“Volodymyr Zelensky has announced a surprised visit to London today to hold “substantive negotiations” with Rishi Sunak. The Ukrainian President said the UK “is a leader” in helping his country to expand its ground and air capabilities as it continues the fight against the Russian invasion and “this cooperation will continue today”. Downing Street said Mr Sunak will welcome Mr Zelensky to Chequers, the Prime Minister’s grace and favour home in Buckinghamshire, for the talks…Mr Zelensky has engaged in a whistle-stop tour of western Europe in recent days, meeting leaders in Italy, Germany and Paris before heading to London today. The Ukrainian President was last in the UK for talks with Mr Sunak back in February of this year…” – The Daily Telegraph
>Today:
“The Conservative Party should focus on the “values” of working-class voters in the north rather than “retreating” to its traditional “affluent” supporters in the south, two emerging leaders on the right of the party will say today. Danny Kruger, MP for Devizes in Wiltshire, and Miriam Cates, MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge in South Yorkshire, will make speeches at a conference in central London that will call on Rishi Sunak to adopt bolder policies for the next election…The speeches will come at the start of a three-day national conservatism (NatCon) conference organised by the Edmund Burke Foundation, a right-wing US think tank, to discuss the future of the Tory party…The prime minister will try to rally his party at a reception in the Downing Street garden tonight to celebrate the coronation.” – The Times
“Suella Braverman, home secretary, will on Monday reiterate the UK government’s commitment to bring down net migration as inflows are expected to hit a record high this year. Braverman will say in her keynote speech at the National Conservatism conference in London on Monday that she campaigned for Brexit because she wanted Britain to control migration…In its 2019 general election manifesto, the Conservative party promised that overall numbers would come down, but official data due this month from the Office for National Statistics are expected to instead show that net migration has hit record levels. “We need to get overall immigration numbers down,” the home secretary will tell the conference…” – The Financial Times
“Rishi Sunak risks making Britain poorer after “the surrender to the blob”, Jacob Rees-Mogg will say in a keynote speech on Monday. In a stinging attack on the Prime Minister, Mr Rees-Mogg will accuse Mr Sunak of breaking a promise to scrap thousands of European Union laws that opens him up to allegations of “untrustworthiness”. The speech, delivered to the National Conservatism Conference beginning in London on Monday, will serve as a rallying cry to eurosceptics in the Tory party who fear Mr Sunak is watering down pledges made by Boris Johnson… Mr Rees-Mogg…will say on Monday that a decision to scrap the deadline of the end of the year for the implementation of the Retained EU Law (REUL) Bill will prevent the UK making economic gains from Brexit.” – The Daily Telegraph
“Where the NatCons fall short is that their commitment to the restoration of national community appears to rest on the cultural and geopolitical side of the policy, and not the economic. But to restore the national, and the solidarity and good citizenship that comes with it, and to defend our culture and revitalise our society, we also need a different approach to the economy. That choice is not, as is often caricatured, between more economic liberalism and social democracy. A third model – a British equivalent of German or Dutch Christian Democracy, in which the state plays a strategic role in the economy, workers are protected, and struggling regions are helped to achieve market-led growth – is what we need.” – The Daily Telegraph
“Energy bills should fall within six weeks, Grant Shapps has predicted. The energy secretary acknowledged that while wholesale prices were returning to “normal” levels, households had yet to see that reflected in their bills. The wholesale price of gas peaked at about £6 per therm but is at 76p per therm. Shapps said households should start to see the fall in wholesale prices affect their bills this summer… However, Greg Jackson, chief executive of Octopus Energy, who was speaking on the same show, said the UK needed to treat energy security as a national emergency like Germany had after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine … Shapps defended the government’s record on renewables, saying it had increased the proportion of renewable and nuclear power in the UK…” – The Times
“Michael Gove has threatened to strip planning approval powers from the Peak District National Park Authority and nine councils in a bid to speed up house building. The Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Secretary wrote letters to the bodies’ chief executives after they were found to be repeatedly falling short of targets for making decisions on planning applications. Mr Gove warned that decision-making powers would be removed and given to the UK-wide Planning Inspectorate unless tangible improvements were seen by June. Such a move would likely result in more building applications being approved, given that the Planning Inspectorate is a centralised body with no ties to specific areas.” – The Daily Telegraph
“Britain and Switzerland will open talks today on a new free trade deal as the government attempts to bounce back from a row with Tory MPs over scrapping EU laws. Kemi Badenoch, the trade secretary, will fly to Bern for talks with her counterpart, Guy Parmelin, a member of the Swiss Federal Council, that will aim to modernise and accelerate the UK’s post-Brexit trading arrangements with Switzerland. The UK government hopes to update its agreement…to make it easier to export services such as financial, legal and architectural. Most of Britain’s exports to Switzerland are delivered electronically but the existing deal was signed in 1972, before the advent of the internet, and does not cover investment, digital or data, the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) said.” – The Times
“Dangerous criminals convicted of the most serious crimes will be kept behind bars ‘for as long as necessary’, the new Justice Secretary vowed yesterday. Alex Chalk will today unveil Parole Board reforms in Parliament, introducing safeguards to prevent depraved killers being released early from prison. He admitted yesterday that public confidence had been knocked in the wake of the Colin Pitchfork and John Worboys cases. Black cab rapist Worboys, 65, was jailed indefinitely in 2009 for public protection with a minimum term set of eight years after he was found guilty of 19 offences involving attacks on 12 women. He was cleared for release in 2018, but the decision was overturned by the courts after a furious public backlash.” – The Daily Mail
“International partners in the G7 must work together to help beat dementia on a global scale, the Health Secretary has said. Steve Barclay, who is set to visit Japan for a G7 event this week, said that the UK needed to look beyond its own borders to find ways to fight dementia and this was essential to improving the lives of millions. It comes as Mr Barclay is expected to sign an agreement with G7 nations in Japan “which will set out a commitment for member states to invest in research and development”… Dementia is the general term for loss of memory, language or other thinking abilities, with Alzheimer’s the most common cause of dementia… As part of his trip to Japan, Mr Barclay will visit a care home in Tokyo to see how the country uses advanced technology to help sufferers.” – The Daily Telegraph
“Hospitals should be given incentives to employ GPs directly and take over local practices, Sajid Javid, the former health secretary, has said…Javid called for “fundamental reform” to the traditional model of primary care, under which GP surgeries operate as independent businesses. He said the current system led to a “disconnect” between NHS hospitals and family doctors…Javid said GPs and hospitals should be “working together more closely” in communities, with NHS trusts encouraged to employ GPs on salaries. “Taxpayers foot the bill whether GPs are contracted or employed directly by the NHS,” Javid said… Javid, who was health secretary from June 2021 to July last year, criticised the government’s decision to abandon a ten-year dementia strategy…” – The Times
“Liz Truss has been given tens of thousands of pounds in funding by an investment banker behind the Reclaim Party as she seeks to rebrand herself as a victim of the “anti-growth coalition”. The most recent declaration of interests reveals that the former prime minister was handed £50,000 last month by Jeremy Hosking, a city financier who donated £1.7 million to Vote Leave…More recently, he was a founding donor of the Reclaim Party, the right-wing group launched by Laurence Fox…The revelation comes as Truss prepares to visit Taiwan to give a speech in a move that risks inflaming tensions with China. A source close to Truss said that she felt Britain moved too slowly to counter Russian aggression in Ukraine and is concerned that the same thing is happening regarding China.” – The Times
“The Democratic Unionist party has paralysed Northern Ireland’s executive and assembly for a year to protest against trade terms that it says undermine the region’s place in the UK by leaving it subject to EU rules. It will be battling on May 18 to remain the dominant party in local government by making the vote a proxy for its wider campaign. Meanwhile, pro-Irish unity party Sinn Féin will be hoping to usurp the DUP to become the largest party of local government. DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has said his party’s “principled stance” has extracted concessions from London and Brussels under the Windsor framework. The framework is a new trade deal struck by Rishi Sunak’s government that streamlines the original Northern Ireland protocol…” – The Financial Times
“Labour has been accused of trying to drag Britain back into the European Union with its plan to hand the vote to millions of EU citizens. Sir Keir Starmer faced a backlash after The Telegraph revealed he intends to launch a policy package that includes votes for settled migrants, as well as 16 and 17-year-olds. The prospective changes are seen as highly likely to benefit Sir Keir’s party at future elections by expanding the electorate by some 3.4 million EU nationals and 1.4 million teenagers. Greg Hands, the Conservative Party chairman, argued Labour was “laying the groundwork to drag the UK back into the EU by stealth”. “This is an attempt to rig the electorate to rejoin the EU,” Mr Hands said.” – The Daily Telegraph
“Nicola Sturgeon “absolutely” failed to improve the lives of children in Scotland, the man responsible for protecting the rights of young people has said. The former first minister repeatedly said she wanted her record in office to be judged on education, and was also committed to alleviating child poverty and improving the lives of young people with experience of being in care. But Bruce Adamson, Scotland’s outgoing children and young people’s commissioner, repeated claims first made in The Sun on Sunday that the past administration had not done enough… Adamson conceded that being first minister is a “hugely challenging job”… Adamson also expressed concerns about the lack of movement on incorporating the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child into Scots law.” – The Times