“Boris Johnson’s attempt to relaunch his premiership suffered a fresh blow on Wednesday night when his ethics adviser, Lord Geidt, dramatically quit after conceding the prime minister may have broken the ministerial code over the Partygate scandal. In a statement released on Wednesday evening, Geidt said: “With regret, I feel that it is right that I am resigning from my post as independent adviser on ministers’ interests.” The resignation, the second from an ethics adviser in less than two years, threatens to overshadow Johnson’s attempts to shrug off the public outcry over Partygate, and the subsequent confidence vote from his own MPs last week… The ethics tsar faced a tough grilling from a cross-party committee of MPs earlier this week, during which he conceded it was “reasonable” to suggest Johnson may have broken the ministerial code…” – The Guardian
>Today:
“Boris Johnson is drawing up plans to insulate hundreds of thousands more homes before winter to help shield people from the rising cost of living. The prime minister has told ministers to divert more than £1 billion from existing schemes to focus on insulating poorer households. The Times has been told that during one meeting a No 10 official suggested it could be called “insulate Britain”. It was rejected when someone pointed out that it was the same name as the environmental campaign group that has caused widespread disruption. It may now be called the “Great British Insulation Scheme”, but there are concerns about whether it will apply in devolved administrations. Under the plans No 10 will top up the “energy company obligation”, which is levied from bills and funds energy-efficiency measures for poorer households.” – The Times
>Today:
“PM Boris Johnson said he may rip up human rights rules — after a flight deporting migrants to Rwanda was blocked. Hotels set aside for them lay empty yesterday following the move by an anonymous Euro judge. Meanwhile hundreds more arrived in the UK from across the Channel. The Government could even quit the European Court of Human Rights altogether. Ministers are raging that the court would not reveal the identity of the judge who made the decision at 10pm on Tuesday. The flight had been given the go-ahead by three different British courts — triggering fresh alarm that Euro judges are stopping Britain from controlling its borders… When asked yesterday if Britain could ditch membership of the European Convention on Human Rights, Downing Street admitted that “all options are on the table”.” – The Sun
“Priti Patel’s Rwanda policy faces being delayed for months as ministers accept it would be “a gamble” to book another flight before the courts have given their ruling…Patel is also considering ways to limit migrants’ ability to use the Modern Slavery Act to avoid removal after several of those originally due to be on Tuesday’s Rwanda flight used the legislation to claim they were victims. The home secretary is said to be considering increasing the threshold of what constitutes modern slavery. A migrant can avoid removal if officials believe there are “reasonable grounds” for their claim to be slavery victims. Patel told MPs in the Commons yesterday that the Home Office was going ahead with preparations for the next flight to Rwanda, though the failure of the first flight cost more than £300,000.” – The Times
“Justice Secretary Dominic Raab is examining whether it will be possible to disregard future last-minute injunctions from the Strasbourg court in cases already examined by British judges. A government source last night noted that its injunctions were ‘not binding’ and said many signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights, which the court interprets, routinely turned a blind eye to its rulings. Pulling out of the ECHR completely would be a massive call, but there is scope for looking again at how we treat out-of-hours injunctions from Strasbourg,’ the source said. ‘People talk about the UK’s role in creating the court after the Second World War and that is right. But the way that charter has been interpreted in recent years has become very elastic and taken it a long way from its original aims.’” – The Daily Mail
>Today:
“Specialist courts are being set up to boost the number and speed of rape cases going to trial. Dedicated courtrooms will be established in three crown courts which deal with a higher than average case load of sex offences. In the courts, police, prosecutors and all staff will receive trauma training as part of a package of ‘enhanced specialist sexual violence support’. The pilot scheme comes at a time when victims face waiting years for justice. It begins in October at Leeds, Newcastle and Snaresbrook Crown Court in London… Justice Secretary Dominic Raab said: ‘Rape convictions are up two thirds over the last year and cases are being completed five weeks quicker. ‘But we are restless to go further, and these pilots will focus on improving support for victims, tackling the backlog and reducing delays.’” – The Daily Mail
“Liz Truss vowed last night to push ahead with controversial legislation to unpick parts of the Brexit deal despite legal threats from the EU. Brussels yesterday warned Britain that it risked provoking a trade war – or the collapse of the entire agreement – unless it backed down. The EU launched fresh legal action in retaliation over Boris Johnson’s plans to unilaterally scrap parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol. At a press conference in Brussels, European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic also unveiled a raft of documents with proposals on how to break the impasse. But British ministers last night accused the EU of recycling old ideas and warned they would have to bring in the legislation to override the protocol as negotiations had ‘hit a brick wall’. A Government source said: ‘The EU proposals are the same as they were six months ago. The proposals they’ve put on the table do nothing to solve the core issues, and in some areas take us backwards.’” – The Daily Mail
>Today:
“Sajid Javid is eyeing up major changes to GP contracts to get more doctors to see patients face to face. He wants to end the shameful postcode lottery which leaves millions of Brits unable to get an appointment not on Zoom. Vast parts of the country have a massive shortage of full-time GPs – fuelling the problem. The Health Secretary is considering a range of reforms to try to end the scandal. One option is to change GP contracts so they are “incentivised” to go from working part time to full time. While they could also be offered lucrative bungs to move to left-behind areas. And a big focus will also be put on getting GPs to offer more face to face appointments. A Government source said the aim is to give patients “more choice” so elderly patients are not forced to go online when they really want to physically see a doctor. But the number of face to face appointments “is expected to increase”.” – The Sun
“Damaging to an economy still in recovery after two years of the pandemic, damaging to ordinary working people who do not have the option of working remotely from home, damaging for thousands of Covid-battered businesses, from theatres to cafes and rail freight-dependent heavy industry. And damaging, too, for a rail sector saved from collapse during lockdown only by the injection of £16billion of taxpayers’ money — that’s £600 for every household in the land. Make no mistake, in its current financial state, the railway wouldn’t last a month as an ordinary commercial organisation… But some of the RMT leadership live in another world — a Jurassic one largely populated by dinosaurs. They believe that they can demand a substantial pay rise without promising to reform outdated working practices that, by rights, should have been consigned to the Museum of Industrial Relations.” – The Sun
“The Government’s top lawyer yesterday slammed the BBC for being too pro-EU. Attorney General Suella Braverman told a testy interview that the Beeb always sees Britain as the bad guys and Brussels as saints… Probed on Radio 4 about the latest Brexit row, Braverman snapped at a presenter’s claim that she sits in a “law-breaking” government. She hit back: “With respect that’s BBC view if you don’t mind me saying, that the UK government is always malevolent and the EU is always acting as the honest broker and the good guy.” “But I don’t think that’s how many of my constituency sees it and actually when it comes to our international reputation we only have to look to our partners in Ukraine to see the great warmth in which they view the United Kingdom. “With respect I think it depends on who you talk to,” she added.” – The Sun
“Britain could be as tightly aligned to the EU as if it had never left with 20 years due to economic damage caused by the decision to quit, former chancellor George Osborne has claimed. The ex-Tory politician, who helped lead the Remain campaign in 2016, said the referendum ’caused a lot of damage to Britain’s economy’. In radio interview, David Cameron’s former right-hand man slammed Brexiteers who refused to acknowledge the negative as well as positive aspects of what has happened in the past six years. He told LBC: ‘Politics can’t defy reality… it’s not unimaginable in 20 years time, to have a set of economic arrangements with the EU which aren’t too distant from the economic arrangements we had when we were in the EU.’ He added: ‘In many ways the people I respect most are the Brexiteers who say there’s an economic cost to Brexit, but there are other benefits, such as parliamentary control, sovereignty over our borders.”” – The Daily Mail
“Interest rates will rise tomorrow for the fifth time in a row to 1.25 per cent amid calls for Boris Johnson to level with the public about the cost of living crisis. The Bank of England is expected to increase rates by 0.25 percentage points from what was already a 13-year high as it seeks to rein in inflation. The Federal Reserve, America’s central bank, went further yesterday, increasing interest rates by 0.75 percentage points, the sharpest rise since 1994. The prime minister has attempted to strike an optimistic note, saying recently that Britain is in a much better position to deal with inflation than it was in the past. Lord King of Lothbury, a former governor of the Bank of England, said that the cost of living crisis would be “reminiscent of the 1970s” and suggested the prime minister should make clear that living standards would fall.” – The Times
“Labour was mired in chaos of its own over Rwanda migrant flights today after the party leadership refused to commit to banning them while a frontbencher was telling MPs how bad the scheme was. Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper branded the policy of flying asylum seekers to east Africa ‘Government by gimmick’ in the Commons this afternoon. She told MPs it was a ‘shambles that is putting our country to shame’ after the European Court of Human Rights last night blocked an attempt by Priti Patel and Boris Johnson to send the first flight to Kigali. But while Ms Cooper was on her feet, a spokesman for Sir Keir Starmer repeatedly refused to confirm it would scrap the hardline policy if the party won the next election.” – The Daily Mail
“”Severe” restrictions imposed by Nicola Sturgeon’s government on care home residents in Scotland caused “great distress” to residents and are “likely” to have contributed to emotional decline and even death, a major report has concluded. Research commissioned by Scotland’s independent public inquiry into the handling of the pandemic found that the legal basis for confining residents to their rooms and banning visitors was “unclear”. The 143-page report, produced by Edinburgh Napier University, found there was “little evidence” in the early months of the Covid outbreak that the human rights of residents and their families were considered. The research acknowledged that the need for some restrictions was “understandable” given the vulnerability of care home residents prior to the vaccination programme, and “the large number of deaths in the sector.”” – The Daily Telegraph