Trade
ITV News
The UK is “closing in on an agreement in principle” in trade talks with New Zealand, International Trade Secretary Liz Truss has said.
She said “great progress” has been made in the sixth round of talks between the two countries which ran from July 19-30.
The prospect of a deal with Australia has prompted controversy, with many British farmers raising concerns about being undercut and some MPs questioning how environmentally friendly it is to ship food to and from the other side of the world.
The Department for International Trade said deals will not be signed that compromise high environmental protections and food standards.
It said a free trade agreement could see the removal of tariffs on UK and New Zealand goods, reducing costs for consumers and opening up access for UK services and investment.
Ms Truss said the deal is also “an important step” towards joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a £9 trillion free trade area of 11 Asia-Pacific nations.
The International Trade Secretary said: “We made great progress in our trade talks with New Zealand this week.
“We’re closing in on an agreement in principle, with six more chapters now complete. The UK and New Zealand share core values, a long history and a commitment to free trade. I want a modern agreement that pushes new frontiers in areas like green and digital trade.
“This deal is also an important step towards joining the CPTPP: a high-standards agreement covering half a billion people across four continents.
“Membership would open up new opportunities for our Great British businesses, farmers and services, giving them access to some of the largest and fastest-growing markets in the world.”
Gibraltar
Express
EUROPEAN governments could use Britain’s demand to revisit the post-Brexit rules for Northern Ireland to reopen the entire divorce deal.
Whitehall insiders have conceded there is a risk that bloc leaders could also make their own fresh demands for tweaks as part of the overhaul of the protocol to avoid a hard border. Britain and Brussels are at loggerheads over Government demands to rewrite the Brexit deal for Northern Ireland. In a series of proposals, ministers called for the European Union to allow goods that do not meet its standards to continue to be sold in the area and reduce the number of checks on products being sent across the Irish Sea.
Brexit minister Lord Frost has also insisted the bloc must give up its right to take disputes over the post-Brexit border fix to the European Court of Justice.
EU sources have told Express.co.uk that EU Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic has told colleagues in private briefings the demands amount to renegotiating at least 50 percent of the protocol.
In public, Mr Sefcovic, the EU’s Brexit chief, has rejected the possibility of rewriting the legal text but has promised to find creative solutions to help ease the burden of the customs controls on people and businesses in Northern Ireland.
But UK officials are in no doubt that reopening the protocol, agreed just 18 months ago, would allow EU nations to demand their own changes to the Withdrawal Agreement.
Scotland
Express
NICOLA STURGEON’s plans to rejoin the EU have been given encouragement by an Irish MEP as he told Express.co.uk the bloc can end Scotland’s dependence on the rest of the UK.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon remains intent on taking an independent Scotland back into the EU. She wrote for Parliament Magazine in March that “Scotland’s future is in the EU” and argued “Brexit took the Scots out of the European Union against their will, but future EU membership is part of the vision for an independent Scotland.” Ms Sturgeon added: “I believe the best way to make that contribution is to regain our place in the European Union. “We didn’t want to leave in the first place and we look forward to a time when we will once again play our part in this great shared endeavour.”
One of the big debates around independence over the years has been whether Scotland could easily regain its place in the bloc.
Irish MEP Billy Kelleher told Express.co.uk there should be little opposition to Ms Sturgeon’s ambitions.
He said: “In the event of Scottish independence happening in the short term, I don’t believe there would be huge barriers to Scotland joining the EU. It would be very similar in terms of compliance, in terms of meeting standards.
“In the event of it happening, I can certainly see there will be goodwill towards Scotland joining.”
NHS
Telegraph
The NHS drew up secret plans to withdraw hospital care from people in nursing homes in the event of a pandemic, The Telegraph can disclose.
Confidential Whitehall documents show that the NHS plans refused treatment to those in their 70s and that “support” would instead be offered to use so-called “end of life pathways”.
The strategy was drawn up by NHS England following a pandemic planning exercise in 2016 and was designed to stop hospitals being overwhelmed.
It suggests that in a “severe” flu pandemic, the Health Secretary could authorise medics to prioritise some patients over others and even stop providing critical care altogether.
Ministers have repeatedly insisted that care homes were not abandoned by the NHS during the coronavirus crisis, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. More than 42,000 residents in England and Wales died during the pandemic and hospitals released thousands of patients into care homes without testing.
The Telegraph disclosed earlier this year that care homes were asked by NHS managers and GPs to place “do not resuscitate” orders on all residents at the height of the pandemic to keep hospital beds free – in breach of guidelines.
Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser, has said it was a “lie” that everyone received care, and that in fact “many people were left to die in horrific circumstances”.
Similar stories can be read in the Mirror and the Mail
No jab, no job
Guardian
Lawyers expect a wave of legal action against UK companies over attempts to make sure staff are double-vaccinated against Covid, amid growing fears of draconian “no jab, no job” policies in the workplace.
Trade unions have criticised the government for encouraging the idea of mandatory vaccination for office staff – after transport secretary Grant Shapps said it was a “good idea” for companies to insist staff are double-jabbed.
Tech giant Google has said mandatory jabs for US employees will later be rolled out to staff in 40 countries where it operates, and Mr Shapps said he expected some British firms will soon “require” full vaccination.
Employment lawyers told The Independent that British companies had been in touch to explore their options on putting Covid vaccination requirements in place.
“We’re definitely going to see a lot of employment tribunals on this,” said Elissa Thursfield, head of employment lawyer and a director at Gamlins Law – predicting a wave of vaccine-related discrimination claims in the months ahead.
Lawyers and union chiefs warned that a blanket approach to making jabs mandatory could breach the Equality Act by discriminating against some groups, including those with disabilities or certain religious beliefs.
“Having a blanket policy is almost always dangerous – it’s fraught with legal difficulties,” said Ms Thursfield. “For existing staff, if you don’t have a clause in your contract that says you can receive mandatory instructions on health, which is rare, that’s potentially a breach of contract, as well as the discrimination claims.”
She added: “If the government pushes any further on this, in terms of encouraging employers, they are going to start getting into hot water.”
Similar stories can be read in Evening Standard and ITV News
No jab, no fly
Evening Standard
Young adults were on Friday warned that they will be grounded in Britain if they do not get the Covid-19 jab.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps stressed that people who do not get inoculated will be unable to fly to most, if not all, countries.
He highlighted Britain’s world-leading vaccine roll-out, which has so far seen nearly 90 per cent of adults get the first jab and more than 70 per cent fully jabbed.
But he told Sky News: “Within the 20 and 30-year-olds, it’s fewer. That’s partly, of course, because they have been offered it more recently.
“But they will need to get vaccinated if they want to travel internationally again.”
The UK has not seen the level of vaccine hesitancy as in the US and some European and other countries, which has slowed inoculation programmes, so will not “turn to compulsion” to get more people jabbed to defeat the virus, said Mr Shapps.
A similar story can be read on ITV News
HS2
Mail
The Eastern leg of the HS2 rail line to Nottingham, Sheffield and Leeds has been ‘shelved’ amid concerns about soaring costs.
Ministers have ordered HS2 Limited to halt all planning work on the Eastern leg and focus solely on the Western route to Manchester.
A Tory source said the Eastern leg was unlikely to be formally cancelled because of fears of a political backlash in the East Midlands and Yorkshire.
But, with no work in progress and no target date for completion, the source said the project could be left to ‘wither on the vine’.
The move could slash tens of billions of pounds off the £107billion bill for the controversial rail route at a time when the Department for Transport (DfT) is under pressure to save money.
But critics warn it could jeopardise the business case for the entire project, as well as undermine Boris Johnson’s pledge to ‘level up’ the whole country.
The DfT last night insisted the Eastern leg had not been formally ‘shelved’. A spokesman said the project could survive in some form when the Government’s delayed Integrated Rail Plan is finally published.
But the timing of the revelation is potentially embarrassing for the Prime Minister ahead of a planned ‘infrastructure week’ push by No 10 next week.
Mr Johnson is expected to make announcements on broadband rollout and other infrastructure projects in a bid to show that his ‘levelling up’ agenda has not been knocked off course. HS2 is Britain’s biggest single infrastructure project.
Army tank
Mail
Some of them reported back spasms and joint pain or swollen ankles. Others a constant tingling in their hands and feet. Still more emerged reeling from acute hearing loss and nausea.
The noise and vibrations that members of the British Army trials team endured while trying out the latest high-tech vehicle were insufferable. Had the test-drives not been stopped, the damage they suffered could have become permanent.
There were concerns about Vibration White Finger syndrome, an injury suffered by industrial workers handling vibrating heavy machinery, where fingers and toes suffer blood circulation loss and can go white and numb. As it was, more than 30 of the men required medical treatment, with two dozen given steroid injections.
This is the story of the Ajax light tank that makes its drivers sick. One that cannot fire on the move as vibrations affect the gun stabilisation system, and which, due to this issue should not be driven faster than 20 mph — comparable vehicles reach 45 mph.
An armoured vehicle so unwieldy it can’t fit into transport aircraft. A light tank that has cost billions yet could be scrapped before it enters service — and is set to become the most expensive procurement failure in Army history.
As Conservative MP and Defence Select Committee member Mark Francois says: ‘It is heavier than a Sherman tank and as stealthy as a Ford Transit full of spanners. And, if you are giving people steroid injections after having been in the vehicle, that tells you everything.’
The scandal of the armoured vehicle’s glaring problems raises concerns about the government’s procurement process and why ministers were not alerted to the difficulties, but instead continued to write huge cheques.
Above all, it poses the fundamental question: How on earth is it possible for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to spend billions on a light tank that does not work?
It is a question to which MPs have demanded urgent answers as they urged the government to seek ‘liquidated damages’ and salvage whatever it possibly can from the billions of pounds of public money already banked by the arms manufacturer behind the vehicle.
A similar story can be read in the Telegraph
Holidays
Mail
Families were in a fight to save summer last night with holiday hotspots in Europe facing new travel rules.
Plans for an ‘amber watch list’ have sparked uproar in Whitehall, with some ministers warning the scheme could wreck the hopes of millions of Britons.
The idea, which was agreed in principle this week, would see holidaymakers warned that while they are abroad certain amber countries could go straight on to the red list.
This would leave them facing compulsory hotel quarantine on their return, at a cost of £1,750 a head.
Spain and Italy both featured in talks about countries that could be put into the new category – as soon as next week – amid fears about the Beta variant, which first emerged in South Africa.
A document dated July 14 stated the importance of global surveillance on the emergence of new variants and added: ‘Any increase in foreign travel over the summer and the return of international students to universities in the autumn is of particular concern.’
In the same document from the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling, Operational sub-group (SPI-M-O), experts warned that September and October ‘will be a particularly risky point in the trajectory of the epidemic’.
It states that ‘significant pressures on healthcare could be seen’ if more normal behaviours, following the lifting of many restrictions, coincide with the return of schools and universities.
There was a glimmer of hope that France could be released from the ‘amber-plus’ list, meaning the fully vaccinated will finally be able to return to the UK without the need to quarantine.
But it could still go into the amber watch category.
Senior ministers, including Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and Chancellor Rishi Sunak, are said to have reservations about imposing further disruption on the beleaguered travel sector.
Mr Shapps urged people to ‘ignore speculation’ ahead of decisions next week. But behind the scenes a battle is raging.
A similar story can be read in the Express
Climate change
Express
FLOODS, wildfires, hurricanes and intense heatwaves are examples of unprecedented weather in 2021 which has “shattered” records.
Research suggests more heatwaves and a rise in rainfall will occur as carbon dioxide concentration increases in the atmosphere. To understand this better, models were created to predict climate change – but recent events in British Columbia, Germany and Belgium are “more intense than the models”.
Timothy Palmer is the Royal Society Research Professor of Climate Physics at the University of Oxford.
He is currently pushing for a new generation of models to increase the accuracy of understanding current events and predicting future events.
“The problem is that the warming is so intense, it’s actually outside the range of the model,” Prof Palmer told Express.co.uk.
“It’s not that the records have been broken – the records have been completely shattered by these recent events.
Similar stories can be read in Independent, Express
Tanks
I recall some other tank that went faster back than forwards and had someother crucial drawbacks
The combination of The MoD, the civil service, and committees.
On the climate/weather front – Tornadoes in the USA for June were down from an average of 243 to just 69 – You won’t here that on MSM, it so does not fit the message that we are doomed – We entered a ‘Solar Minimum’ last summer and since then Tornadoes have been way down – Nobody seems to know exactly why this is so but it is proposed it causes a reduction in electric current known as Birkland Currents flowing to the Earth from the Sun it is also anticipated to lead to a decade or so of lower temperatures which will be very embarrassing and hard to massage into the ‘Warming Fear Mongering”.
Gibraltar:
There is only one way to deal with Boris’ ridiculous WA; bin it in its entirety. Any attempt at renegotiation will be used by the EU to try and disadvantage us further.
Climate change
Express
FLOODS, wildfires, hurricanes and intense heatwaves are examples of unprecedented weather in 2021 which has “shattered” records……
“The problem is that the warming is so intense, it’s actually outside the range of the model,” Prof Palmer told Express.co.uk.
“It’s not that the records have been broken – the records have been completely shattered by these recent events.”……
Really? We’ve had some warm weather in the last fortnight, but it is summer after all. But 2021 the hottest year ever? He must be joking. If he carries on like this he’ll be telling us next that Covid-19 is more deadly than the Black Death ever was.
1976 was far hotter and for longer. They are telling porkies as usual.
Agree 100%, these idiots think we buy into their nonsense
What a load of absolute bollox these “scientists” spew forth and expect us to believe it!
Trade – ITV news
“. . . . .and some MPs questioning how environmentally friendly it is to ship food to and from the other side of the world.” . .
Question 1: What did the ships and aircraft deliver to those food producing destinations? . .
Question 2: Would you have those ships and aircraft return to base empty instead?
It isn’t about food or environment. Its all about MONEY.
Lawyers expect – – – – – . Just for once I don’t resent the lawyers raking it in. Anything that undermines the covid dictatorship should be encouraged.
Saw this recently:
FRIENDLY REMINDER
It was the government which stole your freedoms,
destroyed your businesses and ruined your
children’s futures, not UNVACCINATED PEOPLE
?Hitler tried and Boris does not learn
Absolutely everything that this government has touched has caused chaos and mayhem on the way to complete and utter failure! But when you put arrogant and headstrong children in charge of the Country’s ‘train set’ I guess we should have expected the train to hit the buffers on every occasion it was driven out of the shed!
From the EU negotiations; Healthcare (or the lack of it for those unlucky – and unwise enough – to live beyond the ripe old age of ‘70’); to insisting on compromising the immune systems (and who knows what else!) of the young and perfectly healthy; to threatening people’s livelihoods if they won’t kow-tow to the dreaded ‘jabs’; to providing yet more substandard kit for the armed forces (when was that ever any different?); detaining people inside their own land for refusing to accept the ‘Frankenjab’; to refusing to acknowledge that HS2 is a white elephant before it ever runs a single train; to more pronouncements from the ‘Dear Leader Kim Jong Johnson’ on any and every subject – always heavily trailed by his tame and willing mouthpieces.
And that is probably only the tip of the iceberg in respect of wretched failure (either by accident or design – I know which option I believe!) perpetrated by this appallingly ‘low-grade’ government. It is so abysmal in its continued draconian-driven frightfulness that I marvel that so many people have still to open their eyes to the vision of distopia that lies before us unless something changes drastically in the not too distant future!
More or less my reaction Frederica.
Frederica, HS2 is there for the EU’s paramilitary Euro Gendarmerie Force (EGF) to use in the future, when it’s needed to suppress disorder. Obviously it will be a White Elephant commercially, they won’t get back its cost of over £400 billion through train fares. But then HS2 was never intended for commercial use, it’s there for the EU’s military use against the civilian population.
I can well believe that was the primary reason for its conception Ralph. And there was I thinking we were going to “leave” the EU and be a proper Nation again!!! How naive could I be!
Frederica, the planners in Whitehall & Brussels look a long way into the future. Their European project started out more than seventy years ago. They have always known that the north of England would be a problem for them, with the North’s long tradition of non-conformity in politics & religion. HS2 will reach Sheffield, Leeds & Newcastle as well as Birmingham, Manchester & Liverpool.
When she was Home Secretary Theresa May’s underling Jim Brokenshire said in the Commons on her behalf that she was willing to invite the EU’s EGF into Britain if necessary. The Brexit referendum result makes it a stone cold certainty that Whitehall believes that the EGF will be needed up north in the future. Hence the need for HS2 to help get the EGF there fast from its base in Italy.
Indeed Ralph but if it does get used for that purpose I’m sure that it is not too difficult to bring about a “disaster”.
Has anyone heard a politician say” There are too many people.”
This way, There’s no one to blame. Someone is doing us a favour.. Covid is clearly designed to do these functions. Frighten everybody and to continue to frighten, Only kill off the most useless among us, To maintain the power structure of the planet, To rearrange the population to reduce its destructive effects, and to do this whilest maintaining the innovative inquisitive searching of monkey fingers and brains.
.All these things and others all coming together in ways that we actually notice. Whether clearly pointless ( Like co2 ) or stupid:– The rape of resources, Perpetual waste and excreta, bureaucracy and misdirection, upgrading ignorance, Institutionalised ignorance, wrapping the planet in plastic,..And to somehow harnessthe power of peoples non destructively.
Anyway, probably a benefactor ( But helping themselves at the same time ( After all China Knows the difficulty of doing it by dicktat ))
So they may be doing a flawed but reasonable plan.
,
PS. The teeming billions need to educate to ” More Children means poverty not security.”. Strange is it not there is one word to cover these organisations promoting the opposite.
“Only kill off the most useless among us..” i assume you mean the politicians and Civil Service TG?
JT, can you decipher TGS’s “monkey fingers and brains”, “excreta” & “one word”?