EU 

Express 
BRITONS have brutally mocked Germany after politicians lambasted their surging contributions to the European Union’s annual budget – which they claim are being wasted by rogue states.
Germany pumped in £16.4billion to Brussels’ coffers last year, new analysis by the German press agency DPA has revealed. This compares to the £8billion paid by France and the £5.3billion spent by Italy. Poland was said to be the largest net recipient, receiving £10.5billion from the European Union’s budget than it paid in, while Hungary also benefitted significantly from large flows of funds handed out by the EU.
This comes despite both of these countries being accused of not following the bloc’s rules.
Even pro-Brussels politicians in Germany were outraged with the volume of cash being handed over to the alleged rogue states and the rate at which their own contributions to the EU budget is accelerating.
But now Germany has been brutally torn apart by Britons, who have shown little sympathy towards the EU powerhouse.
Reacting to our initial story, one Express.co.uk reader said: “Sympathy from the UK? Not a hope in hell!” 

Northern Ireland 

Express
THE EU has been told to stop playing “zero-sum games” and “closely examine” Lord Frost’s plan to resolve trading issues in Northern Ireland, a senior trade chief has said.
Shirley McCay, the UK Government’s director of trade and investment in Ireland also made clear to the European Union that medical and food supply chains were being disrupted by the new trading rules and change was needed urgently. The Northern Ireland protocol is the part of the Brexit divorce deal aimed at avoiding a hard border with Ireland. Under the terms of the deal, Northern Ireland remains in the EU single market as well as regulations for medicines after the end of the transition period.
Lord Frost has put forward proposals to the European Union in a command paper to renegotiate the Northern Ireland Protocol following months of tensions from Unionist politicians at Stormont who claim the trading arrangements threaten the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
Ms McCay added: “The role of government is to facilitate and encourage trade.
“But there are parts of the Northern Ireland protocol that are not working.
“The British Government is calling on the EU to examine the protocol once again with them. 

WFH 

Mail
Civil servants who refuse to return to the office should be paid less than those back at their desks, a Cabinet minister suggested last night.
The Government has recommended employees make a ‘gradual return’ to offices over the summer after many have spent well over a year working from home because of the pandemic.
But a senior minister told the Mail it was unfair that those still at home should get the same benefits as those commuting in.
‘People who have been working from home aren’t paying their commuting costs so they have had a de facto pay rise, so that is unfair on those who are going into work,’ they said. 
‘If people aren’t going into work, they don’t deserve the terms and conditions they get if they are going into work.’ 

Similar stories appear in the Telegraph, Guardian, Times, iNews, gbNews 

Immigration 

Sun
MINISTERS warn that pop-up accommodation will soon be needed to house Britain’s record number of small-boat migrants.
About 10,000 have already made the dangerous, illegal Channel crossing this year.
Many more are expected as the good weather returns, and Border Force warn that the total could top 20,000 by the end of the year.
Huge numbers of arrivals are being housed in budget hotels in Kent and the home counties but insiders say capacity is “utterly full”.
Town halls are struggling to find so-called dispersal accommodation in their housing stock — and hotels 85 miles away in upmarket areas of London such as Islington and Kensington are being used to accommodate migrants.
Now the Home Office wants to speed up plans for temporary facilities to cope with the huge influx, and locations for reception centres near Dover are now being scouted.
Home Secretary Priti Patel wants “one-stop” facilities — as used in Denmark and Switzerland — to “provide basic accommodation in line with our statutory obligations”.
They could also be used to detain failed ­asylum seekers as they wait to be deported. 

Breitbart
A legal loophole has seen the British taxpayer shell out about half a million pounds over the past year in storage costs for the small rubber boats used by people-smugglers to traffick illegal migrants into the United Kingdom.
The abandoned dinghies are stored in compounds dubbed the Queen’s Warehouses, as the confiscated materials will become “forfeit to the Crown.” The warehouses are stationed near the Port of Dover, where boat migrants are brought ashore by the Border force.
While they would typically be home to confiscated contraband such as weapons and drugs or customs prohibited items including cigarettes, tobacco, and alcohol, with the massive influx of illegal boat migrants over the past year the warehouses have begun storing the inflatable rubber dinghies used by people smugglers in the illegal migrant trade.
Due to the much larger size of the boats, the cost of storage has ramped up dramatically, with a source telling The Times that it amounts to £500,000 per year to house the boats.
Under Section 26 of the UK Borders Act 2007 and the Immigration Disposal of Property Regulations 2008, the government is required to hold onto confiscated items for at least one year in case someone comes forward to claim them.
The law has effectively prevented the government from selling off the boats or putting them to a better purpose as they are rendered unseaworthy after a year in storage.
Over the past year, no one has come forward to claim a single boat, according to the report, as they are used for one-way passage by the human trafficking gangs. 

Rishi 

Mail
Rishi Sunak ‘will not take a demotion’ despite claims of a rift between him and Boris Johnson, a source has said. 
Allies of the Chancellor warned that sacking Mr Sunak would see the Prime Minister ‘lose direction completely’ as they hit back at claims Mr Johnson threatened to demote him to Health Secretary.
It comes after Mr Johnson reportedly ‘went tonto’ in front of staff at a Downing Street meeting last week about the leak of a letter from the Chancellor calling for the easing of travel restrictions ahead of the relaxations announced last Wednesday. 
The Prime Minister reportedly told allies that Mr Sunak was guilty of ‘a failure of political judgment’ in writing the letter. 
He suggested demoting the Chancellor to Health Secretary – seen as one of the least desirable jobs in Government – at a meeting last Monday, it was reported. 
However an ally of Mr Sunak has said the chancellor he would never agree to such a move and would opt for the back benches over a demotion. 
The source told The Times: ‘If he loses Rishi, he loses direction completely.
‘He would have the most likely contender to re- place him on the back benches. He’s not going to take a demotion. That would be ridiculous.’  
Last night, treasury insiders were forced to hit back at claims of a rift between Boris Johnson  and Rishi Sunak. 

Similar stories appear in the Sun, Telegraph, Sun, Times 

Trade 

Express
EUROPEAN UNION bosses have been shamed for being “all about control” and not “following the money” in negotiations with the UK over trade.
The European Union has been accused of being more interested in ‘control’ than money during post-Brexit negotiations with the UK. Centre for Brexit Policy fellow Catherine McBride has told a roundtable discussion hosted by TRT World that the idea Brussels is interested in free trade is a “joke.” She told the panel the bloc is a customs union interested solely in protecting European businesses, adding that Britain must go and seek fresh trade opportunities elsewhere.
Ms McBride told TRT Roundtable: “The idea that Britain somehow is not going in with the spirit of world trade and the EU is kind of a joke.
“I mean the EU is a customs union, it is all about protecting its own businesses from international trade.
“The EU has not offered the UK any kind of financial service equivalence, they are desperately trying to get that business for themselves.”
She added: “Australia had no trouble signing up to a trade deal with the UK. 

NHS 

ITV News
NHS waiting lists in England could rise to 14 million by autumn next year and keep increasing, a new report has warned.
If millions of patients who did not receive care during the Covid-19 pandemic return to the health service for medical attention, then the number joining the waiting list could outstrip the number being treated, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said.
The research organisation has done modelling in an effort to show the potential scale of the waiting list challenge ahead.
Last month, Health Secretary Sajid Javid warned that NHS waiting lists in England could rocket to 13 million.
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph a few weeks after being appointed to the role, Mr Javid said what had “shocked me the most” was “when I was told that the waiting list is going to get a lot worse before it gets better”.
He said: “Hearing that figure of 13 million, it has absolutely focused my mind and it’s going to be one of my top priorities to deal with because we can’t have that.”
The IFS warned the number could top this figure if most of the approximately seven million so-called “missing” patients return to the health service for care over the next year. 

A similar story appears in iNews 

Education 

Mail
Having too many teenagers going to university will cause ‘astronomical’ levels of debt, a leading education philanthropist has said.
Sir Peter Lampl, founder and chairman of The Sutton Trust, warned that the taxpayer will end up footing the bill for a lot of student loans, which can cost more than £30,000. 
It comes as thousands of teenagers prepare to receive their A-level results tomorrow.
A record 44 per cent of 18-year-olds in England applied to university this year, a 10 per cent rise on last year. 
Sir Peter said: ‘I think there are too many kids going to university. Too many graduates come out with a lot of debt – the levels of debt are astronomical – and in many cases they come out with skills that the marketplace doesn’t want.’
He told The Daily Telegraph: ‘We are giving them the money… and the taxpayer is not going to get paid back.’ 
A Department for Education official said there were ‘advantages of considering a degree apprenticeship, where in some cases salaries outstrip earnings of graduate jobs after five years’.
Meanwhile, top universities are facing a backlash for refusing to bring back full face-to-face teaching in the autumn. 

A similar story appears in the Sun 

Climate change 

Mail
The Earth is likely to warm by 1.5C up to a decade earlier than previously expected, a bombshell United Nations report will warn today.
Scientists had expected temperatures to rise by 1.5C above pre-industrial levels between 2030 and 2052 but now believe it will happen between this year and 2040.
The 1.5C mark is considered to be the point where climate change becomes increasingly dangerous. The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change committed countries to limiting warming to 1.5C but they have already risen by 1.2C.
Today’s report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was produced by 200 scientists from 60 countries. 
It is the first comprehensive assessment of the science of climate change since 2013 and offers the starkest warning yet about the speed and scale of warming. 
It comes as record heatwaves, wildfires and floods hit countries around the world.
An interim report published in 2018 said global warming was likely to reach 1.5C between 2030 and 2052. 
But the new IPCC forecasts will bring this window forward a decade to between 2021 and 2040, according to The Sunday Times. 

Similar stories appear in the Guardian, BBC News, Independent, Evening Standard, Morning Star, iNews 

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