EU 

Express
THE European Parliament has threatened to sue the European Commission and its president Ursula von der Leyen after they refused to act on Hungary’s alleged rule-of-law violations.
MEPs in the European Parliament have reacted in outrage after the EU leadership refused their request to trigger infringement procedures against Hungary. The European Parliament had demanded action be taken against Hungary and Poland after the pair were accused of breaching EU laws. However, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen ignored the request and allowed the deadline for action to pass.
Ms Von der Leyen said MEPs had not provided enough evidence of rule-of-law breaches and that the EU executive had “not been properly called upon to act”.
In her response to the European Parliament, Ms Von der Leyen said that “the Commission considers the European Parliament’s request” as “not sufficiently clear and precise”.
The response letter made no mention of a detailed study of rule-of-law violations in Hungary.
Dutch MEP Sophie in ’t Veld was furious, tweeting that the European Commission’s response is “not only an insult to Parliament but an insult to European citizens”. 

Brexit 

Express
THE Irish Prime Minister has laid blame firmly at the door of the UK for the ongoing Brexit spat as a row threatens to rage on.
Micheal Martin has heaped praise on the EU for its handling of the controversial Northern Ireland Protocol and called on Boris Johnson to show “similar flexibility”. The UK and EU have been at loggerheads over the implementation of the Protocol, which was created to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland, but has effectively placed a new trade barrier down the Irish Sea.
Mr Martin, 61, made the intervention following a meeting with DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson in Dublin.
He said: “I acknowledge that the concerns of the unionist community are sincere, but I indicated as well that the mechanisms are there in the UK-EU trade agreement to resolve these issues and the issues around the Protocol.
“Our sense has been that the EU Commission has been flexible and ready to respond to the situation. 

Times
Ministers will consider easing post-Brexit immigration rules to help end a shortage of lorry drivers amid mounting pressure from supermarket chains.
A review of the shortage occupation list, which gives employers more flexibility to hire overseas recruits, could be brought forward to tackle an estimated shortfall of 100,000 drivers.
The review was due next year but may be fast-tracked to add HGV drivers to the list. Senior government figures have tried repeatedly to resist calls to relax the immigration rules for drivers.
A Whitehall source said that retailers should offer British drivers better pay and invest in training rather than rely on “cheap labour from overseas”. 

A similar story may be read in BBC News 

Migration 

Breitbart
The French government is seeking a new deal with Britain on illegal immigration – not so that boat migrants can be returned to their shores, but so that they can direct even more migrants on to the UK.
France’s push to “expel, or direct a certain number of migrants to the UK so they can request asylum” marks the latest humiliation for Home Secretary Priti Patel MP, the government minister with broad responsibility for border control, policing, and national security in the Boris Johnson administration.
Patel, who was elevated to head of the Home Office as an MP with something of a tough reputation, had promised that the Channel migrant crisis — first declared a “major incident” by the government all the way back in 2018 — when Britain was freed from European Union rules at the beginning of this year, but it has only gotten worse, with the arrival of over 800 illegals on Saturday marking yet another new record for a single day.
The Johnson administration has long tied its own hands behind its back by declining to simply turn boat migrants back at sea, given none of them face peril or persecution in France, insisting on trying to cook up a deal with France and the wider European Union on returns.
Such a prospect now seems dimmer than ever, with the country’s Europe minister, Clement Beaune, saying it does want a deal with Britain — but one to let them direct even more migrants to the United Kingdom.
“We must, after Brexit, have a new migratory deal no doubt between the EU and Britain so that we can expel, or direct a certain number of migrants to the UK so they can request asylum,” Beaune said to CNews, according to a Telegraph report. 

Covid 

Mail
The Delta variant doubles the risk of hospital admission, a study has found.
It was already known that the Covid strain first identified in India is up to 50 per cent more transmissible than the previous dominant Alpha variant, which emerged in Kent.
But the largest study to date comparing the two now shows those infected with the Delta strain are 2.26 times more likely to be admitted to hospital. 
Delta is also 1.45 times more likely to see people entering A&E needing emergency treatment. 
Scientists claimed this is more proof that the same traits which make the variant spread faster also increase levels of the virus in those it infects, which results in them becoming more severely ill.
The authors of the study, led by Public Health England and Cambridge University, said their results should be used by hospitals to plan – especially in areas where the Delta variant is on the rise. 

Similar stories may be read in BBC News, Guardian, Mail, Order-order 

Vaccine 

Mail
Sajid Javid last night told the NHS to start preparing to jab children as young as 12 as Sage committee scientists warned a ‘large’ Covid wave was likely to hit schools next month.
The Health Secretary said he was putting plans in place so the country was ‘ready to hit the ground running’ if the JCVI – the Government’s independent advisers – gave the go-ahead to jab younger children.
The NHS has been told to start recruiting and training staff to go into schools to give pupils Covid jabs early next term, if they’re approved. Headteachers will be told to prepare space where the vaccines can be given or be ready to allow pupils time out of lessons to get the jab elsewhere.
It is the clearest signal yet that ministers expect the jab for younger children to be approved imminently.
It came as experts warned the Government to plan for a surge in infections at the end of September, following the return of children from the summer holidays. Their fears were detailed in a document from the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling, Operational sub-group (SPI-M-O). 
Its advisers said it was highly likely there would be an exponential increase in infections among school-aged children after classes returned. 
And they noted that measures in place before the new term, such as bubbles and stricter rules on isolating, would no longer apply. 

A similar story may be read in iNews 

Scotland 

Breitbart
Scotland’s left-separatist government has published its astonishing new agenda for “Embedding race equality in schools”, pushing documents which teach woke ideology on “white privilege”, “white fragility”, “decolonising the curriculum”, “structural racism”, and the alleged non-existence of “reverse racism” as fact.
One of the resources the Scottish government now directs to as part of a “new package of support materials for teachers and staff [to] embed anti-racism and race equality into all aspects of school life” is a Scotdec ‘Anti-racist toolkit for teachers’ penned Titilayo ‘Titi’ Farukuoye, an “organiser, anti-racist educator, youth worker and writer… passionate about issues of identity, social justice, and the climate” — as well as a slam poet.
This document tells teachers how to “Identify white fragility” and “Practice overcoming white fragility”, how to create “safe(r) spaces”, and how to “Recognise race as a system that serves to enable capitalism and the current world order”.
The toolkit also asserts that “People racialised as non-white experience racism every day”, leaving no room for argument by further stating: “This is a fact. If you don’t know this or have not noticed it, it is because you are not experiencing it,” later taking aim as “White tears” — the “specific phenomenon where a white person starts crying in response to an accusation of racism that they have committed.”
The use of the tortured expression “People racialised as non-white” appears to follow from lengthy assertions elsewhere in the document, not backed by any scientific footnotes, that “Race is a social construct, which was invented to justify the murder, exploitation and brutalisation of the peoples, lands and resources of the Global South” around 500 years ago. 

Galileo 

Express
THE EUROPEAN UNION (EU) could be headed for a major U-turn on the issue of British access to Galileo, as top officials at the European Commission admit the ball is in London’s court.
The UK’s historic exit from the European Union marked an end to Britain’s involvement in Europe’s premier satellite navigation system. Despite sinking more than £1.2billion into the project, Brexit Britain decided to go its own way with former Prime Minister Theresa May saying it was time to look for “alternatives”. The Government has since invested an impressive £364million ($500million) to acquire the satellite company OneWeb from bankruptcy, in conjunction with the Indian company Bharti Global, with the aim of building a world-class constellation of satellites in low-Earth orbit (LEO).
And though it may appear as though the question of British access to Galileo has long been swept under the rug, the EU may have had a change of heart.
According to Timo Pesonen, head of the Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space of the European Commission, the doors are still open for the UK to collaborate with the EU.
The EU has not extended a formal invitation to rejoin the project, but officials appear ready to resume negotiations – five years on since the Brexit referendum.
Speaking in June, Mr Pesonen told a briefing in Brussels: “The European Union is open to negotiate with the UK on its participation in the EU space programmes. The ball is in London, not here.” 

Education 

Sun
SECONDARY school kids in Devon and Cornwall have been told to wear masks in “communal areas” when classes return next week after a massive spike in Covid cases.
Infections in the holiday hotspot have rocketed in recent weeks – with infections so high that it would be “put on the red list” if it was a country on the UK’s traffic light system.
A number of local authorities in the south west of England will now be given extra support due to fears of mounting pressure on the NHS amid the spike in cases, the Department of Health said last night.
The extra measures will be rolled out in Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly, Devon, Plymouth and Torbay to boost the number of people getting vaccinated and tested.
And schoolkids will also be required to wear face coverings in communal areas outside classrooms in secondary schools and colleges to curb the spread of the virus.
While there will be no legal restrictions in place, more public health campaigns will be launched to urge visitors to wear masks and social distance.
Summer holidays and festivals including Boardmasters have contributed to a rise in cases, pushing parts of Cornwall into the most high risk of the UK. 

A similar story may be read in Independent 

Afghanistan 

Mail
Britain has started to withdraw its soldiers and diplomats from Afghanistan, with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) saying the UK’s ability to process more civilian evacuations from  Afghanistan  will now be ‘extremely reduced’ – meaning as many as 1,250 people, including up to 150 UK nationals, could be left behind.
On Friday night, the MoD said that that 14,543 people had now been extracted from Kabul since August 13, a mix of Afghan and British nationals, and that now the focus would turn to getting diplomats and service personnel out.
Some 8,000 of those were Afghans and their families under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) scheme, which applies to those who helped the UK and are at risk of persecution by the Taliban. 
But the announcement followed warnings that Britain risks the ‘biggest hostage crisis in its history’ by leaving 1,000 Afghan allies to the mercy of the Taliban and Isis-K.
The chilling warning was issued last night as Boris Johnson admitted he felt a ‘great sense of regret’ about the many hundreds that UK forces had been unable to evacuate from Kabul. 
Tom Tugendhat, the chair of the Foreign Affairs committee, said the fact people would be left behind filled him with ‘anger and shame’ and warned ‘we may find ourselves with the biggest hostage crisis the UK has ever seen.’ 
‘Quite rightly, British citizens and entitled persons are literally in fear of their lives right now.’ 

Similar stories may be read in Express, Mail, Sun, Telegraph, Guardian, Mirror, ITV News, Morning Star, Breitbart, iNews 

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