[0:00]hello good morning after a bruising week at the dispatch and ballot boxes the pressure on the prime minister's mounting once again simon case the country's top civil
[0:10]servant and the man charged with leading the investigation into alleged christmas parties at downing street has been forced to step aside now it's because it was revealed that he himself was aware
[0:21]of a separate party in his own office a year ago and if the fallout was not pressure enough for boris johnson while he's now weighing up options to curb record
[0:31]numbers of covert 19 cases he'll call an emergency cobra meeting this weekend with lockdown measures reportedly on the table our political correspondent jay pike has this
[0:42]morning's first report he's off the case the uk's top civil servant no longer investigating christmas parties because he was at one
[0:53]boris johnson has set the tone for his government and he lives by one rule for him and another rule for everyone else and i think you know people can see through that now and it's incredibly hard to believe that
[1:04]no one in government knew that these parties were happening it's about the behavior of the prime minister about the stuffing of cronies into the house of lords over the scandal that was seen
[1:15]over the renovation of the flat and downing street for his misled parliament um quite frankly this is behavior which is unacceptable and it is time that he went and he
[1:25]should be taking his cabinet secretary with him the woman now in charge is sue gray a formidable former government ethics chief the partygate scandal is growing by the
[1:37]day as is the civil service investigation into what happened and when but under sue gray it could be highly dangerous for boris johnson and his team she is fearsome
[1:49]independent-minded pulls no punches and has ended ministerial careers her report when it comes may draw a line under this whole saga but some in downing street
[2:00]could end up as collateral damage the eyes to the right 369 the nose to the left 126.
[2:11]so the eyes have it the eye after a week of parliamentary rebellions covid concerns [Applause] and by election batterings boris johnson
[2:25]knows the buck stops with him i'm responsible for everything that the government does and of course i take a personal
[2:34]responsibility some tory mps say he needs to change we'll soon find out if that's even possible joe pike's sky news westminster
[2:46]well onto coronavirus now and after record cases were recorded for a third straight day there are reports that further restrictions are being considered including plans for a possible two-week circuit breaker
[2:57]lockdown after christmas the government says it will keep measures under review as it learns more about the omicron variant its continuing efforts to ramp up the
[3:08]booster campaign with stadium and race courses transformed into vaccination centers as ali forzaki reports this was a week before christmas last year and we've come a long way since
[3:19]then the streets are busier there is some christmas cheer but hanging heavy uncertainty over omicron we're not overly comfortable it's more
[3:31]crowded here than it has been but we've been pleased for our sake that it's not been very busy if you know what i mean we're hard at work and we haven't had very much chance to soak up some christmas spirits those christmas
[3:43]atmosphere so we're just having a a day out and just being careful about it but as people prioritize businesses need help you run a restaurant on one of the
[3:54]busiest streets of the world one of the busiest times of year how is business not great to begin with um [Music] it's there but not what it's supposed to be at this time
[4:05]of the year london is the epicenter of the outbreak in this country more than 60 of cases here now are omicron and it's overtaken delta as a dominant strain and while
[4:16]it's by no means empty here it is not as busy as it should be this time of year because lots of people are making their own minds up looking at the data and deciding to stay at home
[4:26]and where matches have been cancelled stadiums are being transformed wembley and filled in stamford bridge among the places stepping up this weekend to deliver boosters i think the boosting program will
[4:37]definitely help but i think at this point in time when you have cases of a new variant that are doubling in less than two days nothing um that depends on vaccination is going to
[4:48]be fast enough simply because somebody who's getting vaccinated today it'll take between one to two weeks for them to develop that level of protection and in that period of time you expect
[4:58]perhaps you know three to seven doublings already to have occurred preliminary studies are optimistic about boosters and omicron but as cases surge
[5:08]across europe navigating a route through this will matter well beyond christmas ali forskou sky news well our correspondent studia chaudhry
[5:20]is at the charleston athletic football ground in southeast london and joins us now good morning to you saudia so the booster race is on good morning vanessa yes do you remember
[5:30]earlier in the week when the nhs england's uh medical director for primary care doctor nikki kanani said that football fans should go to a stadium to get their boosters this
[5:41]weekend well this is it this is charlton athletics football ground being converted into a mass vaccination center again they did so earlier in the year but it's happening again here which
[5:52]means that fans not just of charlton athletic of course anyone can come in here to get their vaccines it opens at eight o'clock this morning it's walk-ins but as well as that it's also people that can
[6:03]book their appointments using the nhs booking service and it's going to run today and tomorrow it's not just at this site there are football grounds across the country that are also
[6:14]doing this and it comes as as part of this big push to offer everyone a booster vaccine we've got old trafford in manchester who's also running clinics like this uh
[6:26]the wembley stadium is being used in addition there are going to be 750 personnel from the armed forces and thousands of volunteers all taking part in this drive to get
[6:36]boosters into people's arms and it comes of course as covered cases are rising we know that the premier league is being affected there are only five fixtures this weekend two of them
[6:46]today and it comes as clubs are reporting coveted outbreaks amongst their team and their staff coaching staff trading ground staff which is why games are having to be
[6:57]postponed but it also comes as the health secretary confirmed that more than half of the adult population who are eligible for boosters have received their booster vaccines now salia in charleston southeast london
[7:08]thank you well let's take a look at those record-breaking covert 19 numbers across
[7:16]the uk there have been 93 045 new cases of covert 19 recorded in the latest 24-hour period another 111 deaths have been reported
[7:27]within 28 days of a positive test and that brings the total number of deaths in the uk to 147 048. 32
[7:39]677 people received their first dose of a vaccine while 42 497 had their second dose now that means that more than 46.9
[7:50]million people have now received their second dose and another daily record 860 306 people received their booster or
[8:02]third vaccine in the past 24-hour period 26.3 million people have now had their booster or third jab that's half of all
[8:11]adults in the uk well that's the picture here in the uk but the omicron variant is also causing increasing concern across europe
[8:21]france has announced a raft of new measures including a ban on fireworks and official public parties this new year's eve and reducing the time between a second and booster jab to four months
[8:33]the country's health pass will also become a vaccine passport meaning people will now have to be fully vaccinated to get into restaurants museums and sporting events all that was announced just hours before
[8:45]new travel restrictions came into force banning travelled to and from the uk without compelling reasons if we've already recorded several
[8:58]hundred cases of omicron in france we think this variant will spread very quickly and will become the dominant strain from the beginning of 2022 as it
[9:07]already is in the united kingdom that's why we've decided to apply new controls and restrictions on people
[9:15]arriving on french soil from the ukraine meanwhile ireland's prime minister mijo
[9:26]martin has warned that vaccines alone will not be enough to get through the omicron wave as he announced new measures from sunday until the end of january there will be an 8 pm curfew for
[9:38]restaurants bars and all indoor sports and events while wedding receptions will be limited to 100 guests in the netherlands the partial lockdown that's been in place since november was
[9:49]recently extended until mid-january local media reports say the dutch government's health experts are advising a full lockdown to slow the spread of omicron
[10:00]a decision on that is expected later today and in denmark all cinemas theaters and museums must close from sunday
[10:10]face coverings are also already compulsory in shops and on public transport but that will now be extended to schools and places of worship and some of the danish queens golden
[10:21]jubilee celebrations are even being postponed they were due to take place in january over to the u.s now and gillen maxwell has told the judge at her sex
[10:32]trafficking trial that she will not testify in her own defense her legal team rested its case after two days of presenting evidence in new york its thought of verdict could be reached
[10:43]as early as next week skye's mother kellner has this report these are nervous times for glenn maxwell's siblings kevin and isabel in the next week a jury will likely decide
[10:55]whether their younger sister will spend the rest of her life in prison gulen maxwell has listened intently as her life has been dissected for the past three weeks her alleged
[11:06]crimes laid bare finally it was her turn to address the court she was calm and assured but it was brief she said your honor the government has
[11:16]not proven its case beyond reasonable doubt so there is no need for me to testify the defense rested its case after just one and a half days far sooner than
[11:26]expected eva do you regret your friendship with jeffrey epstein they had called billionaire dr eva dubin a longtime friend and defender of
[11:38]jeffrey epstein he was godfather to her three children she was asked were you and mr dubin comfortable with the relationship between mr epstein and your
[11:47]children yes we were she responded they called him uncle f did you observe any inappropriate behaviour between mr epstein and teenage girls she was asked i did
[11:58]not she responded but crucially under cross-examination dr dubin admitted she was struggling with her memory recently and couldn't recall events from a long
[12:09]time ago the defence also lost key legal arguments over the admission of a number of witnesses when they return for closing arguments on monday maxwell's expensively
[12:21]assembled team of lawyers will hope for a more convincing performance martha kellner sky news new york a sky news has gained exclusive access
[12:31]to the smuggling middlemen responsible for organizing the journeys of ten of the people who died in the channel last month the agent based in iraqi kurdistan acts
[12:41]as an intermediary between the families of people desperate to reach the uk and the smugglers profiting off them or many migrants come from war-torn
[12:51]countries like syria afghanistan yemen and iraq others are fleeing economic failure in places like iran and parts of africa while the key routes are via the western
[13:02]mediterranean from morocco into spain through tunisia and libya up in sumatra and italy by the eastern mediterranean through turkey and greece
[13:13]or increasingly via belarus and into eastern europe well that's the favored route for many from iraq which was home to several of those who died three weeks ago
[13:24]our middle east correspondent alistair bunker reports from iraqi kurdistan we've been given permission to meet a travel agent from a kurdish town in the
[13:34]mountains of northern iraq he is one of the money middlemen in the global smuggling network they mostly work from small offices in
[13:44]towns around the middle east trusted by the smugglers and by the migrants and their families they rarely ever appear on camera foreign
[14:15]the travel agents are integral to the whole smuggling process this agent helped 10 of the 31 people who drowned in the english channel last month he still holds their money but it will
[14:26]eventually go back to the families how do you feel about the deaths of so many people who came from this district telephone
[15:00]business seems to be non-stop the agent is constantly on the phone when we are there passing on instructions to the families and phoning smugglers [Music]
[15:41]foreign [Laughter]
[15:49][Music] a young man comes into the office just
[16:04]as we are about to leave his sister is in northern france and she is trying to reach britain how do you feel about it how do you feel uh about your sister taking that trip
[16:15]across the channel after after what happened last month [Music] [Music]
[17:02]or just for tonight's crossing for tonight just for tonight's crossing show so 2 500 pounds to travel across the
[17:13]english channel tonight if you remove these travel agents from the chain the smuggling wouldn't stop instead the smugglers would be more
[17:24]likely to rip off the families it might be illegal but just look at his car it's made him a rich man aleister bunker sky news
[17:33]in northern iraq so the weather then what's that got in store for us let's get all the details now [Music]
[17:47]look forward to brighter skies the weather sponsored by qatar airways well conditions will remain very quiet
[17:57]over the weekend that's a great news but we do have some dense fog patches in eastern parts leading to travel issues and the zone from yorkshire through to east anglia taking in the midlands will
[18:08]be worst affected with visibility less than 100 meters in places where fog will be reluctant to clear elsewhere there will be further patches of mist and fog along with low cloud which will affect
[18:19]much of england and wales the weather sponsored by qatar airways a real or fake that's often the big
[18:31]question when it comes to buying a christmas tree up to eight million real christmas trees are sold in the uk each year or a staggering amount but each one needs around four thousand
[18:43]liters of water to grow but instead of buying a tree or you can rent one and have it delivered taken away and replanted skies dan whitehead has this report
[18:53]there is a tree this christmas it's not just santa that two-year-old edward is waiting for concerned about the environment his
[19:04]grandparents have opted for a different type of christmas tree delivered in december picked up again in january and then replanted the family
[19:14]hope their rented christmas tree will be more friendly for the environment because i see the same tree year on year and i can watch it grow and when edward comes in it'll get bigger and edward
[19:25]will get bigger and it's just it was just like bringing part of the family for kiosks really to something that has some meaning and it can you know environmentally friendly is great because we know we're not throwing
[19:36]anything away eco elf is the brainchild of calamo driscoll i was just fed up of throwing away christmas trees me and my wife we've always loved getting a real tree even from when i was a child you
[19:48]know and the smell was great but taking it down to the council-organized tip in the car park around the corner and seeing a massive pile of cut trees was just a shame really each christmas up to eight
[19:59]million real trees are sold in the uk there is of course no shortage of artificial options for many they are the centerpiece of
[20:10]christmas but as we're all more conscious of our carbon footprint just which are better for the environment real or fake according to the carbon trust a six and
[20:21]a half foot artificial tree equates to around 40 kilograms of co2 when considering manufacturing metal plastic packaging and transport
[20:32]a real fertilized tree is a tenth of that at around four kilograms of co2 however certain types of artificial trees can have a lower overall carbon
[20:43]footprint if used for at least seven years although artificial might be better long term a real tree can have other environmental benefits
[20:55]if your tree at its end of life if it's collected by a local authority and then you know burnt for energy or or used um as wood chipping or as composting then those
[21:05]have really positive benefits as well so in the composting or chipping example obviously it helps with you know soil quality improvements and that's really important real or fake it remains a
[21:16]divisive issue like to have a real tree together it seems a bit lazy to have um artificial one how long have you had your fake tree oh
[21:27]it's about 30 to 35 years old has it still got some needles it's yes it has so we've got needles still got the fairy on the top
[21:36]dan whitehead sky news now businesses up and down the country have borne the bronze of the coronavirus pandemic and the latest outbreak of the omicron variants has threatened to cause
[21:47]yet more misery over christmas well with me now is hairdresser joe mills whose salon has been experiencing cancellations and also staff isolation
[21:58]so joe good morning to you thanks for your time there is a double whammy there for you isn't it with the staff and also cancellations how many cancellations have you had um good morning vanessa thanks for having me on um
[22:10]for us as a business we're based in central illinois we have three stores compared to a normal pre-pandemic christmas we're down at least 50 and what we've noticed since the plan b
[22:21]introduction is that there has been you know widespread cancellations of clients either working from home and not coming into town or because they're testing positive or they don't want to risk the
[22:32]chance of coming into you know into contact with some of them with it on top of that we've had a couple of staff isolations we've had to do but i think across the industry it's it's been a
[22:43]very brutal end to the year you know 75 of salons are talking about um mass cancellations and a real drop in business
[22:53]um so how much of your business then do you normally make around this time of year and i know that this is peak season for businesses like yours so i think for hairdressing barbering
[23:04]and beauty i think we you know december really is our month and that carries you through january and february you know the issue is that if you on you know aren't making that extra
[23:15]revenue the start of you know 2022 for us is you know becomes more more perilous i guess and equally with the the vagueness of what we're doing and
[23:25]where we're going and the lack of proper communication has a real direct impact on future planning for your business and for you i mean in terms of percentage-wise for example you know what are you looking at in terms of the
[23:37]hits that you've taken fifty percent oh it's it's enormous you know you know if you think about you know for us personally
[23:48]you know we're based in soho and central london and and you know since the plan b restrictions kicked in you know it it has had a marked impact on all small businesses not just just my
[23:59]industry you know and i understand you know how the impact has impact the impact has had on on hospitality but there are lots of other other industries including ours that have don't get the
[24:10]kind of attention um of what you know what the impact is having on us as well absolutely and what kind of support would you like to get from the government because a chancellor has cut
[24:21]short his business trip to the us are you hopeful of any financial supports at all i think i think it's more historical i think it's more over the whole period of the pandemic rather than a short-term fix
[24:32]you know i think hmrc really need to reconsider you know the situation that a lot of us are in because you know a lot of a lot of small business carries
[24:41]hmrc debt is is a part of business it's not ideal you know whether that could be capitalized into loans or whether you had um more support or and even a clear
[24:52]understanding if we knew that you know there's talk every day now that you know potential restrictions after christmas or in january or you know all we need is the communications we can plan and as a small business owner you know you're
[25:03]responsible not only for your your your staff and their mental well-being but also your clients as well so you do carry quite a burden and and i think that it's just clarity and i don't think that um
[25:14]i don't think that we've had any targeted funding or support specifically for our industry as other industries have and um you know i think rishi you know
[25:24]if he could at least have a broader spectrum approach to you know what support we need um and just clarity joe thank you very much indeed there's
[25:36]joe mills there speaking to us thanks for your time thank you very much thank you well with us now to review the papers are dawn neesom former editor of the daily star along with broadcaster
[25:47]and journalist vidisha good morning to you both it's great to see you a little change there bedisha i like it do you know if you're going to come on sky news just show up do you know what i
[25:59]mean i like it it's good to have you um badisha let me kick off with um the case of simon case
[26:08]and the parties well you make it sound like the latest harry potter film simon case and the forbidden parties but actually it's not very funny at all
[26:19]because a lot of people are extremely outraged so simon case despite his john le carre-like name is a very top civil servant who had been tasked until
[26:28]recently with leading an inquiry into mps in government who were breaking the rules this time last year against having parties have having gatherings we were
[26:40]supposed to be in lockdown in isolation being very careful you know as well as i do that there were many families all over the country who just to follow the rules they wouldn't see their own parents their own
[26:51]grandkids their own in-laws so that we could get these case numbers down now it turns out that uh the naughty mr case can't investigate this
[27:00]case because he too is guilty potentially allegedly of the very things that he is investigating so it transpires that there was a party
[27:11]slash meeting sounds totally dreadful gathering in his own offices and just to make you not miss parties at all 15 people from his office were invited to a christmas
[27:23]gathering an email went out with the christmas party christmas quiz written in the subject heading huge surprise not everyone turned up for
[27:34]this thrilling sounding party encounter he himself allegedly did not attend the scintillating quiz he merely walked
[27:43]through it stone faced on the way to his own office um the problem is that when you behave like this as a government you lose the trust of the nation this isn't
[27:53]really about parties and about this guy this is about accountability it's about taking responsibility and it's about practicing what you preach well dawn isn't enough
[28:03]then to say listen i wasn't at the party i wasn't there it wasn't me but actually as badish was saying you have to look at accountability leadership too
[28:13]of course you do and the problem we've all got now vanessa is that we have been told well their version of the truth let's put it that way about what they
[28:24]were doing and what they expected us to do last christmas so i think the vast majority of us now i mean myself included just go i i just can't take your advice
[28:35]seriously anymore i mean it's it's confusing at the best of times but it's like when you're when you're ignoring all your own rules how on earth
[28:44]do you expect people to follow the rules you are setting across and you know there have been several polls over the last couple of days vanessa with people going they're not doing it they don't care
[28:56]what the government say anymore it's like we are not following your rules we are going to do what we want this christmas and you honestly you know who can blame them i mean this is where
[29:07]we are now and um dawn um staying with you know the theme around coronavirus then there's a slight change in gear here um why are there claims that
[29:18]java's claims of the 200 000 daily cases is no longer valid what's going on here this is really interesting this was our
[29:29]um acclaim sadly made on monday and it was modelling and it was used to our
[29:39]basically convinced the the tory rebels as we know that a lot of them voted against vaccine passports and new regulations coming in it was used to convince them that we did need stricter
[29:50]um regulations on our life now and there was a new report that was sort of quietly
[30:00]put out on first saying that this actually these figures no longer apply and you should not be using them anymore it's basically you
[30:11]know the uk health and security agency consistently warned on immigration doubling every 1.9 days but mythology methodology has said that this is wrong now and we
[30:22]should drop this modeling so it's actually in theory good news and you know there's the thing we with all the statistics as we said in in part one of our newspaper review this morning the thing with all these statistics is you
[30:33]read um it's it's all very very confusing but the good news i think with this vanessa is the the um the information coming from south
[30:43]africa is that the case fatality rate has plummeted the death rate for over 80s is around 20 compared to 50 for the delta and for 70 79 year olds it's down to 10
[30:54]and these are the latest stats coming out of south africa so in theory we it is good news and we really shouldn't be panicking too much well we'll take any hint of good news
[31:05]that we can get um let me um come to you um there um badisha because we're stepping away from covert right now and the twist and strictly um
[31:16]showdown aj um a doodoo who's supposed to be in the final may not actually be able to do it because she's you know she's had some injury hasn't she now this is a program that my
[31:26]parents are obsessed with well more like my mom and my dad has no choice but you know it's not something i usually watch i'll be honest with you but i've my interest has peaked because of aj what a
[31:37]what is what a sad case right now well is it sad you said we're stepping away from covid let's just say we're fox stepping away from covert because even
[31:48]though it's it's hard it's hard to believe that other channels do exist uh when we live in the wonderful world of sky news but there is a little thing called strictly come
[31:57]dancing it's on tonight the finals are on tonight and yes aj has said that she's gonna have to step away because of injury and we know that we've lost other dancers because they're being voted out
[32:08]and all sorts of uh coveted ailments and other things have bedeviled the sparkly dancing moving music and drama show and i'm wondering just exactly what kind of
[32:19]love affairs are happening behind the scenes love is wonderful so in these dark times who's to begrudge any of it but it means the final is going to be interesting just in terms of diversity
[32:31]and equality because we're either going to have the first really fabulous deaf contestant which is rose island ellis or we're going to have the first same-sex couple which is john
[32:42]and johannes now they're going to be facing off against each other but it's a great win in the sense that whoever wins is going to be a pioneer on this massive
[32:52]primetime telly show they're going to be a front runner for anyone who watched strictly for all the other dozens of seasons and felt like they weren't represented you know are you telling me that uh gay
[33:03]guys don't like a dance you telling me that deaf people don't like music i don't think that's true absolutely absolutely and i do hope also that aj does recover um quickly and with your
[33:13]change of outfits as well bedisha you can definitely waltz your way there dawn she could and you too actually as well so dawn have you been following up
[33:23]with uh with strictly and aj's injury i yeah i have and i feel desperately sorry for anything all the hard work that's gone into the training and it's not just what we get to see on our
[33:34]screens obviously but you know they prepare beforehand the immense amount of training that goes on during the week um it's incredibly hard work and you know what i mean i'm a secret fan as well i
[33:45]haven't watched it religiously this series i must have met um obviously because i'm watching sky news a lot but it's it's the sparkles it's the fun it's the joy and at this time of year i just think
[33:56]it's so important that we we do turn off the white noise of of kobe and politics and and just actually try to have a bit of fun and you know the sparkles it's just lovely i mean i love
[34:07]christmas i mean you've got a long way to ruin it for me and and all the parties at number 10 and white were having well well with your christmas then dawn you
[34:18]may have to go for a dry christmas basically because of cracking we're you know um festive dry run as drinkers turn to low alcohol alternatives after the
[34:28]year we've had yeah right vanessa um okay i can tell you it's really definitely not happening in my world and i've got a crate of champagne for christmas being delivered
[34:38]in an hour or so um but yeah this is in the guardian and it's brits appears to be dreaming of a dry christmas a supermarket report soaring sounds of low alcohol and non-alcoholic drinks
[34:49]sainsbury said that sales of low alcohol products have soared by 91 compared to last december i mean hello people how are you doing this i mean look fair play if you are and lots of people are
[35:01]doing it for health reasons and obviously there are but you know the addiction thing aside obviously there's a serious issue for this and we've got dry january coming up which i might be taking part in yeah but i mean after the
[35:11]year we've had fast christmas exactly how is anybody going to get through it without glass of champagne dawn i'll come to you very quickly vedic are you having a dry christmas very quickly
[35:23]no i'm just like dawn i've got the shanks waiting downstairs we'll see you guys in an hour i'll see you in a few minutes
[35:31][Music]