EU
Express
BRUSSELS has been left scrambling after its attempts to punish Britain over leaving the European Union failed, a former advisor to Margaret Thatcher has claimed.
Brussels has failed to hurt Britain’s big economic industries following Brexit, Lord Powell has claimed. The former advisor to Margaret Thatcher told Chubb the city of London has withstood threats from the European Union since Brexit. He pointed out that there are more people working inside the tiny square mile of the City of London than the entire city of Frankfurt, which had once hoped to overtake the UK capital as a financial centre after Brexit.
Lord Powell said: “The city of London is a hugely sophisticated, well-developed institution.
“It has enormous networks throughout the world.
“Nowhere else in Europe is a global financial market.
“They would like to be, but they are not.”
He added: “More people work within in the small square mile of the city of London than live in the whole of Frankfurt.
“That tells you something! That’s not going to change.
“If Europeans want to make difficulties on financial services, they will try, in order to regain some of the business for themselves.
Northern Ireland
Express
THE EU has issued a stark warning to Lord Frost, Boris Johnson and the UK Government as ministers prepare to unveil their strategy on tackling the Northern Ireland Protocol.
The Brexit minister in the Cabinet Office is due to make a Parliamentary Statement outlining the way forward on the Protocol next week. But the impending announcement has ruffled diplomatic feathers in Brussels who fear the UK will be pushy over finding a long-term solution to implementing the Protocol.
Brussels has proposed the UK align with EU food safety standards and agree to a sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) deal, which Commission officials say would do away with 80 percent of checks on goods entering Northern Ireland.
But the UK has ruled out this option and is expected to demand the EU respect their food safety standards and agree on an equivalence arrangement, which Brussels is yet to rule out.
A Brussels source said: “It’s very unclear what to expect from the UK but we are willing to work cooperatively if they don’t drop any big surprise points.
“On matters including checks, we need to have a clear answer from them and effective communication.
“If they do drop big surprise points then we aren’t afraid to put our foot down and make clear the Protocol is here to stay.”
Covid
Mail
Sajid Javid last night triggered fears of a disruptive ‘pingdemic’ striking at the heart of Government after testing positive for coronavirus.
The Health Secretary had visited the Commons and Downing Street in previous days – and is understood to have held a lengthy face-to-face meeting with Boris Johnson just before his symptoms developed – sparking concerns that senior figures across Whitehall would have to be confined to home.
One insider warned that ‘half the Cabinet’ could be in isolation by the end of the week.
After feeling ‘a bit groggy’ on Friday night, Mr Javid – who has been double-jabbed – took a lateral flow test yesterday. When it came back positive, he began self-isolating with his family pending the results of a more reliable PCR test.
He said his symptoms were ‘mild’ but there were immediate concerns over those he had been in contact with, including Ministers and senior civil servants.
Downing Street last night said that if Mr Javid’s PCR test came back positive, those he had been close to him would be traced.
The Health Secretary was pictured leaving No 10 on Friday, shortly before he began to feel unwell, and earlier in the week he had visited vulnerable people in a care home.
Similar stories can be read in the Telegraph, Guardian, Sun, Independent, Evening Standard, Order-Order
Mail
Coronavirus cases have jumped by more than two thirds in a week, official data revealed today as experts warned infections will stay high for months and a new lockdown will be needed by September.
Department of Health bosses posted another 54,674 cases today — an increase of 68 per cent on last Saturday’s figure of 32,367 — breaching the 50,000 mark for only the second time since the darkest days of the last wave in January.
Another 41 deaths were also recorded, rising 20.6 per cent on the 34 seen last week.
Hospitalisations with the disease also spiked 30.4 per cent to 740 on July 13 — the latest date data is available for. It was the highest number of daily admissions seen since March 2, when they reached 834.
Experts today warned cases would continue to spiral across the country until autumn, passing the 100,000 in two weeks’ time.
The fire warning comes just two days before England is set to ditch most restrictions including social distancing and legal limits of gatherings on Monday dubbed Freedom Day.
Trade
Express
HOPES of a UK-US trade deal being secured were boosted after Liz Truss held a meeting with her counterpart across the pond this week.
The International Trade Secretary met Katherine Tai, the US trade representative, during a five-day visit from Sunday to Thursday, July 15. A future UK-US free trade agreement was on the agenda and it is understood US officials were impressed by Ms Truss’ diplomatic approach.
However, Washington has urged caution over the timescale of a deal that is not expected to be signed immediately and could take at least 12 months to complete.
A White House source said: “Ambassador Tai really appreciated the visit by Liz Truss bringing her remarkable British charm over from London.
“We certainly commit to strengthening the trade relationship between US and UK in line with the Biden administration’s global agenda.
“But be in doubt this will take time and cooperative working, trade deals do not happen overnight and not straight away.”
Freedom Day
Express
BORIS Johnson’s plan to lift all coronavirus restrictions on Monday on what has been widely nicknamed Freedom Day is “madness”, scientists have warned – with one saying she was “p****d off and angry”.
And another has suggested the changes will simply stoke divisions in society, claiming individuals and employers had been left to make crucial public health decisions. Independent Sage discussed the proposed changes, confirmed by Mr Johnson earlier this week, during their Friday briefing yesterday against a backdrop of mounting concerns over the so-called Beta variant, which may be capable of evading the immune response generated by the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Professor Christina Pagel, professor of operational research at University College London (UCL), said: “I feel p****d off, sad and angry.
“We are having the wrong conversation. Opening up on Monday is madness. We should not be doing it.
“We should be talking about how do we get cases down now.”
Similar stories can be read in the Morning Star, Times
Health tax
Mail
Boris Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak are at loggerheads over plans for a new £10 billion-a-year ‘health tax’ to clear the NHS Covid backlog and fund reforms to care for the elderly.
Treasury sources accuse Mr Johnson of using new Health Secretary Sajid Javid to ‘gang up on’ Mr Sunak over the new levy.
They even claim that when Mr Javid was appointed, he was told by the Prime Minister that joining forces with him against the Chancellor was a condition of his employment.
Mr Sunak – the favourite to succeed Mr Johnson when he eventually leaves Downing Street – fears that his ambitions will be damaged if he is bounced by No 10 into raising taxes.
But Mr Javid, who replaced disgraced Matt Hancock last month, has told allies that as ‘the UK has maxed out its credit card’, the NHS backlogs and social care reforms can only be tackled with new taxes.
Under the plans being thrashed out between No 10 and No 11, the Government would introduce a new tax equivalent to 2p on income tax to raise an extra £10 billion a year to tackle, firstly, the backlog of operations caused by the pandemic.
A total of 5.3 million people are waiting for routine operations and procedures in England, and Mr Javid has warned that the figure could reach 13 million.
Once the backlog has been dealt with, the new money would be used to reform the social care system to reduce the burden on families.
Mr Johnson has told the Treasury that he is prepared to accept the plans drawn up ten years ago by Sir Andrew Dilnot, who carried out a review of social care, which limited to around £50,000 the amount that families have to pay towards care – with the state stepping in to cover the rest.
A source told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Boris told Rishi it [the extra health costs] had to be sorted.
Child grooming
Breitbart
Banaras Hussain, Mohammed Akram, and Talish Mahmood Ahmed have been jailed for grooming and raping a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl in Huddersfield, England.
Leeds Crown Court heard during the trial that the girl was raped in her primary school playground and even in her own bedroom after one of the groomers, Mohammed Akram, clambered up the drainpipe of her house.
The prosecutor in the case, Kate Batty, told the jury, per a court report from Yorkshire Live, that by the time she was 13, the victim was “intoxicated most of the time”, being plied with vodka, lager, cigarettes, and amphetamines by her abusers.
Mrs Batty said the teenager was treated as an “object”, adding: “Routine to her became the day in, day out events of being touched or groped or having sex on grubby mattresses on the floors of flats and houses that she found herself in.”
The “primary groomer” in the case, then-married Banaras Hussain, was accused of sexually abusing the victim at least twice a week over the course of a year in the woods or in the primary school playground.
“He took her to a house one day where again the alcohol and drugs were free-flowing,” the prosecutor said, adding: “In the bedroom of that house, she lost her virginity to him on a mattress without bedding, using a curtain as a blanket.”
Hussain was sentenced to 18 years, but he will, like his fellow predators, likely serve far less than this in prison, as criminals in Britain are typically entitled to automatic early release on licence halfway or two-thirds of the way through their sentences.
Olympics
Mail
No sex. No cheering. Eat alone. If competitors and support staff at this summer’s Covid-affected Tokyo Olympics don’t abide by these rules and many others, they risk getting kicked out.
The latest ‘Playbook’ of rules for the 90,500 overseas visitors to the Games – 11,500 athletes plus 79,000 coaches, support staff and officials – is explicit in stating this in a section headlined: ‘Non-respect of the Playbook’.
‘Failure to comply with these rules may result in disciplinary consequences,’ it says, listing just some of the things that might land you in trouble, from refusing to take a daily Covid test, to ‘intentionally disrespecting mask wearing’ to not adhering to social distancing.
The penalties range from warnings to fines to exclusion from the Games, to disqualification if an ‘offence’ happens after an individual’s competition is finished.
The sex ban has been alluded to by the organisers in several ways. The latest Playbook says attendees must ‘avoid physical contact, including hugs and handshakes’, and ‘keep physical interactions with others to a minimum’.
Since the Seoul Olympics in 1988, Games organisers have given away hundreds of thousands of condoms to promote safe sex at Olympic villages packed with thousands of the fittest young men and women in the world. Tokyo’s organising committee have scrapped their plan to give away 160,000 condoms this time, saying they will instead be given out when athletes go home.
Similar stories can be read in the Guardian, ITV News, Independent,
German floods
Telegraph
Scores of volunteers and rescue workers were on Saturday searching the wreckage left by catastrophic flooding in Western Germany in a desperate search for missing neighbours and loved ones.
As many as 1,300 people remained missing in the Ahrweiler district of Rhineland-Palatinate alone after heavy rainfall brought ferocious flooding to swathes of Europe, killing more than 183 people – 156 in Germany alone.
The exact number of people unaccounted for remains unknown. Many phone networks have been damaged, but some locals have managed to find loved ones during intermittent spells of reception. “That’s how we found friends who couldn’t make it [out],” Aaron Löhr, 22, said.
“Everything is in ruins,” another middle-aged resident told the local Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper as he stood by wreckage of his destroyed house, which he and his wife had renovated last year.
More than 22,000 emergency services are working on rescue operations in North Rhine-Westphalia, according to the state government. “Anything is possible. We do not know what we will find in the cellars,” a fire department section head told Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper on Saturday.
Similar stories can be read in the Guardian, Independent, ITV News
All the News is getting so ‘Mad Hatter’s Tea Party’ – Particularly like:- 160,000 Olympic condoms to be given to the assembled sexy athletes when they disperse – Just about sums up the pointlessness of all the Covid policies and captures the incompetence of authoritarians everywhere.
N.I. Protocol. I’ve just read John Redwoods Diary and he comments that ‘the media’ have ignored Thursday’s UNANIMOUS vote in Parliament passing a resolution that the EU are acting illegally in their interpretation of the protocol.
Please read it for yourselves everybody. John Redwoods Diary Sun. 18/7/21.
“Mr Sunak – the favourite to succeed Mr Johnson when he eventually leaves Downing Street – fears that his ambitions will be damaged if he is bounced by No 10 into raising taxes.”
And thats really all it is isnt it? Simply a means to the end to get any of them up the greasy pole to riches and stardom! They have no interest at all in what is good or right for the Country. The only thing that matters is their climb up Fortune’s Wheel!
Totally correct, nothing to add. But I am swearing under my breath
The bestial rapists that have been allowed free run of this country and allowed to rape children at will should be subject to the death penalty. No ifs buts or maybes! Why are we tolerating this scum in what was once a civilised Country? They have no ’culture’ that adds any value to our nation. They should be disposed of like the rubbish they truly are!
Additionally, I must ask …….where are the supposed ‘protection’ and ‘safeguarding’ agencies that we hear so much of? Animals receive more consideration than children in Britain today!
“The Health Secretary was pictured leaving No 10 on Friday, shortly before he began to feel unwell, and earlier in the week he had visited vulnerable people in a care home.“
What does that tell you about the mentality of these people! Visiting a care home – presumably for a photo opportunity rather than genuine concern for the residents!!! – says all there is to say about their integrity (or lack of it!).
What is making me furious Frederica is, all the forces working together, not only to make tomorrows ‘Freedoms’ disappear but to ensure that the Covid Dictatorship is a permanent entity for this country.
Me too Pauline. But the brainwashed haven’t yet suffered enough to be able to ‘suss’ what is being done! Until there is ‘enlightenment’ it roll be an uphill struggle for the rest of us!
Child grooming:
18 years in jail with release likely much earlier is simply not acceptable. Time for reinstatement of the death penalty, only avoided by a severe flogging, castration and deportation.
Fair comment, Jack. But it takes a Common Law Jury of a man’s peers to determine guilt and lawful punishment.
The likes of unelected SAGE officials like Christina Pagel who think they have a right to rule the country over the government, bad as they are, have had 16 whole months to sort this Covid 19 farce out with Lockdowns, restrictions on our civil liberties and freedoms, and enforcement of the dreaded face masks, and none of it has apparently worked. Here we are with apparent Covid cases going through the roof, with all these face masks and restrictions still in place, and the likes of her want more of the same perhaps in perpetuality. It begs the question, at what stage does she and the utterly clueless muppet who leads Her Majesty’s opposition decide enough is enough and that we actually have to live with this virus like we do with other viruses, rather than hiding away from it forever and a day. We need to be rid of SAGE and the Labour leader.
There are NO easy solutions, no magic wand. it is an unprecedented situation.Try to stop whinging.
Harry, as you say it is an unprecedented situation because never before has a viral epidemic been deliberately created from a laboratory. And never before has the corruption of science been so obvious (in the suppression of the low-priced HCQ and Ivermectin as cures for Covid). What is also obvious is that the activists on SAGE are desperate to keep the lockdowns going so as to maintain the illusion of a pandemic.
And all the rest Ralph. How come a VIRUS, has caused societies that were more or less democratic to become TOTALITARIAN in, what is it, 18 months?
Something VERY STRANGE going on here.
Ralph……..I gave up with Harryagain long ago. He/She supports Boris Johnson and wants to maintain the status quo with Covid 19 and everything else that is wrong with this country, so I will not stop whinging. He/she just whinges about other whingers like me, and offers no solutions……
dont you know a troll when you see one. ignore
Colin Hussey. 100% agree with you.
The word “retribution” comes to mind when we hear about the serious flooding In the last storm to strike at the EU. Years of Obeying the EU Water Directive that prohibits the dredging all our rivers, have led to the last decade of flooding in Yorkshire, Cumberland and Scotland that impacted on lives, homes and businesses, with no response or financial aid from the European Commission that made the law. Now that Water Directive policy has come back to bite the EU where it hurts the most, in Germany, Belgium and Austria, causing serious damages and loss of lives.
We are obviously very sorry to see the people suffer with so much damage to property and lives, but it will be interesting to see if Angela Merkel can get away with merely blaming “climate change” for the harm caused by swollen water over-flowing its banks or cause and effect of their prohibition to dredge EU rivers that caused the rivers to silt-up, without the depth or capacity to carry off storm water to the sea. British river boards maintained our rivers efficiently until the EU replace them by the Environment Agency that obeyed all EU Directives. Since shutting down our River Boards, Britain had paid £billions for repairs and compensation for river flooding, without any acknowledgment or responsibility from the EU. Let’s hope those EU citizens who suffered the result of the Water Directive can get compensation from the European Commission.
Mrs Jean Romsey. Thanks for giving details on that. I’m more hard hearted than you. I’d say let’s hope those EU citizens realise it is the Water Directive at fault and join those in other Countries who are questioning the wisdom of all EU policies.
Meanwhile can we have our river boards back please!
A quick look at the set up of the environment agency and defra confirms my suspicion that the flooding will all be blamed on climate change caused of course by CO2!
The need to sort out the care lottery is obvious. At present someone who needs care is subject to a push of war between the NHS and Social Services. We saw this unedifying business when Mum was approaching her final days. In a corridor at the hospital she’d ended up in after a fall we saw the representatives of those two huge departments trying t to pass responsibility for her rehab to each other.
Spreading the load for end of life care is obviously fair as some people need it desperately while others pop off with minimum fuss and expense. There’s talk of a tax impost. Fair enough, but it must not fall only on those in work. Even pensioners, who will benefit soonest, should contribute
JF
Tax. We need to recover the money from those sat on their a***s at home these past weeks (ie on “furlough”)
Harryagain……weeks? doh, don’t you mean months. Come on get it right for goodness sake if you’re going to comment. What we don’t need right now is the implementation of more taxes to cover up for the gross errors committed by your inept mates in the present government who have instigated the trashing of this country’s economy over the past 16 months over a virus that has affected a small percentage of the population, which will undoubtedly lead to millions being made unemployed. Putting up taxes as you seem to support, will also lead to excessive wage increase demands by various Unions to counteract this. A far better solution in my opinion is to place a pay freeze on our useless politicians in the House of Commons for at least ten years, close down the House of Lords immediately and abolish all expenses payable to them and the MP’s. That would go some way in recouping the financial losses, and recoup some support for this ailing government……..
Indeed Colin; too many MPs, ministers and civil servants living in the comfort zone at our expense.
What with JF? The sixty pence I have for a loaf.
Health tax:
Before any taxpayers’ money is thrown at the NHS it needs to be subjected to a root to branch reform. It is grossly inefficient and too much money is being paid to the private companies who were sneaked in by stealth. A great idea at its inception but it was always going to become unfit for purpose at some point.
Why would anybody cheer and promote tax?
Quite so Jack. It wont matter how much money is thrown at the NHS. In its current form it will simply swallow it up and come back for more, more and more!
Jack Thomas @ 9.31am. Exactly. Root and Branch Reform. It’s too top heavy and every time money is thrown at it the top devours it.
The NHS is funded by the Department for Health and Social Care’s budget. Planned spending for the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) in England only (not the UK) was £212.1 billion in 2020/21, up from £150.4 billion in 2019/2020 ( financial years starting on the 4th April).
Run by the DHSC, the NHS is a nationalised industry, created by the Attlee government in 1948. Since then medical practitioners have been state employees paid by the government. Sometimes patients have to wait more than two years to see a consultant.
EU:
Good news for now but we must do everything possible to make matters worse for the EUrocrats. We will never be safe from those who would have us rejoin until the EU is destroyed and becomes a lesson of history showing others that such institutions must be avoided.
Jack the EU is in trouble but like a wounded animal it is thrashing around trying to free itself from pain. Coupled with its hatred of Britain and its people that wound is getting deeper. We can all help to hasten its demise by boycotting any goods and services emanating from the evil empire!
The Enemy is the EU
Care must be taken not to make it appear that we are taking it out on the European people, particularly those of them who are opposed to the EU themselves.
Perhaps steps should be taken to encourage trade and livelihoods of those “little people” who make their circumstances known
Agreed! The money in your pocket is the only weapon you can hurt them with! Boycott all eu goods and produce. Stay at home dont go to ttheir smelly hotels or wait until other countries not under the eu start tp open.
Yes, I will not buy an EU made car when I have to replace it and I rarely buy EU veg or fruit preferring British seasonal foods. But having said that I am just as likely to target British firms that have supported the EU and BLM and other liberal Left initiatives.
But if people want to send a far more powerful shockwaves right through the EU supporting political and MSM establishment. DON’T RENEW YOUR BBC LICENCE!.