No deal
Independent
Two senior Conservatives have admitted a no-deal Brexit is “on the table”, after Nigel Farage hailed the threat as a reason for his “alliance” with Boris Johnson. The party’s deputy chairwoman and Theresa May’s former chief of staff both acknowledged a crash-out is an option in little over a year’s time – even if the Tories win the general election and pass the Brexit deal. Mr Farage pointed to the scenario when explaining his sudden decision to stand down Brexit Party candidates in all 317 Tory-held seats, in a significant boost to the Conservative campaign. Hours earlier, the prime minister had issued a video insisting he would not extend the brief post-Brexit transition period – during which the UK will abide by EU rules – beyond December 2020.
Conservative Party
Telegraph
Boris Johnson will promise a “clean energy revolution” as one of the prizes of Brexit as he says a Tory government would spearhead the drive to tackle climate change. Making the first policy-driven speech of the election campaign, the Prime Minister will say that only by leaving the EU “can we truly unleash Britain’s potential”. Mr Johnson will make the televised speech on Wednesday at an electric car plant to showcase the world-leading technology being pioneered in the UK that can support a “high skill, high wage” economy.
Times
Boris Johnson has opened up a 14-point poll lead over Labour after Nigel Farage’s decision to pull Brexit Party candidates out of Tory-held seats. A YouGov survey for The Times puts the Conservatives on 42 per cent, Labour on 28 per cent and the Liberal Democrats on 15 per cent. It is the first time Mr Johnson’s party has been on more than 40 per cent in YouGov’s standard national polling since February, when the Brexit Party was officially launched by Mr Farage.
Independent
A Survation opinion poll gives the Conservatives a 6-point lead today, the lowest since early October – so does this mean the election race is becoming closer? Survation puts the Tories on 35 per cent and Labour on 29 per cent, a result that could give Boris Johnson a majority of just 18 seats, according to the model used by the Electoral Calculus website. Given how many seats can change hands if there are small shifts in national shares of the vote, a projected majority of 18 is hardly secure – leaving alone the dramatic shifts in opinion that happened during the election campaign last time.
Sun
THE Tories have got a shot in the arm after The Brexit Party stood down candidates in 317 seats seeing them shoot 14 points ahead of Labour in polls. Nigel Farage has now been urged to stand down more candidates to give Boris Johnson the best chance of delivering Brexit. And a Lib Dem candidate has been forced to quit the election after tweets emerged of him using racist and homophobic slurs.
Express
BORIS Johnson will today promise that delivering Brexit at last can “unleash Britain’s potential” to build a new era of prosperity and innovation. In his first keynote speech of the general election campaign, the Prime Minister is to set out a vision of a booming “high skill, high wage” economy fired up by a “clean-energy revolution”. Mr Johnson will insist he needs voters to give him a Tory majority in the December 12 poll to “end the groundhoggery of Brexit” and save the country from the “horror show” of a coalition government led by Jeremy Corbyn and Nicola Sturgeon.
Sky News
Boris Johnson is back on the campaign trail after a one-day break with a speech in which he will call for the end of “groundhoggery” on Brexit and make a lewd attack on Jeremy Corbyn. Visiting an electric vehicle manufacturer in the West Midlands, he will claim the Conservatives will drive a clean energy revolution to tackle climate change. But a highly personal attack on the Labour leader and his use of a word that relates to a sex act – in an advance trail of his speech – is bound to attract strong criticism.
Labour Party
Express
JEREMY CORBYN could be facing another Brexit crisis after 116 Labour Party candidates signed a general election pledge saying they will campaign to Remain in the European Union if elected as an MP. Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit policy has been repeatedly called into question, as he has already vowed to give Brits another say on leaving the European Union. Mr Corbyn has said if he is elected in the December 12 vote he will negotiate a fresh deal with the EU – before putting that back to the British people within six months.
Telegraph
Jeremy Corbyn is to start a two-day election tour of Scotland on Wednesday amid reports traditional Labour voters are deserting the party over his weak stance on the Union. The Labour leader is to campaign across seven constituencies, starting in Glasgow this morning, after a poll last week showed his party in fourth place in Scotland with only 12 per cent support. Although Labour won seven Scottish seats in the 2017 election, polls suggest only Ian Murray in Edinburgh South will hold on.
Mail
Jeremy Corbyn is pledging to spend £26billion on the NHS by 2024, £6billion more than the Tories have promised, by taxing the rich. Health Secretary John McDonnell will today announce their strategy to raise the Department of Health’s annual budget by £40billion over the next five years. The Tories say this is not feasible due to Labour’s proposed four-day week which will lead to severe shortages in doctors and nurses.
Independent
The NHS will receive a £26bn funding boost over four years under new plans from Labour, as the party seeks to outgun the Tories on health spending. As the election campaign enters its second week, John McDonnell and Jonathan Ashworth will unveil the party’s “NHS rescue plan”, with a 4.3 per cent annual funding increase for health spending to boost care, address staff shortages and rebuild crumbling facilities. Labour will warn that a decade of cuts has plunged the NHS into “year round crisis” and promise to increase the health budget to £178bn by 2023-24 – a real terms increase of £26bn – funded by plans to reverse corporation tax cuts and hike up taxes for the wealthiest in society.
Express
JEREMY Corbyn’s NHS reform plan was left in tatters after analysis found it would leave the health service billions of pounds worse off. Labour is promising a £40 billion cash injection by 2024, a real terms hike of £26 billion. But the party’s plans to introduce a four day working week would wipe out the benefit and mean the budget was effectively cut, according to the Conservatives. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: “Labour have let the cat out of the bag: they won’t increase the NHS budget, they will cut it.
Mirror
Labour today confirmed plans to scrap tuition fees “no ifs no buts” and offer every adult six years’ free education – with paid time off to study. A £3bn-a-year “cradle to grave” National Education Service would enshrine a legal right to take time off to focus on skills. University tuition fees would also be scrapped – renewing an £11bn-a-year promise in the 2017 Labour manifesto. In a speech in Blackpool, Jeremy Corbyn claimed the package would let voters “pursue their dreams” and demanded the Tories “apologise” for cuts since 2010.
Times
Labour is promising to spend £6 billion a year more than the Conservatives on the NHS by taxing the rich. Repairs to crumbling hospitals and GP surgeries, and upgrades to scanners and other equipment are also promised through a 50 per cent increase to infrastructure budgets financed by more borrowing. Staff training and public health are promised £1 billion each. Analysts said that the cash would be a welcome boost that could help to start cutting waiting lists but would not immediately allow key targets to be hit.
Mail
A secret WhatsApp group of moderate Labour MPs plotted to unseat Unite boss Len McCluskey in a bid to undermine Jeremy Corbyn, the High Court heard today. Anna Turley – who was a Labour MP in Redcar, North Yorkshire, and hopes to regain the seat – is suing the union and Skwawkbox journalist Stephen Walker for publishing claims that she ‘dishonestly’ got cheap subscription to the union. But the politician told the High Court she had ‘unknowingly’ breached membership rules by signing up for a 50p-per-week subscription to the Community branch of the union exclusively for the unemployed and retirees.
The Brexit Party
Telegraph
Nigel Farage was warned he has “48 hours to save Brexit” as a major donor to the Brexit Party urged him to stand down another 150 candidates in Conservative target seats. Arron Banks told the Telegraph that the Brexit Party leader had to “smash Labour in 40 or so seats where the Tories are nowhere”. It came as George Farmer, who gave £100,000 to the Brexit Party in May and June, urged Mr Farage to stand down half of the 300 Brexit Party candidates he plans to stand.
Sun
NIGEL Farage was last night told by his biggest donor that he has “48 hours to save Brexit” — by pulling candidates from crucial Tory target seats. Arron Banks pleaded with his close friend to fight for just 40 Labour-held seats to ensure Boris Johnson can get the win he needs to lead Britain out of the EU by January 31. Mr Banks told Mr Farage, who he has bankrolled for five years, that such a move would “go down as the most selfless act by a British party leader in political history”.
Express
NIGEL FARAGE today gives Boris Johnson a final ultimatum and warns the “clock is ticking” to secure a Leave alliance that will “finish off Labour for a generation”. The leader of the Brexit Party defied calls to step back – some from his own allies – and said Mr Johnson has until Thursday to compromise, when General Election candidates need to hand in their nomination papers. Otherwise, he warned, his party will field candidates in every seat in England, Wales and Scotland.
Mail
Nigel Farage‘s decision to give the Tories a free run only in seats they already hold could still damage Boris Johnson‘s chances of winning target seats help by opponents. The Brexit Party leader announced he will still run candidates in constituencies held by Labour and Remainer parties in a climb-down this morning. There is speculation the Brexit Party could now focus resources on perhaps as few as 40 Leave-leaning Labour constituencies.
Times
A key ally of Nigel Farage is pressing him to pull out of Labour-held seats at the general election, warning that there are only “48 hours to save Brexit”. Arron Banks, who along with the Brexit Party leader was one of the self-styled “bad boys of Brexit”, urged Mr Farage not to fight Conservatives in marginal Labour constituencies. Mr Farage stood down in 317 Tory-held seats on Monday after weeks of pressure from his fellow eurosceptics not to split the Leave vote on December 12.
Mail
Nigel Farage was tonight warned by his political ally Arron Banks that he has ’48 hours to save Brexit‘ and that he must stand down more of his party’s election candidates. Mr Farage announced yesterday that he will not contest seats won by the Tories in 2017 but he has insisted he still intends to fight in Labour-held constituencies. Mr Banks, a former Ukip donor, said the decision to stand aside in more than 300 seats would go down as the ‘most selfless act by a British party leader in political history’.
LibDems
Independent
Outspoken anti-Brexit campaigner Steve Bray will stand as a Liberal Democrat candidate in Wales in the upcoming general election. Mr Bray, a rare coin dealer from Port Talbot, has become well-known in Westminster for bellowing “Stop Brexit” through a three-foot megaphone during news broadcasts on College Green. Sporting a blue and yellow top hat and a UK flag, the activist has spent every day outside parliament protesting against Brexit since 2017.
Mirror
A Lib Dem government would invest £500 million to curb the rise of knife violence epidemic on our streets, Jo Swinson has said. Ms Swinson said her party would invest the cash in youth services as part of a public health approach to cracking down on the knife crime. The cash would be used to “provide young people with positive, safe and healthy opportunities to prevent them being drawn into youth violence and gang-related crime”.
EU
Times
The tragicomedy of British politics has entertained France this year but when it comes to the general election its government and business world wants one outcome: a majority that puts an end to the Brexit mess. President Macron is keen to make the divorce final by the new January 31 deadline. Along with the French establishment, he accepts Britain’s departure as a done deed, albeit a regrettable one, that damages everyone and especially the UK.
Yahoo
The European Union pressed Britain on Tuesday to name a representative for the new executive European Commission despite the country’s planned departure for the bloc. With campaigning underway for a national election on Dec. 12, the British government has so far shown little interest in the matter after Prime Minister Boris Johnson was forced to delay Brexit for a third time, until Jan. 31. But the EU is keen to press ahead with the launch of its new commission on Dec. 1, which will be headed by the German Ursula von der Leyen, the first woman to hold that post.
Breitbart
The next European Commission president says she wants to spend almost a third more on foreign policy goals over the next half decade to better establish the EU as a global player. Ursula von der Leyen said Tuesday that the extra money is needed to develop a stronger strategic culture of the bloc, which is often criticized as high on ideals but low on effective impact. Von der Leyen said at the Paris Peace Forum that “there is need for stable and responsible leadership. We all have to contribute.”
Flooding
Times
Residents of flood-damaged homes will receive up to £10,000 towards measures to protect their properties from future deluges under plans from a government-backed scheme. Homeowners will also be rewarded with lower insurance premiums if they invest their own money in techniques such as recoating walls with waterproof plaster, moving sockets halfway up walls, installing non-return valves on lavatories and replacing floorboards with stone tiles.
Mail
Jeremy Corbyn has been slammed for ‘politicising’ flood victims’ misery after he used the issue to criticise Boris Johnson. Severe flooding has hit several areas in Yorkshire and the East Midlands with areas around the River Don near Doncaster worst affected after the river burst its banks. With the UK just a month from the General Election, Labour was quick to try to seize on the impact of the floods as they battle to win seats in the north. ‘If this had happened in Surrey, not Yorkshire or the East Midlands, it seems far more likely that a national emergency would have been declared,’ Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn wrote.
Sun
HERE is your daily briefing on all the General Election and Brexit news from the past 12 hours. Each of the major parties has pledged more help for communities hit by floods in England, a debate between the chancellor and shadow chancellor has been postponed, and Nigel Farage has called on the Conservative Party to withdraw some of its election candidates. The government has announced additional support for communities hit by heavy flooding in the north of England.
Social care
Mail
Child social services and adult care swallow up more than half of non-education spending by councils, the IFS report said. It warned town halls were increasingly relying on council tax due to reduced Treasury grants, as half of their spending now comes from the levy on property values. It said the poorest councils have lost twice as much cash per head as rich areas have. Free support to help older or disabled people to live at home has been restricted to those with the greatest disabilities or gravest illnesses over the past 15 years.
Post
Telegraph
The postal workers union attempted a “denial of democracy” by unlawfully coercing Royal Mail staff to strike during the general election, a court has heard. The company is seeking an injunction against the Communication Workers Union (CWU) to prevent a mass walkout that could see millions of postal ballots go uncounted during the campaign. Members of the CWU, which represents two thirds of the Royal Mail’s workforce, last month voted by 97pc to refuse to work amid unrest about their job security and employment conditions.
Mail
Postal strikes threaten ‘significant interference with the exercise of democracy’, a court heard yesterday. Royal Mail claimed nationwide strike chaos could hamper voters casting ballots by post in next month’s General Election – and possibly even change the result in some marginal constituencies. The company has urged a High Court judge to block planned industrial action in the coming weeks, arguing that a vote carried out last month was illegitimate.
Drugs
Mail
Parents in an affluent market town ‘poisoned’ by drugs fear there is ‘no hope or help’ for youngsters targeted by county lines gangs. Hundreds queued for a meeting to discuss the menace gripping Bury St Edmunds – after head teachers wrote to local families warning that their children were vulnerable to the criminals. Amid extraordinary scenes on Monday, more than 100 parents were turned away after more than 350 descended on West Suffolk College in response to the letter.
Health
Telegraph
Vaping continues to damage the hearts of smokers when they switch from cigarettes, a new study suggests. Cardiologists in Germany warned that e-cigarettes are so dangerous and addictive, that countries should consider a ban for young people. Professor Thomas Münzel, of the Department of Cardiology of the University Medical Centre Mainz in Mainz, looked at the impact of e-cigarette vapour on blood flow in the artery in the upper arm in 20 healthy smokers before they vaped an e-cigarette, and then 15 minutes afterwards.
HS2
Times
The HS2 review has failed to scrutinise the project’s ballooning costs properly and has produced an unbalanced report, its deputy chairman has said. Lord Berkeley, a Labour peer, said that he “cannot support” the conclusions or recommendations of the review into the high-speed rail network. He said spending on it could rise to £103 billion, twice the present budget.
That’s one of the problems of single person parties. All the Remainers had to do is put enough pressure on one man to cave. They did and he did. There is no team, no NEC, just one man under a lot of pressure. We will never have Brexit now. Theresa May (wearing the face mask of a blonde man) won.
The Brexit issue is bad enough but I really sweat also over this green energy revolution lark. I have little doubt there will be punishments for people who refuse to rip out their fossil-fuel central heating, for example. Having lived in houses where electric has been the only form of heating (night storage), I know how ghastly they are; likewise with electric-powered immersion heaters for hot water. The ban on gas central heating for new-builds is beyond words. There are going to be a lot of very cold….and dead….people if this lunacy continues unchecked.
“Boris Johnson will promise a “clean energy revolution” as one of the prizes of Brexit as he says a Tory government would spearhead the drive to tackle climate change.”
Hey Bojo, what you gonna do, put sanctions on Communist China to force them to cut their carbon ‘pollution’ (plant food)? (Assuming your mates in the EU give you permission of course.)
If Communist China keeps on increasing their carbon ‘emissions’ NOTHING we do will make ANY DIFFERENC. Not that what they’re doing makes any difference anyhow (and THEY know this)
.
It’s not CARBON DIOXIDE. It’s the SUN, silly! And right now the Sun has gone to sleep and temperatures are dropping.
The Central England Temperature (CET) record, the longest series of monthly temperature observations in existence, anywhere in the world in October 2019 came in at a nice round 10C — that’s 0.7C below the already cool 1961-1990 average (the current standard period of reference for climatological data used by the WMO).
In the 360 years of CET data there have only-ever been 9 other years with an October average temperature of 10C — these are 1659, 1660, 1663, 1668, 1669, 1670, 1672, 1679, and 1722.
They all fall within the last mini-ice age known as the MAUNDER MINIMUM.
Maybe taking advice on UK energy policies from a school child with difficulties isn’t such a good idea.