NHS workers at Royal Liverpool University Hospital in July
THE hypocrisy of ministers who stood and clapped during the first lockdown but have gone on to deny public-sector workers the pay rise they need and deserve will not be forgotten, but neither will the lesson of the lockdown itself: that it is the nurses, care workers, cleaners, transport workers, postal and comms workers, refuse workers, couriers, shop staff and others whose labour keeps our country running, even when it is often the worst paid.
The case for a new deal for workers has never been stronger.
Marcus Rashford
Any heroes list for 2020 which leaves out Marcus Rashford is incomplete.
BBC News
Published
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image captionStaff at John Lewis and Waitrose will be able to access free rapid Covid tests for free if they want to
John Lewis will be one of the first big store chains to offer free almost-instant Covid tests to its workers.
It will make rapid testing available at 40 of its sites, including a factory, warehouses and some high street shops.
Up to 16,000 workers will be voluntarily tested every week and its success could lead to other retailers adopting the NHS-linked scheme.
But a shopworkers union warned that staff testing positive needed support from their employers.
According to a 2007 Times profile, Dido Harding was “known as an accomplished networker”. Since then Harding’s big breakthroughs, culminating in her key government Coronavirus role, came from people close to David Cameron. Harding went to Oxford with Cameron. In 1995 Harding married John Penrose, who became a Tory MP in 2005 and a junior Minister under Cameron in 2010.
Harding worked at management consultants McKinsey (where she met Penrose) and then at retail firms like Tesco. Her big leap came in 2010 when Harding was the “surprise” choice as Chief Executive of mobile and broadband firm Talk Talk.
Charles Dunstone was the billionaire behind Talk Talk backing Harding’s appointment: he was a former “New Labour”-supporting businessman, but switched allegiance to Cameron (who attended his 2009 wedding). Dunstone became a key member of Cameron’s “Chipping Norton Set.”
Sunderland to trial symptom-free Covid testing in efforts to drive down infection rates
A mobile testing team will begin work at Washington Millennium Centre offering residents faster turnaround tests with results available in just hours
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John Lewis Partnership is rolling out NHS Test and Trace lateral flow Covid-19 testing, partnership with the Department of Health and Social Care, following a pilot scheme in November.
Covid-19 testing was introduced initially to the national John Lewis distribution centre at Magna Park, Milton Keynes, in November via a pilot scheme. This was in response to Black Friday and pre-Christmas demand which saw the site process some 135,000 johnlewis.com orders per day during the month.
Some 1,000 John Lewis staff, alongside temporary agency staff, volunteered to be tested up to three-times a week during the pilot.
John Lewis said that with some one in three individuals with Covid-19 not displaying symptoms, testing helped to protect staff and customers by identifying those that needed to isolate, ensuring they did not unknowingly pass on the virus.