Ten Things You Need to Know Today: 4 December 2023

1. Johnson to blame scientists

Boris Johnson will blame "chopping and changing" scientific advice for chaos in government during the pandemic, said the inews site. The former PM will appear at the Covid Inquiry on Wednesday and Thursday. It has already heard evidence that Johnson was unable to make consistent decisions on how to respond to the pandemic. "There are lots of examples where the scientific advice changed a lot," said an ally, which "does sort of explain this sense of chopping and changing". 

Vallance diaries: Boris Johnson 'bamboozled' by Covid science

2. Gaza city 'catastrophic'

Israel ground forces are pushing into southern Gaza as the military said it is targeting Hamas command centres, weapons storage and naval forces. The situation in the southern city of Khan Younis is "beyond catastrophic", a British-Palestinian man told the BBC. "Nowhere is safe" in the "besieged" territory as an "Israeli bombardment" killed at least 700 Palestinians in the past 24 hours, said Al Jazeera. A government adviser insisted that Israel is making "maximum effort" to avoid killing civilians. 

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The 'genocide' debate in Gaza

3. Starmer 'austerity hint'

Labour will not "turn on the spending taps" if it wins the next election, Keir Starmer will say today. In a speech to the Resolution Foundation, the party leader will say Britain is "going backwards" and warn that the nation is in its worst economic state in more than half a century. This will bolster the view of some senior Labour MPs that he is "preparing to sign up to austerity-style public sector cuts", said The Guardian. 

Keir Starmer: preparing to be prime minister?

4. UK weight warning

A new report has claimed that Britain's "weight problem" is costing almost £100 billion annually, said The Times, and will "scupper" Rishi Sunak's plans to get the sick back to work. Henry Dimbleby, the government's former food adviser, said the effect on national productivity from excess weight is nine times bigger than previously thought and threatens to leave Britain "a sick and impoverished nation". He has suggested that ministers introduce smoking-style restrictions on junk food. 

From 2018: Why is the UK so fat?

5. US downs drones

A US warship shot down three drones after three commercial vessels came under attack in the Red Sea, said US Central Command. USS Carney assisted the ships yesterday after they were targeted from areas of Yemen held by Iran-backed Houthi rebels. Two of the ships were hit by missiles, but there were no casualties, it added. Since the Hamas attack on Gaza in October, there have been a "number of missile attacks from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen on ships in the Red Sea", said ABC News.

6. Farage support grows

The Tories face a "growing threat" from Reform UK after support for Nigel Farage's party hit a "record high" in a new poll, said the inews site. The latest BMG Research poll for the outlet found that Reform UK is third on 11%, its best ever performance in the BMG polling, an outcome that is seen by some Conservative MPs as evidence that Rishi Sunak is "failing to convince right-wing voters he is handling the issues they care about well".

Reform UK: will Farage's party decide the next election?

7. Hikers die after volcano eruption

Rescuers have found the bodies of 11 hikers near the crater of Indonesia's Mount Marapi volcano after it erupted. There were 75 hikers in the area at the time of the eruption, but most were safely evacuated. Three have been rescued and the search for 12 others has been suspended due to a small eruption. Mount Marapi erupted yesterday, spewing ash as high as 3km (9,800ft). Indonesia "sits on the Pacific's so-called 'Ring of Fire' and has 127 active volcanoes", said Al Jazeera.

8. Sunak set to block BBC licence increase

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is expected to block a 9% increase in the BBC licence fee and insist that the corporation has to be "realistic" about what the public can afford. The annual fee is due to rise by almost £15 to £173.30 in April, the biggest single increase for close to 40 years, but The Telegraph believes that the government is set to "block the rise this month and force the BBC to accept a smaller amount instead". 

9. 'Fighter' Glenys Kinnock remembered

Tributes have been paid to Glenys Kinnock, who has died at the age of 79. Announcing her passing, her family praised her political work, saying Europe, Africa and the UN were the "three great passions of her life". Labour leader Keir Starmer called her a "true fighter" for the party and Tony Blair said her death would be "mourned in many countries and corners". Kinnock was a member of the European parliament for 15 years, and in 2009 Gordon Brown gave her a life peerage to enable her to join the government. 

10. Word of the year is named

"Rizz", an internet slang term for romantic appeal or charm, has been named the Oxford word of the year. It was one of eight words on a shortlist, all chosen to reflect the "mood, ethos or preoccupations" of 2023, said the BBC. The first recorded use of "rizz" was in 2022, but it went viral in June after the actor Tom Holland, in an interview with Buzzfeed, said: "I have no rizz whatsoever. I have limited rizz." That moment "spawned a crush of memes", said The New York Times.