6:41 am, June 19, 2023
Sunak ‘expected to skip debate’ on damning Boris Johnson partygate report – reports
Rishi Sunak is reportedly set to skip a debate of the damning report that found Boris Johnson lied over partygate, amid reignited anger over the scandal following a newly published video.
The motion on the Privileges Committee’s findings comes as Scotland Yard is ‘considering’ the footage from a 2020 Christmas gathering at Conservative Party headquarters.
He said it was a matter for each individual MP to decide their own course of action over the committee findings – leaving the door open for other Conservatives to follow suit and potentially avoid casting a ballot.
Tories who attended Covid-era gathering should not be stripped of honours – Gove
Michael Gove has said two Tories should keep the honours they were handed by Boris Johnson despite attending a pandemic-era gathering at which staff were filmed apparently joking about Covid restrictions.
The levelling up secretary apologised over the footage of a Christmas event at Conservative Party headquarters said to have taken place on December 14, 2020 when indoor socialising was banned.
But Gove said the former prime minister has a right to confer resignation appointments which should not be blocked.
Unions criticise government after strikes reach worst level in over 30 years
Union leaders have attacked the government’s role in industrial disputes ahead of the anniversary of the first strike by railway workers, which has led to an unprecedented wave of walkouts in the past year.
Latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show there were 3.7m working days lost in labour disputes in the UK in the 11 months to April, the highest number in an 11-month period in more than 30 years.
One union official said the government is ‘completely to blame’ for the wave of walkouts across the country virtually every week since a year ago.
Cameron and Osborne must be ‘taken to task’ for austerity at Covid inquiry – BMA
David Cameron and George Osborne must be ‘taken to task’ at the Covid inquiry over austerity-era decisions that ‘left us so unprepared’ for the pandemic, a doctors’ union has said.
The British Medical Association (BMA) said the pair should be questioned this week about the ‘parlous state’ of the NHS due to a decade of spending cuts.
Former prime minister Cameron will become the first politician to appear under oath when he is sworn in on Monday, the inquiry has said. He will be followed by former chancellor Osborne, as well as Jeremy Hunt, the current chancellor who served as health secretary in the austerity-era government of the 2010s.
US secretary of state arrives in Beijing in effort to cool US-China tensions
US secretary of state Antony Blinken arrived in Beijing early on Sunday on a high-stakes diplomatic mission to try to cool exploding US-China tensions that have set many around the world on edge.
Blinken was to begin two days of talks with senior Chinese officials in the afternoon.
He is the highest-level American official to visit China since president Joe Biden took office and the first secretary of state to make the trip in five years.
Listen to the latest Car Dealer Podcast
Former Imperial Car Supermarket boss Neil Smith joins James Baggott and Jon Reay on the Podcast this week. Listen to the show via Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
‘I’ve done nothing wrong’ – Sturgeon returns home after arrest
Scotland’s former first minister Nicola Sturgeon said ‘I’ve done nothing wrong’ as she returned home for the first time following her arrest last Sunday.
She was questioned by police in connection with the inquiry into the SNP’s finances and was released without charge on June 11 pending further investigation.
Sturgeon was the third person to be arrested as Police Scotland look into how more than £600,000 in donations to the party earmarked for an independence referendum has been used.
More than 10,000 arrivals on small boats so far in 2023
More than 10,000 people have been detected crossing the English Channel in small boats so far this year, after a jump in arrivals in recent days, figures show.
Some 486 people made the crossing on Friday, with a further 374 on Saturday.
The provisional total for 2023 now stands at 10,139, according to the latest data from the Home Office. There were 45,755 crossings in 2022.
Flood warnings in place after nearly half a month of rain falls in one hour
Flooding is expected across parts of England after nearly half a month’s worth of rain fell in just one hour as thunder and lightning moved in on Father’s Day.
Most of the country was blanketed with Met Office warnings for either rain or thunderstorms until the end of Sunday.
Between 6pm and 7pm, 35.6mm of rain fell in Woodhouse Mill, near Sheffield, the Met Office said. In June, the entire UK averages 12 days of rain, totalling 77mm. Six flood warnings were in place across parts of northern England by 8pm, after heavy rain swept in during earlier on in the day.
Weather
It’ll be a day of sunny spells and thundery showers, reports BBC Weather. The rain will be particularly prevalent in the afternoon. It’ll be warm in the sunshine with highs of 25 degrees celsius expected.
A mostly clear night with the odd cloud. Further north it’ll be breezy and cloudier. In the early hours heavy rain will sweep into the south-west.
