Cutting the aid budget from the symbolically important 0.7% of national income to 0.5% seems weird for a PM who said Brexit was about creating Global Britain - and when the UK is about to chair the G7 and COP26. Not at all clear why @BorisJohnson wants this fight...
especially with his own party. This is what @David_Cameron said about the plan to @Telegraph on Saturday: “Abandoning the .7 target for aid would be a moral, strategic and political mistake. Moral, because we should be keeping our promises to the worlds poorest...
not breaking them. A strategic error, because we would be signalling retreat from one of the UK’s vital acts of global leadership. And a political mistake because the U.K. is about to chair the G7 and important climate change negotiations”. Since the 0.7% is law and...
in the Tory manifesto, Johnson will struggle to get this cut ratified by parliament. I wonder if he and @RishiSunak will back down before the formal announcement at 12.30

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More from @Peston

24 Nov
And Labour says @Jacob_Rees_Mogg knew exactly what he was doing in drafting a bill (and presenting it at the last moment) that does nothing for MPs who want to participate in debates from home because their partners or children are clinically vulnerable. Also under Mogg's...
motion, anyone applying to participate in debates from home would have to certify themselves as clinically vulnerable, which some MPs feel is an invasion of their privacy. This government is urging all of us to work from home if we can. @Jacob_Rees_Mogg is...
not only saying this doesn't apply to MPs but as it happens he isn't fixing the problem raised by the Tory MP Tracey Crouch, who was diagnosed with cancer and wanted to participate virtually in a debate on cancer in Westminster Hall...
Read 5 tweets
24 Nov
Confirmed: the nightmare of Christmas, not before. As I pointed out Sunday, we'll have to choose just 2 other households to "bubble" with for 5 days from 23 to 27 Dec. I don't know about you, but I am not looking to our household's debate about our 2 favourite other households
And to make matters even more stressful, we can "bubble" with the other two households at home, in places of worship or outdoors, but there's no letting off steam in pubs or restaurants.
There seems to be some confusion your end. It is two households plus your own household, FIXED for the whole five days. The same three households in one bubble for five days. Got it? What this means, eg, is that if you have four children living away from home in four different...
Read 4 tweets
18 Nov
The Pfizer/BionNTech efficacy rate in those aged over 65 is 94%. Very good news. Here is the release investors.pfizer.com/investor-news/…
On stability of the vaccine, and ability to distribute it, this very important from Pfizer too: "Pfizer is confident in its vast experience, expertise and existing cold-chain infrastructure to distribute the vaccine around the world. The companies have developed specially...
designed, temperature-controlled thermal shippers utilizing dry ice to maintain temperature conditions of -70°C±10°C. They can be used be as temporary storage units for 15 days by refilling with dry ice. Each shipper contains a GPS-enabled thermal sensor to track...
Read 4 tweets
17 Nov
If the UK government came late to the Moderna party, and has bought less of its vaccine than is ideal, the fault is not that of Kate Bingham and her Vaccine Taskforce. It is down to the mandate set her by the PM. He told her at the outset to purchase potential vaccines that...
could be available for use as early as possible, and preferably before the end of the year. And Bingham was clear in July that Moderna - although a world class biotech company - does not have an established distribution network in Europe. So she knew that even if its...
research delivered a good vaccine, it would not be available for use here till the end of March or beginning of April at the earliest. And so it has turned out. That said, it looks an excellent vaccine, and the 5m doses she has secured is only enough to protect 2.5m people (or...
Read 10 tweets
12 Nov
There was a massive leap in positive tests on Monday. It is odd. I’ve checked and it is not linked to the Liverpool mass testing exercise. Image
To be clear, the Monday figure I’ve highlighted is categorised by date of specimen, NOT date of result. To day we had huge leap to 33,470 in positives declared, but that is distorted by the variable lags between a test being done and the result being known. The reason I cited...
the Monday jump is because it should represent an accurate figure of new detected infections on that day, and it is significantly higher than recent daily figures. And it is especially odd because the rate of infections among students has been coming down. It is a one-off...
Read 4 tweets
11 Nov
Here is the Shakespearean yarn of how Lee Cain was forced out as director of communications. He and Dominic Cummings wanted to introduce American-style televised press briefings. But the candidate @BorisJohnson wanted as on screen press secretary @HMTAllegra - my former...
colleague - would only take the job if she reported to the PM not to Cain. Which felt like a demotion to Cain. So when the PM insisted on appointing Stratton, he felt wholly undermined. And tonight after a challenging conversation with the PM he was forced out. As I said...
the outstanding question is whether Cummings - who is immensely loyal to his ex Vote Leave team, of whom Cain was an important member - quits in solidarity. If he does, many members of the government will be thrilled or relieved. One minister told me “I have my...
Read 4 tweets

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