Brexit
BREXIT Britain will now introduce a raft of measures intended to hit European mineral water brands from next year.
From January 2022, brands such as Evian will lose their automatic right to export to Great Britain. Environment Secretary George Eustice wrote to inform the EU’s food safety official Sandra Gallina must now seek accreditation from UK regulators. A Defra spokesperson said: “This update provides producers six months’ notice of the changes, and outlines all the necessary steps they need to take to continue to sell their mineral water in Great Britain.
“We will continue to engage with the industry to ensure a smooth transition.”
Brexit superwoman Liz Truss faces a significant legal challenge to her post-Brexit plans for the UK following a decision by the High Court this week.
This week, the court decided a judicial review could be brought forward over the UK’s independent trade policy for imports. British sugar has triggered the surprise broadside against Ms Truss, arguing the UK was unfairly subsidising a rival.
EU
Express
EUROPEAN member states will face a further north-south divide set to spark future clashes among EU leaders because of climate change.
Northern EU countries will be forced to foot the bill for southern nations when, in the not so distant future, the world will suffer from catastrophic consequences of climate change. According to a report put together by Politico, and also based on a leaked report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the EU could suffer a huge economic loss because of a scale that would surpass the last and current economic crises by billions.
Unlike cyclical crises, climate deficit will occur every year.
The IPCC report calculated a loss of $300billion per year (£218billion) for Europe because of climate change between 2000 and 2015 at a 1.5C increase in temperatures.
The European Commission published a report in 2020 calculating an extra loss of €175billion per year (£150billion).
Speaking to Politico, Dara Murphy, a former Europe minister for Ireland, now a senior adviser at Rasmussen Global, a political consultancy, said: “I think this will be the greatest challenge to European Union cohesion that we’ve seen.
“Greater even than the 2008 economic challenge.”
Desmond Dinan, author of an “Ever Closer Union”, added that the economic damage “could become a structural problem for the European Union”.
The issue, he warned, will “exacerbate the north-south fault line”.
The European Commission, said Heather Grabbe, director of the Open Society European Policy Institute, has thus far failed to communicate this risk in a way that will motivate a response. It’s “a big problem,” she said, if the analysis “doesn’t get translated into the political narrative.”
Covid
Mail
A new poll suggests more than half of British voters back the removal of all restrictions come Freedom Day on July 19, but face masks may remain if Covid cases continue to spike.
England’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty, is privately predicting that face masks will remain in use, particularly in confined spaces after July 19, according to the Times.
That’s despite more than half (58 per cent) of those polled in a new YouGov survey who say they are in support of removing any remaining restrictions, with less than 30 per cent opposing.
Although Whitty is comfortable as a backseat advisor while ministers make any final policy decisions, he has reportedly been telling colleagues that people might need to wear masks on public transport or in enclosed areas without social distancing.
Half of voters in the new Times poll insist they will keep their face masks on even if it is no longer mandatory, with just a third saying they will definitely drop the face coverings.
Boris Johnson said he believes the UK’s vaccine rollout has ‘broken that link between infection and mortality and that is an amazing thing’.
The final stage of the PM’s lockdown exit roadmap is due to take place in just over a fortnight, with all remaining curbs potentially being lifted.
Mail
Tory MPs have warned it will be ‘far fetched’ to expect fully-vaccinated Britons to ‘tolerate’ coronavirus rules in the future amid claims health officials have drawn up a five year plan for winter curbs.
Staff at the Department of Health and Social Care are said to have come up with a contingency plan for the next five winters.
The aim of the document is to stop large waves of Covid-19 infections in the colder months.
Suggested measures include encouraging people to work from home and to resume social distancing, according to The Mirror.
But anti-lockdown Conservative MPs have rubbished the idea of reimposing curbs as they said the success of the vaccination programme should herald a return to normal life.
Boris Johnson said yesterday that it ‘looks ever clearer’ that the jabs have now ‘broken the link’ between infections and deaths.
The Prime Minister said that while there has been a significant spike in case numbers in recent weeks ‘that is not translating into a big increase in serious illness and death’.
Lockdown critic and former minister Steve Baker said he does not believe people would put up with restrictions if they have had both doses of a vaccine.
He said: ‘It sounds far fetched. I don’t see how the public would tolerate long term future lockdowns, especially with everyone vaccinated with two doses.’
Health officials are said to believe that the winter plan could help to avoid the need for another full lockdown.
Mail
Face-to-face appointments with family doctors will never return to their pre-pandemic levels, Britain’s top GP has warned.
Only around half of GP appointments are now in person – with the remainder via telephone or video services such as Skype.
Prior to Covid, most appointments were face-to-face. Many patients, particularly the elderly, are thought to be uncomfortable with phone and video arrangements.
Experts, meanwhile, have warned that symptoms can be missed if patients are not seen in person.
But Professor Martin Marshall, the chairman of the Royal College of GPs, told the Mail that ‘remote’ consultations with GPs were ‘here to stay’.
He said that despite the concerns of many, a 50-50 split between face-to-face and remote appointments was ‘about right’ and that the pre-pandemic approach would never return.
He suggested patients would ‘get used to it’ in the same way they have got used to online banking.
Professor Marshall also predicted that waiting times for any type of consultations would grow even longer thanks to a post-lockdown surge in demand.
Before the first lockdown in March last year, as many as 80 per cent of GP appointments were face-to-face.
In April last year, that fell to just 10 per cent. It has since risen to 55 per cent – and Professor Marshall said this was unlikely to increase.
‘Although I know some patients are very uncomfortable about the loss of face-to-face, we need to remember that remote care is here to stay because it is more convenient and it does have a number of advantages,’ he said.
WFH
Mail
Boris Johnson is ready to ditch the ‘work from home’ guidance – but it will be left to employers and their staff to decide when workers go back to their desks.
The ‘work from home if you can’ rule is set to be formally abandoned as part of the lifting of the remaining lockdown restrictions on July 19.
But last night government sources told the Daily Mail that individual companies and their staff would be left to determine when and how workers return to the office.
Ministers will not launch a campaign encouraging them to do so because they are resigned to there not being a mass return this summer.
The approach is unlikely to go down well with senior Tories, who have said the Prime Minister must tell workers to go back to the office to help fire up the economy.
Many town and city centres have suffered amid the move to home-working, and there are concerns it has hit productivity.
Asda yesterday became the latest business to announce that it will allow head office staff to work from home on a permanent basis.
The supermarket said it will introduce a hybrid model for the about 4,000 employees at its two main bases in Leeds and Leicester, and staff will be able to work from any location best suited to their job.
Schools
Telegraph
A five-point rescue package to ease the impact of the Covid pandemic on children is being worked up by Boris Johnson’s officials after mounting pressure from Tory MPs.
The Telegraph has been passed details of a paper submitted to the Covid Operations Cabinet committee, with announcements due later this month.
One proposed change is for the requirement for schools to send home “bubbles” of students to be ditched from July 19, the earliest date for the final step of reopening in England.
Another is to end pupils self-isolating if they are flagged for coming into contact with someone with Covid from the autumn term, replaced by a system of daily tests.
A third is to continue the twice-weekly testing of all secondary pupils during term time until the end of September but then hold a review, meaning the arrangement could be scrapped by October.
The other elements are a renewed drive to vaccinate teachers and a “return to the full school day” from September, with only a positive PCR test keeping children stuck at home.
Guardian
School skiing trips that rely on British personnel to staff their EU winter camps could be wiped out by Brexit after it emerged they are facing the same obstacles as the music and theatre sectors.
Just like rock bands and music artists, instructors who work on the slopes of France, Italy or elsewhere in the EU are now required to have visas if they work in Europe, even if it is for just one week at a time.
Pre-pandemic, Robert McIntosh, managing director of Interski, took 250 groups a year involving 10,000 to 12,000 children to Aosta in Italy.
Now he does not know if he can survive, with visas for up to 600 instructors costing £300 per visit. Typically, ski schools would hire instructors for one, two or three weeks at a time to mirror the school peaks in the December holiday and February half-term.
But he is also unsure how he will be able to continue to employ the 40 to 50 staff he brings to Italy for the entire season.
NHS
Independent
The private data of thousands of NHS patients has been wrongly shared with strangers, including a case where a person’s HIV status was released, The Independent has learned.
In one example, strangers turned up at a woman’s door to let her know her private details, including her home address, had been mistakenly sent to other patients.
In some cases the NHS has had to pay thousands of pounds in compensation because of the errors, which, having come to light, will shake confidence in the health system’s ability to handle patient data responsibly.
The latest statistics from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) show that 3,557 personal data breaches were reported across the health sector, the majority within the NHS, in the two years to 31 March this year.
Not all data breaches have to be reported, so the total is likely to be much higher.
Illegal immigration
Mail
The people traffickers’ mega-boat ferries a load of migrants across the sea from France to Britain, roaring at high speed through waves towards the Kent coast.
Each of the 16 young men on board the 36ft-long inflatable is wearing an expensive lifejacket.
The skipper, in a designer waterproof, has his hand firmly on the tiller of the boat’s powerful outboard as he heads for the White Cliffs of Dover.
Their craft is evidence of the latest tactic used by the ruthless people-smugglers — massive inflatable boats, some capable of carrying up to 70 passengers.
The migrants were spotted last Tuesday afternoon in English waters on their 21-mile illegal cross-Channel journey, and a few moments later they were picked up by Britain’s Border Force vessel, Speedwell, and ferried safely into Dover.
They had enjoyed their journey untroubled by the French navy, which is tasked with stopping them making the crossing.
‘It was just before 1pm British time when the Border Force reached them,’ said a south coast sailor who contacted the Mail about the pick up.
‘Anyone who knows about the Channel could see the skipper, probably a migrant himself, was an accomplished seaman plotting a safe course from France.
‘It was a people smugglers’ vessel. Yet its occupants were collected by Speedwell. The crew even towed the traffickers’ mega-boat to shore too.’
Breitbart
The number of crossings by boat across the English Channel has risen sharply despite the pandemic and pledges from the government to stop illegal aliens from making it to Britain’s shores.
An investigation by the i newspaper published on Thursday found that illegal crossings by small boat rose “exponentially”, which it based on the seizures of the vessels increasing from 154 in 2019 to 608 in 2020.
Criminal gangs are reportedly coordinating their smuggling schemes from the migrants’ home countries right to the shores of France, with payments transferred across borders using an informal money transfer system called the hawala — Arabic for “transfer” — with clients often charged between £4,000 ($5,509) and £10,000 ($13,772) to get to the UK. Notification of where to rendezvous is a little more high-tech, with migrants notified of the details via social media.
Networks of drivers from nearby Belgium and the Netherlands transport materials to France for the crossings, such as boats, fuel cans, and motors, but a number of vessels have come as far away as China, sold via the Jack Ma-owned e-commerce platform Alibaba. The networks of criminal people smugglers are said to stretch from Albania, Iraq, Iran, and Vietnam.
Where smugglers appear hands-off is the steering of the migrants across the English Channel, with the newspaper saying its investigation found that the role was delegated to a fellow illegal, as traffickers attempt to avoid being caught by French authorities.
“The traffickers are running a criminal business and like any enterprise it evolves. The bigger players don’t really want to be seen near the beaches so, if they can, they delegate and pick off individuals to do their dirty work. It is a criminal co-operative which changes shape,” a law enforcement source in France told the i.
Social care
Telegraph
Sajid Javid is open to supporting a tax rise to pay for major social care reform, according to allies, as he joined the Treasury in a push to find a “sustainable” funding solution.
The new Health Secretary will play a critical role in brokering an end to the stand-off between Number 10 and Number 11 over funding to tackle the adult social care crisis.
Mr Javid is a “problem-solver” without an “ego” who has the experience in both the Treasury and other government departments to craft a compromise, according to former colleagues.
He once helped drive through the social care precept when Communities Secretary, which allowed a two per cent rise to council tax bills to cover care costs, showing an openness to such moves.
Mr Javid also used his first statement to the House of Commons in his new role this week to call for “a long-lasting, sustainable solution to the social care challenge that this country faces”.
Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, told the nation he had a “clear plan” for reforming social care on the steps of Downing Street when he became Prime Minister in July 2019.
Yet two years on, Cabinet ministers are still only at the early stages of mapping out a solution for elderly people who face crippling bills to pay for care in old age.
Kill the bill
Express
HARD-LEFT activists are using the weekend to hold a wave of “Kill the Bill” demonstrations across the UK ahead of a climax on Monday.
Activists are firing up plans to cause chaos in Westminster on Monday as they express their anger at proposed new laws. MPs will next week debate the controversial Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.
The legislation would toughen up laws for the punishment of criminals.
It would include longer sentences for child killers and those who cause death on the road, stricter jail terms for serious violent and sexual offenders, and an expansion of child sex abuse laws.
However, it also includes plans to give police more powers to tackle non-violent protests which cause significant disruption to the public.
Police could ban protests which may result in “serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of the community”.
The proposals have sparked outrage among radical left-wing demonstrators who are taking to the streets to express outrage at the Bill.
They have organised a series of protests in recent months under the banner “Kill the Bill”, controversial as “The Bill” can also refer to the police.
Across the country tomorrow a number of marches will get underway.
An “emergency protest” will then take place in Parliament Square on Monday while MPs are debating the Bill.
The legislation was originally set to be put to a vote in the Commons in March.
Mail
Face-to-face appointments with family doctors will never return to their pre-pandemic levels, Britain’s top GP has warned.
Only around half of GP appointments are now in person – with the remainder via telephone or video services such as Skype.
Of course, they won’t return. The elderly will die off and their young successors will know no different. It’s called ‘suck-it-up-and-get-used-to-it’.
At my local doctor surgery you cannot get anywhere near a doctor without first running the gauntlet of the reception staff who ask what the problem is, and if you cannot or unable to satisfy them then you are stuffed. It is yet another level of unnecessary administration, put in place probably at the instigation of the government, or more likely Matt Hancock. I put in a monthly prescription for a drug I have to take, and when I went to the chemist to pick it up I was told I would have contact the surgery and speak with them, which is what did, but they gave me an emergency supply I was told by the reception staff that I needed a review, but trying to speak to an actual doctor is easier said than done. The reception staff said I needed another blood test and would have to book one at the back end of July for an August appointment, which would have meant not being able to take the drug for over a month. I mean the whole situation is totally ludicrous and I demanded to speak with a doctor who repeated the same thing but relented on proscribing the drug which is for hypothyroidism. Like probably everywhere else the doors to the surgery are locked one has to speak to reception staff via an intercom, and common politeness seems to have well and truly gone out of the window. You might expect to be treated like this in Soviet Russia in the 1980’s, but in England in 2021, come on things have been taken far too far now, over a virus that has only affected a small percentage of the population.
And Colin….the Drs are now demanding more money!!! Apparently the 1% they have been offered isn’t acceptable!!! Ever since Gordon Brown gave them a deal to die for they haven’t looked back. They certainly dont want to have anything much to do with patients!!! Hence the dragons at the gate. They are put there and ‘trained’ by the Drs to keep patients at bay with a sharp stick!
I can tell you from personal experience, getting to speak to a doctor in the 1980s Russia was easier than talking to a ‘British’ doctor today. OK I had too use my loyal interpreter, but easier.
EU
Express
“EUROPEAN member states will face a further north-south divide set to spark future clashes among EU leaders because of climate change.
Northern EU countries will be forced to foot the bill for southern nations when, in the not so distant future, the world will suffer from catastrophic consequences of climate change.”………(Yes, it’s always has been “in the not so distant future” whatever year we were in ).
Well done Debbie! I’ve only read the first two items so far.
Mineral water? Well that is a bit unexpected as a starter for a trade war with E.U. Never mind, I’m sure Buxton Spring Water is vastly superior to Evian !!
The second item, from the Express, is a far better example of Gobbledegook than even Lockdown Sceptics quote! AND it reads as though it is aimed at the EU rather than the whole of ‘Europe’. HOORAY!
Evian… write it bacwards…Naive
You are quite right Pauline. Drink Buxton Spring Water.
Agreed, absolutely no reason to buy Evian or any other EU crap where we have a multitude of Spring Water brands to choose from in this country. We need to be making more of everything in this country once again so we are self sufficient and providing employment for British workers. What’s not to like……
All owned by french coys?
The ‘migration’ situation is beyond scandalous now. It is highly treasonous. It has been connived at and maintained at its present levels by a complicit government! They may well come to rue the day they allowed it when the ‘migrants’ (invaders) rise up and sweep them from office
Don’t you believe it. When TSHTF, they’ve got their bunkers booked, in New Zealand I believe.
Or maybe at the last innings they’ll be denied a place to take refuge, and our enemies might turn on the traitors once they’ve served their purpose. Delicious thought.
Mr Javid is a problem solver. Answer:– More Tax..
Real answer :– Spend less.
I certainly agree that we must spend less. However, tell that to all the public sector workers that are demanding large pay rises. I don’t doubt that they deserve a large pay rise, but the question that desperately needs answering is: “WHER IS ALL THE MONEY COMING FROM?” Our econnomy is on its knees after the battering it has taken from Covid, and we need economic recovery before we can dish out too many goodies.
Why does the public sector deserve a large pay rise? Why not a modest one? Giving the public sector a large pay rise never, ever, leads to more productivity or a better service.
TGS. You must not use big words that ‘they’ won’t understand!!!! What you suggest would properly be enacted by a ‘real’ Conservative government. As we now only have ‘socialist – bordering on total Marxist – politicians, spending less is not even likely to figure in their vocabulary.
The treasury was empty when David Cameron came into No 10. Now it will be full of IOU notes drawn on the ‘borrowing’ systems that have been specially created to bring the World’s financial systems to ruin!!
TG Spokes…..any news about your ‘protest’ party?
Well T.G.S. It reads as though it is Council Tax rather than central government taxation. I’d rather have that, than have Hancock grabbing more power on the issue, which he did try.
Councils are overloaded with too many Chiefs and not enough Indians, of course. As are central bureaucracies.
I think home care needs far more staff ‘on the ground’. AND they SHOULD NOT be forced to have the jabs.
Keep people out of Care Homes as far as possible. Mainly for their own good.