Fisheries

Express
BORIS Johnson may be forced to sacrifice the UK’s fishing rights in order to secure a Brexit deal which ensures the nation is not subject to EU rules and regulations after the end of the year, Michel Barnier’s negotiating team has told diplomats in Brussels. Mr Barnier’s colleagues, speaking at an informal meet and greet attended by UK journalists that the UK’s “clear strategy” was to “trade off” fishing access in return for guaranteed freedom from EU rules at the last possible minute. Such a move would infuriate Brexiteers, given control over British waters and withdrawal from the Common Fishing Policy has been central to Brexit. Speaking yesterday, Eurasia Group analyst Mujtaba Rahman said a trade-off with respect to state aid and fishing rights was “possible and remains likely, but will take time”. Mr Rahman claimed the prospect of a “no deal”, with the risk of delays at the border and food shortages would be a huge concern for Mr Johnson’s Government, increasing pressure on him to compromise. After the latest round of talks between Mr Barnier and UK negotiator David Frost ended in stalemate on Friday, demands for Britain to walk away are growing louder.

Trade talks

Telegraph
Farmers and business chiefs have been given a louder voice to ensure they do not lose out in trade negotiations as ministers bid for a raft of post-Brexit deals. Bosses in 11 sectors including agriculture, manufacturing and financial services have signed non-disclosure agreements so they can help to shape potential agreements with other countries – including commercially sensitive rules on tariffs and rules of origin. The change is part of a major overhaul of the Government’s trade machinery as talks intensify with the US, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Sun
EX-AUSTRALIAN Prime Minister Tony Abbott is to be unveiled as Britain’s new trade deal supremo, The Sun can reveal. The forthright Aussie has been appointed joint President of Britain’s relaunched Board of Trade, tasked with drumming up deals for Britain around the world. It’s role is to “champion exports and inward and outward investment to deliver economic growth and prosperity” and has traditionally been made up of British political and business figures. But The Sun understands Boris Johnson has asked Mr Abbott to join as part of a drive to get a number of global “friends” to bang the drum from Brexit Britain.

Asylum seekers

Guardian
Dozens of asylum seekers who arrived in the UK on small boats are due to be put on charter flights over the next two days, while lawyers have launched last-minute high court challenges to prevent their removal. At least seven have mounted challenges which will be heard on Tuesday evening to try to prevent them being forcibly removed from the UK. The asylum seekers due to be removed come from a variety of countries including Sudan, Yemen and Iraq. Some have survived torture and have a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, while others went on hunger strike after being put into detention. Some are potential victims of trafficking. Some have been on round-the-clock suicide watch. The Home Office has chartered a flight to France and Germany for Wednesday and a second flight to Spain has been chartered for Thursday.

Breitbart
The United Kingdom must free itself of European Union regulations governing asylum seekers if there is to be any hope to curb the burgeoning migrant crisis in the English Channel, Brexit leader Nigel Farage has said. Speaking after a number of Conservative members of parliament calling themselves the Common Sense Group wrote to Boris Johnson calling for legislation to be brought forward to change the asylum system in the UK, Nigel Farage said even more than that had to be done, calling for the country to withdraw from the EU migrant allocation scheme.

Defence

Times
Mothballing the country’s tanks is a “very dangerous” idea when a resurgent Russia has built up its own heavy armoured forces, a former army chief says. General Lord Dannatt, previously chief of the general staff, spoke out after The Times reported that military chiefs had drawn up proposals to abandon tanks. The idea has been discussed as part of the government’s integrated review of foreign policy, defence and security, which Boris Johnson has said will be the most comprehensive overhaul of the nation’s international strategy since the Cold War. The cost and work needed to upgrade the ageing fleet of 227 Challenger 2 tanks, and the 388 Warrior armoured fighting vehicles that support them on the battlefield, has soared.

Mail
Britain could buy only half of its target of F-35 Lightning II fighter jets and spend the extra cash on a futuristic plane that will control a swarm of drones. Plans for 138 jets could be scrapped but the UK has agreed to buy 48 by the end of 2025 as part of a £9.1billion deal. The short take off and vertical landing jets will be deployed on the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth-class carriers, reported The Times. Military funding will instead be directed towards the UK-led Tempest jet – which is expected to make it into production by 2035.

Deaths

Telegraph
Deaths in the UK have risen above average for the first time since mid-June, but coronavirus is not behind the rise. The heatwave experienced during the week ending August 14 is likely to explain the weekly increase, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. There were 9,392 deaths from all causes in England and Wales in the week ending August 14 – 447 more deaths compared with the previous week. This took the number of deaths that week to 3.4 per cent above the average for this time of year over the past five years – the first time the average has been exceeded since June 12. Meanwhile, deaths involving coronavirus have been steadily falling.

Boris

Mail
Boris Johnson insisted he was fighting fit today – after Dominic Cummings’ father-in-law suggested he was planning to quit after struggling to recover from coronavirus.  Downing Street blasted as ‘total nonsense’ a suggestion that Mr Johnson could hand over power in six months’ time, made by Sir Humphry Wakefield. He is said to have told a holidaymaker who visited his castle in Northumberland that the Prime Minister is still suffering longer-term ill effects of coronavirus and could resign. But speaking on a visit to Appledore shipyard in Devon today, Mr Johnson was asked about the claim, saying: ‘It’s absolute nonsense.  ‘I am feeling, if anything, far better as I’ve lost some weight.’

Telegraph
The Prime Minister has rubbished suggestions he could step down in the next six months, labelling them as “absolute nonsense”.  Sir Humphry Wakefield, Dominic Cummings’ father-in-law, had reportedly claimed that Boris Johnson was still struggling to recover from Covid-19 and would stand down in six months, it was reported on Monday.  Sir Humphry, father of Dominic Cummings’s wife Mary Wakefield, went on to compare the Prime Minister having the virus to being gone in the fetlock, a term used to describe an injured animal.

Education

Guardian
Hundreds of psychiatrists have urged the government not to fine families for refusing to send their children to school in England, warning of anxiety if young people are asked to return to classrooms before they are ready. In a letter to the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, the chair of the faculty of child and adolescent psychiatry at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Dr Bernadka Dubicka, said: “The threat of fines could force parents of children who feel anxious to send them back to school, even if they’re not ready. “This could have serious consequences on their mental health, especially if they are worried about family shielding. Fines could bring more financial stress on families as we’re entering a recession, severely affecting children’s and parents’ mental health.”

Face coverings

Telegraph
Children will be told to wear face masks in schools after a government about-turn on its coronavirus policy. New guidance will apply in secondary schools only and will require all pupils in Year 7 and above in England to wear face coverings in corridors and communal areas but not in classrooms. It will be mandatory in schools that are in local lockdown areas and left to the discretion of head teachers in the rest of the country. Government scientific advisers have not been asked to review the new guidance but ministers believe it will boost confidence among parents.

Mail
Thousands of secondary pupils will have to wear masks at school after yet another education U-turn. With just days to go before children return, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson last night said face coverings will be compulsory in the communal areas of schools covered by local lockdowns. A decision on whether to wear masks in other schools will be left to individual heads.  The move will be seen as a sop to unions and came hours after the Government said it had no plans to require their use. The eleventh-hour U-turn followed new advice from the World Health Organisation at the weekend.

Times
Boris Johnson will make masks mandatory for all secondary school children in areas with high levels of coronavirus amid a backlash from Tory MPs over another policy reversal. Pupils over the age of 11 will have to wear face coverings while moving around schools when they reopen next week, it was announced last night, a day after Downing Street said that students would be safe without them. Face coverings will be mandatory for secondary schools in areas that are subject to additional lockdown measures. Schools in other areas will be able to choose whether pupils wear them.

Vaccine

Mail
Cambridge University has joined the global race to find a coronavirus vaccine and could begin clinical trials within months. Scientists at the prestigious institution are working on a vaccine they hope could protect against other coronaviruses, as well as the one that causes Covid-19. It won’t target the ‘spike’ protein on the outside of the virus, as other scientists are attempting, but will try to mimic a more complete version of the pathogen itself. And the team are trying to make the jab needle-free, designing it so it can instead be administered using a burst of air from a jet injector, which forces the liquid through the top layer of skin using pneumatic pressure.

Reuters
The University of Cambridge is aiming to start clinical trials of its possible coronavirus vaccine in the autumn after it received 1.9 million pounds in funding from the British government, the university said on Wednesday. The scientists behind the vaccine said their approach, which uses genetic sequences of all known coronaviruses to hone the immune response, could help avoid the adverse effects of a hyper-inflammatory immune response. “We’re looking for chinks in its armour, crucial pieces of the virus that we can use to construct the vaccine to direct the immune response in the right direction,” Jonathan Heeney, head of the Laboratory of Viral Zoonotics at the University of Cambridge, said.

ITV News
The Oxford coronavirus vaccine could be put before regulators this year, a leading scientists has said. Professor Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, said it is “just possible” that there may be enough clinical trial data on Oxford University’s vaccine by the end of the year. His comments came after England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, said a vaccine for coronavirus may not be ready until next winter. Prof Pollard told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think that Chris Whitty is quite rightly being cautious, that it could take as long as that to first of all demonstrate a vaccine works and is safe and then to go through the processes of regulators looking at that very carefully to make sure everything’s been done correctly.

Social distancing

Times
Shouting outdoors without a mask may be less risky for Covid-19 transmission than being silent in a poorly ventilated area without one, scientists say. The relative risks are set out in a new paper published in The BMJ, which says that “rigid” social distancing rules set at one or two metres are based on outdated science. Instead, rules should vary depending on whether events are happening indoors or outside and what activity is taking place, they argue, as well as the level of ventilation and whether face coverings are being worn.

Home working

Telegraph
Millions of workers forced to work where they live may find their home and contents insurance no longer covers them from next week.  Currently, the Association of British Insurers, a trade body, states: “If you are an office-based worker and are working from home as a result of the pandemic, your home insurance cover will not be affected. You do not need to contact your insurer to update your documents or extend your cover.” However, the ABI will review this guidance on Sept 1, which may leave homeworkers unprotected as some homes and contents policies are designed only for “home or domestic use” and not for work. Jimmy Williams, of insurer Urban Jungle, advised those working from home to make sure their home and contents policies cover them. “Some insurers aren’t being very flexible and are insisting that domestic policies don’t cover incidents if people are working from home or if they are running a business.

BBC

Mail
The BBC’s drama boss has vowed to get rid of inadvertent instances of racism known as ‘microagressions’ among staff at the Corporation. Piers Wenger told the Edinburgh TV Festival that he has been in ‘deep discussion’ about how to ‘eradicate unconscious bias’ to help improve the representation of ethnic minorities.  The £250k-a-year Drama Commissioning Controller said it was now ‘ground zero’ and ‘the moment where we have to get it right’. His comments come amid reports that executive staff at the BBC are being advised to have unconscious bias training to make sure they don’t inadvertently offend anyone, according to The Times.

Sun
A CHORUS of anger on Tuesday met the BBC’s decision to ban the words to Rule, Britannia! and Land of Hope and Glory from the Last Night of the Proms. Beeb bosses were attacked for failing to intervene and allowing woke Finnish Proms conductor Dalia Stasevska to ditch the words and play only musical arrangements. Outgoing Director General Tony Hall and BBC One Director of Content Charlotte Moore were among those in the line of fire. Boris Johnson railed against the corporation, while war veterans condemned the ban. And the daughter of forces’ sweetheart Dame Vera Lynn — who died earlier this year aged 103 — hit out, too. A petition calling for the lyrics to be reinstated gained tens of thousands of signatures amid calls to defund the BBC. On Tuesday night, Dame Vera versions of Land of Hope and Glory hit No1 and No2 in the iTunes chart after anti-woke campaigners urged Brits to download the crowd-pleaser in protest.

Mail
An Executive Producer for the BBC‘s Songs of Praise has compared singing Rule Britannia to Nazis singing about gas chambers. Cat Lewis, who is also CEO of television production company Nine Lives Media, weighed in on the controversy surrounding the BBC’s decision to drop the singing of patriotic anthems from the Last Night of the Proms.  Critics have claimed the songs were ‘racist’, and now Ms Lewis, a self-described ‘campaigner for a better world’, has blasted the centuries-old Rule Britannia. She tweeted: ‘Do those Brits who believe it’s OK to sing an 18th Century song about never being enslaved, written when the UK was enslaving and killing millions of innocents, also believe it’s appropriate for neo-Nazis to shout, ”We will never be forced into a gas chamber.” ‘

ITV News
Traditional anthems will be sung at next year’s Last Night Of The Proms, the BBC has confirmed. The broadcaster confirmed the move after Prime Minister Boris Johnson made an intervention on the issue. He called for an end to “self-recrimination and wetness” as the BBC’s chief said it was “right” to remove lyrics from some traditional anthems during this year’s performance. The BBC’s outgoing director-general Lord Hall said the decision to perform new, orchestral versions of Rule, Britannia! and Land Of Hope And Glory was a “creative” one.

Flu jab

Times
Ministers will ask the NHS to administer flu jabs not normally licensed for use in Britain as part of an expanded vaccination programme this winter. Health chiefs want to vaccinate half the population, twice as many as usual, to reduce pressure on the NHS and prevent hospitals being hit by a combined surge of flu and Covid-19 patients. However, the decision to enlarge the programme was made only last month, long after vaccine orders are normally placed and manufacturers have planned accordingly. A source told The Times that this had meant governments across Europe being “really flexible” and agreeing to use vaccines “not fully licensed”, despite being used in other markets.

Assisted dying

Guardian
Relatives of people who have brought legal cases on assisted dying are for the first time making a joint appeal for an inquiry into the current law in England and Wales, saying there is an overwhelming case for change. An open letter, whose signatories include Phil Newby, who is terminally ill with motor neurone disease, demands parliament look again at the issue five years after a private members bill was overwhelmingly rejected. This week, the Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell said there was growing support in parliament for a “tight” change in the law to give terminally ill people a choice over how and when their lives end.

Drugs

Sun
PARENTS are being warned about deadly drug-laced “sweets” being disguised as Nerds candy.  The “Nerd Rope” sweets – infused with cannabis and ecstasy – look very similar to the popular children’s treats but contain a “super potent blend” of drugs. They are being peddled to youngsters online by teenage dealers – as part of a worrying new “edibles” trend where drugs are disguised as sweets. After a brief search, the Sun Online found websites selling “medicated” Nerds with up to 6000mg of cannabis. The brightly coloured sweets come in four flavours with different drug strengths and could easily be mistaken for the normal sweets.  The illegal Nerds Ropes could be bought online, from sites with no proper checks or age restrictions, for £42 a pack.

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