Thomas Hurd, CB, known as Tom Hurd, is the former head of the 'Joint Biosecurity Centre' announced by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in May 2020. [1]
He held the position from May 2020 to June 2020, when he was replaced by Dr Clare Gardiner. [2] Hurd was formerly the director general of the British Government's Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism. [3] [4]
Hurd is the son of Douglas Hurd. He was educated at Eton College and Oxford University with Boris Johnson. [1]
The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) is a statutory committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom appointed to oversee the work of the UK intelligence community.
Stanley Patrick Johnson is a British author and former Conservative Party politician who served as Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Wight and Hampshire East from 1979 to 1984. A former employee of the World Bank and the European Commission, he has written books on environmental and population issues. His six children include Prime Minister Boris Johnson; former MP and minister Jo Johnson; and journalist Rachel Johnson.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for European Neighbourhood and the Americas, formerly Minister of State for Europe, is a ministerial position within the Government of the United Kingdom, in charge of affairs with Europe, the European Union and NATO. The Minister can also be responsible for government policy towards the Americas; European security; defence and international security; the Falkland Islands; polar regions; migration; protocol; human resources; OSCE and Council of Europe; relations with Parliament; British Overseas Territories of Gibraltar and Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus; and FCO finance, knowledge and technology.
Policy Exchange is a British centre-right to right-wing think tank based in London. In 2007 it was described in The Daily Telegraph as "the largest, but also the most influential think tank on the right". The Washington Post said Policy Exchange's reports "often inform government policy in Britain." and Iain Dale described it as the ‘pre-eminent think tank in the Westminster village”, in ConservativeHome. Policy Exchange is a registered charity.
The Downing Street chief of staff is the most senior political appointee in the Office of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, acting as a senior aide to the prime minister, a powerful, non-ministerial position within Her Majesty's Government.
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is a British politician and writer serving as the prime minister of the United Kingdom and leader of the Conservative Party since July 2019. He was the secretary of state for foreign and Commonwealth affairs from 2016 to 2018 and the mayor of London from 2008 to 2016. Johnson has been a member of Parliament (MP) for Uxbridge and South Ruislip since 2015 and was previously MP for Henley from 2001 to 2008. He has been described as adhering to the ideology of one-nation conservatism.
Dominic Rennie Raab is a British politician serving as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor since 2021. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Esher and Walton since 2010. A member of the Conservative Party, he served as Brexit Secretary in 2018 and First Secretary of State and Foreign Secretary from 2019 to 2021.
Mark Steven Spencer is a British Conservative Party politician serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sherwood since 2010. He was appointed Government Chief Whip of the House of Commons and Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2019.
Dominic Mckenzie Cummings is a British political strategist who served as chief adviser to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson from 24 July 2019 until 13 November 2020.
Peter Thomas Marshall Hill is a British civil servant and a former political advisor. He was appointed CEO of the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in September 2019, having previously been Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister.
Events from the year 2020 in the United Kingdom. As in most of the world, the COVID-19 pandemic dominated events in the UK during this year.
The premiership of Boris Johnson began on 24 July 2019 when Johnson accepted Queen Elizabeth II's invitation, at her prerogative, to form a new administration. It followed the resignation of Theresa May, who stood down as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party following Parliament's repeated rejection of her Brexit withdrawal agreement. Johnson was declared leader after the results of the leadership election were announced on 23 July 2019.
Usman Khan, also known as Abu Saif, was a British terrorist who was convicted of plotting a terrorist attack in 2012 and who was shot dead by City of London Police after being restrained by members of the public whilst committing a knife attack near London Bridge on 29 November 2019, during which he killed two people and injured three others.
Andrew Griffith is a British Conservative Party politician and former senior businessman who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Arundel and South Downs since 2019.
Ray Bassett is a former Irish diplomat. Bassett was born in Dublin and attended O'Connell School and Trinity College Dublin. At the latter, he earned a PhD in biochemistry in 1979. He served as an ambassador from Ireland to Canada, Jamaica, and the Bahamas and joint Secretary to the British–Irish Intergovernmental Conference in Belfast before retiring in October 2016. He is the senior fellow for EU affairs at the centre-right think tank Policy Exchange. He is also the author of Brexit: Options for the Border and Brexit and the Border. In 2020 Bassett published a book, Ireland and the EU Post Brexit, which was sharply critical of Ireland's former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. Bassett noted that Varadkar 'had done everything in his power to thwart the democratic outcome in the UK [the Brexit vote in 2016]...The gamble failed and Ireland is now facing a very difficult situation...Opposing a fair deal for the UK was never in Ireland's interests. It was a huge blunder.'
On 2 February 2020 two people were stabbed in Streatham, London in what police termed a terrorist incident. The attacker, Sudesh Amman, was shot dead by the police. A nearby woman was slightly injured by broken glass as a result. At the time Amman was under active counter-terrorism surveillance, after having recently being released from prison on licence; he had been convicted in 2018 for disseminating terrorist material. Following the attack, the British government introduced the Terrorist Offenders Bill, a piece of emergency legislation intended to prevent those convicted of terrorist offences from being released early from prison.
The Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, often known as the Integrated Review, and titled as Global Britain in a Competitive Age, is a review by the British Government into the foreign, defence, security and international development policies of the United Kingdom. Described by Prime Minister Boris Johnson as "the largest review of its kind since the Cold War", the review was published on 16 March 2021.
Boris Johnson carried out the first significant reshuffle of his majority government on 13 February 2020. Following the December 2019 general election, there was considerable speculation that Johnson was planning a major reshuffle of the Cabinet, to take place after the United Kingdom's official withdrawal from the European Union on 31 January 2020. There were reports that up to a third of the Cabinet would be dismissed, Whitehall departments abolished and civil servants replaced by policy experts. The anticipated reshuffle was nicknamed "The St Valentine's Day Massacre" in the press, due to its proximity to St Valentine's Day, the name being a reference to the 1929 gangland shooting in Chicago.
On 20 June 2020, shortly before 19:00 BST, a man with a knife attacked people who were socializing in Forbury Gardens, Reading, Berkshire, United Kingdom. Three men died from their wounds, and three other people were seriously injured. A 25-year-old Libyan male refugee named Khairi Saadallah was arrested nearby shortly afterwards. Saadallah was a former member of the Libyan militant group Ansar al-Sharia. He was charged with three counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder; he pleaded guilty. In January 2021, Saadallah was sentenced to life imprisonment.
The Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC) is a scientific body which seeks to advise United Kingdom government policy as part of the response to outbreaks of COVID-19, such as on testing deployment, international travel, and the UK 'COVID-19 alert level'. Its existence was announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in May 2020. The body has been part of the UK Health Security Agency since the establishment of that agency on 1 April 2021.
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