Illegal immigrants 

Mail
Priti Patel is to spend £200million on a fleet of border patrol boats as she steps up attempts to stop migrants crossing the Channel.
The Home Secretary has ordered a major replacement of Border Force’s five ageing cutters, official documents show.
The vessels could be used to block dinghies from entering UK waters – the controversial ‘push-back’ tactic announced this week.
The huge sum to upgrade the fleet comes on top of the £54million due to be handed to France for coastal patrols and surveillance – which could now be withheld following a diplomatic spat between Whitehall and Paris.
It comes as migrants continue to make it across the Strait of Dover, with 1,800 arriving along the South Coast this week alone.
Last night, a Home Office spokesman said: ‘As part of our ongoing investment into the UK’s border security, the planning process for the replacement of Border Force’s existing cutter fleet is in its early stages. No final decisions have been made.’ 

Similar stories can be read in the Mail, Telegraph, Sun, Order-order, iNews 

Northern Ireland 

Express
BRITONS have shown their anger after it was revealed that DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson plans to collapse the Northern Ireland Assembly in an attempt to end Brexit checks in the Irish Sea.
Mr Donaldson had used a keynote speech on Thursday to launch a fresh attack towards the Northern Ireland Protocol, a hated part of the Brexit deal by unionists. But rumours about the intention of the DUP leader now shows that the intention is to completely abandon the power-sharing arrangements which are currently in place, by leaving Stormont.
The move by Mr Donaldson is said to show “significant hardening of the DUP position and will place the onus on London and Brussels or run the risk of dragging Northern Ireland backwards, all the progress made from 2007 will be lost”.
Unionists have notoriously been against the Protocol however the need to respond to the Protocol now has emphasised that the “stakes could not be higher”, according to Mr Donaldson. 

EU 

Express
POLAND has launched a scathing attack against the European Union in what is a huge Brexit-related warning to Brussels after the bloc ordered them to bring in judicial reform, or face fines.
A spokesman for Poland’s conservative nationalist governing party, Law and Justice insisted the country has no plans to leave the EU. But he warned it would ‘have to search for drastic solutions’ to its dispute – before then pointing to Britain’s departure from the bloc. Ryszard Terlecki said his party wants to have a cooperative relationship with the EU but the bloc “should be acceptable to us”.
He commented during a discussion at an economic forum in Poland: “If things go the way they are likely to go, we will have to search for drastic solutions.
“The British showed that the dictatorship of the Brussels bureaucracy did not suit them and turned around and left.” 

The Mail, Breitbart also have the story. 

Face masks 

Mail
Stronger guidance on wearing masks is being planned in case coronavirus hospitalisations keep rising.
Since July it has not been mandatory to wear them in crowded indoor public spaces.
The decision is left to individuals even though the Government says it expects people to cover up.
Ministers are now concerned by falling compliance in supermarkets, trains and buses amid rising infection levels. Yesterday there were another 37,622 Covid cases and 147 deaths.
There are also 8,098 patients in hospital with the virus – a six-month high and a rise of 6 per cent in a week.
Although government sources insist a mask mandate is not imminent, the fact it is being considered will concern Tory backbenchers. 
They are already angry at being asked to renew the emergency Covid powers that allow ministers to impose restrictions. 

The Telegraph, Sun and Mirror also have the story. 

NHS 

Telegraph
Five billion pounds of taxpayers’ money could be saved by the NHS every year but health bosses are accused of “bullying” when they try to clamp down on waste, The Telegraph has been told.
Complaints of harassment from junior staff have led to a “reluctance” among managers to enforce widespread savings across the health service, a senior NHS source revealed.
It comes as Boris Johnson faces pressure to insist on sweeping NHS reforms as the price of a   £12 billion tax hike on millions of workers. 
MPs fear that the money could be squandered on a bloated NHS bureaucracy, and on outdated and wasteful procurement. 
Analysis by The Telegraph reveals that the NHS is spending tens of millions of pounds on paracetamol, aspirin and other over-the-counter drugs, as well as prescriptions for toothpaste, mouthwash and Gaviscon heartburn relief.  

Mail
Top GPs have insisted remote appointments are not ‘substandard or lazy’ despite admitting doctors are struggling to provide safe care for patients.
The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) yesterday said they were ‘outraged’ at criticism over the lack of face-to-face appointments.
But they acknowledged the service was in crisis and that GPs were more likely to make mistakes and accidentally harm patients – blaming a shortage of doctors.
Its comments came as senior coroner Alison Mutch warned the inability of patients to have in-person consultations during the pandemic has contributed to deaths.
But last night Professor Martin Marshall, chair of the RCGP, said it was wrong to suggest ‘remote consultations are substandard, harmful to patients and are being used by “lazy” GPs as an excuse for not seeing patents face to face in the surgery’.
He added: ‘The move to mainly remote consultations from the start of the pandemic was in line with government guidelines.  

The Guardian also has the story. 

Travel 

BBC News
The government is planning to overhaul the travel traffic light system, with changes set to be announced in weeks.
Green and amber categories could be removed and replaced with a new system, the BBC has been told.
A new system would allow vaccinated travellers to go to countries with similarly high levels of vaccination as the UK without the need for quarantine.
Sources say the red category, which is for countries which the government says should not be visited, will remain.
Under current restrictions, red countries should not be visited “except in the most extreme of circumstances” and travellers returning from them must self-isolate for 10 days in a government-approved hotel.
The government declined to comment on the plans but said: “Our international travel policy is guided by one overwhelming priority – protecting public health.
“The next formal checkpoint review will take place by 1 October 2021.” 

The Independent has more. 

Planning 

Times
The biggest shake-up of planning laws for 70 years is set to be abandoned after a backlash from voters and Tory MPs in southern England.
Reforms designed to help ministers hit a target of 300,000 new homes annually by the middle of the decade will be watered down, The Times understands.
The government had intended to rip up the planning application process and replace it with a  zonal system, stripping homeowners of their rights to object to new houses. It said that councils would also be given mandatory housebuilding targets.
Robert Jenrick, the housing secretary, will announce a more limited set of changes. Tory MPs blamed the planning overhaul for their party’s shock defeat by the Liberal Democrats at the Chesham & Amersham by-election. 

Other media covering the story include the Mail and the Independent. 

Covid 

Mail
Covid jabs will not end the pandemic and leaders should prepare to adjust their vaccine strategy to deal with the virus in the long-term, the World Health Organization‘s director for Europe has warned.
Dr Hans Kluge said new strains of Covid will continue to emerge and the virus will remain with us like the flu. 
Earlier this year, he said the pandemic would be over once 70 per cent of people were fully immunised.
But he admitted today that the situation had now changed, so leaders need to adapt their vaccination strategy. 
Up to 80 per cent of people in wealthy countries are double-jabbed, but less than 0.1 per cent have received a vaccine in poorer countries. 
Some experts initially thought that once enough people were vaccinated, the virus would be unable to spread.
But while the jabs are highly effective at preventing hospitalisations and deaths, they are less effective at stopping transmission, leading officials to warn that the world must learn to live with the virus. 

National Insurance 

Express
The NATIONAL INSURANCE health and social care levy of 1.25 percent that working pensioners must pay from April 2023 will not count towards their State Pension entitlement. This will be a blow to those over 66 who have not made enough NI contributions to qualify for the maximum basic new State Pension.
From April 2023, people who continue to work beyond State Pension age will pay Boris Johnson’s new health and social care levy. However, unlike National Insurance contributions paid on income earned before age 66, this will not count towards their basic new State Pension.
Pensioners who make less than 35 years of NI contributions during their working lifetime do not qualify for the full basic State Pension of £179.60 a week, and will get a reduced sum instead. Those who contribute for less than 10 years get nothing at all.
Many who do not get the full amount may resent paying the new 1.25 percent levy, as it will not go towards plugging any shortfall they have in their State Pension, said pensions expert Sandra Wrench. 

Telegraph
Council tax bills will have to rise for millions of households next year to pay for social care despite Boris Johnson‘s tax raid, ministers fear.
This would mean families facing a “double whammy” of tax hikes as the 1.25 percentage point increase in National Insurance is due to come into force at the same time as the council tax rises in April next year.
Town halls are likely to need extra cash because most of the money raised from the manifesto-busting increase goes to the NHS over the next three years before being diverted into social care in 2024. Ministers privately believe that average council tax rises of at least five or six percent will be levied next year to help meet the shortfall.
The news came as an exclusive poll of 10,000 voters by Electoral Calculus and Find Out Now for The Telegraph, carried out earlier the week, found that the tax rises have sent the party’s performance in the polls into a nosedive, down eight percentage points to just 37 per cent. 
Labour is unchanged at 33 per cent, with the Greens up five per cent.
If the results were repeated at a general election, Mr Johnson’s Commons majority would be wiped out, 54 Tory MPs would lose their seats including 21 “Red Wall” constituencies won at the 2019 election for the first time. 

See also the story in the Sun. 

HGV tests 

Mail
HGV drivers will only have to take one test rather than two, the Government has announced, in a move designed to help quell shortages.
The Department for Transport said up to 50,000 more HGV driving tests would be made available, with drivers now only having to take one test to drive both a rigid and articulated lorry.
Trainee drivers had needed to take two separate tests spaced three weeks apart. It comes amid huge issues in supply chains in recent months, leaving some shop shelves empty, or forcing restaurants to remove items from their menus.
But the DfT said tests will also be made shorter by removing certain elements which can then be tested separately.
And car drivers will also no longer have to take another test to tow a trailer or caravan, freeing up more examiner time to carry out HGV tests.
It comes after the boss of the Food and Drink Federation said that the days when UK consumers could expect to pick up nearly whatever product they want whenever they want from supermarket shelves are over. 

9/11 

Mail
Boris Johnson will today lead British tributes to the victims of 9/11, amid tension in the special relationship in the wake of the chaotic withdrawal from Kabul.
In a video message to be played at a memorial event in London, the Prime Minister warned the terrorist threat ‘persists’ – although they had failed to ’cause us to abandon our values, or to live in permanent fear’.
And he said last month’s events in Afghanistan should strengthen the West’s determination to ‘hold fast to our belief in liberty and democracy, which will always prevail over every foe’.
He will mark the 20th anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York from his official country residence.
The message will be played at a memorial event organised by the ‘Since 9/11’ organisation at the Olympic Park. The terrorist outrage killed 67 Britons out of nearly 3,000 in total.
Mr Johnson said: ‘Twenty years ago, September 11 2001 became, in President Roosevelt’s words after Pearl Harbour, a ”date which will live in infamy”. 

Many of the media also covering the anniversary are the Telegraph, Mirror, Mail, Times,  Evening Standard, ITV News, BBC News 

War games 

Sun
VLADIMIR Putin has launched massive war games with 200,000 troops spanning 2,000km on Europe’s doorstep in a warning to the West.
The Zapad-2021 military drills include Belarus and run north to south from the Baltic to Ukraine amid fears of flashpoints along east-west frontiers.
But Putin’s forces are also staging simultaneous major war games in the Arctic after completing separate large-scale joint exercises in ex-Soviet republics bordering strife-torn Afghanistan on Thursday.
The Zapad-2021 exercises – or West-2021, in English – involve a total of 200,000 troops, 80 warplanes and helicopters, plus some 760 pieces of military equipment including 290 tanks, and 240 artillery pieces, multiple launcher rocket systems, and mortars.
The joint exercises with landlocked Belarus – which borders three NATO countries –  come amid a significant step towards Russia swallowing up its westerly neighbour after talks between Putin and Minsk dictator Alexander Lukashenko.  

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