Politics

Reduced numbers of vaccines are due to problems with international supplies, a government minister has suggested – but he insisted the issues would not slow down the easing of lockdown. The NHS has warned of a month-long “significant reduction” in weekly supply of vaccines in a letter to local health leaders. But Housing, Communities and
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The health secretary has played down criticism from Dominic Cummings, who described the Department of Health and Social Care as a “smoking ruin” in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Matt Hancock said the UK’s rollout of COVID-19 jabs was a “huge team effort” by the health department, the vaccine taskforce and the NHS
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The Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine is safe, the health secretary has said, urging people in the UK: “If you get the call, get the jab.” Germany, France, Italy and Spain became the latest European countries to suspend use of the COVID-19 jab on Monday after reports of some people suffering blood clots after being vaccinated. But
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Ministers have moved to take “immediate steps to provide further reassurance” for women and girls in the wake of the killing of Sarah Everard, as demonstrators descended on Westminster. Senior government figures, including Home Secretary Priti Patel, gathered in Downing Street for a meeting of the Criminal Justice Taskforce. The meeting, chaired by Boris Johnson,
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Clashes between police and attendees of a vigil for Sarah Everard were “distressing” and “alarming”, the policing minister has told Sky News. Kit Malthouse said that officers were “happy” to be held “accountable” by an independent investigation into Saturday night’s chaos. But he insisted the under-pressure Metropolitan Police commissioner, Cressida Dick, should not resign over
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Labour has revealed it will vote against the government’s flagship crime legislation, branding it a “mess” that could lead to tougher penalties for damaging a statue than attacking a woman. Shadow justice secretary David Lammy said the suspected murder of Sarah Everard had “instigated a national demand for action to tackle violence against women”. In
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Boris Johnson has said new efforts to radically boost the UK’s cyber capabilities will “transform our ability to protect our people”. The impact of the new technology will be comparable to the emergence of military air power a century ago, the prime minister said. His comments come ahead of next week’s publication of the government’s
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Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish National Party have passed their peak and Scotland has had enough of them, according to Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson. “We’ve passed ‘peak Nat’ and, more and more, Scotland is saying ‘enough’,” she is claiming in a battle cry ahead of the elections for the Scottish Parliament in May. Her
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