Boris johnsons most senior adviser, Dominic Cummings, faces calls to resign after he travelled hundreds of miles with his wife who was sick with coronavirus syptoms during the lockdown. Mr cummings insists hes done nothing wrong and that he behaved reasonably and legally. Who cares about how it looks . Its a question of doing the right thing. Its not about what you guys think. The government defended him saying he wanted to stay with family to ensure he had childcare if he got symptoms of coronavirus. Mr cummings is, you know, in the public eye but the reality of the matter is a four year old childs welfare i think is the important thing. Businesses will be expected to pay a quarter of the wages of furloughed workers from the start of august. And guernsey becomes the first part
of the British Isles to remove nearly all its lockdown restrictions. Good afternoon. The Prime Ministers top aide Dominic Cummings is facing calls to resign after it emerged he travelled more than 250 miles with his wife who was sick with suspected coronavirus to be near relatives during the lockdown. Downing street says that mr cummings drove from london to County Durham to be near relatives who could help with childcare if he became unwell and that his actions were in line with coronavirus guidelines. Mr cummings said today hed done the right thing and believes he behaved reasonably and legally. The transport secretary grant shapps says that Dominic Cummings has the Prime Ministers full support. It comes as 282 more deaths were announced in the past 2a hours. It brings the total deaths in uk to 36,675. Heres our Political Correspondent iain watson. You are supposed to be more than two metres apart. Dominic cummings lecturing reporters on social distancing but his opponents have accused him of breaking lockdown will some sell further when his wife became ill at the end of march they did not isolate at their london home but travelled 250 miles to County Durham. It is about doing the right thing, not what you guys think. Government guidelines on self isolation says if you live with others and you are the first in your household to have symptoms of coronavirus you must stay at home for seven days but all other
household members who remain well must not leave the house for m days. In must not leave the house for 14 days. In a statement downing street set out to explain why the adviser to borisjohnson set out to explain why the adviser to Boris Johnson did set out to explain why the adviser to borisjohnson did not stay at home. It was essential for Dominic Cummings to ensure young child would be properly cared for, it says. His sister and nieces volunteered to help so he went to house separate to but near to his extended family in case their help was needed to it added his actions were in line with coronavirus guidelines and mr cummings believed that he behaved reasonably and legally. Durham police say they made contact with the owners of an address where someone the owners of an address where someone from london was self isolating but downing street insisted no stage was Dominic Cummings or his family spoken to by the police about this matter. Where does the sleep the government state guidance now . Is the advice now to parents that if you do not have your extended family nearby even when youre ill with symptoms of covid 19
youre ill with symptoms of covid 19 you are allowed to leave your home and travel many miles across the country to isolate closer to your extended family . The important thing is everyone remains in the same place whilst they are locked down and that is exactly what happened in the case that you are referring to with mrcummings, the the case that you are referring to with mr cummings, the Prime Minister would have known that he was staying put and would have known that he was staying putand did would have known that he was staying put and did not come out again until he was feeling better. But he did travel 250 miles from his london home, did he not. In the guidance it says if you are living with children keep following this advice to the best of your ability however we are aware that not all these measures will be possible depending therefore on circumstances, im adding those last few words. Senior ministers might to defend Dominic Cummings and they have been calls for his resignation from some opponents. Dominic cummings should have resigned and done the right thing but now borisjohnson must show
leadership to remove him from office immediately. A lot of people have been struggling to this pandemic and sticking by the rules, with care workers moving into care homes, hospital staff staying in hotels. And theyve struggled not seen their families and have adhered by the rules and broken them. It isjust so irresponsible. This is notjust about Dominic Cummings about the guidelines that parents should follow if they have symptoms and whether the rules that apply in your street also apply to downing street. Iain is here. Downing street remains under all sorts of pressure over this. The opposition parties keen to keep the pressure on and tonight but the labour party and the snp have written to the cabinet secretary calling for an investigation into this so in effect Dominic Cummings maintains that he did not break the coronavirus guidelines and the labour party and the snp say he did
and they want top Civil Servants to try to adjudicate. It would be easy to regard this whole story as a westminster bubble issue that people just to about around the house of commons and government advisers but it is about what type of vice people are getting their ill with coronavirus and they have children. It seems to me that that advice is more flexibly advised tonight so when the transport secretary grant shapps was asked about this he said if you have no network of support in your area and you have a child then perhaps can move. The dangerfor the government is not so much the incoming political attacks but that they are desperate to get the spread of the virus down in thatjob could be made all the more difficult if people themselves decide to apply a huge amount of flexibility to the guidelines because they believe that downing street are not, are able to apply that same amount of flexibility themselves. Businesses will be expected to pay a quarter of the wages of furloughed workers from the start of august. The chancellors said the furlough scheme will be in place until the end of october and currently supports around 8 million jobs. Our Business CorrespondentKatie Prescott is in our business unit. Tell us more about this announcement . Thurlow is aware that with become familiar with over the last couple of months in the name for thejob protection last couple of months in the name for the job protection scheme, paying the wages of those workers who otherwise would have lost their jobs in the coronavirus pandemic. Furlough. And as you say the demand for this has been enormous and the government now pays the wages of around a quarter of the workforce but it comes at a cost, about the same but it comes at a cost, about the sa m e cost but it comes at a cost, about the same cost as paying for the nhs every month. A couple of weeks ago the chancellor said that he would extend the scheme until october but he would expect business to take some of the cost of that. And this week we expect to hear that businesses will be asked to pay a quarter of the wage bill of
temporary workers as well as the National Insurance contributions but we expect to hear businesses will be able to take on furloughed workers ona able to take on furloughed workers on a part time basis as theyd be nothing to do for a while so the chancellor gently unravelling i think this extremely important and successful but ultimately extremely expensive scheme. Prescott, many thanks. Travellers heading to france from the uk will have to self isolate for 14 days from 8th june according to the french government. It comes after home secretary priti patel revealed quarantine plans for most visitors to the uk from the same date. France said it would impose reciprocal measures for any european country enforcing a quarantine. Spains Prime Minister has announced that overseas visitors will be able to come to the country from july. Spain, which has had one of the toughest lockdowns in europe, has been in a state of emergency since mid march. Spains footballs top division, la liga, will also resume behind
closed doors from june 8th. The Channel Island of guernsey has become the first part of the British Isles to remove nearly all its lockdown restrictions. Guernsey has had no new cases of covid i9 for over three weeks, and all schools there will be going back to normal with distancing measures from the 8th ofjune. But the island must now weigh up whether to reopen its borders. Tourism there has been making a loss of £120 million a month since the pandemic began. Robert hall has more. In a guernsey garden, eight week old Charlie Flood is meeting his widerfamily. Until now, his grandparents have only had glimpses of him at a distance. Today the family can hold charlie and hug each other for the First Time Since lockdown began. We are so fortunate because in england, they cant do that. It must be so, so difficult for them. We are just really, really lucky. It feels absolutely amazing. It has been a long time coming. And it feels so nice i cant put him down on the 16th of may, guernsey moved into phase three of the lockdown exit plan. Guernsey families and friends can meet up under what is called a bubble system, gradually widening their contacts. Guernseys success against covid i9 is down to a community effort. Social distancing combined with testing and tracing has brought new cases down to zero. In a weaks time, most lockdown measures will disappear completely. At the peak of when we were seeing most of our cases, we were regularly doing over 100, up to i26 some days, up to 180 tests a day. In uk terms, that is over 100,000 tests per day. Injersey too the curve of new cases has flattened close to zero and life looks almost normal. Shops, businesses and outside eateries have reopened, but social distancing measures remain in place and islanders have been advised to
use masks if they can. Beaches, though, remain mostly deserted and that sums up the dilemma now Facing Island governments. Getting covid i9 down to or close to zero is a cause for celebration. But the celebration might be short lived. The Channel Islands know that they cannot remain within a sealed bubble indefinitely. They must open their borders if they are to slow the decline in their economies. Latest figures from jersey show the island is losing £120 million a month from its economy. Increases in testing and tracing might replace quarantine but even a gradual return of sea and air links could reverse the progress made. To keep it in a bubble and keep cases low, but at the same time if you do not have immunity then you do not really know what is going to happen as things open up. I think we should see it out, i think we should see it clear. Then youve got to test people
coming in and that is going to be the problem i think. As politicians and Health Experts debate their next moves, islanders are savouring their freedom. Robert hall, bbc news, in the Channel Islands. Thats all for now were back at ten oclock. Now on bbc one its time for the news where you are. Goodbye. Now on bbc news its time for the travel show. On this weeks travel show, your guide to the future of flying once the lockdown is over. Here at stansted, there are normally 500 flights coming in and out every day. Today, there are only nine. But flight numbers from the uk could be slowly picking up again. British airways and ryanair have recently both announced plans to schedule up to 50 of their usual flight capacity from the beginning ofjuly. Though they say, normal scheduling isnt likely to return until 2023. Of course, this is not going to be a normal summer. Not for any of us. Meanwhile, local travel restrictions are easing and some governments are even planning to open their borders to citizens of neighbouring countries, creating so called travel bubbles. The whole purpose of us discussing the possibility of having
a bubble of sorts between us, a safe zone of travel, would be so that you wouldnt have to have a quarantine attached. I think everyone would acknowledge that it would be prohibitive. Safety, that underlies our guidance. And that means taking gradual, careful steps to help travel restart in line with what the science tells us. Those bubbles are one way of kickstarting travel again. But when we do begin to fly, can we trust the airlines are doing enough to keep us safe . So here at stansted, they are using all of the space to enforce social distancing. There are stickers on the ground to make sure that you stand in the right place. And when it comes to masks and gloves, well, theyre not compulsory but they are very much advised. You can get your hands cleaned first. Thank you very much. Then, you get the mask. Thank you. Which you then put
on around your ears. And then the gloves. And you can even get your temperature scanned before you get to security. Well, that all seems pretty straightforward and simple when youve only got nine flights a day. But how easy will it be to maintain when there are many more passengers and many more flights . And also, when you actually get on the plane, how safe will that be . This week, the International Air transport association announced a series of measures the industry should be taking to keep passengers and crew safe. Etihad, based in abu dhabi, is just one of the airlines already taking action to try and reassure passengers. They are currently trialling technology that allows them to monitor passengers heart rate, temperature and respiratory rate, with the potential to detect covid i9. We have embarked on a huge sort of sanitisation programme. What were doing is actively encouraging people to check in online. Its all about limiting touch points throughout the travellers journey. I just want to ask you about the middle seat because there seems to be some debate about that. Does it actually make any difference . It is difficult to achieve the two metre distancing. For example, in economy, what were doing is ensuring that the neighbouring seat is free. All of our aircraft have hepa air filters which basically filter 99 of airborne microbes. So effectively, the air quality on an aircraft is equivalent to what you would get in a hospital operating theatre. To be unable to use an aircrafts full capacity, its not economically sustainable long term. The only way i suppose you could counter this would be to double airfares and thats not viable. We would hope that the wearing of facemasks, as well as the many other measures, that that is going to be sufficient. Because it is impossible to maintain social distancing on an aircraft. Etihad is not alone in this efforts. Delta will be spraying
its cabins with a special disinfectant between every flight. The spray is electrostatically charged to ensure that no surface goes untouched. And hong kong airport has introduced decontamination tanks. The claim is they will kill any viruses or bacteria on your clothes or exposed parts of your body in only a0 seconds. But its notjust technology that could be seeing us through this crisis. Medical detection dogs may soon be in place at airports like this, in an effort to literally sniff out passengers with the virus. So, this is asher, one of the rescue dogs whos going to be helping in the fight against covid i9. Hes got 350 million sensory receptors in the nose. Us poor humans have 5 million. That nose is going to be put to good use and going to save many, many lives. Volunteers who were tested positive
for covid i9 are given special socks to wear. The socks capture the odour of the virus which is then used to train the dogs. We are hoping that the dog will be able to make a good detection without becoming too close to the individuals. This is going to be quite smelly. If there is an odour on a person, they are going to be shedding these odours and the dog should be able to pick it up. For example, when working at heathrow, where there flights coming in from areas of the world where we know there is a current hotspot. So the dogs will be able to detect, very rapidly, it takes 0. 5 seconds for a dog to sniff someone and make a detection. Lets find out what our global guru simon calder makes of the situation. Hi, simon. Lets face it, its going to be a long time before most of us are flying again, isnt it . That all depends who you talk to, actually. Because you have, for example, the middle of may, lufthansa suddenly came out and saying, right, were going to be flying a really, quite Significant Network from ijune. Youve had obviously, ryanair, the biggest Budget Airline in europe saying that they would be pretty much doing the same from the start ofjuly. And, its a question of which airlines are flying where and most crucially of course, as we been hearing, what sort of restrictions are in place, notjust for the airlines but crucially, for their passengers. What do you think to the airlines and airports ideas the airlines and airports ideas of social distancing . How effective can those measures be . Fundamentally of course aviation and social distancing are utterly incompatible, and so what the airlines and the airports really want to do is to reassure passengers. Now people are saying, but i want total safety that is clearly an impossibility in any form of transport. But what they are doing is putting in measures such as tests of your temperature before you get on the aircraft, wearing face coverings if not exactly surgical masks throughout your journey through the airport and on the aircraft, and then making everything from the boarding process to the in flight. Food and drink a lot more kind of socially distant, so lots of Contactless Payments and so on, and reallyjust saying ok, were going to do everything we can, but of course there are no absolute guarantees, and a lot of people i am talking to are saying, actually, im not going to fly anywhere until there is a vaccine. I just want to clear up a couple of things which people have said. Which is number one, by getting rid of the middle seat on the plane, you are making it safer. And number two, actually flying on a plane is safer because the air is circulated so we shouldnt worry about that anyway. What do you say to that . If you take the middle seat out of an aircraft then you can reduce the distance between passengers from maybe 50 centimetres to i metre. A lot of people would say that in the course of a three hour flight, thats actually not going to make much difference, but it would certainly make a lot of difference to the fare. If you take out one third of the passengers, the cruelty of fractions means that you would need to increase the price by 50 . And in terms of the way that the air circulates on aircrafts, yes, they do have very high quality air filters, up to operating theatre standards. But if somebody next to you is sneezing and coughing, im afraid that the best filters in the world arent going to do you much good. The other thing of course is that while these things are all starting and people are trying to be induced
into flying, if you like, there could be some nice, good deals, i suspect. But in the long run, will it make flying prohibitively expensive . It depends who you talk to. There are certainly, of course, going to be some increased costs. If youre a low cost airline and you have to clean out the aircraft really thoroughly after a two hour flight, thats going to add to your returns. Thats going to reduce the amount of time you have aircraft in the air and effectively going to undermine a lot of your business model. The extra costs at airports are going to push prices up. But against that, youre going to see the airlines, the holiday companies, coming in with all sorts of deals to persuade us that, yes, it is a good idea to go travelling once again. And so, as it were for the brave, maybe for the foolhardy, there will be plenty of bargains out there. But i think when things settle down, we wont see
quite as many flights, we wont see the same range of opportunities that we have now, and we will certainly see higher prices because the only way that the airlines can recoup the billions of dollars that they have been losing over the past few months, is of course to push up the prices and they will do that by keeping a lid on capacity. Thank you, simon. Thats it for this week. Well be back in a few weeks with a brand new show but until then, take care, stay safe, and goodbye. Hello. It has certainly been a little on the fresh side for some of this this weekend. A very blustery weather, particularly across the northern half of the uk. Some heavy rain in places too. The good news is that sunday is looking much calmer. Right across the country. Those winds will be dying down through the
course of saturday night. Here is the satellite picture and it shows they big weather system just to the north of scotland moving into the new regency and its weather fronts stretching across scandinavia, central europe, all the way down to southern france. And even to northern spain. Behind this weather system, High Pressure is starting to develop and that also means the weather will be settling down across a large chunk of western europe so it will be worming up your in the uk and many other parts of the continent as well. Warming up here in the uk. Sunday shows a little bit of cloud in the morning, those cloud above them and the sunnis of the weather across wales, the midlands and the south the sunniest of the weather. A little bit less cold in the lowlands of scotland. Mandys Weather Forecast, High Pressure in the south, but weather front is still quite sneaky. Mondays Weather Forecast. Weather front is still quite sneaky. Mondays weatherforecast. A weather front is still quite sneaky. Mondays Weather Forecast. A warm a ccou nta nt mondays Weather Forecast. A warm accou nta nt of mondays Weather Forecast. A warm accountant of air from the south west is going to wind and bring warmer weather to most of the uk. Mondays Weather Forecast suggests a loss of a fine and dry weather across wales and england lots of fine and dry weather across england and wales, but the Northern Ireland and scotland, marine. The High Pressure and chose the across the uk, within that we have this awkward weather front stuck. That means that they will not be much wind in the High Pressure to move that weather front around. We will have to wait for the cloud to break up have to wait for the cloud to break up and allow for that sunshine to come through. Top temperatures and cheshire in the mid 20s in the south east, but even in the north east of england, temperatures will be up to around 20 or so weather fronts are never that far away from the west or the north west
of the uk. For a time, there could be some rain moving across parts of Northern Ireland and into scotland, at least for a time on wednesday. Except they had much and weather this will be further north or south is still a little questionable, but i think on wednesday most of us should have a dry day. Wednesday night and into thursday, at High Pressure is with us, but starting to push away those weather fronts and making more of a detour in the direction of the iceland. You can see the southerly winds, that is an indication that that warmer air from the south is winning, pushing the rain cloud away toward the north so i think by the time we get to thursday, and friday, it does look as though most of the uk will be under the influence of that warmer current of airfrom under the influence of that warmer current of air from the south. It will be spreading right across the uk, much of western and central parts of europe and also into scandinavia so the indication is that we are in for a fairly prolonged spell of warm weather, most of the time it is going to be
sunny and, apart from those weather fronts during the week, brushing North Western parts of the uk, it is going to be dry for most of us. Goodbye. This is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. Boris johnsons most senior adviser, Dominic Cummings, faces calls to resign after he travelled hundreds of miles with his wife, who was sick with coronavirus symptoms during the lockdown. Who cares if i do or not . Its a question of doing the right thing. Its not what you guys think. The government defended him, saying he wanted to stay with family to ensure he had childcare if he got symptoms of coronavirus. Mr cummings is in the public eye, but the reality of the matter is a four year old childs welfare is the important thing. Businesses will be expected to pay a quarter of the wages