‘At noon [today] the Bank of England is widely expected to cut its base rate from 0.5 per cent to 0.25 per cent, a new historic low, in order to help the overall economy deal with the post-Brexit vote economic shock. But what will this move by the Bank mean for the finances and economic prospects of ordinary UK households?’… Someone with a 25-year £250,000 repayment tracker mortgage paying 2 per cent interest could see their monthly £1,100 repayment fall by around £30 if rates do go down to 0.25 per cent… If you’re a small business owner looking to get a loan there may be disappointingly little difference in the attitude of your bank to your application as a result of a cut. And you also may still not feel tempted to seek a loan in the first place.’ – Independent
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Comment:
>Yesterday: Joe Carlebach in Comment: Please don’t forget our hard working small savers
‘The Conservatives have secured their biggest poll lead since winning power, with Theresa May still enjoying a honeymoon period as prime minister. She and her party are 14 points ahead of Labour, according to a YouGov poll for The Times. It is the biggest Conservative lead since November 2009, late in Gordon Brown’s government.’ – The Times (£)
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>Today: ToryDiary: What’s your view of May’s new Cabinet? Please take our monthly survey
‘One woman was stabbed to death and five people injured when a knifeman went on the rampage at a central London square in a possible terrorist attack. Armed police were called to the scene in Russell Square, Bloomsbury, at around 10.30pm last night, after reports that a man brandishing a knife was attacking passers by. Despite efforts by paramedics to save the woman, in her 60s, she was pronounced dead a short while later. The other casualties, two women and three men, are being treated for their injuries in hospital. The suspect, a 19-year-old, was arrested in nearby Bedford Place after being brought down by a Taser within minutes of the officers arriving. Police said they were not ruling out terrorism as a potential motive, but added early indications were that mental health was a “significant” factor.’ – The Times (£)
Terrorism
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>Today: ToryDiary: Making terror even more terrifying than it already is
‘The big problem is not the “honours for cronies” aspect of David Cameron’s leaked list. I can see why there is public anger about gongs being handed out to political aides for simply doing their jobs loyally and working hard (which, in my experience, they all do). Many people work hard, making a positive contribution to society in far less glamorous settings, and don’t get recognised. Isn’t serving in government honour enough?… The corruption comes when the honours system starts to clash with democratic principles. The most obvious way this happens is when people who are not elected make the laws which we live under. We’ve just fought and won a referendum campaign on the principle that unelected bureaucrats in the EU should not have the power to impose laws on us. I’m not clear why this principle applies to unelected foreigners but not to home-grown appointees. The decision to leave the EU was a victory for people power. But that’s just the start: until we have a fully elected legislature, we cannot call ourselves a true democracy.’ – The Times (£)
‘One of the UK’s top economists has issued a stark warning about the possible economic and social implications of Brexit for Europe. Work from before the referendum by Professor John Van Reenen, professor of economics at LSE and director of the university’s Centre for Economic Performance, laid out the likely long-term economic costs of Britain leaving the European Union. Van Reenen’s research, co-authored with three colleagues from the LSE, Swati Dhingra, Gianmarco Ottaviano and Thomas Sampson, claims even if Britain manages to secure a deal where it keeps access to the single market, income per person will still fall by 1.3 per cent relative to otherwise. If the UK is unwilling to accept the free movement of labour, it is likely trade will fall by more, leading to a 2.6 per cent decrease in income per person. This translates to a fall of between £850 and £1,700 per UK household. In a new piece following the referendum result, Mr Van Reenen blamed the stigmatisation of foreigners, the eurosceptic and anti-immigration stance of large sections of the British press and also “the worst [politicians] in living memory” for the result.’ – Independent
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‘The judge who is leading Britain’s public inquiry into child abuse spent three months on holiday or abroad during her first year in the job, The Times has learnt. Dame Lowell Goddard, whose pay and benefits package amounts to £500,000 a year, spent 44 working days in New Zealand, her home country, and Australia after becoming chairwoman of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in April last year. The period abroad was in addition to her annual leave entitlement of 30 working days, which is part of a generous contract agreed with Theresa May, who was home secretary at the time of the appointment. The 74 days equate to three working months.’ – The Times (£)
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‘The fight in the courts over who should pay for drugs to protect against HIV infection has taken an unedifying turn. There have been allegations that gay men will become more promiscuous if NHS England pays for the pills as a result of the high court ruling and that children with cystic fibrosis will be deprived of a drug that could help them breathe. The issues are as emotive as they could be, just as they have always been over the battles for access to new cancer drugs that might give women with young children a few more weeks of life. But the problem is exactly the same one. Hard decisions have to be taken as long as the NHS has a limited pot of money to spend.’ – Guardian
‘The number of state-educated students going to university and colleges fell by four percent in the first year tuition fees were increased to £9,000 for all new undergraduates, new statistics show. The drop from 66 percent to 62 percent between the 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 academic years was part of a nine percentage point drop in state school pupils carrying on into higher education since 2009/2010, Department for Education figures revealed. The figures, released on Wednesday, relate to English institutions only, where students pay £27,000 for a three-year-degree course under controversial increases brought in by the then Coalition government in 2012/2013. The report, Widening Participation in Higher Education: 2016, noted: “The 2013/14 cohort was the first cohort where all students were affected by the change in tuition fees in 2012/13.’ – Daily Telegraph
Comment:
>Yesterday: Nathan Fogg in Comment: Despite rising tuition fees getting a degree is still a steal
‘The Labour party is teetering on the edge of a precipice and could “bust apart and disappear”, the leadership challenger Owen Smith has warned. The Labour MP, who resigned from the frontbench last month, said he did not want the party to split but this had now become likely if Jeremy Corbyn remained as leader. He made the prediction as new YouGov research suggested support for Labour could fall to about 20% if either the right or left of the party splinters away. It comes the day before Corbyn and Smith have their first head-to-head encounter at a live debate in Cardiff.’ – Guardian
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Comment:
>Today: Daniel Hannan’s column: As a card-carrying Conservative, I’m alarmed by Labour’s collapse
‘Ukip erupted into “civil war” today after the frontrunner in its leadership race was barred from the contest for submitting his nomination papers 17 minutes late. Steven Woolfe, the bookmakers’ favourite who had the tacit backing of Nigel Farage and the public endorsement of Arron Banks, a major donor to the party, was eliminated from the race by its national executive committee (NEC). A majority of Ukip’s governing body voted that Mr Woolfe’s application was “considered to be ineligible as a result of a late submission”, the party’s returning officer said in a statement. Three members of the NEC, who backed the MEP and dissented against the decision, immediately resigned from the committee, accusing it of pursuing “oligarchy, self-promotion and cronyism”.’ – The Times (£)
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‘How we laughed back in 2011. Barack Obama was doing his comic turn at the annual White House correspondents’ dinner. The week before the president had published his birth certificate in response to those persisting with the endlessly debunked theory that he hadn’t been born in Hawaii but in Kenya or Vanuatu, and was thus ineligible to be US president. One of those most loudly questioning President Obama’s origins had been Donald Trump. Well, quipped Obama; “He can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter. Like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?” He brought the house down. This week Trump — who is no longer to be dismissed (as Obama did back then) as a reality TV presenter, but is now the presidential candidate of the party of Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan — dived once again, fully clothed, into the roiling waters of conspiranoia.’ – The Times (£)
News in Brief
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