Boris Johnson news - live: UK facing lockdown due to PM's 'failure,' says Rayner as Starmer says he must apologise
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The UK is facing the possibility of a second national lockdown due to Boris Johnson’s “failure and incompetence” on coronavirus, Labour’s deputy leader has warned.
Angela Rayner told her party’s virtual conference that there had never been a prime minister “more out of his depth and ill-equipped to the task” than Mr Johnson.
Her comments came after Labour’s leader Sir Keir Starmer said the PM should apologise over the chaotic testing system in the UK in recent weeks.
Boris Johnson’s appearance at the Battle of Britain anniversary service at Westminster Abbey today has raised some eyebrows due to the Bible passage he was asked to read.
“Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others” is not a sentiment which is typically associated with this prime minister…
Our reporter, Clea Skopeliti, has more details below on Labour peer and journalist Joan Bakewell’s claim that she was sexually assaulted by a junior government minister early in her career:
Joan Bakewell tells of being assaulted by a government minister
The Labour Party peer describes being the ‘victim of unwanted attention’ in the 1950s and 1960s
Illegal evictions up by 50 per cent since start of pandemic, with ‘massive increase’ expected
Housing experts have warned of a surge in tenants being illegally removed from their homes by criminal landlords as the government’s eviction ban comes to an end on Monday.
It is thought that a combination of a second wave of infections and the end of the furlough scheme, alongside hundreds of thousands of households already in rent arrears, could lead to a major spike in illegal evictions in the coming weeks and months.
The warning followed reports that illegal evictions have already surged by 50 per cent in some areas since the start of the pandemic.
Our reporter, Ben Chapman, has the full story below:
Illegal evictions up 50 per cent since pandemic began
As hundreds of thousands of tenants fall into arrears and new rules mean landlords must give six months notice to evict, campaigners warn some property owners are taking law into their own hands
That’s all from our live coverage of UK politics today - we will be back with more updates tomorrow.
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