Top story: ‘Completely sold out’
It’s the end of the week and we know it. Hello, I’m Warren Murray bringing you Friday’s news in brief.
Senior Conservative MPs, regional leaders and industry figures have accused ministers of betraying the north with a delayed and downgraded £96bn rail plan. The Integrated Rail Plan sets out a scaling back of the Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) project and the axing of the planned east Midlands to Leeds high-speed line, with HS2 trains instead running on existing upgraded routes.
As recently as last month, Boris Johnson used his party conference speech to pledge that the government would build NPR, a commitment he made on becoming prime minister in 2019. However, the core route that northern leaders hoped for, a new high-speed line from Manchester to Leeds via Bradford, will not be built. Labour said the plan had “completely sold out” the north while Andrew Adonis, the former transport secretary who launched the HS2 project in 2009, said it was “a betrayal of the north”.
Anti-HS2 groups, though, have welcomed the package, and environmental activists vowed to redouble protests against HS2. While people who were made to move out of HS2’s path, only to be told it’s not going that way now, are asking: can we have our homes back?
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Modi ditches farming ‘black laws’ – Narendra Modi, the Indian PM, has announced he will repeal three contentious farm laws known as the “black laws” that prompted a year of protests and unrest. After the government refused to repeal the laws last year, hundreds of thousands of farmers marched to Delhi’s borders – met on the way with barricades, teargas and water cannon – and set up protest camps along highways into the capital. The farmers have remained at the Delhi borders ever since, maintaining one of the most sustained challenges to the Modi government, even through the harshness of winter, baking summer and brutal second wave of Covid-19. The protests turned violent in February when the farmers stormed into the centre of Delhi and briefly took over its historic Red Fort. Modi passed the laws in 2020 in a bid to overhaul India’s archaic agriculture sector. It employs about 60% of India’s workforce but is riddled with issues of poverty, debt and inefficiency.
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‘Terrible disaster’ – Emergency crews in western Canada have continued trying to reach about 18,000 people stranded by landslides and struggling to find food after devastating flooding. Communities are braced for more torrential rain on the way. The premier of British Columbia, John Horgan, appeared to fight back tears as he spoke on Thursday: “This has been a terrible, terrible disaster but I know this: as British Columbians, as Canadians, we stick together.”
One person is confirmed dead in a landslide and with searchers still combing through the debris the number is almost certain to rise. Residents say the disaster exposed the vulnerability of small communities to natural disasters worsened by the climate crisis – in some areas, wildfires in the summer stripped the slopes of vegetation that would have slowed the flooding waters.
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Suite getaway – It has emerged Boris Johnson declared £1,800 of hospitality from Heathrow on his recent largely free holiday to southern Spain. Johnson used the private Windsor suite at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 on 7 October, the latest update to the register of MPs’ interests shows. In Spain, Johnson and family stayed for free at a luxurious villa in Marbella belonging to the Goldsmith family. It rents commercially for about £25,000 a week. The stay was not put in the register of MPs’ interests, but instead the register of ministerial interests, which does not cite monetary values. Downing Street said this was correct “given the hospitality was provided by another minister”, Zac Goldsmith. However, there is speculation that Johnson is seeking to set a precedent that costs and obligations incurred as prime minister fall under the remit of Lord Geidt, the adviser on ministerial interests, who does not have the power to unilaterally investigate, rather than Kathryn Stone, the independent parliamentary commissioner for standards.
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‘Reuse, recycle rare earths’ – The UK must scale up recycling of materials for its low carbon industries or risk facing a critical shortage of key metals, a new report warns. Use of lithium, cobalt, silver and rare earth elements is set to soar. China controls 60% of global mine production and 40% of rare earth metal reserves, posing a supply chain risk. The thinktank Green Alliance said the UK should build up domestic recycling of such valuable materials. It says a rapid scaleup of their recycling would result in almost all critical raw material demand for electric vehicle batteries, wind turbines and solar panels being met from secondary materials by 2050.
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Breakthrough drug for youngsters – The NHS is to introduce a revolutionary new treatment to tackle the leading genetic cause of death among babies and young children. About 1,500 patients in England with certain types of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) are expected to benefit from risdiplam, after a recommendation from the health watchdog. The drug, also called Evrysdi and made by Roche, is a syrup that can be taken at home and is the first non-injectable treatment for the condition.
Today in Focus podcast: Could Europe’s Covid surge come here?
As the days get shorter and we huddle indoors, memories of 2020’s catastrophic winter are close at hand. Now a new surge of coronavirus cases is spreading across Europe. But as well as notes of caution, there are good reasons to hope that the UK will avoid the lows of last year – from lower hospitalisation rates to exciting treatments on the verge of approval. How optimistic should we be – and can we still go to Christmas parties?
Lunchtime read: Bustin’ back better
Ivan and Jason Reitman are resurrecting Ghostbusters together. Tears were inevitable when Hadley Freeman finally met the man behind her favourite film, and his son, who has made a belated second sequel. But few expected them to flow quite so freely.
Sport
The Women’s Tennis Association has said it is prepared to pull its tournaments out of China if there isn’t an adequate response to Peng Shuai’s allegation that she was sexually assaulted by China’s former vice-premier. Serena Williams has joined a chorus of concern over the wellbeing and whereabouts of Peng Shuai after her disappearance. There are doubts over the veracity of an email supposedly written by her retracting the allegations of sexual assault. Lewis Hamilton believes sportspeople are duty bound to speak out on human rights matters in the countries they visit as Qatar prepares to host its first Formula One Grand Prix this weekend. Cricket’s bruising week took yet another hit on Thursday night when the former England batsman Alex Hales admitted painting his face black for a New Year’s Eve party. Azeem Rafiq has apologised after it was revealed he had sent antisemitic messages to a fellow cricketer more than a decade ago.
In Australia, Tim Paine has stepped down from his role as Test captain on the eve of the Ashes series after a historic Cricket Australia investigation into lewd text messages sent to a colleague surfaced. Paine said the investigation had exonerated him but he “deeply regretted” his actions: “I’m deeply sorry for the hurt and pain that I have caused to my wife, my family, and to the other party.” Courtney Lawes will captain England against South Africa on Saturday in the absence of the injured Owen Farrell while Joe Marchant will make a first appearance of the autumn on the right wing. Farrell is a doubt for the start of the Six Nations after it emerged the England captain requires surgery on his ankle. Sam Kerr secured a 1-0 Women’s Champions League win against Servette, who had Amandine Soulard sent off late, as Chelsea moved three points clear in Group A. The Rugby Football League has approved the game-wide introduction of mouthguards that could detect whether or not a player is at risk of a concussion or head trauma. And a coach found guilty of inappropriate behaviour towards athletes in his care has had his licence permanently withdrawn by UK Athletics.
Business
People in Serbia’s Jadar valley fear an environmental catastrophe as Rio Tinto leads the European push for self-sufficiency in battery technology by scouting for possible lithium deposits in the picturesque region. Poor results saw shares in the beleaguered Chinese tech firm Alibaba plunge 10% on the Hong Kong stock market, dragging down the wider index by 1.5%. The FTSE100 is set to rise 0.25% this morning though, while the pound slipped to $1.348 and €1.187.
The papers
The Guardian leads today with “‘Betrayal of the north’: fury over delayed and downgraded rail plan”. Our picture lead is Serena Williams joining the growing outcry in world tennis over the whereabouts of Peng Shuai, who has not been seen or heard from since making allegations of sexual assault against a former vice-premier of China. Also on the front: “Police stop and search up by 24% in one year”. There were 700,000 such interventions in a single year. The proportion that resulted in an arrest fell from 13% to 11%. Black people were seven times more likely to be stopped than white people, compared with nine times more likely the previous year.
That “betrayal of the north” gets plenty of frontage. “HS2-faced” is what the Mirror calls the Tories. After political car crash imagery in some papers yesterday, today in the i we have “Train wreck: fury as PM ‘rips up’ rail plans for the North”. The Times splashes with “Patel blames EU for mass migration in Channel”, which we have covered here. The Express covers that in a more Expressy manner: “Priti’s fury” etc etc.
The Telegraph’s lead is “Lockdowns return to Europe as virus surges” – the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) in Germany reported about 65,000 new infections on Thursday. The RKI chief warned of a “very bad Christmas season” if drastic measures are not taken. “Charles charity cash hit by shock new probe” – the Daily Mail says the charities watchdog is mounting a a “cash for honours” investigation centred on the movement of £500,000 in donations. The Financial Times sounds an alarm: “Fresh Turkey rate cut sends lira to new low and stokes inflation fears”.
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