Brexit
Express
BORIS JOHNSON is becoming convinced the use of the so-called “nuclear option” may be the only way forward if the European Union continues to refuse the UK’s demand over renegotiating the post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson was poised to overhaul the Northern Ireland Protocol this week but was eventually convinced otherwise by his Brexit minister Lord Frost, according to The Telegraph. But the newspaper has reported the warning to use the “nuclear option” if Brussels refuses to bow to London’s demands was issued to Ireland this week, with British officials making clear it is Mr Johnson and not Lord Frost who is most in favour of triggering Article 16.
Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis is also understood to have relayed similar messages to Ireland’s foreign affairs minister Simon Coveney during recent talks over post-Brexit arrangements in Northern Ireland.
The enforcement of Article 16 would be seen as a hugely aggressive step as it is the mechanism by which either side is able to suspend parts of the Protocol if they believe it is causing huge economic or societal harm in the region.
The DUP and several senior Tory MPs have already claimed the conditions for this move to be met.
Earlier this week, Lord Frost echoed those beliefs and confirmed for the first time the UK believed the conditions for triggering Article 16 had now been met and the Protocol in its current form is no longer a viable solution.
Northern Ireland
Express
BRITAIN has asked the EU to bring the Northern Ireland Protocol to a “standstill” so a raft of new measures which could threaten the supply of food and medicines to the province do not come into force.
The export of chilled meats such as sausages from England, Scotland and Wales to Northern Ireland will be banned from October unless a new arrangement can be secured. There is also concern about the supply of medicines, with a British pharmaceutical trade association warning that more than 2,000 medicines could be withdrawn if new regulations due to be introduced in January make it “unviable” to export to Northern Ireland. The UK request for a standstill would mean existing “grace periods” covering the import of products such as chilled meats and medicines would continue.
Britain wants to renegotiate key aspects of the protocol, which was introduced to avoid the need for customs checks on the Irish border but is blamed for impeding trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The move will be seen as a compromise offer. The UK Government has said there are “clear grounds” to justify overriding the protocol using Article 16 of its deal with the EU, but under the standstill proposal existing measures would remain in place while discussions continue.
The offer has raised concerns in unionist circles, where there is anger at the impact the arrangements have already had on daily life.
DUP MP Sammy Wilson said: “I really don’t understand what the point of the standstill would be.”
Similar stories can be read in the Mail, Telegraph
Covid
Mail
Doom-laden press briefings. Warnings that millions could soon be self-isolating. Grim predictions of fresh restrictions. It’s starting to feel a little too… familiar. And last week came another sign that Covid hasn’t finished with us just yet.
On Tuesday, the Government announced 96 coronavirus deaths in a single day – up 92 per cent since the week previously, and the highest figure since March.
But with about 70 per cent of Britons – including almost all of the most vulnerable – protected by two doses of the vaccine, is there now real cause for concern?
Perhaps most worrying was the latest Public Health England (PHE) data showing more vaccinated people, on average, are dying from the disease compared to those who are unjabbed. Is something going wrong? How much at risk are we, despite having had our jabs?
In an attempt to find an answer, this newspaper has collected accounts from emergency medics working tirelessly up and down the country as well as bereaved loved ones.
Among them is 35-year-old Carla Hodges from Hertfordshire, whose stepfather, Leslie Lawrenson, died aged 58 in early July having contracted the virus weeks earlier. Leslie, a solicitor, had no underlying health conditions – but didn’t have his vaccine, because he believed he ‘didn’t need it’. ‘
He was convinced because he was healthy without any problems, it wouldn’t be too bad for him,’ says Carla, an account manager. ‘He didn’t realise how sick he was. One minute he said he felt like he had bad flu, but was sitting up in bed and working, the next minute he’d passed away in his bed.’
Sun
ACTION to tackle the pandemic has so far cost £12,277 for every taxpayer in Britain, a report reveals today.
But the final bill is expected to be even higher — with the public having to fork out more huge sums for the next 20 years.
Figures show the Government has splashed out £372billion on fighting Covid so far.
That is twice the amount raised in income tax every year and almost every penny of it is borrowed.
With England’s lockdown lifted, 40,000 music fans have packed the Latitude festival in Suffolk this weekend amid hopes of a return to normal.
But worried MPs fear it will take decades to get the nation’s finances in tune again.
The figure — calculated by the Commons Public Accounts Committee — is three times higher than public spending watchdogs estimated last year.
More than a quarter went on measures to support jobs, such as the furlough scheme.
An extra £92billion is also being pumped into the health service to help it cope with the strain of the pandemic.
Similar stories can be read in the Independent, Times
Pingdemic
Evening Standard
More emergency workers are to avoid self isolation and undergo daily testing instead from next week.
The government announced on Saturday that an expected 200 extra testing sites would be opened so that daily contact testing could be “rolled out to further critical workplaces in England”.
But they are not expected to open until Monday at the earliest.
Some police, firefighters, Border Force staff and transport workers were already eligible for a self-isolation exemption, but only if their employers specified their names and they were double-jabbed against Covid-19.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said: “Daily testing will keep our frontline teams safe while they continue to serve the public and communities across our country.”
On Thursday, the government announced its programme would allow thousands of workers at up to 500 sites in the food sector to avoid the need to self-isolate if identified as a contact of a coronavirus case, and instead take daily Covid tests.
A similar story appears in ITV News
Illegal immigration
Mail
Each of the illegal migrants being housed in a hotel on the Kent coast are understood to have told officials they are under the age of 18.
Reports last week revealed that all 43 rooms at the Stade Court Hotel in Hythe have been booked by the Home Office until September to accommodate arrivals crossing the Channel from France.
NHS staff carried out Covid-19 checks at the hotel yesterday as migrants who had ended their quarantine period walked to the nearby beach.
Migrants who claimed to be under 18 told The Mail on Sunday that they were sharing rooms. Both the migrant charity Care4Calais and locals in Hythe said the hotel was exclusively housing minors.
Last month, Ms Patel vowed to crack down on migrants posing as children after it emerged that almost two-thirds of migrants who had claimed to be children in 2018 were judged to be adults. Child migrants can be eligible for better accommodation and education.
Almost 1,200 migrants arrived by boat last week, bringing the number of migrants who have crossed the Channel to the UK this year to more than 8,900.
According to the results of analysis published yesterday, the Government is bracing itself for up to 22,000 people to cross by boat before the end of the year.
It comes as Home Office and Border Force officials told The Mail on Sunday of their frustration at the ‘impossible’ demands of political leaders, including Home Secretary Priti Patel, to stem the flow of crossings. Sources said officials have repeatedly told Ministers that there is little more that can be done to stem the flow under existing laws.
Education
Times
Private schools have been accused of taking advantage of Covid disruption to A-levels and “playing the system” by lobbying top universities and medical schools to take pupils whose performance is too weak to qualify for a place — even before exam results are published in two weeks’ time.
Because the pandemic has meant teachers are awarding A-level grades this year, schools know who has won a place at Oxbridge or medical school and who has not.
Barnaby Lenon, a former headmaster of Harrow and chairman of the Independent Schools Council, which represents more than 1,300 schools, confirmed that some had sent pleading letters on behalf of pupils who had dropped a grade, and urged others to do the same.
Cash
Mail
Cash in people’s pockets would be superseded by a new ‘Britcoin’ digital currency in a plan being pushed by Chancellor Rishi Sunak.
In what Treasury insiders say would be the biggest upheaval in the monetary system for centuries, the Bank of England would establish a direct digital equivalent to physical money and take control of it in the same way as sterling.
Its supporters in the Treasury say that it would allow the Bank to give the economy a boost in times of financial crisis by paying the ‘Britcoins’ directly into people’s bank accounts.
It could also slash the cost and time it takes to make payments online and transfer money around the banking system.
Britcoin could also cut banking costs dramatically for small firms. However, critics warn that a digital version of the pound could lead to greater financial instability – making it harder for the Bank to regulate the economy with monetary policies such as setting interest rates.
There are also fears the introduction of Britcoin would lead to higher loan and mortgage rates as millions of people switched cash to central bank digital currency, eating into the amount of money high street banks have on deposit to lend to borrowers.
NO! NO! NO! To Britcoin. This will leave everyone open to financial manipulation by the government through the Social Credit System. Don’t behave yourself and do exactly as you’re told and bang they stop your access to your own money and refuse you access to shops and food and services! We will be truly slaves of the State if this goes forward.
Don’t forget the chancellor has had the forethought to put his own personal fortune offshore as have the rest of this bunch of snake oil salesmen. This plan is exactly as devised by the WEF and it will hurt! Many may die! This is Evil unmatched!!!!
Frederica. I agree. C.C.P. isn’t it? Chinese Communist Party? THEIR Social Credit System is coming to Britain!
I suppose you could survive by bartering. Eg someone with e.g, odd job skills could do odd jobs in return for food.
Until, that is, they round us up and send us to re education camps.
Digital currency? This is a government attempt to seize control of all our wealth.
WEALTH Harry Again? It’s not wealth they are seizing it is income. Our only means of living.
I suspect that anyone with savings would suddenly find they could not draw any of it out if they didn’t conform to diktats. Yes it will also
mean that you wouldn’t be able to access your income or bank account either. We would be completely under control and at the government’s mercy!
I dont suspect it, I know it.
In 1967 the British PM (Wilson) stoked his pipe and puffed away for a few seconds and then told the British people on TV in relation to the devaluation of the pound ‘I can assure you the pound in your pocket will not be affected’ As usual far too many credulous British people believed him to their cost. And of course it was the low income Labour voters that came off the worst. When will people learn?
The Fat Boy will no doubt be called on to do exactly the same should the digital currency be introduced.
But with about 70 per cent of Britons – including almost all of the most vulnerable – protected by two doses of the vaccine, is there now real cause for concern?
A few days ago,(22nd July 2021) NHS England put in a tender for £3185000000 ( £3.2 billion) worth of anticoagulants. Why so much, if it’s not for adverse reactions from the jabs. I hardly think this is the usual amount to order, do you?
https://yourtenderteam.co.uk/contracts/nhs-framework-agreement-for-the-supply-of-direct-oral-anticoagulants-doacs-for-the-nhs-in-england/
If Covid vaccine passports are made compulsory by denying access to cash, food and medical treatment to those without them, then there will be no control group (no placebo group) of unvaccinated people to compare with the vaccinated. So it will be impossible to see if the vaccines are any good.
Simon Blanchard. That makes a point that has been raised for some years. Every medical treatment that is administered to us makes necessary MORE medical treatments.
The Covid jabs have brought the phenomenon to light.
That’s true Pauline. Also creating a ‘reliance’ on so-called vaccines means that mass ‘culling’ could quite easily take place who knows what they could slide into the mix!!!! And how round you prove it? And they’d make money out of all the compliant suckers taking the latest dose of snake oil!
£ 372 Bn. This ( Money ? ) Has gone directly Into Bank Shareholders pockets and The pockets Of the latest generation of Cheap Asset Stripping Shysters . Buying up British firms who have developed markets ,product, technology , And because of the greed of paracitical professions and all consuming taxes Feeding trough agreements, . And make our country poorerand public services, sell at a fraction of their real value
The stock exchangehas never shown real value.!So they go abroad, . and have been going for a hundred years.. The governments response. ” We are an innovative country “. Meaning Keep on producing money for me to squander.
BUT. They’ve nearly killed the last goose. ( Pubs )