Category Archives: boris johnson

Cummings Wants Hancock’s Scalp, But Keir Starmer Is Right To Focus On The PM

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“Brevity is the soul of wit/And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes.” Thanks to his latest long, long blogpost, Dominic Cummings has perhaps proved one thing beyond doubt: he’s no student of Shakespeare.

With his 7,286 words, wonky screenshots and phone snaps, Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser displayed once more a literary incontinence that only the internet can allow. It was not so much a stream of consciousness as a scream of bumptiousness, laced with venom.

Cummings’ new opus was seen as both tedious and treacherous by many Tory MPs, who share a mutual loathing with the ex-Vote Leave chief. The public too appear to have long ago concluded that he is far from a credible witness in any prosecution case against Johnson’s failings on Covid.

The mastermind of the £350m-a-week-for-the-NHS on that bus, the genius behind the ‘76 million Turks are joining the EU’ poster, is hardly the man to lead the charge against lying in politics.

And there’s no question that Cummings is in many ways his own worst enemy. His renewed character assassination attempt on Matt Hancock was so relentless that it undermined some of the more sensible points he tried to make about the failures of governance at the start of the pandemic. Talk about blogging a dead horse, we get that he hates Hancock already.

Yet if you got beyond the word-blizzard, the repeated use of italics for emphasis, the ACRONYMS and bolded out jargon, the obsessive lists of lettered (A to E) and numbered (1 to 4) paragraphs, there were some nuggets that ought to concern everyone well before the public inquiry begins.

Hancock’s claim in March to have got PPE supplies “all sorted” was undermined by an official telling Cummings that procurement rules and cost concerns meant masks, gloves and gowns being shipped rather than flown from China. Most damning of all was Johnson’s WhatsApp message, “On PPE it’s a disaster. I can’t think of anything except taking Hancock off and putting Gove on.”

Similarly, on delays in getting more ventilators, the PM’s verdict was just as withering: “It’s Hancock. He has been hopeless.” And on the health secretary’s failure to get more Covid testing, Johnson upped the disdain with that eye-catching expletive: “Totally fucking hopless.”

It’s worth saying that on the central charge that Hancock “lied”, the jury remains out because there is no recording of what he actually promised in the Cabinet room. Cummings again claimed cabinet secretary Mark Sedwill said that he and other ministers and officials lacked confidence in Hancock’s “honesty”.

But while saying this conversation was “reinforced in written exchanges”, he failed to publish them. We now await for the Commons select committees to get Sedwill’s own version. I recall No.10 admitting it hadn’t contacted the former cabinet secretary (who, let’s not forget, Cummings helped to oust from his job). Surely the MPs have asked him about such a serious charge?

Given that Cummings’ blog dropped shortly before PMQs, some have accused Keir Starmer of missing an open goal by failing to quote the “fucking hopeless” claim. Yet I can see why the Labour leader opted not to focus on Hancock, partly because blaming him may end up being Johnson’s alibi come any public inquiry. “Hopeless Hancock” could be reshuffled soon, too.

Starmer did quote Cummings, but only on his previous claim that Johnson had a chaotic border policy. He realised that while the personality politics of last year’s sweary WhatsApps may make good newspaper copy, the public are more focused on the here and now of why the Indian variant has been allowed to let rip.

Raising again the issue of proper payments for self-isolation (on the day it seems the Cabinet Office has its own internal document urging just that), plus the ending of business rate relief and full furlough, showed he was talking to immediate concerns not historic ones. Hospitality and small businesses groups contacted Starmer after PMQs thanking him for raising their lack of support and clarity, I’m told.

And Starmer’s strategic target is of course the PM himself. That’s why Labour talks about ‘the Johnson variant’ of the virus and it’s why it will keep hammering its message that lax border controls may have undermined all the hard work of both the public and the NHS’s vaccine programme.

Yet there was material in the Cummings blog that will come in useful in attacking Johnson. We learned for the first time that the PM had texted to his advisers “how do we win the herd immunity argument?” The full text of that was frustratingly not reproduced (and Johnson is bound to argue he didn’t go ahead with that argument anyway).

The account of how Johnson runs meetings, avoiding conflict, failing to ask proper questions to officials, “doing a thumbs-up and pegging it out of the room before anybody can disagree”, sounded all too realistic. This at least proved the PM is as blithe in private as he is in public, but it’s a worrying lack of leadership nevertheless. Starmer, in the G7 statement later, had a wounding line that Johnson was a “host, not a leader, a tour guide, not a statesman”.

For his part, Johnson in PMQs showed again why he’s a formidably cynical politician. Every question was batted away with “Brexit, vaccines, flip-flop Starmer, Brexit, vaccines, flip-flop Starmer”. His jibe that “Captain Hindsight needs to adjust his retrospectoscope” was actually pretty funny.

Faced with such spin and sleight of hand, Starmer can only hope that the public will one day tire of the jokes and the failures of governance. He needs to combine the air of being a grown-up in the room with his own message of optimism, just as Joe Biden persuaded Americans that the crazy years had to be followed by calm good government.

If Labour can at the next election persuade the voters that it is Boris Johnson who was “fucking hopeless” in keeping Covid under control, that’s a much bigger prize than giving Dominic Cummings the scalp of the health secretary. The party needs big answers on big issues like childcare, social care and life chances too. But Starmer at least has his eyes on the real target.

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How Many Deaths Is Boris Johnson Willing To Tolerate To Keep His July 19 Promise?

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It’s barely three weeks since Dominic Cummings gave his evidence to MPs, yet it already feels like a long time ago. Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser may have electrified Westminster but he left the public just shrugging its shoulders in contempt, leaving barely a trace.

Still, Cummings’ real impact may have been in highlighting the need for the PM to be extra-cautious about Covid, heeding the warning signs when case numbers spike and forcing him to really listen to his medical and scientific advisers.

We also have Cummings’ testimony to thank for getting on record Johnson’s frustration last autumn that he hadn’t acted more like “the Mayor from Jaws”. And today, Labour pounced on that phrase to ram home what it thinks is one of his biggest blunders of the pandemic: not closing the borders to India.

In possibly his best speech since taking the job of shadow home secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds said that the 14 day delay in putting India on the “red list” was a “fortnight of failure” driven by Johnson’s desire to have a photo-op with Narendra Modi. It was not the India variant, nor the Delta variant, but “the Johnson variant”.

Moreover, Thomas-Symonds said Johnson’s Jaws mayor tribute act had had tragic consequences with “British people..attacked in their thousands” by the shark of Covid. He even conjured up the image of Keir Starmer as police chief Martin Brody from that same movie: “eyes on the shark, doing everything to keep people safe”.

Some in Labour have been pushing hard for months to ram home this attack line about the need for tighter borders. It turns Johnson’s “take back control” Brexit mantra into a judo throw aimed at knocking him off his balance. Allied with more state funded support for the aviation and travel industry, it is at least a coherent strategy and one that anticipated imports like the Delta variant.

Though it avoids the “hindsight” charge, there are pitfalls. One risk is that Labour can appear to be banking on the virus outpacing the vaccines in coming weeks, in the hope of proving itself right about Johnson’s border failure. Without careful handling, that could turn out to be an even worse look than an opposition which relies on increases in unemployment to win power.

Then again, as I mentioned last night, there is a real risk entailed in the PM claiming July 19 is a “terminus” date. Michael Gove highlighted the implicit logic of that approach this morning when he refused to deny that hundreds of deaths would now be tolerated once the final unlocking happens.

“Hundreds” is of course much less than the “thousands” (or “tens of thousands” the PM referred to at one point yesterday) that would have died if the June 21 unlocking had gone ahead. Yet the Sage papers released on Monday night made for grim reading. Even with a five-week delay, one model estimates between 31,200 and 62,900 extra deaths by December 31.

Those death numbers are much, much higher than the worst winter flu outbreaks, even though that’s the comparison increasingly made by ministers. On ConHome’s Moggcast, Jacob Rees-Mogg said “you can’t run society just to stop the hospitals being full”, but he also said deaths were the key metric – and on this measure the Indian variant could yet wreak havoc.

Rees-Mogg has proved he has more lives than Gavin Williamson in his current post and that may in part be because he reflects the lockdown sceptic views of some backbenchers. The PM too is more of a Mayor Vaughn than a Chief Brody. He is clearly braced for more fatalities, the question remains just how many he will tolerate, and whether he will tell us what the number is.

But just how many excess deaths will the public tolerate? The phrase you’ll hear in coming weeks is that we all have to “learn to live with” Covid. For the families of those who fall prey to this awful virus, that may sound like learning to die with Covid. And even Boris Johnson’s famed political skills may have trouble with that soundbite.

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Rees-Mogg Says Lockdown Can’t Continue ‘Just To Stop The Hospitals Being Full’

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Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg has come under fire from Labour after he suggested that lockdown curbs can’t continue “just to stop the hospitals being full”.

The Commons Leader told ConservativeHome.com’s “Moggcast” podcast that “the NHS is there to serve the British people, not the British people there to serve the NHS”.

He also suggested that protecting the health service should no longer be the government’s top priority and that patients entering hospital for a few days was “not very important”.

Rees-Mogg said that “infections are not what matters any more”, adding that the number of deaths from Covid should be the key consideration as the UK came out of the pandemic and ministers weighed up the need for personal freedom.

The minister was asked about the prospect of the Indian variant of Covid spreading further in the absence of two doses of vaccines for all adults, and the prospect of hospitals being “clogged up” as they struggled with a backlog of non-Covid cases.

He replied: “Ultimately, the NHS is there to serve the British people, not the British people there to serve the NHS, and therefore we may need to spend more money on hospitals but you can’t run society just to stop the hospitals being full.

“Otherwise you’d never let us get in our cars and drive anywhere or do any of the other things that people want to do. There has to be some proportionality within that. The government doesn’t have the right to take charge of people’s lives purely to prevent them seeing the doctor.”

He went on: “Actually, otherwise we’d never be allowed in our kitchens where a disproportionate number of accidents in the home take place or our bathrooms, so we’d become very hungry and very smelly on that basis.”

Rees-Mogg, who spoke just hours before Boris Johnson confirmed the final removal of Covid restrictions would be delayed from June 21 to July 19, added that with the older population jabbed young people who caught Covid were less of a worry.

“If everybody in the top nine categories has had the double vaccination and has had two weeks afterwards, people below those categories aren’t at a particular risk,” he said.

“Infections are not what matters anymore. Two things that matter: can the NHS cope and the number of deaths. Overwhelmingly important is the number of deaths. People going into hospital for a couple of days and coming out again, it’s not very important. If they’re dying, it’s very important.”

Shadow health minister Justin Madders said: “Rees Mogg spends so much time with nanny he thinks the nanny state lurks around every corner. Comparing a pandemic with accidents at home is a ludicrous analogy to make and shows a complete detachment from how this virus has affected people.

“His statement that it’s not the government’s job to protect the NHS is foolish in the extreme and of course contrary to his own government’s policy for the last year. The mask has slipped if he doesn’t think the NHS is worth protecting. As for his comments that people going into hospital with Covid for a few days is ‘not very important’, has he even heard of Long Covid?

“His claim that ‘infections are not what matters any more’ is plainly contrary to the advice of the government’s scientific advisers, because it is rising infections from the Delta variant that has delayed Freedom Day, which is entirely down to the government’s negligence.”

No.10 refused to endorse the cabinet minister’s remarks, preferring to underline that the government’s four tests for each stage of its “roadmap” out of lockdown still applied.

One of those tests is that “infection rates do not risk a surge in hospitalisations which would put unsustainable pressure on the NHS”, and a rapid increase in hospital admissions in recent weeks has put it in doubt.

The other key test – that “the assessment of the risks is not fundamentally changed by new variants of concern” – has not been passed, chief medical officer Chris Whitty confirmed on Monday.

Asked if Rees-Mogg was representing the government’s position by saying society couldn’t be run to avoid hospitals being full, the PM’s official spokesperson replied: “The position we’re using is the four tests.

“And on that basis, we don’t meet those four tests and so that is why we are not proceeding.”

He added that ahead of the July 19 date: “We will decide using the four tests when we come up to that period a week beforehand.”

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Will Boris Johnson Come To Regret Making July 19 The Terminus Of His Roadmap?

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Just when you think you’ve got it beat, Covid-19 somehow comes back stronger. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger but without the charm, this Terminator of a virus has an “I’ll be back” menace that risks undoing all the hard work of the UK’s stunning vaccine rollout.

The epic battle between the vaccines and the virus certainly has high stakes. Perhaps that’s why Boris Johnson sounded unusually nervous as he announced he would indeed be postponing ‘Freedom Day’ by another four weeks. Instead of the sunshine of Midsummer Merrie England, there was a blizzard of scary charts of projected hospitalisations.

Fluffing his lines, the PM referred to “the adults of this company” (he meant “country”) and then wrongly declared the new unlocking date was July 29th (correcting it later to July 19th). Polling shows most of the public are relaxed about a delay, but Johnson is acutely aware that the 24% who are unhappy include several of his own backbenchers, and it showed.

Nowhere was this more telling than in his repeated reassurance that the Freedom Day Mk II was the real deal. He was “pretty confident” that July 19 will be “the terminus date” (he said “terminal date” too). June 21 was always a “‘not before’ date”, whereas this was much firmer, he suggested. This was not a defeat for lockdown sceptics, it was a victory, he seemed to imply.

That spin may or may not work on Tory MPs, but it could paint the PM into a corner for the first time in months. Ever since he bowed to Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance’s plan for a cautious roadmap, he has been able to fall back on their insistence that all four tests have to be met (the new variant test was particularly shrewd) and that “data not dates” will drive his decisions.

But now with talk of “terminal” and fixed timelines, it feels like dates not data is the new approach. Steve Baker, Mark Harper and Sir Charles Walker, who will probably vote against the delay, have much more concrete evidence of a breach of faith should that July 19 date somehow slip again.

Whitty and Vallance gave the PM invaluable backing at the press conference. The chief medical officer in particular pointed out that even without the Indian variant, the very restoration of unrestricted indoor mixing of “households that are unrelated” was always going to lead to an uptick in cases. He added there had to come a point where fatalities switched from “deaths averted” to deaths delayed”, as with flu.

Patrick Vallance even suggested that locking down beyond July 19 would be counter-productive. And he made the case for that date containing the Goldilocks calculation of just how hot or cold to make the roadmap porridge. Giving over-18s their first jab and pushing unlockdown closer to the school holidays certainly added some sugar, as did a lifting of the cap on wedding numbers.

Still, for Keir Starmer, the talk of 19 July as a “terminal” date is an opportunity for a Judgement Day on Johnson’s competence. If the vaccination programme can’t sufficiently flatten the Delta variant spike, he is sure to step up his own attack line that Johnson’s failure to stop flights from India is the real culprit. Already today, the Labour leader hardened his rhetoric to say it was a “pathetic” border policy that had postponed freedoms.

Starmer’s clear aim is to drive a big wedge between the excellence of the NHS vaccine rollout and the government’s wider failures. It’s unclear whether it was the PM’s desire to keep alive post-Brexit trade talks with Narendra Modi that prompted his inaction, but the suggestion that he recklessly undermined both the NHS’s programme and public sacrifices is a toxic one.

Today’s failure to offer extra financial support to businesses added extra political risk too. Those firms which were hanging on by their fingertips will now face having to pay their share of furlough bills, with no extra income to fund them. Add in the self-employed already upset and an Opposition that was pro-enterprise could make inroads.

To oversee one Covid wave is a misfortune, to allow two begins to look like carelessness. But to trigger a third wave, squandering all the good work of your own vaccine success story, could be seen as unforgivable by a public which has to date been incredibly forgiving of its prime minister.

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Wedding Restrictions After June 21: What You Need To Know

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The 30-guest limit at weddings in England has been lifted, despite a four-week delay to the ending of lockdown.

From June 21, people can have more than 30 guests at a wedding, “provided social distancing remains in place”, Boris Johnson announced at a Downing Street press conference on Monday – welcome news to the many couples who have postponed their celebrations time and time again.

He told the Downing Street press conference that the spread of the Delta variant meant the government and public “faced a very difficult choice” between continuing with Step 4 of the roadmap on June 21 or giving the NHS “a few more crucial weeks” to get all remaining vaccinations administered.

“And since today I cannot say that that we have met all our four tests for proceeding with Step 4 on June 21, I think it is sensible to wait just a little longer,” he said.

It is not yet confirmed if there will be an upper limit on guest numbers, but the Mirror has reported that capacity limits may be the highest number of people wedding venues can accommodate while still being Covid-secure.

“I am sorry for all the disappointment that’s going to be caused by going a bit slower as we are today,” the prime minster told a journalist and bride-to-be who said she had already twice postponed her wedding.

The reporter had questioned why testing and vaccination status could not be used to open up weddings in the same way as football matches, and said weddings felt “bottom of the priority list despite being significant life events without which some people cannot progress with their lives.”

Boris Johnson, who married his wife Carrie in a secret ceremony in Westminster Cathedral on May 29 attended by 30 people, said he was sorry for the “many, many businesses” affected by delays – adding “it’s a few weeks that I think is worth it to get those jabs in”.

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Will Lockdown Be Extended? What We Know About Covid Rules On June 21

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After weeks of ‘will they won’t they’ debate about whether Boris Johnson will delay the June 21 final lifting of Covid restrictions, we are finally about to find out what happens next.

The prime minister will deliver a press conference on Monday evening at which he will set out his plan for step four of the road map out of lockdown.

A delay is widely expected, amid a spike in Covid cases driven by the Delta variant first detected in India.

But there remain questions over how long it will be, whether rules for weddings or other activities could be relaxed, and what a delay means for the government’s pandemic strategy.

Here’s what we know so far:

What is happening with England’s lockdown?

The prime minister will meet senior ministers and officials on Sunday evening to make a final decision about whether to proceed with the June 21 unlocking.

He is then expected to deliver his verdict to the nation during a Monday evening press conference from Downing Street, after racing back from the Nato summit in Brussels.

Will lockdown easing be delayed?

Johnson looks almost certain to delay the widespread easing of restrictions, admitting over the weekend there are “grounds for caution”.

Reports suggest that he is mulling over a two or four-week delay.

But the smart money looks on the latter with England’s chief medical officer Chris Whitty reportedly favouring a longer delay.

Scientists advising the government have also now predicted that the PM will announce a delay on Monday.

Why will the June 21 unlocking be delayed?

The latest figures from Public Health England (PHE) on Friday showed there have been 42,323 cases of the Delta variant confirmed in the UK, up by 29,892 from the previous week.

It estimates the strain is 60% more transmissible compared with the previously dominant Alpha, or Kent, variant, and that cases are doubling every four-and-a-half days in some parts of England.

The Delta variant also now accounts for 96% of new infections.

Johnson said on Saturday that cases and hospitalisations are now going up and that he has “serious concern” about this potentially feeding through to more deaths.

Foreign secretary Dominic Raab said on Sunday that ministers would be looking at whether vaccinations have “broken the link” between rising cases and rising hospitalisations, “not just severed or weakened it”.

Professor Andrew Hayward, a member of the Nervtag group which advises ministers on new respiratory diseases, said it was clear the country was facing a “substantial” third wave of the disease.

He said the key issue was the extent to which that led to more people becoming seriously ill and requiring hospital treatment.

“We still don’t know how bad it could be,” he told BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show.

But what about Covid vaccines?

More than three quarters (78.9%) of adults have now had their first dose of the vaccine.

But the latest PHE estimates suggest that one dose of Pfizer or AstraZeneca is only around 33% effective against the Delta variant, compared with around 50% against the previously dominant Alpha variant.

Encouragingly though, once people have two jabs the vaccines’ effectiveness is only slightly reduced – from around 88% to 80%.

The problem is only 56% of adults have had both jabs, so a delay would give the NHS more time to give more people their second dose, and so reduce the risk of rising hospitalisations that could put the NHS under pressure.

Johnson said on Saturday that “we need to make sure we give the vaccines extra legs.”

On the plus side, deaths are still very low, although there is always a lag between rising cases feeding through to more deaths.

Could a lockdown delay last longer than four weeks?

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Boris Johnson has refused to say whether the June 21 schedule could be pushed back. 

At a Sunday press conference to close the G7 summit in Cornwall, Johnson refused to say whether the June 21 schedule could be pushed back longer than four weeks.

Foreign secretary Dominic Raab meanwhile said that unlocking needed to be “irreversible” and so the government needed to proceed “carefully and cautiously”.

“We don’t want to yo-yo back in and out of measures,” he said.

He also refused to rule out the possibility that restrictions could stay in place beyond the end of July.

“We want to be irreversible so we have just got to be careful that we are there in terms of data,” he said.

Professor Stephen Reicher, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (Spi-B), has meanwhile warned that there is a risk the Covid situation could go “backwards”.

He called on the government to provide more financial support to help people self isolate to stop the spread of the virus.

Could there still be some relaxation of Covid rules?

HuffPost UK last week revealed that Michael Gove said he would “bet” on some kind of “relaxation” of restrictions.

Reports suggest that Johnson may delay most of the roadmap, but lift the cap on the number of people who can attend weddings, which is currently at 30.

The PM may also choose to relax rules around attendance of large events to enable at least half-full stadiums at Euro 2020 games hosted at Wembley, including the final.

Will there be a backlash?

Polling by Opinium suggested broad public support for the government’s approach, with 54% in favour of a delay and 37% against.

But there is frustration among some Conservative MPs – already unhappy over the impact on the economy and on civil liberties – at the prospect of further delay.

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Sir Graham Brady, the influential chairman of the backbench Tory 1922 Committee, said that it must be the final time.

“On any reasonable assessment we should be still on target for lifting restrictions on June 21,” he wrote.

“There is no excuse for this further catastrophic delay. It is unacceptable to restrict people’s most fundamental rights. And it must never ever happen again.”

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G7 Leaders Fall Short Of Directly Sharing 1bn Vaccine Doses Around The World

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Leaders of the G7 group of wealthy nations have fallen short of directly providing one billion Covid vaccine doses to poorer countries over the next year.

The final communique of the Boris Johnson-hosted summit in Cornwall revealed that the leaders only managed to commit to sharing 870m spare doses over the next year, despite a high profile commitment to a billion.

The document insists that taken together with separate financial commitments it would mean the G7 has shared more than two billion doses since the start of the pandemic, and has met the 1bn target for the next year.

But the leaders are facing criticism from the likes of Oxfam, which accused leaders of “cooking the books” with its vaccine figures.

“A billion vaccine doses would have been a drop in the bucket, but they didn’t even manage that,” the charity said.

Earlier, former UK prime minister Gordon Brown said the summit will go down as “unforgivable moral failure” as the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 11bn doses – more than ten times the number pledged – are needed to stamp out the pandemic.

At his closing summit press conference, Johnson rejected Brown’s criticism, highlighting US president Joe Biden’s commitment to providing 500m Pfizer vaccines for 92 low and lower-middle income countries and the African Union.

 “This is another billion made up of a massive contribution by the United States and other friends,” the UK prime minister said.

He said the UK’s contribution is another 100m from now to next June of the vaccines.

He said: “Already of the 1.5bn vaccines that have been distributed around the world, I think that people in this country should be very proud that half a billion of them are as a result of the actions taken by the UK government in doing that deal with the Oxford scientists and AstraZeneca to distribute it at cost.”

He added: “We are going flat out and we are producing vaccines as fast as we can, and distributing them as fast as we can”. 

The target to vaccinate the world by the end of next year will be done “very largely thanks to the efforts of the countries who have come here today”, according to Johnson.

But Oxfam’s head of inequality policy Max Lawson said leaders had “cooked the books” on vaccines and “completely failed” to meet the challenge of the biggest health emergency in a century.

“This G7 summit will live on infamy,” he concluded.

Edwin Ikhuoria, of the anti-poverty campaign One, said: “Throughout the summit we have heard strong words from the leaders but without the new investment to make their ambitions a reality.

“Crucially, the failure to get life-saving vaccines to the whole planet as fast as possible, means this was not the historic moment that people around the world were hoping for and leaves us little closer to ending the pandemic.”

What else was agreed at the G7 summit? 

Covid

G7 leaders renewed calls for a further investigation into the origin of Covid-19, following Biden’s surprise decision to order US intelligence agencies to continue probing the Wuhan “lab leak” theory.

The final summit communique called for a “timely, transparent, expert-led, and science-based WHO [World Health Organisation]-convened phase 2 Covid-19 origins study” including in China.

Johnson said that the best advice available to him remained that the virus jumped species from an animal.

However he said that it was important to keep an open mind as to what exactly happened.

“At the moment, the advice that we have had is that it doesn’t look as though this particular disease of zoonotic origin came from a lab,” he said.

“Clearly anybody sensible would want to keep an open mind about that.”

China

America’s wariness of China is continuing despite Biden replacing Donald Trump in the White House.

The president managed to convince leaders to sign up to a rival to Beijing’s influential Belt and Road investment programme in an effort to counter growing Chinese influence.

The Build Back Better World (B3W) programme will fund infrastructure, including green technology, and support growth in developing countries.

Leaders meanwhile pledged to call on China to “respect human rights and fundamental freedoms”, including in Xinjiang where Uighurs are believed to be suffering brutal human rights abuses that some say amount to genocide.

It also raised the situation in Hong Kong, calling on Beijing to respect its “rights, freedoms and high degree of autonomy”.

But reports suggest that there were some disagreements over how strong the language on China should be.

Environment

The G7 is committed to supporting a green revolution that creates jobs, cuts emissions and seeks to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees

Leaders set out the action they will take to slash carbon emissions, including measures like ending the use of unabated coal power – although they were unable to set a deadline for this.

The leaders did commit to ending funding for carbon-emitting overseas projects by the end of the year but the failure to agree a timeline may worry Johnson in the run-up to the Cp26 climate summit in Glasgow at which he is hoping to strike a much bigger global deal.

The G7 also set a goal of conserving or protecting at least 30% of their land and marine areas by 2030 as part of a push to reach that level of protection globally.

But Oxfam criticised the failure to make new pledges of climate finance, arguing that developing nations were looking for progress ahead of Cop26.

“Vague promises of new financing for green development projects should not distract from this goal,” the charity said.

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Boris Johnson Threatens To Suspend Key Brexit Deal Over Sausage War

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Boris Johnson has threatened to suspend a key Brexit deal on Northern Ireland in an increasingly bitter row with the EU.

The prime minister spoke after meeting key EU players in the margins of the G7 summit in Cornwall, as wrangling over the Northern Ireland protocol threatened to overshadow the gathering.

French president Emmanuel Macron on Saturday morning urged Johnson to “keep his word” and apply the protocol in full, while European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and European Council leader Charles Michel told him to “implement what we agreed on”.

German chancellor Angela Merkel also discussed the issue in talks with Johnson, who has now hit back with a complaint that the EU was being “theologically draconian” about the deal.

EXPLAINED Why A Brexit Sausage War Risks Overshadowing The Entire G7 Summit

Downing Street has indicated the UK would be prepared to unilaterally delay the full implementation of the protocol to prevent a ban on chilled meats crossing the Irish Sea from Great Britain.

Restrictions on British-produced chilled meats entering Northern Ireland are due to come into force at the end of the month, triggering talk of a so-called “sausage war”.

Johnson has now warned that unless there was a solution he would invoke Article 16 of the protocol which allows either side to take unilateral action to suspend the deal if its implementation were to lead to “serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties”.

Explaining his position, the PM told Channel 4 News: “It’s stated abundantly in the text that the protocol should be implemented in such a way as to ensure free trade, free movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and all parts of the UK.

“It’s not working like that at the moment. We need to make sure it’s applied in a sensible way.

“There’s no reason at all to have prohibitions or barriers to the movement of potted plants, tractor parts, guide dogs for the blind, chilled meats – you name it – from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.”

On Sky News, he added: “I think we can sort it out but… it is up to our EU friends and partners to understand that we will do whatever it takes.

“I think if the protocol continues to be applied in this way, then we will obviously not hesitate to invoke Article 16, as I have said before.

“Don’t forget, the EU themselves invoked Article 16 in January, to disapply the protocol, so they can stop removal of vaccines from the EU to the UK.

“I’ve talked to some of our friends here today, who do seem to misunderstand that the UK is a single country, a single territory. I just need to get that into their heads.”

Johnson used the meetings with EU leaders to call for “pragmatism and compromise on all sides”, repeating his call to “minimise the impact [of the protocol] on the day-to-day lives of people in Northern Ireland”.

“I certainly think that the protocol is capable of being used and interpreted – by the way, up to the EU – in a pragmatic way or a theologically draconian way,” he told Channel 5.

“At the moment we are seeing… a lot of unnecessary difficulties. I think we can sort it out, with goodwill.

“What we don’t want to see is any more unnecessary barriers to trade and we want to sort it out as fast as we can, I’m sure with goodwill we can.”

Asked if there would be a trade war if agreement could not be reached, Johnson said: “The UK will do whatever we need to do to protect the UK internal market.”

“I don’t happen to think that a trade war is a very sensible or likely way forward. 

“I just think that we need some pragmatic solutions.”

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Emmanuel Macron Wants His Own ‘Special Relationship’ With Joe Biden

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Boris Johnson this week confirmed that he doesn’t like to call the UK and United States’ close ties the “special relationship”, believing it makes Britain look “needy”.

But it appears Emmanuel Macron has no such concerns.

After the G7 summit got underway with an awkward “family photo” on the beach, the French president made a beeline for Joe Biden, throwing his arm around the American’s shoulders and beginning an animated discussion

The Frenchman’s remarks were inaudible, but Johnson – who was out ahead of the pair after Angela Merkel told him “you are the leader” – will be hoping Macron was not trying to lobby Biden on the Brexit sausage war that is threatening to overshadow the G7 meeting.

PHIL NOBLE via Getty Images

French president Emmanuel Macron (right) greets US president Joe Biden at the G7 summit

LUDOVIC MARIN via Getty Images

Macron was flanked by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen

PATRICK SEMANSKY via Getty Images

The vignette was one of several moments in which G7 leaders appeared uneasy at their first face-to-face meeting since the start of the Covid pandemic.

Biden at one point tried to break the tension, joking “everybody in the water” after leaders and their spouses were greeted with elbow bumps from Boris and Carrie Johnson on the beach at Carbis Bay in Cornwall.

After strolling down a lengthy walkway to the seafront, Jill Biden meanwhile joked that “I feel like we are at a wedding” while Johnson later agreed that it was like “walking down the aisle”.

Leaders then struggled to create any kind of bonhomie as they stood two metres apart for a family photo.

As the talks finally got underway inside around a familiar circular table, Johnson bemoaned the carefully choreographed photo op as a “media circus”.

“This is meant to be a fireside chat between the great democracies of the world,” the PM complained.

In an unusual move for Johnson, he also suggested the G7 should support a more “feminine” economic recovery.

The PM said the citizens of G7 nations “want us to be sure that we are beating the pandemic together and discussing how we will never have a repeat of what we have seen”.

“But also that we are building back better together and building back greener and building back fairer and building back more equal and… in a more gender neutral and perhaps a more feminine way.”

Johnson also appeared to criticise his own Conservative Party for the way it handled the recovery from the 2008 financial crash by taking power in 2010 and embarking on a programme of austerity.

He said the G7 economies had the potential to “bounce back very strongly” from Covid.

“But it is vital that we don’t repeat the mistake of the last great crisis, the last great economic recession of 2008 when the recovery was not uniform across all parts of society,” the PM said.

There was a risk the pandemic could leave a “lasting scar” as “inequalities may be entrenched”, Johnson said.

“We need to make sure that as we recover, we level up across our societies and we build back better,” he added.

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Sea Shanties, Hot Rum And The Queen: How Boris Johnson Will Woo G7 Leaders

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TOBY MELVILLE via Getty Images

Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie Johnson  walk with US president Joe Biden and US first lady Jill Biden in Carbis Bay, Cornwall 

Imagine the nerves of hosting the first party for your group of friends after a year and a half in Covid lockdown.

Now imagine that your 12 guests are the leaders of some of the world’s richest countries and their spouses.

This is the challenge facing Boris Johnson at this weekend’s G7 summit in Cornwall.

And true to form, the prime minister has taken a massive risk by choosing to invite the likes of Joe Biden and Angela Merkel to a barbecue on the beach… in Britain.

The danger of relying on the UK’s changeable summer weather has already been highlighted after Johnson and Biden were forced to move their first ever face-to-face meeting indoors at the last minute on Thursday, as Cornish “mizzle” (mist/drizzle) shrouded the beautiful island of St Michael’s mount.

The PM will be hoping it clears in time for the Saturday night barbecue so leaders get a clear sight of the Red Arrows flypast as they dine on barbecued sirloin steaks and local lobster on the Carbis Bay sand.

And if a beach barbecue in 15C potentially cloudy weather wasn’t risky enough, leaders will be asked to stay outside after dinner to listen to sea shanty group Du Hag Owr while enjoying baked brie, hot buttered rum and toasted marshmallows around fire pits on the beach.

Despite the boho stylings sparking fresh speculation about Carrie Johnson’s influence over her husband, the PM’s official spokesperson told HuffPost UK she did not play a role in the decision to hold a beach barbecue, although she was closely involved in the partners’ programme for the weekend.

If Saturday night’s event is a risk, Johnson should have some credit in the bank from the Friday when he will host a reception with senior royals including the Queen, Prince Charles, Prince William and Kate, followed by a lavish dinner among the biomes of the Eden Project.

The menu for Friday night, cooked by Emily Scott, chef at the Watergate Bay hotel near Newquay: 

  • Starter: spiced melon, gazpacho, coconut, high note herbs.

  • Main: Turbot roasted on the bone with Cornish new potatoes and wild garlic pesto with greens from the local Padstow kitchen gardens.

  • Cornish cheese course: Gouda, Cornish yarg, helford blue.

  • Dessert: English strawberry pavlova.

  • Petit fours: clotted cream fudge, mini clotted cream ice cream cone with chocolate earl grey truffles.

The menu for Saturday night, cooked by Simon Stallard, from the Hidden Hut in Portscatho:

  • Canapes including: sparkling scallops, Curgurrell crab claws and Portscatho mackerel.

  • Main: Seared and smokey Moorland sirloin, Newlyn lobster and scorched leeks served with sides of layered Cornish potato chips, St Just purple sprouting broccoli and salt-baked beetroot.

  • Dessert: Beach Hut Sundae.

  • Afterwards the leaders will also be able to have baked brie, hot buttered rum and toasted marshmallows around fire pits on the beach.

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