UK Saturday morning press briefing: The Telegraph’s main headlines of the day

Welcome to your morning telegraph briefing – a roundup of the main stories we cover on Saturday. To receive twice-daily briefings by e-mail, sign up for our Front Page newsletter for free.
1. Plan B restrictions will be removed while Boris Johnson prepares a response
Boris Johnson is set to lift Plan B Covid restrictions as he prepares a management response following growing allegations of parties breaking the lockdown.
Covid passports and work-from-home advice are set to be lifted in Whitehall from January 26 for England, with an announcement as early as this week, although some face mask rules may remain. Read the full story.
2. Exclusive: A woman who ‘drafted the Covid government rules’ threw a ‘boozy’ party during Christmas restrictions
The woman who ran the government unit tasked with drafting the Covid-19 restrictions threw a ‘boozy’ going away party during the Christmas lockdown, it can be revealed.
“Dozens” of officials from the Cabinet Office’s Covid-19 task force attended the event on December 17, 2020, to mark the departure of then chief executive Kate Josephs, The Telegraph said. Read the full story.
3. Princess Beatrice spared being dragged into Prince Andrew’s sex abuse case
On Friday night, Princess Beatrice was spared being officially dragged into her father’s sex abuse case.
Sources close to the family had been groomed for the 33-year-old to be called as a key witness, after the Duke of York alleged he was with his daughter at a Pizza Express in Woking overnight at the center Complaints. against him. Read the full story.
4. MI5 unmasked the Chinese spy fearing she was ‘grooming’ future MPs
MI5 terminated the operations of a Chinese spy as they believed she was targeting a new generation of future British leaders after concluding that her main contact at Westminster was ‘yesterday’s man’.
Christine Ching Kui Lee, denounced by MI5 as an agent of the Chinese Communist Party, feared she was “grooming” potential candidates for parliamentary elections in order to give Beijing leverage in British politics. Read the full story.
5. Give up your tsarist ambition to invade Ukraine or face sanctions, warns Vladimir Putin of Ben Wallace
Ben Wallace accused Vladimir Putin of czarist ambitions as he said there would be “severe economic sanctions” if Ukraine were invaded.
The Defense Secretary made the comments after high-stakes talks this week between NATO and Russia failed to find a solution to the Kremlin’s increasingly threatening behavior towards its neighbor. Read the full story.
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