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Britain should introduce the world’s first tax on sugary and salty food, a report recommends today. The “snack tax” could add £3.4 billion a year to families’ shopping bills, with a 60p Mars bar costing 9p more. With 56 million people currently living in England, it means £60 per year will be added to each person’s food bill on average — £240 for a family of four. The money should be used to pay for GPs to prescribe fruit, vegetables and cookery classes on the NHS to help prevent obesity and ill health, the Government-commissioned review says. The radical proposals...

Tech firms funded by the British government are developing facial recognition systems that could be used by private businesses, such as pubs, as coronavirus vaccine passports. The scheme being developed by the tech companies iProov and Mvine — which have received a £75,000 government grant — would see companies employ software that would cross-reference the face of British patrons to vaccination and coronavirus testing databases before entering their establishment. The chief executive of iProov, Andrew Bud, told The Times that other vaccine passport systems are ineffective compared to facial recognition technology.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday that world powers should clinch a global treaty on pandemics to ensure proper transparency after the novel coronavirus outbreak which originated in China. Asked by Reuters who he held responsible for any lack of transparency on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, Johnson said: “I think its fairly obvious that most of the evidence seems to point to the disease having originated in Wuhan.” “Therefore we all need to see as much as we possibly can about how that might have happened, the zoonotic questions that people are asking. I think we...

A Conservative MP has listed prayer alongside grotesque acts such as ‘corrective rape’ as she called on the Government to ban so-called conversion therapy. Writing for The House magazine, Alicia Kearns, MP for Rutland and Melton, said the “fraudulent and abhorrent practice” must be criminalised, as existing laws do not enable prosecution where no physical harm has been caused. She said any attempt to stop someone from expressing their chosen gender identity or sexual orientation is ‘conversion therapy’, which she said “can range from ‘therapy’ and prayer sessions, to aversive treatments like electroshocks or even ‘corrective’ rape”. Court ordersKearns said...

A historic pub in the centre of Oxford that has served students, scholars and literary greats for over 450 years is to close. The Lamb and Flag, once frequented by the likes of Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien and his friend C.S. Lewis, who wrote The Chronicles of Narnia, has suffered a disastrous loss of revenues since the start of the pandemic. It first opened in 1566 and moved to its present location on St Giles, a broad thoroughfare in the city centre, in 1613. It is owned by St John’s College, one of 45 colleges and private...

For Boris Johnson this was his darkest hour. A moment for sombre reflection, as haunting as the sounds of muffled drums and Chopin's funeral march. The grim news that had broken just moments before – that the death toll from the pandemic had surpassed 100,000 Britons – had left the Prime Minister visibly shaken. His face was flushed, his hair seemed whiter than ever. This terrible milestone had, of course, been some time coming. Yet even this accomplished wordsmith struggled to summon the mots justes for the occasion. He intoned how hard it was 'to compute the sorrow contained in...

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has condemned the "disgraceful scenes" in the US, after supporters of President Donald Trump stormed Congress and clashed with police. Rioters breached the Capitol building where lawmakers met to confirm Joe Biden's presidential election victory. The PM said it was "vital that there should be a peaceful and orderly transfer of power".

England is going back to a full national lockdown in an effort to stem a surge in COVID-19 cases driven by a contagious new mutation, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Monday. The new “stay at home” order will go into effect Wednesday and is expected to last until at least mid-February. “With most of the country already under extreme measures, it’s clear that we need to do more, together, to bring this new variant under control while our vaccines are rolled out,” Johnson in a televised address. “In England, we must therefore go into a national lockdown.”

Legendary rock-and-roll guitarist and vocalist Eric Clapton is collaborating with Van Morrison on a song called “Stand and Deliver” that is critical of United Kingdom’s laughably stringent COVID lockdowns and their effects on live music. Predictably, liberals on Twitter are seething uncontrollably over the news. Clapton, the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, told Variety magazine that he chose to collaborate with Morrison on the song after finding the effect of lockdowns on musicians “deeply upsetting.” “We must stand up and be counted because we need to find a way out of this mess. The...

Prime Minister Boris Johnson described his phone call with former Vice President Joe Biden as “refreshing”, in an apparent dig at President Donald Trump, who he referred to as the “previous president”. On Tuesday, Boris Johnson revealed that he had spoken to the 77-year-old Democrat, to congratulate him after the mainstream media declared him the winner of the presidential election, as well as to discuss future ‘Build Back Better’ opportunities on issues such as climate change.

Boris Johnson has congratulated Joe Biden on his US presidential election victory, saying that the he is looking forward "to working closely together on our shared priorities." In a statement, the Prime Minister wrote: "Congratulations to Joe Biden on his election as President of the United States and Kamala Harris on her historic acheivement."

A proposed law giving Boris Johnson's government the power to override parts of the Brexit agreement with the EU has passed its first hurdle in the Commons. MPs backed the Internal Market Bill by 340 votes to 263. During a heated debate before the vote, Labour's Ed Miliband criticised the bill, saying the UK was backing away from a deal the prime minister himself had signed earlier this year.

Former Conservative prime minister David Cameron lashed out at Boris Johnson today, branding his decision to axe the UK’s foreign aid department a “mistake”. In what is believed to be his first policy intervention since quitting in 2016. ex-premier Mr. Cameron joined his Labour predecessors to criticize Mr. Johnson’s decision to scrap the Department for International Development. The Prime Minister told MPs in the Commons today it will be merged into the Foreign Office to create the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, in a bid to “maximize British influence” overseas. He said the move would “unite our aid with our...

At the end of last week, the Prime Minister was beginning to wonder if the country was taking his advice too much to heart. He asked us to stay at home - and we have. At each daily press conference, medical and scientific advisers talk about the plunge in use of transport and how well rules are being observed. What they don’t say is that this was not quite in their original plan. Government modellers didn’t expect such obedience: the expected workers to carry on and at least a million pupils to be left in school by parents. The deaths...

Former Prime Minister David Cameron has said that a second Brexit referendum cannot be ruled out, and opposed Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend Parliament. During an interview with The Times published on Friday, Mr Cameron was asked whether he thought there would be a second referendum, and responded: “I don’t think you can rule it out because we’re stuck.” “I’m not saying one will happen or should happen. I’m just saying that you can’t rule things out right now because you’ve got to find some way of unblocking the blockage,” he said, adding his voice to that of Remainer and...

The British prime minister who called the Brexit referendum and then saw the public vote to leave the European Union says he is sorry for the divisions it has caused. David Cameron said in an interview published Saturday that he thinks about the consequences of the Brexit referendum “every single day” and worries “desperately” about what will happen next. “I deeply regret the outcome and accept that my approach failed,” he said. “The decisions I took contributed to that failure. I failed.” He admitted that many people blame him for the Brexit divisions that have deepened since the referendum and...

Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted Monday that a new Brexit deal can be reached to ensure Britain leaves the European Union by the Oct. 31 deadline, as he prepared to suspend Parliament and send rebellious lawmakers home until two weeks before Britain is supposed to leave the European Union. Lawmakers used the hours before the suspension to deliver new blows to Johnson’s teetering authority. An opposition-backed measure designed to stop Britain from crashing out of the EU on Oct. 31 without a divorce deal became law after receiving the formal assent of Queen Elizabeth II. That came hours before legislators...

The Remainer 'surrender Bill' cleared its first hurdle by a big margin tonight as MPs backed it at second reading. The legislation made it through the stage by 329 to 300 - a slightly bigger majority than the 27 secured by rebels last night. The latest blow to Boris Johnson came as plotters insisted Brexit must be delayed before an election is called - in case he wins and tries to force No Deal on October 3

Tory rebels and opposition MPs have defeated the government in the first stage of their attempt to pass a law designed to prevent a no-deal Brexit. The Commons voted 328 to 301 to take control of the agenda, meaning they can bring forward a bill seeking to delay the UK's exit date. In response, the prime minister said he would bring forward a motion for an early general election. Jeremy Corbyn said the bill should be passed before an election was held.

LONDON — The governing Conservative party lost its majority today as one of its MPs defected to join the anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats. Phillip Lee sat on the opposition benches on Tuesday as Prime Minister Boris Johnson stood to deliver a statement in the House of Commons. The move increases pressure on Johnson, whose majority was already looking shaky, but does not automatically trigger an election because that would require a separate vote.