It’s good to see Boris and the Government not rising to the media bait, after they got their nose put out of joint. Deflecting all this media tosh will just make him a stronger PM. The media are sinking to new lows,poor souls.
I remember as a young boy, my Father asked me what I thought of something, and I replied "rubbish". He then pointed out to me that just to criticise something as being rubbish, was inadequate, and nobody would take me seriously. He explained that to have my opinion respected, I would need to be much more specific, and explain the reasons for my criticism. He was right of course.
You have reminded me of this conversation. You continually do this by criticising the media as if it was a single organisation, that was always completely out of touch, and had decided to publish slurs about Boris and The Government at every opportunity, and ignore any good deeds. They even have a single nose that has been put out of joint? You also blame Tony Blair for everything under the sun, despite the fact he no longer plays a part in day to day politics.
Yet you never explain anything.
Why is the media nose out of joint?
Which media tosh?
What media bait?
Which new lows?
Wouldn't you think that having a free press is fundamental to any democracy?
How do you hide behind freedom of the press?
Why would you describe the media as poor souls?
Why is Tony Blair responsible for all our terrorism?
Why is Tony Blair responsible for Islamophobia?
Is he responsible for all the terrorism, and Islamophobia throughout the world, or just in this country?
You have previous convictions for an unwillingness to answer questions, so I wont hold my breath.
There’s many a well know star from this country who know exactly what I mean when I’m referring to our press.Thats why they’re leaving or have already left. They are just so wrong with their facts, far too often. There’s always plenty of gullible readers ready to pay their wages though.
Our Press can be horrible. It is very easy to blame them. The reality is they are in the business of selling stories. If we weren't so keen to buy such tittle-tattle, they wouldn't do it. And for every 10 stars who claims they left the country because of the Press, 3 of them left for better pay, and 6 to avoid paying UK tax.
I detest people who bang on about this country while not contributing by paying tax. and to every single person who says "if Labour/Tories/Monster Raving Loonies win the next election, I'm off", just leave quietly.
Rant over
Better than listening to people banging on about Brexit
Obviously I couldn't agree about Brexit, which is about to take a turn for the worse, and feature more prominently on our front pages once again.
It’s good to see Boris and the Government not rising to the media bait, after they got their nose put out of joint. Deflecting all this media tosh will just make him a stronger PM. The media are sinking to new lows,poor souls.
Boris Johnson news – live: Priti Patel department facing ‘tropical storms’ amid calls for new bullying investigation, and claims Windrush report watered down
Home secretary Priti Patel is facing fresh accusations of bullying, as former ministers and civil servants allege “aggressive” and “vile” conduct when she was in charge of the Department for International Development (Dfid). The union representing civil servants called for a new process for raising complaints and investigating ministers’ behaviour, while the Home Office’s permanent secretary Sir David Normington said the department was facing “tropical storms”. It comes as MPs warned Boris Johnson’s government not to water down a report into the Windrush scandal after it was reported a section branding the Home Office “institutionally racist” was stripped out.
Key Points Patel hit by allegations of ‘vile’ and ‘aggressive’ behaviour Windrush draft report was ‘watered down’, officials claim Tory peer tells critics of ‘genius’ Cummings to ‘shut up’ Sadiq Khan not voting for Rebecca Long-Bailey Civil service union demands process to ‘raise complaints’ about ministers
Patel warned her immigration crackdown will ‘cut the legs off’ the UK music industry
Priti Patel’s immigration crackdown will “cut the legs off” the thriving UK music industry, a leading figure has said, warning that artists will be forced to cancel tours and small venues will be put in jeopardy. In a blistering attack, the Incorporated Society of Musicians said the Home Office has turned its back on the creative arts – worth £111bn a year to the economy, similar to banking – and refused to listen to its pleas for help. “Enormous” numbers of bands from EU countries will be shut out by the huge cost and frightening bureaucracy of performing, dealing a hammer blow to the venues that host them, it said.
‘Question Time rant shows immigration myths prevail’
Our associate editor Sean O’Grady has written about the latest Question Time row, after the BBC was criticised for promoting a clip of an angry woman’s extended anti-immigration rant.
“I happened to see a woman on BBC’s Question Time with the Alison Steadman hairdo talking about immigration, and thought three things,” he writes. “First: she’ll probably go viral. Second: she was wrong, and wearily, depressingly so … Third: why were the panel members so weak at answering her?”
Rishi Sunak pictured with northern tea brand
The new chancellor has been posing by the kettle, on the cusp of making tea for his colleagues at the Treasury. There’s speculation Sunak’s first budget with be aimed at keeping new Tory voters in the north of England happy – so the choice of chai is very on brand.
‘They’re unwilling to learn lessons’: Labour MP attacks Home Office
Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy is concerned about the report that a portion of the independent review into the Windrush scandal branding the Home Office “institutionally racist” was stripped out.
She said: “This government is leaning on officials to water down the most damning findings of the Windrush Lessons Learned Review.
“This only proves they’re unwilling to learn any lessons from the scandal and will stop at nothing to maintain the hostile environment.”
Civil servants union demands independent complaints process amid Priti Patel bullying row The FDA has issued a statement over reports that Priti Patel, the home secretary, has been accused by staff of belittling officials, taking an angry and aggressive tone in meetings and making unreasonable demands of civil servants. Read the background here. Dave Penman, FDA, general secretary, said: “These reports lay bare the inadequacy of the current process that is neither transparent, formal nor independent. “It is simply not good enough that there is currently no formal process for a civil servant to raise complaints against a minister. “We’ve recently seen a major win for staff working within the Palace of Westminster, where there will now be a clear and independent process for investigating any complaint made against an MP. “It’s unconscionable that 100 yards away in Whitehall, if the same type of complaint were raised against a minister in a UK government department then no such investigation would take place and staff would have no access to justice."
It’s good to see Boris and the Government not rising to the media bait, after they got their nose put out of joint. Deflecting all this media tosh will just make him a stronger PM. The media are sinking to new lows,poor souls.
I remember as a young boy, my Father asked me what I thought of something, and I replied "rubbish". He then pointed out to me that just to criticise something as being rubbish, was inadequate, and nobody would take me seriously. He explained that to have my opinion respected, I would need to be much more specific, and explain the reasons for my criticism. He was right of course.
You have reminded me of this conversation. You continually do this by criticising the media as if it was a single organisation, that was always completely out of touch, and had decided to publish slurs about Boris and The Government at every opportunity, and ignore any good deeds. They even have a single nose that has been put out of joint? You also blame Tony Blair for everything under the sun, despite the fact he no longer plays a part in day to day politics.
Yet you never explain anything.
Why is the media nose out of joint?
Which media tosh?
What media bait?
Which new lows?
Wouldn't you think that having a free press is fundamental to any democracy?
How do you hide behind freedom of the press?
Why would you describe the media as poor souls?
Why is Tony Blair responsible for all our terrorism?
Why is Tony Blair responsible for Islamophobia?
Is he responsible for all the terrorism, and Islamophobia throughout the world, or just in this country?
You have previous convictions for an unwillingness to answer questions, so I wont hold my breath.
There’s many a well know star from this country who know exactly what I mean when I’m referring to our press.Thats why they’re leaving or have already left. They are just so wrong with their facts, far too often. There’s always plenty of gullible readers ready to pay their wages though.
Our Press can be horrible. It is very easy to blame them. The reality is they are in the business of selling stories. If we weren't so keen to buy such tittle-tattle, they wouldn't do it. And for every 10 stars who claims they left the country because of the Press, 3 of them left for better pay, and 6 to avoid paying UK tax.
I detest people who bang on about this country while not contributing by paying tax. and to every single person who says "if Labour/Tories/Monster Raving Loonies win the next election, I'm off", just leave quietly.
Rant over
Better than listening to people banging on about Brexit
Obviously I couldn't agree about Brexit, which is about to take a turn for the worse, and feature more prominently on our front pages once again.
It will have countless twists and turns, but it will probably be 2 years before the picture becomes clearer.
2 more years of people using Brexit as an excuse for their xenophobia, or their failed businesses. Meanwhile, our country will become worse. Not particularly because of Brexit itself, but our Island mentality towards what will be the most important economic discussions since at least 1973.
It will not be as bad as the doomsayers say. But it won't be great....
It’s good to see Boris and the Government not rising to the media bait, after they got their nose put out of joint. Deflecting all this media tosh will just make him a stronger PM. The media are sinking to new lows,poor souls.
I remember as a young boy, my Father asked me what I thought of something, and I replied "rubbish". He then pointed out to me that just to criticise something as being rubbish, was inadequate, and nobody would take me seriously. He explained that to have my opinion respected, I would need to be much more specific, and explain the reasons for my criticism. He was right of course.
You have reminded me of this conversation. You continually do this by criticising the media as if it was a single organisation, that was always completely out of touch, and had decided to publish slurs about Boris and The Government at every opportunity, and ignore any good deeds. They even have a single nose that has been put out of joint? You also blame Tony Blair for everything under the sun, despite the fact he no longer plays a part in day to day politics.
Yet you never explain anything.
Why is the media nose out of joint?
Which media tosh?
What media bait?
Which new lows?
Wouldn't you think that having a free press is fundamental to any democracy?
How do you hide behind freedom of the press?
Why would you describe the media as poor souls?
Why is Tony Blair responsible for all our terrorism?
Why is Tony Blair responsible for Islamophobia?
Is he responsible for all the terrorism, and Islamophobia throughout the world, or just in this country?
You have previous convictions for an unwillingness to answer questions, so I wont hold my breath.
There’s many a well know star from this country who know exactly what I mean when I’m referring to our press.Thats why they’re leaving or have already left. They are just so wrong with their facts, far too often. There’s always plenty of gullible readers ready to pay their wages though.
Our Press can be horrible. It is very easy to blame them. The reality is they are in the business of selling stories. If we weren't so keen to buy such tittle-tattle, they wouldn't do it. And for every 10 stars who claims they left the country because of the Press, 3 of them left for better pay, and 6 to avoid paying UK tax.
I detest people who bang on about this country while not contributing by paying tax. and to every single person who says "if Labour/Tories/Monster Raving Loonies win the next election, I'm off", just leave quietly.
Rant over
Better than listening to people banging on about Brexit
Obviously I couldn't agree about Brexit, which is about to take a turn for the worse, and feature more prominently on our front pages once again.
It will have countless twists and turns, but it will probably be 2 years before the picture becomes clearer.
2 more years of people using Brexit as an excuse for their xenophobia, or their failed businesses. Meanwhile, our country will become worse. Not particularly because of Brexit itself, but our Island mentality towards what will be the most important economic discussions since at least 1973.
It will not be as bad as the doomsayers say. But it won't be great....
I think Boris will come unstuck, and blame the EU for him being unable to successfully cherry pick a trade deal. When the Irish Sea border (that he would never agree to) materialises, frictionless trade disappears, jobs are lost, border delays take effect, causing chaos, some business are unable to recruit staff, and the new trade deals aren't as easy as he thought, we will see how popular he is.
If he sticks to his promise not to extend the transition, the chaos will start next January.
I have no confidence that our Government is capable of managing the process.
It’s good to see Boris and the Government not rising to the media bait, after they got their nose put out of joint. Deflecting all this media tosh will just make him a stronger PM. The media are sinking to new lows,poor souls.
I remember as a young boy, my Father asked me what I thought of something, and I replied "rubbish". He then pointed out to me that just to criticise something as being rubbish, was inadequate, and nobody would take me seriously. He explained that to have my opinion respected, I would need to be much more specific, and explain the reasons for my criticism. He was right of course.
You have reminded me of this conversation. You continually do this by criticising the media as if it was a single organisation, that was always completely out of touch, and had decided to publish slurs about Boris and The Government at every opportunity, and ignore any good deeds. They even have a single nose that has been put out of joint? You also blame Tony Blair for everything under the sun, despite the fact he no longer plays a part in day to day politics.
Yet you never explain anything.
Why is the media nose out of joint?
Which media tosh?
What media bait?
Which new lows?
Wouldn't you think that having a free press is fundamental to any democracy?
How do you hide behind freedom of the press?
Why would you describe the media as poor souls?
Why is Tony Blair responsible for all our terrorism?
Why is Tony Blair responsible for Islamophobia?
Is he responsible for all the terrorism, and Islamophobia throughout the world, or just in this country?
You have previous convictions for an unwillingness to answer questions, so I wont hold my breath.
There’s many a well know star from this country who know exactly what I mean when I’m referring to our press.Thats why they’re leaving or have already left. They are just so wrong with their facts, far too often. There’s always plenty of gullible readers ready to pay their wages though.
Our Press can be horrible. It is very easy to blame them. The reality is they are in the business of selling stories. If we weren't so keen to buy such tittle-tattle, they wouldn't do it. And for every 10 stars who claims they left the country because of the Press, 3 of them left for better pay, and 6 to avoid paying UK tax.
I detest people who bang on about this country while not contributing by paying tax. and to every single person who says "if Labour/Tories/Monster Raving Loonies win the next election, I'm off", just leave quietly.
Rant over
Better than listening to people banging on about Brexit
Obviously I couldn't agree about Brexit, which is about to take a turn for the worse, and feature more prominently on our front pages once again.
It will have countless twists and turns, but it will probably be 2 years before the picture becomes clearer.
2 more years of people using Brexit as an excuse for their xenophobia, or their failed businesses. Meanwhile, our country will become worse. Not particularly because of Brexit itself, but our Island mentality towards what will be the most important economic discussions since at least 1973.
It will not be as bad as the doomsayers say. But it won't be great....
I just turned the tv over to watch Newsnight, caught the end of the previous programme, and just caught Frankie Boyle, telling Brexit jokes.
The first one was,
I know its very fashionable at the minute for people to say that everybody that voted for Brexit is stupid. I don't think that they are stupid. I think they are just people who voted to put an end to immigration from Europe, because they don't like Pakistanis.
Great article in the guardian- sums these people up!
According to officials from one of her former departments, Priti Patel was given to coming out of her office and inquiring: “Why is everyone so **** useless?” Very bold. This is a bit like Donald Trump coming out of his office and asking why everyone has spectacularly stupid hair. The perma-smirking Patel has now moved on to the Home Office, where this week she was accused of bullying staff, trying to oust her most senior official, and creating an “atmosphere of fear” within the department. As opposed to outside of it, which is the norm. If nothing else, it’s a failure of management. To get the best out of people who you want to do their worst, you need to create the right working environment. It’s why the offices of S.P.E.C.T.R.E have a great creche, a smoothie bar, and two “I don’t feel like killing” days per annum for every employee.
As for the Home Office, a complex department already regarded as malevolent, it is now in the hands of someone who recently gave an interview in which she repeatedly confused “counter-terrorism” with “terrorism”. This whole “Priti Patel is home secretary” scenario has the flavour of one of those US news stories where some open-carry idiot’s toddler has leant forward in their car seat and pulled a gun out of the backseat pocket. If you’re one of those people who get off on saying “I told you so”, then fine. But really, there are no good outcomes here. One of the more eye-catching Home Office briefings against her this week declared that Patel was “not committed to the rule of law”. Given she’s home secretary, that feels akin to a doctor not being committed to the idea of medicine. Should it not be vaguely disqualifying?
Arguably, then, it’s been the trickiest week for Priti since the one when she went on a private family holiday to Israel with her husband and then-nine-year-old son, and met with … hang on, we’re going to need a colon here because there’s rather a lot of this: prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a senior foreign ministry diplomat, the public security minister, the leader of the Yesh Atid party, at least nine NGO leaders, staff at a hospital, two charity bosses … There are several more, but all you need to know is that this was your classic holiday-with-kids. “Can we go to a waterpark?” “No. Mummy needs some me-time in the Golan Heights.”
I’m only kidding – presumably the husband did the childcare while Priti relaxed on a lounger at the Knesset. Or maybe everyone was included, with the grownups playing it all as an elaborate fib, like when you try to persuade your children that something grim is a fun game. “You said we were going to have an ice-cream.” “I know but I’ve got something even better – it’s Benjamin Netanyahu!” (I mean … we’ve all met some ghastly people on holiday, haven’t we, but that’s got to be pushing it.)
Despite being resigned from office after that little jolly, Priti Patel is now home secretary, a yin whose yang is the statement, “Dominic Raab is now foreign secretary”. And in keeping with the ironicidal themes of the Boris Johnson administration, it this week fell to madam to front the government’s new policy barring unskilled workers from coming to the UK.
Patel insisted those jobs previously filled by immigrant workers would be stepped up to by Britons currently classed as “economically inactive” – a rationale that means so much more coming from someone always classed as intellectually inactive. One theory is that last Thursday’s cabinet reshuffle brought bad news from Priti’s magic mirror, which no longer gave the desired answer when she inquired of it: “Who is the dimmest of them all?” So this week has been all about restoring herself to her rightful throne.
Either way, Dominic Cummings will doubtless enjoy the torrent of briefing against Patel, because it plays into his narrative that the sole brake on this government’s genius is the civil service. Cummings has made so much of his intention to revolutionise “the blob” that the only reading that flatters him assumes that he wishes to do quite the opposite. Otherwise, why play it like he has? If you talk to people who have genuinely revolutionised any established institution, the absolute first thing they will tell you is that you never, ever do it by announcing that plan when you arrive. If you do, you set up resistance and defensiveness from the start.
So has our beanie-hatted strategist cocked this battle up before it was even fought? You’ve heard of Sun Tzu – meet his brother, Shi-Tzu. Of course, I’m being unfair, because you can’t fault Cummings on the old election-winning. But it increasingly feels like his plan to remake the state could end up commuted down to shifting the location of some lobby journalist briefings and firing a few spads. As physicist Murray Gell-Mann once remarked: BIG WOWS. The question is not if but when the Cummings flounce-out happens. A big fan of interdisciplinary enlightenment, I know he’d be stimulated to learn it was exactly the same with Geri and the Spice Girls. It doesn’t take a superforecaster to see that Dominic will sooner or later be a superblogger again.
And so to the impossibly brief tenure of superforecaster Andrew Sabisky. Cummings’s first hire after his appeal for “weirdos and misfits” to work in No 10 ended up with the apparently unvetted Sabisky flaming out on Monday. When Cummings left his house for work the next day, he was accosted by a journalist shouting laconically: “Have you got any more weirdos?” This is definitely my favourite doorstep inquiry since Michael Crick greeted Peter Mandelson one morning with the salutation: “Will you be telling any lies today, Mr Mandelson?”
But let’s get real here for a minute and ask: how weird was Cummings’s weirdo, really? When Classique Dom put out his famous APB, I was envisaging someone like the brilliant non-binary quantitative analyst in Billions, an unconventional genius with a fascinating and mysterious backstory. Instead, the very first “weirdo” Cummings went for was some basic Oxbridge thinktank ****, at least 436 of which can be found **** on the wrong side of the velvet rope at the Spectator party at Tory conference. Yes, he’s a dreary little eugenicist bro. But aren’t they all, dear.
Still, on the show goes. Indeed, speaking of the economically inactive, whatever happened to the prime minister? One hears so little about Boris Johnson these days, and sees him even less. His career refusal to even pretend to give a **** has been noticed by some in the worst flood-hit communities, who are more likely to be visited by Elvis than Boris.
According to briefings, the PM spent much of the week holed up in Chevening, the Kent country house normally at the disposal of the foreign secretary. It seems Chequers is being renovated, so Johnson must have commandeered the next grace-and-favour property down. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pleased for the Chevening locals. I don’t think any of us would wish to meet Raab on a remote country lane. And perhaps this is how the PM means to conduct his premiership – with the odd mad appearance on the battlements, but in general concealed from public view like some Victorian liability. It’s a living, I suppose. But is it a life?
It’s good to see Boris and the Government not rising to the media bait, after they got their nose put out of joint. Deflecting all this media tosh will just make him a stronger PM. The media are sinking to new lows,poor souls.
The media are overwhelmingly pro-Conservative and pro-Brexit.
Which one do you classify as "media bait"? Expecting a PM to pretend to care about natural disasters in his own country? Or superforecasters-people who believe they know more than experts in every single field. 21st Century Mystic Megs. Pah.
Boris going to the flooded areas would achieve nothing at all for anyone. Don’t kid yourself it would.Everyone would be overjoyed to see a PM that’s been in power for such a short time, turn up? Or is it the negative reaction from the locals , captured by the media, that folk want to view.
The "shocking" extent of fragile finances in schools across the country makes the front page of the i. The paper says "damning" Ofsted research suggests 28% of council-run secondary schools are in debt while staff members are struggling with 70-hour weeks. The government dismisses the report as "unrepresentative". Amid pictures of the Prince of Wales visiting residents in Pontypridd affected by flooding, the question for many newspapers is: "Where's Boris?"
HuffPostUK accuses the prime minister of adopting a "submarine strategy" during Storm Dennis and notes that he hasn't been seen in public for a week.
Janet Street-Porter in the i says he shows no sign of putting on his Hunter boots and wading through Pontypridd. While the Spectator argues Mr Johnson's absence is part of the general "safety-first" approach taken by Mr Johnson's advisers, who tend to make decisions based on what will cause the least damage and attract the fewest headlines. For Simon Walters in the Daily Mail, the excuses trotted out by ministers for the prime minister's failure to visit flooded areas are becoming increasingly desperate. "Never mind [Labour's] Red Wall, Boris," he writes. "What about the Wall of Water that stretches from Yorkshire to South Wales?"
The Mail reports that David Dimbleby has launched a savage attack on Boris Johnson in a German TV interview over his attempt to curb the BBC licence fee. It says the broadcaster accused him of using the issue to undermine the corporation and avoid having his policies scrutinised. He is quoted as saying the prime minister's conduct towards the BBC was "childish, peevish and unpleasant". Downing Street has declined to comment on Mr Dimbleby's interview, the paper adds.
Tory migration plan will shut out 140,000 EU workers Proposal floated as part of crackdown replacing free movement with minimum salary threshold of £25,600 and EU citizens may have to provide fingerprints
St Paul's bomb plot: IS supporter Safiyya Shaikh pleads guilty
A supporter of the banned Islamic State terror group has admitted plotting to blow herself up in a bomb attack on St Paul's Cathedral. Muslim convert Safiyya Shaikh went on a reconnaissance trip to scope out the London landmark and a hotel. The 36-year-old, born Michelle Ramsden, was arrested after asking an undercover police officer to supply bombs.
Most of this thread has been compiled by someone who can’t accept the election result, or accept change.By someone who can’t see past problems or come up with any solutions. The thread is compiled,to the most part,by a staunch Labour voter with just the one viewpoint.
Julian Smith: Boris Johnson approved Stormont agreement
The former Northern Ireland Secretary Julian Smith says Prime Minister Boris Johnson read and approved the agreement for the restoration of Stormont. Mr Smith was sacked during the cabinet reshuffle last week. There was speculation he was removed because the PM felt the deal contained unacceptable elements relating to the legacy of Northern Ireland's Troubles. But Mr Smith said a prime minister "does not sign off a key government deal without reading it first". Responding to Mr Smith's article in the Spectator magazine, allies of the sacked minister said it was "absolute ****" to suggest Mr Johnson and 10 Downing Street had not been kept informed of the full details of the New Decade, New Approach agreement. The agreement restored power-sharing devolved government in Northern Ireland after a three-year suspension.
It’s good to see Boris and the Government not rising to the media bait, after they got their nose put out of joint. Deflecting all this media tosh will just make him a stronger PM. The media are sinking to new lows,poor souls.
The media are overwhelmingly pro-Conservative and pro-Brexit.
Which one do you classify as "media bait"? Expecting a PM to pretend to care about natural disasters in his own country? Or superforecasters-people who believe they know more than experts in every single field. 21st Century Mystic Megs. Pah.
Boris going to the flooded areas would achieve nothing at all for anyone. Don’t kid yourself it would.Everyone would be overjoyed to see a PM that’s been in power for such a short time, turn up? Or is it the negative reaction from the locals , captured by the media, that folk want to view.
BBC's David Dimbleby slams 'liar' Boris Johnson as 'arrogant and untrustworthy' The former Question Time host savagely attacked the Prime Minister during an interview and allegedly said he 'lies everywhere to everyone' - including to his own family
David Dimbleby has savaged Boris Johnson, branding him 'arrogant' and a 'liar' in a brutal interview. The former Question Time host, 82, said the Prime Minister "lies everywhere", including to his own family, and claimed "nobody" trusts him.
Question Time audience member slammed after calling for UK to 'completely close borders' The woman received a backlash for her views on immigrants "flooding in" who "cannot speak English" in a fiery Question Time debate about Home Secretary Priti Patel's new points based immigration proposal
Great article in the guardian- sums these people up!
According to officials from one of her former departments, Priti Patel was given to coming out of her office and inquiring: “Why is everyone so **** useless?” Very bold. This is a bit like Donald Trump coming out of his office and asking why everyone has spectacularly stupid hair. The perma-smirking Patel has now moved on to the Home Office, where this week she was accused of bullying staff, trying to oust her most senior official, and creating an “atmosphere of fear” within the department. As opposed to outside of it, which is the norm. If nothing else, it’s a failure of management. To get the best out of people who you want to do their worst, you need to create the right working environment. It’s why the offices of S.P.E.C.T.R.E have a great creche, a smoothie bar, and two “I don’t feel like killing” days per annum for every employee.
As for the Home Office, a complex department already regarded as malevolent, it is now in the hands of someone who recently gave an interview in which she repeatedly confused “counter-terrorism” with “terrorism”. This whole “Priti Patel is home secretary” scenario has the flavour of one of those US news stories where some open-carry idiot’s toddler has leant forward in their car seat and pulled a gun out of the backseat pocket. If you’re one of those people who get off on saying “I told you so”, then fine. But really, there are no good outcomes here. One of the more eye-catching Home Office briefings against her this week declared that Patel was “not committed to the rule of law”. Given she’s home secretary, that feels akin to a doctor not being committed to the idea of medicine. Should it not be vaguely disqualifying?
Arguably, then, it’s been the trickiest week for Priti since the one when she went on a private family holiday to Israel with her husband and then-nine-year-old son, and met with … hang on, we’re going to need a colon here because there’s rather a lot of this: prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a senior foreign ministry diplomat, the public security minister, the leader of the Yesh Atid party, at least nine NGO leaders, staff at a hospital, two charity bosses … There are several more, but all you need to know is that this was your classic holiday-with-kids. “Can we go to a waterpark?” “No. Mummy needs some me-time in the Golan Heights.”
I’m only kidding – presumably the husband did the childcare while Priti relaxed on a lounger at the Knesset. Or maybe everyone was included, with the grownups playing it all as an elaborate fib, like when you try to persuade your children that something grim is a fun game. “You said we were going to have an ice-cream.” “I know but I’ve got something even better – it’s Benjamin Netanyahu!” (I mean … we’ve all met some ghastly people on holiday, haven’t we, but that’s got to be pushing it.)
Despite being resigned from office after that little jolly, Priti Patel is now home secretary, a yin whose yang is the statement, “Dominic Raab is now foreign secretary”. And in keeping with the ironicidal themes of the Boris Johnson administration, it this week fell to madam to front the government’s new policy barring unskilled workers from coming to the UK.
Patel insisted those jobs previously filled by immigrant workers would be stepped up to by Britons currently classed as “economically inactive” – a rationale that means so much more coming from someone always classed as intellectually inactive. One theory is that last Thursday’s cabinet reshuffle brought bad news from Priti’s magic mirror, which no longer gave the desired answer when she inquired of it: “Who is the dimmest of them all?” So this week has been all about restoring herself to her rightful throne.
Either way, Dominic Cummings will doubtless enjoy the torrent of briefing against Patel, because it plays into his narrative that the sole brake on this government’s genius is the civil service. Cummings has made so much of his intention to revolutionise “the blob” that the only reading that flatters him assumes that he wishes to do quite the opposite. Otherwise, why play it like he has? If you talk to people who have genuinely revolutionised any established institution, the absolute first thing they will tell you is that you never, ever do it by announcing that plan when you arrive. If you do, you set up resistance and defensiveness from the start.
So has our beanie-hatted strategist cocked this battle up before it was even fought? You’ve heard of Sun Tzu – meet his brother, Shi-Tzu. Of course, I’m being unfair, because you can’t fault Cummings on the old election-winning. But it increasingly feels like his plan to remake the state could end up commuted down to shifting the location of some lobby journalist briefings and firing a few spads. As physicist Murray Gell-Mann once remarked: BIG WOWS. The question is not if but when the Cummings flounce-out happens. A big fan of interdisciplinary enlightenment, I know he’d be stimulated to learn it was exactly the same with Geri and the Spice Girls. It doesn’t take a superforecaster to see that Dominic will sooner or later be a superblogger again.
And so to the impossibly brief tenure of superforecaster Andrew Sabisky. Cummings’s first hire after his appeal for “weirdos and misfits” to work in No 10 ended up with the apparently unvetted Sabisky flaming out on Monday. When Cummings left his house for work the next day, he was accosted by a journalist shouting laconically: “Have you got any more weirdos?” This is definitely my favourite doorstep inquiry since Michael Crick greeted Peter Mandelson one morning with the salutation: “Will you be telling any lies today, Mr Mandelson?”
But let’s get real here for a minute and ask: how weird was Cummings’s weirdo, really? When Classique Dom put out his famous APB, I was envisaging someone like the brilliant non-binary quantitative analyst in Billions, an unconventional genius with a fascinating and mysterious backstory. Instead, the very first “weirdo” Cummings went for was some basic Oxbridge thinktank ****, at least 436 of which can be found **** on the wrong side of the velvet rope at the Spectator party at Tory conference. Yes, he’s a dreary little eugenicist bro. But aren’t they all, dear.
Still, on the show goes. Indeed, speaking of the economically inactive, whatever happened to the prime minister? One hears so little about Boris Johnson these days, and sees him even less. His career refusal to even pretend to give a **** has been noticed by some in the worst flood-hit communities, who are more likely to be visited by Elvis than Boris.
According to briefings, the PM spent much of the week holed up in Chevening, the Kent country house normally at the disposal of the foreign secretary. It seems Chequers is being renovated, so Johnson must have commandeered the next grace-and-favour property down. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pleased for the Chevening locals. I don’t think any of us would wish to meet Raab on a remote country lane. And perhaps this is how the PM means to conduct his premiership – with the odd mad appearance on the battlements, but in general concealed from public view like some Victorian liability. It’s a living, I suppose. But is it a life?
It’s good to see Boris and the Government not rising to the media bait, after they got their nose put out of joint. Deflecting all this media tosh will just make him a stronger PM. The media are sinking to new lows,poor souls.
The media are overwhelmingly pro-Conservative and pro-Brexit.
Which one do you classify as "media bait"? Expecting a PM to pretend to care about natural disasters in his own country? Or superforecasters-people who believe they know more than experts in every single field. 21st Century Mystic Megs. Pah.
Home Office’s immigration boss quit ‘after run-ins with Priti Patel
Bullying allegations engulfing the home secretary, Priti Patel, have intensified as it emerged that “major run-ins” had forced the resignation of one of her department’s most senior civil servants on immigration. Union sources have revealed that “uncomfortable” demands by Patel had prompted Mark Thomson, the director general of UK Visas and Immigration and HM Passport Office, to announce his departure just weeks after her appointment. Mick Jones of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), the largest trade union for Home Office staff, said that Patel’s approach to various immigration issues had led to Thomson’s resignation. “He’s indicated to our reps that it was mainly because they had had major run-ins. It was clear that [Patel] had come in and was trying to do things that they [Home Office officials] just weren’t comfortable with and [Thomson] sort of said ‘I’m off then’.”
Downing Street sources have told the Sunday Express that the European Union is "divided and distracted" in the run up to post-Brexit trade talks.
They point to a delay in publishing the EU's negotiating mandate and "chaos" over the bloc's budget. By contrast, the source says, progress on the UK side has been "remarkably smooth".
The Sunday Telegraph reports Boris Johnson wants to replace several high-ranking civil servants to dramatically change the approach of influential Whitehall departments. Conservative sources tell the paper that a number of permanent secretaries are significantly at odds with ministers and their advisers. Also in politics news, the Observer carries a warning from the Labour leadership contender Sir Keir Starmer that the party will lock itself out of power for a generation if it fails to end years of internal disputes. He tells the paper the party should instead target Boris Johnson - who he says has been wrongly caricatured as a clown. In what the Observer describes as Sir Keir's most personal attack to date, he says the prime minister is a "dangerous man".
The Sunday Mirror reports NHS England has agreed a £7m contract with a US firm, praised by US President Donald Trump, to help the health service identify its most expensive patients. The company, Optum, is running a nine-month programme to train managers to rank people according to their risk of illness, the paper says. The contract raises fears that people could be turned down for operations because of their age or weight, the paper claims. The paper's leader column says it makes it hard to believe Mr Johnson's promise that the NHS is "not for sale" - a pledge repeated by the health service in its response to the story.
Meanwhile the government's funding formula for flood defences in England is to be rewritten, according to the Sunday Times, because of concerns it favours wealthy southern areas over parts of the north.
The Environment Agency's formula is based on property values, explains the Times, meaning that nearly two thirds of the £2.6bn-budget goes towards areas around London. The new model will reportedly take into account the impact on health - potentially diverting hundreds of millions of pounds to protect the country's poorest flood-prone regions.
Anger over fresh delays to decision on Arcuri-Johnson probe Police watchdog says global witness hunt has slowed investigation of PM’s friendship with entrepreneur when he was London mayor
News > UK > UK Politics New environment secretary fails to confirm UK will ban import of chlorinated chicken from US George Eustice deflects giving commitment and says what American producers 'use these days are lactic acid washes'
The newly-elected environment secretary has failed to offer a clear commitment that the import of chlorinated chicken and hormone-fed beef will be off the table in any trade deal with the US. George Eustice, who was appointed in the recent reshuffle, did not give a clear answer on whether the government would retain the EU ban on the two products, which is expected to prove a crunch point in trade talks with Donald Trump’s administration.
His predecessor Theresa Villiers gave a firm commitment that British markets would not be flooded with chlorine washed chicken, which is legal in the US.
But Mr Eustice did not explicitly say he would keep her pledge, instead saying American producers tended to use “lactic acid washes” on poultry rather than chlorine.
This Government just doesn't seem to understand what Brexit means.
Having chlorinated chicken imported into this country will mean that EVERY UK farmer will be unable to sell their chickens in the EU. Because every single chicken would have to be checked to ensure it wasn't a chlorinated one being bounced on from the USA.
We can all have our own opinions on Brexit. But there needs to be perspective on how best to protect British industry.
Comments
Boris Johnson news – live: Priti Patel department facing ‘tropical storms’ amid calls for new bullying investigation, and claims Windrush report watered down
Home secretary Priti Patel is facing fresh accusations of bullying, as former ministers and civil servants allege “aggressive” and “vile” conduct when she was in charge of the Department for International Development (Dfid).
The union representing civil servants called for a new process for raising complaints and investigating ministers’ behaviour, while the Home Office’s permanent secretary Sir David Normington said the department was facing “tropical storms”.
It comes as MPs warned Boris Johnson’s government not to water down a report into the Windrush scandal after it was reported a section branding the Home Office “institutionally racist” was stripped out.
Key Points
Patel hit by allegations of ‘vile’ and ‘aggressive’ behaviour
Windrush draft report was ‘watered down’, officials claim
Tory peer tells critics of ‘genius’ Cummings to ‘shut up’
Sadiq Khan not voting for Rebecca Long-Bailey
Civil service union demands process to ‘raise complaints’ about ministers
Patel warned her immigration crackdown will ‘cut the legs off’ the UK music industry
Priti Patel’s immigration crackdown will “cut the legs off” the thriving UK music industry, a leading figure has said, warning that artists will be forced to cancel tours and small venues will be put in jeopardy.
In a blistering attack, the Incorporated Society of Musicians said the Home Office has turned its back on the creative arts – worth £111bn a year to the economy, similar to banking – and refused to listen to its pleas for help.
“Enormous” numbers of bands from EU countries will be shut out by the huge cost and frightening bureaucracy of performing, dealing a hammer blow to the venues that host them, it said.
‘Question Time rant shows immigration myths prevail’
Our associate editor Sean O’Grady has written about the latest Question Time row, after the BBC was criticised for promoting a clip of an angry woman’s extended anti-immigration rant.
“I happened to see a woman on BBC’s Question Time with the Alison Steadman hairdo talking about immigration, and thought three things,” he writes. “First: she’ll probably go viral. Second: she was wrong, and wearily, depressingly so … Third: why were the panel members so weak at answering her?”
Rishi Sunak pictured with northern tea brand
The new chancellor has been posing by the kettle, on the cusp of making tea for his colleagues at the Treasury. There’s speculation Sunak’s first budget with be aimed at keeping new Tory voters in the north of England happy – so the choice of chai is very on brand.
‘They’re unwilling to learn lessons’: Labour MP attacks Home Office
Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy is concerned about the report that a portion of the independent review into the Windrush scandal branding the Home Office “institutionally racist” was stripped out.
She said: “This government is leaning on officials to water down the most damning findings of the Windrush Lessons Learned Review.
“This only proves they’re unwilling to learn any lessons from the scandal and will stop at nothing to maintain the hostile environment.”
Civil servants union demands independent complaints process amid Priti Patel bullying row
The FDA has issued a statement over reports that Priti Patel, the home secretary, has been accused by staff of belittling officials, taking an angry and aggressive tone in meetings and making unreasonable demands of civil servants.
Read the background here.
Dave Penman, FDA, general secretary, said: “These reports lay bare the inadequacy of the current process that is neither transparent, formal nor independent.
“It is simply not good enough that there is currently no formal process for a civil servant to raise complaints against a minister.
“We’ve recently seen a major win for staff working within the Palace of Westminster, where there will now be a clear and independent process for investigating any complaint made against an MP.
“It’s unconscionable that 100 yards away in Whitehall, if the same type of complaint were raised against a minister in a UK government department then no such investigation would take place and staff would have no access to justice."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-news-live-brexit-priti-patel-trump-huawei-labour-leadership-latest-a9348926.html
2 more years of people using Brexit as an excuse for their xenophobia, or their failed businesses. Meanwhile, our country will become worse. Not particularly because of Brexit itself, but our Island mentality towards what will be the most important economic discussions since at least 1973.
It will not be as bad as the doomsayers say.
But it won't be great....
When the Irish Sea border (that he would never agree to) materialises, frictionless trade disappears, jobs are lost, border delays take effect, causing chaos, some business are unable to recruit staff, and the new trade deals aren't as easy as he thought, we will see how popular he is.
If he sticks to his promise not to extend the transition, the chaos will start next January.
I have no confidence that our Government is capable of managing the process.
The first one was,
I know its very fashionable at the minute for people to say that everybody that voted for Brexit is stupid.
I don't think that they are stupid.
I think they are just people who voted to put an end to immigration from Europe, because they don't like Pakistanis.
That just about sums it up.
According to officials from one of her former departments, Priti Patel was given to coming out of her office and inquiring: “Why is everyone so **** useless?” Very bold. This is a bit like Donald Trump coming out of his office and asking why everyone has spectacularly stupid hair. The perma-smirking Patel has now moved on to the Home Office, where this week she was accused of bullying staff, trying to oust her most senior official, and creating an “atmosphere of fear” within the department. As opposed to outside of it, which is the norm. If nothing else, it’s a failure of management. To get the best out of people who you want to do their worst, you need to create the right working environment. It’s why the offices of S.P.E.C.T.R.E have a great creche, a smoothie bar, and two “I don’t feel like killing” days per annum for every employee.
As for the Home Office, a complex department already regarded as malevolent, it is now in the hands of someone who recently gave an interview in which she repeatedly confused “counter-terrorism” with “terrorism”. This whole “Priti Patel is home secretary” scenario has the flavour of one of those US news stories where some open-carry idiot’s toddler has leant forward in their car seat and pulled a gun out of the backseat pocket. If you’re one of those people who get off on saying “I told you so”, then fine. But really, there are no good outcomes here. One of the more eye-catching Home Office briefings against her this week declared that Patel was “not committed to the rule of law”. Given she’s home secretary, that feels akin to a doctor not being committed to the idea of medicine. Should it not be vaguely disqualifying?
Arguably, then, it’s been the trickiest week for Priti since the one when she went on a private family holiday to Israel with her husband and then-nine-year-old son, and met with … hang on, we’re going to need a colon here because there’s rather a lot of this: prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a senior foreign ministry diplomat, the public security minister, the leader of the Yesh Atid party, at least nine NGO leaders, staff at a hospital, two charity bosses … There are several more, but all you need to know is that this was your classic holiday-with-kids. “Can we go to a waterpark?” “No. Mummy needs some me-time in the Golan Heights.”
I’m only kidding – presumably the husband did the childcare while Priti relaxed on a lounger at the Knesset. Or maybe everyone was included, with the grownups playing it all as an elaborate fib, like when you try to persuade your children that something grim is a fun game. “You said we were going to have an ice-cream.” “I know but I’ve got something even better – it’s Benjamin Netanyahu!” (I mean … we’ve all met some ghastly people on holiday, haven’t we, but that’s got to be pushing it.)
Despite being resigned from office after that little jolly, Priti Patel is now home secretary, a yin whose yang is the statement, “Dominic Raab is now foreign secretary”. And in keeping with the ironicidal themes of the Boris Johnson administration, it this week fell to madam to front the government’s new policy barring unskilled workers from coming to the UK.
Patel insisted those jobs previously filled by immigrant workers would be stepped up to by Britons currently classed as “economically inactive” – a rationale that means so much more coming from someone always classed as intellectually inactive. One theory is that last Thursday’s cabinet reshuffle brought bad news from Priti’s magic mirror, which no longer gave the desired answer when she inquired of it: “Who is the dimmest of them all?” So this week has been all about restoring herself to her rightful throne.
Either way, Dominic Cummings will doubtless enjoy the torrent of briefing against Patel, because it plays into his narrative that the sole brake on this government’s genius is the civil service. Cummings has made so much of his intention to revolutionise “the blob” that the only reading that flatters him assumes that he wishes to do quite the opposite. Otherwise, why play it like he has? If you talk to people who have genuinely revolutionised any established institution, the absolute first thing they will tell you is that you never, ever do it by announcing that plan when you arrive. If you do, you set up resistance and defensiveness from the start.
So has our beanie-hatted strategist cocked this battle up before it was even fought? You’ve heard of Sun Tzu – meet his brother, Shi-Tzu. Of course, I’m being unfair, because you can’t fault Cummings on the old election-winning. But it increasingly feels like his plan to remake the state could end up commuted down to shifting the location of some lobby journalist briefings and firing a few spads. As physicist Murray Gell-Mann once remarked: BIG WOWS. The question is not if but when the Cummings flounce-out happens. A big fan of interdisciplinary enlightenment, I know he’d be stimulated to learn it was exactly the same with Geri and the Spice Girls. It doesn’t take a superforecaster to see that Dominic will sooner or later be a superblogger again.
And so to the impossibly brief tenure of superforecaster Andrew Sabisky. Cummings’s first hire after his appeal for “weirdos and misfits” to work in No 10 ended up with the apparently unvetted Sabisky flaming out on Monday. When Cummings left his house for work the next day, he was accosted by a journalist shouting laconically: “Have you got any more weirdos?” This is definitely my favourite doorstep inquiry since Michael Crick greeted Peter Mandelson one morning with the salutation: “Will you be telling any lies today, Mr Mandelson?”
But let’s get real here for a minute and ask: how weird was Cummings’s weirdo, really? When Classique Dom put out his famous APB, I was envisaging someone like the brilliant non-binary quantitative analyst in Billions, an unconventional genius with a fascinating and mysterious backstory. Instead, the very first “weirdo” Cummings went for was some basic Oxbridge thinktank ****, at least 436 of which can be found **** on the wrong side of the velvet rope at the Spectator party at Tory conference. Yes, he’s a dreary little eugenicist bro. But aren’t they all, dear.
Still, on the show goes. Indeed, speaking of the economically inactive, whatever happened to the prime minister? One hears so little about Boris Johnson these days, and sees him even less. His career refusal to even pretend to give a **** has been noticed by some in the worst flood-hit communities, who are more likely to be visited by Elvis than Boris.
According to briefings, the PM spent much of the week holed up in Chevening, the Kent country house normally at the disposal of the foreign secretary. It seems Chequers is being renovated, so Johnson must have commandeered the next grace-and-favour property down. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pleased for the Chevening locals. I don’t think any of us would wish to meet Raab on a remote country lane. And perhaps this is how the PM means to conduct his premiership – with the odd mad appearance on the battlements, but in general concealed from public view like some Victorian liability. It’s a living, I suppose. But is it a life?
The government dismisses the report as "unrepresentative".
Amid pictures of the Prince of Wales visiting residents in Pontypridd affected by flooding, the question for many newspapers is: "Where's Boris?"
HuffPostUK accuses the prime minister of adopting a "submarine strategy" during Storm Dennis and notes that he hasn't been seen in public for a week.
Janet Street-Porter in the i says he shows no sign of putting on his Hunter boots and wading through Pontypridd.
While the Spectator argues Mr Johnson's absence is part of the general "safety-first" approach taken by Mr Johnson's advisers, who tend to make decisions based on what will cause the least damage and attract the fewest headlines.
For Simon Walters in the Daily Mail, the excuses trotted out by ministers for the prime minister's failure to visit flooded areas are becoming increasingly desperate.
"Never mind [Labour's] Red Wall, Boris," he writes. "What about the Wall of Water that stretches from Yorkshire to South Wales?"
The Mail reports that David Dimbleby has launched a savage attack on Boris Johnson in a German TV interview over his attempt to curb the BBC licence fee.
It says the broadcaster accused him of using the issue to undermine the corporation and avoid having his policies scrutinised.
He is quoted as saying the prime minister's conduct towards the BBC was "childish, peevish and unpleasant". Downing Street has declined to comment on Mr Dimbleby's interview, the paper adds.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-51594137
Tory migration plan will shut out 140,000 EU workers
Proposal floated as part of crackdown replacing free movement with minimum salary threshold of £25,600 and EU citizens may have to provide fingerprints
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-eu-citizens-immigration-rules-work-home-office-a9342766.html
Tony Blair Strikes Again.
St Paul's bomb plot: IS supporter Safiyya Shaikh pleads guilty
A supporter of the banned Islamic State terror group has admitted plotting to blow herself up in a bomb attack on St Paul's Cathedral.
Muslim convert Safiyya Shaikh went on a reconnaissance trip to scope out the London landmark and a hotel.
The 36-year-old, born Michelle Ramsden, was arrested after asking an undercover police officer to supply bombs.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-51583815
Households in England face further council tax rises from April, according to research.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51576709
The former Northern Ireland Secretary Julian Smith says Prime Minister Boris Johnson read and approved the agreement for the restoration of Stormont.
Mr Smith was sacked during the cabinet reshuffle last week.
There was speculation he was removed because the PM felt the deal contained unacceptable elements relating to the legacy of Northern Ireland's Troubles.
But Mr Smith said a prime minister "does not sign off a key government deal without reading it first".
Responding to Mr Smith's article in the Spectator magazine, allies of the sacked minister said it was "absolute ****" to suggest Mr Johnson and 10 Downing Street had not been kept informed of the full details of the New Decade, New Approach agreement.
The agreement restored power-sharing devolved government in Northern Ireland after a three-year suspension.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-51567265
The former Question Time host savagely attacked the Prime Minister during an interview and allegedly said he 'lies everywhere to everyone' - including to his own family
David Dimbleby has savaged Boris Johnson, branding him 'arrogant' and a 'liar' in a brutal interview.
The former Question Time host, 82, said the Prime Minister "lies everywhere", including to his own family, and claimed "nobody" trusts him.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/david-dimbleby-slams-liar-boris-21551610
The woman received a backlash for her views on immigrants "flooding in" who "cannot speak English" in a fiery Question Time debate about Home Secretary Priti Patel's new points based immigration proposal
Home Office’s immigration boss quit ‘after run-ins with Priti Patel
Bullying allegations engulfing the home secretary, Priti Patel, have intensified as it emerged that “major run-ins” had forced the resignation of one of her department’s most senior civil servants on immigration.
Union sources have revealed that “uncomfortable” demands by Patel had prompted Mark Thomson, the director general of UK Visas and Immigration and HM Passport Office, to announce his departure just weeks after her appointment.
Mick Jones of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), the largest trade union for Home Office staff, said that Patel’s approach to various immigration issues had led to Thomson’s resignation.
“He’s indicated to our reps that it was mainly because they had had major run-ins. It was clear that [Patel] had come in and was trying to do things that they [Home Office officials] just weren’t comfortable with and [Thomson] sort of said ‘I’m off then’.”
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/home-offices-immigration-boss-quit-after-run-ins-with-priti-patel/ar-BB10hu96?ocid=spartanntp
Downing Street sources have told the Sunday Express that the European Union is "divided and distracted" in the run up to post-Brexit trade talks.
They point to a delay in publishing the EU's negotiating mandate and "chaos" over the bloc's budget.
By contrast, the source says, progress on the UK side has been "remarkably smooth".
The Sunday Telegraph reports Boris Johnson wants to replace several high-ranking civil servants to dramatically change the approach of influential Whitehall departments.
Conservative sources tell the paper that a number of permanent secretaries are significantly at odds with ministers and their advisers.
Also in politics news, the Observer carries a warning from the Labour leadership contender Sir Keir Starmer that the party will lock itself out of power for a generation if it fails to end years of internal disputes.
He tells the paper the party should instead target Boris Johnson - who he says has been wrongly caricatured as a clown.
In what the Observer describes as Sir Keir's most personal attack to date, he says the prime minister is a "dangerous man".
The Sunday Mirror reports NHS England has agreed a £7m contract with a US firm, praised by US President Donald Trump, to help the health service identify its most expensive patients.
The company, Optum, is running a nine-month programme to train managers to rank people according to their risk of illness, the paper says.
The contract raises fears that people could be turned down for operations because of their age or weight, the paper claims.
The paper's leader column says it makes it hard to believe Mr Johnson's promise that the NHS is "not for sale" - a pledge repeated by the health service in its response to the story.
Meanwhile the government's funding formula for flood defences in England is to be rewritten, according to the Sunday Times, because of concerns it favours wealthy southern areas over parts of the north.
The Environment Agency's formula is based on property values, explains the Times, meaning that nearly two thirds of the £2.6bn-budget goes towards areas around London.
The new model will reportedly take into account the impact on health - potentially diverting hundreds of millions of pounds to protect the country's poorest flood-prone regions.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-51601651
Anger over fresh delays to decision on Arcuri-Johnson probe
Police watchdog says global witness hunt has slowed investigation of PM’s friendship with entrepreneur when he was London mayor
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/23/johnson-arcuri-inquiry-anger-over-fresh-delays
News > UK > UK Politics
New environment secretary fails to confirm UK will ban import of chlorinated chicken from US
George Eustice deflects giving commitment and says what American producers 'use these days are lactic acid washes'
The newly-elected environment secretary has failed to offer a clear commitment that the import of chlorinated chicken and hormone-fed beef will be off the table in any trade deal with the US.
George Eustice, who was appointed in the recent reshuffle, did not give a clear answer on whether the government would retain the EU ban on the two products, which is expected to prove a crunch point in trade talks with Donald Trump’s administration.
His predecessor Theresa Villiers gave a firm commitment that British markets would not be flooded with chlorine washed chicken, which is legal in the US.
But Mr Eustice did not explicitly say he would keep her pledge, instead saying American producers tended to use “lactic acid washes” on poultry rather than chlorine.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-chlorine-chicken-us-trade-deal-uk-trump-boris-johnson-a9353066.html
Having chlorinated chicken imported into this country will mean that EVERY UK farmer will be unable to sell their chickens in the EU. Because every single chicken would have to be checked to ensure it wasn't a chlorinated one being bounced on from the USA.
We can all have our own opinions on Brexit. But there needs to be perspective on how best to protect British industry.