AUKUS
Express
FRANCE’s sulk following the announcement of Brexit Britain’s Aukus defence pact with Australia and the US is set to cost the European Union an eye-watering £35billion by 2025, bombshell new projections have shown.
The security agreement to build nuclear-powered submarines, widely regarded as an effort to counter China’s presence in the South China Sea, led to the end of a deal worth £27billion (31.5m euros) between Australia and France. Signed in 2016, a key premise was for France to build 12 conventional submarines. Anger in Paris is best summarised by French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who described it as a “stab in the back”. He believes it amounts to “unacceptable behaviour between allies and partners”.
In the aftermath, France has withdrawn its ambassadors from the US and Australia – and cancelled a gala in Washington DC. French defence minister Florence Parly also confirmed it would pull out of scheduled talks with Defence Secretary Ben Wallace.
And Clément Beaune, France’s Secretary of State for European affairs, has now said the long-awaited EU-Australia trade deal can no longer move forward.
It was due to be completed this year, but Mr Beaune has said moving forward as originally planned is now “unthinkable”, as it would amount to acting as “if nothing had happened with a country in which we no longer have trust.”
Facts4EU.org has crunched the numbers – and suggested halting the deal will come at a £35billion blow to the EU by 2025.
Labour Party
Order-Order
Once again, with Britain’s economy on the brink of turmoil, and plenty of opportunities for Labour to enter attack mode ahead of party conference, Starmer’s managed to shoot himself in the foot. It now sounds like Starmer will use conference to reverse Miliband’s reforms to the way the Labour leader is elected, scrapping one member, one vote and returning to an electoral college, in which MPs, the unions and the membership each get one-third of the vote each. Process rows don’t win over the public, Keir…
Immediately a huge amount of people are outraged. While Angela Rayner it is understood will begrudgingly go along with the change, it sounds like she’s not happy. Seven Labour MPs have tweeted opposition to the move as well – Zarah Sultana, Jon Trickett, Dawn Butler, Navendu Mishra, Beth Winter, Marsha de Cordova and Mary Kelly Fox – as has Jeremy Corbyn. Given the membership stand to lose the most from the proposed change, Guido will mark them down as overwhelmingly opposed as well…
Even though the move would massively boost the unions’ say over Labour’s leadership elections, it’s not even gone down well with them. Unite’s newly-elected Trotskyite leader Sharon Graham has written to Labour MPs calling on them to reject any changes – despite campaigning to end the “obsession with the Labour party”. The BBC reports Starmer will tomorrow personally try and convince the party’s affiliated unions to change the leadership rules as he wishes. The Labour Party’s so decrepit the unions don’t even want power over it…
iNews also has the story.
M25 protest
Mail
Protesters who have brought chaos to the M25 face being locked up under emergency plans ordered by ministers last night.
Priti Patel and Grant Shapps instructed officials to seek an injunction against Insulate Britain. They are said to be ‘furious’ at the eco-activists who ran in front of traffic during yesterday morning’s rush hour.
Police chiefs said the ‘reckless’ escalation had put motorists’ lives at risk. Writing for the Daily Mail today, Home Secretary Miss Patel and Transport Secretary Mr Shapps condemned the ‘arrogant’ protesters and promised decisive action to stop them.
The injunction is likely to be sought by National Highways in the High Court tomorrow. If granted, it means protesters will face arrest and a potential instant jail term for contempt of court.
The legal case is likely to focus on the danger to road users.
Priti and Grant are furious that the lives of the law-abiding majority are continuing to be disrupted by the actions of an extreme minority,’ said a source.
‘They 100 per cent back National Highways to take legal action against these individuals to ensure those who the police arrest are not released on bail and able to return to disrupting and endangering people’s lives in this way.’
Activists were filmed making a death-defying dash on to the M25 just before 8am yesterday near Cobham in Surrey. Drivers were forced to slam on their brakes.
Some of the hardliners have been arrested five times over the past ten days, only to be released to return to block the motorway again.
Dr Bing Jones, who has been detained by police four times, told the BBC: ‘I accept that I put my life at risk. I don’t really accept that we have put other lives at risk.
‘The disruption weighs heavily on me but it is necessary. Insulating houses is by far the most cost-effective means of reducing carbon emissions within the UK and it could bring millions of people out of fuel poverty.’
The Times and the Evening Standard have more details.
EU
Telegraph
France’s seat on the United Nations Security Council could be put “at the disposal of the European Union” if its governments back Emmanuel Macron’s plans for an EU army, a close ally of the French president has said.
Paris is spearheading a diplomatic push for closer EU military integration after Australia pulled out of a £45 billion contract for diesel-powered French submarines and signed the Aukus security pact with the US and UK instead.
A traditional standing EU army remains a distant prospect, but Mr Macron – on the cusp of becoming the EU’s most influential leader as Angela Merkel prepares to bow out of politics after Sunday’s German elections – is determined to lay its foundations.
Top European officials this month proposed the creation of a 5,000-strong rapid reaction force after America’s decision to rapidly withdraw from Afghanistan caught the bloc short.
Pensions
Express
STATE pension payment issues have plagued the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in recent months, as the Government detailed around 134,000 pensioners have received less than they are entitled to. These underpayments equate to over £1billion in missed payments and analysis of the details showed the underpayments were the result of “repeated human errors” over many years, some level of which was almost inevitable given the complex rules and high degree of manual review necessary when assessing claims, according to a National Audit Office (NAO) review.
State pension payments are crucial for many retirees, with a number of pensioners being reliant on Government support. Unfortunately, thousands of pensioners found themselves with underpaid pensions in recent months and years and following an investigation into underpayments of state pensions from the NAO, further light has been shared on what caused the problems and what needs to be done to resolve them. According to the Comptroller and Auditor General’s report, the underpayment of pensions was due to repeated human errors.
These errors affect pensioners who first claimed state pension before April 2016, do not have a full national insurance record, and should have received certain increases in their basic payments. The NAO detailed the errors were brought to the DWPs attention by individual pensioners, concerned experts and the media.
Following this, the DWP started exploring the “potential for error” from April 2020 and confirmed there was a significant issue in August 2020. It started to review cases from January 2021 and will contact pensioners if it finds that they have been underpaid.
Similar stories appear in the Mail, Mirror, Times. BBC News
GPs
Telegraph
The British Medical Association (BMA) says doctors are being subjected to a “wave of abuse” from patients over lack of access to face-to-face appointments.
The union has called for an urgent meeting with Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, amid increasingly fierce rows over the rights of patients to access healthcare.
On Tuesday, the head of the Royal College of GPs said the current situation – with just over half of appointments taking place in person – was “about right”, adding that the public would “get used to it”.
Patients’ groups and campaigners have said many vulnerable people have been unable to access care, with coroners linking a string of deaths to remote appointments.
The BMA said claims that GPs were refusing face-to-face appointments were “dangerous” and “inaccurate”.
Before the Covid pandemic, around 80 per cent of consultations were face-to-face. But in recent months, levels have remained at around 56 per cent, despite NHS guidance in May which gave patients the right to see a GP in person and told doctors to respect their preference.
See more in ITV News
Climate change
Telegraph
The world must “grow up” and act now on climate change, Boris Johnson will tell the UN on Wednesday as he got a boost from Joe Biden doubling his cash pledge for Cop26.
In a speech to the UN General Assembly, the Prime Minister will complete his four-day trip to the US with a candid call for world leaders to go further on fighting global warming.
It will complete a series of barbed interventions by Mr Johnson during his US visit, aware that time is running out before the Cop26 climate change conference in November, hosted in Glasgow.
“We still cling with part of our minds to the infantile belief that the world was made for our gratification and pleasure and we combine this narcissism with a primitive assumption of our own immortality,” Mr Johnson will say in his UN speech on Wednesday night.
“We believe that someone else will clear up the mess we make, because that is what someone else has always done. We trash our habitats again and again with the inductive reasoning that we have got away with it so far, and therefore we will get away with it again.
More details of Cop26 are in the Independent, Times, Independent
Energy
Mail
Energy firms have today added £600 to an annual gas and electricity bill amid claims of ‘price gouging’ to cash in on the crisis as rivals go to the wall.
Ministers have admitted that some families will face a choice between ‘eating and heating’ this winter and dismissed pleas from Britain’s floundering energy providers to scrap the energy cap that protects millions of the poorest households.
Today it was revealed that suppliers are now offering customers fixed rate dual fuel deals of around £1,900-a-year. That is already £624 more than the proposed price cap of £1,277 from October 1 for those on standard variable contracts.
The eye-watering deals, more than double the £850 average bill in 2020, are on the market to lure in those who want to fix their gas and electricity prices for 12 months in case they continue to rise.
Ovo Energy launched their ‘Better Smart 17 September 2021’ tariff this week which has an annual bill for the average user of £1,863.85.
And So Energy launched their ‘So Clementine One Year – Green’ last week, which has an annual bill for the average user of £1,900.77.
Critics have said it is evidence of ‘price gouging’ – when businesses heavily inflate the price of products or services that are in high-demand. It inevitably leads to consumers paying over the odds for services.
More stories on energy are in the Telegraph. Guardian
HS2
Times
The escalating cost of HS2 has “no clear end in sight” because of uncertainty over the route and key stations, according to MPs.
A cross-party report published today said there was still the “risk of cost increases” for the high-speed railway, which could push the budget beyond the £98 billion maximum estimate calculated by the government early last year. In 2015 the price was put at £55.7 billion.
Construction started on the first phase of the line between London and Birmingham 12 months ago but a “substantial amount” of the work is still to be finalised, the report said. Officials are also yet to fully quantify the final cost of delays linked to the pandemic, it was claimed.
BIG , Big , BIG news,
Reform party UK vs Metro Bank.
Heads will start rolling. Metro will quietly start disappearing. Maybe a top conservative politician will not be newsworthy… Enormous pressures being applied. Someoneof low profile butlots of dosh ( and I mean lots. like buying a bank )
I await developements.
Like all the best developements it’ll start small. Share prices start getting jittery, silence, a few big withdrawals, A small silence from BoE. The name Reform will start to be noticed again.There couldn’t be a worse time for fiscal worries. The vast Government apparatus will become nervous and looking to their favourite scams, and low profiles. Unfortunately , its tailor made for Labour screechers.
Tee hee
After today’s ID amongst other things if somebody lights the blue touch paper I am going to blow.
“With a primitive assumption of our own immortality”
Are among words Boris apparently intends to utter at the UN tonight.
I’m not sure if my interpretation of this phrase is the correct one, but it seems to me as though he is echoing the views of Alistair Campbell when he is said to have said to his puppet Bliar “we don’t do religion”
To me, Boris is admitting the concept of immortality is a nonsense fostered by man’s continued assertions there is something or more accurately some one called God. Who somehow arranged for the preservation forever and a day of man’s “essence”, if not his flesh following his departure of this mortal coil or, even in one particular case of an actual resurrection .
There has been discussion on recent previous threads regarding my contention that all gods are man made, the figment of man’s emotion or imagination – I believe there is nothing there, there is no hereafter, there are no such things as spirits, nor ghosties.
Isn’t Boris implying that such beliefs are just such figments of a primitive age and must be cast aside now in the face of reality?
I might add that I wish he would equally face up to the reality that Total man made GW is a scam, that the continued prolongation of Covid is a scam and being used to impose quasi dictatorship and that ” Woke, BLM, Re-set,the UN, WHO,……….” Is a gigantic global scam much of it fuelled by ponziesque practice and posturing..
( oh and as I have said before “they” have got it all wrong immortality is not achieved from top down, but more likely to be achieved through one’s progeny, I speak from authority having had my DNA analysed and being born of English parents, it turns out I am 13% Scottish.i feel truly weaponised to ask why I shouldn’t have a vote in any Scottish referendum, alongside my children, both residing in England also., but being provablely over 60% Scottish)
Roger Turner. You and I disagree about religion but we certainly agree about how totally preposterous B.J.’s latest utterances are!
It was the word ‘infantile’ that made me see red. If anyone is being infantile surely it is him and his like claiming that man made carbon dioxide is causing catastrophic global warming.
Good luck with your efforts to take part in any future Scottish Independence referendum. The last one EXCLUDED FULL BLOODED SCOTS that were living in England. So that one was undemocratic and fiddled, in the hope of getting a ‘yes’ vote.
As for Bliar – I thought he finished up very much ‘doing God’. More to the point – he certainly seems to have found his ‘niche’ in the forthcoming World Dictatorship and (maybe) tutored our own ‘beloved’ leader in how to do likewise.
My view on global warming are not normal. I really do not care. I want , however,Mankind to clean up its slovenly behaviour at everything obviousand under their patrician noses… And think about horses for courses or Doing the obvious and urgent ( CO2is clearly not yet urgent.). The reason it is not urgent is that… a) its not believable.. b) Vested interests will continue burn and cut up the Amazon,c) building Chinese coal power stations et al.. d) Britains waste mountains on their own could drown the planet. We continue to drown in plastics that are eminantly the perfect recycleable material.. Purely SLOVENLY GOVERNMENT
And as for low Carbon. Are they MAD ? It’s governments .
I agree with you Roger , I’m getting my moans in early via Independence daily. … Just in case
There’s a lot of people out there think bad news can’t possibly be true.
I am sorry Boris, You are going to have to use ( Below the parapet ) Cummings. to, at least, halve the Civil service. Think what you can spend without them.
They are all at home anyway, so no-one will notice.
Except T G S if Cummings had had his way we would never have got out of total lock down. I seem to remember that Harryagain would have liked that.
But I do agree with you about halving the Civil Service.
I quite enjoyed the first couple of months of lockdown. Oh the sweet loss of innocense.
Actually. Insulating houses is just one of a hundred perfect first steps.( andthe same for cars ), I understood the Civil Service were supposed to be doing this.. But movement is not obvious..
HS2
The chairman of the Strategic Rail Authority in 1975/6 put forward a scheme to fastlink a circulsr rail line around most of the large towns of the Midlands and North using existing infrastructure. The EU had already done their plan ( HS2 ,3,4,5,etc. )which ignored the existing network . it was rejected by EU along with many many, valid and beneficial schemes never given even a cursory look by EU besotted civil service and government
Since then the amount spen on the London ( EU ) schemes is beyond collossal. As for the rest of the country, . It does as we tell it.
“We still cling with part of our minds to the infantile belief that the world was made for our gratification and pleasure and we combine this narcissism with a primitive assumption of our own immortality,” Mr Johnson will say in his UN speech on Wednesday night.
Change the ‘We’ to ‘I’ and he is spot on.
Jim R Agreed. Spot on there.
In fact it almost sounds like he has finally gone completely mad.