“In an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, the Prime Minister promises a building blitz of hospitals, schools, housing developments and ‘shovel-ready’ road and rail infrastructure projects, while an ‘opportunity guarantee’ will aim to save the jobs of workers who have lost out in the employment market…He says: ‘This has been a huge, huge shock to the country but we’re going to bounce back very well. We want to build our way back to health. If Covid was a lightning flash, we’re about to have the thunderclap of the economic consequences. We’re going to be ready.” – Mail on Sunday
“This understated document tends to talk drily of “fiscal challenges” and “unsustainable upward trajectories”. But its essential message is always clear, and in the wake of the coronavirus crisis it will become clearer still: Britain is slowly, inexorably, going bankrupt. It isn’t an inevitable process. But it’s an outcome our political system is conspiring to deliver. In the years since the financial crisis, Britain’s annual growth rate has topped 2.5% only once — the worst performance since the Second World War. Even before the pandemic hit, the OBR’s projections had us bumping along at 1.5% for the next few years. You don’t have to be Mr Micawber to compare income and expenditure: mediocre growth (driven by abysmal productivity) versus soaring NHS demand.” – Sunday Times
“The Prime Minister – stung by criticism of the slow and partial resumption of teaching – admitted that the closure of schools had been ‘a massive problem’. ‘We need to get the kids back into school,’ Mr Johnson told The Mail on Sunday. ‘I want all pupils back in school in September.’ Asked whether it would be compulsory, Mr Johnson replied: ‘Yes. It’s the law.’ He added that the teaching unions which had opposed the wider reopening of schools – on the grounds that it posed a risk to the safety of their members – should ‘take their responsibilities seriously’.” – Mail on Sunday
“A former Met Police chief said there needs to be a ‘public conversation’ about the violence officers have faced in recent weeks…He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘It cannot be right that this level of injury to officers is seen as acceptable.’ He added: ‘This is not a normal situation where an occupation carries this sort of risk of injury every day.’ He added: ‘That seen as the policewoman riding her horse and being smashed against the road sign because people were so angry is just not appropriate…Obviously this is a matter for courts and sentencing but I also think it is actually a matter for public conversation. This should not be like this.’” – Mail on Sunday
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> Yesterday:
“In the biggest shake-up of the Prevent strategy since its launch in 2003, Priti Patel has proposed dividing England and Wales into nine regional hubs. Dedicated teams would operate from extremist ‘hot spots’ within each. The review was ordered after intelligence highlighted the changing nature of extremism in Britain, with an increasing number of Islamic terrorist offenders living in neighbourhoods outside traditional Muslim areas, and most far-Right extremists based in areas with little or no previous extremist activity. There has also been a significant rise in the number of far-Left, animal rights and environmental extremists and those with ‘no fixed ideologies’.” – Mail on Sunday
“Senior officials “begged” Robert Jenrick to block a £1bn property deal backed by the Tory donor Richard Desmond, it emerged last night. But the housing secretary overruled the objections from civil servants and lawyers to push it through. A Whitehall whistleblower said Jenrick dismissed their advice over the luxury housing plan in London’s Docklands via text messages to a junior aide. He also failed to inform his most senior planning officials that he had met and texted Desmond, the former Daily Express owner, when he overruled them.” – Sunday Times
> Today: ToryDiary – Our survey. By a wafer-thin margin, a plurality of our Party member panel says that Jenrick should resign
“Mr Gove spoke of how ‘distant’ government was from many people and indicated that civil servants should move out of the capital into the regions. In a speech to the Ditchley Foundation, he asked: ‘How can we be less anywhere and more somewhere – closer to the 52 per cent who voted to Leave, and more understanding of why? Almost every arm of Government, and those with powerful voices within it, seemed estranged from the majority in 2016.’ Referring to the great 1930s US President Franklin D Roosevelt (FDR), he warned that the views of that majority were ‘rarely heard within Government’. ‘FDR asked his Government to remember the Forgotten Man. In the 2016 referendum those who had been too often forgotten asked to be remembered,’ he said.” – Mail on Sunday
> Today: MPsETC – “If this Government is to reform so much, it must also reform itself.” Gove’s speech on change in Whitehall. Full text.
“During a conversation on Saturday with Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Downing Street confirmed Mr Johnson reiterated that the UK was prepared to leave on ‘Australia terms’ if no agreement was forthcoming. Australia has no bespoke trade deal with the European Union, leading Brexit critics to describe the proposals as akin to leaving on no-deal terms, albeit with a number of mini-deals put in place to allow vital sectors, such as air travel, to continue. A Number 10 spokeswoman, issuing a readout of a phone discussion with Mr Morawiecki, said: ‘On the UK’s future relationship with the EU, the Prime Minister welcomed the agreement on both sides to an intensified process of negotiations in July.” – Mail on Sunday
“The surge in peers taking part in votes on legislation since then has been startling. Research by The Sunday Telegraph found that an average of 497 peers have voted at an average division since the changes came into effect. This is 137 more than the average number voting over the last five-years. In 12 divisions in the House of Lords – held between June 15 and June 24 – an average of 497 peers took part. The first division under the new scheme – on the Extradition (Provisional Arrest Bill) on June 15 – saw 544 peers vote.” – Sunday Telegraph
“The electoral watchdog should be abolished and its powers handed back to local councils, the three remaining board members of the Vote Leave campaign group have said. The call came as Alan Halsall, one of the directors, spoke out for the first time to lay bare the toll taken by the Electoral Commission’s pursuit of him in the years following the 2016 referendum. MPs on the public administration and constitutional affairs committee are due to grill senior officials from the Commission about its work on Thursday. Vote Leave is currently being wound up by its directors Mr Halsall, Jon Moynihan and Daniel Hodson, a legal process that can take months. In a statement to The Telegraph, the trio said: “The Board of Vote Leave is firmly of the belief that the Electoral Commission should be abolished, and its functions returned to the various institutions that have traditionally occupied those roles.” – Sunday Telegraph
“The new Labour leader chose Armed Forces Day to reach out to the military and distance himself from his predecessor, who famously said he would never use the Trident nuclear deterrent. Sir Keir said: ‘People need to know that under my leadership, Labour will always prioritise the first duty of any government – to keep its people safe.’..n a dig at Mr Corbyn, he said he no longer wanted to hear voters say they ‘don’t think the Labour Party values the Armed Forces’. The bid to reset the party’s links came with a video highlighting key Labour figures’ former military service – including darling of the Left, the late Tony Benn, who was in the RAF during the Second World War.” – Mail on Sunday
“The office of taoiseach is to rotate between the two centrist parties — Fine Gael and Fianna Fail — after they agreed ambitious climate targets to seal a power-sharing deal with the Green Party. The pact sees Fine Gael’s 41-year-old leader, Leo Varadkar, step down as prime minister in favour of Micheal Martin, 59, the Fianna Fail leader and Varadkar’s erstwhile political rival. Varadkar will return to lead the government in December 2022 under the rotating prime minister pact. The election of Martin, a former teacher, as prime minister sees Fianna Fail join in coalition with Fine Gael for the first time.” – Sunday Times