GOVE AGREES BREXIT TRADE DEAL EXTENSION

The Guardian reports: The UK has given the European Union until April 30 to approve the Brexit trade deal. As  MEPs insisted they did not have time to scrutinise the deal between it being struck on Christmas Eve and coming into effect on January 1 It has  been provisionally implemented since then and the  deadline to approve it by February 28 has now slipped after Michael Gove agreed to the EU’s request for an extension.

 

BRITISH FARMERS EXPORT POTENTIAL  HELD BACK FOR  50 YEARS 

From The Express: Liz Truss has accused the EU of holding back the UK from unleashing its potential at the National Farmers’ Union (NFU). Giving a keynote speech, the International Trade Secretary hailed the UK’s newfound freedom as an opportunity for British farmers. She said her department was working hard to open new export markets for producers.

 

IRAN INCREASES THREATS OVER NUCLEAR PRODUCTION

The Times reports that Iran’s Supreme Leader has increased his threats to the US over his country’s nuclear production despite President Biden’s offer last week of new negotiations. Ayatollah Khamenei said Iran might start enriching uranium to 60 per cent purity, further than it has gone before and not far off in technical capacity from the 90 per cent required for nuclear weapons. Washington on Thursday said it would accept an invitation to new official talks with Iran to discuss resurrecting  official talks.

 

JOBS WORRIES AS UNEMPLOYMENT SURGES

From The Times: Rishi Sunak has pledged to provide more support for jobs  in next week’s budget after unemployment hit its highest rate since early 2016. The official measure of joblessness rose to 5.1 per cent in the three months to December, up from from 5 per cent  in the three months to Novemberand 3.8 percent a year earlier, but up-to-date payroll data and other indicators suggested that the worst of the crisis may have passed. For the second month running, employers increased staff numbers in January, the Office for National Statistics said. Redundancy notices dropped, although they remained historically high, and advertised job vacancies increased.

 

RETAILERS SEE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE £22 BILLION LOSS TUNNEL

The Mirror writes: There’s light at the end of the tunnel for Britain’s struggling high streets, with businesses told they could reopen on April 12 if the government reaches its Covid vaccination target. Clothing outlets and many small local businesses such as florists and hairdressers will be able to trade again after more than three months closed. More than 176,000 retail jobs were lost on the high street last year – at a rate of 484 jobs a day. The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) said it affected many major shopping centres as well as towns and villages, with small shopping parades left isolated by the crisis. It said that 71,811 jobs were lost through retailers falling into administration. A further 11,986 jobs were lost through company voluntary arrangement (CVA) deals, a controversial insolvency procedure used to close loss-making stores – including River Island, Clarks and New Look. The British Retail Consortium’s chief executive, Helen Dickinson, said non-food stores have lost more than £22billion over the course of the pandemic.

 

POLICE RESCUE PEOPLE FROM BACK OF LORRY

From The Mirror: police have rescued 18 people from the back of a refrigerated lorry at a service station on the A1M near Peterborough. Cambridgeshire Police said they received a call from the driver of the HGV at about 11.30am on Tuesday after he noticed there were people on board and was concerned for their welfare. Officers then located the vehicle which was believed to have travelled from France and found nobody was injured. Two  men presented as Iraqi nationals and a third presented as an Iranian, they were taken into custody and their cases will be dealt with according to immigration rules. A Cambridgeshire Police spokesman said and added  stories like this may be distressing, but highlight that slavery and trafficking are real and police need the public’s help.

 

WHAT BORDER CONTROL

The Telegraph reports: The number of foreigners who overstay their visas has nearly doubled to more than 90,000 a year amid fears that lax immigration checks are allowing people to remain in the UK illegally. It comes on top of more than 500,000 non-visa national visitors who were not recorded as leaving on time in a two-year period analysed by the chief inspector of borders. New analysis by the Migration Watch think tank reveals that 4.8 per cent of the 1.9 million people who came to the UK on work or study visas did not leave on time – equivalent to 91,900 people and up from 49,400, or 3.7 per cent, in 2016-17. The Government has declined to release recent figures despite repeated parliamentary questions earlier in the year.

 

COVID STATUS ON YOUR NHS APP

The Guardian reports that people could have their vaccine status or their latest Covid test result put on their NHS app – though the government is considering whether to ban businesses from making access to services conditional on vaccinations. Boris Johnson said he understood fervent libertarians might object to a Covid certification system for England – a phrase that could raise eyebrows among some of his backbenchers. However, he said there was a case for it when people needed to prove their status. However, the prime minister also said people could be unable – or have genuinely refused to have a vaccine and that raised ethical issues. A  review into whether Covid status certificates  could be used by hospitality and events venues was announced by Johnson on Monday, despite such a scheme being denied by ministers in the weeks leading up to the review’s announcement.

 

UK WILL SCRAP SOCIAL DISTANCING LAWS SAYS HANCOCK

The SUN  reports that the UK will scrap social distancing laws and move towards personal responsibility for covid safety Matt Hancock has said . “What we want to do is get rid of the social distancing-type laws that get in the way of normal life and move to personal responsibility, rather than laws dictating how all of us live our daily lives”, the Health Secretary told Times Radio. The news comes after Boris Johnson was warned the consequences of lifting lockdown too quickly would lead to 91,000 extra covid deaths, As a result, Brits will be able to meet in a rule of six outdoors at Easter, with non-essential shops still closed until later in April and some limits in place on the size of gatherings for four months until June 21.

 

NHS  HIGH GRADE MASKS WITHDRAWN FOR SAFETY CONCERNS

The Evening Standard reports that millions of high-grade face masks used in the NHS have been withdrawn because they may not meet correct safety standards. The  Department of Health said 12 million of them were either in use or in hospital stores and has instructed staff to stop using them. The warning is related to the specific FFP3 brand, which are more sophisticated than surgical masks and are worn in intensive care or when certain procedures are carried out that can generate aerosols – tiny virus particles that can build up in stuffy rooms and have been linked to outbreaks of Covid-19. Last month, the British Medical Association appealed for staff on general wards to be given this type of mask to guard against coronavirus infection.

 

SALMOND’ S APPEARANCE AT HOLYROOD IN DOUBT

From The Telegraph: Alex Salmond’s appearance in front of a Holyrood inquiry has been thrown into doubt after large sections of his written testimony were censored following pressure from Scottish prosecutors. Lawyers for the former First Minister said the move to delete large sections of his written evidence, finally published on Monday evening, had no legal basis. They warned it could lead to him cancelling his appearance before MSPs investigating the Scottish Government’s  unlawful sexual harassment probe against him. Mr Salmond’s camp has been left furious, and believes the move adds weight to his belief that a tyrannical Crown Office is inappropriately meddling in the Holyrood inquiry in an attempt to protect Ms Sturgeon and her allies. Meanwhile, MSPs claimed the Scottish Parliament is now facing a “credibility crisis” after the unexplained u-turn.

 

MUCH LOVED MONOPOLY BOARD GAME  REFLECTS RACIAL DISPARITIES

The Daily Mail writes: The original Monopoly board game was inspired by segregated Atlantic City in the 1930s with property prices reflecting deep racial disparities between white and black residents, an author has claimed. Mary Pilon, who wrote her book The Monopolists about the hidden history of the beloved board game in 2015, argued that it’s property values reflect a legacy of racism and inequality.  Monopoly, which is produced and sold around the world by Hasbro, was derived from a real estate game that a woman named Lizzie Magie patented in the US in 1904. It quickly spread across the country, where it was adapted into several different versions. Streets – where black people were not allowed to live – made up the priciest spots on his board.  The cheapest spots on the board matched streets in up with streets in low income black neighborhoods.

 

AND FINALLY

From the Daily Mail: Night owls may be twice as likely to underperform at work than colleagues who prefer the morning, scientists say. They are also at greater risk of falling into early retirement due to disability, according to the Finnish study. Researchers assessed almost 6,000 workers in Finland who are part of a life-long project to see if night owls are less efficient than morning larks.  

The findings, published in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine, suggest that night owls may be twice as likely as morning larks to underperform at work.

 

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