Brexit
Express
PLANS FOR a bonfire of EU laws have been torn apart with claims that it could make British goods “unsellable in Europe”.
The Government has been developing plans to set an expiry date for remaining EU laws as Brexit opportunities Minister Jacob Rees Mogg is said to have told cabinet that he plans to introduce a five-year expiry date for about 1,500 pieces of EU regulatory legislation. However, lawyers and business groups have warned that any “blanket” changes risk creating more complexity and uncertainty for businesses.
Lawyer Eleonor Duhs, who worked on the 2018 EU withdrawal act, told the Independent that a “self-imposed cliff-edge for retained EU law is a recipe for potential chaos.”
She said: “This proposal has the potential to drive investment away from the UK at a time when we really need it.”
The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) warned about “deregulation for its own sake”.
Telegraph
Boris Johnson is preparing to unveil a new law overriding the Northern Ireland Protocol this week as he seeks to overcome a Tory mutiny over his leadership.
The Prime Minister is planning to publish legislation that the European Union has warned would risk a trade war.
The plan is one of a series of moves Mr Johnson’s allies hope could help fend off a vote of no confidence in his leadership this week as they attempt to assure MPs he is delivering on major policy areas.
One minister admitted: “There is a lot of discontent in the parliamentary party, and there is a strong feeling that there will be a vote.”
The minister predicted that members of the Government would be among those voting to oust the Prime Minister if a poll takes place, adding that those who “slag him off privately” are “realistically … not going to vote for him”.
MPs would all vote anonymously, and the 1922 committee has previously banned members from photographing their ballot papers to avoid whips demanding evidence of loyalty.
Boris
Mail
As the battleground is revealed for what could be the fight of Boris Johnson‘s leadership, his allies have gone on the offensive against traitorous rebels trying to depose him.
Last night a Cabinet Minister accused Aaron Bell, an outspoken critic of the Prime Minister, of being a ‘turncoat’, insisting that it was only Mr Johnson’s campaigning that had got the little-known MP into the Commons in the first place.
In a sign of how febrile the atmosphere is as MPs return to the Commons this week after recess, No 10 accused Mr Bell of being a ‘rebel rouser’ who is pushing fellow MPs to submit letters of no-confidence while having ‘no alternative plan nor vision nor leader’.
They also accused him of breaking the ‘Jubilee truce’ announced by rebels by continuing to make calls to MPs during the bank holiday weekend.
A source said: ‘It’s unseemly – it is meant to be a national celebration where we focus on the Queen.’
Another pro-Boris MP attacked Elliot Colburn, who won his Carshalton and Wallington seat from the Liberal Democrats in 2019 and has submitted a letter of no-confidence, saying Mr Colburn ‘wouldn’t be an MP if it wasn’t for Boris’. Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith described the vote-strike tactics as ‘pathetic, childish’ behaviour.
Independent
Labour is making a bid to snatch leadership on “levelling up” from Boris Johnson, accusing the beleaguered prime minister of ditching flagship promises to revive disadvantaged “Red Wall” communities which he made in the 2019 election campaign.
Shadow levelling up secretary Lisa Nandy told The Independent that a weak and “easily distracted” prime minister had used the slogan to win Tories a foothold in former Labour areas in the Midlands and north, only to backslide on his pledges in power in the face of opposition from his own side.
She revealed that Labour will table amendments to the government’s Levelling Up Bill to restore the PM’s abandoned commitments, challenging Tory MPs to vote down their own manifesto pledges when the legislation comes to the Commons on Wednesday.
And she said that, rather than denouncing the failure of levelling up at the next election, Labour will tell voters that a change of government is needed to deliver on the ambitions it represented.
“We will be a levelling up government,” she said. “The country just can’t go on like this.”
She revealed that Labour has been talking to the teams around US president Joe Biden and newly elected Australian PM Anthony Albanese about how to respond to the wave of discontent with political and economic models across the democratic world.
BBC News
Boris Johnson’s bank holiday weekend hasn’t involved much downtime. The prime minister attended a number of events to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee – including the service at St Paul’s, where he was booed by part of the crowd.
He’s also been putting the finishing touches to a major housing policy speech, pencilled in for Thursday, which will see his own answer to help-to-buy as its centrepiece.
Mr Johnson wants us all to know he wants to get on with the job. But in between attending jubilee parties, many Tory MPs have been plotting.
And within days, some believe the PM will be engaged in a fight to stay in office.
All eyes will be on Sir Graham Brady when Parliament returns on Monday. He is the chairman of the 1922 committee – the shop steward for Conservative MPs.
If 15% of the party’s MPs – 54 of them – write letters or emails to him calling for a confidence vote in the prime minister, it happens.
Only Sir Graham knows how many have been sent in so far. That caveat cannot be overstated; nobody knows for sure what will happen over the next few days.
But, speaking to Conservative MPs this weekend, many rebels think the threshold will be reached within days.
ITV News
The Conservatives are heading for a potentially catastrophic defeat in an upcoming key electoral contest, a new poll indicates, as reports suggest Boris Johnson could face a crunch vote on his premiership as soon as next week.
A survey of voters in Wakefield, who will go to the polls on June 23 to elect a new MP, has suggested the Tories could lose the by-election in West Yorkshire by as much as 20 points.
As reported in The Sunday Times, polling by JL Partners puts Labour on 48 points compared with 28 points for the Conservatives, down 19 points from the winning Tory performance in the 2019 general election.
Before the 2019 result, Wakefield, like other so-called Red Wall areas, had consistently voted for a Labour candidate for decades.
So, the new polling is an indication the revelations about lockdown-breaking gatherings in Downing Street – heavily condemned in the Sue Gray report released last month – have hit the party’s popularity in a battleground seat.
Guardian
Labour has staked a bold claim to be the true party of patriotism and the best of British values, as four days of nationwide celebrations to mark the Queen’s platinum jubilee draw to a close on Sunday.
Senior Labour party figures said Boris Johnson – who was booed outside St Paul’s Cathedral on Friday – was no longer seen by the public as a leader who upholds the British standards of integrity, decency and honesty that the country has long been admired for across the world.
Writing in today’s Observer, Lucy Powell, the shadow secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, says Labour is the party which now stands up for much-loved British institutions – including the BBC and Channel 4 – which the Tories want to undermine in pursuit of a series of ideological “culture wars”.
“Being patriotic isn’t something that Labour has always looked comfortable with,” Powell admits. “But progressive politics has been at its most successful and transformational when it captures the best of British values, nurtures our world-famous institutions and instils a belief that our best days lie ahead of us, not just in the past.
Evening Standard
Tory MPs have been warned they may lose crucial seats in the Red Wall if they ditch Boris Johnson, by a senior Government source.
Amid surging pressure on the Prime Minister, the senior source claimed Mr Johnson is the only leader that can hold the party together heading into the next general election.
“If you chuck Boris, you blow the Red Wall apart,” the source told The i. “He is the only leader that holds it together.
“The mandate that Boris was given in 2019 was vast and he reaches parts of the country that no Conservative leader has in a generation.
“It’s a huge, huge call, two years from an election, to tell an election-winning machine that time is up.”
In a sign of wavering popularity, Mr johnson was welcomed with a mixture of boos and jeers as he and his wife, Carrie, walked the steps to St Paul’s Cathedral on Friday – although there were some cheers in supprot of the prime minister.
His mixed welcome comes as approximately 40 Tory MP have called for his resignation – although it is unclear how many have submitted no confience letter to Sir Graham Brady.
Sir Graham must receive 54 letters or 15 per cent in order for a vote to be triggered.
NHS
Telegraph
NHS trusts are using taxpayers’ money to fund private medical tests and treatment for staff while patients languish on record waiting lists, The Telegraph can disclose.
Hospitals and ambulance trusts are paying for employees to undergo private care ranging from MRI scans to physiotherapy and psychiatric care in London’s Harley Street.
In one case, a firm providing private physiotherapy to hospital staff in Hertfordshire said it had won the business because the trust wanted employees to get treatment “much more quickly” than the 14-week wait facing NHS patients.
Employees referred to the private company for treatment “receive an appointment within an average of 2.6 days”, the firm said. In another case, a hospital spent thousands of pounds on private health insurance for staff.
The funding means NHS staff will be seen more quickly than many members of the public waiting for equivalent tests or treatment from the health service. It was revealed in data obtained by Baker Kell Cumming, a political intelligence firm, from some 50 trusts.t : 4 sec
The data also showed overall spending of more than £37 million on private occupational health services tasked with looking after employees’ physical and mental health.
Tube strike
Express
LONDONERS are expected to face commuter chaos as the Underground strike is set to take place on Monday after the Jubilee weekend.
Commuters are requested to avoid the tube as several stations are likely to remain closed. Thousands of members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) are staging a 24-hour walkout due to a dispute over jobs and pensions.
Tube lines across the capital will be affected from the start of service on Monday until 8am on Tuesday, with only some services running, Transport for London (TfL) said.
Many stations will be closed, especially those in central and south London, and those that do open may only be in operation for limited periods.
While the DLR, London Overground and TfL’s trams are not impacted, they are expected to be much busier.
Post strike
Express
POST OFFICE workers plan to strike over the jubilee weekend in a dispute over pay, arguing they have been “degraded” by a “humiliating” offer.
Around 3,500 members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) intend to walk out on Saturday. The walk out will be held at Crown Post Offices – the larger branches, often seen on high streets. Those in administration and supply chain networks plan to do the same on Monday.
These follow industrial action earlier this month.
The union said Post Office management is insisting on going ahead with a pay freeze for 2021-22.
They add this will be followed only with a “marginally improved” pay offer for 2022.
CWU assistant secretary Andy Furey said: “Our members do not want to be in this situation, but they won’t accept humiliation either.
“Our members worked hard to deliver an excellent annual profit for the company – affordability isn’t management’s problem here.
“Frankly, their degrading excuse for an offer has only hardened members, who won’t tolerate a collapse in their living standards.
“We thank the public for their understanding and support, and we urge Post Office to get round the table and thrash out a real settlement that treats key worker heroes with the respect they deserve.”
Breast cancer
Mail
Advanced breast cancer patients could be given a year or more of extra healthy life by a ‘Trojan horse’ treatment that destroys tumour cells from the inside out.
The medicine – Trodelvy – has already been hailed a game-changer by doubling survival rates in women with rare and hard-to-treat triple-negative breast cancer.
Now a major new trial has shown it could work just as well in patients with a more common type of breast cancer – HR-positive HER2-negative – which accounts for 70 per cent of cases, meaning thousands more women could benefit.
The women in the study all had advanced disease that had failed to respond to other treatments and had spread to other parts of the body.
In many cases, Trodelvy held the cancer at bay for a year.
‘There is a serious unmet need for these patients, who have been through chemotherapy already and have no options left,’ said American cancer specialist Dr Jane Lowe Meisel yesterday.
Discussing the study’s findings at the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago, she added: ‘If one of these patients walks into a clinic, with this drug you’ll essentially be able to offer them a one-in-five chance of their cancer not progressing in a year. That is huge.’
Right to buy
Mail
Boris Johnson is set to draw on the legacy of Margaret Thatcher and extend the right-to-buy scheme to millions more people.
The Prime Minister wants those who rent properties from housing association to have the chance to buy them at a discount.
Under the current policy, council tenants can get up to 70 per cent off the market price, depending on how long they have lived there. However, the scheme is much more restrictive for those who want to buy from a housing association.
The original right-to-buy policy, introduced in 1980, was one of the flagship policies of the Thatcher government. Previously, both David Cameron and Theresa May pledged to extend the scheme but failed to follow through.
The Times reported yesterday that Mr Johnson also wants to encourage more quick-build ‘flat-pack’ modular homes to ease the housing crisis.
Russia
Sun
VLADIMIR Putin faces being killed in a coup as Russian generals are furious over his disastrous handling of the war in Ukraine.
The ailing autocrat could be taken out by his own security services in a death that could be quietly covered up as simply a result of his reportedly failing health – such as a heart attack.
And then Vlad could be replaced by an even more hardline leader who could send troops back to Kyiv, according to leading security expert Dr Robert Thornton.
Dr Thornton, a professor in conflict and security studies at King’s College London, told The Sun Online that Russian military generals are losing patience with their leader and want him gone.
“The FSB [Russia’s security service] think that Putin needs to be removed because he’s gone soft on Ukraine,” he said.
“He’s pulled back from Kyiv. He’s only now concentrating on the Donbass.”
Dr Thornton said Russia’s military intelligence unit, the GRU, could be best placed to remove Putin and could move soon if they see troops lose ground in eastern Ukraine.
“They have the intelligence to do it,” he told The Sun Online.
“If you want to conduct a palace coup, you want to keep it very secret and very quiet.
Mirror
Plotting Kremlin insiders could assassinate Vladimir Putin and claim he died from a heart attack, a security expert has claimed.
In recent weeks speculation about the Russian President’s health has been rife – meaning many Russians may well believe it if they were told he had suddenly died from an illness.
Dr Robert Thornton, a professor in conflict and security studies at King’s College London, said that many within Russia’s FSB security service believe Putin should be removed.
Generals are “losing patience” and “want him gone”, he said, after Russian forces halted efforts to take Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
Dr Thornton told The Sun that a select band of senior figures would likely tell Putin he must either leave office or be killed.
If the latter occurred, Dr Thornton said, many would find it believable.
Mr Spokes is depressed. So am I.
This gem from Breitbart did it for me. https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/06/05/a-great-mystery-civil-servants-told-woman-female-cannot-be-defined/
“…UK civil servants have been told that the terms “female” and “woman” simply cannot be defined, and that definitions given of “adult human female” for the latter can be “transphobic”.
Ask Boris. That’s one thing I’m pretty sure he does know.
Age 19,University common room , waiting results of finals, watching coronation on telly with tennis partner Silas from Nigeria, 6 ft 4 inches tall, wandering around the room, weeping a about a beautiful girl in a beautiful golden coach.
Now 2022, looking over our communal estate, and the stink from Newcastle under Lyme pervading the atmosphere of this once beautiful adjunct to the potteries.
I got to thinking about the changes, and ignoring those that never changed. And like an organisation, followed the more significant branches that affected me and mine. And hence noticed .
Things that have improved. :– Housing and ownership, cars owned, Housing owned and available, numbers educated, numbers actually in poverty ( excluding changes in meanings definitions and standards — a speciality of Labour, ), Transport, Rest and relaxation and recovery, clothing quality available, Food and drink, water, power , heating, health, etc.
You may well ask :-” So whats the problem. ?” Well.
a) 70 years ?
b) Nothing or almost nothing has been done properly. Examples.
b.1 ) Workers representation and opportunity. Still the same as when Ted Heath ran cowardly to Europe, to avoid the problem,. Just about to flower again.!
b.2 ) Education. Well . dear God.!
b 3 ) Housing. Problems avoided to save big building and developements. ( A core supporter of government support and featherbedding. )
b 4 ) Heating. Do I have to.?
b 5 ) Communications. A shambles with no laws or guidance.
b 6 ) anything else. A chapter of uselessness, avoidance, delay, obstruction, incompetence.
And I do not excuse the civil service from any of this dogs breakfast.
Which is our country.
And what help has UKIP been ?
TG Spokes………’And what help has UKIP been’ oh no, not that old chestnut again…Unless you have joined your old mate Rip Van Winkle in his long slumbers, since when did the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) become the largest party in the House of Commons and formed a government. And since when was that party able to exert its influence on any government policy except perhaps determining whether an EU referendum should be held and then go on to winning that vote in 2016. Neither UKIP or any of its leaders, members, election candidates, and activists can be held to blame for anything, that has taken place since then Instead look no further than the present incumbent of 10, Downing Street. It is he and he alone who can be blamed for not delivering 100% independence from the European Union. It is he who allowed Northern Ireland to be treated with different customs rules to the rest of the country, it is he who has allowed thousands of illegal migrants to enter this country and not had the backbone and courage to stand up to France and the rest of the European Union over this, and it is is he who has allowed French fishermen to continue to fish up to 6 miles of our coastline and issued more fishing licences because he didn’t want to upset our supposed ‘friends and partners. Boris Johnson only seems to act when his political future is put on the line, but he is now yesterday’s man and needs to be permanently cast aside this week, to enable his party to re-group, return to more traditional conservative policies and start telling the European Union who is boss now that we have left that bloc.
Most of what you say is true and obvious, Colin. But that’s not good enough. If you’ve been knocked down, we get up and fight again, and we LEARN each time. Ask yourself, If the Queen herself made a speech supporting Ukip ? No. ! ? Ukip has throttled itself. As it stands, it’s just silly.
I believe that the vast majority are actually slightly right wing. They want to be told what is correct. etc.. In the army, you know your sarge is a bit of a twerp, but you sometimes do what he says because, in certain situations only. he is responsible for all the troop not just you. He knows that, so do we all, and he’s in charge.
For good or evil. That’s what I call Centre Right..
Having got that out of the way.
Centre Right has effectively been shut down as well as the pure right. So.
Is there any sign that ukip has collectively learned a single thing.Or are they all trying to re create as a new Nigel, or as a Churchill in a Nigel skin, or what ? Them, they’re dull.
No. essentially, ukip is a committee with a boringly hackneyed message. ( That they’ve dug out of a computer ),
And my message is equally hackneyed, get rid of deadwood that cannot change.
Good morning Colin.
It all comes down to a matter of trust. Can we even trust our own government, let alone Joe Biden, the EU, the UN and those shaddowy creatures from the WEF? If we cannot, why should the Rusians?
Do we trust the SUN and the MIRROR?
Here is the latest summary from Gonzalo Lira:- https://thesaker.is/gonzalo-lira-there-will-be-no-peace-agreement/
Listen to him. Think about what he is saying before you criticise him. My neighbour (next door but one) Sergei was telling me much the same thing a week ago
I am depressed.
The BBC is full on with remain agitation. The media are obsessed with some war somewhere. Pundits ( old experts ) drivel on about a simple matter of numbersof letters. Meanwhile, important matters, of which there are several hundred, are NOT ADDRESSED, ignored. Many many of these are the responsibllity of the Civil Service, which is not short of people or brains, but they are deliberately ignored. Almost as if to make their point.
Politics know they can get away with it. But the public recognises this virtually criminal inactivity in the face of danger. Cowardice.
This accusation sits even more on the behaviour of UKIP as a branch of theTory party. UKIP was available as an Engine of Change or if you prefer , as a pump , of change in . politics.
But nothing. Nothing suits the establishment more than doing nothing. But keep the corruption going at all costs ( to you ).
TG- Good to hear your voice of reason again – you have been quiet for a while.
You talk about many things, but pride in being British is lacking (not by you).
I, along with millions of others voted to get the h*ll out of the common market.
i’m still waiting.
Our oven ready PM bangs on about having done it. In your dreams Mr Johnson. Do you want to take that to the youpeeing court of justice for adjudication? Their voice might just wake people up to who is in charge here in GB.
If he wants the Red Wall Seats, all he has to do is to get out of the unelected clutches of brussels.
As to ukip – who he??
UKIP may have been a branch of the Tory party under Farage but all the closet Tories buggered off when Farage did. Jake
Jake……I do not agree with your analysis that UKIP was ‘a branch’ of the Tory Party. In fact it was a party in its own right and politically to the right of the Conservative Party. I think these days even the Liberal Democrat Party are to the right of what passes for the Conservative Party under clueless Johnson. A better description of that party would be the New Green Party, as it is now so far removed from traditional conservatism that it could be done under the Trade Description Acts. I was one of those who ‘buggered off’ with Farage as you rudely put it and joined The Brexit Party, but have never really been ‘conservative’ at all. And you know the reason why Farage and the other MEP’s left UKIP. Do we have to spell it out to you, yet again, but in short it became unelectable with its association to certain people. Its time to change the record…….
“Hertfordshire said it had won the business because the trust wanted employees to get treatment “much more quickly” than the 14-week wait facing NHS patients.” I would kill for any treatment that I am on a waiting list for (physio and a new knee) amongst others to be done at 14 weeks. I waited 4 years for a procedure that didn’t work because it was too late, and have been waiting nearly a year for the fallout from that, but plenty of letters telling me I am on a list.our Trust has a lovely new IT department so they can help me to prepare for surgery online. I despair. We paid for private treatment before retiring but can’t now.
I’d just like to see a gp.
Not an email chat.