Good morning. The interminable saga of Boris Johnson’s lockdown WhatsApps has arrived at a new confrontation ahead of today’s deadline set by the Covid inquiry, after the former prime minister handed a cache of his messages over and urged the Cabinet Office to provide all the relevant materials itself.
Another opaque political row about texting is apt to make you feel that the inquiry is just one more Westminster bunfight. Yesterday, however, the Guardian published another story that serves as a reminder of why the broader scope of its investigations, and how decisions over how to handle the pandemic were taken, will be so important.
Vikram Dodd’s report is about a very different part of the picture: a major piece of research which suggests that in the panic to stop the spread of coronavirus, people from minority backgrounds and deprived areas were much more likely to be punished than others. Today’s newsletter takes you through the first comprehensive picture of who got fined for breaking lockdown rules in England and Wales – and what it tells us about the inequalities that were already baked into the system. Here are the headlines.
Five big stories
Sudan | Nineteen people have been killed at a market in a poor area south of Khartoum after tank shells were fired from an area controlled by the Sudanese army. The incident came a day after army chief Abdulfatah al-Burhan announced he would be pulling out of ceasefire talks with paramilitary rival the Rapid Support Forces.
US debt ceiling | The House of Representatives has voted through a bill to raise the government borrowing limit, clearing a major legislative hurdle with just days left before the US is expected to default. The bill, which now goes to the Senate, would ensure the issue does not resurface before the next presidential election.
Education | Vice-chancellors are warning the current funding model for UK higher education is “broken” and have urged the government to review the system of tuition fees, which are capped at £9,000 for UK students. The intervention comes after new limits to the number of overseas students were announced last week.
CBI | Britain’s most prominent business lobby group, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), has put forward proposals to overhaul its culture and recruit a new president ahead of a key confidence vote by members next week. More than 50 of the CBI’s highest-profile members left or suspended their relationship with the body after the Guardian revealed a series of sexual misconduct allegations. Read Juliette Garside’s analysis.
Endometriosis | Australian researchers have made a world-first leap forward that could transform the treatment of endometriosis. By growing tissue from every known type of the debilitating disease, the researchers say it will be possible to target different types more effectively in a development compared to advances in breast cancer treatment 30 years ago.
In depth: What we know about the 120,000 Covid fines and who was targeted
When the news broke last week that Boris Johnson had been referred to the police over alleged lockdown breaches at Chequers, it felt like a story in a time capsule. Johnson’s own allies have suggested that it is ludicrous to bring up such ancient history. And yet, as the Evening Standard’s Tristan Kirk – an assiduous watcher of the courts – pointed out, others are still contending with the consequences of their actions over the same period: a couple of weeks ago, six people were prosecuted in Hampshire for breaking Covid rules and ordered to pay £1,100 each. Such prosecutions are likely to go on until 2025.
In an effort to avoid gumming up the courts too much and deal with low-level offences as efficiently as possible, police had another approach at their disposal. It was the same tool that was used to deal with Johnson and Rishi Sunak over that infamous No 10 birthday gathering: fixed-penalty notices (FPNs).
More than 120,000 FPNs were issued between the beginning of the pandemic and May 2021, when the tightest restrictions were lifted in the UK. They could be used on the spot, without any oversight from a court. The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) commissioned Edinburgh University academics to analyse the profiles of those who got the FPNs – and although there have been a number of studies looking at how different communities were policed during the pandemic, this is the first one to draw on that complete dataset.
The NPCC (whose chair Martin Hewitt is pictured above in 2021) didn’t publish the findings of the study it commissioned itself – a decision that one of the authors called “surprising” – but the academics did (pdf). Here’s what you need to know.
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What the evidence shows
The analysis found that Black people were three times more likely to be given FPNs than white people. Overall, ethnic minority people in England were more than twice as likely as white people to be fined – an effect that got more pronounced as the pandemic went on.
It also found that during the first lockdown period, those living in the most deprived parts of England were seven times more likely to be fined than those in the richest areas. That dropped to about four times as likely in the second lockdown period, and rose again to nearly five times as likely in the third, strictest period.
Men were more likely to be fined than women, and younger people were more likely to be fined than older people. If the implication that a young Black man from a deprived background was most likely to be of interest to the police sounds familiar, it is a finding that echoes previous research: an analysis of early NPCC data in June 2020 found similar evidence over two months. There is also evidence of disparities in Northern Ireland and Scotland (pdf).
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Why minority and disadvantaged groups were punished so much more heavily
The NPCC says that while the findings are cause for concern, “what the data is not able to show us is why these disparities exist”. The report itself says that it is not possible to conclude from the data analysis “the extent to which any disproportionality in the issuing of FPNs resulted from patterns of public behaviour, differential patterns of reporting breaches to the police, or unfair or discriminatory policing practices”. But other researchers who have examined the subject have some useful starting points.
There may have been some differences in behaviour – but not enough to explain the difference in police treatment. Academics at Liverpool University spoke to police officers about their experience of policing the pandemic and report some claiming that “cultural” differences in socialising may have meant that some BAME people were more visible to police when breaking the rules. “It cannot be entirely discounted that some of the disproportionality in the use of FPNs reflects different levels of compliance between different groups,” the authors write. But they say that the evidence “does not reveal differences of the same magnitude as the level of disproportionality in the use of FPNs.”
Police felt uncomfortable about using FPNs against people they viewed as generally law-abiding. One officer told the Liverpool academics: “What’s important is … our relationship with the public isn’t damaged, because the vast majority of the public support the police.” On the other hand, officers also describe feeling they have little choice but to impose a fine if they conclude that the offender is “full of attitude” or “cocky”. But that raises obvious questions about who is presumed to be generally “law-abiding” or “full of attitude”, and whether bias might come into play.
Fines tended to be imposed in the areas police were already patrolling. Since people from more deprived backgrounds and ethnic minorities are more likely to be in contact with police in normal times, it follows that officers were more likely to spot them breaking the rules than white people in better-off areas with much less of a routine police presence. Officers quoted in the Liverpool study describe issuing FPNs while “checking the hotspots where teenagers would gather”, for example.
People from disadvantaged and minority groups were more likely to be out in public. Black, Bangladeshi and Pakistani workers were all less likely to do their jobs from home, as were younger people and those in manufacturing or retail and hospitality jobs. They may have had less space at home or been less likely to have a garden. All of that made them visible to the police more often.
The “over-policing” of minority groups is nothing new. In a report published by the Institute of Race Relations, interviews with 22 people from minority backgrounds who had dealt with the police during the pandemic show how they see those encounters as consistent with their past experiences of the police. One said that it seemed that the police could stop them even more than before, “because [they] can say it’s down to Covid”.
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Other coronavirus disparities
The findings of the Edinburgh study are all the more concerning because they form part of a wide range of inequalities seen during the pandemic.
Minorities and those from disadvantaged backgrounds were more likely to be infected because they were more likely to live in crowded housing or have to travel for work. Black and South Asian people were more likely to die of coronavirus than white people. Pakistani and Bangladeshi households were more likely to include someone with a health condition that rendered them vulnerable. And the drop in employment rates for Black, Asian and minority-ethnic (BAME) workers was 26 times higher than for their white counterparts.
In that context, it is hard to view inequalities in the handing out of FPNs as anything other than a grim inevitability. For officers who want to “ridicule” black communities, one interviewee in the IRR report said, the pandemic was a “golden ticket”.
What else we’ve been reading
The cost of shoplifting to retailers has doubled since 2016 – and the reasons are complicated and sad. Helen Pidd has a really well-reported piece centred on a single high street in Chorlton, where local retailers, like Lena Rowe (above), are much less able to bear the cost than the big chains. Archie
Owen Jones writes compellingly about the rise of the far right in Europe, and how the “creep of normalisation” is making their growth all the more worrying. Hannah J Davies, deputy editor, newsletters
Lucy Mangan gives Shane Meadows’ new period adaptation The Gallows Pole the five-star treatment, praising its ability to retain the “energy, density and fortitude” of Benjamin Myers’s 2017 novel, while adding humour – and women – to the mix. Hannah
Sian Norris writes about ‘trad wives’, one of the weirdest of far-right subcultures, “where women spurn modern, egalitarian values to dedicate their lives to the service of their husbands”. The question, she says, is how a movement “determined to reduce women to reproductive vessels to aid white male supremacy recruited women to its cause.” Archie
Looking for love in all the wrong places (read: the apps)? Why not try the suggestions in this piece by Elle Hunt, Rebecca Clark, Daisy Schofield and Zoe Beaty, which include hosting a singles dinner and trying out the new breed of personal ads. Hannah
Sport
Football | Sevilla beat Roma on penalties to lift their seventh Europa League trophy and deny Jose Mourinho victory in a European final for the first time. Roma’s dour performance in a 1-1 draw confirmed that Mourinho is a “nihilist”, wrote Jonathan Wilson: “It’s hard not to think that Roma might have had a better chance by playing football than whatever it was to which they brought the game down.”
Football | Sarina Wiegman has left out injured star winger Beth Mead from England’s squad for the Women’s World Cup but has included Beth England, who has scored 12 times in 12 Women’s Super League appearances for Tottenham this season. Louise Taylor writes that Wiegman’s omission of Steph Houghton despite an injury to captain and fellow centre-half Leah Williamson “seems peculiarly self-destructive”.
French Open | Russia’s Anna Blinkova beat French No 5 seed Caroline Garcia 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 in the second round to end France’s greatest hope for a home champion. Meanwhile, Britain’s Cameron Norrie advanced to the third round with a 6-1, 6-3, 6-3 victory over French qualifier Lucas Pouille.
The front pages
The Guardian leads today with “Universities’ funding model is broken, vice-chancellors warn”. There’s a stick down the right for “Johnson hands over WhatsApp messages”. No single big theme emerges elsewhere. The Financial Times says “Soda-ash group aims to be ‘big fish’ on FTSE with $7.5bn valuation target”, while the Metro has “UK leaders ‘legitimate targets’” – this, it says, is the “Russian threat after Moscow attack”. “Labour’s new policies would cost same as ‘3p hike in income tax’” – that’s in the i.
The Daily Mail has “Humiliated ITV forced to order Schofield inquiry” – the strap over that headline says “This Morning meltdown”. It’s “This Morning shock” in the Daily Mirror where the main headline is “ITV fury over Phil affair ‘cover-up’”. “Scrap unfair inheritance tax, MPs tell Sunak” – not an unfamiliar cry from the Daily Telegraph. “Bulgaria to help Sunak stop more small boats” reports the Times. The Daily Express has “Exposed: eco-mob plot to ruin derby” – the one in Epsom is to be targeted by Animal Rising, the paper alleges. “Harry puts a sock in it” says the Sun, gleefully. It reports the Sussexes have “nothing left to say”, according to an insider, after Spare, Netflix and everything else.
Today in Focus
Sofas, smiles – and scandal: what’s going on at ITV’s This Morning?
It’s been a fixture on British TV screens for decades – as has one of its hosts, Phillip Schofield. But now This Morning is in turmoil after he admitted to an ‘unwise, but not illegal’ workplace relationship
Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
When Kylie Minogue released her latest single, Padam Padam, in early May, it landed with a thud. Key stations such as BBC Radio 1 and Capital FM offered the Australian’s comeback song no playtime.
But Kylie fans, you could say, can’t get Padam Padam out of their head. Powered almost exclusively by social media memes, dance routine videos and more, the track (a reference to sound a heartbeat) has fought its way to No 26 in the UK chart – and is now the singer’s biggest hit since 2014’s Into the Blue.
“My heart is bursting with joy,” Minogue posted on Instagram to her 2.5 million followers this past weekend, as she turned 55. “It has been an incredible week and I can’t thank you enough.”
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
