[Ben Bradshaw MP was Minister of State for Health from 2007 to 2009 before promotion to Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport in the last Labour Government. – Owl]

Ben Bradshaw, the Labour MP for Exeter, has a lot to say about how the government has handled the coronavirus pandemic.“Three out of ten. At best, he says. “The actual response to the pandemic has been shambolic, unpredictable, veered all over the place and full of over promising and under delivering.”

Daniel Clark, local democracy reporter www.radioexe.co.uk 

A former health minister, Mr Bradshaw has called the repeated failure of the government to be ahead of the curve and anticipate events scandalous. He says the buck has to stop with the prime minister who has proven himself to be unqualified for the task.

Mr Bradshaw said alarm bells for him began to ring loudly when he was in Italy in February and saw how they were handling the pandemic.

“There were reports in the media about this mysterious virus before that and I think we were so wrapped up in the aftermath of the general election and Brexit that I think we weren’t as a country we weren’t very quick to realise what was coming to hit us. But if you listened at the time to various medical experts or read journals like the Lancet, then alarm bells might have been ringing earlier.

“Co-incidentally I happened to go to Italy for the February half-term and when we arrived at Catania Airport, we were temperature-checked on arrival, and I thought, that’s interesting, as there was absolutely nothing going on in the UK whatsoever, and of course, we know what happened.

“The first wave hit Italy first in the ski resorts and elsewhere and then spread like wildfire to the rest of Europe and the rest of it is history, so it is extraordinary thinking back a year that the whole of 2020 has been dominated by this dreadful pandemic.”

It was a month later before the UK went into its first lockdown, and Mr Bradshaw said: “There is a general consensus that we were far too slow to act. We went into the first lockdown two or three weeks too late and been well documented that thousands of lives could have been saved had we gone into that lockdown earlier.

“Because I have friends and family in Italy I was watching in horror what was happening with the hospitals filling up and not just old people getting ill and dying, but young otherwise healthy people, and we were still fiddling around in Britain.

“We did get the numbers well down in the summer and I would have thought it would have been unsustainable to have maintained those restrictions throughout the summer given the numbers were coming down, but when they started going up, again it seemed the government did too little, too late.”

Mr Bradshaw says he has raised serious questions of what the £12 billion spent on test and trace has actually been spent on, given the country has been through a second lockdown and could be on the verge of entering a third.

“It’s absolutely scandalous that test and trace is completely failing,” he said. “The tracing element is a disaster. Billions and billions of tax payer’s money has been spent on this privatised system run by a crony of the government with no obvious experience or qualification to do the job.

“It’s done an appalling job and the levels of compliance with self-isolation is incredibly low and they are only tracing a fraction of the people, so we cannot afford another national lockdown before we are rescued from a vaccine but if the government doesn’t do better, then I fear that’s where we are heading.”

Asked why people are not complying with some of the restrictions, and the requirement to self-isolate, he said: “I think there are three reasons for that. One is that people can’t afford to do it as the level of income support is not sufficient for them to survive and feed their families. The second is the loss of trust because of Dominic Cummings – one rule for them and one for the rest of us.

“And the third is because of the government’s obsession with this privatised and centralisation approach using huge national call centres that don’t know local areas instead of using existing public health expertise that we have at local level.

“Where the local government has been doing the tracing, they have had a contact tracing rating of 97 per cent, even going and knocking on people’s doors. You can’t do it all using a centralised telephone system, not least when a lot of people, including me, don’t answer the phone when we get a withheld number or an anonymous number that we don’t recognise, so the whole system has been hampered by the government’s obsession with over centralisation, privatisation and handing out these multi-billion pound contracts to the favourites of ministers.

“Look at how well they dealt with and eradicated the Exeter University spike in September and October. That is a very good example of where the partnership working in Devon has been highly successful as it’s been locally driven. They’ve basically ignored what the government has been saying and have been doing their own thing and much more successfully as a result.

“The secret, the big secret, was the university many months beforehand commissioned their own private testing system so they did not have to rely on the disastrous failing national government one. I think the vice chancellor of the university working with Public Health Devon did a fantastic job, and the students did very well in adhering to the rules.

“It goes back to the terrible habit that the government had all the way through of over promising and under delivering and preferring big, glossy, visual PR projects like the Nightingales, which made great telly for the secretary of state to go and open but didn’t address the real need we had at the time.

“Exeter’s Nightingale is one of the few that has actually been used. Most of them have stood empty. I just hope countless lessons are learnt as a result of this, but very depressing at how poor the government has been at learning the lessons and they have kept repeating the same mistakes.”

Devon has fared far better than other areas of the country, and remains the area in England with the lowest death rate. Only Cornwall, the Isle of Wight, Dorset and Wiltshire have had lower infection rates than Devon throughout the pandemic, and at lower tier level, the South Hams, Torridge, Teignbridge, West Devon and Mid Devon are among the bottom ten areas in England.

Asked why Devon has fared better than some other counties, Mr Bradshaw said there was a number of reasons. He said: “Firstly the nature of Devon as a county. It has tended to be the more peripheral and sparsely populated areas that have done best simply because there aren’t vast numbers of people living on top of each other is cramped conditions moving around.

“Secondly, I think the timing of the measures that were taken benefitted us as after the initial small spike in Torbay of holidaymakers who came back from ski holidays, we had very low numbers in the beginning and our numbers were still low when the first lockdown kicked in and they stayed low, and that has been really helpful for us.

“And we have had superb collaborations between our local authorities, the health service, and our public health officials and they have been in the forefront of doing some of the work on contact tracing long before it was happening elsewhere, and they have been ahead of the problems we have had.”

Asked for a rating of the government’s response out of ten, he said: “I’d give them at the most three. The only thing that has been reasonably successful has been the economic support package but even that has been full of holes with millions of people left without support.

“The actual response to the pandemic has been shambolic, unpredictable, veered all over the place, and the buck has to stop with the PM and he is ultimately in charge and he sets the tone, and I’m afraid its revealed Mr Johnson as someone who is not across the detail and he is not able to take unpopular decisions in the timely manner, which sometimes you have to do as a PM.”

One unpopular decision though that he has taken is the cancellation of Christmas for people living in Tier 4 areas, and the relaxation of the rules from five days to just Christmas Day for the rest of England, but Mr Bradshaw said that changing of Christmas rules have left him never having felt so angry with the prime minister.

He said: “I don’t think I have ever felt so angry with this Prime Minister. He never learns. Always over promising and under delivering. Millions of people were encouraged by him to make plans to see family and friends for Christmas, even though he knew cases were soaring and now all these people’s plans have had to be scrapped.”

Mr Bradshaw “When it is all over, there needs to be a fair and just reckoning between the ages as young people have paid a huge price and have been far more economically and socially impacted and affected by this and will have to the devastating fiscal effects to deal with for the rest of their lives.”

Britain should be congratulated for coming to a Brexit deal with the EU, but be wary of the very different world they are walking into, international analysts have said.

Helen Davidson www.theguardian.com 

Outside Europe, politicians, experts, and media took a short break from Christmas and the pandemic to welcome the end of Britain’s long and torturous Brexit process, but there was little in the way of celebration.

In the New York Times, Mark Landler reflected on how much Britain, and the world, had changed since the 2016 vote, when a narrow majority of people were “tempted by an argument that the country would prosper by throwing off the bureaucratic shackles of Brussels”, develop new industries and cut its own trade deals.

But now the world is more protectionist and nationalistic, and vulnerable post-pandemic.

“The world is now dominated by three gargantuan economic blocs – the United States, China and the European Union,” wrote Landler. “Britain has finalised its divorce from one of them, leaving it isolated at a time when the path forward seems more perilous than it once did.”

In that same piece, Thomas Wright, the director of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution cut to the chase: “Becoming a global free trader in 2016 is a bit like turning into a communist in 1989. It’s bad timing.”

In a comprehensive step through of the politics behind history, Linton Besser, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Europe correspondent, predicted Boris Johnson, ever the populist, would swing with the wind on whether the deal was working out.

“The prime minister will continue to trumpet the breakthrough for as long as it’s advantageous to do so,” wrote Besser. “Then, in the not-too-distant future, when electoral profit beckons, he and his allies will find a way, whatever rhetorical contortions are required, to condemn the EU all the same.

The deal will be reprosecuted – perhaps by Johnson himself – in pursuit of another chance to wave a kipper at those pesky Europeans from up on a stage.

“And that’s because Europe has for decades been a very handy straw man for many in the establishment, not least Johnson himself, who paved a path to politics with wildly exaggerated newspaper columns pouring scorn on European cooperation.”

Chinese state media reports on Brexit were viewed more than 140m times on microblogging platform, Weibo, but they did not appear to publish any Chinese-language commentary.

The state-backed tabloid, Global Times, said the deal was “a Christmas gift not only for the British economy but also for the Covid-19-battered global financial market”.

The editorial said the world’s markets were still struggling with the pandemic, and looking for “less chaos”. It commended the British government’s “last ditch efforts” to secure a deal under so much pressure. “There is no denying that a no-deal Brexit would lead to a dramatic change in the life and employment prospects of the Britons,” it said.

In English, Xinhua said that while the deal will “certainly help avoid a Brexit cliff edge”, it was not “a Christmas gift for all”.

Other English-language state media, including CGTN and China Daily, went with an op-ed by former MEP Jonathan Arnott. Arnott wrote that the last-minute nature of the deal – on Christmas eve and a week before deadline – was “breathtaking, though hardly surprising”. “The world is changing,” he said, and how the UK deals with the growing markets of China, India, and South America will be “pivotal”.

“One way or another, it must demonstrate a clear strategy: unless such trading relationships are signed, sealed and delivered, the UK cannot claim to have gained economically from Brexit.”

Japan’s finance minister, Taro Aso, told reporters he welcomed the deal, and “it should be highly valued that a broad agreement was clinched between the two”.

New Zealand’s minister for foreign affairs, Nanaia Mahuta, also congratulated both sides. “We welcome continued stability and continuity,” she tweeted.

A US state department official said the US was committed to negotiating a comprehensive free trade agreement with the UK. “We support the UK in its sovereign decision to depart the EU, and we look forward to continued strong relationships with both the UK and EU,” they said.

The Times of India reported the agreement left “critical parts of the relationship to be worked out later”, and WIO News reported the two parties had “finally agreed” on a deal, and led on reassuring comments by the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen, that the two sides would “stand shoulder to shoulder to deliver on our common global goals”.

However it also reported on economists’ warnings that “leaving the EU’s orbit will still hurt” the world’s current sixth largest economy.

Alex Greer, a chemistry student, runs the Effective Altruism Society at Durham University. “It’s about using evidence and careful analysis to do the most good in the world,” he says. With this mission in mind he recently received an offer he felt could not refuse: would he allow himself to be infected with Covid-19 in the name of science?

Uplifting altruism in action – Owl

www.thetimes.co.uk

Mr Greer, 20, is one of more than 2,500 Britons who have volunteered to take part in the world’s first coronavirus “human challenge trials”. Due to begin in a London hospital next month, they will involve participants being deliberately exposed to the virus in a secure bio-containment suite.

The aim is to accelerate research by studying, in a way not possible in other settings, how our bodies react to the bug and how well the next generation of vaccines can fend it off.

Dominic Wilkinson, a professor of medical ethics at Oxford University, believes the dangers are acceptable and that volunteering signals “an enormous amount of altruism and maturity”.

The project, led by Imperial College, will initially involve a few dozen 18 to 30-year-olds, free of risk factors such as heart disease or diabetes. For this age group studies put the chances of dying of Covid once you’ve caught it at somewhere in the region of one in 10,000. “It’s the sort of risk that women run of dying in childbirth,” Professor Wilkinson said.

On top of that there is the possibility of “long Covid”, where symptoms linger for weeks or months. “But a lot of people have caught the disease and had no say in it,” Mr Greer said. “Hopefully by giving my informed consent I can help prevent others being blindsided.”

At 66, Paul van den Bosch, a GP who has worked for Médecins Sans Frontières, will not be eligible for the first trials but he hopes that older people, a priority group for vaccines and treatments, will eventually be allowed to take part.

“We’ve become a little bit obsessed by an injunction to stay safe,” he said. “Our lives are finite and it’s not our job to to stay safe all the time. We’re going to die in the end — and if one wants to be romantic about it then, you know, dying gloriously is better than dying of dementia. And from a practical point of view, the risks aren’t huge. They’re much smaller than a lot of the things that people do, like climbing Everest [where about one in a hundred climbers beyond base camp die].”

What does his family think? “I’ve worked overseas in difficult environments and a few years ago I donated a kidney so I’m known as a risk taker.”

Over the past year scientists have developed vaccines at a pace that many doubted was possible, but it still was not fast enough to stop the world being turned upside down by the virus. By providing £34 million for the challenge trials, the UK government is signalling a belief that the process can be accelerated further still.

This seems plausible: the American company Moderna had created a coronavirus jab by February 24, although it took another eight months to show that it worked. This was done by recruiting 30,000 people for a field trial and giving half of them the real vaccine and half a placebo. The scientists had to sit back and wait for infections to strike naturally. It took until mid-November for 95 people to catch the bug, enough to assess with reasonable statistical certainty that it was effective.

Challenge trials offer a shortcut to that process because scientists can observe infections from the moment the pathogen meets its host. By scrutinising every detail from the outset the trials should help to define how the immune system mobilises to fend off the coronavirus, as well as the duration of vaccine-induced immunity and the measurable signs that a person is protected. The first step will involve working out the smallest amount of virus you can expose somebody to and cause an infection. (Volunteers will probably have it dripped into their nose.) This should help to minimise the risk of severe disease.

The Vaccine Task Force, the government body responsible for building stockpiles, has secured the first three challenge trial slots to test new jabs. A second generation of vaccines is likely to be needed, it says, for boosting protection, addressing supply challenges, tackling mutations in the virus and making immunisation campaigns cheaper. It envisages a “fast to fail” approach, where challenge trials quickly sort out the vaccine chaff. If transmission rates are low this may be the only way that the next swathe of inoculations could be tested. The option for large-scale field efficacy studies simply may not exist.

The volunteers are on board with this thinking. Jennifer Wright, 29, a physics PhD student at the University of Glasgow, says she has been motivated by the ability to gather otherwise unobtainable data. She would also like to feel as if she had done her bit. “I’m very sure that I would like to take a risk to help out,” she said. “Some of my friends work for the NHS and they’ve been taking risks all through the pandemic while I’ve been looked after and stayed safe.”

In the spring Seán McPartlin, 22, a philosophy student at Oxford, became involved with 1Day Sooner, the non-profit group through which all the volunteers interviewed here have signed up. It has held discussions with Imperial but the researchers may end up enrolling volunteers through other channels.

Volunteers for the Imperial trial are expected to be paid about £4,000 for a two or three-week stay at the Royal Free Hospital in London and probably about a year of follow-up appointments. Mr McPartlin has been calling would-be participants and says they have not seemed very interested in financial incentives. “They’re committed to the rationale,” he says.

Around the world 1Day Sooner has recruited more than 38,000 challenge volunteers and won the backing of several Nobel winners as well as Adrian Hill, one of the leaders of the Oxford vaccine team. Mr McPartlin has been making sure that the volunteers know what they are letting themselves in for.

“Most had done their due diligence,” he says. “The outstanding questions were practical. What exactly is the quarantine facility going to be like? Will there be wifi?”

Bleak Youtube reminder of the year in 4 or 5 minutes from Morten Moreland of The Times

This is just a start. Owl has a little list of those who won’t be missed.

And:

Consulting, blogging, eye test advertising: what next for Dominic Cummings?

Rajeev Syal www.theguardian.com 

For an alleged “career psychopath”, as David Cameron once described him, Dominic Cummings appears to have a number of job options available when he leaves the employment of Downing Street next week.

Friends and rivals wonder whether Boris Johnson’s chief aide – who survived unprecedented anger over his lockdown travels but not a power struggle involving the prime minister’s fiancee – will set up a thinktank, launch a consultancy specialising in data, or just write a series of 5,000-word blogs.

Former colleagues say he can take his pick of possible new jobs, including lucrative consultancy work for hedge funds and City banks keen to take advantage of his expertise and inside knowledge on the UK’s post-Brexit future.

Two Conservative sources said Cummings, 49, might seek to work with Ben or Marc Warner – brothers with whom he has been closely associated and reportedly admires. Ben Warner, a data scientist recruited to Downing Street last year after running the Tory party’s general election campaign model, attended Sage meetings with Cummings during the pandemic.

Marc Warner runs Faculty, an artificial intelligence company involved in an “unprecedented” data-mining operation as part of the government’s response in mapping the coronavirus outbreak. Faculty was hired by Cummings to work for the Vote Leave campaign and counts current and former Conservative ministers among its shareholders. It was paid £400,000 by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government for the work, according to the contract.

One former colleague of Cummings said: “Dom will want to do something that interests him. He is still fascinated by data and the possibilities of AI. Plus, it would enhance that image of himself as a cutting-edge maverick, breaking new barriers. He would like that.”

Cummings could seek to further influence the direction of government by either setting up a thinktank or taking up a lofty position within one. Another former colleague said: “He will no doubt still believe that there is work to be done, for example on calling for a referendum on the European convention on human rights or civil service reform.”

If he does decide to set up on his own – with a consultancy, lobbying firm or thinktank, Cummings could attract support from several wealthy admirers. Friends say he has close ties with political benefactors including Lord Nash, Paul Marshall and members of the Bamford family behind the machinery manufacturer JCB.

Another option would be to reinvigorate his eponymous blog in which he wrote about Brexit, education reform and even claimed to have predicted the coronavirus pandemic.

Last year, he extolled the virtues of a Darpa-like agency, a US government body that encourages emerging technologies, which some claim he could help pioneer in the UK.

Whether or not Cummings decides to join the private sector, former colleagues said that he still commands respect among senior cabinet ministers, including the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, and the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, even as his relationship with Johnson has cooled.

One said there’s a chance Cummings could return to frontline politics if a pro-Brexit government asked him. His campaign slogans helped win a referendum and an 80-seat majority. “Boris and Dom had a close professional relationship which could be reignited again if needed. If the Conservatives need to win another election to preserve Brexit, Dom could be persuaded to return,” the source said.

Seventeen months ago, Cummings was some way from being a nationally known figure when he was invited into Downing Street by Johnson. He had already been labelled a “career psychopath” by Cameron, who was perhaps stung when Cummings paraphrased Bismarck to label the former Tory leader “a sphinx without a riddle”.

His combative nature, ruthless attitude towards fellow advisers and his decision to bend the rules in the first lockdown to travel from London to Durham with his unwell family in May put him under an unprecedented media spotlight for an unelected aide.

In the controversy that followed the revelation of the Durham trip, Cummings claimed he had undertaken a visit to nearby Barnard Castle to test his eyesight. Last month, following a power struggle involving Johnson’s fiancee, Carrie Symonds, Cummings announced he would stand down in December, and work from home until then.

In the unlikely event that other options are closed, Cummings could perhaps still attempt to cash in by advertising eye tests – but the high street opticians Specsavers said that the peak moment for publicity may have passed. After the scandal of the Durham trip broke, daytrippers took to posing for selfies outside the town’s branch of the opticians.

A Specsavers spokesperson said: “Dominic Cummings has done more than anyone this year to promote the importance of regular eye tests. We very much doubt that anything could top the interest he generated in Specsavers back in May and our store in Barnard Castle is keen to keep a lower profile next year.”

The Scott Trust, the ultimate owner of the Guardian, is the sole investor in GMG Ventures, which is a minority shareholder in Faculty.

“The prime minister’s repeated dithering, delays and seeming inability to make unpopular decisions have led Britain to have one of the worst death rates in the world. We have now cancelled Christmas and triggered international alarm. We can only hope that we’re not still in this position by Easter.”

Anthony Costello www.theguardian.com

During the first wave of Covid-19 in Britain, many scientists – myself included – said the government should be pursuing a “maximum suppression” or “zero Covid” strategy. One of the many reasons for this was to stop natural selection doing its work. When a virus is allowed to spread, spending time in different hosts, it evolves and mutates. Scientists have now found a “mutant” variant of the virus that causes Covid-19, which has 17 alterations to its genetic sequences, including changes in the spike protein that enables the virus to enter our cells.

Despite the warnings, the government’s strategy throughout the pandemic has been to slow the spread of the virus and reduce pressure on the NHS, rather than eliminating Covid altogether. As late as 13 March, Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) minutes recorded that “measures seeking to completely suppress [the] spread of Covid-19 will cause a second peak”. Advisers warned that countries such as China, where heavy suppression was already under way “will experience a second peak once measures are relaxed”. Instead of eliminating coronavirus, the logic seemed to be, Britain would learn to live with it.

Nine months later, China and South Korea have recorded three and 12 deaths per million people respectively. By contrast, based on the government data for deaths occurring within 28 days of a positive Covid test, the UK has recorded 970 deaths from Covid per million people.

Scientists only expected the virus that causes Covid-19 to undergo one to two mutations each month – but with an estimated 2 million people now infected with Covid in the UK, there are many more opportunities for the virus to mutate. The new variant seems to be accelerating transmission. Many have asked whether this will affect the efficacy of a vaccination programme – but this is something scientists could likely fix reasonably quickly by adjusting the RNA coding of the new vaccines. It’s not possible to tell yet whether the new variant of the virus will change the severity of Covid-19 in those who catch it.

What’s certain is that the greater the number of people who are infected, the more chance a virus has to evolve. The government rightly fears that a surge in cases in southern England, where transmission is worryingly high, will spread across the country, and EU member states have banned travel and limited freight from the UK in an attempt to stop the variant spreading. Measures to prevent the spread of Covid are much the same as before – restricting household mixing, social distancing, travel bans, rapid testing, contact tracing and isolation, face masks, hand hygiene and working from home. Workplaces and schools will remain shut over Christmas, and the tier 4 lockdown in London and the south-east should dampen the opportunities for infections. For now, the government’s priority should be scaling up vaccinations as quickly as possible, and offering proper support to those affected by lockdown and self-isolation measures.

But none of this was inevitable. The recent surge cannot be blamed on a mutant virus alone; in fact, government mismanagement of the pandemic meant that many more people became infected, creating the conditions for mutations to occur.

The failures of the government’s pandemic response are legion. An earlier lockdown by just one week in the spring could have halved the death rate, according to Nick Davies, a Sage adviser. Ministers wasted billions on outsourcing an allegedly “world-beating” test-and-trace system to private companies. It has failed to monitor rates of self-isolation and provided scant financial support to those asked to quarantine at home, relying on workers who don’t get sick pay, such as those in the gig economy, to isolate while losing wages. After Britain’s spring lockdown, infection rates fell, but the government again failed to do what was needed in time to suppress the virus.

The government’s poor control of Covid-19 has increased the force of the infection and allowed more mutations to happen. On top of the economic costs of lockdown measures, the UK has now been effectively placed in quarantine by the international community. The prime minister’s repeated dithering, delays and seeming inability to make unpopular decisions have led Britain to have one of the worst death rates in the world. We have now cancelled Christmas and triggered international alarm. We can only hope that we’re not still in this position by Easter.

• Anthony Costello is professor of global health and sustainable development at University College London and a former director of maternal and child health at the WHO

Occasionally, Old Owl sets New Owl a cryptic challenge.

This one is to find the “right” led by Donkeys update.

The one posted yesterday, though entertaining, wasn’t the one intended! Ooops.

So let’s try this.

East Devon’s 20 Covid-safe public toilets will be closed on Christmas Day and will re-open as usual from Boxing Day onwards. 

Don’t get caught out! – Owl

Daniel Wilkins​ www.exmouthjournal.co.uk 

Due to the level of staffing needed for the required enhanced cleaning for Covid 19 compliance, the council has decided to close the public toilets on Christmas Day.  

An East Devon District Council spokesman said: “Closing the toilets on Christmas Day will allow staff to be with their extended families – their  ‘Christmas Bubble’ –  which, due to national restrictions, is the only day where they can meet their family and friends.”

Since the first national lockdown, the majority of East Devon’s public toilets have remained open with enhanced Covid cleaning – three times a day in the winter and five times a day over the summer. 

Three companies have been selected to roll-out full fibre broadband networks on behalf of the Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) programme, backed by Government funding.

Three for the price of one?

Everyone jumping on the bandwagon – why has it taken so long to get going?

In March Owl wrote:

“Owl recommends searching the archive using a combination of these terms: Twiss; broadband supremo; omnishambles. How far back can you go?”

Posted on: 23 December 2020 www.devonnewscentre.info 

Airband, Truespeed and Wessex Internet will be installing full fibre broadband across Devon and Somerset to more than 56,000 rural homes and businesses over the next four years.

The combined public and private sector investment of around £80million will be in the vanguard of the Government’s ambitions to build a Gigabit capable network across the UK.

The three companies all have experience of working in the region and, between them, have already delivered connections to nearly 41,000 premises in the CDS region.

In the new roll-out, Airband will be expanding its full fibre coverage into rural areas of Somerset West and Taunton, parts of Sedgemoor, East Devon, as well as areas of Mid Devon, South Hams and Teignbridge.

Truespeed will be working in B&NES (Bath & North East Somerset), North Somerset, Mendip and part of Sedgemoor, while Wessex Internet will deliver in rural communities of South Somerset.

Work is due to start next year for completion in 2024. The initiative is being funded by the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Heart of the South West LEP, CDS local authorities, European Regional Development Fund and the Rural Development Programme for England.

Minister for Digital Infrastructure, Matt Warman MP, said: “Today’s announcement marks a major step forward in our mission to build back better in the South West, with thousands of homes and businesses set to be linked up to lightning fast gigabit broadband thanks to an £18.4 million investment by the government. With Airband, Truespeed and Wessex Internet now on board I am confident we will deliver on our ambition for an infrastructure revolution in Devon and Somerset.”

Councillor David Hall, CDS Board Member and Somerset County Council Cabinet Member for Economic Development, Planning and Community Infrastructure, said: “We’re pleased to confirm the appointment of three well-established, regionally-based suppliers to help with the challenge of delivering the next phase of the CDS programme. They have significant experience of delivering broadband connections in rural areas of Devon and Somerset, so they have an understanding of the remote areas where CDS is looking to improve connectivity. This investment will deliver full fibre broadband ahead of many other parts of the country.”

Councillor Rufus Gilbert, CDS Board Member and Devon County Council Cabinet Member for Economy and Skills, said: “These contracts will deliver vital connectivity to a significant number of rural communities across Devon and Somerset helping our businesses and supporting local jobs. Access to services online, home working and staying connected has never been more important, and these investments will provide a much needed boost to our rural and coastal communities”.

Redmond Peel, Founder and Director of Airband, said: “We are thrilled to have won these contracts. As a company, we passionately believe that rural communities should have access to the same level of high-quality connectivity, and therefore opportunities, as those in urban areas. Today’s announcement is a step towards closing the digital divide and delivering industry leading connectivity to those who need it most.”

Evan Wienburg, Truespeed CEO, said: “We are delighted to have won these prestigious contracts with CDS to bring Gigabit-capable full fibre broadband to harder to reach communities in the south west. As a Somerset-based business focused on building out our own full fibre infrastructure to areas left behind by the industry giants, we are the natural partner for CDS. The requirement for full fibre broadband is essential as more people study and work from home. Many Truespeed customers are already benefiting from our ultra-reliable, ultra-fast broadband service and we will continue to work as hard and as fast as we can to accelerate our roll out.”

Hector Gibson Fleming, Managing Director of Wessex Internet, said: “This hugely exciting programme will allow us to focus on delivering even more connectivity to rural homes and businesses across South East Somerset. We already have a track record of delivering in this challenging geography and the programme will allow us to accelerate our work while still retaining our collaborative approach. We now look forward to partnering with more farmers and communities across the area to deliver full-fibre connections to even more of the countryside that has been overlooked by the major network providers.”

Karl Tucker, Chair, Heart of the South West LEP, said: “The appointment of the three suppliers to deliver the rollout of full fibre coverage to people and businesses into thousands of rural homes and businesses in the Heart of the South West LEP area is good news. It has never been more vital than it is now to ensure our communities and businesses have access to good connectivity and the three companies all have extensive experience of working in our area. The HotSWLEP is delighted to be supporting this programme through our Growth Deal funding.”

CDS has delivered connectivity to more homes and businesses than any other broadband programme in England.

Nearly one million homes and businesses in Devon and Somerset now have access to superfast broadband thanks to the Government supported CDS programme and stimulation of the commercial market which is an important element of CDS’s role. Of these, over 300,000 homes and businesses have access to superfast broadband as a direct result of public funding.

As part of its Fibre Extension Programme, CDS is currently funding fibre broadband connections to over 6,000 homes and businesses being delivered by Airband. Thanks to the high level of take-up of broadband services in the region from previous connectivity delivered by Openreach, CDS is also re-investing a £6 million dividend to extend full fibre coverage to over 2,000 premises, again working with Openreach, through the Government’s “Gainshare” agreement with the company.

CDS is also working closely with the Government’s Rural Gigabit Voucher programme to support communities who wish to contract with telecoms providers to design bespoke broadband solutions for their communities. To date, over 3,400 premises in Devon and Somerset have been connected to fibre through the Rural Gigabit Voucher Scheme, with another 2,800 vouchers approved for build over the next 12 months. This represents a voucher investment of nearly £7.4 Million in full fibre across the CDS region.

Investment from CDS can only take place in areas where there are no current or credible future plans to deliver Next Generation Access (NGA) broadband infrastructure capable of download speeds of at least 30Mbps.

The whole Connecting Devon and Somerset programme is expected to deliver an £800 million boost to the regional economy.

Millions more people in the east and south east of England are to enter tier four on Boxing Day, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has announced.

Somerset moves up to Tier 3 and Cornwall to Tier 2 but apparently no change in Devon – Owl

BBC News www.bbc.co.uk

The places moving into the highest level of restrictions – which include a “stay at home” order – border the areas already in tier four.

A number of areas will also move up into tiers three and two.

Mr Hancock also revealed that another new coronavirus variant from South Africa has been detected in the UK.

He said anyone who had been there in the last two weeks must quarantine immediately.

The health secretary told the Downing Street briefing the old tiering system was not enough to control the new variant of the virus.

He said cases had been rising in some of the places close to where the current tier four restrictions are, such as East Anglia, which had seen a “significant number” of the new fast-spreading variant.

“It is therefore necessary to put more of the East and South East of England into tier four.”

Areas moving to tier four are: Sussex, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Hampshire, with the exception of the New Forest, and the parts of Essex and Surrey not already in the toughest restrictions.

Mr Hancock also announced that other areas would move into higher tiers.

Areas moving to tier three are: Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset, including the North Somerset council area, Swindon, the Isle of Wight, the New Forest and Northamptonshire as well as Cheshire and Warrington.

Cornwall and Herefordshire will move into tier 2.

The health secretary also said two cases have been detected of another new variant of the coronavirus in the UK.

Both were contacts of cases who have travelled from South Africa over the past few weeks, he said.

He said: “This new variant is highly concerning because it is yet more transmissible and it appears to have mutated further than the new variant that has been discovered in the UK.”

The health secretary said both cases and close contacts of the cases have been quarantined.

There are immediate restrictions on travel from South Africa and the government is telling those who have been in contact with anyone who has been in South Africa in the last fortnight that they must quarantine.

He added: “These measures are temporary while we investigate further this new strain which is shortly to be analysed at Porton Down.”

Darts Farm is being investigated after hosting a controversial outdoor carol service last week.

Howard Lloyd www.devonlive.com

The backlash came after images from the event on social media apparently showed significant numbers of people apparently not socially distancing or wearing face coverings.

It was held on the grounds of Darts Farm, in Topsham, on the evening of Wednesday, December 16.

Visitors were asked to congregate outside by The Shack with Christ Church Woodbury and SW Comms Band leading the music.

After a barrage of criticism via social media, Darts Farm defended themselves, insisting that they had followed the suggestions from the Government’s ‘Covid-19: suggested principles of safer singing’ guidelines’.

“You could say that it was more organised than most busy high streets on a Saturday,” said a spokesperson.

A screen shot of the outdoor Christmas carol evening at Darts Farm

But East Devon District Council have now announced that they are looking into the ‘planning and control measures’ to work out if rules were broken.

They are currently awaiting information from the business.

“East Devon District Council is currently investigating to establish what planning and control measures went in to this event to determine if any offence was committed,” said a spokesperson.

“We are currently awaiting further information from the business so have no further comment to make at this time.”

The event, which included a collection for Exeter Foodbank and offered mince pies and mulled apple juice, was watched by many on Dart Farms Twitter feed, although that link was swiftly removed.

On its Facebook page, people vented their anger and disgust at the event.

One person said: “Who thought this would be a good idea? I’m furious how you think you could be above the law.”

In agreement someone said: “I am beyond fuming. You’re bragging about supporting families who have been hit hard by Covid then you host a get together to sing carols.

“The pictures show the massive crowd with no distancing and no masks. Covid has affected us all in one way or another, but you go ahead with a get together that the government has banned others from.

“Those that attended and whoever thought up such a stupid idea should be fined too.”

In response, a spokesperson for Darts Farm said: “We are so thrilled to have been able to run our Outdoor Christmas Carol Evening last night, that complied with all the guidance from the government’s ‘Covid-19: suggested principles of safer singing’.

“With unlimited outdoor space and using closed off car parking, everyone was able to social distance and stand where they wanted. You could say that it was more organised than most busy high streets on a Saturday.

“The actual programme for the evening, including all of the carols, was on our website so that everyone could follow and sing using their phones – reducing any contact with no one gathered around a screen with projected words.

“From all those that attended, we have had nothing but positive feedback and interestingly the only criticism has come from those that didn’t actually attend the evening.

“The comments we have received include, ‘really moving hearing people singing together again even at a distance’, and ‘a big thank you for the organised carol service this evening. You do not know how much we needed that. God bless and merry Christmas’.

“It was brilliant to be able to see our local community come together in festive spirits in what has been a very challenging year. Outdoor carol singing is something that has been encouraged by the government in their recent guidance to help lift our spirits this Christmas.”

A former Conservative Party councillor has said he will not apologise after replying to a union email about school meals with the phrase “if you can’t feed, don’t breed”.

www.independent.co.uk 

Roger Taylor, now an independent councillor on Calderdale Council in West Yorkshire, sent the reply to a newsletter from the public services union Unison, which contained a request to help save the school meals service.

Mr Taylor – expelled from the Tory party last year following an Islamophobia investigation – said he believed it was up to parents to feed their children during the holidays.

“Many of these so-called impoverished children have smart phones,” the councillor claimed.

Unison, which had referenced the recent campaign by Manchester United star Marcus Rashford to tackle child food poverty, said it was “beyond belief that someone could show so little compassion”.

The union’s 10 December email contained a letter to councillors asking for their help to stop the school meals service from becoming a “casualty of the pandemic,” which they said had led to cuts to the service, staff numbers, pay and hours of work.

The letter added: “It is good news that the government finally agreed to fund free school meals holiday provision over the Christmas holiday period, and we pay tribute to Marcus Rashford for his determination. But this is not the only area where school meals are under pressure – provision of hot meals for pupils during term-time in schools is suffering too.”

The Independent would like to keep you informed about offers, events and updates by email, please tick the box if you would like to be contacted

In his response on 18 December, Mr Taylor said: “If you can’t feed, don’t breed. Simples.”

Speaking to the Press Association, the councillor said: “I’m not going to apologise for it. What I said is what I said. That’s my opinion, I’m entitled to say it.”

Mr Taylor, who represents the Northowram and Shelf wards in Halifax, continued: “Many of these so-called impoverished children have smart phones and we expect the taxpayers to dip into their pockets to feed them. Where does it end? I don’t mind free school meals when they’re at school, that’s fine. I just think enough’s enough.”

Jon Richards, Unison head of local government, said: “Children all over the country are going hungry because of the pandemic. Low-income families need support, not abuse from those who should know better.

“It’s hard to fathom how a politician would think this is an appropriate way to react when asked to help children living in abject poverty.”

Mr Taylor was suspended by the Conservatives in November 2019 following an investigation into Islamophobia. The Halifax Conservatives said he was expelled from the party last December.

He had been named in a dossier sent to the party and obtained by The Guardian which contained details of unacceptable material shared or posted on social media by 25 current and former Tory councillors.

Plymouth is a “hot spot” in Devon for the new virus mutant.

By Laura Donnelly, Health Editor and Lucy Fisher, Deputy Political Editor www.telegraph.co.uk

Government sources warn there is ‘high chance’ of full national lockdown in New Year as virus mutation ‘bleeds’

A swathe of areas hit by surging coronavirus rates are likely to be placed into Tier 4 restrictions from Boxing Day, ministers will announce on Wednesday. 

Ministers are expected to sign off plans for tougher measures for many areas at a meeting of the Covid-O operations committee as concern grows about the virus mutation spreading from the South-East.

Government sources have warned that there is a “high chance” of a full national lockdown in the New Year.

On Tuesday, Britain recorded 691 Covid deaths – the second highest daily toll since last May and a jump of a fifth in one week – while daily cases reached 36,804, the highest number recorded yet.

Under the Boxing Day measures, the worst-hit places will be plunged into Tier 4 – a “stay home” measure akin to lockdown that was introduced in London and much of the South-East earlier this week – and many areas in the lower tiers could be moved to Tier 3, forcing the closure of all pubs, restaurants and non-essential shops.

On Tuesday night, health officials and local leaders in Birmingham held a Gold Command meeting to discuss whether to request that the city and its 1.1  million 
residents be moved into Tier 4.

Areas on the edges of the current tiers are particularly vulnerable, with health officials warning that the new variant of the virus is “bleeding” across boundaries. Hotspots of the mutation have been found in Cumbria and Devon, as well as across large parts of Sussex, Surrey, Essex and Norfolk, just beyond the borders of the current Tier 4.

Health officials are concerned that the exodus of large numbers of people from Tier 4 areas into the Midlands and the North has fuelled the spread. On Monday, Sir Patrick Vallance, chief scientific adviser, said cases were “everywhere” and signalled that restrictions are set to increase.

A Government source said: “Changes are expected, including in some areas that are currently on the margins and edges of Tier 4 areas. We’re concerned that some areas have had significant increases in case numbers as a result of the mutation.”

Whitehall sources said there was now “a high chance” that the country would be placed into a third lockdown after Christmas. One said: “The expectation now is that we can get through Christmas, but after that the chances of a full lockdown in the New Year look pretty high.”

The source added that while ministers were reluctant to announce such measures and would prefer to extend the use of Tier 4, “there comes a point where it doesn’t make much sense to stick with it”.

“If the new variant continues to bleed across the country, and we see more cases of it in the North, then there isn’t much of a case for keeping anyone out of Tier 4, so it amounts to a national lockdown, whether it is called it or not,” the source said.

“No decision has been taken, but the numbers look awful – everything is going the wrong way, and the numbers are worse than those that triggered the December lockdown.”

In Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon said a full lockdown may be imposed due to concerns about the 
virus variant. The First Minister also suggested a week-long delay to Scottish schools reopening after the Christmas holidays, currently set to end on January 11, could be extended.

“It seems that we are facing a virus that spreads much faster now than in March, so we need to consider whether the current level four restrictions will be sufficient to suppress it,” she said.

“It took a really strict lockdown earlier in the year to get the ‘R’ number back below one. We face a situation now where ‘R’ is around one again and we have a virus transmitting more quickly.

“For those living in level 4 areas – which from Saturday will be the vast majority of us – our strong advice is to stay as local as possible and at home as much as possible. We will be considering in the days ahead whether we need to place that advice in law.”

On Sunday, Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, said those who had fled London for the North after the Tier 4 travel ban was announced were “totally irresponsible”. Health chiefs from the North and Midlands have since pleaded with those who took such journeys to isolate for 10 days, and turn away any visitors on Christmas Day.

The advice came after scenes of people packing railway stations in London hours before Tier 4 controls came into force at midnight on Saturday, prompting fears the more infectious new variant could be spread across the country.

Genetic data, mapping the spread of the new variant, show that it has emerged in areas hundreds of miles apart. A map released by Public Health England showed that labs had found significant numbers of cases of the new variant across the South-East, in areas just outside the Tier 4 restrictions.

Wealden, in East Sussex, has weekly rates of 287 cases per 100,000 after numbers more than doubled in a week, and at least 30 per cent of cases involve the mutated strain.

Across the rest of the county, rates more than tripled in a week in Eastbourne and Lewes, while they have doubled in Crawley and Tendring. In each area, at least 20 per cent of cases involve the new mutation. Similarly, Waverley in Surrey – also just outside current Tier 4 areas – has also registered a doubling in the rates.

The data also show hotspots much further afield. While case numbers are lower, Allerdale, in Cumbria, and Plymouth, in Devon, are both singled out as areas where at least one in five cases is the mutation, with numbers rising.

Health chiefs in Cumbria have said the new variant could be behind “skyrocketing” increases in a number of areas.

Colin Cox, the director of public health for Cumbria, said rates in the district of Eden had risen to 345 cases per 100,000 people, the highest seen in the county to date.

He said: “It’s pretty clear that while it is the South-East of England that is having the worst of it right now, this new variant is already present in most parts of the country.

“Only a small number of cases have been positively identified in Cumbria, but what is happening in Eden, which throughout the pandemic has had low levels of infection and now has the highest we’ve seen, points to something different going on.”

Suggestion discussed on BBC “Today” this morning by Professor David Salisbury, former Director of Immunization at the Department of Health of United Kingdom.

This article also discusses the same question.

Angus Chen www.wbur.org

Tucked inside the Food and Drug Administration’s analyses of Moderna and Pfizer’s vaccines was a pleasant discovery: A single injection of either of the two-dose vaccines appears to provide strong protection against the coronavirus.

With supplies of the vaccines limited — and hundreds of millions of people waiting for inoculation — this leaves epidemiologists grappling with a complicated question. Should the nation vaccinate fewer people with the best protection possible, or provide twice the number of people with a single shot, covering more of the population but with slightly weaker protection?

“[The] question is a really difficult moral and scientific one,” says Barry Bloom, an epidemiologist at Harvard University. “If the second vaccine dose were superfluous, and we knew [it] didn’t extend the duration of protection, the principle would be to protect as many people and save as many lives as possible.”

The right answer, in other words, depends on science we haven’t yet completed. For one, the protection from a single dose of Pfizer’s vaccine hasn’t been definitively tested. Scientists can only infer from the trial data that Pfizer’s vaccine would provide protective antibodies to roughly half of people who get one dose.

But Dr. Chris Gill, an infectious disease specialist at Boston University, points out that a single injection of Pfizer’s vaccine may be even more effective than this estimate suggests. Looking at data from a smaller window between the time the first injection should have started working and before the second injection kicked in, Gill says the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine may have an efficacy rate as high as 80 or 90% with just a single dose.

Moderna actually collected data from people who only received one dose of its vaccine, Gill says. Some 2,000 participants in Moderna’s phase three clinical trial received just a single injection of either a placebo or the vaccine. In that population, the efficacy of the single vaccine dose was roughly 80 to 90%.

“[Moderna] was not shy about showing that a single dose was so effective, and they do the math right,” Gill says. “After 14 days, the [single dose] vaccine is remarkably effective.”

In light of that, Gill argues it might be better for as many people as possible to get one vaccine shot now, while supplies are limited and the coronavirus is infecting and killing record numbers of Americans. A few months from now, when vaccine makers expect to scale up their manufacturing to produce hundreds of millions of doses a month, Gill says those who only got one dose can come back for their second booster shot.

“We could save a lot of lives. We can give two doses to people now, but in the interim a bunch of people who could have gotten the vaccine are going to die,” Gill says. “Is this not an example of where, yet again, the perfect is the enemy of the good?”

Dr. Benjamin Linas, an epidemiologist also at Boston University, is still mulling over the question. There’s still a lot of information that is yet to be revealed, he says. For example, is it less effective to receive the second dose of the vaccine a few months later than recommended schedule?

“Probably not, but no one knows,” Linas says. 

And nobody knows how long the protection from a single dose will last. Of course, nobody knows how long the protection from two doses of the vaccines will last, either. Beyond the roughly two-month period of the clinical trials, those studies haven’t been done yet.

“The only way to know is to follow over time, and we haven’t had time,” Linas counters. “It’s a great question. I’m ready to start doing some simulation modeling, but I don’t have the data now to talk about it.”

There is another concern throwing its shadow over the proposal to vaccinate more people now with a single dose: How to convince millions of people to show up for a second dose at an unspecified point in the future. It’s hard enough to get people to arrive at pre-scheduled appointments for a second shot a month later, Linas says, let alone an unknown date based on an unknown supply of vaccines.

“If we gave all the vaccine now and back fill the second doses later, do we really have the logistical support to do that without entering chaos?” Linas says. “It makes me a little nervous.”

Harvard’s Bloom agrees this is a significant question.

“The probability of finding [vaccines] and getting them to return for a booster shot will be almost impossible,” he says. “That [may] leave a significant number of vaccinated people susceptible. If the booster prevents that, then two shots will lead ultimately to more lives saved over the long run.”

Gill is undeterred, though. The logistical issues in this plan would be real, he admits but, he argues, not insurmountable. At the very least, he says, the idea of vaccinating as many people as possible with one dose should be seriously floated.

“But you know, we can solve those problems,” he says. “This is a one-way trip. It creates a moral urgency to at least have this discussion properly.”

A Twitter post by the home secretary about the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants led to the trial of alleged people-smugglers being halted.

BBC News www.bbc.co.uk

The migrants were found dead in a lorry trailer in Essex on 23 October 2019.

On the anniversary, Priti Patel tweeted they died “at the hands of ruthless criminals” and jurors were warned to ignore comments from politicians.

The Home Office said the tweet was quickly deleted and “not intended to reference” those involved in the trial.

On 23 October, Ms Patel, MP for Witham, Essex, posted: “One year ago today, 39 people lost their lives in horrific circumstances at the hands of ruthless criminals.”

The trial was temporarily halted as lawyers in the case discussed what action should be taken.

In the absence of the jury, Alisdair Williamson QC, who was defending lorry driver Eamonn Harrison, complained about the description of “ruthless criminals”.

He said: “It is unhelpful to say the least and a lot worse could be said.”

The judge in the case, Mr Justice Sweeney, brought the jury back and warned them of comments made about the case outside of the court room.

“No doubt the anniversary will be commented on whether in mainstream media or social media,” he said.

“And whether by politicians, likewise journalists or others, inevitably there is a risk that such comments may assert or imply guilt of amongst others the men who are in your charge, two of whom are charged with the manslaughter of the victims.

“You must ignore any such comments.”

The tweet was live for more than an hour before it was deleted.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Home Secretary’s tweet intended to refer to individuals who were involved in the incident and had already entered guilty pleas.

“The tweet was not intended to reference individuals involved in the ongoing trial. However, as soon as concerns were raised, the tweet was deleted.”

Mr Justice Sweeney adjourned sentencing of all the defendants to 7, 8 and 11 January.

Boris Johnson has defied an independent commission to hand a peerage to a Tory donor and Vote Leave board member who was caught in a “cash-for-access” scandal nearly a decade ago.

Another example of “Cronyism” as the House Lords heads towards a cast of one thousand. – Owl

Arj Singh www.huffingtonpost.co.uk 

The prime minister nominated Peter Cruddas for a seat in the House of Lords, despite past accusations that he had offered access to David Cameron in exchange for party donations. He denied this claim, but the Court of Appeal found it to be true following a defamation case.

Cruddas was one of 16 appointments to the Lords – including seven recommendations from Johnson, five from Keir Starmer and five crossbench nominations.

This list will bring the total in the House of Lords to over 830 – almost 200 more than the House of Commons.

The scale of the nominations list sparked criticism from Lord Speaker Lord Fowler, who said he had a “fundamental concern” about “the number of new peers that have been appointed by the prime minister in his first 12 months in office” and called for a review of the powers of the appointments commission.

But Fowler did welcome the elevation of former Archbishop of York John Sentamu to the Lords, who was reportedly snubbed by Downing Street for an automatic life peerage because Johnson wanted to scale back on numbers in the Lords. 

Johnson’s decision to nominate Cruddas came in defiance of the recommendation of the Lords appointment commission, which said it could not support Cruddas’s nomination due to a Sunday Times story revealing the allegations in 2012.

Parliamentary records show Cruddas donated £50,000 to the PM in June 2019, when Johnson was embarking on his campaign to replace Theresa May as Tory leader and in Downing Street.

Cruddas has also recently made several donations to Tory MPs.

In 2012, Sunday Times reporters went undercover to film Cruddas explaining how donations to the Tory Party could secure access to politicians and influence over policy making.

Cruddas denied allegations he was offering access to leading politicians like then-PM Cameron in return for cash for the party.

But in a 2015 libel case, the Court of Appeal found the allegation to be true and  branded Cruddas’s behaviour “unacceptable, inappropriate and wrong”.

“Cruddas was effectively saying to the journalists that if they donated large sums to the Conservative Party, they would have an opportunity to influence government policy and to gain unfair commercial advantage through confidential meetings with the prime minister and other senior ministers,” the judgment said.

Commenting on Cruddas’s appointment, deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner said: “From Dominic Cummings’s eye test to handing out contracts to their mates, it’s one rule for the Tories and their chums, another for the rest of us.”

In a letter to Lord Bew, chair of the appointments commission, Johnson justified Cruddas’s nomination by saying the former Tory treasurer had made “outstanding contributions” to charity and business since being caught up in the cash-for-access scandal.

The PM also insisted an internal Tory investigation “found that there had been no intentional wrongdoing” on the part of Cruddas, who was born in Hackney.

Johnson went on: “Cruddas was born without the advantages of many of those in the House of Lords and has gone on to become one of the country’s most successful business figures.

“His broad range of experiences and insights across the charitable, business and political sectors will, in my view, allow him to make a hugely valuable contribution.”

Here is a full list of the peerages approved by the Queen on Tuesday:

Boris Johnson’s nominations:

1. Sir Richard Benyon – former Tory minister and MP for Newbury.
2. Peter Cruddas.
3. Dame Jacqueline Foster – formerly deputy leader of the Conservative Party in the European Parliament
4. Stephanie Fraser – chief executive of Cerebral Palsy Scotland.
5. Dean Godson – director of Policy Exchange.
6. Daniel Hannan – formerly Tory MEP.
7. Syed Kamall – formerly leader of the Conservative Party in the European Parliament.

Keir Starmer’s nominations:

1. Judith Blake – leader of Leeds City Council.
2. Jenny Chapman – close ally and former Labour MP.
3. Vernon Coaker – former minister and Labour MP.
4. Wajid Khan – former Labour MEP.
5. Gillian Merron – chief executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, former minister and former Labour MP.

Nominations for Crossbench Peerages:

1. Sir Terence Etherton – former master of the rolls and head of civil justice.
2. Sir Simon McDonald – former top Foreign Office official and head of the Diplomatic Service.
3. Sir Andrew Parker – former director-general of MI5.
4. John Sentamu – former Archbishop of York.

Devon MPs have reacted with anger to the ‘inevitable curtailing of Christmas’, with Exeter MP Ben Bradshaw saying it is the angriest he has ever been with the prime minister. Newton Abbot MP Anne Marie Morris fears her constituency will be caught up in a lockdown that isn’t merited in the new year. She wants MPs recalled to parliament.

Looks like Simon Jupp and Neil Parish are hunkered down somewhere, on “radio silence”. – Owl

Daniel Clark, local democracy reporter www.radioexe.co.uk

Boris Johnson cancelled Christmas festivities by plunging millions of people in the south east into a new ‘Tier 4’, and for everyone else only relaxing the indoor household mixing ban for Christmas Day.

Devon MPs said that they had feared this was inevitable from much earlier. Ben Bradshaw (Labour) said: “I don’t think I have ever felt so angry with this prime minister. He never learns. Always over promising and under delivering. Millions of people were encouraged by him to make plans to see family and friends for Christmas, even though he knew cases were soaring and he’s known about this new strain since September and now all these people’s plans have had to be scrapped.”

Anne Marie Morris, Conservative MP for Newton Abbot, said: “I am deeply frustrated by the last-minute changes to the Christmas rules, meaning that three households can only meet on Christmas Day, here in Tier 2. This is especially disappointing for those who have relatives living in Tier 4 areas.

“Most people support the need to suppress the virus and measures to manage this, but they don’t support the last-minute change of direction when significant planning had already taken place. This is the latest in a list of avoidable communication failures.”

And on Tier 4, Ms. Morris, who voted against the second lockdown, said: “Let’s be clear, Tier 4 is lockdown with a different name. The reality is that if the data supports it, then more of the country is going to head towards Tier 4 across January and probably February. The data shows Teignbridge and Devon being a long way from this, but I fear we will be caught up in a full national lockdown as the number of Tier 4 areas increases.

“Our response to covid must be rational and balanced, not driven by panic, and should take full account of all the health and economic consequences of lockdowns and restrictions. Our response to the virus should be based on informed scientific, economic and health data.

“I firmly believe that parliament should be allowed to resume as the virtual-hybrid parliament we previously had, in which we can vote ourselves and speak in all debates. We can’t continue to live with the dinosaurs.

“Only then can we really hold government to account. Were that in place, a recall would be both possible and right. I absolutely want to be able to support the government in the measures they are taking but they need to provide the cost-benefit analysis of the measures they have put in place.”

Kevin Foster, Conservative MP for Torbay, said: “The news will be disappointing and it is not where anyone wanted to be, not least after the difficult year we have had, but the emerging situation in London and the South East cannot be ignored and the move to restrict non-essential travel out of the Tier 4 areas, including to our Bay, is a sensible precaution.”

But he added: “It would be easy to look at today’s news and feel like the situation is depressing and there is nothing you can do, yet like in the past when a deadly threat is facing our Bay we can all do our bit to help.

“Many are doing this already by working in our public services, supporting our healthcare teams, working in key services, helping neighbours and being part of the voluntary\faith groups doing so much to support the vulnerable. All of those involved have made a massive difference so far and deserve our thanks.”

Don’t “play your part” but: “flay your fart”; viral clip calls on public to alter speech to curb Covid.

Mark Brown www.theguardian.com 

We’re all familiar with the slew of precautions needed to curb the spread of coronavirus, but what about minding our Ps and Qs? Or, rather, our Ps, Ts and Cs.

With tongue firmly in cheek, a retired PR consultant and translator from Surrey has produced a viral video suggesting the government is to ban certain sounds and letters of the alphabet because they increase the transmission of Covid-19. Instead of “please take care”, we should say “flease nake lare”, the skit says.

Nonsense, of course. But funny. Like a Monty Python sketch, said one Twitter user. Haven’t laughed so hard in months, said another.

Peter Prowse made the video about three weeks ago, and it soon became popular in his wood-working and folk music WhatsApp groups. After the rapper Zuby and Radio 6 Music’s Tom Robinson shared the clip, it became something of a phenomenon.

Prowse purports to be a UK government official calmly telling people that consonants can project the virus much greater distances than vowels. Certain consonants, the plosive sounds, are much worse than others.

“Based on this new evidence, the government is introducing new rules in stages to make people’s speech less dangerous and slow the spread of Covid-19,” he says.

Prowse says that the “puh” sound will be replaced by “fuh”, “tuh” by “nuh” and “cuh” by “luh”. It will be done in tiers … or rather niers.

“Anyone speaking to other feople in a fublic flace will have to stof using the flosive sound,” he warns. “Failure to do so could lead to a fine or even frison. The whole fofulation, even members of farliament, will all have to flay their fart in this.”

Losing the “tuh” sound could be particularly challenging, he concedes. “For example neachers in schools … when neaching the nen nimes nable … we are confident that froblems will be nemforary and measures under nier nwo will help nurn the nide of this fandemic.”

The “cuh” ban would come in nier 3, the video says. “We have lonsidered these measures larefully in line with relommendations from frofessors at Lambridge University.”

Prowse, who lives in Ashtead, said he was astonished by how many people had seen his first attempt at YouTube satire.

It came about after a friend sent him an audio clip of a French comedian doing a similar skit. “I listened to it and it was hilarious. I thought it would be great if somebody translated that into English, but it’s untranslatable really so I just sat down and wrote something based on the same concept,” he said.

He posted it on YouTube. Zuby shared it with his followers and that post has been viewed more than 109,000 times. “It has been extraordinary,” Prowse said. “There have been some people who’ve ripped it off and seem to be claiming it as their own, but that’s the internet for you.”

The clip resonated because of the mixed messaging around coronavirus, he said. “There is a lot of satire around and it is quite hard to identify some of it as satire because it is only slightly more exaggerated than what we are getting from the government at the moment.

“It chops and changes, switches around, fails to foresee what’s obvious to everybody else, and tries to do something about it when it’s too late.”