Brexit

Telegraph
Boris Johnson will hold video talks with the presidents of the three major EU institutions on Monday. He will discuss the progress of trade negotiations in the meeting, ahead of Thursday’s EU summit. The UK hopes that the Prime Minister will be able to secure commitments from the EU to intensify the talks in what is effectively his last chance to ask for an extension to the Brexit transition period. EU sources claim that Britain wants to enter “tunnel” talks – Brussels jargon for secret discussions carried out under media blackout – in July, which Michel Barnier has ruled out, and UK sources deny.

Sun
BORIS Johnson is set for showdown talks with EU chiefs on Monday afternoon to try and move on the deadlocked Brexit talks. The PM will hold a video call with Commission boss Ursula von der Leyen and Council president Charles Michel. Chief negotiators Michel Barnier and David Frost will also join the chat, which comes after three-and-a-half months of slow progress. Brussels sources were downplaying the prospect of a breakthrough and said the meeting will take place amid a “gloomy” atmosphere on the EU side.

Express
BORIS Johnson will hold a showdown with EU leaders next week to help force a breakthrough in a post-Brexit trade deal, it was confirmed last night. Downing Street said the Prime Minister will take part in a “high-level” summit with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, European Council president Charles Michel and the president of the European Parliament, David-Maria Sassoli on Monday.

Guardian
Business leaders have pleaded with the government not to walk away from Brexit talks without a deal after Michael Gove claimed the Confederation of British Industry supported no extension to the transition period. The CBI’s director general, Carolyn Fairbairn, said to crash out without a deal would be a “major block to recovery”. “Walking away,” she said “would worsen inequalities” and end up “damaging regional and national growth”.

Express
BRITAIN’S plan to hold secret “tunnel” negotiations with the European Union in July in bid to strike a free trade deal have been slapped down by Michel Barnier. The bloc’s chief Brexit negotiator accused the UK of backtracking on its Withdrawal Agreement commitments to allow the EU to regularly scrutinise new customs arrangements in Northern Ireland after the Brexit transition period has expired. “Tunnel” is a phrase used by officials in Brussels referring to discussions which are held without the media knowing.

Independent
The EU’s chief negotiator has called for an extension to the Brexit transition period in a bid to save stalling trade talks and prevent a no-deal. Michel Barnier told a committee in Brussels that the European Commission supported an extension beyond the end of the year to give negotiators more time, with scant progress so far. The EU has previously said it is open to an extension but has shied away from actively calling for one. But as the deadline to extend looms at the end of this month, Mr Barnier’s position has shifted.

Border checks

Mail
The UK has abandoned plans for full border checks on EU goods due to pressure from businesses struggling with coronavirus, it was reported last night. Michael Gove, Minister for the Cabinet Office, is understood to have accepted that companies cannot cope with both leaving the European Union and the fallout from the pandemic. The Government may now introduce a temporary light-touch regime at ports like Dover for EU goods when the transition period ends in December. This would happen under both a deal and no-deal scenario. But the EU is unlikely to reciprocate and UK goods will face full checks, according to the reports.

Sky News
The government will take a “flexible” approach to post-Brexit border checks on goods imported from the EU next year in order to assist businesses already struggling with the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Later today the UK government will formally rule out any extension of the Brexit transition period beyond 31 December, despite trade talks with the EU remaining stalled.

Independent
The government is expected to backtrack on its plan to introduce full border checks with the EU from 1 January over fears of the economic impact of coronavirus. Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove is anticipated to make an announcement on Friday over border operations for when Brexit fully comes into effect at the end of the transition period.

Economy

Sun
THE UK economy shrank by 20.4 per cent in April due to the coronavirus lockdown – the biggest monthly fall on record. The latest GDP figures come after the economy fell by 5.8 per cent in March. The drop is the single monthly fall since records began in 1997, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. And it’s 10 times larger than the steepest drop in GDP that was recorded before Covid-19 hit the world.

ITV News
The UK economy shrunk by more than a fifth in the first full month of the coronavirus lockdown, figures have down. Offices, shops and factories all closed leading to a sharp dip in the UK market. The Office for National Statistics said the economic activity dropped by 20.4 per cent in April – the largest drop in a single month since records began in 1997.  The fall massively outstrips the then-record 5.8 per cent drop in March gross domestic product (GDP) that the ONS reported last month.

Race riots

Times
Protesters will face “24-hour justice” if they cause vandalism, criminal damage or assault police officers amid mounting concerns that Britain is facing a summer of disorder. Robert Buckland, the justice secretary, has told magistrates to extend their opening hours and fast-track cases related to protests in an approach modelled on the response to the London riots of 2011. The plans, which have been drawn up by Mr Buckland and Priti Patel, the home secretary, will lead to offenders being jailed within 24 hours of arrest to defuse disorder.

Sun
FAR-RIGHT extremists and football hooligans are planning to counter Black Lives Matter protests and protect monuments this weekend in what police fear is a “perfect storm”. Police officers with full riot gear will be on standby “kitted up and ready to go” amid fears of potential clashes. Busloads of fans attached to “firms” at various football clubs are planning to travel hundreds of miles to defend monuments after a number were vandalised during the Black Lives Matter demos.

Statues

Mail
Nelson Mandela would not have wanted colonialist Cecil Rhodes’ statue to be taken down, the vice-chancellor of the Oxford college where it stands has claimed. After thousands of anti-racism protestors gathered outside Oxford University’s Oriel College with the simple message ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ on Tuesday, vice-chancellor Prof Louise Richardson said the former South African president would have disagreed with the clamour.

Mail
London Mayor Sadiq Khan last night ordered workers to board up the Cenotaph, Winston Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square and a host of other iconic monuments to protect them from damage ahead of another weekend of protests in the capital.  Scaffolding sprung up around Churchill and the nearby Cenotaph late on Thursday evening after concerns they could yet again be targeted by Black Lives Matter activists. The monument to Britain’s war-time leader was covered in graffiti last weekend that said Churchill ‘was a racist’.

Mail
Internationally-renowned Guy’s Hospital in London announced it will remove the statue of its slave-trading founder Thomas Guy following pressure from Black Lives Matter protesters. The Guy’s and St Thomas’s hospital trust today revealed on Twitter that the contentious monument will be next in a string of statues taken down over links to Britain’s historic slave trade. Bookseller Guy made his fortune as a major shareholder in British slave-trafficking firm South Sea Company.

Breitbart
A statue of the world-famous and broadly admired founder of the Scouting movement was due to be removed on Thursday, but the plans were postponed, and now the figure will receive 24-hour security. While work crews had been booked to remove the statue, the contractors refused to perform the work, Poole’s local newspaper the Bournemouth Echo reported. They are said to have told the council they would not proceed while people surrounded the statue.

Guido
Shocking scenes in Parliament Square, as a co-conspirator passed on photos of Winston Churchill’s statue – facing the Palace of Westminster – being boarded up. A few years ago in a BBC poll of a million people he was voted Britain’s greatest Briton. Now he is being boarded up to protect him from the mob. Something has gone very wrong. Similar photos have also emerged of the Cenotaph having to be protected from expected protests.

Morning Star
A STATUE of colonialist Cecil Rhodes in Oxford “should be taken down,” the vice-chancellor of London’s Soas university said today. Baroness Valerie Amos, who is due to become the first black head of an Oxford college later this year, countered arguments that the statue’s presence is needed “to have a conversation about history.” She told BBC Breakfast today: “We shouldn’t airbrush history but I don’t think you need a statue of Cecil Rhodes to help you to have a conversation about that history. I would take it down.

Sun
THE statue of scouts founder Robert Baden-Powell will be protected by 24-hour security after a huge backlash to the council’s plan to pull it down. This comes as the statue of Thomas Guy, the founder of Guy’s Hospital, is set to be removed due to his association with slave-trading. Lord Baden-Powell was honoured with the memorial in Poole, Dorset, 12 years ago – with critics now calling for it to be pulled down over concerns he was racist, homophobic and a supporter of Adolf Hitler.

Covid symptoms

Sky News
Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said up to 80% of people who test positive for coronavirus in the UK don’t have symptoms. According to data released by the Office For National (ONS) statistics last week, 71% of people who tested positive for coronavirus had not displayed symptoms. But speaking at the daily government briefing, Mr Hancock suggested the number of asymptomatic cases could be higher.

Metro
A mum who suffered with mystery rashes on her hands and feet which left doctors stumped has been told she was one of the first people in the UK to catch Covid-19. Sarah Churchill, 36, first went to her GP with a rapid heartbeat and shortness of breath towards the end of February, when there were only 15 cases here. In the absence of a fever or persistent cough it was thought the painful flare-ups could be a sign of blood cancer or even HIV.

Schools

Telegraph
Teaching unions have been accused of celebrating children being shut out of classrooms after one wrote to members describing the Government u-turn as a “victory”. The head of the University and College Union (UCU) praised the “impressive public campaigning” of teaching unions and said they could “achieve similar victories” just two days after the Government abandoned plans to reopen all primary schools before September.

Mirror
Primary schools won’t open for key workers over summer, the government has confirmed today. Schools remained open for the children of key workers and those deemed “vulnerable” during both the Easter holidays and the half term break. Ministers are facing a backlash over its handling of education after the Prime Minister confirmed the majority of pupils would not return to the classroom before September.

Mail
Schools across England will not remain open during the summer holidays for the children of key workers, Downing Street confirmed today. Those pupils have been able to attend classes throughout the coronavirus crisis so that parents in critical jobs could continue to go to work.  They had been able to attend school during the Easter break but Number 10 said this afternoon that schools will be shut to all pupils over the summer

Times
Online learning will be part of Boris Johnson’s plans to help the poorest children catch up this summer and beyond. Pilots of schemes that match “handpicked” undergraduates with disadvantaged pupils for one-to-one online tuition have begun. The Times has learnt that discussions are being held to promote this and other online projects. Robert Halfon, Tory chairman of the Commons education select committee, said that urgent action was needed to help children who by September will have been out of school for six months.

Care homes

Telegraph
Around 25,000 patients were discharged into care homes without being tested for coronavirus at the height of the pandemic, “extraordinary” new figures confirm. On Thursday night, MPs from both main parties condemned the conclusions of a National Audit Office (NAO) report, which found that the NHS policy to discharge  without necessarily testing lasted nearly a month before it was changed. Such tests as were available were prioritised for people with respiratory or flu-like symptoms, the report found.

Times
Years of failed efforts to integrate NHS and social care hampered the response to the coronavirus crisis, according to the first independent report into preparations for the pandemic. The National Audit Office report into the work done to prepare services showed that care home residents were “an afterthought”, Meg Hillier, the chairwoman of the Commons public accounts committee, said last night.

Social distancing

Guardian
Ministers have again indicated their hope to reduce the 2-metre span for physical distancing in England, amid increasing worries from Conservative MPs and others about the damage to the economy, particularly the hospitality sector, if it is not changed. With industry bodies saying only a third of pubs will be able to reopen with the requisite distance between customers to prevent the spread of coronavirus, government scientific advisers have stressed that the decision is ultimately a political one.

Times
Boris Johnson has been told it is up to him to decide whether to accept more coronavirus cases in exchange for relaxing the two-metre rule as scientists distance themselves from the trade-off. The prime minister has said he wants to cut the recommendation as infections fall but has been told by his advisers that there is no magic number at which changing the rule is safe. Weighing up the needs of the economy and of health is an inherently political choice which cannot be delegated to scientists, members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) have said.

Masks

Times
The mandatory use of facemasks slows the growth in new cases of Covid-19 by 40 per cent, according to a German study that provides the best evidence yet for their use. The research was able to use the staggered introduction of masks in shops and public transport across Germany as a natural experiment to test how effective they were. By looking at new cases in the days that followed, the researchers concluded that there is “strong and convincing statistical support” that the masks “strongly reduced the number of incidences”.

Testing

Times
Routine testing of taxi drivers, security guards and shop workers without symptoms is being planned within weeks to “hunt out”  coronavirus. Plans are being drawn up to decide which workers will be tested and how regularly to ensure that a national track and trace system catches more cases. However, ministers are already facing calls for another huge increase in testing so millions whose jobs put them at higher risk can be regularly checked.

Hong Kong

Times
China’s imposition of a national security law on Hong Kong is “just the beginning” of efforts to overturn the One Country, Two Systems arrangement agreed when the former British colony was handed back to China, the territory’s senior democratic politician  has said. Martin Lee, 82, known as the Father of Hong Kong democracy, said that Britain should take China to the International Court of Justice as part of a multinational effort to pressure Beijing into keeping its treaty obligations over Hong Kong.

Nigel

Guido
LBC has announced that Nigel Farage is stepping down from his LBC show with immediate effect. Nigel Farage’s contract with LBC is up very shortly and, following discussions with him, Nigel is stepping down from LBC with immediate effect. We thank Nigel for the enormous contribution he has made to LBC and wish him well. The question is: what next for Nige. It’s noticeable his  Youtube channel has been much more lively recently – might be worth keeping an eye on…

Mail
Nigel Farage has quit his LBC show ‘with immediate effect’ following talks with station executives, the broadcaster announced this afternoon.   The arch-Brexiteer is refusing to see out the remainder of his time with the station after being informed his popular evening show was to be wound down. Bosses were understood to be caught flat-footed by his sudden departure and left scrambling to find a replacement for tonight’s show. His usual 6-7pm show this evening has been merged into Iain Dale’s regular slot, which has been extended by an hour to become a four-hour show.

Guardian
Nigel Farage is to leave the radio station LBC “with immediate effect”, the company has announced. The Brexit party leader will no longer present his weekday evening show on the talk radio station, which has previously been investigated by the media regulator Ofcom. “Nigel Farage’s contract with LBC is up very shortly and following discussions with him, Nigel is stepping down from LBC with immediate effect,” said the station’s managing director, Tom Cheal, in a message to staff. “We thank Nigel for the enormous contribution he has made to LBC and wish him well.”

BBC News
Nigel Farage is to leave his talk show on LBC radio with “immediate effect”, the station confirmed on Thursday. The station thanked the Brexit Party leader for his “enormous contribution”. The Nigel Farage Show aired five days a week. On Wednesday, he told listeners he would be back as usual on Thursday, but the schedule has now been changed. “Nigel Farage’s contract with LBC is up very shortly and, following discussions with him, Nigel is stepping down from LBC with immediate effect,” LBC said.

Telegraph
Nigel Farage has lost his LBC radio show after comparing the Black Lives Matter movement to the Taliban. The station announced that Farage was stepping down with immediate effect. Officially, LBC gave no reasons for his departure. But insiders claimed there had been pressure from staff and fellow presenters who were furious about his comments. One said there had been long-standing unhappiness over Farage being employed by the station, but the Taliban comment was “the final straw”.

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