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Immigration

Express
A hard-hitting Home Office campaign will warn people in Albania not to attempt a Channel crossing in a small boat.
Potential illegal migrants will be told they face being detained and deported if they come to the UK.
The campaign will feature images of people on a crowded boat and make clear just how dangerous the journeys are.
Albania is the first country to be targeted but it will be rolled out in other territories.
This comes as Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick visits Algeria, Tunisia, Italy and France in a bid to tackle migration challenges and “stop the boats”.
Under a deal announced last week, hundreds of Albanian prisoners will be sent home for British help to modernise the country’s prison system.
Mr Jenrick said: “Organised immigration crime is a global challenge which requires international solutions the whole way along the migration route. That includes working proactively at source before people set off on dangerous and unnecessary journeys.
“We are determined to stop the boats and the campaign, launching in Albania this week, is just one component of the Home Office’s work upstream to help dispel myths about illegal travel to the UK, explain the realities, and combat the lies pedalled by evil people-smugglers who profit from this vile trade.”

ITV News
The Home Office will launch an ad campaign aimed at deterring Channel crossings to the UK with the message that people “face being detained and removed” if they make the journey.
The department would not say how much the publicity drive is expected to cost but announced it will also “make clear the perils” migrants may encounter on small boats when it starts in Albania next week.
Critics have branded the campaign “pointless” after the number of Channel crossings remained high despite similar measures implemented by the Home Office last year.
Adverts in Albanian on Facebook and Instagram were launched last August to try and deter people from making the journey.
Record numbers of people crossed the channel last year and more than 6,000 have been detected making the journey so far in 2023.
According to the Home Office, Albania is a “safe and prosperous country” and many nationals “are travelling through multiple countries to make the journey to the UK” before making “spurious asylum claims when they arrive”.

Conservative Party

Telegraph
Conservative headquarters is attempting to “stitch up” safe seats in favour of “blue prince” candidates aligned with Rishi Sunak, senior Tories claim.
Backbenchers on the Right of the party alleged that Tory campaign headquarters has identified a string of “centrist” current and former government advisers who are being “foisted” on associations seeking a candidate for the next election.
The claims were flatly denied by sources at Conservative headquarters, which insisted that the party operated an “even and fair playing field for all applicants”.
But two former Cabinet ministers also claimed that candidates with more traditional conservative views were being denied a place on the “approved” list of individuals who can apply to represent any vacant seat. Other candidates are restricted on the seats they can apply for by being placed in the second and third of three “tiers” of would-be MPs on the list.
One of the ex-Cabinet ministers said: “Not only is the Government pursuing an agenda that is barely recognisable as Conservative, but the centre is now attempting to push a favoured few acolytes into certain seats.
“It’s bad enough that Rishi has hiked spending and taxation to unprecedented levels and failed to embrace the benefits of Brexit, without lumbering the parliamentary party with another tranche of interventionists and social democrats.

Independent
Rishi Sunak has been told by Conservative MPs that he may have to sack his home secretary Suella Braverman if the government fails to tackle the small-boats crisis and soaring migration numbers.
Ms Braverman was warned that the “knives are out”, despite surviving a difficult week in which she dodged an investigation into her handling of a speeding offence and faced a Tory backlash over record-high net migration.
Senior Tories told The Independent she was “not out of the woods” and could be vulnerable to a reshuffle, having lost support within the party in recent months.
Moderates remain angry at her “freelancing” attack on multiculturalism and “woke” politics at a right-wing conference last week, while some on the right think her fellow cabinet minister Kemi Badenoch could make an ideal replacement if Mr Sunak decides to cut ties.

Observer
Government rhetoric on migration is increasingly “feeding” the far right, according to new analysis detailing for the first time the growing symbiotic relationship between senior Tories and the extreme rightwing.
An investigation shows that government statements and policy announcements on the issue are effectively “incubating” the far right on Telegram, the social media app where many rightwing extremists have congregated.
Analysis by the anti-fascist group Hope not Hate of 660,000 Telegram messages sent between January 2021 and March 2023 reveal significant spikes in anti-migrant hostility in the aftermath of 164 government and ministerial interventions on the issue.
During this period – when the government has become markedly more hostile towards migrants, particularly those arriving on small boats – the volume of far-right Telegram messages on the issue increased from 761 a day in 2021 to an average of 1,136 during the first months of this year.

Labour Party

Spectator
Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour front bench are increasingly candid about their plans to ‘recalibrate’ Britain’s relationship with the EU within 18 months of entering Downing Street. Trade barriers with the EU would be lowered, regular EU-UK summits would be held at permanent official and ministerial level, a return to the Dublin Agreement on migration would be negotiated. They would also sign a UK-EU security pact.
The Labour leader insists he is not promising to return the UK to the single market or the customs union. But the fear is that a novice, naïve and inexperienced Labour government would be putty in the hands of Euro-maximalist leaders of the calibre of Emmanuel Macron, seconded by the dour, grinding, legalistic and battle-hardened negotiators in the Brussels bureaucracy.
A new and inexperienced Labour administration could end up frittering away the UK’s most powerful bargaining chip
Moreover, a minority Labour government propped up by the Europhile Lib-Dems would be a godsend to Brussels. One has to ask what the EU will demand in any renegotiation?

Telegraph
Labour would curb immigration by putting time limits on how long companies are able to import foreign workers in shortage occupations, the shadow home secretary has said.
Yvette Cooper told the Telegraph a beefed up Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) would set “timescales” for how long roles should be on the shortage occupation list which grants access to visas.
Setting specific time limits would provide an incentive for companies to train more British staff, the party believes.
The development comes after official figures published last week revealed that annual net migration has hit a record high of 606,000.
In what will be seen as an audacious attempt to outflank the Tories on immigration, Labour is proposing a package of reforms to wean the UK off its dependence on foreign labour.

Education

Mail
Foreign teachers are being offered an extra £10,000 to come and work in Britain in a bid to fill classroom vacancies.
The Department for Education has begun to offer ‘international relocation payments’ to overseas physics and language teachers to cover visa and moving expenses, according to The Times.
Officials expect between 300 and 400 payments to be made teachers to start in the next academic year in September.
Ministers are also planning to introduce new rules making it easier to recognise teaching qualifications from certain countries.
Ghana, India, Singapore, Jamaica, Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe are set to benefit as they are considered to have historical education links to Britain as well as teachers interested in coming here.

Mirror
Education chiefs have been slammed for blowing £39million on marketing last year – enough to pay an extra 1,500 teachers.
The cash was splurged on public information campaigns, including one aimed at recruiting school and college staff.
Teaching unions branded the spend – up 54% on the previous year – a waste of taxpayers’ cash.
It came as a report revealed the Department for Education is likely to miss its hiring target for a second year.
The National Foundation for Educational Research also found schools in England have posted 93% more vacancies so far this academic year than the year before the pandemic.
Up to February, there had been 40,000 posts advertised.

Cost of living

Express
The Prime Minister is reportedly locked in talks with supermarkets in a bid to persuade them to limit the price of essential food products.
Rishi Sunak‘s aides are hoping to hammer out a deal similar to one that exists in France  where major retailers sell certain basic food items for the “lowest possible amount”, it has been reported.
Such efforts would be the most significant attempt to regulate supermarket prices in the UK since the Price Commission was set up by Edward Heath’s Conservative government under 1973’s Counter-Inflation Act.
But Downing Street reportedly insists that any moves by retailers to set price caps on food like bread and milk would be voluntary.
The report comes amid rising concern among ministers about the impact of inflation and the increased cost of borrowing on household budgets and the cost of living.
The Telegraph reports that a proposed food price cap, similar to the French model, has been mooted within Whitehall and among industry leaders over the last two weeks.

ITV News
Downing Street is believed to be drawing up plans to encourage supermarkets to introduce voluntary price caps on food staples in a bid to help with the cost-of-living crisis.
The scheme would aim to get retailers charging the lowest possible amount for some basic products like bread and milk, the Sunday Telegraph reported.
A No 10 source said the plans are at “drawing board stage” and stressed they would not involve government-imposed price controls.
A Treasury source told the Sunday Telegraph: “Food inflation is much more resilient and difficult to get rid of than we anticipated.”

BBC News
The government is discussing plans for supermarkets to introduce a cap on the price of basic food items to help tackle the rising cost of living.
A voluntary agreement with major retailers could see price reductions on basic food items like bread and milk.
Food prices rose by 19.1% in the year to April – its second highest rate in 45 years.
Downing Street sources have stressed that there are no plans for a mandatory price cap.
The idea of a cap or freeze on basic food items, as first reported by the Daily Telegraph, is said to be at the “drawing board stage”.
Supermarkets are expected to be allowed to select which items they would cap and only take part in the initiative, modelled on a similar agreement in France, on a voluntary basis.

Sun
RISHI Sunak is drawing up plans to cap everyday supermarket basics such as bread and milk.
Downing Street has started working on the plans, modelled on a similar scheme in France.
They are considering radical price controls after worrying stats out earlier this week revealed food inflation is still alarmingly high at 19.1 percent.
A Treasury source told The Sunday Telegraph: “Food inflation is much more resilient and difficult to get rid of than we anticipated.”
The price caps would be voluntarily imposed by supermarkets.
Retailers are expected to be allowed to select what items they would cap and only take part in it voluntarily.

Covid

Observer
Ministers have just days to decide whether to take the extraordinary step of launching legal action against the Covid inquiry, as part of their battle to keep secret a slew of sensitive messages from senior figures including Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.
With just 48 hours remaining before the deadline to hand over unredacted messages and notes between Johnson and his ministers, the Observer understands the government is this weekend standing firm in its refusal to divulge the material.
Legal sources said it has only a matter of days to launch legal action to quash the demands from Heather Hallett, the former court of appeal judge and chair of the inquiry. She has warned that a failure to comply with her order would amount to a criminal offence punishable with a fine or imprisonment.
The battle is regarded as hugely important in shaping the inquiry, with the first public hearings just over two weeks away. It is set to see prominent Tories from across the last 13 years of government – including David Cameron and George Osborne – interrogated about the steps they took to prepare for a pandemic and the impact of austerity on the NHS’s resilience.

ITV News
Boris Johnson has described suggestions he may have taken part in further rule-breaking during the Covid pandemic as “a load of absolute nonsense”.
The former prime minister would not say who he believes is trying to “stitch him up”, having previously claimed he appears to be the victim of a politically motivated plot.
However, he insisted that the Cabinet Office decision to hand over entries from his official diary during the pandemic to police without first querying them with him was “ridiculous”.
No 10 and the Cabinet Office are adamant that ministers were not involved when Whitehall officials passed concerns to the Metropolitan Police and Thames Valley Police.

NHS

Telegraph
More than half a million hospital appointments a year are being axed in an effort to clear the NHS backlog.
Health chiefs have drawn up a list of 58 procedures and treatments that should no longer be routinely provided, under plans to save at least £250 million a year and get priority patients to the front of waiting lists.
Officials say too many patients are undergoing procedures and consultations that could be avoided, including tests with high rates of “false positives” resulting in needless hospital consultations.
However, GPs have raised concerns that efforts to ease pressure on hospitals could end up heaping extra work on family doctors, which they are too overloaded to take on.
A record 7.3 million people are now on waiting lists in England, with around one in 10 waiting for checks for common eye conditions.
Prof Stephen Powis, the NHS medical director, said the latest changes, being introduced this week, would “maximise efficiencies for the taxpayer” while ensuring patients got “the most effective and efficient” treatment, preventing thousands of needless referrals.

Observer
NHS trusts are sharing intimate details about patients’ medical conditions, appointments and treatments with Facebook without consent and despite promising never to do so.
An Observer investigation has uncovered a covert tracking tool in the websites of 20 NHS trusts which has for years collected browsing information and shared it with the tech giant in a major breach of privacy.
The data includes granular details of pages viewed, buttons clicked and keywords searched. It is matched to the user’s IP address – an identifier linked to an individual or household – and in many cases details of their Facebook account.
Information extracted by Meta Pixel can be used by Facebook’s parent company, Meta, for its own business purposes – including improving its targeted advertising services.

Social care

Observer
Disabled people are paying “a tax on disability” by being forced to fund soaring care charges out of their benefits as the cost of living pushes care users into financial crisis.
Charities and disabled people’s organisations (DPOs), including Mencap, Scope, the MS Society, Inclusion London, Dimensions, and WinVisible, told the Observer that disabled care users are being pushed into severe financial hardship with some forced to go without essential home care because they can’t afford the fees. Others face up to £20,000 of arrears to their local authority, with some seeing bailiffs called in over care fee debts. One DPO said some disabled women are being coerced into sex by acquaintances after turning to them for care because they couldn’t pay care charges.
“Disabled people who are entitled to statutory social care are now confronted with an increasingly impossible choice between essential care or covering basic living costs, including energy to heat their homes or to power their essential equipment, such as wheelchairs and ventilators,” said Svetlana Kotova, director of campaigns at Inclusion London.

Russia

Express
Russia’s ambassador to the UK has issued a stark warning to Britain in the wake of the support shown to Ukraine. Andrei Kelin suggested the military aid provided by Britain could escalate the ongoing war to levels not yet seen.
The Russian envoy said his country doesn’t want an escalation of the conflict and can “make peace tomorrow”.
However, how long the fighting in Ukraine will last “depends on the efforts in escalation of war that is being undertaken by Nato countries, especially by the UK”.
Speaking with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, Mr Kelin added: “Sooner or later, of course, this escalation may get a new dimension which we do not need and we do not want. We can make peace tomorrow.”
Mr Kelin also warned against underestimating Russia‘s power, claiming – despite the destruction and loss of lives caused by the invasion of Ukraine – his country “hasn’t just started yet to act very seriously”.
As Ukraine is expected to launch its counter-offensive in a bid to regain the territories invaded by the Kremlin last year, the ambassador denied reports Moscow’s troops are struggling on the ground and said Russia is “16 times bigger than Ukraine” and has “enormous” resources.

Aliens

Mail
A professor at Stanford University claims that aliens have been on planet Earth and are ‘still here,’ as he says experts are working on reverse engineering UFOs that have crash landed.
Dr. Garry Nolan spoke at a conference in Manhattan last week titled ‘The Pentagon, Extraterrestrial Intelligence and Crashed UFOs.’
Nolan, an immunologist and Nobel Prize nominee was previously commissioned by the CIA to investigate cases of the mysterious Havana Syndrome inflicting embassy officials worldwide, and has conducted experiments analyzing material allegedly jettisoned in UFO flyovers.
He was asked by host Alex Klokus to assign a level of probability to the idea the aliens have been to our planet.
Nolan told Klokus that possibility was ‘100 percent’ and claims that we have probably seen them before, but similar to South American tribes spotting Spanish ships for the first time, we didn’t notice anything different about them.

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