“I want Britain, as a bold country confident in its values, to continue to lead this fight on the global stage. As part of this we will be using over £33 million from our aid budget to create a five-year International Modern Slavery Fund focused on high-risk countries, where we know victims are regularly trafficked to the UK. It is hard to comprehend that such sickening and inhuman crimes are lurking in the shadows of our country. But the most recent estimates suggest there are between 10,000 and 13,000 victims in the UK alone and over 45 million across the world…These crimes must be stopped and the victims of modern slavery must go free. This is the great human rights issue of our time, and as Prime Minister I am determined that we will make it a national and international mission to rid our world of this barbaric evil.” – Theresa May Sunday Telegraph
“Prominent campaigners to remain in the EU, including four cabinet ministers, are in line for knighthoods in a resignation honours list that will see David Cameron shower 48 aides, allies and Tory donors with awards. In an unprecedented leak of a nominations honours list, The Sunday Times can reveal Cameron has requested knighthoods for two main Tory donors who have together given more than £3m to the party and EU “remain” campaign. Top of his list are Ian Taylor, a businessman who has handed the Tories more than £1.6m and contributed at least £350,000 to the “remain” campaign, and Andrew Cook, who has donated more than £1m to the Conservatives and another £300,000 to “remain”. In an unusual move, four cabinet members who also backed the campaign — Philip Hammond, Michael Fallon, David Lidington and Patrick McLoughlin — are among nine proposed knighthoods.” – Sunday Times(£)
“Britain will “leverage” its £11 billion foreign aid budget to build a series of new trade deals as it leaves the European Union, the Telegraph has learned. Priti Patel, the new International Development Secretary, and her ministers will use meetings with foreign leaders from countries that receive foreign aid to “open the door” to new deals. While rules bar Britain from explicitly tying trade deals to foreign aid, Mrs Patel plans to use the department’s budget in Britain’s “national interest” to help with the Brexit process.” – Sunday Telegraph
>Today: Emma McClarkin on Comment: Now to trade with the world
“Taxpayers could be saddled with a £2.5bn bill for Hinkley Point even if the government walks away from the huge Somerset nuclear power station, experts warn. The French state-owned energy giant EDF, which last week finally committed to building the £18bn plant, has already spent £2.5bn developing the 430-acre site. About 900 staff are working on the project, which will house Britain’s first new reactor since the 1990s.” – Sunday Times(£)
>Yesterday:
“The triple-lock protection for state pensions should be dropped to save billions of pounds for better causes, according to the outgoing pensions minister. The Department for Work and Pensions declined to rule out a review of the “totemic” policy in the coming months. Under the triple-lock guarantee, pensions have risen every year since 2010 by whichever is the higher figure – the rate of inflation, average earnings or a minimum of 2.5%. This has lifted many pensioners out of poverty, but Baroness Altmann, who left her post as pensions minister this month, said the cost beyond 2020 would be “enormous”.” – The Observer
“Brit jihadists will have to go on “de-radicalisation” courses under tough anti-terror laws. Theresa May wants courts to be able to send extremists on schemes to undo brainwashing by Islamist hate preachers. The PM also plans to tighten the rules restricting the movement and activities of suspects with a new tool dubbed “control order light”. She has demanded an urgent overhaul of counter-terrorism strategy in the wake of atrocities across Europe. Among the plans being considered are tighter controls on the sale of commercial chemicals used in home-made bombs.” – The Sun on Sunday
“New laws to curb Theresa May’s right to send the SAS on secret missions have been demanded by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. In his latest controversial comments on defence, Mr Corbyn said that David Cameron got round the need for a Commons vote to send regular British forces to war – by deploying Special Forces instead. He said the loophole had been used to approve covert British military involvement or arms supplies in Libya, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia.” – Mail on Sunday
“Jeremy Corbyn has been accused of “bottling” the first head-to-head hustings with Owen Smith after it emerged that he has rejected a Channel 4 News debate organised by the Labour party that was due to be held on Monday evening. Labour party officials asked the two candidates last Tuesday to keep the date free for the debate but the Corbyn campaign informed Channel 4 News on Thursday that he would not be attending.It is understood that the campaigns had been aware since 22 July that a Channel 4 News debate was going to be organised for this week by Labour party officials, although that is contested by the Corbyn camp.” – The Observer
“Sir Philip Green has warned MP Frank Field that his constant public attacks are putting a rescue plan for BHS pensioners in jeopardy. In a stinging letter to the veteran Labour MP this weekend, the billionaire accuses him of ‘endless self-promotion’ and ‘political grandstanding’. The former BHS owner says he is making progress in finding a solution for workers left at risk of losing their pensions after the collapse of the retailer. But he adds: ‘You should be in no doubt, Mr Field, that any solution relies on a voluntary decision on our side to support the BHS pension schemes. There is no legal liability to make any payment to support the schemes.’ ” – Mail on Sunday
“Nominations close later in the race to succeed Nigel Farage as UKIP leader. Mr Farage, who led the party for most of the past eight years, stood down after the UK’s vote to leave the EU. Those vying to replace him include the party’s immigration spokesman Steven Woolfe, councillor Lisa Duffy and MEPs Jonathan Arnott and Bill Etheridge. Those wanting to stand need the backing of a proposer and 50 supporters from at least 10 UKIP branches. The winner will be announced on 15 September. Nominations close at midday.” – BBC
“Germany and France were more pessimistic about the future of the European Union than Britain was in the run up to the Brexit vote, a study shows. The Eurobarometer poll found that more than half – 51 per cent – of French and Germans were “totally pessimistic” about the EU’s future. This compared to 46 per cent of Britons, who voted to leave the European Union on June 23, three weeks after the study, which was conducted between May 21 and May 31. More than half of respondents in Greece (70 per cent), Cyprus (54 per cent) and Hungary (52 per cent) were also totally pessimistic about the future of the EU.” – Sunday Express
“Donald Trump rejected criticism from the father of a soldier killed in Iraq who said the Republican presidential nominee had “sacrificed nothing and no one” and questioned whether the mother was allowed to speak during the couple’s appearance at the Democratic convention. “I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices,” Trump told ABC News in excerpts of an interview posted on Saturday. “I work very, very hard.” – Reuters
>Today: ToryDiary: Why we hope that Hillary will win
“Owen Smith said it “pained” him that under Corbyn the Labour Party had not attacked the new prime minister, Theresa May, with “the strength and the power and the vitality to smash her back on her heels”….it’s worth noting that neither Theresa May nor her spokeswomen — her press and media team are all women, as it happens — bothered even to respond to this crude attack. This reaction of imperviousness was exactly right. Mrs May is not someone who has ever seen herself as a victim, and would hate to be portrayed as one. That, in a way, sums up one of the differences between how women are seen in the Conservative Party and in the Labour Party.” – Dominic Lawson Sunday Times(£)
“When I checked the culprits of the Charlie Hebdo murders, all had drugs records or connections. The same was true of the Bataclan gang, of the Tunis beach killer and of the Thalys train terrorist. It is also true of the two young men who murdered a defenceless and aged priest near Rouen last week. One of them had also been hospitalised as a teenager for mental disorders and so almost certainly prescribed powerful psychiatric drugs. The Nice killer had been smoking marijuana ..Here is my point. We know far more about these highly publicised cases than we do about most crimes. Given that mind-altering drugs, legal or illegal, are present in so many of them, shouldn’t we be enquiring into the possibility that the link might be significant in a much wider number of violent killings?” Peter Hitchens Mail on Sunday