Top story: Football jibe rebounds at second-job MP
Hello, I’m Warren Murray and I know it’s Friday but there is still a bit to get through, so let us begin.
The government faces a legal challenge to Boris Johnson’s decision to back Priti Patel over bullying allegations, throwing a fresh spotlight on the prime minister’s approach to ethics in public life. Alex Allan, Johnson’s independent adviser on the ministerial code, resigned last year after the prime minister chose not to act, following a Cabinet Office investigation citing instances in which Patel had shouted and sworn at staff. The FDA union of senior civil servants has brought a judicial review of the PM’s decision. It will be heard next week.
Natalie Elphicke – the Tory MP for Dover who suggested Marcus Rashford should stick to football instead of campaigning about free school meals – has a second job herself, which she has revealed on her register of interests. Elphicke, who earns £82,000 as an MP, also gets £36,000 a year from her role as chair of the New Homes Quality Board, “an industry-led initiative to promote a new code for housebuilding standards together with a structure for an independent New Homes ombudsman”. The Guardian has approached Elphicke for comment.
It has emerged that the Conservative MP Geoffrey Cox has agreed to an additional two weeks of work representing ministers from the British Virgin Islands this month while parliament is sitting. Government ministers have pointedly refused to defend Cox against allegations that he has been putting lucrative outside work ahead of his duties to his constituents – something he has denied. Cox says a legal team will perform most of the work and he will only be required to appear for two hours during the period. Cox also makes money by renting out a three-bedroom flat overlooking Battersea Park in south London, which was bought in 2004, partly using taxpayer payments towards mortgage interest costs under the old system of funding MPs. Records show Cox moved to a separate residential property in November 2017 and started claiming £1,900 a month in rent.
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Scramble to make Cop count – World leaders will have to return to the negotiating table next year with improved plans to prevent disastrous levels of global heating because the emissions cuts coming out of Cop26 are too weak, architects of the 2015 Paris agreement have warned. A draft outcome text for the summit is set to be drawn up by delegates in the early hours of this morning, and discussed ahead of the 6pm deadline for the talks to finish – though previous Cop conferences have tended to go on well into Saturday and sometimes Sunday. Countries’ current plans – known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – would still lead to 2.4C of heating, according to analysis this week by Climate Action Tracker. Countries are currently expected to return with better pledges in 2025 but many are now demanding this be brought forward to next year’s summit in Egypt.
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‘Far from ideal but sensible enough’ – Students taking A-levels and GCSEs in England will be asked to sit repeated mock exams in case national exams are cancelled for the third time. Unions and school leaders have criticised the regulator Ofqual for releasing its plan B so far past the start of the school year. Ofqual has advised that a “sensible approach” would be for schools once a term to set assessments under formal exam-like conditions, starting before the Christmas holidays this year, and followed by others in spring and in the first half of the summer term. Julie McCulloch from the Association of School and College Leaders said it was “far from ideal … But not having a contingency plan would risk a repeat of the chaos of the past two years, and therefore, on balance, this seems like the right course of action and the confirmed set of measures appear to be sensible enough.”
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Charles aide quits over honours offer claim – A former aide to the Prince of Wales has resigned as head of one of Charles’ charities, the Prince’s Foundation, amid an alleged cash-for-honours scandal. The Mail on Sunday published a letter from 2017 in which Michael Fawcett reportedly wrote that he was willing to make an application to change businessman Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz’s honorary CBE to a KBE, and support his application for citizenship, in response to “the most recent and anticipated support” of the Dumfries House Trust, which later became part of the Prince’s Foundation. In September, Clarence House said Charles had “no knowledge of the alleged offer” and was fully supportive of an investigation by the Prince’s Foundation. Mahfouz has denied any wrongdoing. On Thursday, Clarence House said it was also ending arrangements with Fawcett and his party planning company Premier Mode.
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Privilege boosts first pay packet – Graduates from poorer backgrounds earn half as much as more well-off peers in their first job after university because they put themselves forward for fewer roles and lack family connections and financial support, research shows. Children of professionals including CEOs, doctors and teachers start out earning an average of £23,457 compared with just £11,595 for those with parents in technical, manual or service jobs. Sarah Atkinson from the Social Mobility Foundation, which produced the report with TotalJobs, said wealthier graduates could hold out for the job and salary they wanted, were better at negotiating their pay and could leverage unpaid work experience to start at a higher level. Atkinson urged employers to take steps such as targeting deprived areas and considering socioeconomic circumstances in recruitment, reporting on the backgrounds of their staff, and supporting disadvantaged graduates with moving to a new city.
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Collision course – Nasa is in final preparations to launch the world’s first attempt to knock an asteroid off course, in case one day we need to save the Earth that way. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (Dart) is scheduled to launch on 23 November and nearly a year later will ram into the asteroid Dimorphos at six kilometres a second.
At 160 metres across, Dimorphos is about the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza. It orbits a larger asteroid called Didymos. The aim is to slow the orbit of Dimorphos slightly. If done early enough, such small diversions of an Earth-heading asteroid could be enough to avoid catastrophe.
Today in Focus podcast: ‘Patients are waiting too long’
If you dial 999, you might expect an ambulance to come in minutes – but in reality, the pandemic has pushed an already creaking service to its limits. This is the story of one shift, and how the people charged with saving our lives are navigating a system on the brink of collapse.
Lunchtime read: Red for a second time
Taylor Swift has reached the second instalment of her project to re-record (and regain ownership over) the six albums she released for label Big Machine, which were apparently sold out from under her to an old foe.
Red (Taylor’s Version) reprises the 2012 album on which she first embraced synth-pop, tweaking songs and adding others to produce a mix of saccharine fluff and superb keepers. Laura Snapes’s review is in.
Sport
Harry Kane has admitted for the first time that his turbulent summer took a toll on him mentally. The England captain has also said he would love Gareth Southgate to stay on as manager after the 2022 World Cup. A penalty from Spain’s Pablo Sarabia secured a 1-0 victory in their World Cup qualifier away to Greece, ensuring Wales are guaranteed a play-off spot at least. Stephen Kenny’s Republic of Ireland gained a creditable 0-0 draw with Portugal, whose automatic World Cup hopes were hit by Pepe’s red card. Meanwhile, Sadio Mané was withdrawn early on for Senegal against Togo on Thursday to provide Liverpool’s Jürgen Klopp with more injury jitters. Azeem Rafiq has described himself as “incredibly hurt” after Joe Root said he has not been witness to any instances of racism during his 14 years at Yorkshire.
Emma Raducanu is set to skip the Rugby Football Union’s open invitation to attend an England match this autumn, the Guardian understands, despite Eddie Jones expressing his hope that “we’ll see her at Twickenham shortly”. Matthew Wade’s brilliant late surge of sixes guided Australia to victory against Pakistan and set up a mouth-watering T20 World Cup final with New Zealand. The American Tommy Paul beat Andy Murray in the Stockholm Open quarter-finals to put an end to the Scot’s season, while Dan Evans fell to Frances Tiafoe. Lewis Hamilton has said that he must take victory at this weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix if he is to stay in touch with Max Verstappen in the Formula One world championship race. And 105-year-old Julia “Hurricane” Hawkins said she was disappointed not to go under a minute despite setting a 100m world record at the Louisiana Senior Games.
Business
The standoff over Middle Eastern migrants on the border between Belarus and Poland could further increase energy prices in Europe after Minsk’s autocratic leader, Alexander Lukashenko, threatened to cut gas supplies to the west if he is hit by more sanctions. The key Yamal-Europe pipeline carrying gas from Russia’s vast reserves runs through Belarus and any disruptions could cause another shock for fuel and heating costs just as the coldest months are beginning. The pound has slipped again as the US dollar hit 16-month highs. It will buy just $1.336, but is steadier against the euro at €1.679. The FTSE looks like lifting around 0.1% this morning.
The papers
Our Guardian front-page lead is the Cop climate targets as detailed above but there is a looming crisis of another kind further down: “Belarus threatens to cut off gas to Europe”. Alexander Lukashenko has made the threat as the EU considers sanctions in response to the migration crisis that the despotic president has instigated at the Poland-Belarus border. Thousands of people, mainly from Middle Eastern countries, are camped out as temperatures plunge below freezing. Even darker portents in the Telegraph: “Russia may invade Ukraine, warns US”.
From the soup of sleaze emerges a tasty gobbet of irony: “MP who told Rashford to focus on the day job has second job” is the i’s splash. “MPs fill pockets using rent expenses loophole” says the Times, reporting on the tenancy arrangements of Geoffrey Cox and others. “He was asked to keep mask on in hospital 3 times” – that’s the Mirror with another kind of Tory bald-facedness, “he” being Boris Johnson.
“999 calls crisis” is the first thing you’ll read in the Metro. Patients experiencing life-threatening emergencies such as heart attacks, strokes and major breathing problems are becoming trapped for many hours in GP surgeries, unable to get to hospital, because ambulances are taking so long to turn up. “Stark reality behind 5.8m NHS backlog” – that’s the Express. NHS bosses have said that many hospitals are now only able to cope with people coming through emergency departments, let alone catch up on the treatments put in abeyance by Covid.
The Daily Mail has “Charles’ top aide quits over cash for honours”. The Sun says “She WILL remember them”, reporting that the Queen will be at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. The FT reports “Xi cements grip on China after vote puts him on par with Mao” – the Communist party has passed a rare, laudatory “historical resolution”. Analysts said it was designed to elevate his status to the level of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, and help secure his political future after the party removed presidential term limits in 2018.
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