Labour said the PM had caused the "mess" by reneging on a deal he had previously called a "triumph".
The Internal Market Bill is expected to pass its first parliamentary test shortly, when MPs vote on it at about 22.00 BST, despite the reservations of many MPs that it gives the UK the power to break international law.
A number of Conservative MPs have said they will not support the bill as it stands and some could register their concerns by abstaining.
The UK left the EU on 31 January, having negotiated and signed the withdrawal agreement with the bloc.
A key part of the agreement - which is now an international treaty - was the Northern Ireland Protocol, designed to prevent a hard border returning to the island of Ireland.
The Internal Market Bill proposed by the government would override that part of that agreement when it comes to movement of goods between Northern Ireland and Britain and would allow the UK to re-interpret "state aid" rules on subsidies for firms in Northern Ireland, in the event of the two sides not agreeing a future trade deal.
Speaking at the start of the five-hour debate, the PM said the bill should be "welcomed by everyone" who cares about the "sovereignty and integrity of the UK".
He said the UK had signed up to the "finely balanced" withdrawal agreement, including the Northern Ireland Protocol, in "good faith" and was committed to honouring its obligations, including the introduction of "light touch" checks on trade between Britain and Northern Ireland.
But he said additional "protective powers" were now necessary to guard against the EU's "proven willingness" to interpret aspects of the agreement in "absurd" ways, "simply to exert leverage" in the trade talks.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ed Miliband says it is not an argument of Leave versus Remain, but “an argument about right versus wrong”.
"What we cannot tolerate now is a situation where our EU counterparts seriously believe they have the power to break up our country," he told MPs.
"We cannot have a situation where the very boundaries of our country can be dictated to by a foreign power or international organisation."
He also suggested the EU was threatening not to allow British firms to export products of animal origin to either the continent or Northern Ireland.
"Absurd and self-defeating as that action would be...the EU still have not taken this revolver off the table," he told MPs.
However, he sought to reassure MPs that the powers were an "insurance policy" and Parliament would be given a vote before they were ever invoked, insisting "I have absolutely no desire to use these measures".
But former Labour leader Ed Miliband, standing in for Sir Keir Starmer after the Labour leader was forced to self-isolate at home, said the "very act of passing the law" would constitute a breach of international law.
He told MPs the PM "could not blame anyone else", having drawn up and signed the Brexit deal himself.
"It is his deal, it is his mess, it is his failure," he said. "For the first time in his life, it is time to take responsibility and to fess up," he said. "Either he was not straight with the country in the first place or he did not understand it."
He added: "This is not just legislative hooliganism on any issue, it is on the most sensitive issue of all."
Among Tory MPs to speak out were ex-ministers Andrew Mitchell, Sir Bob Neill and Stephen Hammond, all of whom urged the government to settle differences with the EU through the arbitration process in the Agreement.
Conservative MP Charles Walker said the EU was a "pain in the neck" but urged the government not to "press the nuclear button" before all other options had been exhausted.
"I am not going to be voting for this bill at second reading because if you keep whacking a dog, don't be surprised when it bites you back," he said.
And Former Chancellor Sajid Javid has joined the ranks of potential rebels, saying he could not see why it was necessary to "pre-emptively renege" on the withdrawal agreement.
"Breaking international law is never a step that should be taken lightly," he tweeted.
This Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Sajid Javid This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
A senior government source told the BBC "all options are on the table" in terms of possible action against Tory MPs who do not support the bill.
The bill, which sets out how trade between different nations of the UK will operate after the UK leaves the EU single market on 31 December, is likely to face more difficulties in its later stages, especially in the House of Lords.
The DUP's Sammy Wilson welcomed the bill, but said his party still had concerns and would be tabling amendments to "ensure Northern Ireland is not left in a state aid straight jacket and our businesses are not weighed down by unnecessary paperwork when trading within the United Kingdom".
The SNP's Ian Blackford said the bill was the "greatest threat" to devolved government in Scotland since the establishment of the Scottish Parliament 20 years ago.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. David Cameron said he has “misgivings about what is being proposed”
"We are discussing the details of a bill which this government casually and brazenly admits breaks international and domestic law, he said.
Five former prime ministers have raised concerns about the bill, including Boris Johnson's predecessor Theresa May - who is absent from Monday's debate as she is on a visit to South Korea.
Speaking earlier on Monday, David Cameron said "passing an act of Parliament and then going on to break an international treaty obligation...should be the absolute final resort".
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Housing crisis: The 59-year-old woman who lives in a van - BBC News
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2020-09-15
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Official figures undercount the real numbers waiting for social housing by 500,000, a study claims.
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Family & Education
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Polly has lived in a small campervan for more than a year
"I don't want to live like this, no-one should live like this - but I don't have any options," says Polly Richardson who finds herself at the sharp end of the lack of affordable homes in England.
For more than a year, she has lived out of a small camper van.
"This is my home. I've two sets of clothes in a box. I've got my cups and saucers in this drawer, my pans under this bed, and I have a little camping cooker.
"Winter time was horrendous because there was no heating."
The 59-year-old grandmother of four from East Yorkshire is one of half-a-million households that aren't even counted as waiting for a council or housing association property, according to the National Housing Federation.
New research commissioned by the Federation from Heriot-Watt University says the real number of people in England waiting for such homes is 3.8 million, representing 1.6 million households, or 500,000 more than is indicated by official government data.
"I've got belongings in people's garages," says Polly.
She spent years working as a retail manager but after taking time off to look after her sick father, and then having a big argument with her sister, she found herself being forced to move into the van in March 2019.
"Without a job, you can't have a house. Without a house, they won't give you a job. I'm hoping somebody out there will give me a job," she says.
The National Housing Federation say 90,000 homes for social rent need to be built each year for the next decade to meet demand but, according to official figures, just 6,338 such homes were completed in 2018-19, down 84% since 2010-11.
The main advantage of social housing - where either the local council or a housing association are the landlord - is that it's more affordable than private rented accommodation, typically around 50% of market rents, and usually offers a more secure tenancy.
"What we are seeing is an escalating need for social housing and a lack of supply," says Kate Henderson, chief executive of the National Housing Federation.
"Investing in social housing would boost the economy, it would create thousands of jobs, it would support supply chains in the construction industry and it would provide better, more secure, safe housing for people in need."
The lack of suitable properties leaves large numbers of families living in overcrowded accommodation.
Abigail McManus, a 27-year-old single mother lives in a two-bedroom flat in Leeds with her three young children - two daughters aged six and two and a little boy who's five months old.
Leaving her house is a daily grind as she struggles to manoeuvre her double buggy down the stairs.
Abigail has been bidding weekly for a three-bedroomed ground floor property for years, without success.
She says the council are encouraging her to search further afield to increase her chances being allocated somewhere suitable to live.
But she says: "My whole family live on this estate, so I'd like to try and stay as close as possible.
"As a single parent, who doesn't drive, it would be hard for me to get anywhere and I'd feel more isolated than I already do, if I move too far from this area."
Mum of three Abigail McManus struggles to get her double buggy into her flat
When she was prime minister, Theresa May altered the way in which councils could use funding to allow them to build more homes.
Her government predicted the change would lead to 10,000 new council houses each year, a figure that hasn't been reached since 2013-14.
While local authorities believe building that number is possible, experts say the pandemic could create problems in the construction industry.
The Ministry of Housing said it "didn't recognise" the figures in the new analysis carried out by the National Housing Federation, describing them as a "major overestimation".
It also highlighted its £11.5bn investment in affordable homes, to be spent between 2021 and 2026, some of which will be used on building homes for social rent.
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Indyref2: Starmer refuses to rule out backing Scotland referendum - BBC News
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2020-09-23
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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But the Labour leader says another "divisive" vote on Scotland's position in the near future is "not needed".
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UK Politics
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Keir Starmer says he would not “be doing a hypothetical for what would happen after May”.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has refused to rule out the possibility of supporting a second referendum on Scottish independence in the long term.
But he told the BBC a vote like the one held in 2014 was "not needed" soon and the focus should be on "rebuilding" the economy and services after coronavirus.
His party would not campaign for a referendum in next May's Scottish Parliament elections, he added.
The SNP government in Scotland wants to hold one as soon as possible.
In an interview with BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg, Sir Keir also said Labour would "betray" voters "if we don't take more seriously winning elections and actually changing lives".
And he argued Prime Minister Boris Johnson did not have "the right character" to deal with the challenges posed by the pandemic.
When Scotland's voters were asked in a referendum in 2014 whether the country should become independent, 55% said no.
But the SNP has campaigned for a second poll since the UK's 2016 decision - in the Brexit referendum - to leave the EU.
It says the difference between the UK-wide result and that in Scotland - which chose by 62% to 38% to remain within the bloc - strengthens the case for independence.
It has also been suggested that, following the next UK general election, expected in 2024, Labour could need the support of the SNP if it wants to form a government. This might, it is added, require a deal on having another referendum.
Sir Keir said: "We will be going into that election in May making it very clear that another divisive referendum on independence in Scotland is not what is needed.
"What is needed is an intense focus on rebuilding the economy, on making sure public services are rebuilt as well and dealing with the pandemic."
Pressed on what would happen after May, Sir Keir said: "We don't know... In politics, people tell you with great certainty what is going to happen next year and the year after, but it doesn't always turn out that way."
He added: "I am setting out the argument we will make into May. I am not doing a hypothetical of what will happen after that."
The Scottish government, led by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, had hoped to hold an independence referendum during the current term of the Scottish Parliament.
However, ministers wanted to secure an agreement with the UK government to make sure any vote would be legally watertight, something Mr Johnson has repeatedly stated his opposition to.
Work on preparations for a ballot was paused after coronavirus hit, but the Scottish government has promised to set out plans in a draft bill.
Labour, once dominant in Scotland, currently has 23 Members of the Scottish Parliament, putting it third behind the SNP, on 61, and the Conservatives, on 31.
Speaking for the UK government, Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove raised doubts about the Labour leader's comments, saying: "Sir Keir Starmer has a problem accepting referendum results.
"He tried to block Brexit, and now he wants to work with Nicola Sturgeon to renege on the Scottish referendum result and break up the UK."
Sir Keir replaced Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in April, following the party's worst general election result - in terms of seats - since 1935.
Recent UK opinion polls have suggested support for the party under his stewardship is now close to that for Mr Johnson's Conservatives.
But some trade unions, including Unite and the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), have raised concerns over Sir Keir's leadership.
The FBU has warned him not to "water down" pledges on workers' rights and the environment that he made when running for the job.
In his speech on Monday to Labour's annual conference, Sir Keir told his party to "get serious about winning".
Speaking to Laura Kuenssberg, he said: "When you lose four elections in a row, you have lost the chance to change lives for the better and we have gifted the Tories a decade or more of power. That is not what the Labour Party is there for."
He also said: "The Labour Party's historic mission was to represent working people in Parliament and to form governments to change lives, and we betray that if we don't take more seriously winning elections and actually changing lives."
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Coronavirus: Ministers balance science and politics in latest rules - BBC News
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2020-09-23
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The appetite inside the Conservative party for sweeping new Covid-19 restrictions has dimmed.
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UK Politics
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It's not a day for optimists, even though the prime minister himself is one of that tribe.
Tomorrow, it will be six months exactly since he told the nation to stay at home.
This time, Boris Johnson stopped well short of slamming the country's doors shut.
But what really stood out in his long statement in a miserable-looking Commons was his message that the limits put in place today will last another six months.
Even if you are very fond of your own company, lucky enough to have a secure job you enjoy and a comfy spare room where you can do it, it is quite something to contemplate.
The government now expects that all our lives will be subject to restrictions of one kind or another for a whole year - March 2020 to March 2021.
As each month ticks by, it becomes harder to imagine a return to anything like normal political life, or, more importantly, the way we all live.
We may not be waiting for a return to life as we knew it, but grinding through a moment of change.
But if you were listening carefully, something else was different too.
The country became familiar with the slogan "Stay At Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives" - it was emblazoned on government lecterns, repeated again and again by government ministers in interview after interview, on bus shelters, pop-up ads on the internet, wherever you looked.
That phrase was retired after the most intense period of the lockdown, but echoed today with one important additional condition.
Boris Johnson's driver today was to "save lives, protect the NHS" and "shelter the economy".
As we discussed here yesterday, concerns about the economy played more strongly in Downing Street after fierce resistance from backbenchers, and arguments from the next-door neighbour in No 11 of the economic risks of a short, sharp closure programme.
Fears about how the country makes a living have always been part of the decision-making process for the government, grappling with these acute dilemmas.
But the political appetite inside the Tory party for sweeping restrictions has certainly dimmed.
The changes announced today do make economic recovery harder, the "bounce back" the government dreamt of looks harder to achieve, but they are not as draconian as they may otherwise have been.
The choices made by Nicola Sturgeon to restrict social lives much further than in England, as in Northern Ireland, point to that difference.
Ministers used to make great play of following the science, now they are certainly following the politics too.
Only the unknowable progress of the disease will, in time, suggest which call was right.
• None What's the guidance for Covid in the UK now?
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54253980
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Heart of Belgian city mayor found entombed in fountain - BBC News
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2020-09-01
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Workers renovating a fountain in the Belgian city of Verviers find the organ preserved in a casket.
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Europe
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This small zinc casket containing ex-mayor Pierre David's heart was in the fountain
An ornate fountain in Verviers, eastern Belgium, has given up an object it held for more than a century: the heart of the city's first mayor.
The organ, sealed in a jar of alcohol inside a small zinc casket, was found during renovation of the fountain.
The casket is now on show in the city's Museum of Fine Arts. Mayor Pierre David died in 1839, but the fountain named after him was only inaugurated in 1883.
An engraving on the casket says it was placed in the monument at the time.
"The heart of Pierre David was solemnly placed in the monument on 25 June 1883", it reads.
The casket was tucked away in this hollowed-out stone
The Verviers Alderman for Public Works, Maxime Degey, said "an urban legend has become reality: the casket was in the upper part of the fountain, right near the bust of Pierre David, behind a stone which we had removed during the fountain's renovation".
Quoted by broadcaster RTBF, he said the casket found by the builders on 20 August was "in really impeccable condition".
The casket was hidden near the bust of Pierre David, nearly half-way up
Mayor Pierre David died in a fall aged 68, while working in his hayloft in 1839.
The city authorities launched a collection fund for a monument to honour him, and with his family's consent surgeons removed his heart, so that it could be entombed in the monument.
The Verviers official website - verviers.be - says it then took decades for the city to collect enough money to erect a suitably ornate monument.
Meanwhile there were also arguments over how best to honour the city's first mayor, before the fountain at Place Verte went ahead.
The casket is in a special exhibition in Verviers Museum of Fine Arts
He lived through turbulent times, including the establishment of Belgium as an independent state in 1830.
He first served as Verviers mayor in 1800-1808, when today's Belgium was ruled from France.
Later, Belgium's independence resulted from a revolution against Dutch rule in 1830, and in that year Pierre David was elected to serve as mayor again.
The mayor is remembered especially for having founded a fire service in Verviers in 1802 - a rare innovation at that time.
He was a Francophile who supported the ideology of the French Revolution, but then lived through the period of Dutch rule from 1815 to 1830.
Verviers was badly damaged in the 1830 uprising, and Pierre David was given the task of restoring order in the city, as he was widely respected.
The David Fountain is being dismantled stone by stone for renovation
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-53985562
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Apple fires back in Fortnite App Store battle - BBC News
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2020-09-09
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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The tech giant said its dispute with the firm behind the game was a "basic disagreement over money".
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Business
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Fortnite and Apple have been locked in legal battle since August
Apple has fired back against claims by the maker of the Fortnite game that its control of the App Store gives it a monopoly.
In a response to the August lawsuit filed by Epic Games, Apple called those arguments "self-righteous" and "self-interested".
It denied that its 30% commission was anti-competitive and said the fight was "a basic disagreement over money".
Apple also said Epic Games had violated its contract and asked for damages.
The filing is the latest in a legal battle that started last month, after Fortnite offered a discount on its virtual currency for purchases made outside of the app, from which Apple receives a 30% cut.
In response, Apple blocked Epic's ability to distribute updates or new apps through the App Store, and Epic sued, alleging that Apple's App Store practices violate antitrust laws.
The court allowed Apple's ban on updates to continue as the case plays out, but the existing version of Fortnite still works, as does Epic's payment system.
Apple had said it would allow Fortnite back into the store if Epic removed the direct payment feature to comply with its developer agreement.
But Epic has refused, saying complying with Apple's request would be "to collude with Apple to maintain their monopoly over in-app payments on iOS."
In its filing, Apple said Epic has benefited from Apple's promotion and developer tools, earning more than $600m (£462m) through the App Store.
Apple accused the firm, which it noted is backed by Chinese tech giant Tencent, of seeking a special deal before ultimately breaching its contract with the update.
"Although Epic portrays itself as a modern corporate Robin Hood, in reality it is a multi-billion dollar enterprise that simply wants to pay nothing for the tremendous value it derives from the App Store," it said in the filing.
The legal battle between the two companies comes as Apple faces increased scrutiny of its practices running the App Store.
At a hearing in Washington over the summer, politicians also raised concerns that Apple's control of the app store hurt competition.
The European Union is also investigating whether Apple's App Store practices violate competition rules.
Apple has denied those claims, arguing that its App Store has made it easier and cheaper for developers to distribute products.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54081623
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Northern Ireland Secretary admits new bill will 'break international law' - BBC News
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2020-09-09
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Brandon Lewis says a new post-Brexit law will go against agreements in a "specific and limited way".
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UK Politics
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Brandon Lewis says Northern Ireland customs rules legislation do “break international law in a very specific and limited way”
A government minister has said a new bill to amend the UK's Brexit deal with the EU will "break international law".
Concerns had been raised about legislation being brought forward which could change parts of the withdrawal agreement, negotiated last year.
Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis conceded it would go against the treaty in a "specific and limited way".
Former PM Theresa May warned the change could damage "trust" in the UK over future trade deals with other states.
The permanent secretary to the Government Legal Department, Sir Jonathan Jones, has announced he is resigning from government in light of the bill, making him the sixth senior civil servant to leave Whitehall this year.
Sir Jonathan, who is the government's most senior lawyer, is understood to have believed the plans went too far in breaching the government's obligations under international law.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer condemned the bill and accused No 10 of "reopening old arguments that had been settled", saying the "focus should be on getting a [trade] deal done" with the EU.
No 10 revealed on Monday that it would be introducing a new UK Internal Market Bill that could affect post-Brexit customs and trade rules in Northern Ireland.
Downing Street said it would only make "minor clarifications in extremely specific areas" - but it worried some in Brussels and Westminster that it could see the government try to change the withdrawal agreement, which became international law when the UK left the EU in January.
The row also comes at the start of the eighth round of post-Brexit trade deal talks between the UK and the EU.
The two sides are trying to secure a deal before the end of the transition period on 31 December, which will see the UK going onto World Trade Organisation rules if no agreement is reached.
Irish Foreign Affairs Minister, Simon Coveney, called Mr Lewis' comments "gravely concerning", adding: "Any unilateral departure from the terms of the withdrawal agreement would be a matter of considerable concern and a very serious step."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sir Keir Starmer says planned government legislation over Northern Ireland is “wrong”
The UK's chief Brexit negotiator, Lord David Frost, called for "realism" from his EU counterparts, saying he would "drive home our clear message that we must make progress this week if we are to reach an agreement in time".
The EU said it would "do everything in [its] power to reach an agreement" with the UK, but "will be ready" for a no-deal scenario.
On Monday, Boris Johnson said if a deal hadn't been done by the time the European Council meets on 15 October, the two sides should "move on" and accept the UK's exit without one.
Shadow Northern Ireland secretary, Louise Haigh, said it was "deeply concerning" that the prime minister "appeared to be undermining the legal obligations of his own deal" with the introduction of the new law while the negotiations are taking place.
The text of the new bill will not be published until Wednesday, although the government has confirmed it will deal with the issue of the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol - an element of the withdrawal agreement designed to prevent a hard border returning to the island of Ireland after Brexit.
The practicalities of the protocol - which will deal with issues of state aid (financial support given to businesses by governments) and whether there needs to be customs checks on goods - is still being negotiated by a joint UK and EU committee.
But Mr Lewis said the bill would take "limited and reasonable steps to create a safety net" if the negotiations failed.
Speaking during an urgent question on the bill, chair of the Justice Committee and Tory MP Bob Neill said the "adherence to the rule of law is not negotiable".
He asked Mr Lewis: "Will he assure us that nothing proposed in this legislation does or potentially might breach international obligations or international legal arrangements?"
The Northern Ireland secretary replied: "Yes. This does break international law in a very specific and limited way."
He said the government was still working "in good faith" with the EU joint committee to overcome its concerns for the future of trade in Northern Ireland, but said there was "clear precedence for UK and indeed other countries needing to consider their obligations if circumstances change".
Sir Bob later told BBC Radio 4's PM the decision was "troubling", adding: "Britain is a country which prides itself on standing by the rule of law... whether it is inconvenient or convenient for us.
"Whatever we seek to do, if we find something we signed up to 'inconvenient', I am afraid this doesn't mean we can renege on our contract... as that would damage our reputation long term."
This was an extremely unusual statement - a minister standing up in Parliament to say the government is planning to break international law.
Brandon Lewis told the House of Commons that "there are clear precedents for the UK and other countries needing to consider their international obligations as circumstances change".
That may suggest, says Catherine Barnard, professor of law at the University of Cambridge, that the government is looking at Article 62 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which enables a state to get out of its treaty obligations when circumstances change radically.
But those changed circumstances have to be pretty dramatic - something like the dissolution of Yugoslavia, when a recognised country ceases to exist.
In the case of the Northern Ireland Protocol, it is less than a year since the government negotiated the treaty in full knowledge of the sensitivity of the situation.
And if the government does go ahead with legislation which appears to contradict the withdrawal agreement?
"There is a chance," says Prof Barnard, "that the EU will decide to trigger the dispute resolution mechanism in the withdrawal agreement, which could lead to arbitration and a case before the European Court of Justice."
Theresa May - who stood down as prime minister last year after her own Brexit deal failed to get the support of Parliament - said: "The United Kingdom government signed the withdrawal agreement with the Northern Ireland Protocol.
"This Parliament voted that withdrawal agreement into UK legislation. The government is now changing the operation of that agreement."
"How can the government reassure future international partners that the UK can be trusted to abide by the legal obligations of the agreements it signs?"
The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Sir Ed Davey, also called it a "sad and shocking state of affairs for our country".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. BBC Reality Check’s Chris Morris looks at where the UK and EU are struggling to agree on their future relationship
Sammy Wilson, who acts as Brexit spokesman for the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party, said he was "pleased" to have the new bill that could deal with some of the issues that could affect his constituents - such as state aid and customs checks.
But he said the DUP had "warned ministers of the impact of the withdrawal agreement" early on, saying it was a "union splitting, economy destroying and border creating agreement that has to be changed and replaced".
He added: "We will judge this bill on whether it delivers on these kind of issues."
However, Claire Hanna, a Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) MP for Belfast South, said the protocol was "a symptom… of four years of terrible political decision making".
She added: "It is now the law. This government is obliged to implement it in full."
She also "cautioned" Mr Lewis "not to use the threat of a border on the island of Ireland or the hard won impartiality of the Good Friday Agreement as a cat's paw in this or any other negotiation."
But former Conservative leader, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, said the act that brought the withdrawal agreement into law in the UK allowed the government to "reserve the right to make clarifications under the sovereignty clause".
Mr Lewis agreed, saying the law would "clarify... the points about what will apply in January if we are not able to get satisfactory and mutually suitable conclusions" in negotiations.
He added: "It is reasonable and sensible to give that certainty and clarity to the people and businesses of Northern Ireland."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54073836
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Brexit: PM defends planned changes to Withdrawal Agreement - BBC News
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2020-09-09
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The government publishes a bill which overwrites key parts of the Withdrawal Agreement with the EU.
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UK Politics
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Boris Johnson has urged MPs to support a bill which modifies the Brexit deal he signed with the EU in January.
The PM said the Internal Markets Bill would "ensure the integrity of the UK internal market" and hand power to Scotland and Wales.
He also claimed it would protect the Northern Ireland peace process.
Critics say the move will damage the UK's international standing after a minister admitted the plans break international law.
The Scottish government has not ruled out legal action to prevent it becoming law.
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: "The Tories' proposed bill for a so-called UK internal market is an abomination. It is a naked power grab which would cripple devolution."
The Taoiseach (Ireland's prime minister) Micheál Martin has spoken to Mr Johnson "in forthright terms" about "the breach of an international treaty, the absence of bilateral engagement and the serious implications for Northern Ireland", the Irish government said.
Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove will hold emergency talks in London on Thursday with EU Commissioner Maros Sefcovic to discuss the contents of the bill.
The European Commission had requested a meeting as soon as possible to clarify what the legislation means for the Brexit deal.
Meanwhile, the latest scheduled round of negotiations on securing a post-Brexit trade deal with the EU are also due to wrap up on Thursday.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tweeted: "Very concerned about announcements from the British government on its intentions to breach the Withdrawal Agreement. This would break international law and undermines trust."
Downing Street said the EU Withdrawal Agreement - repeatedly described as "oven ready" by Mr Johnson during last year's general election - contained "ambiguities" and lacked clarity in "key areas".
The PM's spokesman said it had been agreed "at pace in the most challenging possible political circumstances" to "deliver on a decision by the British people".
It had been signed "on the assumption that subsequent agreements to clarify these aspects could be reached", the spokesman added.
The new bill sets out rules for the operation of the UK internal market - trade between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - after the end of the Brexit transition period in January.
The bill explicitly states that these powers should apply even if they are incompatible with international law.
Ministers say the legislation is needed to prevent "damaging" tariffs on goods travelling from the rest of the UK to Northern Ireland if negotiations with the EU on a free trade agreement fail.
But senior Conservatives have warned it risks undermining the UK's reputation as an upholder of international law.
Former PM Sir John Major fears the UK will lose its reputation for keeping its word
Former Prime Minister Sir John Major said: "For generations, Britain's word - solemnly given - has been accepted by friend and foe. Our signature on any treaty or agreement has been sacrosanct."
He added: "If we lose our reputation for honouring the promises we make, we will have lost something beyond price that may never be regained."
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer urged the government to consider "the reputational risk that it's taking in the proposed way forward".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sir Keir Starmer says the UK government should consider the “reputational risk” in its approach.
But Sir Keir - who campaigned for a second Brexit referendum - added that the "way forward" now was to get a trade deal, adding "if you fail to get a deal, prime minister, you own that failure".
"The outstanding issues are not difficult. They can be resolved. So what I say to the prime minister is, you promised a good deal, get on, negotiate it," he added.
"That's what's in the national interest and focus then on the issue in hand which is tackling this pandemic."
In the withdrawal agreement with the EU, Northern Ireland is still in the UK, but it has to follow elements of the EU's customs code.
This bill will be seen by the EU as a pretty brazen attempt to override the deal that has been done.
The bill contains the words "notwithstanding" - that basically means this law sets aside a law we have already agreed.
That was described to me earlier in the week as being a completely nuclear option.
And they have pressed it.
This row isn't going to go away.
The Democratic Unionist Party, which has been pressing for changes to the Withdrawal Agreement, said the bill was a "step forward" but the government must ensure Northern Ireland is not "restrained in a state aid straight jacket unlike the rest of the UK".
But the deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein's Michelle O' Neill, said the Withdrawal Agreement protected the Good Friday Agreement and it was "astounding" the UK government "thinks its fine" to wreck an international treaty they had signed up to.
Speaking at Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Johnson said: "My job is to uphold the integrity of the UK but also to protect the Northern Ireland peace process and the Good Friday Agreement.
"And to do that, we need a legal safety net to protect our country against extreme or irrational interpretations of the Protocol, which could lead to a border down the Irish Sea, in a way that I believe would be prejudicial to the interests of the Good Friday Agreement and prejudicial to the interests of peace in our country. And that has to be our priority."
Commenting on a similar argument by Health Secretary Matt Hancock, a former minister told the BBC: "I cannot allow anyone to get away with saying the government is doing this to protect the peace process. This does the precise opposite."
The legislation will see Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland handed powers in areas such as air quality and building efficiency currently regulated at EU level.
It will also set up a new body - the Office for the Internal Market - to make sure standards adopted in different parts of the UK do not undermine cross-border trade.
The Scottish government fears the UK single market will cut across areas that are usually devolved.
For example, if the UK government decides some food imports are acceptable in England then they would also be allowed in Scotland, even though agriculture is devolved.
The new body will be able to issue non-binding recommendations to the UK Parliament and devolved administrations when clashes emerge.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ian Blackford asks Boris Johnson if he thinks he is above the law regarding a bill on future trade.
The SNP's leader at Westminster, Ian Blackford, described the Internal Markets Bill as "nothing short of an attack on Scotland's parliament and an affront to people of Scotland".
Mr Johnson said the bill would protect jobs and growth - and was a "massive devolutionary act" that would represent a "very substantial transfer of power and sovereignty" to Scotland and Wales.
But his words did not prevent the resignation of a senior Conservative in Wales, where the party is in opposition.
David Melding, shadow Counsel General, said in his resignation letter that the PM's actions in the past few days had "gravely aggravated" the dangers facing "our 313-year-old Union".
• None What are the sticking points in Brexit trade talks?
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Brexit: UK to unveil planned changes to Withdrawal Agreement - BBC News
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2020-09-09
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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The government faces a backlash from senior Tories after admitting the bill breaks international law.
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UK Politics
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The government will later publish plans which could override key elements of its Brexit deal with Brussels, in breach of international law.
The Internal Market Bill will set out how powers currently held by the EU will be shared out after the post-Brexit transition period ends.
But it has faced a backlash from senior Tories and prompted the resignation of a top civil servant.
It comes as the talks over a trade deal with the EU continue in London.
The Internal Market Bill could override parts of the Withdrawal Agreement that secured the UK's exit from the EU in January.
Ministers say it is needed to prevent "damaging" tariffs on goods travelling from the rest of the UK to Northern Ireland if negotiations with the EU on a free trade agreement fail.
But senior Conservatives have warned it risks undermining the UK's reputation as an upholder of international law.
Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the Commons Defence Committee, said the UK would "lose the moral high ground" if the government went through with the changes.
Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said: "Our entire economy is based on the perception that people have of the UK's adherence to the rule of law."
Health Secretary Matt Hancock insisted the changes were necessary to protect the Northern Ireland peace process if the UK failed to get a free trade deal with the EU.
"The decision we've made is to put the peace process first, first and foremost as our absolute top international obligation," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
A former Cabinet minister, involved in putting together the Withdrawal Agreement, reacted furiously to Mr Hancock's claim.
The former minister, who did not want to be named, told the BBC: "I cannot allow anyone to get away with saying the government is doing this to protect the peace process. This does the precise opposite.
"It is about the internal market in the UK and is more likely to lead to a hard border [between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland] which will imperil the peace process."
The permanent secretary to the Government Legal Department, Sir Jonathan Jones, has resigned from his role over concerns about the government breaching its obligations under international law.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Brandon Lewis has said the bill contains powers that would break international law.
In the Commons on Tuesday, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis admitted the bill would break international law in a "very specific and limited way".
It would allow the UK government to "dis-apply" the EU legal concept of "direct effect" - which gives EU law supremacy over UK law in areas covered by the Withdrawal Agreement - in "certain, very tightly defined circumstances," he told MPs.
The Scottish government, meanwhile, has said it will not consent to a change in the law along these lines, arguing that it would undermines devolution.
The bill has also been attacked by the Welsh Brexit minister, Labour's Jeremy Miles, who accused the government of "stealing powers from devolved administrations".
"This bill is an attack on democracy and an affront to the people of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland," he added.
The legislation will see Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland handed powers in areas such as air quality and building efficiency currently regulated at EU level.
It will also set up a new body - the Office for the Internal Market - to make sure standards adopted in different parts of the UK do not undermine cross-border trade.
The new body will be able to issue non-binding recommendations to the UK Parliament and devolved administrations when clashes emerge.
However, plans to hand UK ministers extra powers to ensure the application of customs and trade rules in Northern Ireland have prompted a row over the UK's legal obligations in its exit deal.
Under the UK's withdrawal agreement, Northern Ireland is due to stay part of the EU's single market for goods in a bid to avoid creating a hard border with the Irish Republic.
In parallel with talks over a post-Brexit trade deal, the UK and EU are negotiating the precise nature of new customs checks that will be required.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has accused Downing Street of "reopening old arguments that had been settled" and said the government should instead focus on securing a deal with the EU.
Former Conservative PM Theresa May warned the legislation could damage "trust" in the UK over future trade deals with other states.
And French MEP Nathalie Loiseau said: "The prime minister has promised to put a tiger in the tank in the negotiations. It seems for the time being he is putting an elephant in the china shop."
• None What are the sticking points in Brexit trade talks?
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John Turner: Former Canadian prime minister dies at 91 - BBC News
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2020-09-19
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The ex-prime minister, who has died aged 91, famously led his Liberal Party to a big defeat in 1984.
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US & Canada
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John Turner's tenure as prime minister is the second shortest in Canada's history
Former Canadian Prime Minister John Turner, who was in office for just 79 days and led his Liberal Party to a huge defeat in 1984, has died aged 91.
A lawyer by training, he served as justice and then finance minister from 1968-1975. He resigned after arguments with party leader Pierre Trudeau.
Turner resumed his legal work and nine years later won the party leadership.
He called an election and then presided over what observers say was one of the worst campaigns in Canadian history.
His gaffes combined with growing public fatigue with the Liberals, who had been in power for 20 of the previous 21 years, resulted in his party falling from 135 seats in the 282-member House of Commons to just 40.
The Conservatives, under the leadership of Brian Mulroney, swept to power with 211 seats.
Despite the result, Turner hung onto his post. In the 1988 election, Turner was a strong opponent of a proposed free trade agreement with the US but lost again to Mr Mulroney, but not as badly.
He resigned as a Liberal leader in 1990.
As justice minister, he defended reforms to Canada's Criminal Code that paved the way for LGBTQ rights and legal abortions. But in the finance ministry he faced economic pressures due to the global oil crisis.
His 79-day tenure as prime minister is the second shortest in the country's history.
Turner died at home in Toronto on Friday night, Marc Kealey, a former aide speaking on behalf of his relatives told the Montreal Gazette. He is survived by his wife Geills and four children.
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Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Obituary of the Supreme Court justice - BBC News
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2020-09-19
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US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a trailblazer to women of all stripes.
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US & Canada
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US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the history-making jurist, feminist icon and national treasure, has died, aged 87.
Ginsburg became only the second woman ever to serve as a justice on the nation's highest court.
She struggled against blatant sexism throughout her career as she climbed to the pinnacle of her profession.
A lifelong advocate of gender equality, she was fond of joking that there would be enough women on the nine-seat Supreme Court "when there are nine".
She did not let up in her twilight years, remaining a scathing dissenter on a conservative-tilting bench, even while her periodic health scares left liberal America on edge.
Despite maintaining a modest public profile, like most top judges, Ginsburg inadvertently became not just a celebrity, but a pop-culture heroine.
She may have stood an impish 5ft, but Ginsburg will be remembered as a legal colossus.
She was born to Jewish immigrant parents in the Flatbush neighbourhood of Brooklyn, New York City, in 1933 at the height of the Great Depression. Her mother, Celia Bader, died of cancer the day before Ginsburg left high school.
She attended Cornell University, where she met Martin "Marty" Ginsburg on a blind date, kindling a romance that spanned almost six decades until his death in 2010.
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"Meeting Marty was by far the most fortunate thing that ever happened to me," Ginsburg once said, adding that the man who would become her husband "was the first boy I ever knew who cared that I had a brain".
The couple married shortly after Ginsburg's graduation in 1954 and they had a daughter, Jane, the following year. While she was pregnant, Ginsburg was demoted in her job at a social security office - discrimination against pregnant women was still legal in the 1950s. The experience led her to conceal her second pregnancy before she gave birth to her son, James, in 1965.
In 1956, Ginsburg became one of nine women accepted to Harvard Law School, out of a class of about 500, where the dean famously asked that his female students tell him how they could justify taking the place of a man at his school.
When Marty, also a Harvard Law alumnus, took a job as a tax lawyer in New York, Ginsburg transferred to Columbia Law School to complete her third and final year, becoming the first woman to work at both colleges' law reviews.
Despite finishing top of her class, Ginsburg did not receive a single job offer after graduation.
"Not a law firm in the entire city of New York would employ me," she later said. "I struck out on three grounds: I was Jewish, a woman and a mother."
She wound up on a project studying civil procedure in Sweden before becoming a professor at Rutgers Law School, where she taught some of the first classes on women and the law.
"The women's movement came alive at the end of the 60s," she said to NPR. "There I was, a law school professor with time that I could devote to moving along this change."
In 1971, Ginsburg made her first successful argument before the Supreme Court, when she filed the lead brief in Reed v Reed, which examined whether men could be automatically preferred over women as estate executors.
"In very recent years, a new appreciation of women's place has been generated in the United States," the brief states. "Activated by feminists of both sexes, courts and legislatures have begun to recognise the claim of women to full membership in the class 'persons' entitled to due process guarantees of life and liberty and the equal protection of the laws."
The court agreed with Ginsburg, marking the first time the Supreme Court had struck down a law because of gender-based discrimination.
In 1972, Ginsburg co-founded the Women's Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). That same year, Ginsburg became the first tenured female professor at Columbia Law School.
She was soon the ACLU's general counsel, launching a series of gender-discrimination cases. Six of these brought her before the Supreme Court, five of which she won.
She compared her role to that of a "kindergarten teacher", explaining gender discrimination to the all-male justices.
Her approach was cautious and highly strategic. She favoured incrementalism, thinking it wise to dismantle sexist laws and policies one by one, rather than run the risk of asking the Supreme Court to outlaw all rules that treat men and women unequally.
Cognisant of her exclusively male audience on the court, Ginsburg's clients were often men. In 1975, she argued the case of a young widower who was denied benefits after his wife died in childbirth.
"His case was the perfect example of how gender-based discrimination hurts everyone," Ginsburg said.
She later said leading the legal side of the women's movement during this period - decades before joining the Supreme Court - counted as her greatest professional work.
"I had the good fortune to be alive in the 1960s, then, and continuing through the 1970s," she said. "For the first time in history it became possible to urge before the courts successfully that equal justice under law requires all arms of government to regard women as persons equal in stature to men."
In 1980, Ginsburg was nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia as part of President Jimmy Carter's efforts to diversify federal courts.
Though Ginsburg was often portrayed as a liberal firebrand, her days on the appeals court were marked by moderation.
She earned a reputation as a centrist, voting with conservatives many times and against, for example, re-hearing the discrimination case of a sailor who said he had been discharged from the US Navy for being gay.
Ginsburg with Senators Daniel Moynihan (left) and Joe Biden in 1993
She was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1993 by President Bill Clinton after a lengthy search process. Ginsburg was the second woman ever confirmed to that bench, following Sandra Day O'Connor, who was nominated by President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
Among Ginsburg's most significant, early cases was United States v Virginia, which struck down the men-only admissions policy at the Virginia Military Institute.
While Virginia "serves the state's sons, it makes no provision whatever for her daughters. That is not equal protection", Ginsburg wrote for the court's majority. No law or policy should deny women "full citizenship stature - equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society based on their individual talents and capacities."
During her time on the bench, Justice Ginsburg moved noticeably to the left. She served as a counterbalance to the court itself, which, with the appointment of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh by President Donald Trump, slanted in favour of conservative justices.
Her dissents were forceful - occasionally biting - and Ginsburg did not shy away from criticising her colleagues' opinions.
In 2013, objecting to the court's decision to strike down a significant portion of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by a 5-to-4 vote, Ginsburg wrote: "The Court's opinion can hardly be described as an exemplar of restrained and moderate decision making."
The US Supreme Court justices pose for their official portrait in November 2018
In 2015, Ginsburg sided with the majority on two landmark cases - both massive victories for American progressives. She was one of six justices to uphold a crucial component of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. In the second, Obergefell v Hodges, she sided with the 5-4 majority, legalising same-sex marriage in all 50 states.
As Ginsburg's legal career soared, her personal life was anchored by marriage to Marty.
Their relationship reflected a gender parity that was ahead of its time. The couple shared the childcare and housework, and Marty did virtually all of the cooking.
"I learned very early on in our marriage that Ruth was a fairly terrible cook and, for lack of interest, unlikely to improve," he said in a 1996 speech.
Professionally, Marty was a relentless champion of his wife. Clinton officials said it was his tireless lobbying that brought Ginsburg's name to the shortlist of potential Supreme Court nominees in 1993.
He reportedly told a friend that the most important thing he did in his own life "is to enable Ruth to do what she has done".
After her confirmation, Ginsburg thanked Marty, "who has been, since our teenage years, my best friend and biggest booster".
Marty Ginsburg holds the Bible for his wife as she is sworn in as Supreme Court Justice
In his final weeks, facing his own battle with cancer, Marty wrote a letter to his wife saying that other than parents and kids, "you are the only person I have loved in my life.
"I have admired and loved you almost since the day we first met at Cornell."
He died in June 2010 after 56 years of marriage.
The next morning Ginsburg was on the bench at the Supreme Court to read an opinion on the final day of the term "because [Marty] would have wanted it", she later told the New Yorker magazine.
Ginsburg had five major run-ins with cancer herself.
Justice O'Connor, who had breast cancer in the 1980s, was said to have suggested that Ginsburg schedule chemotherapy for Fridays so she could use the weekend to recover for oral arguments.
It worked: Ginsburg only missed oral arguments twice because of illness.
Ginsburg said she also followed the advice of opera singer Marilyn Horne, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2005.
"She said, 'I will live,'" Ginsburg recalled to NPR. "Not that, 'I hope I live', or, 'I want to live', but, 'I will live.'"
Her longevity brought immense relief to liberal America, which fretted that another vacancy on the court would allow its conservative majority to become even more ascendant during the Trump era.
Toward the end of her life, Ginsburg became a national icon. Due in part to her withering dissents, a young law student created a Tumblr account dedicated to Ginsburg called Notorious RBG - a nod to the late rapper The Notorious BIG.
The account introduced Ginsburg to a new generation of young feminists and propelled her to that rarest of distinctions for a judge: she became a cult figure.
The Notorious RBG was the subject of a documentary, an award-winning biopic and countless bestselling novels. She inspired Saturday Night Live skits and had her likeness plastered on mugs and T-shirts.
"It was beyond my wildest imagination that I would one day become the Notorious RBG," she said. "I am now 86 years old and yet people of all ages want to take their picture with me."
Every aspect of her life was dissected and mythologised, from her workout routine to her love of hair scrunchies.
Asked by NPR in 2019 if she had any regrets given the challenges she had faced in life, Ginsburg's supreme self-belief shone through.
"I do think I was born under a very bright star," she replied.
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How the oil industry made us doubt climate change - BBC News
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2020-09-19
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Energy companies stand accused of trying to downplay their contribution to global warming.
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Stories
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As climate change becomes a focus of the US election, energy companies stand accused of trying to downplay their contribution to global warming. In June, Minnesota's Attorney General sued ExxonMobil, among others, for launching a "campaign of deception" which deliberately tried to undermine the science supporting global warming. So what's behind these claims? And what links them to how the tobacco industry tried to dismiss the harms of smoking decades earlier?
To understand what's happening today, we need to go back nearly 40 years.
Marty Hoffert leaned closer to his computer screen. He couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. It was 1981, and he was working in an area of science considered niche.
"We were just a group of geeks with some great computers," he says now, recalling that moment.
But his findings were alarming.
"I created a model that showed the Earth would be warming very significantly. And the warming would introduce climatic changes that would be unprecedented in human history. That blew my mind."
A climate change protester outside the New York State Supreme Court during the ExxonMobil trial in October, 2019
Marty Hoffert was one of the first scientists to create a model which predicted the effects of man-made climate change. And he did so while working for Exxon, one of the world's largest oil companies, which would later merge with another, Mobil.
At the time Exxon was spending millions of dollars on ground-breaking research. It wanted to lead the charge as scientists grappled with the emerging understanding that the warming planet could cause the climate to change in ways that could make life pretty difficult for humans.
Hoffert shared his predictions with his managers, showing them what might happen if we continued burning fossil fuels in our cars, trucks and planes.
But he noticed a clash between Exxon's own findings, and public statements made by company bosses, such as the then chief executive Lee Raymond, who said that "currently, the scientific evidence is inconclusive as to whether human activities are having a significant effect on the global climate".
"They were saying things that were contradicting their own world-class research groups," said Hoffert.
Angry, he left Exxon, and went on to become a leading academic in the field.
"What they did was immoral. They spread doubt about the dangers of climate change when their own researchers were confirming how serious a threat it was."
So what changed? The record-breaking hot summer of 1988 was key. Big news in America, it gave extra weight to warnings from Nasa scientist Dr Jim Hansen that "the greenhouse effect has been detected, and is changing our climate now".
Political leaders took notice. Then UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher acknowledged the great new global threat: "The environmental challenge which confronts the whole world demands an equivalent response from the whole world."
In 1989, Exxon's strategy chief Duane Levine drew up a confidential presentation for the company's board, one of thousands of documents in the company's archive which were later donated to The University of Texas at Austin.
Levine's presentation is an important document, often cited by researchers investigating Exxon's record on climate change science.
"We're starting to hear the inevitable call for action," it said, which risked what it called "irreversible and costly draconian steps".
"More rational responses will require efforts to extend the science and increase emphasis on costs and political realities."
How they made us doubt everything investigates how some of the world's most powerful interests made us doubt the connection between smoking and cancer, and how the same tactics were used to make us doubt climate change.
Listen to the podcast from BBC Radio 4 here
Kert Davies has scoured through Exxon's archive. He used to work as a research director at the environmental pressure group Greenpeace, where he looked into corporate opposition to climate change. This inspired him to set up The Climate Investigations Centre. He explains why this Exxon presentation mattered:
"They are worried the public will take this on, and enact radical changes in the way we use energy and affect their business, that's the bottom line."
He says this fear can also be seen in another document from the archive that sets out the so-called "Exxon position", which was to "emphasise the uncertainty" regarding climate change.
Researchers argue this was just the start of a decades-long campaign to shape public opinion and to spread doubt about climate change.
In June 2020, the General Attorney of Minnesota Keith Ellison sued ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute (API) and Koch Industries for misleading the public over climate change. The lawsuit claims that "previously unknown internal documents confirm that the defendant well understood the devastating effects that their products would cause to the climate".
It says that despite this knowledge, the industry "engaged in a public-relations campaign that was not only false, but also highly effective," which served to "deliberately [undermine] the science" of climate change.
The accusations against Exxon and others - which the company has called "baseless and without merit" - build on years of painstaking research by people like Kert Davies and Naomi Oreskes, professor of the history of science at Harvard University and co-author of Merchants of Doubt.
"Rather than accept the scientific evidence, they made the decision to fight the facts," she said.
But this isn't just about Exxon's past actions. In the same year as the Levine presentation, 1989, many energy companies and fossil fuel dependent industries came together to form the Global Climate Coalition, which aggressively lobbied US politicians and media.
Then in 1991, the trade body that represents electrical companies in the US, the Edison Electric Institute, created a campaign called the Information Council for the Environment (ICE) which aimed to "Reposition global warming as theory (not fact)". Some details of the campaign were leaked to the New York Times.
"They ran advertising campaigns designed to undermine public support, cherry picking the data to say, 'Well if the world is warming up, why is Kentucky getting colder?' They asked rhetorical questions designed to create confusion, to create doubt," argued Naomi Oreskes.
The ICE campaign identified two groups which would be most susceptible to its messaging. The first was "older, lesser educated males from larger households who are not typically information seekers".
The second group was "younger, low-income women," who could be targeted with bespoke adverts which would liken those who talked about climate change to a hysterical doom-saying cartoon chicken.
The Edison Electric Institute didn't respond to questions about ICE, but told the BBC that its members are "leading a clean energy transformation, and are united in their commitment to get the energy they provide as clean as they can, as fast as they can".
But back in the 1990 there were many campaigns like this.
"Unless 'climate change' becomes a non-issue," says another, leaked to the New York Times in 1997, "there may be no moment when we can declare victory".
To achieve victory, the industry planned to "identify, recruit and train a team of five independent scientists to participate in media outreach".
This important tactic assumed the public would be suspicious if oil industry executives dismissed climate change, but might trust the views of seemingly independent scientists.
These would be put forward to take part in debates on TV, potentially confusing a general audience who would see opposing scientists in white coats arguing about complex technical details without knowing who to believe.
The problem was, sometimes these "white coats" weren't truly independent. Some climate sceptic researchers were taking money from the oil industry.
Drexel University emeritus professor Bob Brulle studied the funding for the climate change "counter movement". He identified 91 institutions which he says either denied or downplayed the risks of climate change, including the Cato Institute and the now-defunct George C Marshall Institute.
He found that between 2003 and 2007, ExxonMobil gave $7.2m (£5.6m) to such bodies, while between 2008 and 2010, the American Petroleum Institute trade body (API) donated just under $4m (£3m).
In its 2007 Corporate Citizenship Report, ExxonMobil said it would stop funding such groups in 2008.
Of course many researchers would argue such money didn't influence their climate contrarian work. It seems some may have been motivated by something else.
Most of the organisations opposing or denying climate change science were right-wing think tanks, who tended to be passionately anti-regulation.
These groups made convenient allies for the oil industry, as they would argue against action on climate change on ideological grounds.
Jerry Taylor spent 23 years with the Cato Institute - one of those right wing think tanks - latterly as vice president. Before he left in 2014, he would regularly appear on TV and radio, insisting that the science of climate change was uncertain and there was no need to act. Now, he realises his arguments were based on a misinterpretation of the science, and he regrets the impact he's had on the debate.
"For 25 years, climate sceptics like me made it a core matter of ideological identity that if you believe in climate change, then you are by definition a socialist. That is what climate sceptics have done."
The BBC asked the Cato Institute about its work on climate change, but it did not respond.
This ideological divide has had far-reaching consequences. Polls conducted in May 2020 showed that just 22% of Americans who vote Republican believed climate change is man-made, compared with 72% of Democrats.
Unfortunately many of the "expert scientists" quoted by journalists to try to offer balance in their coverage of climate change were - like Jerry Taylor - making arguments based on their beliefs rather than relevant research.
"Usually these people have some scientific credentials, but they're not actually experts in climate science," says Harvard historian Naomi Oreskes.
She began digging into the background of leading climate sceptics, including Fred Seitz, a nuclear physicist and former president of the US National Academy of Sciences. She found he was deeply anti-communist, believing any government intervention in the marketplace "would put us on the slippery slope to socialism".
She also discovered that he had been active in the debates around smoking in the 1980s.
"That was a Eureka moment. We realised this was not a scientific debate. A person with expertise about climate change would in no way be an expert about oncology or public health or cardiovascular disease, or any of the key issues associated with tobacco.
"The fact that the same people were arguing in both cases was a clue that something fishy was going on. That's what led us to discover this pattern of disinformation that gets systemically used again and again."
Naomi Oreskes spent years going through the tobacco archive at the University of California at San Francisco. It contains more than 14 million documents that were made available thanks to litigation against US tobacco firms.
A strikingly familiar story emerged. Decades before the energy industry tried to undermine the case for climate change, tobacco companies had used the same techniques to challenge the emerging links between smoking and lung cancer in the 1950s.
The story began at Christmas 1953. In New York's luxurious Plaza Hotel, the heads of the tobacco companies met to discuss a new threat to their business model.
Details of the night's anxious conversations were recorded in a document written by public relations guru John Hill from Hill and Knowlton.
Widely read mass-market magazines like Readers Digest and Time Life had begun publishing articles about the association between smoking and lung cancer. And researchers like those who had found that lab mice painted with cigarette tar got cancer were attracting increasing attention.
As John Hill wrote in the 1953 document, "salesmen in the industry are frantically alarmed, and the decline in tobacco stocks on the stock exchange market has caused grave concern".
Hill recommended fighting science with science. "We do not believe the industry should indulge in any flashy or spectacular ballyhoo. There is no public relations [medicine] known to us at least, which will cure the ills of the industry."
As a later document by tobacco company Brown and Williamson summarised the approach: "Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the minds of the general public."
Naomi Oreskes says this understanding of the power of doubt is vital.
"They realise they can't win this battle by making a false claim that sooner or later would be exposed. But if they can create doubt, that would be sufficient - because if people are confused about the issue, there's a good chance they'll just keep smoking."
Hill advised setting up the "Tobacco Industry Research Committee" to promote "the existence of weighty scientific views which hold there is no proof that cigarette smoking is a cause of lung cancer".
As in the climate change debate decades later, "Project Whitecoat" would pit scientist against scientist.
According to Oreskes, the project targeted those who were already doing research into other causes of cancer or lung conditions - such as asbestos - which the tobacco industry could fund.
"The purpose of these programmes was not to advance scientific understanding, it was to create enough confusion that the American people would doubt the existing scientific evidence."
Journalists were one of the tobacco industry's main targets. The Tobacco Industry Research Committee held meetings in its offices in the Empire State Building for major newspaper editors. It even persuaded one of the most famous broadcast journalists of the time, Edward R Murrow, to interview its experts.
The eventual edition of Murrow's celebrated television programme "See It Now" - broadcast in 1955 -shows Project Whitecoat in action, with tobacco industry funded scientists set against independent researchers.
But as would happen later with climate change, it was difficult for the audience at home to form an opinion when opposing scientists contradicted each other. Even Murrow ended up on the fence. "We have no credentials for reaching conclusions on this subject," he said.
If doubt was the industry's true product, then it appeared to be a roaring success.
For decades, none of the legal challenges launched against the tobacco companies themselves succeeded.
This was partly due to the effectiveness of Project Whitecoat, as an internal memo from tobacco firm RJ Reynolds in May 1979 concludes: "Due to favourable scientific testimony, no plaintiff has ever collected a penny from any tobacco company in lawsuits claiming that smoking causes lung cancer or cardiovascular illness - even though 117 such cases have been brought since 1954."
But pressure on the tobacco companies continued to mount. In 1997, the industry paid $350m (£272m) to settle a class action brought by flight attendants who had developed lung cancer and other illnesses which they argued were caused by second-hand cigarette smoke from passengers.
This settlement paved the way to a landmark ruling in 2006, when Judge Gladys Kessler found US tobacco companies guilty of fraudulently misrepresenting the health risks associated with smoking.
Judge Kessler detailed how the industry "marketed and sold their lethal products with zeal, with deception, with a single-minded focus on their financial success, and without regard for the human tragedy or social costs".
Flight attendant Norma Broin was the lead plaintiff in the passive smoking class action after developing lung cancer, despite being a non-smoker
The tobacco companies may have eventually lost their battle to hide the harms of smoking, but the blueprint drawn up by John Hill and his colleagues proved to be very effective.
"What he wrote is the same memo we have seen in multiple industries subsequently," says David Michaels, professor of public health at George Washington University, and author of The Triumph of Doubt, which details how the pesticides, plastics and sugar industries have also used these tactics.
"We called it 'the tobacco playbook', because the tobacco industry was so successful.
"They made a product that killed millions of people across the world, and the science has been very strong [about that] for many years, but through this campaign to manufacture uncertainty, they were able to delay first, formal recognition of the terrible impact of tobacco, and then delay regulation and defeat litigation for decades, with obviously terrible consequences."
We asked Hill and Knowlton about its work for the tobacco companies, but it did not respond.
In a statement, ExxonMobil told the BBC that "allegations about the company's climate research are inaccurate and deliberately misleading".
"For more than 40 years, we have supported development of climate science in partnership with governments and academic institutions. That work continues today in an open and transparent way.
"Deliberately cherry-picked statements attributed to a small number of employees wrongly suggest definitive conclusions were reached decades ago."
ExxonMobil added that it recently won the court case brought by the New York Attorney General which had accused the company of fraudulently accounting for the costs of climate change regulation.
But academics like David Michaels fear the use of uncertainty in the past to confuse the public and undermine science has contributed to a dangerous erosion of trust in facts and experts across the globe today, far beyond climate science or the dangers of tobacco.
He cites public attitudes to modern issues like the safety of 5G, vaccinations - and coronavirus.
"By cynically manipulating and distorting scientific evidence, the manufacturers of doubt have seeded in much of the public a cynicism about science, making it far more difficult to convince people that science provides useful - in some cases, vitally important - information.
"There is no question that this distrust of science and scientists is making it more difficult to stem the coronavirus pandemic."
It seems the legacy of "the tobacco playbook" lives on.
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Brexit: Negotiator David Frost says UK not scared of walking away - BBC News
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2020-09-06
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Britain will leave the transition arrangement in December "come what may", says David Frost.
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The UK's chief Brexit negotiator has said the government is not "scared" of walking away from talks without a trade deal ready to come into force in 2021.
David Frost told the Mail on Sunday the UK would leave the transition arrangement - which sees it follow many EU rules - "come what may" in December.
And Dominic Raab said the "EU's best moment to strike a deal is now."
But EU negotiator Michel Barnier has said he is "worried and disappointed" by a lack of concessions from the UK.
He was speaking after informal talks between the pair failed to find a breakthrough.
An eighth round of formal negotiations begins on Tuesday.
Both sides want a deal agreed next month in order to have it signed off by politicians on both sides of the Channel by the end of the transition period on 31 December.
Differences remain on issues such as fishing and the level of taxpayer support the UK will be able to provide for businesses, also referred to as state aid rules.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the week ahead was "a wake-up call for the EU", adding "the EU's best moment to strike a deal is now."
Speaking to the BBC's Andrew Marr programme, he said the questions of fishing and state aid were "the only two points holding us back".
On fishing, he accused the EU of wanting to keep UK access to its fishing waters "permanently low". He also said providing state aid is "an absolute critical element of policy making" which UK political representatives should have control over.
The EU has said it wants full access for its boats to fish in UK waters in return for giving the UK fishing industry full access to EU markets.
On state aid, the EU has expressed concern that it could give business in the UK an unfair advantage over their European competitors and Mr Barnier has previously said the EU will require "robust" guarantees in this area if it is to agree a deal.
Lord Frost told the newspaper: "A lot of what we are trying to do this year is to get them to realise that we mean what we say and they should take our position seriously."
The UK left the European Union in February but until the end of December it is in a transition period, where very little has actually changed.
The time left to negotiate a long-term arrangement between London and Brussels is tight, and the language from Lord Frost is defiant.
"We are not going to be a client state," he says. "We are not going to accept provisions that lock us into the way the EU do things."
While this is his first interview since the UK left the EU, officials in Brussels are familiar with his arguments. One described the remarks as "unsurprising muscle-flexing".
Sources there say what they can't accept is the UK having the freedom to undercut businesses on the continent in their own single market.
The time for compromise is running short. That doesn't mean it won't happen, but there's no guarantee it will.
In the interview, Lord Frost said wanting control over the country's money and affairs "should not be controversial".
"That's what being an independent country is about, that's what the British people voted for and that's what will happen at the end of the year," he said.
"I don't think that we are scared of this at all. We want to get back the powers to control our borders and that is the most important thing."
The government was "fully ready" to trade with the EU without a formal deal, he said.
In practice, this would mean taxes on exports and customs checks.
It's a scenario which road hauliers say would cause "severe" disruption to supply chains, with border management systems not yet up and running to make sure consignments are cleared to proceed to the EU.
Last week, the Road Haulage Association said the UK was "sleepwalking into a disaster".
Labour's shadow cabinet office minister Rachel Reeves said "It would be the clearest evidence yet of this government's monumental incompetence if we ended the transition period without negotiating a trade deal with our most important market.
"As we enter an economic recession, ministers need to get a grip, support UK jobs and industries and deliver the trade deal with the EU they promised the British public."
Speaking to Sky's Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme, Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey accused the government of being "very reckless" and said failing to reach a deal with the EU would be "a disaster for people's jobs".
And Gavin Barwell, chief of staff under Theresa May, hit back at Lord Frost's suggestion that the former prime minister's team "blinked" during EU negotiations tweeting: "Given the withdrawal agreement and political declaration David Frost negotiated last autumn were 95% the work of his predecessors - and the 5% that was new involved giving in to the EU's key demand (for some customs processes when goods move GB to NI) - that quote's some brass neck."
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Indyref2: Starmer refuses to rule out backing Scotland referendum - BBC News
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2020-09-24
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But the Labour leader says another "divisive" vote on Scotland's position in the near future is "not needed".
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UK Politics
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Keir Starmer says he would not “be doing a hypothetical for what would happen after May”.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has refused to rule out the possibility of supporting a second referendum on Scottish independence in the long term.
But he told the BBC a vote like the one held in 2014 was "not needed" soon and the focus should be on "rebuilding" the economy and services after coronavirus.
His party would not campaign for a referendum in next May's Scottish Parliament elections, he added.
The SNP government in Scotland wants to hold one as soon as possible.
In an interview with BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg, Sir Keir also said Labour would "betray" voters "if we don't take more seriously winning elections and actually changing lives".
And he argued Prime Minister Boris Johnson did not have "the right character" to deal with the challenges posed by the pandemic.
When Scotland's voters were asked in a referendum in 2014 whether the country should become independent, 55% said no.
But the SNP has campaigned for a second poll since the UK's 2016 decision - in the Brexit referendum - to leave the EU.
It says the difference between the UK-wide result and that in Scotland - which chose by 62% to 38% to remain within the bloc - strengthens the case for independence.
It has also been suggested that, following the next UK general election, expected in 2024, Labour could need the support of the SNP if it wants to form a government. This might, it is added, require a deal on having another referendum.
Sir Keir said: "We will be going into that election in May making it very clear that another divisive referendum on independence in Scotland is not what is needed.
"What is needed is an intense focus on rebuilding the economy, on making sure public services are rebuilt as well and dealing with the pandemic."
Pressed on what would happen after May, Sir Keir said: "We don't know... In politics, people tell you with great certainty what is going to happen next year and the year after, but it doesn't always turn out that way."
He added: "I am setting out the argument we will make into May. I am not doing a hypothetical of what will happen after that."
The Scottish government, led by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, had hoped to hold an independence referendum during the current term of the Scottish Parliament.
However, ministers wanted to secure an agreement with the UK government to make sure any vote would be legally watertight, something Mr Johnson has repeatedly stated his opposition to.
Work on preparations for a ballot was paused after coronavirus hit, but the Scottish government has promised to set out plans in a draft bill.
Labour, once dominant in Scotland, currently has 23 Members of the Scottish Parliament, putting it third behind the SNP, on 61, and the Conservatives, on 31.
Speaking for the UK government, Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove raised doubts about the Labour leader's comments, saying: "Sir Keir Starmer has a problem accepting referendum results.
"He tried to block Brexit, and now he wants to work with Nicola Sturgeon to renege on the Scottish referendum result and break up the UK."
Sir Keir replaced Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in April, following the party's worst general election result - in terms of seats - since 1935.
Recent UK opinion polls have suggested support for the party under his stewardship is now close to that for Mr Johnson's Conservatives.
But some trade unions, including Unite and the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), have raised concerns over Sir Keir's leadership.
The FBU has warned him not to "water down" pledges on workers' rights and the environment that he made when running for the job.
In his speech on Monday to Labour's annual conference, Sir Keir told his party to "get serious about winning".
Speaking to Laura Kuenssberg, he said: "When you lose four elections in a row, you have lost the chance to change lives for the better and we have gifted the Tories a decade or more of power. That is not what the Labour Party is there for."
He also said: "The Labour Party's historic mission was to represent working people in Parliament and to form governments to change lives, and we betray that if we don't take more seriously winning elections and actually changing lives."
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Apple App Store faces coalition of unhappy developers - BBC News
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2020-09-24
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Spotify, Epic Games and others unite to campaign against the tech giant's app policies.
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Technology
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Several major developers have formed a coalition to fight Apple over its app store policies.
The Coalition for App Fairness counts Spotify, Epic Games and Tinder owner Match Group among its founding members.
It claims Apple "taxes consumers and crushes innovation", criticising what it calls anti-competitive policies.
Apple, which is embroiled in legal action with some of the members, has long denied these accusations.
Google, which runs the Play app store on Android, is not mentioned in the group's launch statement but is named elsewhere on its website, and accused of similar policies.
The coalition has been established as an independent non-profit organisation, and is open to other developers - regardless of size - to join.
Alongside an 11-point "vision", the group has identified three key issues it will campaign on:
Some of the founding members are longstanding public critics of Apple's policies in particular.
Epic Games has in recent months been involved in a very public spat with Apple - and to a lesser extent, Google - after it deliberately breached their guidelines and began a legal battle over them.
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Spotify, meanwhile, has filed a complaint with the European Union against Apple's policies, while Tile has previously accused Apple of anti-competitive behaviour, making antitrust claims in the US and Europe.
Basecamp, another member, is behind Hey - an email app which found itself at the centre of an enormous public dispute over the App Store earlier this year.
And Prepear, a listed member, is a relatively small firm which recently found itself defending its logo from a trademark dispute after Apple said the pear shape was too similar to its own logo.
In a statement about the coalition, Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney said: "The basic freedoms of developers are under attack.
"We are an advocate for any company that's ready to reclaim its rights and challenge the anti-competitive behaviours that exist on app stores today."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jaden "Wolfiez" Ashman became the youngest esports player to win a million dollars
Match Group, which owns Tinder and other dating apps, said it was joining because Apple's in-app purchase system "forces consumers to pay higher prices by inserting Apple between app developers and their users, leading to customer confusion and dissatisfaction that has far-reaching implications for our businesses".
Other founding members include Blix, Blockchain.com, Deezer, the European Publishers Council, News Media Europe, Protonmail and SkyDemon.
Apple has yet to comment directly on the formation of the new group.
But it maintains that its 30% cut of App Store sales is in line with industry standards and other digital marketplaces.
It has also recently released new statistics on its investment in user security and privacy last year, including:
Such investments are one of the arguments Apple puts forward for retaining control of its ecosystem, arguing that it leads to increased security and safety for users.
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US Open 2020: Naomi Osaka beats Victoria Azarenka to win third Grand Slam title - BBC Sport
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2020-09-12
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Naomi Osaka fights back against Victoria Azarenka in a gripping US Open final to claim her third Grand Slam title with a 1-6 6-3 6-3 victory.
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Last updated on .From the section Tennis
Naomi Osaka demonstrated her growing maturity to fight back against Victoria Azarenka in a compelling US Open final and claim her third Grand Slam title.
Japanese fourth seed Osaka, 22, won 1-6 6-3 6-3 for her second US Open title.
Osaka was overwhelmed in the first set and in danger of trailing 3-0 in the second but then won 10 of the next 12 games to seize the momentum.
The Belarusian, 31, in her first major final since 2013, was broken for 5-3 in the decider before Osaka served out.
Osaka shrieked with joy as she took her second match point, then calmly lay on the court and stared at the New York sky as she contemplated her latest achievement.
Osaka's level raised considerably as Azarenka was unable to maintain the intensity she showed in a one-sided opening set.
The fightback ensured Osaka, who won the 2018 US Open and 2019 Australian Open, maintained her record of winning every Grand Slam final she has played in.
"I don't want to play you in any more finals, I didn't really enjoy that, it was a really tough match for me," Osaka jokingly told Azarenka.
She added: "It was really inspiring for me because I used to watch you play here when I was younger. I learned a lot, so thank you."
• None Re-live how Osaka won her second US Open title
• None 'I've tried to mature' - Osaka on how coronavirus break helped her win US Open
Another US Open title for Osaka - but a contrasting occasion
Osaka's maiden victory at Flushing Meadows two years ago came in straight sets against Serena Williams in a hostile environment following the American's infamous argument with umpire Carlos Ramos.
It left Osaka in tears as she stood on the podium waiting to collect her first Grand Slam trophy.
This second success could not have been more different.
Here she had to fight back from a set down against an inspired Azarenka - and navigate a tricky decider which could have swung either way - on an Arthur Ashe Stadium left virtually empty because of the coronavirus pandemic.
And even in what were still strange circumstances, Osaka could this time enjoy the moment with a beaming smile as she lifted the prize in the company of her team and rapper boyfriend Cordae - even if she had to take the trophy from the table herself rather than be presented with it because of social distancing rules.
Osaka looked a little lost as Azarenka overwhelmed her in a fast start, hitting 13 unforced errors and struggling to cope with the Belarusian's proactive play and controlled aggression.
Draping a towel over her head at changeovers was a sign of Osaka's concerns. Her attempts to collect her thoughts and regain her composure did not initially work, however.
Another wayward forehand prompted a frustrated Osaka to throw her racquet to the floor in disgust.
Eventually, though, the mental resilience which she says she has developed over recent months came to the fore.
"I just thought it would be embarrassing to lose this under an hour," said Osaka, who will rise to third in the world after her win.
That resulted in a major momentum shift in her favour as Azarenka threatened to move 3-0 ahead in the second set.
A rasping forehand by Osaka at 40-30 proved pivotal, not only in the game, but ultimately in the whole match as she seized control to level.
The former world number one maintained that level in the decider to earn a 4-1 lead, but was unable to convert one of four break points to move 5-1 ahead.
That might have proved costly when Azarenka immediately put the set back on serve, only for Osaka to battle back again by winning what proved to be the final two games.
Not only has Osaka impressed on court during the Cincinnati Masters-US Open bubble in the past month, she has also won many admirers for her activism in the fight against racism and police brutality in the United States.
A few days before the start of the US Open, Osaka pulled out of her Western and Southern Open semi-final in protest at the shooting of Jacob Blake, a black man, by police in Wisconsin.
Before her US Open first-round match, she wore a face mask with the name of Breonna Taylor, a black woman who was shot dead by a policeman in March.
Osaka, who has Japanese and Haitian parents and was brought up in the United States, said she had seven masks with seven different names.
Her target was to reveal all of them by reaching Saturday's final and that provided her with extra motivation to win the title, according to her coach Wim Fissette.
"I felt the point was to make people start talking," Osaka said after her victory.
"I've been inside the bubble and not sure what's going on in the outside world. The more retweets it gets, the more people talk about it."
Azarenka wins hearts but falls short of another Slam
Former world number one Azarenka was aiming to complete a remarkable renaissance by landing her first Grand Slam title since defending her Australian Open crown in 2013.
Few had predicted she would compete for the sport's biggest prizes again after a turbulent past few years.
Azarenka took time away from the sport to give birth in December 2016 and had her comeback stalled by a lengthy custody battle over son Leo.
Last week she admitted she had thought about quitting when the WTA Tour was suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic.
She had won only one match in the previous year going into last month's restart, but came back from the enforced break reinvigorated and possessing a fresh perspective on life.
That enabled her to win a first WTA title in four years when Osaka pulled out of their scheduled Western & Southern Open final with a hamstring injury - and she continued her form in the Grand Slam.
Ultimately though, she could not become the fourth mother to win a major title as Osaka consigned her to a third defeat in a US Open final.
When Osaka won the title two years ago, boos rang around the Arthur Ashe Stadium as Serena Williams had been docked a game.
This time virtual silence greeted her triumph - but again she had to do it the hard way.
Azarenka played an almost flawless first set, and it was only when four games from defeat that Osaka found her range and some serious power.
The 22-year-old has taken some knocks over the past 18 months as she came to terms with life as one of the world's highest profile athletes.
A first-round defeat at last year's Wimbledon was perhaps the hardest to take - but look at her now.
Not only is she playing with supreme confidence once again, but is also able to use her influence to promote social justice in a very assured and unassuming way.
• None Comedians try to make sense of 2020
• None Go behind the scenes with West Ham Women
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Coronavirus: The story of the big U-turn of the summer - BBC News
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2020-09-12
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The Department of Education and Ofqual will face public scrutiny to explain the exam confusion, the colossal U-turn and resignations. What went wrong?
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Family & Education
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A-level results day started terribly for Grace Kirman. The sixth former in Norwich had been waiting anxiously to hear whether she would get the grades needed for her dream university place.
But it was bad news and a rejection email had arrived. The grades produced by the exam algorithm had been lower than her teachers predicted - and the offer to study biochemistry at Oxford University was disappearing before her eyes.
"It wasn't my fault and it was really unfair," said the student from Notre Dame High School.
She'd worked extremely hard for her A-levels, it had been her big ambition, she'd been on a university outreach scheme for disadvantaged youngsters, and she'd been quietly confident of getting the A* and two A grades needed.
But this summer's exams had been cancelled by the Covid-19 pandemic - and England's exam watchdog Ofqual had produced an alternative way of calculating grades.
Her teachers had expected three A*s - but the algorithm produced results of three As. It might be a small margin for a statistician, but it was a difference that she said "could change her life".
"I was so disappointed, I knew I was equally intelligent," she said. And she was angry too at the way doors suddenly seemed to be closing.
Brian Conway, chief executive of the St John the Baptist academy trust responsible for the school, was beginning to see other inexplicable results arriving.
"The tragedy of results day was when people you would bet your house on getting a grade C were given a U grade," he said.
Something was going badly wrong - and the school decided to challenge the results, and in Grace's case, to get in touch with Oxford to try to overturn the rejection.
There were problems with exams across the UK this summer, but in England it's the Department for Education and Ofqual which will face public scrutiny to explain the confusion, the colossal U-turns and resignations.
The algorithm for replacement grades mostly relied on two key pieces of information - how pupils had been ranked in order of ability and the results of schools and colleges in previous years.
Of less influence were teachers' predictions and how individual pupils themselves had done in previous exams.
It was designed to stop grade inflation and in effect replicated the results of previous years - but it meant a serious risk of disadvantage for talented individuals in schools that had a history of low results.
It would be like being told you'd failed a driving test on the grounds that people from where you lived usually failed their driving test. That might be the case, but it's hard to take when you hadn't even started the car.
But if the aim was to keep grades in line with previous years, the opposite happened. There were stratospheric increases particularly at A-level - with more than half of students getting A*s and As in some subjects.
While the scrutiny will focus on what went wrong in past weeks, the bigger fallout could be from what it changes in the future. A major unintended consequence could be a radical shake-up of England's university admissions, with plans believed to be in the pipeline.
This summer has shown the problems with estimated grades - raising the issue of whether such predictions should still be used for university offers, rather than waiting until students have their actual results.
Schools Minister Nick Gibb this week described as "compelling" the argument made by former universities minister Chris Skidmore that the "entire admissions system to university should now be reformed". Also expect in the forthcoming months to hear some big questions about the future role of Ofqual.
England's Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, facing calls for his resignation over the exams fiasco, will have to defend himself in front of the Education Select Committee this week.
The committee's chairman, Robert Halfon, likened the exam problems to the Charge of the Light Brigade, where no-one, particularly Ofqual, seemed able to heed the warnings to stop.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who originally called the results "robust" and then blamed a "mutant algorithm", has accused critics of relying on "Captain Hindsight". But more evidence of foresight in warnings is emerging too.
Barnaby Lenon, chairman of the Independent Schools Council, told the BBC he had warned in stakeholder meetings with Ofqual about the dangers of attaching so much weight to schools' previous results, and so little to teachers' estimates. "It was always going to be a hashed job," he said.
He thinks Ofqual and the Department for Education had begun to prioritise sounding publicly confident rather than being open about the shortcomings. Mr Lenon, a former head teacher of Harrow School and former Ofqual board member, had made his concerns public.
On 7 July, at the Festival of Higher Education at the University of Buckingham, he predicted unreliability and unfairness in the results and warned Ofqual was being asked to do a "terrible thing" in producing these calculated grades.
Danger signals couldn't be dismissed as politically motivated. On 26 May, a warning was sent from the New Schools Network, which supports free schools and has strong ties to Conservative education policy.
The group's director Unity Howard, wrote to Sally Collier, the now resigned head of Ofqual, and to Gavin Williamson: "It is easy to bury these arrangements in scientific modelling, but the issues here will affect at least a generation of children, but more likely those that come after it too."
It included warnings from seven schools and trusts - and it's understood the group held a meeting with Ofqual.
The Northern Powerhouse, a lobby group for the north of England chaired by former Tory chancellor George Osborne, had also been flagging concerns about BTec vocational exams as well as A-levels and GCSEs.
Frank Norris, working with the Northern Powerhouse on education, told the BBC the "proposed algorithm design was always going to put the average performance of schools above individual merit".
With worries not allayed, the Northern Powerhouse wrote to Sally Collier on 9 August, drawing attention to their high level of concern about a disproportionate impact on poorer communities. On 11 July, the Education Select Committee pointed to unanswered questions about the fairness of how grades would be calculated.
Ofqual was not unaware of these worries, not least because the regulator says it was giving its own advice to ministers about the risks - and right to the top.
Julie Swan, Ofqual's executive director of general qualifications, said 10 Downing Street had been briefed on 7 August, highlighting risks over so-called "outlier students" - the bright pupils whose grades might be reduced because they were in low-performing schools.
There were also weekly meetings with education minister Nick Gibb. Kate Green, Labour's Shadow Education Secretary, said in the House of Commons this week the exam controversy had caused "huge distress to students and their parents" - and asked Mr Gibb why he had failed to respond to warnings. "These warnings were not ignored," said Mr Gibb. "Challenges that were made by individuals were raised with Ofqual and we were assured by the regulator that overall the model was fair," he told MPs. It was only when grades were published that "anomalies and injustices" became apparent, said Mr Gibb.
A common thread to the warnings was although the results might work smoothly in terms of national statistics, maintaining a similar pattern to previous years, this would be at the cost of individual unfairness. The standardisation process, which tended to push down teachers' grades, would also not apply to subjects with smaller numbers of entries, such as classics and modern languages - with accusations this would benefit independent schools.
Grace Kirman was one of these "anomalies" - her future hanging in the balance. But when had this year's exams really begun to go into tailspin? If you wanted to pinpoint a moment, it might be about 36 hours before Grace and hundreds of thousands of young people were finding out their results.
That was the heatwave night of Tuesday 11 August, ahead of A-level results being released on Thursday. In Scotland there had been a U-turn on grades, and pressure was building for a response in England.
When it came, it left Ofqual completely wrong-footed and unable to explain how it would work. The Department for Education had informed them of a major change that would allow schools to appeal over grades on the basis of their mock test results. It was announced late in the evening as an extra "safety net" and "triple lock", but was eventually ditched within the week.
But head teachers, who had been on a low-boil all summer, went into volcanic mode - attacking this last-minute change as "panicked and chaotic". This sudden rule change meant a school could appeal for an upgrade if a mock test had been higher than the calculated grade about to be issued.
This infuriated head teachers who said mocks were carried out in many different and inconsistent ways. Sometimes they had been deliberately marked down as a scare tactic and some schools had not taken them at all. Therefore, they said, they could not be used to decide such important results.
Heads' leader Geoff Barton said at that point he knew this approach to exams had become "unsustainable". It had been "fatally undermined" by an unworkable decision, which he said represented a "complete failure of leadership". Mr Halfon said it also raised the fundamental question about who was really in charge - and if Ofqual wasn't really acting independently, then what was its purpose?
Results day on 13 August added to the confusion. These calculated grades produced the highest results in the history of A-levels - but in the background was a growing volume of protest over the algorithm reducing 40% of grades below teachers' predictions. MPs saw emails arriving in their in-trays, upset parents took to Twitter, lawyers warned of multiple legal challenges, universities didn't know if grades were going to be changed on appeal and marchers were waving placards demanding a U-turn.
On Saturday 15 August, matters became even more bizarre. Ofqual published plans for appeals over mock tests - but in the evening Gavin Williamson rang Sally Collier disagreeing with the guidance and it was taken down again from the website.
According to Ofqual chairman Roger Taylor, the situation was "rapidly going out of control" - and on Sunday the watchdog took the momentous decision to switch to centre assessed grades - the results estimated by schools.
This biggest U-turn of the summer was made public the next day and the education secretary told students he was "incredibly sorry".
Sally Collier, who has talked of her admiration for Edith Cavell, the nurse executed during the First World War, later stepped down as chief regulator and has made no comment since.
At the Department for Education, it was the senior civil servant, Jonathan Slater, who lost his job, with accusations that he had been "scapegoated". The blame game had begun almost immediately. Ofqual's argument has been they knew the risks of the iceberg ahead, but they had warned ministers and been told not to change direction.
The politicians in turn say they had heard the iceberg warnings, but Ofqual had assured them it would be safe. "The finger of blame is pointed at everyone else," says heads' leader Mr Barton.
What has baffled school leaders is why, with almost five months between the cancellation of exams and the issuing of calculated grades, there wasn't a more thorough attempt to test the reliability of results in advance, including with real schools. Ofqual's defence to all of this, according to Mr Halfon, could be summed up as: "Not me, guv."
There are also questions about the delays for results for BTec students - and MP Shabana Mahmood said it was disgraceful how they had been "left languishing at the back of the queue". There is another uncomfortable truth from the U-turn, which Barnaby Lenon said will have created a "different kind of injustice". Schools which were over-generous in their predictions will have got better grades than those which were more painstaking.
Things eventually turned out well for Grace
Mr Conway, leader of Notre Dame's academy trust where Grace was at school, said his staff had put a "huge effort" into making sure every estimated grade was accurate and evidence based - and carried out their own moderation process to guard against grade inflation. But there are persistent rumours of other exam centres which have ended up with implausibly high grades for many of their students.
Pupils could have unfairly been "bumped off" university places as a result, said Mr Lenon. When Mr Williamson faces the select committee this week he is likely to argue that no-one wanted to cancel exams, but the pandemic forced them to find an alternative - and when there were problems his department took swift action.
"It was not a decision that was taken lightly. It was taken only after serious discussions with a number of parties, including, in particular, the exam regulator, Ofqual," he told MPs this week. "We have had to respond, often at great speed, to find the best way forward, given what we knew about the virus at the time."
Other education ministers around the UK faced similar problems and eventually came up with similar answers, said Mr Williamson.
And Grace got her place back at Oxford. "I just couldn't believe it. It's been a dream of mine for so long. "I wish I could have woken up to an acceptance - but I appreciate it now even more. "It was a flawed system," she said. "And they could have been kinder, especially after everything over the summer."
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Coronavirus: Children will stay part of rule of six, says Gove - BBC News
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2020-09-12
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The new restrictions on gatherings have public support, the Cabinet Office minister insists.
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UK
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Children are included in the new limits for social gatherings in England
The "rule of six", the latest limits on social gatherings in England, will not be changed to exempt children under 12, Michael Gove has insisted.
The new rules, which limit six people to meeting indoors and outdoors, come into effect on Monday.
Similar rules in Wales and Scotland do not include children under 11 and 12 respectively. But Mr Gove said the England rules were "absolutely right".
It comes as one scientist warned UK could lose control of the virus.
"One would have to say that we're on the edge of losing control," Prof Sir Mark Walport, a member of the government's Sage scientific advisory group told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"You've only got to look across the Channel to see what is happening in France and what's happening in Spain."
Prof Walport said it was very important that children go to school and students return to university - but social interactions would have to be limited in other areas.
"The only way to stop the spread of this infection is to reduce the number of people we all come into contact with," he added.
Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove said the rule of six was "well-understood" as a public health message and had the public's support.
"As ever, the important thing is balance - eating out, seeing friends - that is fine, provided we do so in a way that is socially responsible, that's what the rule of six is about."
He said some people had "unwittingly" contributed to the spread of the virus because of the way they had interacted, adding: "So therefore, a clear message - as simple as possible - makes it easier for all of us to do what is helpful to others."
Speaking on Radio 4, he added that there needed to be "a degree of self-discipline and restriction" in order to deal with the challenges posed by the rising number of coronavirus cases across England - and the escalating R number, which measures the rate at which the virus is transmitted.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast. he urged the public to behave in "a responsible fashion" amid fears people might treat it as a "party weekend", ahead of the new restrictions coming into effect next week.
"These rules and regulations are there for our protection, but also for the protection of the most vulnerable in society", citing the elderly or those with underlying health conditions "who face far grimmer consequences" if they contract Covid-19.
"The onus is on all of us to do everything we can to make sure we abide by those rules.
"Then we can ensure, in due course, that these restrictions can be relaxed - and my hope, like so many, is that we can have a proper Christmas."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What is the R number and what does it mean?
In the immediate future, Mr Gove agreed fines could be necessary to enforce regulations. It follows a story in the Times, which says the government is looking at introducing fines for people who refuse to self-isolate when required.
"I don't want to see fines being levied, but even more I do not want to see people behaving in a way that puts the most vulnerable at risk," Mr Gove told Radio 4.
Asked about Prof Walport's statement that the UK was "losing control", Mr Gove said it was "a warning to us all".
"There's a range of scientific opinion, but one thing on which practically every scientist is agreed is that we have seen an uptick in infection and therefore it is appropriate we take public health measures."
There are fears people will treat this weekend as a "party weekend" ahead of the new restrictions
Sage found that only about 20% of people who have symptoms or live in a household where someone else has symptoms adhere to self-isolation requirements.
"Sometimes there's an argument that's depicted, as though this is pernicious of the liberty of freedom-loving people - well there are restrictions, and I love freedom, but the one thing I think is even more important is that you exercise freedom with responsibility," said Mr Gove.
Some Conservative backbenchers have protested about enhanced regulations, such as the rule of six, and pressed the government to follow Wales and Scotland in exempting young children.
On Friday, ex-minister Steve Baker said the latest government action amounted to "arbitrary powers without scrutiny" and MP Desmond Swayne said it was "outrageous" not to have a Parliamentary debate.
"This is not a fit legal environment for the British people," Mr Baker told the BBC.
"It's time to move to a voluntary system, unless the government can demonstrate otherwise and it is time for us to start living like a free people."
Senior Conservative backbenchers are reported to be lobbying Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle to make sure that legislation is being reviewed every month, not every six months.
What do you think about the decision to include children under 12 in the "rule of six" in England? How does it affect you? Tell us about your experience by emailinghaveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.
Or use this form to get in touch:
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Brexit: Despite bitter row can deal still be done? - BBC News
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2020-09-12
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Last-minute agreements have been reached before, but right now it feels like a long shot.
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Europe
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EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier is in London this week for Brexit talks
When it comes to Brexit, all negotiations are inter-linked: EU-UK trade talks, the process to implement their divorce deal, negotiations on fishing rights and Brussels' deliberation on UK financial service.
What happens in one area very much affects progress in the others. You cannot separate them entirely.
Which is why this week, as the war of words and wills between Brussels and Downing Street raged over the government's threat to throw a grenade at key parts of the divorce deal, everyone's thoughts turned immediately to the trade talks between the two sides.
In fact, they limp on. Negotiations are set to resume in Brussels on Monday. This, despite the EU ending the week by threatening Downing Street with legal action unless it rowed back on its threats to the Withdrawal Agreement by the end of the month.
The government insists it will not budge. So it is significant that the EU stopped short of threatening to press the nuclear button - shutting down trade talks altogether.
Why is that, when we know the EU is furious?
First of all, Brussels still wants a deal with the UK, if at all possible, this autumn.
Secondly, the sense in Brussels is that the government is trying to provoke the EU into abandoning the trade negotiations.
"We're not going to give them that satisfaction," a high-level EU diplomat told me. "We refuse to be manipulated."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. UK vs EU: Johnson and Michel Barnier set out competing visions on trade
So, despite bitter arguments over legislation on the one hand, and a huge list of outstanding issues still to be ironed out in bilateral trade talks; despite time and trust running out on both sides; neither the EU nor the UK seem to want to be the first ones to walk out the door.
It is still possible, of course, that the government's bill is stopped in the House of Lords or even beforehand by rebel MPs.
It is possible for the EU and UK to iron out their differences over the divorce deal and in trade talks. Concessions can always be "dressed-up" to look like victories, after all.
It has been done before. Remember last autumn? Finding agreement on the divorce deal seemed nigh on impossible - until it was not and a deal was signed.
But, right now that feels like a long shot. The chatter on both sides of the Channel is that "no deal" is becoming more likely by the day.
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John Turner: Former Canadian prime minister dies at 91 - BBC News
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2020-09-20
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The ex-prime minister, who has died aged 91, famously led his Liberal Party to a big defeat in 1984.
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US & Canada
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John Turner's tenure as prime minister is the second shortest in Canada's history
Former Canadian Prime Minister John Turner, who was in office for just 79 days and led his Liberal Party to a huge defeat in 1984, has died aged 91.
A lawyer by training, he served as justice and then finance minister from 1968-1975. He resigned after arguments with party leader Pierre Trudeau.
Turner resumed his legal work and nine years later won the party leadership.
He called an election and then presided over what observers say was one of the worst campaigns in Canadian history.
His gaffes combined with growing public fatigue with the Liberals, who had been in power for 20 of the previous 21 years, resulted in his party falling from 135 seats in the 282-member House of Commons to just 40.
The Conservatives, under the leadership of Brian Mulroney, swept to power with 211 seats.
Despite the result, Turner hung onto his post. In the 1988 election, Turner was a strong opponent of a proposed free trade agreement with the US but lost again to Mr Mulroney, but not as badly.
He resigned as a Liberal leader in 1990.
As justice minister, he defended reforms to Canada's Criminal Code that paved the way for LGBTQ rights and legal abortions. But in the finance ministry he faced economic pressures due to the global oil crisis.
His 79-day tenure as prime minister is the second shortest in the country's history.
Turner died at home in Toronto on Friday night, Marc Kealey, a former aide speaking on behalf of his relatives told the Montreal Gazette. He is survived by his wife Geills and four children.
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How the oil industry made us doubt climate change - BBC News
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2020-09-20
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Energy companies stand accused of trying to downplay their contribution to global warming.
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Stories
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As climate change becomes a focus of the US election, energy companies stand accused of trying to downplay their contribution to global warming. In June, Minnesota's Attorney General sued ExxonMobil, among others, for launching a "campaign of deception" which deliberately tried to undermine the science supporting global warming. So what's behind these claims? And what links them to how the tobacco industry tried to dismiss the harms of smoking decades earlier?
To understand what's happening today, we need to go back nearly 40 years.
Marty Hoffert leaned closer to his computer screen. He couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. It was 1981, and he was working in an area of science considered niche.
"We were just a group of geeks with some great computers," he says now, recalling that moment.
But his findings were alarming.
"I created a model that showed the Earth would be warming very significantly. And the warming would introduce climatic changes that would be unprecedented in human history. That blew my mind."
A climate change protester outside the New York State Supreme Court during the ExxonMobil trial in October, 2019
Marty Hoffert was one of the first scientists to create a model which predicted the effects of man-made climate change. And he did so while working for Exxon, one of the world's largest oil companies, which would later merge with another, Mobil.
At the time Exxon was spending millions of dollars on ground-breaking research. It wanted to lead the charge as scientists grappled with the emerging understanding that the warming planet could cause the climate to change in ways that could make life pretty difficult for humans.
Hoffert shared his predictions with his managers, showing them what might happen if we continued burning fossil fuels in our cars, trucks and planes.
But he noticed a clash between Exxon's own findings, and public statements made by company bosses, such as the then chief executive Lee Raymond, who said that "currently, the scientific evidence is inconclusive as to whether human activities are having a significant effect on the global climate".
"They were saying things that were contradicting their own world-class research groups," said Hoffert.
Angry, he left Exxon, and went on to become a leading academic in the field.
"What they did was immoral. They spread doubt about the dangers of climate change when their own researchers were confirming how serious a threat it was."
So what changed? The record-breaking hot summer of 1988 was key. Big news in America, it gave extra weight to warnings from Nasa scientist Dr Jim Hansen that "the greenhouse effect has been detected, and is changing our climate now".
Political leaders took notice. Then UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher acknowledged the great new global threat: "The environmental challenge which confronts the whole world demands an equivalent response from the whole world."
In 1989, Exxon's strategy chief Duane Levine drew up a confidential presentation for the company's board, one of thousands of documents in the company's archive which were later donated to The University of Texas at Austin.
Levine's presentation is an important document, often cited by researchers investigating Exxon's record on climate change science.
"We're starting to hear the inevitable call for action," it said, which risked what it called "irreversible and costly draconian steps".
"More rational responses will require efforts to extend the science and increase emphasis on costs and political realities."
How they made us doubt everything investigates how some of the world's most powerful interests made us doubt the connection between smoking and cancer, and how the same tactics were used to make us doubt climate change.
Listen to the podcast from BBC Radio 4 here
Kert Davies has scoured through Exxon's archive. He used to work as a research director at the environmental pressure group Greenpeace, where he looked into corporate opposition to climate change. This inspired him to set up The Climate Investigations Centre. He explains why this Exxon presentation mattered:
"They are worried the public will take this on, and enact radical changes in the way we use energy and affect their business, that's the bottom line."
He says this fear can also be seen in another document from the archive that sets out the so-called "Exxon position", which was to "emphasise the uncertainty" regarding climate change.
Researchers argue this was just the start of a decades-long campaign to shape public opinion and to spread doubt about climate change.
In June 2020, the General Attorney of Minnesota Keith Ellison sued ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute (API) and Koch Industries for misleading the public over climate change. The lawsuit claims that "previously unknown internal documents confirm that the defendant well understood the devastating effects that their products would cause to the climate".
It says that despite this knowledge, the industry "engaged in a public-relations campaign that was not only false, but also highly effective," which served to "deliberately [undermine] the science" of climate change.
The accusations against Exxon and others - which the company has called "baseless and without merit" - build on years of painstaking research by people like Kert Davies and Naomi Oreskes, professor of the history of science at Harvard University and co-author of Merchants of Doubt.
"Rather than accept the scientific evidence, they made the decision to fight the facts," she said.
But this isn't just about Exxon's past actions. In the same year as the Levine presentation, 1989, many energy companies and fossil fuel dependent industries came together to form the Global Climate Coalition, which aggressively lobbied US politicians and media.
Then in 1991, the trade body that represents electrical companies in the US, the Edison Electric Institute, created a campaign called the Information Council for the Environment (ICE) which aimed to "Reposition global warming as theory (not fact)". Some details of the campaign were leaked to the New York Times.
"They ran advertising campaigns designed to undermine public support, cherry picking the data to say, 'Well if the world is warming up, why is Kentucky getting colder?' They asked rhetorical questions designed to create confusion, to create doubt," argued Naomi Oreskes.
The ICE campaign identified two groups which would be most susceptible to its messaging. The first was "older, lesser educated males from larger households who are not typically information seekers".
The second group was "younger, low-income women," who could be targeted with bespoke adverts which would liken those who talked about climate change to a hysterical doom-saying cartoon chicken.
The Edison Electric Institute didn't respond to questions about ICE, but told the BBC that its members are "leading a clean energy transformation, and are united in their commitment to get the energy they provide as clean as they can, as fast as they can".
But back in the 1990 there were many campaigns like this.
"Unless 'climate change' becomes a non-issue," says another, leaked to the New York Times in 1997, "there may be no moment when we can declare victory".
To achieve victory, the industry planned to "identify, recruit and train a team of five independent scientists to participate in media outreach".
This important tactic assumed the public would be suspicious if oil industry executives dismissed climate change, but might trust the views of seemingly independent scientists.
These would be put forward to take part in debates on TV, potentially confusing a general audience who would see opposing scientists in white coats arguing about complex technical details without knowing who to believe.
The problem was, sometimes these "white coats" weren't truly independent. Some climate sceptic researchers were taking money from the oil industry.
Drexel University emeritus professor Bob Brulle studied the funding for the climate change "counter movement". He identified 91 institutions which he says either denied or downplayed the risks of climate change, including the Cato Institute and the now-defunct George C Marshall Institute.
He found that between 2003 and 2007, ExxonMobil gave $7.2m (£5.6m) to such bodies, while between 2008 and 2010, the American Petroleum Institute trade body (API) donated just under $4m (£3m).
In its 2007 Corporate Citizenship Report, ExxonMobil said it would stop funding such groups in 2008.
Of course many researchers would argue such money didn't influence their climate contrarian work. It seems some may have been motivated by something else.
Most of the organisations opposing or denying climate change science were right-wing think tanks, who tended to be passionately anti-regulation.
These groups made convenient allies for the oil industry, as they would argue against action on climate change on ideological grounds.
Jerry Taylor spent 23 years with the Cato Institute - one of those right wing think tanks - latterly as vice president. Before he left in 2014, he would regularly appear on TV and radio, insisting that the science of climate change was uncertain and there was no need to act. Now, he realises his arguments were based on a misinterpretation of the science, and he regrets the impact he's had on the debate.
"For 25 years, climate sceptics like me made it a core matter of ideological identity that if you believe in climate change, then you are by definition a socialist. That is what climate sceptics have done."
The BBC asked the Cato Institute about its work on climate change, but it did not respond.
This ideological divide has had far-reaching consequences. Polls conducted in May 2020 showed that just 22% of Americans who vote Republican believed climate change is man-made, compared with 72% of Democrats.
Unfortunately many of the "expert scientists" quoted by journalists to try to offer balance in their coverage of climate change were - like Jerry Taylor - making arguments based on their beliefs rather than relevant research.
"Usually these people have some scientific credentials, but they're not actually experts in climate science," says Harvard historian Naomi Oreskes.
She began digging into the background of leading climate sceptics, including Fred Seitz, a nuclear physicist and former president of the US National Academy of Sciences. She found he was deeply anti-communist, believing any government intervention in the marketplace "would put us on the slippery slope to socialism".
She also discovered that he had been active in the debates around smoking in the 1980s.
"That was a Eureka moment. We realised this was not a scientific debate. A person with expertise about climate change would in no way be an expert about oncology or public health or cardiovascular disease, or any of the key issues associated with tobacco.
"The fact that the same people were arguing in both cases was a clue that something fishy was going on. That's what led us to discover this pattern of disinformation that gets systemically used again and again."
Naomi Oreskes spent years going through the tobacco archive at the University of California at San Francisco. It contains more than 14 million documents that were made available thanks to litigation against US tobacco firms.
A strikingly familiar story emerged. Decades before the energy industry tried to undermine the case for climate change, tobacco companies had used the same techniques to challenge the emerging links between smoking and lung cancer in the 1950s.
The story began at Christmas 1953. In New York's luxurious Plaza Hotel, the heads of the tobacco companies met to discuss a new threat to their business model.
Details of the night's anxious conversations were recorded in a document written by public relations guru John Hill from Hill and Knowlton.
Widely read mass-market magazines like Readers Digest and Time Life had begun publishing articles about the association between smoking and lung cancer. And researchers like those who had found that lab mice painted with cigarette tar got cancer were attracting increasing attention.
As John Hill wrote in the 1953 document, "salesmen in the industry are frantically alarmed, and the decline in tobacco stocks on the stock exchange market has caused grave concern".
Hill recommended fighting science with science. "We do not believe the industry should indulge in any flashy or spectacular ballyhoo. There is no public relations [medicine] known to us at least, which will cure the ills of the industry."
As a later document by tobacco company Brown and Williamson summarised the approach: "Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the minds of the general public."
Naomi Oreskes says this understanding of the power of doubt is vital.
"They realise they can't win this battle by making a false claim that sooner or later would be exposed. But if they can create doubt, that would be sufficient - because if people are confused about the issue, there's a good chance they'll just keep smoking."
Hill advised setting up the "Tobacco Industry Research Committee" to promote "the existence of weighty scientific views which hold there is no proof that cigarette smoking is a cause of lung cancer".
As in the climate change debate decades later, "Project Whitecoat" would pit scientist against scientist.
According to Oreskes, the project targeted those who were already doing research into other causes of cancer or lung conditions - such as asbestos - which the tobacco industry could fund.
"The purpose of these programmes was not to advance scientific understanding, it was to create enough confusion that the American people would doubt the existing scientific evidence."
Journalists were one of the tobacco industry's main targets. The Tobacco Industry Research Committee held meetings in its offices in the Empire State Building for major newspaper editors. It even persuaded one of the most famous broadcast journalists of the time, Edward R Murrow, to interview its experts.
The eventual edition of Murrow's celebrated television programme "See It Now" - broadcast in 1955 -shows Project Whitecoat in action, with tobacco industry funded scientists set against independent researchers.
But as would happen later with climate change, it was difficult for the audience at home to form an opinion when opposing scientists contradicted each other. Even Murrow ended up on the fence. "We have no credentials for reaching conclusions on this subject," he said.
If doubt was the industry's true product, then it appeared to be a roaring success.
For decades, none of the legal challenges launched against the tobacco companies themselves succeeded.
This was partly due to the effectiveness of Project Whitecoat, as an internal memo from tobacco firm RJ Reynolds in May 1979 concludes: "Due to favourable scientific testimony, no plaintiff has ever collected a penny from any tobacco company in lawsuits claiming that smoking causes lung cancer or cardiovascular illness - even though 117 such cases have been brought since 1954."
But pressure on the tobacco companies continued to mount. In 1997, the industry paid $350m (£272m) to settle a class action brought by flight attendants who had developed lung cancer and other illnesses which they argued were caused by second-hand cigarette smoke from passengers.
This settlement paved the way to a landmark ruling in 2006, when Judge Gladys Kessler found US tobacco companies guilty of fraudulently misrepresenting the health risks associated with smoking.
Judge Kessler detailed how the industry "marketed and sold their lethal products with zeal, with deception, with a single-minded focus on their financial success, and without regard for the human tragedy or social costs".
Flight attendant Norma Broin was the lead plaintiff in the passive smoking class action after developing lung cancer, despite being a non-smoker
The tobacco companies may have eventually lost their battle to hide the harms of smoking, but the blueprint drawn up by John Hill and his colleagues proved to be very effective.
"What he wrote is the same memo we have seen in multiple industries subsequently," says David Michaels, professor of public health at George Washington University, and author of The Triumph of Doubt, which details how the pesticides, plastics and sugar industries have also used these tactics.
"We called it 'the tobacco playbook', because the tobacco industry was so successful.
"They made a product that killed millions of people across the world, and the science has been very strong [about that] for many years, but through this campaign to manufacture uncertainty, they were able to delay first, formal recognition of the terrible impact of tobacco, and then delay regulation and defeat litigation for decades, with obviously terrible consequences."
We asked Hill and Knowlton about its work for the tobacco companies, but it did not respond.
In a statement, ExxonMobil told the BBC that "allegations about the company's climate research are inaccurate and deliberately misleading".
"For more than 40 years, we have supported development of climate science in partnership with governments and academic institutions. That work continues today in an open and transparent way.
"Deliberately cherry-picked statements attributed to a small number of employees wrongly suggest definitive conclusions were reached decades ago."
ExxonMobil added that it recently won the court case brought by the New York Attorney General which had accused the company of fraudulently accounting for the costs of climate change regulation.
But academics like David Michaels fear the use of uncertainty in the past to confuse the public and undermine science has contributed to a dangerous erosion of trust in facts and experts across the globe today, far beyond climate science or the dangers of tobacco.
He cites public attitudes to modern issues like the safety of 5G, vaccinations - and coronavirus.
"By cynically manipulating and distorting scientific evidence, the manufacturers of doubt have seeded in much of the public a cynicism about science, making it far more difficult to convince people that science provides useful - in some cases, vitally important - information.
"There is no question that this distrust of science and scientists is making it more difficult to stem the coronavirus pandemic."
It seems the legacy of "the tobacco playbook" lives on.
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Home Office policy for removing migrants unlawful, court rules - BBC News
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2020-10-21
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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The Court of Appeal says the Home Office risked removing people who had a right to be in the country.
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UK
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A major plank of the UK's strategy for removing failed migrants has been ruled illegal because it prevents the courts from considering their cases.
In a significant ruling, the Court of Appeal said the policy risked removing people from the UK even if they had a right to be in the country.
The policy has been used in 40,000 removal cases.
Campaigners who brought the challenge said the Home Office had endangered lives by short-cutting the law.
The unanimous judgment against the Home Office was taken by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett, and two other senior judges.
It's not clear whether ministers will attempt to go to the Supreme Court but a Home Office spokesman said it is going to reform a failing immigration system.
The controversial policy which has been ruled illegal was introduced in 2015 in an attempt to prevent last-minute applications to stop removals - sometimes at the steps of the plane.
It has been suspended for 18 months during the legal battle. Removals have been carrying on under a far slower and complicated procedure that allows more time for appeals.
Under the 2015 policy, officials told failed applicants - whether they were asylum seekers, economic migrants or people making other claims - that they had 72 hours to make final representations. After that, they could be flown out of the UK, without notice, on any date in the following three months.
Charity Medical Justice said the rules meant people with a genuine case to be in the UK simply could not present their arguments in time to a judge.
Home Office: Policy was designed to speed up removals by ending late claims to stay
In examples submitted to the court, the charity said the Home Office had repeatedly removed people - only to bring them back again.
In one case, a man who had evidence that relatives had been murdered in his home country, had to be flown back to the UK and he was later found to be a genuine refugee.
The three Court of Appeal judges said the Home Office's aspiration to speed up removals was not in itself illegal - but in practice the policy had prevented effective appeals and that had risked serious injustices.
"The right to access the court is an absolute and inviolable right," said the court.
"The right to access to the court is not a relative right to be balanced against other rights and interests, the convenience of the executive or the courts, or the risks of abuse of process."
Home Secretary Priti Patel has repeatedly accused what she has called "activist lawyers" of slowing down immigration removals.
And in the judgment, the Lord Chief Justice said there were "endemic" problems of false and fanciful late claims, some of which involved a "minority of lawyers", unconnected to the case before them.
But the judges stressed that the Home Office's solution had prevented judges from considering genuine cases because someone could be put on a flight before they had had a chance to go to court.
A spokesman for Medical Justice said the policy had unfairly treated many of its sick clients.
"One of our society's most precious treasures is access to justice," said the spokesman.
"Chillingly, away from the public gaze, this policy denied that fundamental right on a massive scale causing serious harm to extremely vulnerable people and risking life.
"It was effectively a shortcut to removal. Quashing the policy brings us back towards equal access to justice for all."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54632985
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Michael Jackson: Court dismisses lawsuit from accuser James Safechuck - BBC News
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2020-10-21
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James Safechuck claimed the star's companies allowed the star to abuse him and other children.
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Entertainment & Arts
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A US judge has dismissed a lawsuit from one of Michael Jackson's accusers, who claimed Jackson's companies allowed the star to abuse him and other children.
James Safechuck has said the singer started abusing him when he was 10.
In 2014, he sued MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures, and has alleged they "were created to, and did, facilitate Jackson's sexual abuse of children".
But the judge dismissed the case, saying the companies didn't have a duty of care for Mr Safechuck.
Jonathan Steinsapir and Howard Weitzman, representing MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures, told the BBC: "We are pleased that the court agreed that Mr Safechuck had no grounds to pursue his lawsuit."
Mr Safechuck was one of two men who accused the late pop star of abuse in last year's Leaving Neverland documentary.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. James Safechuck (left) and Wade Robson told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire about the abuse in 2019
In his lawsuit, he said Jackson abused him hundreds of times at his homes and on tour in the late 1980s and early 90s.
MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures were set up by Jackson to run his career. But in the lawsuit it was claimed: "The thinly-veiled, covert second purpose of these businesses was to operate as a child sexual abuse operation, specifically designed to locate, attract, lure and seduce child sexual abuse victims."
Mr Safechuck also featured with Jackson in a Pepsi commercial and often appeared on stage with the singer.
Mr Safechuck's lawyer Vince Finaldi told BBC News: "He was an employee that was working on behalf of them as a dancer and entertainer on the stage with Michael.
"Because he was a minor, and he was an employee working for them, they had a duty to protect him. That's our argument."
California judge Mark Young disagreed, saying the companies weren't directly responsible for causing emotional distress, and were not able to control Jackson, because he controlled the companies and everyone they employed. Corporations cannot be direct perpetrators, he said.
Mr Safechuck, who is seeking unspecified damages, will appeal.
Jackson vehemently denied the abuse. Mr Safechuck (a child at the time) reportedly gave a witness statement defending Jackson when allegations against the singer first emerged in 1993.
Mr Finaldi is also representing Wade Robson, who appeared in Leaving Neverland too, in a separate lawsuit, which is expected to reach trial next summer.
Leaving Neverland director Dan Reed is reportedly making a sequel about the pair's legal battles. Deadline reported on Wednesday that Jackson's companies had taken legal action against the film-maker.
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Brexit trade deal: What do the UK and EU want? - BBC News
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2020-10-03
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The UK and EU have set out their stalls for negotiations on their future relationship.
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Reality Check
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Trade negotiations tend not to begin with two sides in agreement - otherwise there would be nothing to negotiate.
So it's not surprising to see the UK and EU set out rather different positions before talks begin in earnest.
There are some broad similarities. The two sides agree they want a free-trade agreement, with no tariffs (border taxes on goods) or quotas (limits on the amount of goods). They are also keen to include as much of the service sector as possible.
But that's the easy bit and this is likely to become a bruising experience for all involved.
Terms and conditions always apply - and there are several possible flashpoints.
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First and foremost, the EU wants the UK to sign up to strict rules on fair and open competition, so if British companies are given tariff-free access to the EU market, they cannot undercut their rivals.
These are known as level playing field guarantees and they have been a constant theme in the EU's negotiating position for nearly two years.
Most importantly, its negotiating directives, adopted on 25 February 2020, say a future partnership must "ensure the application" in the UK of EU state-aid rules on subsidies for business.
The UK would also be required to stay in line with the EU's rules on environmental policy and workers' rights in a way that would "stand the test of time".
But the government has now rejected this approach entirely. The political declaration it agreed with the EU last year did speak of level playing field commitments but, armed with a big majority in the House of Commons, it has toughened up its language.
In a document outlining the UK's approach to negotiations published on 27 February 2020, it said: "we will not agree to any obligations for our laws to be aligned with the EU's".
Instead, Boris Johnson has said he would create an independent system that would uphold the UK's international obligations and not undermine European standards.
"There is no need for a free-trade agreement to involve accepting EU rules on competition policy, subsidies, social protection, the environment or anything similar," he said.
He has also pointed out that there are areas such as maternity rights in which the UK has higher standards than the EU and that the UK spent far less money on state aid than Germany or France.
The EU says without a level playing field, it cannot offer any kind of basic free-trade agreement along the lines of the one it has negotiated with Canada.
The UK's response? A Canada-style deal would be its preference, but if that is not available, it will settle for what Australia has with the EU. In other words, no free-trade deal at all.
The government says it will decide in June 2020 "whether good progress has been possible on the least controversial areas of the negotiations" (which it defines as things like financial services and data) and if not, it will start to focus on preparing for a new relationship without a formal free-trade deal.
Either way, says Mr Johnson, a new relationship will begin on 1 January 2021.
His critics accuse him of recklessness, but the prime minister says he has "no doubt that in either case the UK will prosper".
The EU has said an agreement on fisheries must be concluded before any free-trade deal is finalised. That's because UK fishing waters are among the best in Europe.
The UK says it's happy to consider a deal on fisheries but it must be based on the notion "British fishing grounds are first and foremost for British boats".
Its negotiating directives say a future deal should "aim to avoid economic dislocation for [European] Union fishermen that have traditionally fished in United Kingdom waters".
The EU wants to "uphold" existing access on both sides to fishing waters - language that has strengthened under pressure from EU countries with big fishing fleets.
The EU also seems prepared to link access to fishing waters to the UK's ability to sell its fish in the EU market.
But the UK also rejects that. Michael Gove told Parliament: "We will take back control of our waters, as an independent coastal state, and we will not link access to our waters to access to EU markets. Our fishing waters are our sovereign resource."
Fishing is a tiny part of both sides' economies - in the UK it's well below 1% - but it has always been an emotional issue. And coastal communities depend on it on both sides of the Channel.
When it comes to product standards and other regulations, the EU is a bit more flexible.
"We're not asking for alignment, I know it's a red rag to the UK, so I won't really mention it," the EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier said.
"What I am looking for is consistency."
The UK says it must have the right to diverge from EU rules when it chooses to do so, but it won't do that just for the sake of doing things differently.
The more it diverges, the more checks there will be and the more barriers to trade will emerge.
One late addition to the EU's negotiating document is the demand that the UK should stick close to EU rules on food safety and animal health, which is seen by some as a reference to whether the UK might import chlorine-washed chicken from the US in the future.
Similar trade-offs will have to be made in the services sector. UK financial services companies, for example, will lose the passporting rights that gave them unfettered access to the rest of the EU.
Instead, the UK is hoping for a system of what's known as enhanced equivalence, which would give companies plenty of notice if the rules were about to change.
But talk in government circles of frictionless trade has gone. The UK now accepts that will not be possible outside the EU single market and customs union.
The EU's negotiating mandate recalls a statement made back in 2018, in which the other 27 member states agreed Gibraltar would not be included in any post-Brexit agreement between the UK and the EU.
It doesn't rule out a separate deal between the UK and the EU that does cover Gibraltar, but that in turn would have to be agreed by the UK and Spain.
This is another hot-button issue pretty much guaranteed to generate tabloid headlines.
Mr Johnson has said he would be negotiating for what he called the whole UK family, including Gibraltar.
Gaining independence from the rulings of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) was an important part of the argument for Brexit.
Now, the EU is demanding the ECJ be given a legal role in policing any free-trade agreement.
It wants the court to be able to issue binding rulings on disputes between the two sides, when they "raise a question of interpretation of [European] Union law".
But the government's outline says it will not allow "the EU's institutions, including the Court of Justice, to have any jurisdiction in the UK".
The ECJ does play a limited role in the withdrawal agreement, both in the special arrangements for Northern Ireland and in resolving any disputes over citizens' rights for the next few years.
But a future trade deal is a different matter.
Devising a dispute-resolution system that satisfies both sides will not be easy.
It's not just about trade, it's about internal security co-operation and access to databases too.
"Where a partnership is based on concepts derived from European law," Michel Barnier said, "obviously the ECJ should be able to continue to play its role in full".
The EU's mandate also says there should be "automatic termination" of law enforcement and judicial co-operation in criminal matters if the UK were to opt out of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The bottom line for the UK? The ECJ and the EU's legal order "must not constrain the autonomy of the UK's legal system in any way".
So there are some big divides to be bridged.
Both sides are accusing the other of moving the goalposts and backing away from commitments made in the non-binding political declaration.
Many observers expect a serious row and a possible breakdown in the talks sooner rather than later.
On the other hand, both the UK and the EU say they would settle for a free-trade agreement. The difficult part will be working out how to get there and how to implement it.
It is also worth recalling the government's own internal analysis from November 2018 suggested a Canada-style deal would leave the economy 4.9% smaller after 15 years than if the UK had stayed in the EU.
There is a long way to go in a short period of time.
UPDATE: This piece was originally published on 4 February 2020 and updated when the UK and EU released their negotiating mandates.
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Man denied £1.7m payout by Betfred takes fight to High Court - BBC News
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2020-10-17
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Andy Green is suing bookmaker Betfred after it refused to pay up, citing a software error.
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UK
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Andy is suing a betting company after it refused to pay him his £1.7 million winnings.
A man who was refused a payout of £1.7m after his online betting company account was credited with the money has taken his case to the High Court.
Andy Green, 53, from Lincolnshire, said he hit the jackpot in January 2018 playing a blackjack game from bookmaker Betfred on his phone.
Betfred said there was a software error and the company's terms and conditions meant it could withhold the payment.
But lawyers for Mr Green say they have been given no proof of the problem.
After a long night playing the Betfred Frankie Dettori Magic Seven Blackjack in January 2018, Mr Green's online account was credited with £1,722,923.54 which he tried to withdraw - but the request was declined.
After placing some more bets with his winnings he took a screenshot to prove what had happened.
However, a Betfred director called him to say there had been a "software error" and it was rejecting the claim.
As a token of "goodwill" the company was willing to pay £30,000, but Mr Green would have to agree not to talk about it ever again.
Mr Green refused and the company increased its offer to £60,000, which he also rejected.
More than two years later he has gone to the High Court to sue Betfred and its parent company, Gibraltar-based Petfre for £2m, including the interest he would have earned from the win.
Mr Green said "the last two and a half years have felt like hell on earth".
"You wouldn't treat an animal like I've been treated by Betfred," he said.
"Hopefully the judge will accept the arguments put forward by my legal team and this nightmare will be over. My champagne remains on ice!"
Mr Green is in poor health and has suffered four heart attacks - one of them since the money was credited to his online account in 2018.
The legal argument centres on 49 pages of terms and conditions, and game rules which Mr Green ticked when signing up for Betfred.
They include a clause that all "pays and plays" would be void in the event of a "malfunction", and Betfred argues that by ticking the box, Mr Green was agreeing.
His solicitor Peter Coyle said "whilst Betfred's betting terms and conditions are incredibly complicated and span across numerous different documents, we are confident that, on their proper construction, the terms simply don't allow for Betfred to withhold payment".
Mr Coyle pointed out that if "all pays and plays" were void, then Betfred would have refunded other customers, but the company had produced no evidence that had happened. It only wanted to withhold Mr Green's enormous win, he said.
Betfred licences the software for its online games from another company Playtech, which has refused to confirm the nature of the software glitch.
By law, Playtech has to notify the Gambling Commission of Great Britain of the fault, known as a "key event". Mr Coyle says the description of what happened is only four lines long and does not describe the nature of the problem.
Despite repeated requests, Mr Green's lawyers say Betfred has been unable to prove there was a software problem at all. Neither has the company attempted to drag its supplier Playtech into the case.
If the court rules in Mr Green's favour, other gamblers denied their winnings due to technical problems could be able to make similar claims.
Mr Green's lawyers have asked for a summary judgment, which would mean the facts are not at issue and the judge could decide the case without a trial.
The judge has reserved judgement, which could mean one of three outcomes at a later date: deciding the case without a trial in Mr Green's favour, deciding in Betfred's favour, or ordering a trial.
A Betfred spokesman said "the case is currently progressing at court and it is therefore inappropriate for us to comment further".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54564536
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Covid: What the tier rules say about the split between science and politics - BBC News
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2020-10-17
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Why does the divergence between science and politics appear to be wider than it has ever been?
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UK
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Manchester has resisted being put into the "very high risk" tier
Early in the pandemic, the government consistently said it was "following the science" - but what does that really mean, and is the divergence between politics and science now wider than it has ever been?
Some with heels clacking on the cobbles, others capturing the moment on their phones - it's like the aftermath of a big win in the football, or the Saturday after pay day. The videos show Concert Square in Liverpool heaving with crowds.
And this in a city on the crest of a second wave of coronavirus, where almost all the intensive care beds in the hospitals are full.
It was Tuesday night, hours away from the Liverpool City Region entering the toughest restrictions in the country. But the footage sparked anger, and on Twitter there was a fight over the damage to the city's reputation.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Crowds gather in Liverpool on eve of new Covid rules
Dozens of tweets insisted that those present must have been students, that no true Liverpudlian would set foot in Concert Square, let alone behave like that. The tweeters were adamant - these people came from outside.
The mayor and the metro mayor condemned the scenes - but that wasn't the only thing they were angry about.
They accused the government at Westminster of not providing enough financial support - workers affected by the closure of businesses such as bars and gyms will only get two-thirds of their wages.
On the first day of lockdown, one gym owner showed his defiance by remaining open and was fined for it.
Gyms have indeed provided a source of confusion. Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson questioned why gyms in the Liverpool City Region had to close when the area moved into tier three - very high alert - but those in Lancashire, which went into tier three on Saturday, were allowed to stay open.
Liverpool was the first place in England to go into the strictest measures
In Blackburn, with 438 cases per 100,000 (in the week to 13 October), you can work out, but in Wirral, with 284 cases per 100,000, you can't.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has acknowledged inconsistencies. "There are anomalies, that's inevitably going to happen in a complex campaign against a pandemic like this."
But do these discrepancies encourage those who feel the government's decision-making sometimes veers away from the science?
"Following the science" was a phrase we heard a lot of earlier in the year. It's what, we were repeatedly told, the government at Westminster was doing.
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The reality was always more nuanced. There was a range of scientific views on a topic about which precious little was known at the outset, and there are still vast amounts to learn.
Added to that, from the perspective of ministers, this could never only be about scientific advice.
There was a constant swirl of broader considerations, what we might call the three Ls - lives, liberties and livelihoods. Ministers have been tussling with the three Ls from the start of the pandemic. But the divergence has never been wider than it is now.
Claire Hamilton is the BBC's political reporter for Merseyside @chamiltonbbc
The critical moment in recent weeks can be traced back to 21 September, when Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK's chief scientific adviser and Prof Chris Whitty, the UK's chief medical adviser, warned of the need for immediate action.
In a televised briefing, Sir Patrick warned cases could reach 50,000 a day by mid-October if they doubled every seven days, as had happened in recent weeks.
We now know that on that same day, the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) met and suggested the "immediate introduction" of a "short period of lockdown," and a series of longer term measures, including:
A day later, what actually happened?
The prime minister said people should work from home if they could and a 22:00 curfew for pubs and restaurants was introduced. In other words, not a lot of change.
What happened to "following the science"?
Plenty at Westminster whispered, even before we had seen the minutes from the Sage meeting, that this was a victory for those in government, like Chancellor Rishi Sunak, who worried about the pandemic's crippling economic consequences.
Mr Sunak has been consistent - warning again, just this week, of the danger of "rushing to another lockdown". He warned, instead, of the "economic emergency", touching on another of the three Ls - livelihoods.
When you speak to people in the Treasury, you get an insight into what informs this outlook.
"We have to keep an eye on the medium term. There may not be a vaccine. Listening to the scientists recently, the mood music has changed. They're more pessimistic," says one.
This is no longer about dealing with a short-term emergency, but being resilient through a medium or long-term slog of a crisis.
And that means the Treasury is well aware of what is going out - in public spending - and what is coming in, in taxes.
"There isn't the headroom there was," an insider says - a reference to the £200bn already spent.
And there is a keen awareness of the economic consequences of shutting pubs. "Our economy is comparatively very reliant on social consumption," is how it is described.
The experts know the ministers have to take into account a variety of factors. One Sage member said: "Our job is to give clear unvarnished science advice so they can do that with their eyes open."
On Tuesday, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer advocated a short, limited lockdown - the circuit-breaker suggested by the scientific advisers.
But does Sir Keir calling for a circuit-breaker make it more or less likely to happen?
Since then, the government - to quote Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab - has been "leaning in" to its regional response for England.
Political convention says, everything else being equal, it is harder to adopt a policy advocated by your opponents than it is by independent advisers.
Then there's the last of the three Ls. Liberties.
Among the most influential Conservative backbench voices is Sir Graham Brady, who said ministers had got used to "ruling by decree" and "the British people aren't used to being treated like children".
This unease at how the pandemic has, in their view, swept away some of the checks and balances on those in power, is widely held in Parliament.
Then there's the question of geography. First there was devolution for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but now we're all aware of the big English cities that have metro mayors because they are fighting back against Westminster.
According to well-placed sources, Health Secretary Matt Hancock had argued for tougher measures in private. But the need to get local leaders on board has meant the tiered system has had to leave some wriggle room for negotiation.
Ministers were stung when Middlesbrough mayor Andy Preston said he flatly rejected the restrictions that the government announced there in early October. "It was a real problem for us - it undermined the public health message and threatened to undo what we were trying to achieve," one government source said.
Steve Rotheram, Metro Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, had been asking for a lockdown circuit-breaker for at least two weeks - but he said any measures must come with a bespoke financial support package for businesses. It appears this hasn't been forthcoming.
But the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has gone much further than his colleague in Liverpool. On Friday, he was described as "effectively trying to hold the government over a barrel" by Mr Raab.
Mr Burnham, a former Labour cabinet minister, who lost out to Jeremy Corbyn in the 2015 Labour leadership contest, is suddenly back on the national stage. He is demanding noisily and frequently the need for more generous support for those unable to work because of tier three restrictions.
There is nervousness within the Labour Party nationally, and elsewhere in the north of England, about this stance. Some worry it imperils people's health, others that it's become "the Andy show" - as one figure put it.
The idea of "metro mayors" voted for directly by the people of the region has long been championed by the Conservatives. David Cameron was a particular fan.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Top SAGE scientist tells us the regional restriction row is dangerous
"Some Conservatives are now realising you've got to be careful what you wish for," an early advocate of them says.
"And remember this, Boris Johnson was a mayor. There is a path to Downing Street that can pass via a town hall. Perhaps Andy Burnham has realised that too."
What we are seeing is how different parts of the UK have tilted in different directions. Loyalty to region, to nation, to party. The legacies of past perceived slights and injustices. The realities of perceived injustices now.
"We owe a big thanks to George Osborne for bequeathing us this incredible standoff," a senior Conservative says about the row.
Some Conservative ministers ponder privately that - in the end - Mr Sunak will be forced to be more generous to those unable to work under tier three restrictions. They don't think it'll be politically sustainable to pay people normally on the minimum wage, less than the minimum wage, for months on end.
The rows between local and central government leaders are "very dangerous" and "very damaging to public health", according to Prof Sir Jeremy Farrar, Sage member, and director of the Wellcome Trust.
But these are not the only rows that have been taking place. Across the scientific and medical community tempers are frayed and the pandemic is taking its toll.
There is a network of committees that feed into Sage, bringing together a wide range of experts from sociologists and public health directors to epidemiologists.
Many are not paid for their advice and instead are fitting it in around their day jobs. "We do it because we care and it's our life's work," said Prof Devi Sridhar, an expert in global public health at Edinburgh University, who has been advising the Scottish government.
Talk to these experts and it is clear they are exhausted.
"The requests just keep coming in," one said. "We're fed up, especially when we hear that test-and-trace consultants are getting paid £7,000 a day, and we have to put up with MPs going on the TV telling the world we are naïve and don't live in the real world. It's demoralising."
But it is not just between politicians and scientists that disputes have developed. Rival camps of scientists are clashing. Two online petitions have now been established: the Great Barrington declaration for those who want to see controlled spread of the virus and protection of the vulnerable, and the John Snow Memorandum for those arguing for outright suppression until a vaccine is developed.
Prof Francois Balloux, director of the UCL Genetics Institute, says the toxic atmosphere that is developing is really "unhelpful".
Brought together, it has created a climate where almost every utterance or development is examined for double-meaning.
The problem facing advisers and decision-makers is two-fold. First, the nature of the virus means it is a lose-lose situation - whatever decision is taken has negative consequences either for the spread of the virus, or for the economy, education and wider health and well-being. What's more, there is not a simple binary choice of one thing or the other.
For example, much has been made in recent weeks about the need for the NHS to also focus on non-Covid work, which has taken a terrible hit during the pandemic.
Referrals for urgent cancer check-ups and the number of people starting treatment have dropped, while the amount of routine surgery being done is still half the level it was before the pandemic.
This can have tragic consequences. This week the British Heart Foundation warned the number of younger adults dying of heart disease had increased by 15% during the pandemic.
The argument put forward by some is that the government should choose to do more non-Covid work. But, and this is a point the health secretary has been making week after week, if hospitals fill up with coronavirus patients, it makes non-Covid work harder to do.
The second key issue - and this goes to the heart of the disagreements we have seen bubble up in recent weeks among the scientific and medical community - is that there are huge gaps in the evidence and knowledge.
This is true on everything from the numbers infected already and the level of immunity exposure brings to the true impact of "long Covid", and exactly what effect any restrictions beyond a full lockdown actually have.
In normal times, the scientific and medical community is able to reach more of a consensus off the back of rigorous randomised controlled trials and painstaking peer review.
But in a fast-moving pandemic with a new virus, that has simply not been possible. Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, says it means there is such "uncertainty in the science" that he does not think any plan is guaranteed to work.
And then there is the human factor - the unintended consequences of actions that are impossible to take into account in the modelling. Hence the prospect of scenes like the ones we saw in Liverpool, which were not taken into account by Sage in its latest advice.
But Prof Keith Neal, an infectious disease expert at Nottingham University, says it shouldn't come as a surprise that people react in the way they do. Both young and old are suffering, he says, from not being able to meet up with people. "This degree of isolation is not allowed in prisons under human rights legislation."
People from different households will not be able to drink together inside, after London went into tier two
It is, he says, therefore natural that some people will ignore the rules. Closing pubs may sound good on paper, he says, but it could lead to an increase in house parties where people are "far more at risk".
So where has this left us?
The complexity of competing interests, uncertainty in the science and general exhaustion across society both among decision-makers and the public has, some fear, left us in the worst of both worlds.
Delay and deliberation, says Sir Jeremy Farrar is a "decision in itself".
But by reaching a decision by default there is a risk - another adviser says - of making the same mistakes we made at the start of the pandemic.
"In March we toyed with the Swedish model of limited restrictions with the hope of developing immunity and then hesitated. But we then went for a lockdown, but it was introduced bit by bit and it was too late anyway.
"The same thing has happened again - we have delayed and then gone for some half measures. I can understand why. This is bloody difficult."
The government is now hoping it will be just enough that we can get through this wave without a devastating number of deaths or hospitals being overwhelmed. But it's a big risk - it could all unravel.
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Covid: Tighter rules kick in for millions in England - BBC News
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2020-10-17
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But a stalemate continues in Manchester as local leaders resist central government's proposals.
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UK
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An artist works on a mural in Manchester, where an argument over virus restrictions continues between local and national leaders
Millions of people have seen Covid-19 rules tighten as areas have moved up England's new three-tier alert system.
London and York are among those moving up to tier two, meaning people cannot mix with other households indoors.
A stalemate continues between Greater Manchester's local leaders and central government over stricter new measures.
Boris Johnson has said infection rates in Manchester are "grave" and he may "need to intervene" if a row over moving into tier three is not resolved.
More than half of England - in excess of 28 million people - is now under extra coronavirus restrictions.
Lancashire has joined the Liverpool City Region in the top tier - tier three. Pubs must close and the ban on mixing households extends to many outdoor settings.
London, Essex, York, Elmbridge, Barrow-in-Furness, North East Derbyshire, Erewash and Chesterfield have moved into tier two, meaning they can no longer mix inside with those from other households, including in pubs and restaurants.
Areas of England in the lowest tier must keep to the nationwide virus rules such as group sizes being capped at six people, and the hospitality industry closing at 22:00.
Pubs, restaurants and cafes across Northern Ireland have closed to sit-in customers for the next four weeks.
In Wales, a two-week "fire break" - a period with tighter restrictions to help break the trajectory of coronavirus cases rising - is expected within days.
Most licensed premises in Scotland's central belt are closed under temporary restrictions, which are expected to be replaced by a similar multi-tiered system to the one in England by the end of the month.
Celtic and Rangers football fans are being urged not to cross the border into England to watch the Old Firm game in pubs on Saturday.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. There were scuffles between police and pub goers in Soho ahead of London moving to Tier 2
Greater Manchester's local leaders are resisting a move from tier two to tier three's strict rules on hospitality - pressing instead for more shielding measures for the vulnerable, extra financial aid and stricter local powers to shut down venues breaking virus guidelines.
"We firmly believe that protecting health is about more than controlling the virus and requires proper support for people whose lives would be severely affected by a tier three lockdown," the deputy mayors and council leaders said in a joint statement.
"We can assure the prime minister that we are ready to meet at any time to try to agree a way forward."
Mr Johnson warned on Friday that the situation in Manchester was worsening and that he may intervene if the new measures cannot be agreed with the region's leaders.
But Kate Green, Labour MP for Stretford and Urmston said there had been no talks between the government and Greater Manchester's leaders on Friday because "No 10 did not pick up the phone" - with no further meetings expected until Monday.
Rochdale council leader Allen Brett told BBC Newsnight: "I stood by all day waiting for a meeting which never took place."
Local leaders in north-east England said they were committed to "ongoing, constructive dialogue" with central government.
In a joint statement, council leaders in Northumberland, Newcastle, South and North Tyneside, Gateshead, Sunderland and County Durham urged residents to "do their bit" to avoid being put under tier three restrictions.
Meanwhile, calls for a circuit-breaker - a short but strict national lockdown - have been supported by Labour as well as some Conservative MPs.
Kate Green told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The Labour leaders in Greater Manchester support the call for a national circuit-break because what we're seeing in Manchester today - the rest of the country is coming along behind. The rate is rising everywhere."
Ms Green, who is also shadow education secretary, added that extra restrictions would not be effective without a package of support to "enable people to close their businesses [and] to isolate at home if they need to".
Conservative MP and former health secretary Jeremy Hunt called for an end to the "public war of words" between local and national leaders on Saturday, but added he had "sympathy" for the idea of a circuit-breaker.
Britain's largest teachers' union, the National Education Union, has called for secondary schools in England to shut for two weeks at half term, rather than the traditional one week.
Mr Johnson has said that while he could not "rule anything out", he wants to avoid a national lockdown because of "the damaging health, economic and social effects it would have".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. "Time is of the essence" for Manchester - Boris Johnson
It comes as the hospitality industry warned of widespread job losses if businesses do not receive further financial support from the government.
Some 750,000 hospitality jobs could be lost by February 2021, according to an industry survey by three trade bodies in the UK.
"Without urgent sector-specific support for our industry, massive business failure is imminent," a spokesman for UK Hospitality, the British Institute of Innkeeping and the British Beer & Pub Association said.
Public Health England's medical director Yvonne Doyle told the Today programme that officials from local and national public health services were working "extremely hard... to try and ensure that we do the right thing at the right time with the maximum amount of agreement".
She also urged the public to abide by the rules and "understand why that's important".
Meanwhile, county councils in England are calling for the government to give local authorities more control over the test-and-trace system.
The County Councils Network, which represents local authorities in mainly rural parts of the country, hopes to avoid the prospect of greater restrictions in these areas.
The PM said on Friday that the UK was developing the capacity to manufacture millions of tests that could deliver results in just 15 minutes.
The new tests are "faster, simpler and cheaper", Mr Johnson said, adding that work is being carried out to ensure they can be manufactured and distributed in the UK.
The government has set a target of 500,000 tests a day by the end of the month.
Oxford University's Sir John Bell, who has advised the government on its testing programme, told the Today programme it could be "possible" for the UK to carry out a million tests a day by Christmas - but added that logistics such as getting swabs to testing centres quickly were "the limiting factor".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54579616
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news_uk-54579616
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Coronavirus: How the PM's lockdown decisions were shaped - BBC News
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2020-10-13
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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But Boris Johnson could be facing the same accusation again - that he did too little, too late.
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UK Politics
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"Save lives, protect the NHS and shelter the economy."
If you were paying close attention at the end of September when the prime minister made his latest announcements about the limits on our lives, you'd have spotted the change in the slogan, as we reported here.
It was obvious then that the government was trying to grapple, not just with the threat to health, but with the very real prospect of spreading economic misery caused by the initial lockdown earlier this year - and the reality that any new restrictions will cause further harm.
At that point on the 22 September, we had already revealed a few days earlier that the government's scientific committee, Sage, had put forward the idea of a short, sharp lockdown, the so-called "circuit break".
What we now know is the influential committee had directly recommended ministers take that action the day before.
Reading the Sage minutes in black and white, the split between their proposals and the prime minister's eventual decision seems to portray a dramatic sudden split.
It is no surprise, however, the situation is more complicated than that.
First off, despite the political rhetoric at the start of the pandemic, there has never been such a thing as "the" science.
Sage is one important part of the government machine, but among its members there have long been arguments and disagreements before they "grind out a consensus", as it was memorably described.
And indeed, some of its members have spoken out frequently over a period of many months.
You'll remember initial concerns that the government and its chief advisers weren't acting fast enough to lock down in the middle of March.
And the discussions about the testing regime being advanced enough in May.
And other members of Sage warning that the country was still on a "knife edge" when the restrictions started to be rolled back.
The difference between the Sage consensus, however, and the government's decision at the end of last month is now fully on display.
It's the political environment, and the difference of opinion inside government, that has developed too.
At the same time, in the third week of September, there were senior figures inside government arguing for further action, believing that to watch and wait might be a mistake.
But Boris Johnson's decisions were ultimately shaped more strongly by reluctance, not just from the chancellor, but a strong push back from the Tory backbenches, and a fear of public fatigue too.
Don't forget either that the PM himself "hates" having to impose any kind of limits on people's lives, according to one of his team, and recently he's been at pains to point this out too - describing himself on several occasions recently as a "freedom-loving Tory".
The prime minister still wants to do everything he can to avoid another national lockdown.
But depending how bad things get in the next few weeks, the revelations in the Sage documents could leave him open to the same accusation levelled at him first time round - that ministers did too little, and too late.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54524966
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news_uk-politics-54524966
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Gal Gadot's Cleopatra film sparks 'whitewashing' claims - BBC News
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2020-10-13
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Critics on social media say the role of Egypt's famed ruler should go to an Arab or African actress.
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Middle East
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Gal Gadot played Wonder Woman in the 2017 Hollywood film
Plans for a new movie about Cleopatra have sparked a controversy before filming has even started.
The role of the famed ancient Egyptian ruler is to be played by Israeli actress Gal Gadot, best known for her Hollywood depictions of Wonder Woman.
The announcement has led to a row on social media with some alleging "cultural whitewashing", where white actors portray people of colour.
Some have said the role should instead go to an Arab or African actress.
Cleopatra was descended from an Ancient Greek family of rulers - the Ptolemy dynasty. She was born in Egypt in 69BC and ruled the Nile kingdom when it was a client state of Rome.
Gadot herself reportedly commissioned the film and will co-produce it.
The row reflects a growing debate in Hollywood over casting and identity, and whether actors should play characters of different ethnicities to themselves.
Writer on Africa, James Hall, said he thought the filmmakers should find an African actress, of any race.
US writer Morgan Jerkins tweeted that Cleopatra should be played by someone "darker than a brown paper bag" as that would be more "historically accurate".
"Gal Gadot is a wonderful actress, but there is an entire pool of North African Actresses to pick from. Stop whitewashing my history!" posted another user..
Other social media users argued that Cleopatra was more Greek or Macedonian than Arab or African.
The row over Gal Gadot as Cleopatra draws on contemporary arguments over national culture, religion and gender politics.
But the ancient Middle East wouldn't conform to many of our modern views of identity.
Cleopatra was on the throne well before Christianity, for example, and centuries ahead of the Arab conquests of North Africa - she was the last of the Ptolemaic rulers; born in Egypt, descended from Ancient Greeks and dominated by Rome.
But there are plenty more problems with popular depictions of the ancient Nile Queen - often cast as a powerful seductress replete with a sensual, oriental mystique.
That image - including Elizabeth Taylor's famous portrayal - is likely a myth handed down to us by Latin love poets years after Cleopatra's death.
The thousands of depictions of her through the ages are "based on a perilous series of deductions from fragmentary or flagrantly unreliable evidence" according to the British historian Mary Beard.
So little is really known, she adds, that Cleopatra should appear to us today as "the queen without a face".
Statues of Cleopatra have been preserved but historians say we cannot be sure exactly how she looked
Israeli commentators suggested some criticism was based in anti-Semitism.
The Jerusalem Post journalist Seth Frantzman said it made no sense to exclude Jews from playing roles from the Middle East, "when Jews are primarily a people from the Middle East either with distant or recent roots.
You might also be interested in:
"The idea that casting should exclude Jews is shameful and shows a lack of education for the commentators," he said.
Israel's embassy in Washington tweeted: "One icon playing another! Excited for this new take on Cleopatra!"
Gal Gadot's spokesperson declined to comment on the row.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-54529836
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news_world-middle-east-54529836
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Michael Jackson: Court dismisses lawsuit from accuser James Safechuck - BBC News
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2020-10-22
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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James Safechuck claimed the star's companies allowed the star to abuse him and other children.
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Entertainment & Arts
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A US judge has dismissed a lawsuit from one of Michael Jackson's accusers, who claimed Jackson's companies allowed the star to abuse him and other children.
James Safechuck has said the singer started abusing him when he was 10.
In 2014, he sued MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures, and has alleged they "were created to, and did, facilitate Jackson's sexual abuse of children".
But the judge dismissed the case, saying the companies didn't have a duty of care for Mr Safechuck.
Jonathan Steinsapir and Howard Weitzman, representing MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures, told the BBC: "We are pleased that the court agreed that Mr Safechuck had no grounds to pursue his lawsuit."
Mr Safechuck was one of two men who accused the late pop star of abuse in last year's Leaving Neverland documentary.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. James Safechuck (left) and Wade Robson told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire about the abuse in 2019
In his lawsuit, he said Jackson abused him hundreds of times at his homes and on tour in the late 1980s and early 90s.
MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures were set up by Jackson to run his career. But in the lawsuit it was claimed: "The thinly-veiled, covert second purpose of these businesses was to operate as a child sexual abuse operation, specifically designed to locate, attract, lure and seduce child sexual abuse victims."
Mr Safechuck also featured with Jackson in a Pepsi commercial and often appeared on stage with the singer.
Mr Safechuck's lawyer Vince Finaldi told BBC News: "He was an employee that was working on behalf of them as a dancer and entertainer on the stage with Michael.
"Because he was a minor, and he was an employee working for them, they had a duty to protect him. That's our argument."
California judge Mark Young disagreed, saying the companies weren't directly responsible for causing emotional distress, and were not able to control Jackson, because he controlled the companies and everyone they employed. Corporations cannot be direct perpetrators, he said.
Mr Safechuck, who is seeking unspecified damages, will appeal.
Jackson vehemently denied the abuse. Mr Safechuck (a child at the time) reportedly gave a witness statement defending Jackson when allegations against the singer first emerged in 1993.
Mr Finaldi is also representing Wade Robson, who appeared in Leaving Neverland too, in a separate lawsuit, which is expected to reach trial next summer.
Leaving Neverland director Dan Reed is reportedly making a sequel about the pair's legal battles. Deadline reported on Wednesday that Jackson's companies had taken legal action against the film-maker.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-54636636
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news_entertainment-arts-54636636
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Gal Gadot's Cleopatra film sparks 'whitewashing' claims - BBC News
|
2020-10-14
|
['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
|
Critics on social media say the role of Egypt's famed ruler should go to an Arab or African actress.
|
Middle East
|
Gal Gadot played Wonder Woman in the 2017 Hollywood film
Plans for a new movie about Cleopatra have sparked a controversy before filming has even started.
The role of the famed ancient Egyptian ruler is to be played by Israeli actress Gal Gadot, best known for her Hollywood depictions of Wonder Woman.
The announcement has led to a row on social media with some alleging "cultural whitewashing", where white actors portray people of colour.
Some have said the role should instead go to an Arab or African actress.
Cleopatra was descended from an Ancient Greek family of rulers - the Ptolemy dynasty. She was born in Egypt in 69BC and ruled the Nile kingdom when it was a client state of Rome.
Gadot herself reportedly commissioned the film and will co-produce it.
The row reflects a growing debate in Hollywood over casting and identity, and whether actors should play characters of different ethnicities to themselves.
Writer on Africa, James Hall, said he thought the filmmakers should find an African actress, of any race.
US writer Morgan Jerkins tweeted that Cleopatra should be played by someone "darker than a brown paper bag" as that would be more "historically accurate".
"Gal Gadot is a wonderful actress, but there is an entire pool of North African Actresses to pick from. Stop whitewashing my history!" posted another user..
Other social media users argued that Cleopatra was more Greek or Macedonian than Arab or African.
The row over Gal Gadot as Cleopatra draws on contemporary arguments over national culture, religion and gender politics.
But the ancient Middle East wouldn't conform to many of our modern views of identity.
Cleopatra was on the throne well before Christianity, for example, and centuries ahead of the Arab conquests of North Africa - she was the last of the Ptolemaic rulers; born in Egypt, descended from Ancient Greeks and dominated by Rome.
But there are plenty more problems with popular depictions of the ancient Nile Queen - often cast as a powerful seductress replete with a sensual, oriental mystique.
That image - including Elizabeth Taylor's famous portrayal - is likely a myth handed down to us by Latin love poets years after Cleopatra's death.
The thousands of depictions of her through the ages are "based on a perilous series of deductions from fragmentary or flagrantly unreliable evidence" according to the British historian Mary Beard.
So little is really known, she adds, that Cleopatra should appear to us today as "the queen without a face".
Statues of Cleopatra have been preserved but historians say we cannot be sure exactly how she looked
Israeli commentators suggested some criticism was based in anti-Semitism.
The Jerusalem Post journalist Seth Frantzman said it made no sense to exclude Jews from playing roles from the Middle East, "when Jews are primarily a people from the Middle East either with distant or recent roots.
You might also be interested in:
"The idea that casting should exclude Jews is shameful and shows a lack of education for the commentators," he said.
Israel's embassy in Washington tweeted: "One icon playing another! Excited for this new take on Cleopatra!"
Gal Gadot's spokesperson declined to comment on the row.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-54529836
|
news_world-middle-east-54529836
|
|
'Red Wall' Tories form group to campaign for northern England - BBC News
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2020-10-10
|
['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
|
The MPs say they want to use their "collective muscle" to ensure the PM delivers on his promises.
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UK Politics
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Conservative MPs in northern England seats are launching a campaign to ensure Boris Johnson sticks to his promise to boost their regions.
The PM has made "levelling up" - spreading money and power around the country - one of his key priorities.
But the 35-strong Tory group say they want to ensure the government delivers.
It includes several MPs who won seats in traditional Labour heartlands - the so-called "Red Wall" - at last year's general election.
Paul Howell, who won Tony Blair's old seat, in Sedgefield, Simon Fell, the MP for Barrow-in-Furness and Sara Britcliffe, who at 24 became the youngest Conservative MP when she won Hyndburn, in Lancashire, are among those who have signed up to the group provisionally named the Northern Research Group.
Ms Britcliffe said: "I don't need to join a group to speak up for Hyndburn but I have also the responsibility of making sure that we do deliver on our promise."
The group's leader Jake Berry, who has been the Conservative MP for Rossendale and Darwen since 2010, said it was not "about giving government a bad time".
He told BBC Radio 4's The Week in Westminster: "There are arguments that we collectively as northern MPs make together, to create a compelling case for the government to invest in the north".
These include "making sure that this government delivers on its promise to 'level up' the north, deliver that Northern Powerhouse and create wealth across the north of England," he added.
"We don't form a government unless we win the north."
Mr Berry is the former minister for Northern Powerhouse, which was set up by former Chancellor George Osborne to redress the North-South economic imbalance, and to attract investment into northern cities and towns.
He has recently accused Mr Johnson of "enjoying" his Covid-19 powers "a little bit too much" - and suggested the government had "fallen into that fatal trap of making national decisions based on a London-centric view with London data."
Last month Conservative MPs launched a "levelling up taskforce" which said the government should aim to increase wages and employment rates in the poorest areas.
The promise to "level up" the country was a key part of the Conservative's 2019 general election campaign which saw the party win a number of seats in northern England and the Midlands traditionally held by Labour.
Listen to the full interview on The Week in Westminster on BBC Radio 4, Saturday 10th October at 11:00 BST.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54484053
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news_uk-politics-54484053
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