Boris
Express
BORIS JOHNSON will not be able to stage a political comeback which could see him return to Number 10 as Prime Minister, Jacob Rees-Mogg has claimed.
The Brexit Opportunities Minister, a key ally to the outgoing Prime Minister, claimed it was “not realistic” to think Mr Johnson could make a return to Downing Street. Mr Johnson announced he would stand down as Prime Minister pending a Tory Party leadership contest in July after he faced a Cabinet cabal.
However, the Uxbridge & South Ruislip MP has repeatedly hinted about a potential return to Downing Street.
During his final Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Johnson said it was “probably… certainly” his last despatch box bout against Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.
He also claimed his “mission” was “largely accomplished – for now”.
Labour Party
Express
SIR KEIR Starmer has been blasted for disappearing from the public eye amid a soaring inflation crisis as former Prime Minister Gordon Brown becomes the new face of the Opposition.
Sir Keir Starmer appears to have vanished from public view as the cost of living crisis continues to hammer households across the country. The Labour leader has been largely absent from the frontlines of politics, leaving critics to question his drive to resolve soaring inflation. With Sir Keir out of the way, former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown appears to have emerged as the new face of the Opposition to the Tory Government. Political commentator Ali Miraj has mocked leading Labour politicians for appearing ‘out to lunch’ amid the ongoing economic turmoil.
Speaking on Talk TV, Mr Miraj said: “Gordon Brown, at the moment, seems to be the official opposition.
“I’m all in favour of politicians taking breaks, it’s important, they work very hard and they’re in the public eye all the time so they do need to have a break.
“But, at the moment, we are facing a dire cost of living crisis and Labour seems to be out to lunch.
“We haven’t heard anything from Rachel Reeves or from Keir Starmer, who was at the Edinburgh Fringe this week defending himself on it.”
BBC News
Labour is to call for the energy price cap to be frozen this autumn, part of a plan to deal with the cost of living.
Sir Keir Starmer is expected to make the call in a speech on Monday, in which he will explain how Labour would pay for the plan if it was in power.
The cap – the maximum amount suppliers can charge customers in England, Scotland and Wales – is £1,971 a year.
But experts expect it to climb to around £3,500 a year and for every household to see steep rises in bills.
Previously the level of the cap was only reviewed every six months but Ofgem changed the rules this year, meaning that it is expected to rise in both October and again in January.
It has already been announced by the government that all households in England, Scotland and Wales will receive £400 to help pay rising fuel bills this autumn.
UK energy regulator Ofgem has said it is possible suppliers could raise customers’ direct debits before the new cap comes into effect in October.
But in the speech on Monday, Sir Keir is set to lay out a plan calling for the price cap to remain where it is.
There are no details ahead of the speech on how Labour would fund the freeze, first reported in the Observer, while a source from the party said they would not comment ahead of the speech.
Illegal immigrants
Sun
THOUSANDS of Albanians are flocking to the UK in dinghies – only to end up in the clutches of drug gangs, senior officials have warned.
The Sun on Sunday travelled to the country’s capital Tirana after a leaked military report revealed four out of ten migrants crossing the Channel illegally now hail from the Balkan nation.
Senior police chiefs in the city claim most of those leaving are doing so for financial reasons — with crime lords returning home in luxury cars.
We saw top-end vehicles with UK number plates driving around.
Asked about the exodus to Britain, Saimir Boshnjaku, the director of immigration police, said: “Some people have to leave because they get caught up in blood feuds, or they have fallen out with criminal gangs and they are in fear of their lives. But most are economic migrants.
“The people that make money from drugs come back here driving Maseratis and Mercedes and they buy a big villa in the village. The young people see that and it makes them want to do the same.”
As many as one in five have quit the Eastern European nation in some areas after being lured by promises of vast riches in the UK.
Corporation Tax
Telegraph
Liz Truss could pull the UK out of a deal agreed by Rishi Sunak to “stitch-up” global corporation tax rates at 15 per cent, it has emerged, as two of her most prominent supporters criticised the agreement.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Brexit opportunities minister, said the UK should withdraw from the international agreement sealed last year because it “works against British interests”.
And Simon Clarke, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who is being lined up for a prominent role in Ms Truss’s Cabinet, said “one of the whole rationales for Brexit” was to have competition between countries on things like tax.
Education
Telegraph
Tens of thousands of A-Level students are expected to miss their university offers this year as 80,000 fewer top grades are awarded.
An unusually large group of students will be “painfully disappointed” as exam regulators start to tackle the runaway grade inflation seen during the pandemic, a study has found.
Exam boards have been told to set grade boundaries so that the grades will be about halfway between those of 2021 and 2019.
Prof Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment, said on that basis the proportion of A and A* grades, which reached a record 45 per cent last year when they were awarded based on teacher assessments, are set to fall to 35 per cent.
The decline would mean 80,000 fewer top grades than the 370,000 achieved last year.
Students who fail to make the grades needed to meet their conditional university offer will face the most competitive admissions round in decades to secure a place at an elite institution.
Demand for places has risen due to an increase in the number of 18-year-olds in the population at the same time as supply has been restricted by a bulge in intakes during the Covid years and increasing numbers of overseas students who pay higher fees.
Prof Smithers estimated that between 40,000 and 60,000 would miss out on the top grades required to get into their first-choice university.
Times
Record numbers of British teenagers have been rejected by elite universities in favour of lucrative overseas students and face a scramble for a less prestigious place when A-level results are announced this week.
The most selective institutions, including Oxford and Cambridge, turned away four out of ten UK candidates who applied this summer — the biggest rejection rate ever recorded.~
University leaders say that some with a high tariff for entry have switched to recruiting students from countries such as China and India. Overseas students now pay an average of £24,000 a year, almost triple that of applicants from England. New data shows that overseas students make up a record one in four of all undergraduates in Russell Group universities in England.
Police
Independent
The Metropolitan Police has been prevented by prosecutors from criminalising people for attending the Sarah Everard vigil, according to reports.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) told lawyers that it had “discontinued” attempts to prosecute six people because it was not in the public interest, The Guardian reported.
A spokesperson told The Independent: “We have a duty to keep cases under continuous review and we concluded that our legal test for a prosecution was not met.”
The decision comes at a troubling time for the force, which was strongly criticised for the way it policed the Clapham Common vigil for Ms Everard in March 2021. It has also attracted criticism for the Stephen Port murder investigation and the treatment of Child Q, who was strip-searched at school.
The litany of disasters has meant the Met Police has been forced into special measures and this latest setback will be a headache for new commissioner Mark Rowley, who replaced Cressida Dick last month.
Guardian
Prosecutors have dramatically halted attempts by the Metropolitan police to criminalise people for attending the vigil for Sarah Everard in another humiliating blow for Britain’s biggest force.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) notified lawyers last week that it had “discontinued” attempts by the police to criminalise six protesters as it was not in the public interest.
Water
Mail
It will likely be dubbed the ‘Great Boris Canal’ – an extraordinarily ambitious plan to transport vast quantities of water hundreds of miles from the North to South.
But senior Tories say the idea – endorsed by Mr Johnson himself as London Mayor – could help the South and Midlands cope with future droughts. The plan, which was first put forward in the 1940s, involves creating a huge network of canals to bring water from the wetter North to drier regions further south.
It would be built along the 310-foot contour of land running from the giant Kielder Water reservoir in Northumberland down to the Midlands and the South. But it could also be extended northwards and westwards, taking water from North Wales and southern Scotland to create a giant ‘natural water grid’ across the UK.
Some civil engineers say the water could be moved by gravity alone down a gentle natural gradient to avoid the need for expensive pumping operations. Transferring water between regions already accounts for about four per cent of the public water supply. But doubts over the feasibility and costs – estimated eight years ago at £14billion – have meant the so-called Great Contour Canal has never been built.
Telegraph
Ministers must overrule opposition from local residents, councillors and MPs to give new reservoirs a green light by 2025, the Government’s infrastructure tsar says.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Sir John Armitt, the chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission, warned that the need for additional reservoirs was becoming increasingly urgent amid the threat of prolonged droughts.
Continuing to allow locals to veto such projects would mean that the new reservoirs Britain needs never get built, he suggested, stating: “It’s a bit like people living in the Chilterns – if it was left to them HS2 wouldn’t go through the Chilterns.”
The last reservoir for public water supply was built in 1991, amid significant local resistance to new projects.
BBC News
Everyone who uses water must rethink and make sure they use it wisely, the chairman of the body that has declared droughts around England says.
“We have got to rethink… and that means everyone, not just regulators and government,” said Harvey Bradshaw, chairman of the National Drought Group.
He is also executive director of the Environment Agency, which has warned the drought could last into next year.
A Met Office warning of extreme heat is continuing into Sunday.
The amber alert covers southern and central England and parts of Wales.
Rain is forecast for Monday but the agency says weeks of showers are needed to replenish water sources.
An official drought was declared in eight areas of England on Friday by the National Drought Group, which comprises representatives from the government, water companies, the Environment Agency and others.
Times
Britain’s depleted water supplies are under mounting strain with the number of leaks detected by some suppliers more than doubling since the start of the heatwave.
A drought was officially declared across swathes of England on Friday and the Environment Agency has predicted that the UK could face water shortages in the next 25 years without action, including tackling leakages and reducing customer use.
The environment secretary, George Eustice, has proposed a “national grid” for water that would see pipelines go from wetter parts of western England to the east to deal with future droughts.
Energy
Independent
Gas power stations could be shut off to ration energy supplies as part of emergency plans to stave off widespread blackouts this winter, insiders have warned.
Sources at two power stations, along with government officials, said they were preparing to “wargame” emergency plans next month, and that they had been asked to review measures to keep Britain’s lights on in the worst-case scenario of dangerously low supplies.
They suggested that drills could take place in September and October, and warned that they could be asked to switch gas stations off in order to ease high network demand.
These efforts go well beyond standard winter resilience planning, reflecting the higher risk amid the worsening energy crisis, and are more detailed than what is laid out in current emergency planning documents, the insiders said.
“We’re wargaming very serious scenarios. These are not unlikely scenarios,” one senior official involved with energy planning said.
Mirror
Millions will be plunged into fuel poverty in the New Year with the poorest hit three times as hard.
Shock figures estimate that more than half of all households – 15 million people – will be left on the brink as energy prices soar to eye-watering new heights.
Despite projected bills of more than £500-a-month next year, there is still no meaningful help on the table from the Government.
Campaigners and charities last night warned how rocketing fuel demands and surging inflation could lead to a catastrophe the scale of which we have not seen for decades.
And calls are growing for a £45billion “energy furlough” scheme to support households.
Simon Francis, from the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, said: “Thousands of people will die this winter because of fuel poverty.
“Make no mistake, this is as much a national crisis as the pandemic.
“This government must wake up from its zombie paralysis and take meaningful action now to support households with cash.
“The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.”
Drought
Telegraph
The biggest drought in 20 years has been declared across the majority of England, as farmers said half their crops could fail, households were warned of taps running dry and supermarkets faced water shortages.
An official drought has been declared in eight of 14 areas across England, encompassing most of the central and southern parts of the country.
Yorkshire Water has announced its first hosepipe ban in 27 years, joining four other companies who are bringing in restrictions.
Jamie Hannaford, a hydrologist at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, said it was the most widespread drought since at least 2003.
“This drought is notable for how large an area it’s been affecting through the summer of 2022,” he said. “It’s more widespread than the 2018-19 and 2010-12 events and overall drought conditions are more extensive than 2004-6.”
The decision to announce an official drought was made at a meeting of the National Drought Group, attended by officials, farmers, water company representatives and Steve Double, the water minister.
The meeting was told of the impact of the drought on farming, including warnings that half of the potato, carrot, apple and hop yields could be lost. Drought-tolerant maize plants are failing and milk production is down, the Government was told.
Guardian
Wildfires could continue to break out across the UK this weekend, as the Environment Agency (EA) warns that the drought in England could persist into next year.
The Met Office has issued an amber heat warning across parts of England and Wales, as regions are braced for temperatures as high as 35C.
The alert comes as a drought was officially declared in eight regions: Devon and Cornwall, Solent and South Downs, Kent and south London, Hertfordshire and north London, East Anglia, Thames, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire, and east Midlands.
John Curtin, executive director for local operations at the EA, said that after the driest summer in 50 years, it would take “weeks’ worth of rain” to replenish water sources.
Three water companies, Welsh Water, Southern Water and South East Water, have all imposed hosepipe bans, while Yorkshire Water has announced a ban will start on 26 August and Thames Water is planning one in the coming weeks.
Dry weather is predicted to continue across the south this weekend, bringing a risk of more wildfires.
“For the rest of the weekend, across the south, there will be a continuation of the very dry and hot conditions,” the Met Office meteorologist Dan Stroud said.
Express
BRITS face a double-whammy of weather warnings on Sunday as the Met Office issues a yellow thunderstorm caution and amber heatwave alert, the UK’s national meteorological service has said.
The Met Office’s yellow thunderstorm warning will impact much of Scotland and Northern Ireland later today. The warning suggests some areas could also experience “heavy downpours”.
In contrast, the majority of England and Wales will not witness rainfall on Sunday.
The UK’s national weather service said: “During Sunday, cloudier conditions and areas of rain are expected to develop across parts of Northern Ireland and Scotland.
“Some places missing the worst, while others seem likely to see heavy downpours and thunderstorms.
“These could bring up to around 50mm of rain falling in 2-3 hours, leading to some disruption, although there will be some drier periods in between.
Star
This weekend’s heatwave is set to make way for thunderstorms with 15 weather warnings having been issued across large parts of the UK for Monday (August 15).
One extreme set of meteorological conditions look set to be replaced by another, with the national weather service saying: “While some places stay dry, hit-and-miss thunderstorms will develop from Sunday night and on Monday, and may bring disruption in places.”
Forecasters said the storms were likely to be isolated and intense bringing 50mm of rain in some places and the possibility of hail and frequent lightning.
There is a small chance that some homes and businesses could be flooded quickly, the Met Office warned,“with damage to some buildings from floodwater, lightning strikes, hail or strong winds”.
The Met Office has also warned that where flooding or lightning strikes occur, there is a chance of delays and some cancellations to train and bus services.
Spray and sudden flooding could also lead to difficult driving conditions and some road closures.
‘Water Tsar’, just what gullible person makes this crap up. Sorry stupid question, and I know the answer, namely some politician in the Department of the Enviroment who doesn’t want to make decisions themselves, so appoints somebody with a title to head up a quango called National Infrastructure Commission and pays them huge sums of money to write meaningless reports which wont get acted upon. Cynical? I hear you say, well just slightly, but Resevoirs cost money, and a lot of money at that, and more importantly take up a lot of land, and in this country we don’t have an indeterminate amount of land on which to build houses, new towns and water resevoirs. Why don’t they look at this problem from a common sense angle for a change and examine why we need bigger and better resevoirs, and the answer that stares them in the face is that this country is over populated with humans which is growing year on year, not primarily because of an increasing birth rate but because of mass immigration which this government does nothing about. Failing that why don’t our seemingly clueless politicians think about building de-salienation plants around our coasts and convert salt water to drinking water. We are surrounded by water, and yet we do nothing with it apart from allowing the French to fish up to six miles of our shores. I give up with our political class, they all need to be dumped.
‘Boris Johnson will not able to stage a political comeback and return to 10, Downing Street’……..well thank goodness for that. I don’t think many rational level headed people will want to see the comeback of Johnson any time soon, whether they be confirmed Conservatives or not. Most people have seen through this man by now for what he truly is, a man with no political conviction or backbone. The good people of this country deserve better, much better thank you very much. Don’t call me, we’ll call you, which of course will never happen. Close the door firmly behind you and put the keys thought the letter box, and don’t darken these shores again, would be my message to him
Water
When you think, water boards belonged to local councils/corporations years ago. They were seized and made into a national public group.
The ratepayers lost out as no compensation was paid.
Then this was hived off/privatised by the government, which kept the money they raised from it.
Therefore we wuz all robbed.
You have forgotten that quite a sizeable number of water and energy companies are now foreign owned. The City of London has made its turn on those overseas sales and those who ultimately own the companies keep the dividends. Corporatism is a richly rewarding activity……for some.
I would add to the above, that the one exception the my catalogue of gloom would be the telecommunications industry which has, so far, really improved since denationalisation largely because there is real competition possible to reduce the damage done by over-exploitation.
Even with telecoms there has still been a need for a regulator, Ofcom, to deal with the natural tendency for an industry to create rip-off scenarios such as the 0870/71 and 0843/44/45 scam which has now mostly disappeared but can still be stumbled upon in limited areas. Today, one must still beware of accidentally dialling such a number as they are very very expensive. Sadly, Ofcom failed to make these number illegal even though they did the right thing by introducing the 03 number range.
Note that the NHS Direct 08454647 number was a rip-off and was later replaced by the free of charge 111.
I notice a lot about water in the meedjiahh today.
I have several thoughts on the subject —
* Water is an essential for life
* Clean potable water is a limited product and should be conserved and used carefully, not squandered recklessly
* Probably should never have been privatised as it created monopolies
* When sold off the state should have set strict and limited rules and retained a golden share with a seat on each board
* Any Water company in breach of the rules and acting contrary to national interest should be returned to public ownership
* There can not be business competition in the water industry as it tends to be in a monopolistic position
From my knowledge Thames Water has closed certain roofed reservoirs and sold off the land at great profits which were not returned to the national coffers. Profits were distributed to shareholders and as bonuses for management — immoral. We are now suffering from the depleted reservoir capacity, even though some smaller ones have been extended.
Thames management have created large debts to allow even further distribution to the owners and management and incur large interest payments which have reduced tax payments to the exchequer. Taxpayers have thus lost out even further.
Thames is largely under foreign ownership with Middle East countries benefitting form our wasteful and exploited water industry. The ownership has changed several times since privatisation so all the values extracted from our original water industry over hundreds of years will never be able to be recovered.
The UK was the first and leading country in the world in the management of healthy water and waste water management. Now we are rapidly descending into trouble, debt and deterioration. Just my opinion, of course.
I am sure similar themes can be applied to all the other de-nationalised water companies and industries such as energy, railways, mining. I am in favour of freedom of business and enterprise generally BUT not when it comes to national resources and monopolies. We have lost central strategic and planning capabilities by the elimination of bodies such as the CEGB and British Rail.
The UK has been ripped off by all of these privatisations in various cunning ways by mostly foreign owned businesses and in some cases their national owners.
George. Nationalisation is NEVER a good thing.
It always leads to higher prices, reduced supply and greater waste.
Indeed Pauline but the privatisation of our water industry could have been better handled. In particular , as a strategic asset, it should have been protected from foreign ownership / control and the selling off of key expertise such as engineering which often ended up with owners not competent to manage it.
Well, all panning out as I predicted a year ago. Even the Putin problem. Time to batten down the hatches.
There are no instant solutions to this problem. We can only hope someone shoots Putin who is making a bad situation worse.
Years of UK government ineptitude will take a long time to correct.
Be prepared to dispose of your luxury possessions (smartphones,TV subscriptions,cars etc.)
We need Viv to write an article on how to survive poverty, I ‘spect she remembers how. (As we all do of over a certain age.) Or maybe I’ll write one.
We are all truly Betrayed. But the Germans more than us. East German apparatchnik done her job well.
https://independencedaily.co.uk/crunch-time-has-arrived-possibly/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=INDEPENDENCE+Daily+Newsletter1
Please oh Great NostradAmnitige, not a 400 line article in Old French Verse.
What have we done to deserve such a thing?
We are afraid, very afraid of your premonitions.
Biscotte, I am also afraid very afraid that someone might take up his suggestion of shooting Putin.
Now if someone shot Zelensky that might not be so bad.
What, no plague of frogs, lice,boils, fiery hail, locusts or rampaging wild animals?
Well we had the Persid meteor shower last night!
HarryAgain……..I’ll sleep better for knowing that, not. How are the peas coming along in your window box?
Water:
Hands off our water! Force the southern water companies to invest as they should have been doing.
Thanks for the news summary. Intrigued to learn there is a water minister. I wonder what he has been doing for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, month after month.
P**sing taxpayers’ money up the wall no doubt. Time that we had ministers who were actually qualified and experienced to do the job.
Sitting in his hot tub contemplating his navel Stout.