Brexit
Mail
Britain and the EU remain some distance apart over a post-Brexit trade deal with time running out to agree one before the end of the year, Brussels’ chief negotiator warned tonight. Michel Barnier said there were ‘very serious divergences’ between the two sides after briefing EU27 ambassadors on the progress of talks with Lord Frost and the British team. The sticking points remain the same – fishing rights and state aid – and Mr Barnier tweeted that ‘These are essential conditions for any economic partnership’. Senior EU diplomats said Intensified Brexit negotiations with Britain in recent days have yielded only moderate progress. One told Reuters Mr Barnier gave no timeline for an agreement or even any certainty that a trade deal between the 27-nation EU and Britain would be clinched by a mid-November deadline.
Telegraph
There are still “wide divergences” on “core issues” of the Brexit trade negotiations, David Frost said on Wednesday night after two weeks of intensive talks with the EU. “We continue to work to find solutions that fully respect UK sovereignty,” the UK’s chief negotiator said. A no trade deal Brexit was still a serious risk, EU diplomats warned, before accusing British negotiators of failing to “engage sufficiently” on the three most divisive issues. Running down the clock would not force concessions from Brussels, they said, after it became clear there was no breakthrough on fishing, the level playing field guarantees and the deal’s enforcement. Michel Barnier told EU ambassadors in Brussels that some progress had been made, but the two sides were still divided over the long-standing sticking points.
City AM
Square Mile banks and asset managers can use exchanges from the European Union to trade shares from January, creating a cross-border clash in securities rules for investors. Access to the bloc ends on 31 December following the UK’s departure from the EU in January, leaving both sides to decide where investors in their jurisdictions are obliged to trade shares. Today the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has said it would allow firms to continue from January trading all shares on trading venues from the EU where they choose to do so, rather than limiting themselves to platforms headquartered in the UK.
EU
Express
MICHEL BARNIER is preparing to pave the way for a last-minute Brexit compromise by offering to further intensify trade talks with Britain. The Brussels diplomat told European capitals that “considerable progress” had been made putting pen to paper on the legal text. But he conceded they had failed to make a breakthrough on the key sticking points of access to British fishing waters, future common standards and policing the final agreement. In a private meeting with EU27 ambassadors tonight, Mr Barnier hinted agreements won’t be found until closer to the mid-November deadline. The Frenchman announced he would travel to London for further trade talks with Britain on Sunday. Brussels sources said Mr Barnier claimed Lord Frost, the Prime Minister’s Brexit envoy, was deliberately running down the clock in order to secure a number of concessions from the bloc.
City AM
Finance ministers from European Union member states have agreed to establish an EU body to fight money laundering across the bloc. At a meeting held today, the council of finance ministers expressed their support for the creation of the new supervisory body, first proposed by the EU Commission in May. The ministers also gave their backing to a proposal from the bloc’s executive to harmonize anti-money laundering rules across the EU and provide coordination and support for national financial intelligence units of member states. The EU Commission is set to present legal plans to enact the proposals in the first quarter of next year
Times
Britain is playing a dangerous game of brinkmanship with the European Union during tense trade, fisheries and security negotiations, Michel Barnier told Brussels ambassadors yesterday. The EU’s lead negotiator warned that “very serious divergences” remained on Europe’s “essential conditions for any economic partnership”. He added: “The EU is prepared for all scenarios.” Lord Frost, Britain’s chief negotiator, said that after “two weeks of intensive talks . . . wide divergences remain on some core issues”. He added: “We continue to work to find solutions that fully respect UK sovereignty.” Mr Barnier said during confidential talks with diplomats that Lord Frost’s tactics of delay were an attempt to put “time pressure” on the EU.
Breitbart
The North Africa-based Al-Qaeda group has called on its supporters to murder anyone who “insults” the Islamic prophet Mohammed and vowed to take revenge on French President Emmanuel Macron. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which primarily operates in Algeria, released a statement this week, saying: “Killing the one who insults the prophet is the right of every Muslim capable of enforcing it.” The terrorist group went on to state that demands for a boycott of French products by Muslim countries were not enough and called for revenge against France and President Macron, while labelling the killer of teacher Samuel Paty a “martyr”, Le Figaro reports.
Express
AN EU chief has admitted there is a “big problem” with Brussels and warned about the “danger” of other member states leaving the bloc and following in the footsteps of Brexit Britain. As the end of the transition period looms closer, a no deal Brexit is seeming more and more likely as neither side has been able to come to an agreement. Fishing and state aid continue to stall negotiations. Now, the new Vice-President of the European Economic and Social Committee (ESSC), Cillian Lohan, has warned a no deal outcome would create “enormous difficulties”. He said: “The no deal would create enormous difficulties for each member state to overcome, some more than others.
Scotland
Express
THE SNP is set to discuss a new motion which could see the party defy Boris Johnson and “not accept a Westminster veto” on holding a second independence referendum vote. A motion seen by Express.co.uk ahead of the SNP conference describes the party’s commitment to creating an independent Scotland via IndyRef2 if it achieves a majority in Holyrood in the 2021 election. It states, if a majority was obtained, there would be “no justification whatsoever for the Westminster government to seek to veto that democratic choice nor should we accept such a veto”. The motion has been cleared for debate at the conference in three weeks to try to clarify the position in the event the SNP secure a majority but Boris Johnson refuses a new Section 30 order request, the powers required to hold a referendum.
Lockdown
Mail
Pubs ran dry across England on Wednesday evening after revellers gathered for one last drink before a second national lockdown came into force at midnight. Large groups of drinkers packed into bars and pubs across the country before 10pm to enjoy a drink ahead of the new restrictions being introduced. They took advantage of cheap drinks, with pints costing just 99p at Wetherspoons after the pub chain decided to sell real ale at cut prices to avoid pouring them away. In the capital, Soho was packed out with groups of friends, with long queues outside pubs also seen in Camden Town. Even before Wednesday, data from restaurant bookings service OpenTable showed a surge in demand for London eateries during the run-up to the new lockdown.
Telegraph
A retired nurse was arrested by police after attempting to ‘rescue’ her 97-year-old mother from a care home so she could be looked after by her family. Ylenia Angeli, 73, wheeled her elderly mother out of her care home on an impulse after hugging her for the first time in nine months. However, police pursued Ms Angeli to a local garden centre where officers arrested her on suspicion of assault, before driving her mother back to the facility. Distressing footage posted on social media showed Ms Angeli’s mother, Tina Thornborough, a retired seamstress suffering from advanced dementia, looking confused as her daughter was placed in the back of a squad car on Tuesday afternoon.
Sun
AN EX-Coronation Street actress filmed the moment her mum was ARRESTED after wheeling her 97-year-old gran from a care home before lockdown. Ylenia Angeli, 73, had not been able to see mum Tina Thornborough for nine months before she “sprung” her from the home in Market Weighton, Yorkshire. But when she told staff she planned to care for her at home during lockdown, they called cops – who then HANDCUFFED Ylenia and put her in a patrol car on Tuesday. Her daughter Leandra Ashton, 41, a former Coronation Street actress, filmed the harrowing ordeal as her gran sat helplessly in the family car. She can be heard telling the her: “Nan, I love you and we are going to fight for you.”
Mail
Police were caught on camera arresting a qualified nurse as she tried to take her 97-year-old mother from a care home after nine months of isolation to be looked after by family. Former Coronation Street actress Leandra Ashton wept as officers arrested her 73-year-old mother, Ylenia Angeli, before putting her dementia-sufferer grandmother into a patrol car to be sent back to the facility in Market Weighton, East Yorkshire. Ylenia, who is an occupational health nurse, was handcuffed before eventually being de-arrested and released close to her mother’s care home, Northgate House. The family were acting ahead of the second nationwide coronavirus lockdown that comes into force from midnight. In the initial clip, Leandra records the police officers who have pulled up in front of the family in a car park on their way back from the home where grandmother, Tina Thornborough, had been a resident for nearly a year.
NHS
Guardian
The NHS in England is returning to its highest state of alert amid warnings that hospitals will continue filling up with Covid-19 patients for at least another two weeks. The service will go back to level 4 alert status at midnight on Wednesday to coincide with the start of the second lockdown. The switch to level 4 means the NHS’s response to the resurgence of the pandemic is being handled nationally rather than regionally and that NHS England’s national incident coordination centre – comprising the organisation’s senior team – has become operational again, having been stood down in July. It will monitor which hospitals are coming under the most pressure and decide what steps need to be taken to respond, for example by diverting patients with spare capacity and managing non-Covid care.
Furlough
Mail
Rishi Sunak will today set out the Government’s business support package for the second national coronavirus lockdown as he warned the new restrictions will have ‘significant additional impacts’ on the economy. Boris Johnson confirmed at PMQs that the Chancellor will deliver a statement in the House of Commons later this afternoon. The Prime Minister said Mr Sunak will outline ‘all the support and provisions that we are making for this latest phase to tackle the autumn surge of coronavirus’. It is thought that Bank of England bosses will pump more than £150billion of extra money into the economy as the country enters its second nationwide lockdown.
Sun
BANK of England chiefs have agreed to pump £150 billion of extra money into the economy as England’s second lockdown starts today.And Rishi Sunak will make it a double bazooka by promising to keep the Government’s latest Covid bailout schemes in place even after the lockdown ends on December 2. The Chancellor is expected to announce the 80% furlough scheme will continue to be on offer in any area of the UK that faces the highest level of Covid restrictions – including Tier 3 areas of England. The £150billion boost to the Bank of England’s programme of quantitative easing is on top of the £100billion cash injection it agreed on in June.
Times
Rishi Sunak is expected to announce today that businesses forced to close because of coronavirus restrictions will be able to claim 80 per cent of staff wages if they have to remain shut after the national lockdown comes to an end. The chancellor is expected to guarantee furlough cash for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland if the devolved administrations choose to implement their own lockdowns. Part of the package will comprise a significant expansion of the furlough scheme in England after the nationwide lockdown comes to an end on December 2.
Express
THE economy and businesses are better prepared to deal with the impact of the new coronavirus lockdown, Rishi Sunak will say today. In a Commons statement he will reassure MPs that firms and their workers are ready to cope with the month-long shut down. Mr Sunak is tipped to extend the furlough scheme beyond the end of lockdown on December 2. The job retention plan is expected to continue in any area of the UK hit by the highest level of coronavirus restrictions. It will mean workers continue to receive 80 per cent of their pay under the strictest local lockdowns. Ahead of the Chancellor’s statement, Bank of England chiefs will reportedly announce plans to pump at least £150 billion of extra money into the economy as the markets open today.
Aspirin
Yahoo News
Coronavirus patients in British hospitals will be given aspirin in a new trial to find out whether the cheap drug could prevent deadly blood clotting in the lungs. Some studies have shown that nearly 80 per cent of people who die of Covid-19 have thrombosis – or blood clotting – in the lungs, which prevents oxygen from moving through the body and can be fatal. It is thought the virus triggers a massive boost of cytokines, a type of protein which signals to the liver that more clotting is needed, causing the ‘sticky blood’. Scientists are hopeful that blood thinners, like aspirin, may help avoid the devastating clotting that can lead to death. If proven effective, it would be the first over-the-counter drug shown to have an impact on coronavirus.
Vaccine
Telegraph
Britain will not have the capacity to roll out a vaccine widely before Christmas after missing targets to produce 30 million doses by September, it has emerged. Kate Bingham, the chair of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, told MPs that supplies of the AstraZeneca Oxford vaccine were currently in their “low millions” and that she was expecting only four million to be available by the end of the year. In May, the Government promised that 30 million vaccines would be ready by September to allow for immediate mass deployment if trials were successful. Oxford University says it is still possible that they could see successful results by the end of the year, but the latest hurdle means huge numbers of people would still be unable to get the jab, even after a positive outcome.
Mail
Oxford’s coronavirus jab could still be available by Christmas – but taskforce chief says only four million doses will be available for key workers at first. Both Pfizer and Oxford University have entered into their final stages of testing with data suggesting the jab could be deployed ‘within weeks’. Kate Bingham, chairwoman of the government’s vaccine task force, said the inoculations had the ‘possibility of being ready before the end of the year’. But she warned that only four million doses of the Oxford vaccine would be manufactured by Christmas – with ten million doses of the Pfizer vaccine potentially being available by January.
‘False imprisonment’
Mail
Britons could potentially sue the Government for billions of pounds in compensation for ‘falsely imprisoning’ the nation with its Stay At Home order at the outbreak of coronavirus in March, a law lecturer has predicted. Dr Jonathan Morgan, director of law at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge, said a class action against the Government was ‘unprecedented’ – but added that so was the lockdown itself. In a blog post published yesterday he wrote: ‘Could the regulations’ invalidity expose the Government to mass liability—to the entire UK population—for the tort of false imprisonment? ‘Thus stated, the proposition seems highly unlikely. It would certainly be unprecedented. ‘But perhaps that is because a pre-emptive quarantine of the entire population is also unprecedented. It is worth thinking about a hypothetical claim.’
Social care
Telegraph
Care home visits will be allowed during lockdown, new government guidance has revealed, as long as families stay behind floor to ceiling screens or stay in visiting pods. The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) released an edict last month, which meant that thousands of care homes in England in areas with the highest rate of Covid-19 were told to restrict visits to “exceptional circumstances only, such as end of life”. However following mounting pressure from care home managers and charities, the Government has U-turned on its guidance, announcing that it will relax rules ahead of a second national lockdown starting on Thursday. Under the new guidance, released on Wednesday, the DHSC said that safe care home visits should be facilitated and tailored to residents. It also urged care homes to use Covid-secure opportunities for families to meet using visiting arrangements such as “floor to ceiling screens”, “visiting pods” (which act as a separate space outside of the care home to facilitate visits”, and “window visits”.
Express
FAMILIES of care home residents will be allowed to visit their loved ones during the national lockdown. New Government guidance says care home visits will be allowed to continue during the four-week lockdown in England but with strict safety measures in place. Visitors will wear PPE and social distance, while care homes must implement measures like perspex screens, window visits and special visiting pods – arrangements many care homes already have in place and ready to go. It follows pressure from charities and families concerned for the welfare of residents – amid heartbreaking reports of how isolation was exacerbating existing conditions like dementia. Care home residents can meet one other person outside as long as their loved one does not enter the main building.
Remembrance
Mirror
Remembrance Sunday will look very different this year, as social distancing means many parades and memorials have been called off. While the annual service at the Cenotaph will go ahead, it will be closed to members of the public for the first time in its 100 year history. Politicians, representatives for the Armed Forces, members of the Royal Family, and other dignitaries will still be able to attend. But there is still a way for the general public to honour our fallen heroes this Remembrance Sunday. The Daily Mirror is campaigning for a doorstep two-minute silence that will pay tribute to veterans, and those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
Pauline, exactly we cant believe a single dickie word that comes out of Johnson’s mouth about this issue or any other issue. I have read that Barnier with Frost and other British trade deal negotiators sat down with EU leaders and ministers of EU countries yesterday to give them an update on the negotiations with the United Kingdom. Despite all this blather and use of meaningless phrases, the two sides are as far apart as ever so what the hell is there left to talk about I wonder. Why are we wasting time and energy on this utter charade Its a pity however that the government doesn’t have the common courtesy to let the British public know what they are discussing about behind closed doors, after all it us us who voted to leave the EU. Charade, pretty much sums up Boris Johnson and his inept government from start to finish. It is a right old ‘Carry On’, except its no longer funny.
I hope I see signs of CHAOS setting in to the new lock down.
RESISTANCE, CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE on all fronts is the only path open to us.
Incidentally, even that raised terrorism level MIGHT be a new arm for the covid dictatorship.
A lot of people are just hacked off with the whole saga now. I live on a main ‘A’ road in Kent and it was just as busy with traffic this morning as it normally would be, and the same goes with this evening. Far from seeing nobody out walking, I’ve seen loads of people walking down into the town, and the town itself had quite a few people in it, even though most of the shops are closed. Dopey Boris thinks everybody will be scared to go out thinking the local policeman is going to come out with a book of fixed penalty notices and issue one for £200.00 for stepping out onto the street from their front garden, and we thought we lived in a democracy. I’ve got news for Boris Johnson, quite a few of us who lent him their votes wont forget this crap next time he comes begging for votes. In my particular case there wont be a next time. Its game over for him and game over for his out of touch party. All for an illness that has only affected 1% of the population.
Full strength aspirin IS NOT AVAILABLE over the counter in anything like sensible quantities! Hasn’t been for years. Not only is that another example of how MSM frequently get it all wrong and slanted. It is also an example of how CORRUPT our wonderful sacred cow has been for years. I’m pretty sure the reason aspirin was made unavailable is because Big Pharma were bringing out new (patented) paracetamol based combination pain killers, eg co-codamol. That contains codeine. Codeine was also withdrawn from OTC availability at the same time. What a coincidence!
Incidentally, my authority for telling you this, is that I have managed to convince NHS that I can not use paracetamol products having a ‘sensitivity’ to them. I throw up. I am therefor ‘allowed’ full strength aspirin, large quantities, on prescription. Repeats never yet been questioned! Don’t bureaucracies function well, leading to common sense, NOT!
Co-codamol is addictive. I know of someone who is an addict. It is not good to explain how he extracts the opiate, just that it is easy to do.
My own experience of taking co-codamol is ramping up dosage exponentially to reduce torn back muscle pain. Started with one twice a day, and ended atten a day after 7 days. No more thanks.
Sue ourselves, the tax payers, for our own false imprisonment? Whats the justice in that? we need to sue the politicians etc . otherwise the guilty one get off scot free
A no trade deal Brexit was still a serious risk! Are they forgetting that is exactly what we voted for? “Leave the European Union” no conditional deal specified.
I still worry that Boris is going to let us down.
Of course he’ll let us down although he’ll present it as a triumph.. He’s only been playing for time to suit his globalist chums. For a start I bet we get stuck with something equivalent to or worse than the EU Arrest Warrant. I suggest we campaign now for the wrongs of the EAW at the very least to be amended.
To quote Torquil D Erikson “What we need to campaign for is that any arrangement for future Extraditions shall include the restoration of the right of a Brtitish Court to see and assess any EVIDENCE of wrongdoing ALREADY COLLECTED by the requesting State, and if it sees fit, to refuse the request.
The continental systems often arrest a suspect at the outset of an investigation on the basis of mere clues, BEFORE any hard evidence has been collected. And then hold the suspect in prison for all the long months – and sometimes even more – while the investigation goes on. “
Perhaps the arrest warrent routine could be used to bang up Nickie Krankie Stergeon and all her chums – a la unauthorised Catalonia Independence Referendum.
Agreed Jack. Let’s face it we can not believe a word of anything we are told.