Top story: Outside work limit goes to standards committee
Good morning, I’m Warren Murray working away at my one and only paid job.
Fewer than 10 MPs are likely to be affected by Boris Johnson’s proposed rule changes on keeping second jobs within “reasonable limits”, analysis of the register of interests suggests. On Wednesday MPs voted for it 297 to nil. Final details are to be drawn up by the cross-party committee on standards. But analysis of what is known suggests the impact on the 99 MPs with second jobs could be severely limited. The cabinet minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan suggested the changes could mean a restriction on paid outside work limiting it to, for example, fewer than 20 hours a week. That would only cover Geoffrey Cox, and theoretically let him cut back his hours and retain his main outside work for the British Virgin Islands, worth £400,000 a year for 40 hours a month. Many MPs earn high wages for a small number of hours, so would also be out of reach of the proposed changes.
Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the Conservative’s committee of backbenchers, has faced questions over £800 an hour he received from a company run by a constituent amid a lack of clarity over the nature of the business. Brady has declared that he receives £10,000 a year for 12 hours’ work for Snowshill Allied Holdings, run by Michael Goldstone and described by Companies House as providing “management consultancy activities”. Brady said Goldstone was “a close personal friend” whom he was paid to advise. “He has retained me to give occasional advice on marketing and communications to Snowshill Holdings for the last few years, initially in relation to Aquarium Software, a business in which Snowshill Holdings no longer has an interest … I have always been scrupulous in declaring any interests and following the letter and the spirit of the rules in the code of conduct.”
Goldstone told the Guardian that he paid Brady for informal advice because of their friendship and considered the rate fair. He said that Brady had never brought him any business or intervened politically on his behalf and never would. Brady called an emergency meeting of the Tory backbenchers’ committee on Wednesday to discuss the plans to crack down on second jobs.
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‘Shower of a government’ – The government is due today to announce its much-anticipated integrated rail plan. Reports have suggested it has dropped its commitment to the eastern leg of HS2 to Leeds and may not fully go ahead with Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR), which would go through Bradford. Bradford is Britain’s seventh-biggest city but according to a national data analysis of rail journeys it is the worst-connected major city in the UK.
Campaigners argue that NPR would boost the Bradford district economy by £30bn over 10 years, create 27,000 jobs and cut 44,000 daily car journeys between the city and Leeds. But local politicians are braced for bad news. “It was never going to happen,” said retired yoga teacher Jane Ayers, as she walked out of the railway station concourse. “It is all just a game this shower of a government play all of the time.”
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Masks work well – Mask-wearing is the single most effective public health measure at tackling Covid, reducing incidence by 53%, the first global study of its kind shows. The virus is still killing thousands of people a day, as well as infecting 50 million people worldwide every 90 days due to the highly transmissible Delta variant. Researchers reported in the BMJ their findings that mask-wearing, social distancing and handwashing are all effective at curbing cases, with mask-wearing the most effective. The researchers say further work is needed to assess other measures – including quarantine and isolation, universal lockdowns, and closures of borders, schools, and workplaces – because reconciling the data from different studies is difficult. Continued public health measures remain important because vaccines, while safe and effective, do not confer 100% protection and most countries have not vaccinated everyone.
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Murdoch to Trump: move on – Rupert Murdoch has said Donald Trump should stop focusing “on the past” in a rare public rebuke of the former US president. Addressing the News Corp annual meeting, Murdoch said: “The current American political debate is profound, whether about education or welfare or economic opportunity. It is crucial that conservatives play an active, forceful role in that debate, but that will not happen if President Trump stays focused on the past. The past is the past, and the country is now in a contest to define the future.” Murdoch has made few public comments about Trump, whose presidency was championed by most of the biggest commentators on Fox News. According to the biographer Michael Wolff, in private Murdoch has called Trump “a fucking idiot”.
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New injections control HIV – People living with HIV in Britain are to be offered treatment by injection every two months. Trials of the antiretroviral drugs cabotegravir with rilpivirine showed they work as effectively as the daily tablets currently used. HIV attacks the immune system and is still incurable but researchers found patients who had the new treatment could reach a point where the virus particles in their blood were so low they could not be detected or transmitted between people. The treatment is the first long-acting, injectable treatment for adults with HIV.
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‘They should really care’ – Would-be pet owners should blow the whistle on dodgy sellers, the UK’s leading vet has suggested. After the Covid pandemic fuelled a boom in pet ownership, research from the Kennel Club has suggested one in four pandemic puppy owners might have bought from a puppy farm. “If they’re a good breeder, they will be asking you as many questions as you should be asking them because they should really care about the home that the puppies or kittens are going to,” said Christine Middlemiss, the UK’s chief veterinary officer.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has launched a video to warn would-be pet owners about unscrupulous sellers. Its campaign urges would-be owners to, among other things, visit their prospective pet at its home with its mother, check animals are at least eight weeks old before they are allowed to be taken away, and search the name and phone number of breeders online to ensure they are not selling lots of animals.
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Sport
The head of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) has expressed increased concern for the welfare of Peng Shuai after a letter presented as being from the Chinese player – but widely doubted to be genuine – appeared on state media. Tom Harrison faces the prospect of a county rebellion and possible calls to resign amid growing anger over the England and Wales Cricket Board’s handling of the Yorkshire racism scandal. The BBC has postponed the return of Radio 5 Live’s Tuffers and Vaughan Cricket Show amid ongoing turmoil in the corporation over how best to deal with a racism allegation against the expert summariser Michael Vaughan.
The former England cricketer Ebony Rainford-Brent has been subjected to horrific abuse in the form of a racist hate letter, telling her to “leave our country”. Rassie Erasmus’s reputation has been shredded after World Rugby threw the book at the South Africa director of rugby for his outburst during the Lions tour and found him guilty of making threats to a referee. Online sleuths have this week turned their attentions to an unusual new case: the mystery of the Manchester City “decentralised finance trading analysis” partnership. Amateur detectives have been scouring the internet to find the digital footprint of a company called 3Key, who last week were announced by City as a new official regional partner.
Business
Asian shares have mostly declined after stock indexes shuffled lower on Wall Street. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged up 0.2% in early trading. Recent government data have shown the coronavirus pandemic continues to hurt the Japanese economy. A supply crunch in chips and other parts needed to produce autos, a mainstay of the world’s third-largest economy, is one reason. This morning in London, going by futures trading the FTSE looks like being flat to a few points lower. The pound is worth $1.348 and €1.191 at time of writing.
The papers
Our print edition of the Guardian leads today with “Social care cap could expose poorer homeowners to ‘catastrophic’ costs”. The move will save the government hundreds of millions of pounds but leave many poorer pensioner homeowners having to sell up as they face paying the same for their old age care as wealthier people. Boris Johnson is being warned that MPs in the so-called red wall could revolt when the changes are put to a vote. Also on the front: the Pacific north-west floods that have cut off Vancouver and plunged the Canadian province of British Columbia into a state of emergency.
“Someone’s blown me up” – that’s what David Perry said, according to the Mirror, after staggering alive from his exploded taxi in Liverpool. “£2,000 cost of living shock” – the Daily Mail, whose editor has just been ousted, says this is what Britons are facing as “inflation soars, tax hikes kick in and interest rates rise”. “PM under siege from own party” says the i of the sleaze saga. “Boris – it’s been a ‘car crash’ on sleaze” – that’s the Express.
The Telegraph and the Times pick up the “crashed the car” theme on their fronts too, while the latter’s lead story is “Migrants to be held in Albania” – the Home Office is reportedly seeking a deal with Albania to house people while their asylum claims are processed. The thinking is that it might deter people from crossing the Channel in small boats. The Metro has “InCELLate Britain” as Insulate Britain protesters are sent to jail for Christmas. “Amazon to stop taking Visa credit cards as battle intensifies over fees” – that’s the Financial Times’ front-page take on this story.
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