Boris Johnson has been told to justify seeking a six-month extension to “authoritarian” lockdown powers in England, amid a Commons rebellion from Conservative MPs.
The government is expected to receive approval from MPs to extend measures within the Coronavirus Act until October.
But senior Tories from the Covid Recovery Group (CRG) have raised concerns over how such a move is consistent with the prime minister’s pledge to restore the country’s freedoms as the vaccine programme rolls out.
Former minister Steve Baker, the CRG’s deputy chairman, said he expects to vote against the measures on Thursday.
Asked about the size of the Conservative rebellion, Baker told Sophy Ridge On Sunday on Sky News: “It’s very difficult to say until we’ve seen the exact detail of what the government is tabling and how the votes will come.
“Let’s be absolutely clear, because it seems Labour and the SNP will vote for any old authoritarianism these days, it looks like the Government will get their business with an enormous majority.
“But I do think it’s important that some of us do seek to hold the government to account with these extraordinary powers.”
Baker, in a separate statement, also said: “With so many vulnerable people now vaccinated, people may ask why the restrictions the government is bringing in this coming week are tougher than they were last summer when we didn’t have a vaccine.
“The detention powers in the Coronavirus Act are disproportionate, extreme, and wholly unnecessary.
“Renewing them would not be reconcilable with the Prime Minister’s guarantee that we are on a ‘one-way road to freedom’ by June 21.”
CRG chairman Mark Harper, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, also challenged the Government’s thinking on its road map to recovery.
He said “reasonable people” would wonder if the Government had struck the right balance in continuing present guidelines curbing family gatherings through Easter.
Harper wrote: “Staying with your family won’t just be illegal for Easter weekend, it will be unlawful until May 17 at the earliest – whatever the data say. The road map is ‘dates, not data’.”
He questioned “draconian” powers in the legislation, adding the police response in the Clapham Common vigil for Sarah Everard last weekend had been partly the result of “poorly drafted” emergency pandemic laws.
But defence secretary Ben Wallace defended the government’s plans, telling Sky News: “The final mile is the most important thing for us all, make sure we buckle down, get through the different stages the prime minister set out.
“At each stage we will be taking assessments from the science, from where we are in the pandemic, and take the steps required.
“It is not a one-way street. Just because we are seeking to extend the powers doesn’t mean we are deaf to how facts change on the ground.”
For Labour, shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said there are powers within the Act which need to be debated to assess if they are necessary.
She told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “What the vote is this week is about the road map, about easing the road map, it’s about statutory sick pay, it’s about the ban on evictions, all measures that we’ve pushed for, we certainly won’t be standing in the way of the government in getting this legislation passed.”
Shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth expressed frustration at MPs not being allowed to table amendments and offered to work with senior Conservatives to find a way to do this.
Elsewhere, Professor Jeremy Brown, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), warned a “very large number” of at-risk people could develop a “serious” Covid-19 infection if restrictions are lifted now.
He said between 90% and 95% of people who are at high risk have been vaccinated, but mostly with one dose, which does not provide full protection.
He told Sky News: “If you lift restrictions, even though most people who are at risk have been vaccinated, the proportion who have not still represent a very large number of people who could end up with serious infection.”
Dr Mary Ramsay, Public Health England’s head of immunisation, also told the BBC: “I think it’s very important that we don’t relax too quickly.”
The Unite union general secretary said voters “don’t understand” what Labour stands for anymore.
In an interview with Times Radio on Sunday, McCluskey, who was a close ally of Jeremy Corbyn, said Starmer was on course to “destroy the unity of the party”.
McCluskey also said the selection process led to the selection of Paul Williams as Labour’s candidate for the Hartlepool by-election “beggars belief”.
Williams chosen to stand in the seat after he was the only person placed on the shortlist of candidates.
In the interview, McCluskey said: “Keir needs to start telling people what he is and what Labour are. People don’t know at the moment.
“People knew where Jeremy Corbyn was coming from long before any elections.
“People knew where Tony Blair was coming from long before any elections.
“At the moment we are suffering because people don’t understand what Keir Starmer stands for or what Labour stands for. And that’s what he has to do.
“Stick to the radical nature of the policies he stood on and win back the red wall seats.
“If he continues to attack the democracy in the left of the party he’ll destroy the unity of the party and the reality will be he’ll be dumped into the dustbin of history.”
Speaking about the upcoming Hartlepool by-election, McCluskey said: “If that’s Keir’s definition of democracy well it’s certainly not mine. It’s not even a pretence any more.
“A shortlist – actually it was a longlist – of one man. It beggars belief. But at the moment in terms of the internal democracy within our party. Nothing is surprising.
“I regret the fact that a proper process wouldn’t have been gone through.”
The by-election in the so-called red wall seat was triggered after incumbent Labour MP Mike Hill resigned this week amid sexual harassment allegations.
The contest will be seen a key test for Starmer’s leadership, one year after he succeeded Corbyn at the top of the party.
Boris Johnson made advances into traditional Labour territory in the North of England, Midlands and north Wales during the general election in December 2019, in which he secured a Conservative majority victory.
One of the seats taken as part of the host of red-to-blue turnovers in the North East was Williams’ former Stockton South seat.
Williams has apologised after a Tweet of his from 2011 was unearthed in which he asked his followers: “Do you have a favourite Tory milf?”
Shami Chakrabarti, the former shadow attorney general under Corbyn, has said the “unacceptable misogynistic” language means Williams should be dumped as the candidate.
But speaking to the Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, Lisa Nandy, the shadow foreign secretary, agreed while the language was “completely and utterly unacceptable”, as Williams had apologised he should not have to step down.
Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, has issued a warning to the European Commission that any attempt to block coronavirus vaccine exports to the UK would be “counterproductive”.
Commission president Ursula von der Leyen ramped up the rhetoric at the weekend, saying the EU had the power to “forbid” exports, adding; “That is the message to AstraZeneca.”
The warning reflects growing frustration on the continent that the EU is not getting the supplies it expected from the British-Swedish manufacturer.
Ireland’s commissioner Mairead McGuinness said no decisions had been taken but that EU leaders would consider the matter when they meet on Thursday.
“European citizens are growing angry and upset at the fact that the vaccine rollout has not happened as rapidly as we had anticipated,” she told BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show.
“Both the EU and the UK have contracts with AstraZeneca and my understanding is the company is supplying the UK but the European Union.
“We are supplying the UK with other vaccines, so I think this is just about openness and transparency.”
Wallace, however, hit back by warning the manufacture of the Pfizer vaccine depended on supplies from the UK.
“The grown-up thing would be for the European Commission and some of the European leaders to not indulge in rhetoric but to recognise the obligations that we all have,” he told The Andrew Marr Show.
“We will all hold each other to our contracts. Making a vaccine is like baking a cake. We all have different ingredients and the European Commission will know that.
“You pointed out the point about Pfizer. They will know you wouldn’t want to cut off your nose to spite your face.”
Speaking earlier on Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme, he said the EU would suffer “severe reputational” damage if it tried interfering with vaccine exports.
“If contracts and undertakings get broken that is a very damaging thing to happen for a trading bloc which prides itself on the rule of law,” he said.
“It would be counterproductive because the one thing we know about vaccine production and manufacturing is that it is collaborative.
“If we start to unpick that, if the commission were to start to do that, I think they would undermine not only their citizens’ chances of having a proper vaccine programme, but also many other countries around the world with the reputational damage to the EU, I think, they would find very hard to change over the short-term.”
Harry Durrant via Getty ImagesGlastonbury’s iconic Pyramid stage in 2019
“For those asking for an update on our plans later this year, we have put an application in for a licence for a concert at the farm in September,” she wrote on Instagram.
“Of course, we’ve no idea yet whether we’ll able to do that, but we wanted to get the application in to be in with a chance. Unlikely we’ll have any news for a couple of months – but will let you know right here when we do.”
Emily noted that the Eavis family had also “put an application in for a family-friendly (ie not for partying!) campsite at the farm for this summer”.
“Again, it’s not definite that it’ll go ahead, but needed to set the early wheels in motion now,” she added.
“It’s so good to dream up plans and hope that some of these things could potentially happen later this year.”
Announcing Glasto’s cancellation earlier in the year, organisers said that “tickets for this year will roll over to next year”, and thanked those who had already paid deposits for their “faith and trust placed in us”.
“We are very confident we can deliver something really special for us all in 2022,” they said.
Rapper Kendrick Lamar, Beatles star Paul McCartney and chart-topping singer Taylor Swift had all been booked to headline what would have been Glastonbury’s 50th anniversary festival last year, before the event was eventually scrapped.
Seeing the cast of Gogglebox’s take on the past seven days of telly has been the highlight of our week for some time now, so when we saw that they’d be tackling one of Naked Attraction’s most iconic episodes ever, we knew we were in for a treat.
During Friday night’s show, the Goggleboxers sat down in their respective homes to watch a classic Naked Attraction episode that had aired on Channel 4 earlier in the week.
Things got off to a promising start, with long-serving cast member Stephen keeping his fingers crossed for “willies”, and Shirley declaring she “wouldn’t want to show my fanny to everyone, love”.
The episode in question introduced 57-year-old Judith, a church-going woman who decided that after surviving breast cancer and caring for her elderly mother, she deserved a bit of a treat.
“Who does she want to meet at 57?” Shirley questioned, to which her husband Dave suggested: “Someone half-tidy, I expect. With a big knob.”
Fan favourites Jenny and Lee were engrossed from the beginning, with the former declaring: “Let’s see what she’s got on offer.”
However, there was no preparing for some of the lines Judith would end up coming out with as she whittled down her prospective dates, including her suggestiion she’s happy with anything from “eight to 11 inches” and the immortal line: “God what a c**k!”
And pretty much everyone was speechless as the iconic Shirley performed a rendition of The Lord Is My Shepherd, accompanying herself on the keyboard, while her prospective dates swayed nude in the background.
As Louis Michael put it: “Just when you think it can’t get any more surreal, she whips out a piano and puts on a one-woman show. For the penises.”
“We all need a little bit of Judith in us really, don’t we?” Stephen said at the end of the episode.
Frankly, we can not agree more.
Gogglebox airs every Friday night at 9pm on Channel 4.
Asylum seekers who escaped war and oppression to seek refuge in the UK have been left penniless and in limbo during a national crisis, HuffPost UK can reveal.
Zakat is an obligatory religious levy and the third pillar of Islam, which requires Muslims to give up 2.5% of their qualifying wealth each year to help those in need. During 2020, the foundation distributed £3.8m in grants, a 27% rise on the previous year.
A Sudanese mother-of-three who escaped to the UK told HuffPost UK she has been living in a hotel room with her three children for the last five months and became ill with coronavirus while they all lived in the same space.
Saira,* 43, moved to Qatar from Sudan in 2008 with her husband, and the couple had three children.
But when her husband briefly returned to Sudan for his mother’s funeral in October, he was arrested.
Terrified she would be deported to Sudan and arrested too, Saira fled to the UK with her children to apply for asylum.
However, due to the backlog of asylum claims – which she believes is exacerbated by Covid-19 – Saira and her children have been living in hostels and hotel rooms since their arrival in the UK which she admitted is very difficult.
Getty imagesSaira, an asylum seeker, has been living with her three children in a hotel room for the last five months
“My children are really struggling and home schooling in one hotel room is very hard,” Saira told HuffPost UK.
“My kids are fighting and crying and asking when we can go to live in a home, and they miss their dad.”
Saira’s children – aged 12, 10 and four – managed to attend school for a month before the third national lockdown.
But even in that time one of her kids contracted Covid-19 and brought it home, and Saira became ill. “I felt pain all over my body and I started to cough and I could not move from the bed,” she said.
Home schooling in one hotel room is very hard. My kids are fighting and crying and asking when we can go to live in a home.”Saira, an asylum seeker from Sudan
Saira wore a mask all the time and kept the window open, even though it was cold, to try to protect her children from the virus.
“My youngest son wanted to be near me and when I told him to keep away, he didn’t understand and cried,” she said. “I felt very ill and still feel weak now.”
She came to the UK following her husband’s disappearance as she was frightened of being deported to Sudan from Qatar herself. She had visited Sudan in 2018 and was arrested, imprisoned for a month and treated very badly.
Saira believes her arrest then was related to fundraising and support for the people of Darfur, where her parents are from. “We made donations after collecting clothing and money to help people’s human rights,” she said.
“When they arrested me, I was shocked. They told me they knew everything about me and treated me badly.
“They pushed us around using their feet and I have problems in my back and shoulders because of this.
“I was alone in a dark room with no light and no water. I had to go to the toilet in the same room. It was very bad.”
She added: “I can’t go back to Sudan. Everyone I know there is trying to escape.”
Getty imagesAsylum seekers, who are already vulnerable, have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic
Then when lockdown began, Saira was forced to home school the children in the London hotel room they all share. “It was so stressful,” she said. “I felt very depressed and the children were restless and shouting and screaming and kept asking me questions that I couldn’t answer.”
Saira and her children are given food at the hotel, but it is not what they are used to and she admits often her children only eat the bread and rice.
“The hotel provides halal Indian food, but it is very spicy and my children cannot eat it. A few times, the hotel reception staff have ordered pizza for my children, but I feel too ashamed to ask for food.”
Saira was given shopping vouchers by the National Zakat Foundation when the organisation heard of her plight.
She has used these to buy food and snacks for her children and essential household items to use in the hotel room. “They helped me too much,” said Saira of the NZF.
Saira now longs for a home where she can cook for her own children and follow the procedure for seeking asylum. “All we need is to live a simple life,” she said. “We just want to be in a home where we can start our life in a safe place.”
For Ahmad,* a 40-year-old asylum seeker, the hardest part of being stuck in limbo with the asylums process is not being able to work and constantly having to say no to his children as he can’t afford to buy them things.
When the kids ask for something and as a father you cannot provide it, it is very disturbingAhmad, an asylum seeker living with his family in Greater Manchester
Ahmad lives with his wife and four young children in Bolton, Greater Manchester. He told HuffPost UK: “When the kids ask for something and as a father you cannot provide it, it is very disturbing.”
Ahmad was born and brought up in Dubai to parents from Balochistan in Pakistan.
He claimed asylum in the UK two years ago after being told his name was “on a list” because of his work raising awareness of human rights abuses in Balochistan and Dubai.
“In Dubai, carrying out human rights awareness was considered a crime,” he said. “It is forbidden and taboo. They thought of us as outsiders and foreigners and one of my friends told me my name was on a list, so we came to the UK two years ago.”
Getty imagesAhmad, an asylum seeker in Greater Manchester, feels frustrated at not being able to work and provide for his family
Ahmad applied for asylum but his case was refused. He appealed and is now awaiting an outcome. But in the meantime, he isn’t allowed to work despite his many skills.
Ahmad speaks several languages and was working as a customer care manager for a hospitality firm in Dubai. He is also able to work as a mechanic.
“If they gave me approval to work, at least I could provide more for my family,” he said. Instead, they rely on money from the government, which is just enough to cover the bare essentials.
“I am not bothered about myself, but it is very hard not being able to buy things for my kids,” he said. “I don’t even want to take them to the shops with me as I’m afraid if they ask me to buy something, I’ll have to say no as I can’t afford it.”
Ahmad says Covid-19 has also taken a mental toll on the family. “I feel like we are on a drowning ship and cannot move,” he said. “We just have to stand still and wait for something good to happen. It’s like your life is paused.”
A friend told Ahmad about the National Zakat Foundation and he applied for support. Within days, he and his family were given money to help them.
“I bought my children some new clothes and shoes and I have kept the rest for emergency,” he said. “I was very grateful for this support.”
We just have to stand still and wait for something good to happen. It’s like your life is pausedAhmad
Iqbal Nasim, the foundation’s chief executive, told HuffPost UK the stories of vulnerable asylum seekers during the pandemic had gone largely unheard.
“These people, many of them families, have travelled hundreds of miles in treacherous conditions to escape war and oppression,” he said.
“They’ve found themselves in a new country, with barely a penny in their pockets, and then been faced with the added strain of being left in limbo during a national crisis.
“Covid has delayed asylum claim assessments and left many struggling on meagre incomes, housed in hotels or B&Bs in obscure locations and unable to apply for additional support.”
Nasim said the charity had been able to use zakat to provide food and other essentials to thousands of asylum seekers, but much more needed to be done to help them.
Haaris Karim – Islamic ReliefA man carrying food parcels to help those in need
Islamic Relief UK, which works to end poverty, teamed up with the National Zakat Foundation to deliver hardship relief to asylum seekers.
Zia Salik, Islamic Relief UK director, told HuffPost UK people are experiencing suffering all over the country. “As Muslims, we cannot abandon anyone in need and must urgently provide help wherever we can,” he said.
“There is still a long way to go in terms of drawing attention to the effect Covid-19 has had on an already suffering community.
“We hope our partnership will inspire other charities and individuals to come forward and offer their help, especially as we approach Ramadan.”
Downing Street has refused to apologise after Jacob Rees-Mogg used parliament to smear HuffPost UK journalist Arj Singh.
But No.10 did rebuke the Commons leader, by saying Boris Johnson would not have made the same comments.
Rees-Mogg on Thursday described Singh as “either a knave or a fool” and falsely accused him of “editing” comments made by foreign secretary Dominic Raab.
On Tuesday, HuffPost UK published a leaked extract from a video call in which Raab told foreign office staff that the UK was keen to trade with countries that had poor human rights records.
The government did not deny Raab had used the words, or suggest they had been doctored. HuffPost UK did not edit the recording that had been passed to us, and our article quoted it in full.
And he said Raab’s words had been “shockingly distorted by low quality journalism”.
Labour has accused Rees-Mogg of an attempt to mislead parliament with the claims.
No. 10 distanced the prime minister from Rees-Mogg’s words on Friday, saying Johnson would not have made the same comments.
Commons leader Jacob Rees Mogg has just told MPs that Dominic Raab’s own comments which came out of his own mouth and were recorded on tape were “shockingly distorted by low quality journalism” by me.
A Downing Street spokesperson said: “The PM is a staunch believer in the value of the free press and the important role journalists play in our democracy.
“These are not comments that the PM would have made.
“These comments were made by Jacob Rees-Mogg and I’m confident that he can explain their intended meaning.”
The spokesperson declined to say whether Rees-Mogg would be told to retract the comments or apologise.
Downing Street was repeatedly asked to back up claims that the report or recording had “distorted” what Raab had said. No evidence was provided.
The government was also pressured over its hostility to the media, after comments from the National Union of Journalists’ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet.
The union also picked out previous comments made by equalities minister Kemi Badenoch, to former HuffPost journalist Nadine White, who claimed it was “creepy and bizarre” for White to have privately asked for comment on a story.
It also follows a report last week that health secretary Matt Hancock had described The Guardian as “a rag” in leaked WhatsApp messages.
Stanistreet said “this behaviour has to stop”, adding: “It beggars belief that government ministers are smearing and impugning journalists in this way, indulging in outrageous behaviour that demeans them and the offices they hold.
“This same government, including the prime minister and other ministers, have committed time and resources to tackling the growing problem of abuse and harassment which is compromising the safety of journalists across the UK.
“Yet here we have colleagues around the cabinet table acting like playground bullies, undermining the work of journalists, bringing their work into disrepute, and dishing out insults that are clearly designed to further inflame harassment and abuse online.
“It’s not acceptable to dismiss reporting you don’t like as fake news. It’s completely unacceptable to resort to insults and personal smears of journalists simply trying to get on with their job.
“Our elected politicians should be committed to improving the parlous level of public discourse, not further polluting it. This behaviour has to stop, the government must get a grip and put its commitments to improving the recognition and value of journalists and journalism into practice.”
The UK’s Covid R rate has risen slightly to between 0.6 and 0.9, scientists advising the government have said.
Last week the estimated R rate was 0.6 and 0.8.
R measures the number of people, on average, that each sick person will infect.
If R is greater than 1 the epidemic is generally seen to be growing; if R is less than 1 the epidemic is shrinking.
The estimate was published on Friday and provided by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) and the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC).
Here’s what the R rate is in each region of England
In England, the R rate is 0.7 to 0.8.
Regionally it is as follows:
East of England – 0.6 to 0.9 (up from 0.6 to 0.8 last week)
London – 0.6 to 0.9 (up from 0.6 to 0.8)
Midlands – 0.6 to 0.9 (up from 0.6 to 0.8)
North-east and Yorkshire – 0.7 to 0.9 (no change)
North-west – 0.7 to 0.9 (no change)
South-east – 0.7 to 0.9 (up from 0.6 to 0.8)
South-west – 0.6 to 0.9 (up from 0.5 to 0.8)
Here’s what the R rate is in the devolved nations
In Scotland the latest figures estimate the R rate is between 0.7 and 1.0, last week it was between 0.6 and 0.8.
In Wales it is believed to be between 0.6 and 0.8, last week it was between 0.7 and 0.9.
And in Northern Ireland, the R is estimated to be between 0.9 and 1.1, last week it was between 0.75 and 0.95.
Warning! This article contains spoilers for the finale of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK series two.
It’s fair to say that Thursday nights are not going to be the same for the foreseeable future following the conclusion of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK.
The show that has kept so many of us going through the third national lockdown came to an end with a final that was full of shade, serves and surprises.
Guy LevyBBC/World of Wonder/Guy LevyTayce, Ellie Diamond, Bimini Bon Boulash, Lawrence Chaney in the Drag Race UK final
The four finalists – Bimini Bon Boulash, Lawrence Chaney, Tayce and Ellie Diamond – each laid down their own verse for RuPaul’s track A Little Bit Of Love before putting on a popstar-worthy performance for Ru, Michelle Visage, Alan Carr and Graham Norton.
For many, it topped off what has been a magnificent series that has firmly cemented the franchise’s place in the UK TV landscape…
1. PREACH.
Put #DragRaceUK on BBC fucking One at 9pm where it DESERVES to be. Don’t hide such talented and entertaining television just because you think it’s too queer for Kent. INCREASE THE BUGET, GIVE THEM PRIZE MONEY AND MORE EXPOSURE. pic.twitter.com/GzupdYGizq
7. Tia Kofi really took on Ru’s critiques and ran with them
Episode 5: “If you had my team of 50, do you know what you’d look like? Well…youd look like me!” Episode 10: Challenge accepted. pic.twitter.com/QaTHTuP0tz
13. Lawrence Chaney is now one step closer to making Morning Glory a real life actuality
14. Real queens do not tear each other down
15. Understood?
To be blunt… Yous don’t deserve #DragRaceUK if you’re gonna sit there tearing down another Queen because the one ‘you liked more’ wasn’t declared the winner.
You watched a different show entirely if you didn’t see that THEY ALL WON TONIGHT whilst filling our world with… pic.twitter.com/d9MIMpfblw
17. Honestly, we don’t know what we did to deserve all of this
A season that gave us
-Bing Bang Bong -Tayce’s testimonials -Tia Kofi’s commentary -Ginny taking flight -Rats: The Rusical -Bimini’s Snatch Game -Bimini’s runways -Bimini in general -The return from Covid Break -the H&M melter
Hugh Grant has shared a graphic memory of being struck down with some pretty alarming stomach issues while filming one of his earliest films.
Back in the late 1980s, Hugh appeared in The Bengali Night, opposite John Hurt Supriya Pathak, which required him to spend three months filming in Calcutta.
In a recent interview on the podcast WTF With Marc Maron, the Bafta-winning star revealed he became ill “on day three” of filming, with a debilitating (and “explosive”) case of food poisoning that never really got any better as the weeks went on.
He recalled: “On that film, I was there for three months and I didn’t leave the lavatory except to shoot my scenes – and then I had to go back to continue with my explosive diarrhoea.”
Arnaud BORREL via Gamma-Rapho via Getty ImagesHugh Grant on the set of The Bengali Night in 1988
During the same interview, Hugh also discussed a day he found himself stuck in traffic in Calcutta, only to discover his car was “next to a dead body on a stretcher”.
“It started as just a very strange syndrome where I kept breaking into a terrible sweat. It was like a poncho of sweat, embarrassing really,” Hugh said.
“Then my eyeballs felt about three sizes too big and this feeling as though an enormous man was sitting on my chest – Harvey Weinstein or someone. I thought, ‘I don’t know what this is’.”
Vera Anderson/WireImageHugh at a press event for The Undoing in March 2020
Hugh continued: “Then I was walking down the street one day and I thought, ‘I can’t smell a damn thing’. And you start to panic – by then, people were just starting to talk about this as a symptom.
“I started sniffing flowers, nothing. And you get more and more desperate. I started sniffing in garbage cans. You know, you want to sniff strangers’ armpits because you just can’t smell anything.
“I eventually went home and I sprayed my wife’s Chanel No. 5 directly into my face. Couldn’t smell a thing, but I did go blind.”
Listen to Hugh Grant’s full interview on WTF With Marc Maron here.
