Twitter bans Donald Trump’s presidential campaign over coronavirus fake news August 6, 2020 Twitter last night banned Donald Trump’s presidential campaign from tweeting until it agreed to remove a video spouting fake news about coronavirus. In the most sweeping action taken by the social media platform in its 14-year history, Twitter last night temporarily froze the President’s Team Trump campaign account after it was found to breach company [...]
Spitting Image unveils puppets of PM and Cummings ahead of relaunch August 5, 2020 Spitting Image has unveiled its puppets of Boris Johnson and his chief adviser Dominic Cummings ahead of its return in the autumn. The show, which will relaunch after 24 years, was made famous in the 1980s for its mockery of politiians. Read more: Spitting Image to return after 24 years following Britbox commission It will [...]
Tory mayor candidate Shaun Bailey shows off his campaign makeover August 5, 2020 Shaun Bailey’s had a tough time of it as the Conservative mayor of London candidate. Chosen back in 2018, he has had two years to raise his profile and launch attacks on the mayor through his role as a London Assembly member. Despite ample opportunity, Bailey did not manage to lay a glove on Sadiq [...]
Tory mayor candidate Shaun Bailey calls Sadiq Khan a ‘con man’ August 5, 2020 Tory mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey has accused Sadiq Khan of being a “con man” and of “betraying” black working class communities as he tries to reposition his campaign. Bailey told City A.M. after a speech that Khan had pulled a “confidence trick” on Londoners and had been an habitual liar as mayor. The mayoral candidate [...]
Amazon to pass on UK digital tax to sellers in fees hike August 5, 2020 Amazon is to increase seller fees next month, saying it will no longer absorb the UK’s digital services tax after talks with the government failed to progress. The e-commerce giant said it had taken on the impact of the digital services tax — a two per cent levy on the firm’s annual revenues — since [...]
Coronavirus: MPs slam ‘serious mistake’ over UK border policy August 5, 2020 The spread of coronavirus in the UK could have been curbed if the government had not made the “serious mistake” of failing to impose quarantine restrictions on international arrivals, a group of MPs has said. The Home Affairs committee said ministers had underestimated the threat of importing the virus from Europe, as opposed to Asia, [...]
UK and Valneva agree to set up coronavirus vaccine facility in Scotland August 5, 2020 The UK government has struck a deal with biotech company Valneva to build facilities in Scotland to potentially develop a coronavirus vaccine. The deal would see a manufacturing facility built in Livingston, West Lothian, with the potential to produce 60m units of a vaccine. The government and the French biotech company struck an agreement last [...]
The costs of lockdown can no longer be justified August 5, 2020 In an otherwise depressing week, two pieces of very good news emerged from India. In Mumbai, blood tests conducted by the city authorities on 6,936 randomly selected people found that some 40 per cent had coronavirus antibodies. Just 6,000 deaths have been reported so far in a city of 20 million. A similar exercise in [...]
UK green lights £1.3bn of housing and infrastructure spending August 4, 2020 Proposals to build more than 70,000 new homes and start a raft of commercial infrastructure projects were given the green light today in a £1.3bn funding announcement from the UK government. More than 300 projects in England – including a £23m commercial development in Manchester and a £14.88m investment in building residential homes on Brownfield [...]
Johnson gives Tiktok the green light for London headquarters August 4, 2020 Boris Johnson has given the green light to allow video sharing app Titkok to move its global headquarters to London, in a move that will likely spark fury from across the Atlantic. Downing Street today said it had no objection to Tiktok’s shift to the UK, despite growing national security concerns over its close links [...]