Senior Conservatives will stage a Commons showdown in a last-gasp bid to force ministers to rethink the looming reversal of the £20-a-week universal credit uplift, tabling an amendment to block the annual uprating of pensions unless funds are diverted to stop the cut.
Elsewhere, ministers are eyeing a post-Brexit return to imperial measurements, with shops to be again allowed to sell products in pounds and ounces only, some 55 years after the UK first moved to adopt the metric system.
Other new “freedoms” contained under the proposals announced by Brexit minister Lord Frost are plans to permit the voluntary printing of the crown stamp on pint glasses and the introduction of digital driving licences.
It came as former Sainsbury’s boss Justin King warned Brexit will ultimately have a bigger impact on the food and drink industry – which he described as “mid-crisis” – than the Covid pandemic, suggesting that rising prices and the supply chain woes currently triggering shortages as are part of “the new normal.”
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson’s new Cabinet met for the first time on Friday morning following the reshuffle, which notably saw Dominic Raab removed as foreign secretary and Nadine Dorries become the new secretary for culture, media and sport.
The prime minister is reported to have told them to “spit out the orange peel” in a rugby-themed “half-time pep talk” and joked about having seen a lot of delivery rooms, appearing to compare the “delivery” of his government’s agenda with the “superhuman effort” of giving birth.
