Top story: May’s offer to EU citizens
Good morning to you. Graham Russell here with what’s happening at the start of the week.
Theresa May today publishes her 15-page proposal on how to treat Europeans living in the UK, giving them the same employment, health and welfare terms but no right to vote and a greater risk of deportation for “serious and persistent” criminals.
The Brexit secretary, David Davis, said the aim was to ensure people had rights “almost equivalent to British citizens”, if the EU27 agreed to a reciprocal deal. The cut-off date for people to qualify for this settled status would be 29 March 2017 at the earliest, he said. Any suggestion that Europeans would be “second-class citizens” was wrong, added Davis.
Meanwhile, May’s efforts to shore up her minority government might just be reaching a conclusion, with DUP sources indicating a deal could be reached by tomorrow. Lord Patten, a former Tory party chairman, called the DUP “toxic” and warned the Conservatives risked looking like the “nasty party” again.
Just in case the PM doesn’t feel sufficiently embattled, MPs have been targeted in a cyber-attack on parliament, with Russia suspected to be behind the hack that breached the email accounts of dozens of MPs. The network affected is used by every MP for dealing with constituents.
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Protest over arrest death – Four people have been arrested and six police officers injured in east London during protests over the death of 25-year-old black man Edir Frederico Da Costa six days after a traffic stop. Some of the protesters carried Black Lives Matter posters and others with homemade placards which read “Justice for Edson”, another name for Da Costa. The Independent Police Complaints Commission has opened an investigation into the death.
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Tower blocks unsafe – The scale of the fire safety crisis in tower blocks continues to grow, with 60 high-rise blocks in 25 areas of England confirmed to be unsafe. Anger is growing at the pace of the Grenfell Tower investigation, with David Lammy saying a lack of clarity about the number of deaths “feeding suspicion of a cover-up”. Some 79 are feared dead. The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, told a Glastonbury debate the victims were “murdered by political decisions”. Scotland is now urgently carrying out its own fire safety checks.
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Colombia ferry disaster – At least nine people have died and dozens are missing after a tourist boat carrying about 150 people sank in north-west Colombia. Videos circulating on social media showed panicked passengers on the multi-storey ferry as it sank on the Guatapé-El Peñol reservoir near the city of Medellín. The vessel was reportedly loaded to capacity as holidaymakers took advantage of a long weekend. Two local residents said the same boat had sunk about three months ago when it was tied at the dock.
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NHS ‘running on fumes’ – More people are unhappy the NHS than satisfied for the first time, a poll has shown. The British Medical Association has blamed the government for “trying to keep the health service running on nothing but fumes”. Its leader, Dr Mark Porter, will tell a conference today the crisis is the result of an “explicit political choice”. The poll shows 43% of respondents are dissatisfied with the NHS, and 33% are satisfied – a doubling of dissatisfaction in two years.
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Gloves off in Hamburg – Next week’s G20 meeting is likely to see a few bouts of Merkel v Trump after Germany signalled the summit would focus on climate change, free trade and forced mass global migration. The US president has already clashed with Europe over climate change and refugees at the G7 summit in Italy, and now looks set to repeat the experience but on a bigger stage.
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‘I’ll catch you, honey’ – It’s the hero bit we all like to think we’d do. A man and his daughter have saved a teenager who fell eight metres from a gondola ride at a theme park in New York state. “I couldn’t let that little girl die,” Matthew Howard said on Sunday. “No one wants to put himself underneath a body like that, but I couldn’t stand by and watch.” Watch the video of the rescue.
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Lunchtime read: Sheeran shines at Glasto
Just him, an acoustic guitar and a loop pedal. Even if you are one of the world’s biggest pop stars, the prospect of closing Glastonbury 2017 with just these humble tools could seem daunting. And indeed a “very nervous” Ed Sheeran did appear, but still played well enough to garner four stars from Alexis Petridis. One huge aspect in his favour is his vast reserves of charm – there’s something pretty endearing about watching his nerves dissipate as the set wears on. Given Sheeran’s divisive effect on the pop world, the scene presented by the audience bellowing along to the controversial Galway Girl en masse looked a little like an art installation called The Impotence of Rock Criticism. Emily Eavis said this year’s festival – a politically charged event that had Jeremy Corbyn headlining and saying he wanted to scrap Trident as soon as possible – was the “best one yet”.
Sport
Lewis Hamilton has branded his Formula One world championship rival Sebastian Vettel a “disgrace” after the German deliberately drove into him at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Hamilton demanded that, if they are to clash, they should do so like “men” outside the car. All Blacks coach Steve Hansen has called his Lions rival “desperate” after Warren Gatland accused them of seeking to injure his scrum-half, Conor Murray. The wounded Lions will seek to reclaim pride in a crucial week for Gatland before the second Test next weekend, when the tourists will have to be smarter and more physical, writes Nick Evans. Meanwhile Eoin Morgan has defended the controversial decision to drop himself from the team’s series Twenty20 decider against South Africa on Sunday. And in tennis John McEnroe fears Novak Djokovic’s burgeoning spirituality could be draining the Serb of his “killer instinct”.
Business
The biggest skilled labour shortage in a decade is looming as high employment combines with a fall in the value of the pound and uncertainty about the future for EU nationals in the UK. Globally, a steep rise in risky bank lending has prompted stability warnings. And a former chief of the National Grid has warned the threat of cyber-attacks on power stations and networks is “off the scale” – particularly poignant in light of the hacking of MPs’ parliamentary emails.
Overnight the pound was buying €1.14 and $1.28.
The papers
It’s Monday so that means lots of different offerings on the front pages.
We start with the Sun. Alongside a picture of a blue shark in knee-deep water at a holiday resort in the Balearic Islands, the headline is one they will treasure: “The water in Majorca looks scarier than it oughta”.
The Mirror has the same image but splashes with “100% fire test failure”, saying all tower blocks with cladding tested so far have failed safety checks. The Mail has a go at Labour’s John McDonnell saying his “murder” comment about the Grenfell Tower disaster has sparked fury.
The Guardian splashes with MPs being hacked, most likely by Russia, while the Telegraph leads with David Davis promising that British tourists will be guaranteed free health treatment in Europe post-Brexit. The FT splashes with “Italy sets aside €17bn in taxpayer cash to wind down failed lenders”.
And finally the Times has a mixture of picture and separate splash headline. The picture is of the Queen and Prince Philip at a polo match. Below is an EU story: “Foreign criminals to be thrown out after Brexit”.
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