Lockdown 

iNews
The Government has drawn up plans for an October “firebreak” Covid lockdown should hospitalisations continue at their current level and threaten to overload the NHS, a senior Government scientist has told i.
The member of the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) said the UK is about to enter “an extended peak” of infections and hospitalisations, which are in danger of pushing the NHS beyond breaking point and could force the Government to re-introduce restrictions over the school half term period at the end of next month.
A full lockdown is unlikely and would be a last resort, but there are a range of measures the government could introduce.
“This is essentially the precautionary break that Sage suggested last year,” said the Sage source. “It would be sensible to have contingency plans, and if a lockdown is required, to time it so that it has minimal economic and societal impact.”
The Government scientist added that while Covid deaths are significantly higher than at the same point 12 months ago, they would have to rise fivefold to match those experienced in late October last year. 
“We are going to be at a peak, albeit an extended peak, quite soon, so it’s not really the same situation as last year, when failure to reduce prevalence would have resulted in collapse of NHS and people dying in car parks,” he added.  

There’s a similar story in the Mail 

Northern Ireland Protocol 

Express
BRUSSELS has snubbed Britain’s efforts to renegotiate the Brexit deal’s controversial protocol to avoid a hard border.
The European Commission said it would not entertain a wholesale rewriting of the Brexit treaty but accepted Lord Frost’s refusal to implement EU red tape in Northern Ireland for the foreseeable future. It comes after the Brexit minister announced further delays to some Irish Sea border checks that were due to be enforced as part of our divorce deal with the bloc. Lord Frost said the decision to extend the grace periods, which mean that not all of the controls in the region have to be implemented, was necessary to “provide space for further potential discussions” with the EU.
Both sides are expected to continue their wrangling over the Northern Ireland Protocol in the coming weeks, with No10 demanding a complete overhaul.
But eurocrats are set to reject such proposals, instead insisting that fixes to end the disruption in Northern Ireland can be found within the treaty itself.
The Commission said: “We take note of the UK ministerial statement regarding the operation of the Protocol on the current basis, including the continuation of existing grace periods.
“We continue to stress that the Withdrawal Agreement is an international agreement. The Protocol is an integral part of the Withdrawal Agreement and the agreed solution between the UK and the EU to the problems caused by Brexit for the island of Ireland. Both sides are legally bound to fulfil their obligations under the Agreement. 

Several media are also running the story including Mail, Telegraph,  Guardian,  Independent,  Times, iNews 

Breitbart
One of the chief architects of the Good Friday peace deal between British unionists and Irish nationalists in Northern Ireland has written to U.S. President Biden warning him that his interference in the Province’s internal politics risks “causing civil unrest”.
Biden, who plays up his Irish ancestry despite the fact his surname appears to trace its roots to English settlers in North America, has repeatedly intervened in the politics of Northern Ireland, also known as Ulster, on the side of the European Union, which has sought — successfully — to retain much of its power over the British province despite Brexit.
Brussels continues to apply much of its Single Market regulatory regime, enforced by its judges, over Ulster, and British prime minister Boris Johnson even agreed to create an internal border between the territory and mainland Great Britain so that checks would not have to be introduced at its border with the EU-controlled Republic of Ireland.
However, the bloc has been applying customs checks with a disproportionate rigour at this Irish Sea border — it is alleged that 2.5 times more checks are being carried out there than at Rotterdam, the European mega-port where goods flood into the continent from all over the world — in what appears to be an almost deliberately punitive fashion, even for goods not intended to carry on EU Ireland, damaging trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain and causing a number of shortages.
The British government has suggested, if weakly, that the system must be reformed, given the unrest the situation is causing among Ulsters’s unionist majority, but Biden has been entirely partisan for the EU, suggesting that it is entirely incumbent on the British to uphold the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement via submitting to all of Brussels’ demands — with no indication that Brussels might have some role to play in resolving matters by, say, simply agreeing to a mutual recognition of regulatory standards. 

NHS 

Mail
Boris Johnson will today brace Britain for a manifesto-busting £10billion tax raid to bail out the NHS and ‘fix’ social care – as he promises his Government ‘will not duck the tough decisions’. 
The Prime Minister will defy critics in the Cabinet and beyond by pushing up national insurance on 25million workers and millions of firms, in a move that will cost employees on £30,000 a year an extra £255 in tax – roughly £5 a week.
Mr Johnson warned last night the NHS ‘cannot recover’ from the pandemic without a massive cash injection, and he said it was time to end the scandal of pensioners having to sell their homes to fund care in later life.
The tax rise of 1.25 percentage points shatters his solemn 2019 election vow not to raise national insurance. 
It has sparked a furious backlash from Tory MPs and business leaders, who warn it will act as a ‘tax on jobs’.
In a second move, ministers will also break their manifesto pledge to keep the state pension ‘triple lock’. It will be suspended for a year, with pensioners given 2.5 per cent, rather than the 8 per cent rise they would have received – costing them £4 a week.
Mr Johnson last night said the ‘enormous strain’ placed on the NHS by the pandemic, coupled with the ‘broken’ care system, meant he could not ‘duck the tough decisions’. 

You can find similar stories in the Telegraph, Guardian, Independent, Morning Star 

Illegal immigrants 

Times
Priti Patel has told MPs that she is ready to withhold millions of pounds promised to the French to block migrant crossings after a record number of people were estimated to have landed yesterday.
The home secretary is said to be furious at the low numbers of migrants being intercepted before they reach British waters since she agreed to pay France £54 million to double its patrols.
She met Conservative MPs last night to try to quell their anger. Patel blamed the French and said she was prepared to pull the funding promised less than two months ago if they failed to stop three in four crossings by the end of this month, The Times has learnt. 

Other outlets running the story include Express, Telegraph, Mail, Sun, Breitbart 

Trade 

Express
BREXIT Britain is being urged to strengthen its transatlantic alliances and engage in an initiative that will counter the growing influence of Moscow and Beijing in global affairs.
The Three Seas Initiative (3SI) is an economic forum in Eastern Europe that involves 12 EU countries and is designed to promote regional dialogue on shared policy issues. A new report released this week by Brexiteer and Shrewsbury MP Daniel Kawczynski said 3SI would an “attractive proposition” and a “great opportunity” for the UK to engage with European partners in a post-Brexit world. 
The 3SI region covers nearly 30 percent of the EU’s territory which is home to over 112 million people across the 12 participating states which include Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia and Estonia.
Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia are also members. 
The report says the 3SI needs “significant political and economic support” from other world leaders with the US currently being a major external partner.
Mr Kawczynski argued engaging with the bloc would “counter the growing influence of Moscow and Beijing in the region in the context of energy security and infrastructure investments.” 

The Mail also carries the story. 

Education 

Telegraph
Schools across the country have reintroduced bubbles, face masks and self-isolation for healthy children, The Telegraph has learned.
Headteachers have been told by ministers that many of the restrictions which were in place last academic year are no longer necessary.
However, parents have accused schools of imposing “nonsensical” curbs on pupils as they return to school following the summer holidays.
Comberton Village School in Cambridgeshire told parents that it usually prided itself on running an “extensive” after-school programme of sporting activities including basketball, hockey, badminton and rugby. However, the secondary school said that since it was continuing to operate a system of “year group bubbles”, this would have a “negative impact” on the number of clubs they would be providing this term.
Meanwhile, parents at Avanti House Secondary School in Stanmore, north London, have been told that children will still be grouped into bubbles and encouraged to adhere to social distancing rules.
“It is heartbreaking that while adults are getting their lives back to normal, children are still leading their school lives under the weight of these restrictions,” said Molly Kingsley, co-founder of the parent campaign group UsForThem. 

Similar stories may be read in the Independent, ITV News 

Social care 

Times
Middle-class pensioners will be promised a £1 billion cut in care home fees as part of wide-ranging reforms to social care to be announced by Boris Johnson today.
The government will pledge to abolish the “stealth tax” on wealthier older people who at present are forced to pay about 40 per cent more for care home places than those who are less well-off. This could save some residents more than £200 per week.
Johnson will confirm today that he will cap the amount people have to contribute towards their care and promise state help for hundreds of thousands more people through a more generous means test. 

The PM’s suggestion is covered in the Evening Standard, ITV News, BBC News, GB News 

Space 

Express
BREXIT BRITAIN’S burgeoning space sector has been handed a major victory as world-leading aerospace contractor Lockheed Martin has selected a site in the Shetland Islands for the UK’s first vertical satellite launch.
Representatives from the company’s UK and US branches met in Scotland on Monday to discuss their prospects for Brexit Britain’s bright future. Lockheed Martin has unveiled plans for the launch of a small satellite from the proposed SaxaVord Spaceport in the Shetlands, with the mission presently penned in for next year. Company officials met with the Shetland Islands Council and local community leaders to share the latest developments in the programme.
The meetings also gave Lockheed Martin an opportunity to gauge public opinion about this historic mission.
UK Pathfinder Launch will mark the first-ever vertical satellite launch from UK soil, as well as northern Europe’s first launch of this kind.
The mission will also mark the first commercial launch of the US-based ABL Space Systems’ new RS-1 rocket.
Dr Scott Ridgers, programme execution director at Lockheed Martin Space, said: “We’re really excited to be here with the SaxaVord spaceport team and meet with the local community in Unst and the Shetland Islands Council, we progress our plans to hold the UK’s first vertical launch in 2022.” 

Beer 

Order-order
The media made plenty of noise last week over the alleged ‘beer shortage’ at Wetherspoons. Both the Independent and the Mirror leapt at the chance to say the chain had “run dry“, with the Mirror then landing its killer blow by insisting this was all “caused by Brexit“. Naturally.
Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin has now pushed back to say these claims are all untrue. The reality is that beer supplies actually remain at 2019 (i.e. pre-pandemic) levels, and that the shortage of a few products over the last two weeks is the result of strike action from one major brewer. Martin added:
“There is clearly a shortage of HGV drivers, both in the UK and in mainland Europe- where, some reports say, there is a shortage of 400,000 drivers. Following the pandemic, there are supply chain issues in many other parts of the world also. In the light of the undoubted problems, it is important that the public is provided with accurate information. Factual inaccuracies and partisan Brexit politics will not assist in finding solutions.”
France, Germany, and Spain are all experiencing an HGV shortage at the moment. Probably down to Brexit too, somehow… 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email