Jubilee

Mail
The Queen will welcome Harry and Meghan with open arms next week as her entire family gathers to celebrate her historic Platinum Jubilee.
Sources say the 96-year-old monarch is ‘looking forward’ to seeing her great-grandchildren, Archie and Lilibet. She is likely to spend time with them privately next Saturday, when Lilibet celebrates her first birthday.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their children are set to stay at Frogmore Cottage, their Windsor home – a short drive from the Queen‘s private apartments at the castle.
The sovereign has made it clear she does not want any family dramas to overshadow next weekend’s four-day national celebration.
The modest monarch wants the Jubilee bank holiday weekend, which runs from Thursday to Sunday, to be ‘an occasion in which the country, including her own family, comes together’, a source said. Harry, 37, and Meghan, 40, will attend the national Service of Thanksgiving for the Queen at St Paul’s Cathedral on Friday.

Express
THE QUEEN will end the Platinum Jubilee by hosting “the future” of the Royal Family on the Buckingham Palace balcony.
Princes Charles, William and George for the finale of the royal extravagance around 5 pm on Sunday June 5. A royal source said the 96 year old monarch “wants the world to see the heartbeat of her family and the future of the monarchy” as they close the People’s Pageant to end the festivities.
The royal family are due to appear on the balcony in front of a 10,000 strong crowd with millions more watching on television.
Future Queens Camilla and Kate are set to join their husbands on the balcony.

Mail
Brits were pictured hanging Union Flag bunting in town squares across the nation as a warm weekend sets the tone for next month’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
A ‘plume of warm air’ is set to bring widespread sunshine for the Jubilee bank holiday beginning on Thursday, June 2 – providing a boost for street parties and outdoor events.
Forecasters predict ‘plenty of dry weather with sunny spells’ and it will ‘feel warm in the sunshine’.
But they added temperatures are only likely to reach the low 20s Celsius at best and nowhere near those recorded on the hottest day of the year so far, when Heathrow Airport reached 27.5C (81.5F) on May 17.

Mirror
The UK is set to bask in sunshine today but cooler, more unsettled weather will take over ahead of the Jubilee weekend, forecasters have said.
With all eyes on the forecast for the four-day bank holiday, the Met Office said that while there is still “plenty of detail to work out”, a showery start could make way for finer, warmer conditions for the celebrations.
The sunny weather enjoyed by many on Friday is set to last until Saturday for most, according to the Met Office.
After a fresh start, the day is expected to be dry with blue skies, and temperatures reaching 21C in southern England.
However, northern Scotland and some English North Sea coastal areas could be hit by showers.

Star
The Met Office have revealed the weather Brits can expect ahead of the Platinum Jubilee weekend as forecasts suggest a royal washout could be on the way instead.
The UK will enjoy a four-day Bank Holiday weekend beginning on Thursday June 2, to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s 70 years on the throne.
Temperatures next week could exceed the current 2022 high of 27.5C as Brits prepare to celebrate with a week full of festivities.
But early predictions show a low-pressure front from France dampening spirits with heavy downpours by Saturday of the Jubilee weekend.

BBC News
Village halls in need of a facelift can apply to share a £3m fund marking the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
The money will be divided between 125 halls in England to pay for renovations like wi-fi, building extensions and modernising facilities.
Rural affairs minister Lord Benyon described the venues as “the centrepiece of rural life”.
The aim is to build on schemes that helped commemorate Queen Victoria and King George V.

New political party

Express
TONY BLAIR is teaming up with what might become a “new political party” with former Tory and Liberal Democrats figures.
The former Labour Prime Minister will be the keynote speaker at a conference organised by his Institute and the Britain Project, a new campaign group dubbed the British version of Emmanuel Macron‘s La Republique En Marche (LREM). Mr Blair will speak at the Future of Britain conference on June 30 which will be hosted by former BBC broadcasters Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel.
Former Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson will also speak at the event.
The conference sparked suspicions of a new political party forming as the advisory board of the Britain Project includes former Tory Cabinet ministers Rory Stewart and David Gauke, both of whom were kicked out of the party by Boris Johnson over Brexit.
Former Labour MPs Angela Smith and Lucian Berger also feature as board members.
The group was founded in 2019 by Liberal Democrat Monica Harding.

Mail
Tony Blair is plotting a new political movement inspired by French president Emmanuel Macron‘s En Marche.
The Future of Britain conference, due to take place at the end of June, is billed as a forum to discuss centrist political ideas.
Former prime minister Mr Blair will address the gathering and organisers are said to be ‘desperate’ for Mr Macron to attend, according to Politico.
Key participants are reported to include US economist Larry Summers, financial journalist Martin Lewis and former Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson.

Asylum seekers

ITV News
Asylum seekers who face being sent to Rwanda are being given just seven days to provide reasons in writing as to why they shouldn’t be deported, documentation obtained by ITV News suggests.
People are being handed a “notice of intent” warning that their decision to travel through a safe country – usually France – before arriving in the UK could make their claim inadmissible.
The latest documents make it explicit that people will be penalised for taking risks in their travels to Britain by adding: “If the journey you have made to the UK may be described as having been dangerous, you may be eligible for relocation.”
The letters show that people detained have seven days to submit information, while those outside of detention have 14.

Money

Sun
RISHI Sunak today suggested he might have to give Brits a THIRD bailout next year if energy bills carry on rising.
The Chancellor twice refused to rule out coming back with another emergency package to ease the cost of living pain if it carries on.
It came as Boris Johnson insisted it was the “right time” to help Brits with the soaring cost of living.
Just hours after he announced a huge £21billion of support as inflation soars and bills go up, Mr Sunak told the BBC: “We are sitting here in May, we don’t know what energy bills will be next April.
“I think people can judge me by my actions over the past couple of years.
“I’ve always tried to be responsive to the situation that the country and the economy is experiencing, we’ll always act like that.”
He said he wanted to reassure people that “we will get through this” and inflation will eventually come down.

Boris

Mail
Boris Johnson today suffered a Government resignation and saw another Tory MP submit a no confidence letter as the fallout from this week’s damning Partygate report continued.
Paul Holmes quit his Home Office role as he lashed out at the ‘distasteful’ and ‘toxic’ culture in Number 10 that Sue Gray’s report uncovered.
Hours later, senior backbencher Sir Bob Neill became the latest Conservative MP to submit a no confidence letter to Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the powerful 1922 Committee.
Sir Bob, who has been a frequent critic of the Prime Minister, claimed Mr Johnson’s explanations this week for ‘wholly unacceptable’ Covid rule-breaking in Downing Street were not ‘credible’.
‘Trust is the most important commodity in politics, but these events have undermined trust in not just the office of the Prime Minister, but in the political process itself,’ the Bromley and Chislehurst MP wrote in a statement.

Telegraph
Boris Johnson was facing a growing mutiny over his leadership on Friday night as two more of his MPs called for him to quit and a third resigned as a member of the Government.
Sir Bob Neill, a former minister, and Alicia Kearns said they had submitted letters of no confidence in the Prime Minister, with Sir Bob suggesting Mr Johnson would cost the Conservatives the next election by staying on.
Separately, Paul Holmes quit as a ministerial aide in the Home Office over the “toxic culture” at Number 10 following the partygate scandal. He is understood not to have put in a letter to Sir Graham Brady, the 1922 committee chairman.

Independent
Government ministers will no longer be expected automatically to resign or be sacked if they breach their code of conduct, under changes announced by Boris Johnson.
An update to the code published today states that it is “disproportionate” to expect heads to roll for every breach of the code no matter how minor, and says ministers could instead be punished by “some form of public apology, remedial action or removal of ministerial salary for a period”.
The chair of the House of Commons standards committee said the change took the UK into “banana republic territory”, while Labour accused the prime minister of “watering down the rules to save his own skin”.

ITV News
Boris Johnson has been accused of watering down the rules for ministers after it was made clear they will not automatically lose their jobs if they breach the Ministerial Code.
A government policy statement said it was “disproportionate” to expect ministers to resign or face the sack for “minor” violations of the code’s provisions.
Instead, it has been updated, giving the prime minister the option of ordering a lesser sanction such as “some form of public apology, remedial action or removal of ministerial salary for a period”.

Guardian
Boris Johnson has been accused of changing the ministerial code to help “save his skin” ahead of a new Partygate inquiry that could publish more photos and subject him to a public grilling by MPs.
The prime minister faced a barrage of criticism after he amended the rules on Friday to make clear that ministers will not always be expected to resign for breaching the code of conduct. Under new sanctions, they could apologise or temporarily lose their pay instead.
Johnson also blocked his independent ethics chief, Christopher Geidt, from gaining the power to launch his own investigations, and rewrote the foreword to the ministerial code, removing all references to honesty, integrity, transparency and accountability.

Education

Independent
Schools do not have to accommodate transgender pupils by addressing them by their prefered pronouns or allowing them to use gender-appropriate toilets, the attorney general has said.
In an interview with The Times, cabinet minister Suella Braverman said that schools are under no legal obligation to allow transgender children to wear their prefered school uniform.
She also criticised schools for their “unquestioning approach” to gender reassignment, saying they should take a “much firmer line” when it came to making provisions for transgender students.
Ms Braverman also hailed Harry Potter author J K Rowling as her “heroine”, calling her “very brave, very courageous.”

Guardian
The attorney-general, Suella Braverman, has declared that schools do not have to accommodate children who want to change gender under current legislation.
The government is currently drawing up formal guidance for schools on gender dysphoria and children who identify as transgender.
In an interview with the Times, Braverman QC said the law states that under-18s cannot legally change their sex, which enables schools to treat all of their pupils by the gender of their birth.
The Conservative MP for Fareham said: “Under-18s cannot get a gender recognition certificate, under-18s cannot legally change sex. So again, in the context of schools, I think it’s even clearer.

Times
Schools do not have to accommodate children who want to change gender, the attorney-general said.
Suella Braverman said that schools are under no legal obligation to address children by a new pronoun or allow them to wear the school uniform of a different gender. She reiterated that girls’ lavatories and changing rooms have special legal protections as safe spaces.
In an interview with The Times, Braverman said teachers need to take a “much firmer line” and suggests that some schools were encouraging gender dysphoria by an “unquestioning approach”.

Russia

Express
UKRAINE may be forced to retreat from the eastern Donbas region to avoid being captured, Kyiv said on Friday.
It comes as Russian forces are rapidly gaining ground and Ukrainian troops are now limited to pockets of resistance in the Luhansk region. A full Ukrainian withdrawal would bring Russian President Vladimir Putin closer to his goal of capturing the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
Moscow’s troops have gained ground in these Russian speaking areas collectively known as the Donbas.
Luhansk’s governor, Serhiy Gaidai, said Russian troops had entered Sievierodonetsk, which is the largest Donbas city still held by Ukraine, after trying to trap Ukrainian forces there for days.

Independent
Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov has said Russia’s aggressive push in Donbas and other parts of Ukraine could backfire as it has depleted its modernised equipment.
He said Russia was deploying 50-year-old T-62 tanks “which means that the second army of the world has run out of modernised equipment.”
The analyst’s comment comes as Russia is also reportedly mulling redeploying troops in Kyiv.
UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) also said the Soviet-era T-62 tanks, which are up to 60-years-old, have been taken out of “deep storage” to be used in southern Ukraine, where Russian troops are seeking to occupy the seized territory.

Metro
Vladimir Putin is considering parachuting his daughter to a position in parliament so she has the power after he dies, it has been claimed.
The Russian leader has long been dogged with rumours of being seriously sick, with some saying he has had to use deep-fake technology to stage his appearances while undergoing medical treatment.
Combined with the war on-going in Ukraine, Kremlin officials are reportedly anxious about how the status quo will be maintained after Putin dies.
There is now a ‘clear demand’ from Russian elites to ‘understand their future without Putin’.
Putin’s 35-year-old daughter Katerina Tikhonova may be their answer, Telegram channel General SVR has reported.

Express
VLADIMIR Putin only started the war in Ukraine in order to secure his power with the Russian people amid concerns the public could oust him, the Russian leader’s number-one enemy claimed
Mr Browder spoke to Express.co.uk about why Vladimir Putin decided to invade neighbouring Ukraine. The American-British financier discussed Putin’s approval ratings with the Russian  people. Mr Browder claimed Putin only started the bloody onslaught on Ukraine to gain high approval ratings. The war in Ukraine has been raging for over three months, with no sign of slowing down as peace talks have been put on pause.

Mirror
A veteran legislator issued a direct appeal to Vladimir Putin to bring his troops home or risk creating “more orphans” in a sign the tide may be turning against the Russian president.
Such a scene in a regional assembly was unthinkable until now, as deputy Leonid Vasyukevich, 69, was caught on camera blasting the use of Moscow’s servicemen in Ukraine.
The veteran local MP defied attempts to gag him and told legislators in Primorsky region he and his fellow lawmakers were making an appeal to the Russian president.
Putin’s supporters have branded him a “traitor” and he may now face legal action for dishonouring the Russian army.

Morning Star
UKRAINE appealed for more heavy weapons today as Russian advances in the eastern Donbass region continue.
Roman Vlasenko, the head of the Severodonetsk district, said that Ukrainian forces needed more arms to repel the Russians as they looked to take control of the region.
He claimed that Russian soldiers were in the suburbs and were advancing on the city. While they do not have a numerical advantage, Mr Vlasenko said they were better equipped.

Times
When President Putin began his war, he did so in the hope of subsuming Ukraine and dividing the West. So far, however, his biggest gain to speak of has come in the form of wheat.
Russia’s blockade of ports along the Black Sea has not only placed a stranglehold on Ukraine’s economy but also hobbled a key competitor in the world grain market.
More than 20 million tonnes of Ukrainian grain is rotting in silos and commercial vessels around the country, unable to reach its destination.
Ukraine is the fifth-biggest exporter of wheat and the blockade has sent the price up by 60 per cent since the start of the year, to a near-record high.

ITV News
The wheat fields of Ukraine feed 400 million people around the world, but the war in Russia threatens to change all of that.
Farmers are being hit from every angle in Ukraine, some have lost their fields to Russian occupation and others have had their houses and equipment bombed.
For those that do maintain a functioning farm by the time harvest comes around they will struggle to find workers to work the field as most of the men will be enlisted in the army.
Then even if they manage to get the crops out of the ground, Ukraine’s ports are all blockaded by the Russian army.

Guardian
The gloating began just days after the missiles began falling on Ukraine. “Get ready for Nuremberg 2.0,” one former Russian diplomat wrote in a WhatsApp message. Vladimir Putin’s invasion to “denazify” the country has always pointed toward a purge and show trials. Now Moscow may seize on that chance.
As Russia holds hundreds of prisoners from the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, its proxies in east Ukraine have floated the idea of holding a “military tribunal” inspired by Nuremberg that observers say would reflect a mass show trial meant to justify Russia’s invasion to the world.
“We are planning to organise an international tribunal on the republic’s territory,” said Denis Pushilin, the leader of a Russian-controlled territory in the Donetsk region. A model could be the Kharkiv trial of 1943, he said, when the Soviet military tried, convicted and executed three Germans and one Ukrainian by hanging. One key audience was the world press. Photos of the hangings were printed in Life magazine.

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