correspondent and deputy news editor at the la times. polly toynbee is a veteran columnist on the left of centre guardian newspaper. and simonjack, the bbc s business editor, is here in the studio. good to see you, simon, and good to have you bothjoining us from parts around the uk while we maintain all our social distancing forjust that little bit longer, as a result of what s happening at the moment. let s begin in downing street, who have been having a week they d rather forget. three things may explain why. a newspaper published a photo of a christmas party last year held in the basement of borisjohson s party headquarters, at a time when all such activities were against the law. the uk s leading civil servant, the cabinet secretary, was investigating gatherings inside downing street, one of them in the prime minister s own flat at least he was. it turns out his office organised what it called a christmas party, too. on tuesday, the imposition of covid vaccine certficates, whic
and now the point perhaps where people were starting to feel the health service was able to get back into routine, some of it very important, some of it life saving routine, it s kind of going to be pushed back into a kind of reacting to covid situation. i mjust remembering a year ago now when also, you had a new variant that was the kent variant, that was discovered here in britain, was galloping through the country. and the uncertainty that people felt. and now, just exactly 12 months later, we re having a bit of a rerun of that with with omicron. i think the scientists are still saying the jury is out. the data are trickling in in places like south africa, where it was first detected. but here in britain, the scientific advisers are saying it won t be until the end of the month and possibly well into january before we have a really strong picture as to whether omicron, which does appear to be more transmissible, is actually less virulent. now, as you said, if it s less virulent, but
around at the audience.? i did look round, i have to be honest about it. i i ve seen quite a few borisjohnson speeches to business. i it s an audience he doesn t feel, i unusually for a conservative prime minister, that comfortable in front of i think he finds their strictures, spreadsheets and analysis - and all that kind of stuff a little bit sort of stifling. and sometimes, like during the brexit debate, he saw. the caution of businesses who had real money on the line, he saw that. he saw, dare i say, the conservatism of business. well, he just thought. he thought it was, you know, cautious at best, a form - of cowardice at worst. and also, i think he finds business people quite tedious, if i m truly honest, i having watched him in these scenarios. strange, in that sense, he s a bit like ted heath, who used to get very angry about british business coming in to see him and just saying, we need a bit more money, we need a bit more this, and not being very imaginative and cre
hasjust gone. goodbye. hello. the weather isn t changing in a hurry at the moment. it is very settled out there. mostly dry, because we have got a big area of high pressure in charge, but that is bringing us not only a largely dry weekend, but also quite a cloudy one, too. i think as we are going to be turning a little bit colder than it has been recently, we are likely to see some mist, fog and some frost as well. here is the high pressure that is driving our weather, draped right across the uk, but trapped underneath that descending air in the high pressure is a lot of low cloud, mist and murk, so quite grey out there. some areas of sunshine, particularly across the higher ground of scotland, north west england, perhaps western fringes of england and wales and northern ireland as well, but for central and eastern areas, you can see that the cloud will be sticking around here through the day.
and simonjack, the bbc s business editor, is here in the studio. good to see you, simon, and good to have you bothjoining us from parts around the uk while we maintain all our social distancing forjust that little bit longer as a result of what s happening at the moment. let s begin in downing street, who have been having a week they d rather forget. three things may explain why. a newspaper published a photo of a christmas party last year held in the basement of borisjohson s party headquarters, at a time when all such activities were against the law. the uk s leading civil servant, the cabinet secretary, was investigating gatherings inside downing street, one of them in the prime minister s own flat at least he was. it turns out his office organised what it called a christmas party, too. on tuesday, the imposition of covd vaccine certficates, which have become a condition of entry to public venues, provoked the biggest rebellion of borisjohnson s premiership. 100 mps that s hal