Trump calls for election delay over ‘rigged’ postal voting
David Chart Washington
President Trump has provoked an
outcry with an unprecedented call for a
delay to the US election.
Mr Trump said that an expansion in
postal voting will mean widespread
fraud and a poll “rigged” against him.
His call was widely rejected, includ-
ing by senior Republicans who have
until now been extremely loath to con-
tradict him. Democrats accused Mr
Trump of seeking to undermine the
November 3 presidential election so he
could later reject the country’s verdict.
Most opinion polls show Mr Trump los-
ing by a large margin to Joe Biden, the
probable Democratic contender.
“With Universal Mail-In Voting (not
Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020will be the most INACCURATE &
FRAUDULENT Election in history. It
will be a great embarrassment to the
USA,” Mr Trump tweeted. “Delay the
Election until people can properly,
securely and safely vote???”
The president’s critics blame him for
exacerbating the pandemic, which lies
behind the anticipated increase in
postal voting. There have been delaysand legal wrangling over postal vote
counts in primary elections that do not
bode well for November.
The constitution places the timing of
elections in the hands of both houses of
Congress, one controlled by the
Republicans and one by the Demo-
crats, and sets the handover of power
for January 20 next year. Mr Trump’s
critics saw his tweet as a distractionfrom bad economic news: a contraction
of one third in the economy and
another 1.4 million weekly unemploy-
ment claims.
Kevin McCarthy, the Republican
leader in the House of Representatives
and usually a staunch loyalist, said the
election must go ahead as planned.
Unemployment rise, page 28
US enters recession, page 33Friday July 31 2020 | thetimes.co.uk | No 73226 2G £1.10 to subscribers
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£My blond crush!
David Aaronovitch Why I love Flash Gordon
Sheryl Crow
Looks really
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INSIDE industry
TIMES
Lockdown restrictions were tightened
last night for four million people across
large parts of northern England after a
rise in the number of coronavirus cases.
The government announced that
people from different households
would be barred from meeting indoors
in Greater Manchester, east Lancashire
and parts of West Yorkshire.
The move comes after a rise in cases
in northern England, which ministers
believe has been caused by people fail-
ing to observe social-distancing rules.
The restrictions apply to all indoor
gatherings, including pubs and restau-
rants, with immediate effect. However
there was confusion about whether
people could still meet indoors within
their support bubbles.
The decision was taken after Matt
Hancock, the health secretary, chaired
a meeting with leaders from the region.
Leicester is to start coming out of its
extended lockdown after 19 weeks. Liz
Kendall, the Labour MP for Leicester
West, tweeted: “The great news is our
pubs, cafés, bars and restaurants can
reopen and people can go on holiday
with their own household. Leisure cen-
tres, gyms & pools still closed, and no
meeting up with other households in-
doors. This has been an unbelievably
difficult period for our city. Lessons
must be learnt for the future to prevent
others going through the same.”
According to Public Health England,
during the past week there have been 50
DOMINIC JAMES/GOODWOOD RACECOURSEFirms pay
£200m in
ransoms
to hackers
Tom Know
Technology Correspondent
Lucy FisherGangs of cybercriminals forced British
companies to pay out more than
£200 million in ransoms last year,
experts have revealed.
The extortionists, many from Russia
or Eastern European countries, are
targeting well-known businesses with
malicious software and then charging
them tens of millions of pounds to
regain access to networks.
Companies fearful of public embar-
rassment, lost data and fines from regu-
lators are now showing “more willing-
ness to pay the ransom”, experts said. It
has allowed criminals to make an esti-
mated £19 billion a year worldwide
from the practice. Some are so success-
ful that they have begun posting job lis-
tings on the dark web to attract recruits.
British companies are estimated to
have been hit by 5,000 “ransomware”
attacks last year, according to the US
consultancy Emsisoft. This has led to
them paying an estimated £210 million
to hackers, normally in the form of
cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, which
cannot be traced to an individual.
Emsisoft said the total amount paid out
could be far higher as many companies
would not reveal that they had paid a
ransom. “These groups operate with al-
most complete impunity,” Brett Callow,
a threat analyst for Emsisoft, said.
The report prompted MPs to de-
mand tougher laws against the pay-
ment of ransoms and for more police
and security agency resources to tackle
the hackers. David Davis, the former
cabinet minister, said: “It should be
illegal. Companies are just being irre-
sponsible in paying these people off.”
It is legal to pay a ransom in the UK
unless those authorising the payment
know it is for the purposes of terrorism.
The National Crime Agency says it is “a
matter for the victim whether to pay the
ransom, but the NCA encourages
industry and the public not to pay”.
A recent report from the World Eco-
nomic Forum said there was a “stunning
Continued on page 4, col 4Glorious weather The racing presenter Francesca Cumani in the signature blue
and white of the L’Ormarins best-dressed competition for Ladies’ Day at the
Qatar Goodwood Festival, which is being held behind closed doors. Racing 58-Home visits
are banned
for millions
in the north
cases per 100,000 in Leicester and 69
per 100,000 in Blackburn with Darwen.
The new measures apply to Greater
Manchester, Blackburn with Darwen,
Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle, Rossen-
dale, Bradford, Calderdale and Kirklees.
Mr Hancock said: “Unfortunately
we’ve seen an increasing rate of trans-
mission. We’ve been working with local
leaders. Based on the data, we decided
that we need to take immediate action
to keep people safe. The spread is large-
ly due to households meeting and not
abiding to social distancing. So from
midnight tonight people from different
households will not be allowed to meet
each other indoors. We take this action
with a heavy heart but we can see in-
creasing rates of Covid across Europe
and are determined to do whatever is
necessary to keep people safe.”
The government is increasingly con-
cerned that Britain is facing a second
wave of coronavirus and could be only
two to three weeks behind Spain.
Ministers said yesterday that people
with coronavirus symptoms would
have to go into isolation for ten days
rather than seven. On Monday Baron-
ess Harding of Winscombe, head of the
test-and-trace service, raised concerns
that social-distancing rules were being
flouted. She said that the issue was
acute in areas of “high-density” hous-
ing and households where several gen-
erations live under the same roof.
Official figures show that Britain had
the worst death rate from the pandemic
of any country in Europe. Between
Continued on page 2, col 3Steven Swinford Deputy Political Editor
Chris Smyth Whitehall Editor
Rules tightened again after virus cases surge