“Britain plans to start removing asylum seekers to Rwanda in about six weeks’ time in an unprecedented attempt to tackle the global migration crisis. The Times understands that Boris Johnson wants the first flight taking Channel migrants to the central African state to leave late next month. The government wants tens of thousands of people moved within the next few years. Each migrant sent to Rwanda is expected to cost British taxpayers between £20,000 and £30,000. This will cover accommodation before departure, a seat on a chartered plane and their first three months of accommodation in Rwanda.” – The Times
Editorial:
Comment:
>Today:
>Yesterday:
“Boris Johnson has pledged to “set the record straight” over the Partygate scandal when he appears before MPs next week. The PM has been accused of misleading Parliament after he was fined for attending his own 56th birthday bash in No 10. He had previously told the Commons that he was unaware of any rule-breaking gatherings held in Downing St during lockdown. Met police detectives issued Boris, his wife Carrie, and Chancellor Rishi Sunak with fixed penalty notices on Tuesday. Today the PM said he will give an update to MPs on the row when Parliament returns from the Easter recess.” – The Sun
>Today:
“The danger for Johnson’s government is that the cost-of-living crisis could lead to expenses-style anger. Voters will rage about the fact that ministers seem insulated from the squeeze they are going through. It could become the most potent expression yet of the idea that there is one rule for them and one rule for the bulk of the population. Johnson can throw red meat to his base on issues such as small boats but the precondition for any Tory recovery is an economic turnaround. The government needs inflation to start coming down and people to stop feeling their pay packets get them less and less each month.” – The Times
“Russia’s defence ministry has said the Moskva naval missile cruiser, its flagship vessel in the Black Sea, has sunk, dealing a significant blow to Moscow’s offensive in southern Ukraine. Ukrainian officials said on Thursday that the Russian vessel had been hit by one of their anti-ship missiles, causing an explosion on board. The Pentagon assessed that the ship had “experienced significant damage” and was battling a fire, a senior US defence official said. “We can’t say definitively what caused this explosion and the subsequent fire,” the person added. “It could have been the result of a missile strike and it could have been something else. We just don’t know.”” – The Financial Times
“Disgraced MP Imran Ahmad Khan will resign from the House of Commons after being convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy. The Wakefield MP, who was this week expelled from the Conservative Party following his guilty verdict, said he would be ‘withdrawing from political life’. His decision will lead to a hotly-contested by-election in his ‘Red Wall’ constituency, in West Yorkshire, which switched to the Tories at the 2019 general election after being held by Labour since the 1930s. Khan today confirmed he would appeal his guilty verdict but said the likely length of the legal process would make it ‘intolerable’ for his constituents to ‘go years without an MP’.” – The Daily Mail
>Yesterday:
“Coronavirus infections have begun to fall in England, according to official data published on Thursday, suggesting the latest wave unleashed by the highly infectious Omicron BA.2 offshoot may be in retreat. The Office for National Statistics estimated that one in every 14 people in England had Covid-19 in the week to April 9, down from one in 13 in the seven days to April 2. Meanwhile, NHS England data covering February showed a record 6.2mn people were waiting for non-urgent hospital care, up 80,000 from January, as the health service was busy with patients admitted with Covid.” – The Financial Times
“A government fund designed to replace EU grants lost due to Brexit has been criticised as “nothing more than an outrage” that will leave English regions tens of millions of pounds worse off than when Britain was in the EU. The Conservative’s 2019 manifesto promised “at a minimum” to match the average EU subsidy of about £1.5bn a year to help the most deprived parts of the UK. But details of the government’s Shared Prosperity Fund show that it will hand out only £2.6bn over the next three years and will not match the previous EU funding level of £1.5bn a year until 2025.” – The Guardian
“After months of speculation about who would replace Laura Kuenssberg, Chris Mason’s promotion from a host on Radio 4 to BBC political editor seems to have taken many people by surprise – and the public outpouring of praise appears to have touched the born-and-raised Northerner. Indeed, who could expect anything more from Mason, the straight-talking grammar school-educated ‘proud Yorkshireman’ from a working class background whose Cambridge friends humorously called him ‘basically a 50-year-old man since he was a student’? ‘Cripes, thank you for the lovely messages. The news popped out while I was in a pub in Halifax, with no signal,’ Mason told his Twitter followers just earlier today…” – The Daily Mail
“Billionaires used to buy a newspaper or television station to boost their influence on the world stage. Now they have moved on to something more ambitious: a social media takeover. Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, appears to have set his sights on transforming the medium with an attempt to buy Twitter for $43 billion — a substantial part of his estimated $265 billion fortune. Last night Musk said he wanted to make sure that the Silicon Valley tech giant allowed for freedom of expression as he believed it was “important to the future of civilisation”.” – The Times