Boris cancels trip to India
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has cancelled a scheduled trip to India this week after the emergence of a new variant in the country was linked to India’s recent surge in Covid cases. The country has been reporting over 200,000 cases per day since the middle of April, the capital Delhi has gone into lockdown and the leader of the opposition, Rahul Gandhi has tested positive for the disease. The UK has also added India to its ‘red’ list of countries, meaning that any non-resident or British citizen will be banned from entering England if they have travelled to India within the previous 10 days. It is expected that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will impose similar measures in the coming days.
European Super League
European football was rocked over the weekend as concrete details to form a new league were released, which included a commitment from the ‘Big 6’ in the UK to join. Clubs from Spain and Italy have also joined, whilst French champions Paris Saint Germain and German heavyweights Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund declined an invitation to join. The organisers have managed to do something rarely seen in the sport – unite the football community.
The Government has become involved and said it will take ‘all necessary steps’ to prevent British teams from joining the new league. Speaking in the Commons, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Oliver Dowden said that: ‘We will do whatever it takes to protect our national game.’ The level of opposition to these plans could stop them in their tracks, but with clubs signing up potentially receiving $300million as a signing on bonus, owners will be keen to ensure plans go through, at almost any cost. In the previous days we have seen cracks already starting to emerge. With most English clubs bowing to public pressure and withdrawing from the contentious competition.
Gove on the move?
Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove has been given control over the GREAT campaign which aims to promote British business abroad. This campaign was previously under the jurisdiction of the Department for International Trade, headed by Liz Truss.
It isn’t too surprising to see one of the Brexit campaign’s head honchos taking over one of the Brexit campaign’s lead policy areas. However, no-one seems to have been informed about the move and Labour only realised when they saw Gove’s biography had changed on the Cabinet Office website.
Shadow International Trade Secretary Emily Thornberry launched an attack on Government with: “the last thing they’ll [British exporters] want to hear is that Michael Gove has been put in charge of their publicity”. Are we beginning to see ministers jostling for post-Brexit trade-deal kudos?
Civil Servants double jobbing
The row over civil servants taking private sector jobs and vice versa continues this week. The Times reports Peter Marquez (of Amazon) is being lined up as a senior Government advisor on Space.
As if the last few weeks haven’t happened, Marquez will be keeping his job at Amazon and will act as an unpaid advisor to the Government, who have just invested £400million into the OneWeb Satellite network. Funnily enough Amazon are working on a similar satellite project – David Cameron’s lawyer is about to become even busier.
Green New Deal
In the coming days it is reported that Boris Johnson will commit to new, more rigorous, climate targets. These new ‘radical’ targets will see the UK cut carbon emissions by 78% by 2035 – very impressive.
This comes as the UK prepares to host the COP26 Climate conference later this year. The FT reports that this comes ahead of Joe Biden announcing similar groundbreaking climate reforms in the US. This will no doubt improve Transatlantic relations.
Charlie Souster Account Executive
Benedict Croft Researcher
