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Tag: Boris Johnson

  • UK prime minister to unveil living with COVID plan amid criticism

    UK prime minister to unveil living with COVID plan amid criticism

    UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to unveil on Monday his “living with COVID plan’’ amid criticism from the opposition, unions and medical sectors which fear that the lifting of all restrictions.

    The opposition and medical sectors fear the scrapping of free testing and the legal self-isolation requirement could lead to another wave of the pandemic.

    In a statement, Johnson claimed that although the pandemic is not over, the UK was “one step closer to a return to normality, thanks to the incredible vaccine rollout’’.

    However, TUC, Unite, Unison and other unions urged the prime minister to reconsider his , as his plan could lead to chaos in schools and workplaces.

    “If the remaining safety rules are relaxed, schools will be left in an impossible situation, with parents unsure about whether to send their children into school, transmission rates soaring and new, more potent variants emerging,’’ they warned in a joint statement.

    Stephen Doughty, Labour lawmaker and shadow minister for Africa and International Development also criticised the government’s plan, claiming that this is the wrong time to scrap free test and be rolling back on the restrictions on self-isolation.

    “I think the government again is driven by the headlines rather than what’s the best advise here,’’ the opposition politician said.

    An emergency medicine doctor also questioned Johnson’s “rush” in bringing forward by about a month the new COVID-19 plan.

    “There are measures that we need to put in place to properly live with COVID,’’ doctor Saleyha Ahsan said.

    Johnson is expected to update Parliament on the plans on Monday afternoon before holding a televised news conference to reveal details to the public in the evening.

  • Fruits of the British Empire: Andrew, Blair and Johnson – By Owei Lakemfa

    Fruits of the British Empire: Andrew, Blair and Johnson – By Owei Lakemfa

    By Owei Lakemfa

    The British royalty and political system, faced with two international criminal suspects: Prince Andrew, son of Queen Elizabeth II, and Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, took two different and contradictory positions.

    Andrew the son of the House of Windsor had committed his alleged case of raping an underage girl not in a Third World country where he might even have been praised for spreading British civilisation, but in the United States, US, a country birthed by Britain which is forever striving to show superiority over all earthly dominions.

    So, Britain has had to let Andrew, the third child of the Queen, go, possibly, on trial in US, but without his long chains of royal and military titles.

    He is accused in US courts of having sex with Virginia Giuffre on three different occasions when she was underage. Giuffre claimed she was handed over to Andrew as a sex slave by his friend, Jeffrey Epstein. On the other hand, Blair with his long chains of immorality, is the prime suspect, along with former US President George W. Bush in the crimes of lying to the world that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction, WMD, as a pretext to levying a catastrophic war against it.

    Blair as British Prime Minister, on September 24, 2002, released a false document on Iraq called “The September Dossier” repeating the lie that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons. In the foreword, he wrote: “The document discloses that his (Iraqi President, Sadam Hussein’s) military planning, allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them.”

    He presented this report to the British parliament which discussed, adopted it and approved the invasion of innocent Iraq. Blair and Bush also got the United Nations and many countries in the world to pressure the hapless country to produce weapons it did not possess, failing which Iraq was invaded in 2003.

    Leading British polling group, Opinion Research Business, reported that within five years of that invasion, over one million Iraqis were killed. Over the years, more than five million Iraqi children became orphans and 1.8 million Iraqis became refugees roaming the world with.

    In comparison, 4,491 US soldiers died in the war with over 32,000 injured, while 179 British soldiers sent by Blair did not return home alive with 350 injured. The brigandage in Iraq led to the introduction or festering of terrorism around the world in countries like Syria, Libya, Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Cameroun, Chad and Niger.However, given the high profile of the suspects like Blair and Bush, nobody has been brought to trial 19 years after that invasion.

    Despite this, it is unconscionable for the highly respected Queen Elizabeth II to roll out the drums on New Year Day 2022 to honour Blair with a knighthood. It is a disservice to the British Royal Family which has been on the throne for 37 generations and 1,209 years. It also diminishes the prestige of the British knighthood. The membership of the Order of the Garter, which is the oldest and most senior British honour to which Blair has been admitted, is entirely based on the personal choice of the monarch.

    Knighthood is supposed to be conferred on an inspirational person who has served diligently and done work beneficial to country or humanity. Blair does not, by any stretch of imagination, qualify. Not a few Britons agree; within six days of his knighthood, over one million Britons had signed a petition demanding that the Queen withdraws the undeserved honour conferred on Blair.

    Angus Scott, the Voice Artist who initiated the petition wrote that: “Tony Blair caused irreparable damage to both the constitution of the United Kingdom and to the very fabric of the nation’s society.”

    To me, the action of Queen Elizabeth II is not surprising and certainly not the worse such decision in British Royal history. That dubious prize would go to Queen Elizabeth I who knighted Francis Drake, a slave merchant, professional pirate and one of the most infamous criminals in history. No, Drake was not openly called a pirate, he was given the more dignifying title of privateer, that is, a private person officially endorsed to carry out armed attacks or piracy in the seas and share the loot.

    In the case of Drake, Queen Elizabeth I having spotted his talent following two piratical attacks in the West Indies, decided to commission him to steal primarily from Spanish and Portuguese ships carrying treasures mainly from colonies, and sharing the loot with her.

    In a sense, it was a case of looters being looted or a thief who specialised in stealing from fellow thieves.Drake had started off with his cousin, John Hawkins as a slave merchant invading the West African coast, capturing Africans and selling them off in the Caribbean plantations. But during one of their slaving expeditions in 1568, the Spanish Navy, whose government had declared slave trade illegal, busted them, and Drake turned to the more lucrative profession of piracy.

    Although Drake is also credited with circumnavigating the world from 1577 to 1580, but that was incidental as the primary purpose of that trip was piratic not exploration. The Queen in telling Drake that the objective of this mission was to find out “places with traffic” was telling him to go loot Spanish ships and possessions.

    On this trip, he also stole into territories and ports along the coast of Chile and Peru, looting. It was on this trip in March 1579, he seized the Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, a Spanish treasure ship from which he looted 80 pounds of gold, 12 chests of coins, and 26 tons of silver.

    On this trip, Drake had a quarrel with his senior officer, Thomas Doughty, a nobleman and had him beheaded. He then changed the name of the ship from Pelican to Golden Hind. The Queen was so pleased with Drake that on April 4, 1581, she personally came on board the Golden Hind to knight him.

    Drake was also appointed the Mayor of Plymouth. One of Blair’s successors and current Prime Minister Boris Johnson has had a knockdown in the parliamentary ring after admitting this Wednesday, January 19, 2022 that he attended a social party at 10, Downing Street on May 20, 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown when his government confined other citizens to their homes.

    Johnson claimed he had attended the alcohol-induced party because “I believed implicitly that this was a work event.”

    Wonderful, he thought he was at work! Fruits like Andrew, Blair and Johnson might just be harvests from the garden of the old British Empire.

  • British Prime Minister Boris Johnson loses 79-year-old mother

    British Prime Minister Boris Johnson loses 79-year-old mother

    The painter Charlotte Johnson Wahl, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s mother, has died at the age of 79, according to a notice published in The Times on Tuesday.

    Charlotte Johnson Wahl, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s aged 40, died “suddenly and peacefully” at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, west London, on Monday.

    The prime minister, who was referred to in the notice by his first name, Alexander, is the eldest of her four children with Stanley Johnson, whom she met in 1962.

    The others are Rachel, a journalist and commentator, Leo, an environmentalist, and Joe, a former Conservative Party lawmaker and minister.

    Johnson Wahl was the daughter of lawyer James Fawcett, who was president of the European Commission for Human Rights in the 1970s. She studied English at Oxford University.

    After meeting Stanley Johnson, whom she married in 1963, she interrupted her education to travel to the United States, where Boris Johnson was born in 1964.

    She then returned to complete her undergraduate degree, before going on to make a living as a portrait painter.

    She and Stanley Johnson divorced in 1979. She remarried in 1988, to an American history professor, Nicholas Wahl, and lived in New York until his death in 1996.

    Like many British families, the Johnsons were divided by Brexit, despite the prime minister’s early upbringing in Brussels, where his father was a former European lawmaker.

    Rachel Johnson was pro-EU but Boris Johnson revealed in 2019 that his mother, who stayed out of the limelight during his political ascent, had voted leave.

    He said she taught him “to believe strongly in the equal importance, the equal dignity, the equal worth of every human being on the planet”.

  • UK available to assist Nigeria combat terrorism, Boris Johnson tells Buhari

    UK available to assist Nigeria combat terrorism, Boris Johnson tells Buhari

    British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that the United Kingdom is available to assist Nigeria in its war against terrorism.

    Johnson stated this while holding bilateral talks at the sidelines of the Global Education Summit in London on Thursday.

    President Buhari had earlier reviewed the security situation in the different regions of the country, while PM Johnson pledged Britain’s preparedness to lend a helping hand.

    “We are available to help,” he said.

    At the meeting, the two leaders agreed that in a bid to bring the various forms of terrorism to an end, then it is important that the judicial process runs without interference, no matter who was involved.

    According to a communique by the President’s special media aide, the two leaders equally discussed how to increase trade between the two countries, develop solar and wind power, the leadership of the Commonwealth going forward, and other matters of mutual interest.

    Nigeria’s power needs and efforts which are being made, as well as initiatives geared at achieving food security, were also brought to the table.

  • British PM, Boris Johnson talks tough, says racists abusers will be banned from football stadiums

    British PM, Boris Johnson talks tough, says racists abusers will be banned from football stadiums

    Boris Johnson has promised to ban people guilty of sending racist abuse to footballers from attending matches.

    The prime minister said he would ensure the “football banning order regime is changed” to crack down on racism.

    Labour has been calling for the law to be changed after England players were subject to abuse on social media.

    But Sir Keir Starmer said the PM’s promise to take action “rings hollow” after his previous refusal to condemn fans who booed players taking the knee.

    An online petition calling for the FA and the government to ban those who have carried out racist abuse to be banned for life has reached over a million signatures.

    The prime minister said: “What we are doing is taking practical steps…so that if you are guilty of racist abuse online on football, then you will not be going to the match. No ifs, no buts, no exemptions, no excuses.”

    A football banning order is used to ban someone from attending matches for a set period of time, and can be imposed for offences such as throwing missiles onto the playing area or into the crowd, and racist or indecent chanting at a match.

    Downing Street says there will be a 12 week consultation on changing banning orders to include online abuse offences. The government wants the changes to happen “as swiftly as possible” but has not given a precise timetable.

    It comes as a 37-year-old man was arrested by Greater Manchester Police over social media posts directed at England football players after the Euro 2020 final.

  • Boris Johnson, Prince William condemn racist abuse of England’s Black players

    Boris Johnson, Prince William condemn racist abuse of England’s Black players

    British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday condemned the racist abuse targeted at some of England’s Black players after the team’s widely watched loss to Italy in the Euro 2020 final on Sunday.

    Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka were viciously targeted by trolls and angry England fans after the defeat at London’s Wembley Stadium. The team lost, 3-2, to Italy in a penalty shootout in which all three players missed their shots.

    A wave of online abuse soon followed, with monkey and banana emoji and racist comments posted underneath photographs of the players on their personal Instagram accounts.

    Johnson said at an evening news conference that he hoped that those directing abuse “will crawl back under the rock from which you emerged.”

    Prince William, who is president of England’s Football Association and was at the game, tweeted that he was “sickened” by the comments.

    England Manager Gareth Southgate said at a Monday morning news conference that the abuse was “unforgivable” and “just not what we stand for.” He continued: “We have been a beacon of light in bringing people together in people being able to relate to the national team, and the national team stands for everybody.”

    Shortly after the result, which crushed the hopes of millions who believed a championship was finally coming home to England after a 55-year wait, the term “Saka’s Instagram” began trending on Twitter as many highlighted the abusive comments being left on the 19-year-old’s page.

    Concerned fans urged other supporters to help protect the mental health of the players by reporting the abuse and leaving positive comments in its place.

    “Rashford, Sancho, Saka all missing is jet fuel to the worst people on the planet,” wrote one of many people expressing disgust at the treatment of the stars.

    “Some English football fans make it so hard to be an English football fan,” British author Matt Haig wrote.

    Musa Okwonga, co-host of the Stadio football podcast, tweeted: “Hate is a strong word. But the racist relying on black English footballers to bring them glory as if they were their servants, then turning on them as soon as they fell short of their dreams, have my deepest contempt.”

    The Football Association also condemned the abuse, saying it was “appalled” at the treatment of the players by social media users and called on the government and social media companies to do more to tackle the issue of online harassment.

  • British PM says it doesn’t look like COVID-19 leaked from Chinese lab

    British PM says it doesn’t look like COVID-19 leaked from Chinese lab

    British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that it does not look like the Coronavirus (COVID-19) originated from a laboratory in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, local media reported.

    “At the moment the advice we’ve had is that it doesn’t look like this particular disease of a zoonotic origin came from a lab,” Johnson said Sunday in his closing news conference at the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Britain’s southwestern resort of Carbis Bay, a seaside resort and village in Cornwall.

    “I do think there’s a problem with zoonotic diseases and this is clearly something we need to focus on,” he said.

    Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Britain’s “best information” remained that COVID-19 “jumped” from animals to humans.

    Leaders from Britain, the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, and Italy, plus the European Union, wrapped up on Sunday their first in-person summit in almost two years.

    Britain also invited Australia, India, South Korea, and South Africa as guest countries to this year’s meeting.

  • Days after hinting on July 2022 date, Boris Johnson, Carrie Symonds take UK by storm, hold secret wedding with just 30 guests

    Days after hinting on July 2022 date, Boris Johnson, Carrie Symonds take UK by storm, hold secret wedding with just 30 guests

    British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson married Carrie Symonds in a top secret ceremony at Westminster Cathedral on Saturday (today).

    Boris and his bride mounted a cloak and dagger operation which had been planned for six months.

    According to British tabloid, TheSun.co.uk, only a handful of church officials were involved in the preparations – and the 30 guests in attendance were invited at the last minute.

    Even senior Downing Street aides were totally unaware the couple were about to tie the knot – and reacted with surprise when informed by The Sun.

    Boris and Carrie chose to tie the knot in London’s main Roman Catholic cathedral, just 1.5 miles from Downing Street.

    Visiting tourists were blissfully unaware it was about to host the wedding of the year.

    But shortly after 1.30pm, the Byzantine-style church was suddenly cleared out. Staff told visitors the building was going into lockdown.

    Half an hour later a limo carrying the bride swept into the piazza outside the main west door, just 300 yards from busy Victoria Station.

    Carrie, 33, stepped out wearing a stunning long and flowing white dress. She chose not to wear a veil.

    Bride and groom walked down the aisle to classical music and shared a kiss after the reading their vows.

    Their year-old son Wilfred was there to see the happy occasion – along with two official witnesses.

    The ceremony was carried out by Father Daniel Humphreys who had given the couple pre-marriage instructions, and even baptised little Wilfred last year.

    Cops mounted a massive security operation around the ceremony. It’s believed armed police were standing by.

    One witness said the cathedral went into lockdown for the half-hour service.

    They said: “It was closed for about half an hour and they all came out after.

    “It’s not very often we have weddings here, and when they came out they were all bungled into a car.

    “It looked like nobody wanted to see who it was.”

    Another member of staff said: “Yes, there was a wedding. It was the Prime Minister.

    “Carrie looked beautiful. She had a long white dress with no veil. She looked made up.

    “He was extremely happy as you can imagine, he looked very smart, and was in a very dapper suit.

    “She came down the aisle and he didn’t take his eyes off her.

    “They read each other’s vows and then they shared a kiss.

    “They looked besotted.”

    One staff member said: “I was shocked when I heard who was getting married. It was kept very quiet. We only knew yesterday.

    “Security has been tight. Police were everywhere.

    “It was very planned.”

    TheNewsGuru.com, TNG reports that the wedding took place just six days after the couple sent out save-the-date cards to guests telling them to keep Saturday, July 30, 2022 free for a marriage celebration.

    Hours before the wedding, Carrie posted a picture of Wilfred in a field of bluebells on Instagram.

    She also revealed how “proud” she was of the work carried out by The Aspinall Foundation in Africa rescuing elephants.

  • UK PM Boris Johnson, fiancee pick wedding date

    UK PM Boris Johnson, fiancee pick wedding date

    British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his fiancee Carrie Symonds have set a wedding date for next year after delaying plans due to the pandemic, The Sun tabloid reported Monday.

    Known for his colourful love life, Johnson will be only the second prime minister ever to marry while in office, following Robert Jenkinson in 1822.

    The couple have sent “save the date” cards for July 30 next year, The Sun reported.

    When elected in 2019, the 56-year-old became the first prime minister to live at Downing Street as part of an unmarried couple.

    His partner Symonds, a 33-year-old former head of communications for the Conservative Party, gave birth to their son Wilfred in April last year.

    This was just weeks after Johnson left intensive care as he recovered from a severe case of coronavirus.

    The couple have lately been hit by a scandal over the costly redecoration of their Downing Street flat, which is being probed over allegations that contributions by a Tory party donor were not declared fully.

    Johnson has been married twice before. He had four children with his previous wife, lawyer Marina Wheeler, before they split in 2018. The couple only finalised their divorce last November.

    Johnson also reportedly has a daughter born as the result of an affair.

  • British PM’s Most Senior Black Adviser, Samuel Kasumu resigns

    British PM’s Most Senior Black Adviser, Samuel Kasumu resigns

    Bristish Prime Minister’s most senior black adviser is to step down from his role in Number 10.

    Samuel Kasumu will leave his post as Boris Johnson‘s special adviser for civil society and communities in May.

    The news comes a day after a government-backed review of racial disparities in Britain was published.

    The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities’ 258-page report was criticised for being “steeped in denial”.

    But a Number 10 spokesman rejected reports that Samuel Kasumu’s resignation, first reported by Politico, was linked to this.

    “Samuel Kasumu has played an incredibly valuable role during his time at No 10,” he said.

    “As he previously set out, he will be leaving government in May – this has been his plan for several months and has not changed.

    “Any suggestion that this decision has been made this week or that this is linked to the CRED report is completely inaccurate.”

    According to Politico, he told colleagues of his decision on Tuesday morning, just as the findings of the report were released.

    Samuel Kasumu will stay in post until May to continue work on improving the uptake of coronavirus vaccines among minority groups, its report added.

    Asked about his departure, Boris Johnson said Samuel Kasumu had “done some great stuff” in Number 10.

    “I thank him very much, particularly on helping to encourage vaccine take-up amongst more hesitant groups and communities. And, actually, we’re seeing some real success there,” Mr Johnson said.

    The PM described the report as a “very interesting piece of work” and said the government would be responding to it in “due course”.

    “I don’t say the government is going to agree with absolutely everything in it, but it has some original and stimulating work in it that I think people need to read and to consider,” Mr Johnson said.

    He continued: “There are very serious issues that our society faces to do with racism that we need to address.

    “We’ve got to do more to fix it. We need to understand the severity of the problem.”

    According to the BBC, Mr Kasumu drafted and retracted a resignation letter in February, in which he accused the Conservatives of pursuing “a politics steeped in division” and suggested Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister, may have been in breach of the ministerial code over her row with a journalist.

    Labour’s shadow women and equalities secretary Marsha de Cordova said: “To have your most senior advisor on ethnic minorities quit as you publish a so-called landmark report on race in the UK is telling of how far removed the Tories are from the everyday lived experiences of black, Asian and ethnic minority people.

    “Their divisive report appears to glorify slavery and suggests that institutional racism does not exist despite the evidence to the contrary. It is no wonder they are losing the expertise from their team.”

    The commission’s report, which explored ethnic and race disparities within education, employment, the criminal justice system and health, argued that the UK is no longer a country “where the system is deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities”.

    It said the UK “should be regarded as a model for other white-majority countries” although it cannot be considered “a post racial society”.

    “Too often ‘racism’ is the catch-all explanation, and can be simply implicitly accepted rather than explicitly examined,” the report argued.

    “The evidence shows that geography, family influence, socio-economic background, culture and religion have more significant impact on life chances than the existence of racism.”