Markus Andrews

Boris Johnson has spoken of his “ineradicable” love and admiration for France, as he attempted to mend fences after Paris’s furious response to the announcement of a new defence partnership between the UK, US and Australia.The prime minister’s olive branch to France came after a senior minister in Emmanuel Macron’s administration branded the UK a “vassal” state of Washington.The announcement of the AUKUS nuclear submarine partnership sparked fury in France because it saw the cancellation of a 56bn euro deal for Australia to buy 12 French diesel-electric subs.Defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian condemned the pact – announced with virtually no notice – as a “stab in the back”.And in an extraordinary step between such close allies, President Macron withdrew ambassadors from Washington and Canberra in retaliation.But in a blow to UK pride, France’s Europe minister Clement Beaune said similar action was not meted out to Britain because Paris viewed it as very much the junior partner in the new alliance.“Our British friends explained to us that they were leaving the EU to create ‘global Britain’,” Mr Beaune told France 24 TV.“As you can see, it is a return to the American fold and accepting a form of vassal status.“Global Britain seems to be more about [being] a junior partner of the US than working with different allies.”Mr Johnson attempted to calm troubled waters when he was asked how he responded to the French minister’s characterisation of the UK’s new position in the world.“We are very, very proud of our relationship with France and it is of huge importance to this country,” he told reporters travelling with him to the United Nations in New York.“It is a very friendly relationship – an entente cordiale – that goes back a century or more and is absolutely vital for us.”Mr Johnson said the UK works “shoulder to shoulder” with France in Nato’s mission to the Baltic states, as well as in operations in the west African state of Mali and in joint simulations of nuclear weapons tests.“British troops and French troops are side by side,” he said. “There are no two sets of armed forces that are more capable of integration together and working side by side.“This is something that goes very, very deep. Our love of France, our admiration of France is ineradicable.” More

The supply chain chaos causing empty shelves in Britain’s supermarkets could last months, Boris Johnson has admitted.The prime minister promised the government will do “whatever we can” to keep gas supplies flowing and prevent the collapse of energy companies battered by the sharp spike in wholesale prices.But while insisting the crisis – which has triggered knock-on effects including a carbon dioxide shortage threatening meat production and the distribution of frozen food – would be “temporary”, he was unwilling to give an assurance that it would not last for months.Instead, he told reporters: “It could be faster than that, it could be much faster than that. But there are problems with shipping, with containers, with staff. There are all sorts of problems that affect the entire world.”Mr Johnson made clear that the government is ready to step in to avoid the failure of further energy firms after four ceased trading in recent days.“I have no doubt that supply issues will be readily addressed,” said the prime minister. We’re very confident in our supply chains.“But in the meantime, we will work with all the gas companies to do whatever we can to keep people’s supplies coming, to make sure they don’t go out of business and to make sure we get through the current difficult period.”The prime minister declined to say whether official action could include a temporary suspension of the energy price cap which has forced suppliers to sell gas to customers at less than it was costing them.“I want to give a general reassurance that the problems we are seeing are temporary,” said Mr Johnson. “They are caused by the resurgence of the global economy as Covid starts to retreat in parts of the world.“Particularly in Asia, there is a phenomenal demand for gas, LNG (liquid natural gas) in particular. And you’re seeing that demand affect supply around the world. That’s basically what’s going on.“As the world starts firing on all cylinders – to use a hydrocarbon metaphor – things will start to smooth out.”An unsustainable increase in gas prices was blamed for the closure of two fertiliser plants operated in the north of England by US company CF Industries, which produce CO2 as a byproduct. The gas is deployed as a preservative in fresh food packaging and frozen goods and used by meat processors to stun chickens and pigs before slaughter.The blow to the food industry heightens pressure from a 100,000 shortfall in numbers of lorry drivers in the wake of Brexit and the Covid pandemic, which had already led distributors to reduce the range of items supplied to shops.But Mr Johnson played down suggestions that EU withdrawal was to blame for empty shelves, insisting that supply chain problems were being felt world-wide.“The gas supply issue is global, the HGV issue is in the US as well as Europe,” he said. “So we’re seeing these same sorts of problems everywhere. But I think market forces will be very, very swift in sorting it outing we’re going to do whatever we can to help.”He compared the world economy’s emergence from the pandemic to the hero of Jonathan Swift’s novel Gulliver’s Travels tearing himself free of the ropes which bound him down in Lilliput.“The guy-ropes are pinging off Gulliver and it’s standing up,” said Mr Johnson. It’s going to take a while, as it were, for the circulation to adjust.”He added: “The economy is now bouncing back very strongly. That’s producing stresses and strains across the world in supply chains. We’re experiencing bottlenecks in all kinds of things, huge stresses, as the world wakes up from Covid.“It’s like everybody going to put the kettle on at the end of a TV programme. You’re seeing huge stresses on the world supply systems. But you’re also seeing businesses bouncing back strongly” More

Folic acid is set to be added to bread and other baked products across the UK to help prevent life-threatening spinal conditions in babies, Boris Johnson has announced.Bakers will be required to mix the additive into all non-wholemeal wheat flour with the aim of avoiding around 200 neural tube defects causing illnesses such as spina bifida and anencephaly each year – around 20 per cent of the UK’s total.Folate – or vitamin B9 – helps the body make healthy red blood cells and is crucial to the formation of the neural tube which forms the early part of the brain and spine in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.It is naturally occurring in leafy green vegetables and is already voluntarily added to many breakfast cereals, meaning that most people can get all they need by eating a balanced diet.But a higher intake is required during the first weeks of pregnancy, and the NHS already recommends that women planning a pregnancy should take a 400-microgram folic acid supplement every day before conceiving and in the following 12 weeks.However, with half of UK pregnancies unplanned, many mothers-to-be miss out on the boost to folate levels that protects their babies.Announcing the move, Mr Johnson said: “Few things are as important as a baby’s health – and folic acid-fortified flour is a quick, simple win to enhance their development.“This will give extra peace of mind to parents and families, as well as helping boost the health of adults across the country.”Kate Steele, CEO of the charity Shine, which supports people whose lives have been affected by spina bifida and hydrocephalus, described the move as “truly momentous”.“Shine is delighted by the government’s decision to support mandatory fortification of the most commonly consumed flours in the UK with folic acid – a move we have campaigned for for over 30 years,” said Ms Steele.“Mandatory fortification of flour with folic acid will improve public health for so many, now and in the future.“In its simplest terms, the step will reduce the numbers of families who face the devastating news that their baby has anencephaly and will not survive. It will also prevent some babies being affected by spina bifida, which can result in complex physical impairments and poor health. This is truly a momentous day.”British flour has been fortified with additives such as calcium, iron, niacin and thiamine during milling on health grounds ever since the Second World War. Around 80 countries, including Australia, New Zealand and Canada, already add folic acid to staple food products to help reduce neural tube defects.Wholemeal flour and gluten-free foods are not subject to mandatory fortification and are not covered by today’s announcement. Wholemeal flour has more naturally occurring folate than non-wholemeal varieties, and some wholemeal and gluten-free foods are already voluntarily fortified with folic acid in the UK.The government expects the change, which is subject to consultation by a review of UK bread and flour regulations, will impose only minimal extra costs on industry.Alex Waugh, director of UK Flour Millers, said: “Flour, whether white brown or wholemeal, is an ingredient in many foodstuffs and supplies a big proportion of our daily fibre and protein along with essential nutrients such as calcium, iron and B vitamins.  If it is decided that folic acid should be added to flour for public health reasons, flour millers will do all they can to overcome any practical challenges to make it happen.” More

Boris Johnson is to confront Amazon’s billionaire boss Jeff Bezos over his company’s record of paying tiny amounts of tax in the UK.Aides said the prime minister will raise the issue of the UK’s planned “Amazon tax” on online retail when he meets Bezos – the world’s richest man, with a personal fortune of more than £130bn – on the fringe of the United Nations general assembly in New York on Monday.Amazon has sparked fury over many years for its minimal tax payments in the UK despite making billions in sales. The company paid £492m in direct taxation in 2020 as its sales rose 50 per cent to £20.63bn.Chancellor Rishi Sunak is planning a 2 per cent tax on digital sales amid concerns that big tech firms are re-routing their profits through low tax jurisdictions.The levy, fiercely resisted by tech giants, is intended to redress the balance with bricks-and-mortar businesses which have seen profits savaged as consumers flood away from the high street to virtual shopping.Mr Sunak has said that the Covid pandemic made the online retailers even “more powerful and more profitable”.Asked whether Mr Johnson will tell Mr Bezos to pay more tax when the pair meet in New York, the PM’s official spokesperson said: “You can expect the prime minister to raise this important issue.“We have been an advocate for an international solution to the tax challenges posed by digitalisation of the economy.“We will very much be looking to raise that.”The spokesperson said Mr Johnson will also tackle Bezos over the impact of Amazon’s fast-growing business empire on the environment, just weeks ahead of November’s vital Cop26 climate change summit in Glasgow.“We fully recognise that while it is one of the largest companies in the world, Amazon also has a role in addressing issues of climate change and biodiversity,” said the spokesperson.Amazon’s direct tax bill for 2020 was up by more than two-thirds compared with the £293m it paid in the previous year.The firm, which employs 55,000 people in the UK, said the taxes included business rates, stamp duty, corporation tax and other contributions.Recent analysis by union Unite found that the ecommerce giant’s accounts and public statements showed £13.7bn in sales in the UK in 2019, of which only £5.5bn worth were reported in filings for UK-based companies, with others routed via low-tax Luxembourg. More

Boris Johnson will attempt to shame the rich countries of the world into finally meeting a $100bn (£73bn) pledge made more than a decade ago to help developing nations deal with the climate emergency – telling them they have a “duty” to step up because their wealth is based on generations of “reaping the benefits of untrammelled pollution”.In a meeting also attended by the world’s biggest carbon-emitter China, he will announce that the UK is putting half a billion pounds into assisting poorer countries to wean themselves off coal power and switch to cleaner energy sources.He will put pressure on big business to cut its own emissions, in a meeting with Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, when aides said he will confront the billionaire internet retailer over his company’s responsibility to address issues of climate change and biodiversity.And he will raise global warming in a face-to-face meeting with climate emergency-denying Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, whose complicity with loggers using fire to clear vast tracts of Amazon rainforest has fuelled the crisis.With fewer than 50 days to go to the COP26 climate change summit being hosted by the UK in Glasgow, the prime minister will tell a meeting of world leaders at the United Nations in New York on Monday that developed countries have “collectively failed” to live up to promises first made in 2009 to support poorer nations in cutting their carbon emissions and adapting their economies for a warmer climate.An OECD report last week confirmed that only $79.6bn (£58bn) in climate finance for the developing world was mobilised by richer countries in 2019 – 2 percentage points up from the previous year but still well short of the $100bn target which was due to be reached in 2020.New pledges made by G7 leaders at Mr Johnson’s Cornwall summit in June totalling $4bn a year for adaptation and nature will not be enough to take the rich world over the line.At the end of the UN General Assembly this week the UK will publish the detail of countries’ climate finance commitments to date, and Mr Johnson has asked Germany and Canada to draw up a $100bn Delivery Plan ahead of COP26, to spell out how the climate finance promise will be met through to 2025.Co-chairing Monday’s meeting with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Mr Johnson will announce that the UK will direct £550m – from a pot of £11.6bn already committed to International climate finance over the next five years – towards supporting developing countries to adopt the policies and technologies needed to end reliance on coal.The failure to accelerate the removal of coal from the world’s energy ecosystem is one of the key obstacles standing in the way of the COP26 goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.Despite pledges to bring its emissions to a peak before 2030 and become carbon-neutral by 2060, China this year announced plans to build 43 new coal-fired power plants and 18 new blast furnaces – equivalent to adding about 1.5 per cent to its greenhouse gas production.On the first day of a three-day trip to the US which also takes in talks with Joe Biden at the White House, Mr Johnson will tell Monday’s meeting: “In coming together to agree the $100bn pledge, the world’s richest countries made an historic commitment to the world’s poorest – we now owe it to them to deliver on that.“Richer nations have reaped the benefits of untrammelled pollution for generations, often at the expense of developing countries. As those countries now try to grow their economies in a clean, green and sustainable way we have a duty to support them in doing so – with our technology, with our expertise and with the money we have promised.”Some £350m of the UK funding announced today will go to the Climate Investment Fund to pilot and scale climate solutions in developing countries, including support for a programme to accelerate closures of coal-fired power stations, repurpose sites for clean energy generation and create green jobs.The cash represents Britain’s contribution to a target agreed at the G7 to provide an extra $2bn to the fund’s new energy programmes.A further £200m will go to UK PACT (Partnering for Accelerated Climate Transition), Britain’s flagship climate technical assistance programme, operating since 2018 to deliver net-zero expertise in 16 countries with high or rapidly-growing emissions.Following meetings in New York on Monday, Mr Johnson travels to Washington for talks with Mr Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris, which are certain to feature the ignomious withdrawal from Afghanistan and the UK”s involvement with the US and Australia in a new Indo-Pacifice defence partnership.On Wednesday, he returns to New York for meetings with senior Congress members including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and ranking Republicans Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy.He delivers his own address to the general assembly on Wednesday evening before returning to the UK. More

Matt Hancock has revealed he received death threats from anti-vaxxers over the government’s Covid jab rollout.The former health secretary, who resigned after breaking coronavirus rules during an alleged affair with an aide, made the claim in an article describing opponents of vaccines as “blinkered and dangerous” and “miserable anti-scientific gloomsters”.He added that anti-vaxxers were trying to stop the progress made over the last nine months and urged everybody who has not yet been vaccinated to “do the right thing and get the jab”.”I’m incredibly grateful to each and every person who got the jab because they have played their part and made Covid so much easier to manage,” he wrote in the Mail on Sunday.However, almost unbelievably, there is still a persistent yet thankfully small and shrinking group of people determined to try to stop this progress. In all my time in public life, I have never come across a group so blinkered and dangerous as the anti-vaxxers.”He added: “The people I reserve my vitriol for are those who promote anti-vax lies. I find it hard to believe, but it’s a shocking fact that there is a small number of aggressive, noisy, threatening people who think it is right and fair to try to stop others from getting vaccinated.”The lengths to which these people will go are extraordinary. They pump out scaremongering material and videos, with discredited arguments. They try to play on people’s fear of the unknown. They create conspiracies and spread misinformation. They’ve even sent me death threats just because I played a prominent part in the vaccines rollout.”Thankfully, they are losing the argument. The overwhelming number of people who’ve had the jab is testament to that.”Mr Hancock said getting the jab was “a social and moral obligation” and called on the public to persuade their unvaccinated friends with science and “reassuring facts”.”I understand that some people are hesitant,” he wrote. “It’s ok to be unsure and ask questions. But vaccinations have been available to all adults for months now. The evidence that they work is overwhelming.”Yes, you can get a sore arm or a headache for a day or two. But more serious side effects are very rare indeed. They don’t affect fertility, they don’t insert tracking devices in your blood, and no, it’s not a conspiracy masterminded by some sort of all-powerful lizard-men.”Unless you have a medical condition, there’s simply no excuse to stay one of the unjabbed. You’re putting the health of the nation at risk. How can it be right that people who have refused the jab put such a burden on the NHS?”Mr Hancock also applauded celebrities for publicly coming forward to get their jab, including England manager Gareth Southgate and Sir Elton John.”Every last one of us that takes the vaccines puts the odds firmly in our favour in the race between vaccination and infection,” he added.”So let’s finish this off. Protect the nation’s health and the freedoms we love. Get the jab.” More

Ministers have moved to calm fears of a threat to the energy price cap to save struggling gas firms, amid fears of a gathering “crisis” from soaring industry prices.The Cabinet minister Alok Sharma appeared to say the move was “under discussion” in response to the supply crisis that is also making frozen food shortages increasingly likely.But a government spokesman told The Independent: “Our energy price cap will remain in place this winter and exists to protect millions of customers from sudden increases in global gas prices.”The guarantee is only until next spring because the level of the cap will be reviewed then, but it is understood there is no intention of removing the cap altogether at any stage.Ministers say it protects around 15 million British households on default tariffs, saving them between £75 and £100 a year on dual fuel bills.Trials are also underway of automatic switching for customers on expensive default energy tariffs to cheaper deals, unless they opt out.Mr Sharma raised eyebrows when he nodded in reply to being asked, on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, if lifting the cap is “under discussion” if “gas prices carry on rising”.Surging natural gas prices have pushed 7 energy suppliers out of business this year – and it is feared that another that 4 more may go bust very soon.Mr Sharma replied: “Let’s see where we are. I know that the business secretary is going to have these very detailed discussions.”Prices leapt by more than 70 per cent in August alone and households could already see bills jump by as much as £400 in a year, according to some estimates.The Cop26 president also sought to calm fears of an energy crisis, by saying: “We are not seeing risk to supply at this time and prices are being protected.”The government is thought to be sceptical that lifting the cap would help at-risk firms very much and that any benefit would certainly be outweighed by the pain dealt to households.Ofgem has already increased the price cap from an average of £1,138 per year to £1,277 from next month, for someone on a standard variable tariff.The next official review is in April, when it may rise above £1,500, according to The Energy Shop price comparison website.Andrew Large, the outgoing chairman of the Energy Intensive Users Group, said the impact of the global supply squeeze was “potentially catastrophic”.“We’re already seeing plant closures at a time of year when the weather is still warm and domestic heating is low. Fast forward two months and this could be an acute crisis,” he told The Daily Telegraph.Fertiliser plants in Teesside and Cheshire have shut and Ranjit Singh Boparan, the owner of Bernard Matthews and 2 Sisters Food Group, said the supply of turkeys at Christmas cannot be guaranteed. More

Next week’s Labour conference could be Sir Keir Starmer’s last chance to unify his party and set out a compelling vision for the country if he is to avoid a repeat of the 2019 ballot-box defeat in a general election that could be less than a year away, leading left winger John McDonnell has warned.Sir Keir should break through activist “frustration” with his leadership by restoring the whip to predecessor Jeremy Corbyn and setting out a radical platform of policies on issues like ending child poverty, scrapping university tuition fees and delivering a “green new deal” on the climate emergency including public ownership of key industries, the former shadow chancellor told The Independent.Mr McDonnell called on Sir Keir to take a lesson from US president Joe Biden, who he said was governing as a moderate centrist enacting a radical programme largely drawn up by leftists including former challenger for the Democrat nomination Bernie Sanders. While he would not expect the leader to endorse all of his predecessor’s views, he could put him to work building support for Labour, said Mr McDonnell, declaring: “Jeremy could mobilise for Keir Starmer.”If, instead, he chose to “ignore the sort trajectory of policies that we’ve had over this recent period”, he could be heading for “a really difficult conference”, Mr McDonnell said.Mr Sanders will join Mr McDonnell by video link at one of a series of events on the fringe of the Brighton gathering being addressed by the veteran left-winger and Mr Corbyn, whose high-profile presence is feared by some in Starmer’s inner circle to be an attempt to distract from the message that the party is under new leadership.Although Mr Corbyn remains suspended from the parliamentary Labour Party over his comments on an antisemitism report, Mr McDonnell said he expected the former leader to attend the main conference as well as the Momentum-backed The World Transformed festival running alongside it.But he insisted that Corbynites were not seeking confrontation with Sir Keir in Brighton.“No one on the left is looking for a fight,” said Mr McDonnell. “What we want to see is a Labour government.“We want to see a party that actually has united on the basis of a radical policy programme that reflects the needs of our community. If that doesn’t emerge at conference, then the sense of frustration amongst our membership will build up and that is completely unnecessary.”

We want to see a party that actually has united on the basis of a radical policy programme that reflects the needs of our community. If that doesn’t emerge at conference, then the sense of frustration amongst our membership will build up and that is completely unnecessary.Mr McDonnell urged Sir Keir to resist any advice to try to define himself by taking on elements in his own party, as Neil Kinnock did when he denounced Militant at the 1985 conference in Bournemouth.“The one thing that taught us in 1987 and 1992 is that people won’t vote for a divided party,” he said. “At the end of the day it just causes more division.”Mr McDonnell said he has been trying to persuade Starmer’s shadow cabinet of the urgency of establishing Labour’s core vision in voters’ minds as soon as possible, rather than waiting until closer to an election which is currently scheduled for 2024, but which he believes is more likely to come in 2023 – or even 2022, if Boris Johnson tries to get it out of the way before the public inquiry into his handling of Covid.Sir Keir must “learn the lesson of December 2019”, when Labour lost credibility by suddenly announcing a raft of policies – most notoriously on free broadband – which it had assumed could be rolled out over the two years remaining before Mr Johnson was due to go to the polls, he said.“We were throwing the kitchen sink at the Tories in terms of policies and people didn’t believe us,” said Mr McDonnell.“Learn the lessons of 2019. You need first of all to have an overall narrative and then you bed the policies in over time so that people understand them. They might not always agree with them but they’ll understand where you’re coming from.”Sir Keir’s caution has left “the poor bloody infantry” on the doorsteps and in the TV studios with no comeback when their critiques of the government receive the response, “Well, what would you do?” The problem was exposed most brutally when Mr Johnson brushed aside criticisms of his own flimsy plan for social care this month with derision for Sir Keir’s failure to deliver a plan at all, he said.“I’m trying to get across a sense of urgency to the people around Keir,” said McDonnell. “The policy-making process for the manifesto will take nine to 12 months from now and Johnson could have called the election by then. Even if it’s 2023, as most of the Tories are working on, we’ve only got 18 to 20 months max.“Do the job – you need to do the job now. Otherwise, we go into an election on a manifesto produced so late that people either don’t understand it or don’t know about it or don’t find credible.”While polls now put Labour on an almost even keel with Tories after the waning of Johnson’s “vaccine bounce”, Sir Keir’s personal ratings have “collapsed” because “people don’t just not know who he is, they don’t know what he stands for”, said McDonnell.“The only way that people will have confidence in you is when they know what you’re going to do and what you’re about,” he said. “You have to set out what your objectives are and the society you want to create.“It doesn’t have to be the details of the policy, it could be objectives – end child poverty, end low pay, decent housing, we’re going to fund schools, we’re going to make sure we scrap tuition fees and then the key issue is climate change – the green new deal, which includes the elements of public ownership.”He said the 100,000-plus fall in Labour membership which has triggered a cash crisis for the party was largely down to activist “disillusionment” over Sir Keir’s failure to deliver on his leadership contest pledge to maintain 10 key Corbyn-era policies, as well as “faction-fighting” which had seen the suspension of left wingers like bakers’ union boss Ronnie Draper.Restoration of the whip to the former leader was “absolutely key” to a positive conference, said Mr McDonnell, who said Sir Keir should also be promoting young talent from the left of the party into his shadow cabinet to build a “broad church”.

Look at what Biden’s doing – a centrist leader but implementing quite a radical policy programme, largely designed by the left… Voters are looking for motivation, they’re looking for vision, and it’s coming from the left and it’s got to be radical.“He doesn’t have to endorse everything Jeremy believes in or says or has said,” he told The Independent. “He just has to demonstrate that actually Jeremy is a valuable member of our party like everybody else, and use his talents. Jeremy could mobilise for Keir Starmer.”It would be “a complete mistake” for the current leadership to interpret the 2019 result as requiring them to jettison the platform of the Corbyn era, said Mr McDonnell.“The whole world has moved on,” he said. “Look at what Biden’s doing – a centrist leader but implementing quite a radical policy programme, largely designed by the left.“It’s happening in European elections now, in Germany and also in some Scandinavian countries. Voters are looking for motivation, they’re looking for vision, and it’s coming from the left and it’s got to be radical.“The lessons of Covid are the lessons from the left – that we do care for one another, we need each other, we do rely upon the state and its public services.“People are waking up to the crisis of climate change, they’re learning the lessons of how we tackled the Covid crisis and the way we need to tackle climate change.” More