Top story: Crunch Brexit votes loom for May
Hello – Warren Murray bringing you the news in the middle of the week.
Each of the government’s four Brexit scenarios would leave Britain poorer and cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds per week, analysis by a thinktank has found.
The study for Global Future is based on the government’s own Brexit impact studies, as well as other official sources. It forecasts that Theresa May’s preferred “bespoke” deal with the EU would leave Britain £40bn worse off per year, or £615m per week. Polling commissioned for the study by Populus found that even voters who backed Brexit at the referendum now fear that leaving the European Union comes at “too high a price”.
Today, Theresa May is facing a potential stymie to her plans, bespoke or otherwise, as an amendment to let parliament vote on a continued customs union with the EU comes before the House of Lords. Nine senior Conservatives, including two former cabinet ministers, are among those who have put their names to a series of cross-party amendments aimed at persuading the PM to rethink her position.
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Barbara Bush dies – She was the wife of one president and mother of a second. Barbara Bush has died aged 92. The staunch Republican matriarch had heart problems and, following several recent hospitalisations, she opted to receive only “comfort care”, according to a family spokesman. Barbara Bush was married to George HW Bush, who became president in 1989, and their children included George W Bush, who was declared winner of the 2000 election in highly controversial circumstances. In 2013, when a presidential run by her son Jeb was mooted, she famously said that the country had had “enough Bushes”.
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‘A machine against one person’ – The Guardian has joined 18 news organisations from 15 countries to launch the Daphne project, continuing the anti-corruption investigations being carried out by Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia when she was murdered with a car bomb. Caruana Galizia challenged many who hold power and influence in Malta: mobsters, business people, public officials, lawyers, the governing Labour party and the current leader of the opposition Nationalists.
“They found it difficult to attack what she said, so instead they attacked her on a personal level,” says her widowed husband, Peter, who now lives under police protection. As the investigations continue, we will share revelations from a cache of 680,000 files leaked to Caruana Galizia in the final months of her life.
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Quick catch-up – Here is what’s fresh in the week’s developing stories.
> Overnight, South Korea has confirmed it is seeking a peace treaty to officially end the war with the North. Meanwhile US officials have confirmed that the CIA chief secretly visited North Korea and met Kim Jong-un over Easter to lay the groundwork for Donald Trump’s proposed meeting with Kim.
> The government destroyed the landing cards from thousands of Windrush-era arrivals in a measure that has been blamed in part for the current immigration debacle. A former Home Office employee said the cards had been a vital tool over the years to confirm the residency rights of Caribbean-born British citizens.
> Medics in Douma say they have been intimidated by the Syrian regime as it seeks to conceal the evidence of a chemical weapons attack. International inspectors are due to visit Douma today but Russia is being accused of delaying tactics. Patrick Wintour explains why Syria still possesses these weapons after it was supposed to have given them up.
> Labour MPs have rounded on Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership in a Commons debate on antisemitism. “Antisemitism is making me an outsider in my Labour party. Enough is enough,” said Dame Margaret Hodge. Other Labour backbenchers were cheered and applauded as they made impassioned speeches.
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‘This is my new face’ – A French man has become the first patient in the world to have a face transplant twice. Jérôme Hamon needed the first procedure in 2010 because of a genetic disease. But his immune system eventually began to reject the donor face and it had to be removed. After months in hospital waiting for another face, a replacement was grafted into place in January. “The first transplant I accepted immediately. I thought ‘this is my new face’ and this time it’s the same,” said Hamon.
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Sandwiches and coffee – There’s a kick and a kiss for the fast-food business today. Pret a Manger has been censured by the advertising watchdog for callings its sandwiches “natural” when they’ve got E-numbers in them. Costa Coffee, though, has won praise for pledging to recycle the same number of disposable cups it turns over each year, by incentivising waste companies that have the special facilities to pulp them. “It dispels the myth that coffee cups can’t be recycled,” said Dominic Paul, managing director of Costa.
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‘Silent epidemic’ – Today in our Small Changes podcast series on remarkable individuals tackling the world’s problems, meet the Kenyan cattle herder who became a doctor and malaria researcher as part of his lifelong mission to conquer the disease.
Lunchtime read: ‘I just found out talking to you!’
The era of Castro rule is about to end – but on the street most Cubans seem indifferent. “I think everything’s going to stay the same,” says María Victoria Esteves, 27, about the news that President Raúl Castro will cede office this week to his vice-president, Miguel Díaz-Canel. Others are not even aware when canvassed, Ed Augustin discovers in Havana.
Díaz-Canel is widely expected to represent continuity, and few Cubans expect any dramatic shift in the Communist rule imposed by Fidel Castro six decades ago. His younger brother, now aged 86, will stay on as first secretary of the party until 2021 – “Raúl’s word will remain the last word,” says Cuba expert Hal Klepak.
Sport
Brighton and Hove Albion have arrested a concerning run in the Premier League of one point from the last 15 with a much improved showing against Tottenham Hotspur. But the result left Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino lamenting a “lack of aggression” in a game he believed his side had dominated. Meanwhile, Wolves’ promotion next season will see the club come under closer scrutiny regarding its arrangement with Portuguese super-agent, Jorge Mendes.
TalkSPORT has announced a massive shake-up in cricket broadcasting, securing the free-to-air broadcast rights of England’s forthcoming tours of Sri Lanka and the West Indies in a significant blow to the BBC. Elsewhere, Surrey’s Australian coach, Michael Di Venuto, has called for people to stop hounding disgraced cricketers Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft, floating the idea that the trio could find a home in domestic cricket. And finally a new stadium for Cornish Pirates rugby club could be closer to realisation with Cornwall’s council agreeing to help meet construction costs.
Business
Asian shares crept ahead on Wednesday after Wall Street took heart from upbeat corporate earnings, though nagging concerns about trade barriers and the global growth outlook kept currencies and bonds subdued. China announced a timetable to open up its car market to imports, meeting a longtime demand of the US and other countries but hitting shares in China’s own automakers.
The pound traded at $1.429 and €1.155 overnight.
The papers
Discord within Labour and a fresh insult to Windrush families are among the stories that make the front pages today. The Times and the Telegraph both splash on growing dissent within the opposition over its leader’s stance on the Jewish community. The Telegraph says: “Enough is enough: Labour fury at Corbyn over anti-Semitism” while the Times goes with “Tensions in Labour erupt over rising abuse of Jews.”
The Guardian keeps up the pressure on the government over citizens who came to Britain from the Caribbean with the lead story: “Home Office destroyed key data on Windrush citizens.” The Mail sings a similar tune with “Windrush: the new betrayal.” The Express, meanwhile, has a question for the former chancellor, after treasury said Britain was booming: “So George just how accurate was project fear then?” The Sun leads on Granbo (a pun on Rambo?) – the woman who shot an intruder with a crossbow. The Mirror has another story about Ant McPartlin, while the Financial Times has good news about the pound: “Investors push sterling higher with bets on rate rise next month.”
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