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As fears grow of threat of chaos in new year, Lord Heseltine brands potential failure to strike deal ‘the worst decision of our times’
Boris Johnson faced a rising tide of anger from senior Tories and business leaders last night as he appeared ready to embrace a no-deal Brexit and prepared Royal Navy gunboats to defend UK fishing waters.
With the prime minister and the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, due to decide on Sunday whether to halt stalled talks and make the momentous decision to accept no deal – an outcome that would lead to tariffs and quotas on UK-EU trade and rising prices – Johnson’s handling of the final stage of negotiations has caused astonishment in his own party, and the EU.
The hardline Tory Brexiter’s family made a fortune from their Caribbean plantations where thousands died. Now he faces urgent calls for reparations
Drive into Dorset on the A31 and you roll past a high brick wall butted up tight to the road that seems to go on for ever. Every so often it doglegs at a monolithic gateway crowned by either a lion or a stag. This is the “great wall of Dorset” that runs for three miles, contains some 2m bricks and shields Charborough Park from the outside world. The wall creates an air of foreboding about what might lie inside. This is home to Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, the Conservative MP for South Dorset, who lives in the palatial Grade I-listed Charborough House, hidden from public view within the 283-hectare (700-acre) private grounds.
The park, with its outstanding garden and ancient deer park, is just a part of the 5,600 hectares of Charborough estate that makes Drax and his family the largest individual landowners in Dorset. The mainly 17th-century mansion, with its 36-metre (120ft) folly tower, is the model for Welland House in the Thomas Hardy novel Two on a Tower.
The late politician specialised in sowing division and indulged in national fantasies
The ghost of Enoch Powell hangs over Britain this weekend, with a smile on its thin lips. If you are too young to remember him, Boris Johnson offers a recrudescence. Powell was a genuine classical scholar. Cambridge awarded him a starred double first in Latin and Ancient Greek in 1933. Johnson was so-so academically. His failure to achieve a first at Oxford enraged him. But, like Powell, he learned the value of dropping a Latin phrase in a class-ridden country, which still thinks a classical education is a sign of superior intelligence.
Both told monstrous lies: not the usual dishonesties of politics, but lies that break people’s lives. Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech had a title adapted from a line from Virgil, but that didn’t make it classy. He unleashed hatred and violence against black and Asian immigrants and their children in 1968 by using the story of an old white woman in Wolverhampton. She had lost her husband and sons in the war and her reward was to be intimidated by “Negros”. Her “windows are broken. She finds excreta pushed through her letterbox. When she goes to the shops, she is followed by children, charming, wide-grinning piccaninnies. They cannot speak English, but one word they know. ‘Racialist,’ they chant.”
Exclusive: two vessels to be deployed at sea with two on standby in case EU fishing boats enter EEZ
Four Royal Navy patrol ships will be ready from 1 January to help the UK protect its fishing waters in the event of a no-deal Brexit, in a deployment evoking memories of the “cod wars” in the 1970s.
The 80-metre-long armed vessels would have the power to halt, inspect and impound all EU fishing boats operating within the UK’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which can extend 200 miles from shore.
Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister, has urged politicians involved in the UK-EU trade negotiations to “dial down the language”. In comments which seemed to be aimed at Boris Johnson, Coveney told reporters at a press conference in Berlin:
What I would say to politicians, we need to try and dial down the language in terms of the division and differences of views and focus on the detail.
There is a bigger picture here that goes beyond trade in a world that is changing and has a lot of risk.
The Conservative MP Imran Ahmad Khan has criticised Angela Merkel for refusing to let Boris Johnson lobby her over the UK-EU trade talks. (See 10.57am and 12.37pm.) You can tell Ahmad Khan’s a Brexiter, because he’s brought up the war ...
I stand with millions of Britons that are deeply insulted at the shocking news that the German Chancellor has refused the British Prime Minister’s request for a telephone call. This is an insult to every Briton, whether they support our PM or not.
Have our EU “friends” no regard or respect for the UK and our nations’ sacrifices that permit them to live in freedom and prosperity today, safely away from the shadow of totalitarianism?
The EU’s contemptuous treatment of the UK makes it clear there cannot be a deal until it accepts the UK as a sovereign equal and awards us the respect and regard we merit.
What might be the enduring symbol of the coronavirus that turned our world upside down in 2020? Might it be those Thursday evenings of spring and summer when, at the stroke of 8pm, Britons overcame the national traits of embarrassment and reserve and ventured out on to the doorstep to applaud doctors, nurses and key workers, banging saucepans and nodding to neighbours in a synchronised “clap for carers”? Or might it be the first sign that trouble was coming this way, that footage of Italians singing to each other from their balconies in a ritual that seemed as exotic, distant and unlikely then as the very notion of a “lockdown”, back before that dramatically punitive word lost its sting?
A chequerboard computer screen of faces as Zoom became the prime means of face-to-face contact with those who didn’t live under one roof? The smaller, quieter sight of families visiting grandparents but getting no further than the garden path, toddlers waving through the glass at elderly relatives?
PM says he cannot accept UK being ‘locked in EU’s orbit’, but Tories urge him to strike deal
Boris Johnson has ordered ministers to prepare for the “strong possibility” of a no-deal Brexit, warning that the UK risks being “locked in the EU’s orbit” as senior Tories urge him to find an agreement.
After a three-hour summit with the European commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, failed to bridge major gaps between them, the prime minister said he was prepared to “go the extra mile” by flying to Paris or Berlin for face-to-face talks with EU leaders.
Secondary schools and colleges in Wales will close to almost all students next week and lessons will move online in an effort to stem the growing spread of coronavirus, the Welsh government has announced.
The Welsh education minister, Kirsty Williams, said the public health situation in Wales was deteriorating and she had been advised by the chief medical officer that learning should be moved online for secondary school pupils as soon as possible.
There was said to have been a refreshing candidness, but there is much still left to chew over
In the final few moments, at the end of a long dinner on the 13th floor of the European commission’s Berlaymont headquarters, Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen slipped away from their advisers and chief negotiators to talk alone in a corner of the room. It was a tête-à-tête between two leaders mindful of the historic nature of their discussions.
Their conversation was intense, and notable for its apparent frankness; the body language made that clear to observers. The entire evening, as Von der Leyen would later tweet, had been “lively” – but this was not two politicians merely talking past each other. Both appeared to understand each other’s point of view, sources told the Guardian, and concluded it was worth “one last go” to reach a Brexit deal, even amid warnings of increasingly gloomy prospects. A Sunday deadline was set.
We return to speak to the people we interviewed pre-election last December. How have they fared?
The mist of uncertainty that worried east Belfast voters in the run-up the general election has given way, a year later, to a depressing clarity: things have got worse. Covid-19 has battered Northern Ireland’s economy, health system and power-sharing government. And Brexit has become only more ominous, with warnings of possible disruptions to trade and food supplies in January.
Significant gaps remain between PM and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen after Brussels dinner
A Brexit deal must be sealed by Sunday or there will be no deal, Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen agreed after a “lively and frank” three-hour summit that set the stage for a dramatic final act of the negotiations.
Despite nine months of troubled talks, “very large gaps” were said to remain between the UK and EU. The leaders said they should come to a deal or no deal outcome by the end of the weekend, with pressure on both sides to find time for parliamentary ratification.
Scotland came close to eliminating Covid during the first nationwide lockdown, according to genomic sequencing for Sage of 5,000 samples of the virus, the Scottish government believes.
Jason Leitch, the Scottish government’s national clinical director, said analysis by scientists in Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews on the COG-UK consortium found that around 300 different strains of the virus were circulating in Scotland during the first wave.
That allows us to say this did get us incredibly close to eliminating the virus in our communities, but as we opened up, inevitably people began to travel across the UK [and] travel abroad. New strains were imported again into Scotland.
[This] indicates that, while lockdown in Scotland is directly linked with the first wave case numbers being brought under control, travel-associated imports (mostly from Europe or other parts of the UK) following the easing of lockdown are responsible for seeding the current epidemic population.
This demonstrates that the impact of stringent public health measures can be compromised if, following this, movements from regions of high to low prevalence are not minimised.
Public Health Wales has recorded 2,238 further coronavirus cases. That is a new record daily high for recorded cases. The previous daily record was 2,021, on Monday. A week ago today the figure was 1,480.
There have also been 31 further deaths. A week ago today the figure was 51.
The rapid COVID-19 surveillance dashboard has been updated.
Analysis: While there are similarities with the 2015 clash between Athens and Brussels, there are also key differences
It was a marathon even by the European Union’s standards. For hours, leaders of countries in the eurozone argued, haggled and shouted at each other. After breaks for refreshment, they argued, haggled and shouted some more. Rumours swirled around the packed media room. Eventually, as Brussels was waking to a new morning, the 17-hour overnight summit staggered to an end.
All participants were in agreement that victory had been snatched from the jaws of defeat. Despite the brinkmanship, a deal was eventually done – as seasoned EU watchers had always said it would be, even when all hope seemed lost.
Boris Johnson has claimed no prime minister would be right to accept the trade terms being offered by the EU, as he prepares to fly to Brussels for last-ditch talks.
Asked in the House of Commons by the veteran Tory backbencher Edward Leigh about the prospects for a deal, Johnson said: “Our friends in the EU are currently insisting that if they pass a new law in future with which we in this country do not comply or don’t follow suit, then they want the automatic right to punish us and to retaliate.
Previous prime ministers have defined their leadership via a row with Europe – will Johnson be different?
Since the formation of the European Union, it has been a habit for British prime ministers to try to define their premiership via a row with the rest of the bloc, especially given the laudatory domestic newspaper headlines such disputes engender.
The leading exponent was Margaret Thatcher, ironically in many ways the architect of the single market from which Boris Johnson is struggling to organise the UK’s retreat.
Tax experts and economists outline ‘fairest, most efficient’ way to repair public finances and quickly raise £260bn
The government has been urged to launch a one-off wealth tax on millionaire households to raise up to £260bn in response to the coronavirus pandemic, as the crisis damages Britain’s public finances and exacerbates inequality.
The Wealth Tax Commission – a group of leading tax experts and economists brought together by the London School of Economics and Warwick University to examine the case for a levy on assets – said targeting the richest in society would be the fairest and most efficient way to raise taxes in response to the pandemic.
News that PM will meet European commission president comes as Michel Barnier says chance of deal is ‘very slim’
The future of Britain’s relationship with the rest of Europe will hang on the success of a dinner between Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels on Wednesday, it has emerged, as the EU’s chief negotiator warned the chance of a Brexit deal was now “very slim”.
Downing Street said the prime minister would join the European commission president at its Berlaymont headquarters on Wednesday evening, where the leaders would seek to break the Brexit impasse over a three-course meal.
Gag about former No 10 adviser tops TV channel Gold’s top 10 list of seasonal gags
Moments of light relief have been hard to come by this year but the annual ranking of topical Christmas cracker jokes provides some, with the top spot taken by one that has a punchline featuring a Chris Rea song and Dominic Cummings.
The TV channel Gold’s eighth annual ranking, which is chosen by a panel chaired by the comedy critic Bruce Dessau, was put to 2,000 voters who chose: “What is Dominic Cummings’ favourite Christmas song? Driving Home for Christmas”, as the best cracker joke this year.