Dame Louise Casey, who led the government’s emergency programme to tackle rough sleeping earlier this year, warned that a series of economic pressures were now in danger of colliding. She said that while the campaign led by England and Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford had provided hope, and she urged ministers to act. “What we are facing here is a perfect storm of awfulness,” she told the Observer. “Everyone has been affected by COVID, millions have seen their income drop and even those who can weather that, are thinking twice. Rashford has pulled everyone together on the key and compassionate issue of making sure kids don’t go hungry or their parents don’t have to go hungry to feed them. The spirit of the Thursday clapping to show our support to the NHS and care workers lives on in his kind, honest leadership.  “The British public do really care. The rising levels of homelessness and (with) the reduction of universal credit on the horizon, it’s hard not to feel bleak about this winter. Rashford and those supporting his campaign give me hope. Now is not the time for political division and tribal loyalty – it’s the time to bring us all together again. The government needs to heed the mood of the country and take action now. Kids should not go hungry, people should not be on the streets and the elderly deserve only the best of care that we can give.” Her intervention came as the head of the CBI called for the government not to ditch the £1,000 increase in the basic universal credit allowance due to be axed in April. In a rare move, Carolyn Fairbairn said “having a strong safety net is going to be absolutely vital” in the months ahead, The Guardian reported. “A period of impoverishment in our country is unthinkable,” she said. “I think the idea that the £1,000 supplement would run out in March is something that should really be rethought. It’s also about fairness. There are going to be some people who have been kept in work through variations of the job support scheme, and others who are not so lucky. The gap between those two positions should not be so great.” Fairbairn is also calling for a new National Commission for Economic Recovery, involving business, unions, government and civil society, to plan how to revive the economy in the aftermath of the virus. Official figures last week revealed that there had been an increase in 16- to 25-year-olds sleeping rough in London between July and September, from 250 last year to 368. The previous quarter saw a similar 48% increase. Pressure is still mounting on the government over child hunger. A coalition of more than 50 public health directors, healthcare professionals, charities and local government figures have signed a letter to chancellor Rishi Sunak in support of a key element of Rashford’s child poverty campaign. They demand a major expansion of the Healthy Start scheme, which gives young pregnant women and low-income families with young children free vitamins and food vouchers to purchase vegetables, fruit, pulses and milk. They want the scheme to be enhanced and offered to more people, an increase in the value of vouchers and a publicity campaign to ensure it reaches those in need. “We are ready to help in whatever way we can,” they write. “We know that the nutrition and health of mothers and young children will have profound and life-long consequences for children’s futures. A fair start in life should be a key tenet of the government’s ‘levelling up’ agenda. Now is the time to act.” A Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson said: “We are wholly committed to supporting the lowest paid families, boosting welfare support by £9.3bn in response to the pandemic as well as introducing income protection schemes, mortgage holidays and additional support for renters and constantly keep these measures under review.”

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The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) found that between 1940 and 2018, some 390 people employed by the church, as clergymen or in trusted positions, were convicted of child sex abuse, RT reported.  They were ‘forgiven’ for their crimes by the church and allowed to continue their duties, often in close proximity to children, the IICSA found.  “The culture of the Church of England facilitated it becoming a place where abusers could hide,” the report read.  The inquiry found the church repeatedly failed to respond in a consistent manner to victims and survivors of abuse, compounding their trauma over a period of decades. In 2018 alone, there were some 2,504 concerns raised about possible abuse of children or vulnerable adults, including 449 allegations of recent sexual abuse.  “Over many decades, the Church of England failed to protect children and young people from sexual abusers, instead facilitating a culture where perpetrators could hide and victims faced barriers to disclosure that many could not overcome,” chair of the inquiry, professor Alexis Jay stated. The IICSA lambasted the church for regarding forgiveness “as the appropriate response to any admission of wrongdoing”. One such case highlighted is that of Timothy Storey, a man who was permitted to continue working with children after apologising “for everything he had done wrong”. Storey is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence for multiple offences against young girls, including rape.  As part of the findings announced Tuesday in the damning report, the panel found that record-keeping of abuse claims was “almost non-existent”. The panel decried the church's willingness to pervert the course of legal justice by meting out its own 'forgiveness', precluding sex offenders from being held responsible for their crimes and prevented from re-offending. The church was also blasted for its handling of the reverend Ian hughes scandal, in which he was convicted in 2014 of downloading 8,000 child porn images, including 800 in the most serious category.  At the time, Bishop Peter Forster claimed Hughes had been “misled into viewing child pornography”. The report further condemned what it dubbed as “tribalism” within the church, which placed loyalty to its own over the safety and wellbeing of children. It cited a “culture of fear and secrecy within the Church about sexuality” which then facilitated a climate of sex abuse. The church issued an apology and expressed shame after the inquiry’s findings were released.  “The report makes shocking reading and while apologies will never take away the effects of abuse on victims and survivors, we today want to express our shame about the events that have made those apologies necessary,” noted the Bishop of Huddersfield, Jonathan Gibbs. “The whole Church must learn lessons from this Inquiry. Our main focus in response must be recognising the distress caused to victims and survivors by the Church’s failures in safeguarding,” Gibbs added. The inquiry held public hearings in July 2019, which led in part to the findings of the report.  The panel made eight recommendations, including an improved complaints process for victims of abuse, the reintroduction of immediate expulsion from the church for anyone convicted of child sex offences and improved funding and support for victims and survivors.

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According to estimates, by the start of May, 16,000 people had died in the UK due to missed medical treatment, including 6,000 who did not seek help at A&E services due to fears of catching the virus. The report noted that its “Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives” message prompted patients to avoid attending emergency rooms. During the same period, 25,000 people died as a direct consequence of contracting COVID-19. The figures, calculated by the Department of Health, the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the government Actuary's Department and the Home Office, also showed that 10,000 more people died in care homes after they were discharged from hospitals during the virus’ peak. The figures also suggest that a further 26,000 people could lose their lives in the coming months due to healthcare restrictions imposed on the NHS by the pandemic. However, the report estimates that the lockdown acted as a positive force by saving at least 2,500 lives through reductions in road deaths, via more people adopting healthier lifestyle and by generally lowering pollution rates, as well as a fall in infectious diseases among children. The estimates come amid criticisms from British medical workers directed towards the UK government’s alleged overemphasis on coronavirus response with a subsequent reduction in some NHS services. The report estimates that 1,400 people are expected to die in the next five years due to late diagnosis with cancer. Overall, the recession caused by coronavirus and longer waiting times for non-urgent medical care services would put at risk an additional 81,500 lives in the next 50 years, the group said. According to Johns Hopkins University's latest figures, there have been now 46,596 deaths registered in the United Kingdom from COVID-19. However, figures published by the ONS said that coronavirus could have actually taken the lives of 56,600 people across the country throughout the whole period of the pandemic.

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A letter from Britain’s Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, seen by The Guardian, urged Congress to support initial spending on the warhead, the W93. The letter, sent in April but not previously reported, draws the UK into a US political debate, pitting the Donald Trump administration against many Democrats and arms control groups over whether the the $14bln W93 programme is necessary. The US navy already has two warheads to choose from for its submarine-launched Trident missiles. The close cooperation on the W93 casts further doubt on the genuine independence of the UK deterrent – parliament first heard about it when US officials accidentally disclosed Britain’s involvement in February – and the commitment of both countries to disarmament. The UK is also supporting the administration’s efforts to speed up work on the warhead and its surprise $53mln request for initial weapon design work in the 2021 budget, two years ahead of the previous schedule. Sceptics believe the rush is intended to lock in funding before the election. A Joe Biden administration would be likely to review or even cancel the W93 programme. “These are challenging times, but it is crucial that we demonstrate transatlantic unity and solidarity in this difficult period,” Wallace told members of the House and Senate armed services committees. “Congressional funding in [2021] for the W93 program will ensure that we continue to deepen the unique nuclear relationship between our two countries, enabling the United Kingdom to provide safe and assured continuous-at-sea deterrence for decades to come,” he added. The British intervention comes as the initial funding for the warhead hangs in the balance. It was approved by the House and Senate armed services committees but blocked at least temporarily, by a House energy and water subcommittee last month. Congressional staffers said they could not recall such a direct UK intervention in a US debate on nuclear weapons. “We’ve never had a letter of this sort before, so it was a little bit surprising that this is the issue that they chose to weigh in on,” a committee aide said. The UK insists its Trident nuclear deterrent is autonomous, but the two countries share the same missiles and coordinate work on warheads. The current UK Trident warhead, the Holbrook, is very similar to the W76 warhead, one of two the US navy uses in its own Trident II missiles. The US and UK versions of the W93 are also expected to resemble each other closely. Both countries will use the same new MK7 aeroshell, the cone around the warhead that allows it to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere, which will cost another several hundred million dollars. Little has been disclosed about the W93, but it is thought to be based on a design that was tested during the cold war but not made part of the US stockpile at the time. It will potentially be the first new warhead design in the US stockpile since the cold war and is expected to be of considerably higher yield than the current W76, which is already six times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima 75 years ago next week. The demand for funding for the W93 is particularly controversial in the US as the W76 and a higher-yield submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) warhead, the W88, have already been subject to multibillion-dollar upgrades. “This is excess on top of excess,” Kingston Reif, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association, said," adding, “We already have two SBLM warheads. The W76 just went through a major life extension programme and is slated to be good into the early 2040s, and the W88 is going through a major alteration. “The US can continue to assist the UK’s arsenal without rushing the development of an unnecessary, at least $14bln new-design, third SLBM warhead,” Reif added. The total cost of the US nuclear weapons modernisation programme is expected to be far in excess of $1tln. The US and Russia, which is also upgrading its arsenal and developing new weapons, together account for more than 90% of all the nuclear warheads on the planet, and both countries are putting increasing emphasis on them in their rhetoric and defence postures. Under Trump, the US has now left three nuclear agreements and his administration is reluctant to extend the last major arms control deal with Russia, the 2010 New Start treaty, which is due to expire in February. The bonfire of nuclear accords, combined with the huge amounts spent on weapons like the W93, are a threat to the 1968 nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the fundamental bargain by which countries without nuclear arms pledged not to acquire them on condition the recognised nuclear powers (the US, UK, France, Russia and China) took steps to disarm, under article six of the treaty. “When I look at something like the W93, it’s not, in and of itself, a violation of article six,” said Daniel Joyner, a University of Alabama law professor specializing in nuclear treaties, adding, “It’s just a further data point to evidence, the current non-compliance of the US and UK with article six.” In his letter to the congressional committees, Wallace wrote, “Your support to the W93 program in this budget cycle is critical to the success of our replacement warhead programme and to the long-term viability of the UK’s nuclear deterrent and therefore, the future of Nato as a nuclear alliance.” Alexandra Bell, a former state department official and now senior policy director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said the US-UK special relationship had shown greater solidarity in promoting new weapons than in arms control. “The UK is noticeably missing when it comes to emphatic support for New Start extension, but yet at the same time it feels comfortable directly telling members of Congress what they should do about our own modernization plans,” Bell said, adding, “I think that’s weird.” Asked about the purpose of Wallace’s letter, a UK defense ministry spokesman said, “The UK’s existing warhead is being replaced in order to respond to future threats and guarantee our security. We have a strong defence relationship with the US and will work closely with our ally to ensure our warhead remains compatible with the US’s Trident missile.” According to official figures, the US W76 warhead is viable until 2045 at least - and the UK version is expected to last until the late 2030’s, so there is no urgent technical need for replacement. Greg Mello, executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group, said nuclear weapons hawks at the Pentagon, the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Los Alamos National Laboratory were pushing to lock in spending in case there is a change of administration. “They would like to get this program endorsed by Congress this year, and they’re very close to it,” Mello said, adding, “Once it is a programme of record, it will take more for a future administration to knock it out.” 

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The trove of secret files was previously withheld from an ongoing High Court legal case by the government, causing a judge to demand an explanation from defense secretary Ben Wallace. Communications from within high ranks of the special forces reveal huge concern for the killings of over 33 Afghan people in 11 different night raids on homes by the same unit. The documents, seen by The Sunday Times Insight team, expose one signficant incident that has been alleged to be a quadruple murder by UK troops, and is now at the centre of the case. On February 16, 2011, the unnamed SAS unit arrived by Chinook helicopter at the village of Gawahargin in Southern Helmand province. They were looking for a young man named Saddam, suspected of being a member of an enemy gang that was planting roadside bombs. With laser gunsights trained, they raided his family home, with family members including his 19-year-old brother Saifullah stepping out into the night with their hands up. The women and children were tied up, with black hoods placed on their heads as they were detained in one part of the small compound. In the next minutes, they heard gunfire.  After the special forces soldiers took off, Saifullah went back into the house in search of his father. He found him, and later his brothers and cousin, dead and with several bullet holes in their heads. Two years later, Saifullah’s uncle made a claim against the UK government for unlawful detention and mistreatment, as he had been imprisoned for 20 days after the raid by the SAS and then released without charge. As part of the litigation, the allegation about the four civilian killings was passed on to the special investigation branch of the Royal Military Police (RMP), who felt the claims were sufficiently serious to launch an investigation in March 2014.  But in extraordinary communications between members of the unit and senior special forces figures revealed in court, the circumstances of the trip are thrown into obscurity. When a computer link to the mission report was circulated earlier that morning, one SAS troop sergeant-major inquired by email at 6:56 am, "Is this about . . . latest massacre! I’ve heard a couple of rumours." But in response, a senior non-commissioned officer sent back a note, laying out what appears to be the official line on the details. Describing the death of Saifullah’s cousin Ahmad Shah, he writes, "Basically, for what must be the 10th time in the last two weeks, when they sent a B [Afghan man] back into the A [a building], to open the curtains(??) he re-appeared [sic] with an AK [AK-47 assault rifle]." Then describing the death of his father, he noted that they went to a different building, denoted as "A", with another Afghan man "B" to "open the curtains", when the man grabbed a grenade and threw it at them. Luckily it didn't go off, but the man was shot.  The email ends with a reference to the shooting outside the compound of one of Saifullah’s two brothers, Saddam. "And finally they shot a guy who was hiding in a bush who had a grenade in his hands. You couldn’t MAKE IT UP!" it added. But the strange details of the deaths, where Afghan men magic up AK47s and grenades from beds and behind the curtains that officers had told them to open has raised eyebrows higher up the chain of command. In one note written on the day of the killings, an officer said he had had a "very difficult" meeting with the colonel in charge of an Afghan partner unit (APU) about the incident. The colonel brought along nine of his soldiers, one of whom was a relative of Saifullah’s family and who gave assurances that the dead men were teachers and farmers, not Taliban supporters. The colonel stated his soldiers had reported that nobody had fired at the coalition forces, but the men "were shot anyway".  The officer's note added, "He suggests that 2 men were shot trying to run away, and that the other 2 men were 'assassinated' on target after they had already been detained and searched." There is also concern that of the 33 deaths, 10 were near-identical in their circumstance, where a captured male family member is back into his empty home to clear the way for a search of the premises, only to get their hands on a weapon and attack the soldiers in "clearly impossible odds". In response to The Sunday Times' story, the Ministry of Defence said, "This is not new evidence, and this historical case has already been independently investigated by the Royal Military Police as part of Operation Northmoor. It has also been subject to four reviews conducted by an independent review team." "These documents were considered as part of the independent investigations, which concluded there was insufficient evidence to refer the case for prosecution. The Service Police and the Service Prosecuting Authority of course remain open to considering allegations should new evidence, intelligence or information come to light," it added.

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In his first public statement after recovering from COVID-19, Johnson said it was too early to ease lockdown as second peak would be disaster, The Guardian reported. He said that his government “simply cannot spell out” when or how restrictive measures will ease, but offered hope by adding progress was being made with fewer hospital additions and that the United Kingdom was “passing the peak”. Addressing UK businesses, which fear more economic weakness amid the lockdown, he said: “We simply cannot spell out now how fast or slow or even when those changes will be made.” “I understand your impatience, I share your anxiety … I entirely share your urgency, it’s the government’s urgency and yet we must also recognize the risk of a second spike, the risk of losing control of that virus, and letting the reproduction rate go back over one. Because that would mean not only a new wave of death and disease but also an economic disaster,” the UK PM said according to Al-Jazeera. “This is the moment of maximum risk.”

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"Reports that Iran has carried out a satellite launch – using ballistic missile technology – are of significant concern and inconsistent with UN Security Council Resolution 2231", a Foreign Office spokesman claimed, according to Sputnik. "The UN has called upon Iran not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons. Iran must abide by this", the spokesman claimed. "We have significant and longstanding concerns, alongside our international partners, over Iran’s ballistic missile program, which is destabilizing for the region and poses a threat to regional security", he said. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has successfully launched the Noor-1 Satellite by the domestically-built launcher Qassed (messenger) on Wednesday morning and placed it into the orbit at an altitude of 425km. The launch of Noor-1 which is the Islamic Republic’s first military satellite was carried out on the anniversary of the establishment of the IRGC. In a Thursday statement, Seyyed Abbas Mousavi has denounced Washington'srecent stances on the successful launch of the Noor satellite into space, calling them the US regime's interference in the Islamic Republic’s internal affairs. Mousavi also stressed that no UN Security Council resolution prohibits Iran from launching a satellite into space, and the US reference to Resolution 2231 is definitely irrelevant and contrary to the facts.

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Blair, who has been out of office for nearly 13 years, suddenly made a comeback on certain media outlets this week and was treated by his hosts as if he were some kind of political paragon, offering his “sage” advice on how the government should handle the current crisis. Careful to not sound too arrogant, the unctuous Blair prefaced his remarks as “constructive criticism” but then went on to propose sweeping reorganization of government strategy. The non-governmental “skill sets” that he advised no doubt is a pitch for private consultants like Blair to be contracted to Whitehall. Understandably, a lot of the public were infuriated that Blair should be treated so royally, including as a guest on the taxpayer-funded BBC, to be fawned over by presenters seeking his presumed wisdom. Regardless of the present government’s botched handling of the Covid-19 crisis, why is a has-been prime minister being given such a prime platform to lecture. Blair makes his advice sound like technocratic expertise when it’s a blatant bid for rehabilitating his credentials. Reorganizing government departments and civil servants? Many ordinary citizens could define the Covid-19 problem more accurately and simply as chronic underfunding of national health services from years of neoliberal austerity. But the most galling thing about hearing Tony Blair’s smug and self-aggrandizing tone this week is the insult to basic morality. Blair should be serving time in jail for the war crimes he presided over in launching the US-led war on Iraq. That war left more than a million dead, with millions more wounded and ravaged by poverty. An ancient nation was destroyed, which spawned terrorism across the Middle East, a horrific legacy with which countries are still struggling. Blair was instrumental in launching the US and British war on Iraq and he aided and abetted war in Afghanistan, both of which have piled up the American and Britain’s national debts. In a very real way, the burden of war debts on the public is a factor in why health services have been underfunded and why when a much-predicted pandemic finally did hit, the US and Britain have been singularly remiss in dealing with. Both are projected to have the worst death tolls in the world from the disease. To see Blair offering his tuppence worth of crisis management is truly nauseating. That he can be indulged by British media without a hint of shame about his warmongering past really shows how morally and intellectually brain-dead the British political class is. The hypocrisy of such people is that they find fault with other world leaders, from China to Russia, Iran to Venezuela or North Korea, yet here they are sucking up to a man who has the blood of millions on his hands. It just shows the tacit arrogance of British imperialism. Supposedly smart or liberal media-types are oblivious to how shockingly unacceptable it is to have Tony Blair anywhere near the airwaves. But hold on a cynical moment. Blair might find a new purpose after all. He was the guy who used his rhetorical “skill sets” to sell the war on Iraq to the American and British people, and indeed to the rest of the world. It was Blair and his barrister-like poise that elevated the lies and propaganda of weapons of mass destruction into something with a modicum of gravitas. His American counterpart President G.W. Bush was able to carry off an outrageous act of genocidal aggression largely on the rationale forged by Blair. Which brings us to the present Covid-19 crisis. President Trump and deranged anti-China hawks in Washington want to turn this pandemic into a lynching of Beijing. “China has blood on its hands,” goes the mantra. “China must pay” for the deaths of Americans and the economic disaster that has fallen on Trump’s otherwise “success story.” The narrative is building to blame China, which Washington accuses of “misinformation” and “deception” by “covering up” the initial outbreak, thereby leaving other nations vulnerable to the pandemic. This is of course audacious scapegoating by an American ruling class and dysfunctional economic system which betrayed the health needs of millions of Americans. The propaganda assault underway against China has echoes of the earlier false narrative about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It is essentially about pushing claims and dubious “facts” to fit an outcome of conflict. War in the case of Iraq; and financial exploitation of China by making China take the rap for the Covid-19 pandemic. The latter scenario would most likely lead to war too. What better person for the American agenda of falsifying the pandemic than Tony Blair? If he is rehabilitated into government as a private consultant, one can imagine how his remit will be easily extended to “corroborating” US claims that China is to blame for the pandemic. If that seems a stretch then why are media presenters still giving Blair the time of day? If they can’t seem to understand how repugnant it is to have someone as vile as Blair on their comfy programs then it shows that anything is possible.

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The charge that the media is merely an echo chamber of the political establishment in Britain has long been made by leftists and other rebels outside the prevailing orthodoxy. At the end of a third week of lockdown, this charge is being made not just by millions of ordinary people of quite mainstream political opinions, but even by two giants of the media market itself. The daily press conferences – quite unlike the rumbustious White House briefings – are akin to a pleasant afternoon in the cricket nets, as the chosen England batsmen hit softballs robotically bowled at them by handpicked hacks more keen to stay onside than to get at the wickets. Gentlemanly exchanges which avoid all unpleasantness and recrimination. No “I told you so,” much less a “Whatever happened to that thing you told us was going to happen a week ago and never did?” Outright lies are not usually the British way; even Boris Johnson is not Donald Trump, though they could easily be brothers in some respects. But outright lies of a very un-British kind are told so often now over the coronavirus that an already jaded public has begun to regard the participants as somewhere between a bad joke and a vital national scandal. You might think me partial, and indeed I am. But the same cannot be said for Piers Morgan and Andrew Neil. Morgan, a former editor of Fleet Street newspapers and still an influential columnist, hosts the morning television show ‘Good Morning Britain’ with an audience of millions on screen and a following of over seven million on Twitter. To call him a critic of the government's coronavirus performance would be like describing Mount Everest as a hill. Day after day, to the point that ministers will no longer appear on his show to be grilled – no, roasted – by him. But his ire against the government is as nothing compared to his fury at the softball shufflers, patsies of the popular, as well as the ‘serious’ press, and the captains of the political sofa television studios. Andrew Neil is a pillar of the establishment, a former editor of the Economist and the Sunday Times and still the chief executive of the Spectator, the oldest English-language political weekly. Nowadays he is the admiral of the BBC fleet of political journalists. A blue-blood, spitting blood all over Twitter, all day, every day. Both men are at the vanguard of a new wave of anger, even rage, at the complacency not just of the government but of those in the media supposed to hold them to account. And not just about the softball questioning, but at the abysmal failure to follow-up, even to ask about the government’s broken promises; its dodging, ducking and diving, and the flat-out failure of the government’s strategy, which lurches from one approach to another and has ended up neither fish nor fowl. Although Britain had weeks of extra time, at least, to prepare for the arrival of the pandemic – “two weeks behind Italy” is a phrase often used (which means well over a month behind China) – the UK now has the fifth largest death toll in the world. It has this week beaten the European record for daily death rates, and will almost certainly have the worst casualty figures on the European continent by the end of the crisis. Infamously, it seems clear that the British approach was indeed to let the virus rip through the population until a ‘herd immunity’ was reached, and let the Devil take the hindmost. By hindmost I mean our mothers, fathers, grandparents, and our aunt with the “underlying health condition” – even though she would probably have lived on for many years with that condition. When it became clear that the inevitable consequence of this strategy would be a figure of well over half a million deaths, the government suddenly veered in the opposite direction and ordered a lockdown, school closures etc. But not before their own “stand two metres apart and wash your hands” advice had been studiously ignored by themselves, and the prime minister, the health secretary and the chief medical officer had ALL contracted the virus. Except the ‘lockdown’ isn't really a lockdown at all. The buses and tube trains – giant Petri dishes – are still packed like sardines, with people now dropping like flies. The school closures were two weeks too late, ditto the pub, club and restaurant closures. 250,000 horse-racing aficionados were allowed to pack into the famous Cheltenham Festival stands, while thousands of Atletico Madrid supporters were permitted to fly in for a game with world champions Liverpool – which was attended by more than 50,000 people at the very moment mass deaths were already occurring in Italy. A music concert was allowed to go ahead with 30,000 in attendance. Even now, flights are still arriving full of travellers from Milan, Madrid, the USA, China, even Iran, their passengers and any viruses streaming into the general population. The government has NEVER been pressed enough on any of these catastrophic failures by the pussycat press. And even when testing is promised – on a mass scale – but never happens, nobody seriously asks why? When ventilators are being DONATED by TURKEY, CUBA and CHINA, nobody asks where are the ventilators the British government belatedly ordered? From a vacuum-cleaner manufacturer, Dyson, who had never made a ventilator in his puff. When did Britain become a beneficiary of foreign aid from countries we've long been told are ‘enemy’ countries, or at least ‘rogue third-world states’? It has taken until this week to finally ‘secure’ the millions of masks, gowns and other PPE which were promised weeks ago. That is, if the government is telling the truth this time and they actually have arrived. And let's see how long it takes to ‘roll them out’. Even then, the numbers will likely still be insufficient – even for the NHS. But what about transport workers? Care home workers? Social care staff? My own 85-year-old mother had to turn her care workers away (God bless them) because they had neither masks nor gloves, nor had been tested – and this at a time when my sister has to leave my mother's groceries at the outside door and wave to her through the window! A state of shame now exists in Britain. Elderly people are being handed documents by their doctors – Hippocratically bound by their oath to “Do no Harm” - and told to sign them. Upon inspection, the documents declare that the patient does not wish to be resuscitated should they become unconscious from the virus. Euthanasia by stealth, and contrary to law, has washed up on our shores. And all under the deaf, dumb and blind monkeys of the Fourth Estate. Such is the credibility of the British government that, when news began circulating that the prime minister's health had sharply deteriorated and he had been taken to hospital and was in intensive care, a government spokesman diverted to blame “Russian disinformation.” The newshounds now known as stenographers duly wrote this down and published it. Only a few hours later the government was forced to concede how bad the PM’s condition was, and even if he was not put on a ventilator as the sources cited by the Russians said, never before had “Russian disinformation” claims aged so poorly, so quickly. Furthermore, it emerged - on social media rather than in the pussycat prints - that Britain’s disastrous death toll was in any case a serious undercounting of the truth. Firstly, the difference between NHS mortality figures and government announcements was said to be caused by the latter’s failure to include deaths from Covid-19 at home. Given the policy of forcing those suffering to remain at home until they were potentially at death’s door, at which point they might be admitted to hospital, this was adding insult to fatal injury. Then it emerged, entirely unquestioned by the British media, that those dying in care homes - far from a cottage industry in Britain - were also not being counted. It is thus possible that the true casualty figures from the virus are as much as 50% higher than the government are gazzetting. None of this has disturbed the calm of the media-government cricket match. Funny, isn't it, how often “Russian disinformation” turns out to be a lot closer to the truth than the so-called independent news media in the West?

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In almost all of my speeches in parliament available on YouTube, Corbyn is sitting by my side.  And I was, without a close competitor, his most supportive ally in the national media. My defences of him obtaining millions of viewers and earning my former employer TalkRadio a substantial fine from the state regulator Ofcom for the “lack of balance” in my spirited rejection of his critics. But that was then and this is now. In the decades in which he was at my side I never rated Corbyn highly, as a thinker – I literally never saw him read a book,  a writer – I am not aware of anything he has ever written, an orator or even as a companion – there was too much of the student squat about him for my tastes. It was unthinkable that he would ever be a leader. That he became one was an historical accident. He drew the short straw as the routine leftist candidate to carry the flag of the vaguely Trotskyite Campaign Group because, well, it was his turn to take the beating. When he asked me  – when he looked far from certain to qualify as a candidate – “Am I doing the right thing?” in the Trades Union Congress Building in Gt Russell St in the summer of 2015 I replied: “If you get on the ballot-paper you will win.” He laughed, and so did all the other witnesses to the conversation. Ironically, the very reasons he did get on the ballot paper were the reasons in the end which made his departure such a whimper, such a crushing defeat. He managed to get people to nominate him precisely because he was seen as no threat at all to the established order. His personal character  – “hail fellow well met” – ensured that he had few personal, as opposed to political, enemies amongst our fellow MPs. His right hand man and eventually Shadow Chancellor, the Trotskyite John McDonnell for example could not have got on the ballot paper, being roundly hated. Nobody hated Corbyn, then. So why was I sure he would win and publicly predicted so in the national media? Because as Shakespeare said, there is a tide in the affairs of men which if taken at the flood leads on to fortune. The tide was out on austerity and on centrism in the Labour movement. If Corbyn could go forward, full-throated, as the Bernie Sanders type outsider he could ride that wave, I was certain. The Blairites were hated, and not just over the war, or even just their authorship of the Crash and their quiescence in making the people pay for the crimes of the bankers. They were hated because Labour under them had ceased to be Labour at all, but rather a peculiar fusion of Clintonism and Blairism, a desiccated calculating machine rather than a movement. Soulless, heartless and stranded on the rocks of history. Corbyn's Labour leadership campaign of 2015 was a miracle to behold. He surfed a wave he was himself generating which in turn built the wave ever higher. And he swept his centrist opponents away in a landslide victory. Here he should have taken the advice of one of his worst enemies, Blair's former Political Secretary John McTernan, who writing this week gives advice to Corbyn's successor Sir Keir Starmer – former public prosecutor and leading opponent of Brexit. McTernan's ‘Rules for Ruling’ include the first three rules: 1. Act immediately 2. Act ruthlessly 3. Punish the losers. Corbyn, against similar advice given by me and others, did precisely the opposite. He failed to act either immediately or at all ruthlessly and far from punishing the losers, he protected and even promoted them. Then he tacked towards them, then he ran away from them, then he capitulated to them. Then they devoured him and his whole project. Corbyn shunned his friends and exalted his enemies even as they wielded the knife – a veritable pack of Brutus's into his back. Starmer is a case in point, though there are many others. Sir Keir publicly resigned from Corbyn's team of Shadow ministers with dozens of others and backed a coup against the leader in 2016 in a manoeuvre designed to kill. When the coup failed to kill the King  – Corbyn was re-elected by an increased majority of the party's by then 500,000 members (the biggest party in Europe) – instead of adopting the McTernan rules for ruling, Corbyn PROMOTED Starmer into what would become the most critical of offices, Shadow Brexit Secretary. He promoted many of the other backstabbers too. With his renewed and enhanced mandate Corbyn could have done anything that he wanted to do with the Labour Party. Instead he tossed like a cork on the ocean, quite adrift. And now he and his project are sunk, soon without a trace. This is the more inexplicable because in between times Corbyn achieved the greatest increase in the Labour vote in modern history, in June of 2017. In an election, needlessly called by Theresa May and in which she thought she would crush him without mercy, Corbyn put in the performance of a lifetime, a barnstorming exhilarating left-populist surge which came within just 2,000 or so votes (in the right constituencies) of putting a left-wing socialist into 10 Downing Street for the very first time.  Even in this, his finest hour, he failed to use his mandate, this time from the electorate to crush the incipient rebellion behind him (and increasingly all around him). Instead of mobilising his support amongst the membership against the MPs who hated him, Corbyn continued to act against the membership on behalf of the MPs. The last straw was when he failed to lift a finger to help his closest ally, the then MP, Chris Williamson expelled on fake charges of “anti-Semitism.” At that point the writing was on the wall. Any summary of the brief and ultimately inglorious leadership of Jeremy Corbyn would have to put his failure down to three main issues: anti-Semitism, appeasement and attitude to Brexit.  To describe Corbyn as an anti-Semite is a monstrous lie. It arises as a false conflation of opposition to Israel with a hatred of Jews. Frankly, if you invented a fake religion and invited Jeremy Corbyn to patronise it, he'd turn up in its garb and mumble its mumbo-jumbo in sincere respect. There is NO minority cause Corbyn hasn't lent his support to, including a life-long defence of Jews, their customs, their places of worship and their rights. Corbyn defended Jewish radio, Jewish cemeteries, Jewish slaughterhouse practices, the rights of the orthodox Hasidians in his own constituency. His mother fought the British Fascists at Cable Street in 1936.  But he failed to make a stand from the start of this false conflation, which was weaponised with a cynicism and indeed hatred which will fuel PhDs and books for decades to come. And, it must be said, he failed to act decisively against the tiny number of actual anti-Semites who were uncovered in the party's ranks. It is inexplicable (given the ruthlessness with which he abandoned the likes of Williamson and his lifetime friend, former London Mayor Ken Livingstone) that he did not ruthlessly expel them forthwith. Anti-Semitism IS a thing, and not the old kind which infested the political right in the 20th century (and still does). There is a new kind of anti-Semitism which sees the Rothschilds under every hedgerow, which thinks the bankers are the root of all our troubles. And that the bankers are Jews. Somehow, Corbyn never quite got that, and together with his lifetime support for the Palestinian people he became an easy target for an international campaign to destroy him. The appeasement of his Blairite ramp, the enemy within, I have dealt with above. Corbyn might in the end have survived all of the above tribulations if he had only stuck to his guns over Brexit. If he had continued with the line that Labour accepted the result of the Referendum to leave the EU, no ifs, no buts, the Red Wall guarding the Labour heartlands of the Midlands and the north might have stood. That he did not do so, illustrates the overarching reason why his revolution failed. Labour has become a party of the university-educated urban liberal middle-class which thinks Swarfega is a Balearic island, and is entranced with personal sexual racial identity politics. It no longer speaks the same language as its working class base on and behind the Red Wall. It can scarcely now even pretend to understand them. Everyone who opposes liberalism must be an “ist” or a “phobe.” The decent patriotic socially conservative potentially economically radical masses who chose Brexit were entirely alien to today's Labour Party, its left as well as its right. Corbyn had always run with the left side of such liberalism. He should have read the books. Sir Keir Starmer is now in charge, the Blairites are back on top. You can be sure the new regime will not be slow to follow John McTernan's advice.

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The Department of Health and Social Care DHSC confirmed that Dorries, the Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire since 2005 and a bestselling author of fiction, had tested positive for the infection. The identity of the individual who infected her is unknown. Focus will now fall on tracking down and testing the potentially hundreds of people Dorries will have been in contact with in the past week, both in parliament and at the health department. She also attended a Downing Street reception last week for International Women’s Day where the prime minister, Boris Johnson, and his fiancee, Carrie Symonds, were among guests present. A DHSC spokeswoman said Dorries, who began her career as a nurse, has been self-isolating at home since Friday. She is understood to be recovering. In a statement released by the department, she said: “I can confirm I have tested positive for coronavirus. As soon as I was informed I took all the advised precautions and have been self-isolating at home. “Public Health England has started detailed contact tracing and the department and my parliamentary office are closely following their advice. I would like to thank PHE and the wonderful NHS staff who have provided me with advice and support.” After the news was announced she tweeted: "Thanks for so many good wishes. It’s been pretty rubbish but I hope I’m over the worst of it now. More worried about my 84yo mum who is staying with me and began with the cough today. She is being tested tomorrow. Keep safe and keep washing those hands, everyone."

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In his Twitter message which was released on Friday, Hamid Baeidinejad urged Iranians to pay enough attention to information and warnings provided by UK police, Metropolitan Police over their presence in dangerous areas in London. He reiterated the fact that London Prime Minister, Home Secretary and the senior officials have warned people against numerous hazards of stabbing and crimes in London streets and other cities as well. Officials also believe that the plan to increase thousands of police officers will not be enough, he added.    Stabbing and cold weapon attack are the main issue in civil management of UK cities which has claimed the lives of scores of people over the last few years. Based on the statistics stabbing and using cold weapons in UK shows that London is regarded as one of the most dangerous areas in UK and Wales.

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The Daesh* terrorist group has reportedly said that the London Bridge attack was carried out by one of its fighters. The group did not provide any evidence, but claimed that the attack was made in response to Daesh calls to target countries that have been part of the coalition fighting the terrorist organisation. Earlier in the day, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson stated during a visit to the London Bridge stabbing scene that violent criminals should be locked up longer instead of being released on parole. Johnson argued that people should serve the term that they were sentenced to and claimed that he was "committed to increasing sentences for serious and violent offenders". London police said they were treating the attack as an act of terror. The knifeman, identified as a recently released 28-year-old convict, Usman Khan, was shot dead at the scene. He was freed on remand after serving only half of his 16-year sentence on terror-related charges. Police are currently investigating how the man organised the attack. According to preliminary evidence, the man attended a meeting on Friday afternoon in London's Fishmonger's Hall. The attack started inside before he left the building and went to London Bridge. This is not the first time that London Bridge has been the site of a terrorist attack. In 2017, three men mowed down pedestrians with a van on the bridge, then proceeded to carry out a knife attack in the nearby Borough Market before being gunned down by law enforcement officers.

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Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt on Saturday called Corbyn "pathetic" for criticizing his department after it blamed Iran for the Thursday explosions, saying that the Labour leader had expressed same remarks defending Russia when London blamed Moscow for an attack on a former double spy in the southern English city of Salisbury last year. "Pathetic and predictable. From Salisbury to the Middle East, why can he never bring himself to back British allies, British intelligence or British interests?” said Hunt. The comments came a day after Corbyn posted a tweet saying Britain should not blindly follow the United States in blaming Iran for tanker explosions as it could increase the risk of a major conflict in the Persian Gulf region. “Without credible evidence about the tanker attacks, the government's rhetoric will only increase the threat of war,” Corbyn had said. Other senior Tory figures also criticized Corbyn for the comments, claiming his judgments have always served other countries rather than Britain. “Why is Jeremy Corbyn never on the side of the country he seeks to lead?,” said interior minister Sajid Javid, reminding that Corbyn had expressed same criticism of the government when it blacklisted Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah in February. Dominic Raab, a former minister for Britain's withdrawal from the European Union, also accused Corbyn of being anti-American. “Yet again Jeremy Corbyn allows his anti-American prejudice to skew his moral compass and political judgment. #notfittolead,” Raab wrote in a tweet. The comments from the three major Conservative politicians come as they are involved in a race to succeed outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May. Hunt is second in the race far behind favorite Boris Johnson while Javid and Raab are struggling to survive until a final leadership vote between 150,000 Conservative Party members planned for late July. However, top Labour official on foreign policy defended Corbyn’s posture on Iran’s case, saying the Tory-led government was recklessly pushing Britain into a big war. “The idea that we are going to get enmeshed in another war is really something we need to think about very carefully,” said Emily Thornberry on Saturday, adding, "What we do not want is British forces being drawn into a conflict of that size."

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Corbyn said in a Monday statement that the only way to resolve a current political standoff over Brexit was to allow people in Britain to have a say on the issue through a fresh vote. “With the Conservatives disintegrating and unable to govern, and parliament deadlocked, this issue will have to go back to the people, whether through a general election or a public vote,” Corbyn said. The remarks came just a day after results of the European Parliament elections showed the Labour and the Conservative Party had suffered unprecedented losses. The results have clearly caused Corbyn, once opposed to the idea of a second Brexit referendum, to accept calls from other lawmakers in Labour that pressing for a fresh vote would seriously boost chances of the party to rise to power. Corbyn said that the Labour would stand by its promises to bloc a no-deal Brexit, a scenario in which Britain would crash out of the EU without an agreement to cushion the shocks of exit. Experts believe that a no-deal Brexit would be indispensible at the end of October, when Britain is supposed to leave the EU, given that senior figures vying to replace Prime Minister Theresa May are supporting the idea. “We will not let the continuing chaos in the Conservative Party push our country into a no deal exit from the EU. Parliament can and will prevent such a damaging outcome for jobs and industry in the UK,” said Corbyn in his statement.

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The Daily Mirror said in a report on Sunday that Johnson was plotting a super fast divorce from her long-suffering wife, Marina Wheeler, as his chances increase to win an internal vote in the ruling Conservative Party to become the next leader in six weeks time. Johnson, the former foreign minister who resigned from government last summer over disputes on Brexit, is currently the top favorite for the job after May announced her upcoming resignation on Friday. However, the aspiring Tory politician who served for six years as mayor of London until 2016, has gained notoriety for his lack of commitment to marital life, an issue that could prove problematic down the road. Johnson has had at least four extra-marital affairs over the past 30 years. His current wife and four children deserted him when they found out about of his affair with former spin doctor Carrie Symonds, who is 24 years younger than him. The pair are living in Johnson's £1million flat in south London. The Mirror said Johnson is desperate to come out of "adultery," as his current wife has described his affair with Symonds in divorce papers, and form a decent family before moving into 10 Downing Street with his new lover. The report said Johnson has been in tense talks with Wheeler and their four children to end the marriage ahead of the final vote of to choose the next leader of the Tory party in late July. Boris and Marina first announced in September that they were separating.

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Fighting back tears during an speech in Downing Street, May said she had done het best to honor the 2016 EU referendum result, adding that It would remain a matter of "deep regret" that she had been unable to deliver Brexit. May's departure will deepen the Brexit crisis as a new leader is likely to want a more decisive split, raising the chances of a confrontation with the European Union and a potentially unpredictable snap parliamentary election. "I will shortly leave the job that has been the honor of my life to hold," May said. "The second female prime minister, but certainly not the last." "I do so with no ill will but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love," May said, with her husband, Philip, looking on. May, once a reluctant supporter of EU membership, who won the top job in the turmoil that followed the 2016 Brexit vote, steps down with her central pledges - to lead the United Kingdom out of the bloc and heal its divisions - unfulfilled. "It is, and will always remain, a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit," May said, adding that her successor would have to find a consensus to honor the 2016 referendum result. Jeremy Corbyn: May is right to resign Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, said May was right to call it a day. "She's now accepted what the country's known for months: she can't govern, and nor can her divided and disintegrating party," he adds, calling for her replacement to order a snap election. In a longer post on Facebook, he added: "The burning injustices she promised to tackle three years ago are even starker today. The Conservative Party has utterly failed the country over Brexit and is unable to improve the lives of people in our country or deal with their most pressing needs. Parliament is deadlocked and the Conservatives offer no solutions to the other major challenges facing our country. The last thing the country needs is weeks of more Conservative infighting followed by yet another unelected Prime Minister." PM Boris Johnson? Boris Johnson, the frontrunner to replace May as prime minister, says it's time to follow May's "urgings," and come together to deliver Brexit. Johnson, the face of the official Brexit campaign in 2016, is the favorite to succeed May. Betting markets put a 40% implied probability on Johnson winning the top job. “A very dignified statement from @theresa_may. Thank you for your stoical service to our country and the Conservative Party. It is now time to follow her urgings: to come together and deliver Brexit,” Johnson tweeted. Others tipped by betting markets are Dominic Raab, a Brexit supporter and former Brexit secretary, with a 14% implied probability on his chances. Environment Secretary Michael Gove, former House of Commons leader Andrea Leadsom and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt each have a 7% probability, according to betting markets. Defense Secretary Penny Mordaunt and International Development Secretary Rory Stewart each have a 4% chance of the top job while Home Secretary (interior minister) Sajid Javid has Here's the full text of May's emotional address. Ever since I first stepped through the door behind me as Prime Minister, I have striven to make the United Kingdom a country that works not just for a privileged few, but for everyone. And to honor the result of the EU referendum. Back in 2016, we gave the British people a choice. Against all predictions, the British people voted to leave the European Union. I feel as certain today as I did three years ago that in a democracy, if you give people a choice you have a duty to implement what they decide. I have done my best to do that.  I negotiated the terms of our exit and a new relationship with our closest neighbors that protects jobs, our security and our Union. I have done everything I can to convince MPs to back that deal. Sadly, I have not been able to do so. I tried three times.  I believe it was right to persevere, even when the odds against success seemed high. But it is now clear to me that it is in the best interests of the country for a new Prime Minister to lead that effort. So I am today announcing that I will resign as leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party on Friday 7 June so that a successor can be chosen. I have agreed with the Party Chairman and with the Chairman of the 1922 Committee that the process for electing a new leader should begin in the following week. I have kept Her Majesty the Queen fully informed of my intentions, and I will continue to serve as her Prime Minister until the process has concluded. It is, and will always remain, a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit. It will be for my successor to seek a way forward that honors the result of the referendum.  To succeed, he or she will have to find consensus in Parliament where I have not. Such a consensus can only be reached if those on all sides of the debate are willing to compromise. For many years the great humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton – who saved the lives of hundreds of children by arranging their evacuation from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia through the Kindertransport – was my constituent in Maidenhead. At another time of political controversy, a few years before his death, he took me to one side at a local event and gave me a piece of advice. He said, ‘Never forget that compromise is not a dirty word. Life depends on compromise.’ He was right.  As we strive to find the compromises we need in our politics – whether to deliver Brexit, or to restore devolved government in Northern Ireland – we must remember what brought us here.  Because the referendum was not just a call to leave the EU but for profound change in our country. A call to make the United Kingdom a country that truly works for everyone. I am proud of the progress we have made over the last three years. We have completed the work that David Cameron and George Osborne started: the deficit is almost eliminated, our national debt is falling and we are bringing an end to austerity. My focus has been on ensuring that the good jobs of the future will be created in communities across the whole country, not just in London and the South East, through our Modern Industrial Strategy. We have helped more people than ever enjoy the security of a job. We are building more homes and helping first-time buyers onto the housing ladder - so young people can enjoy the opportunities their parents did. And we are protecting the environment, eliminating plastic waste, tackling climate change and improving air quality.  This is what a decent, moderate and patriotic Conservative Government, on the common ground of British politics, can achieve - even as we tackle the biggest peacetime challenge any government has faced. I know that the Conservative Party can renew itself in the years ahead. That we can deliver Brexit and serve the British people with policies inspired by our values. Security; freedom; opportunity. Those values have guided me throughout my career. But the unique privilege of this office is to use this platform to give a voice to the voiceless, to fight the burning injustices that still scar our society. That is why I put proper funding for mental health at the heart of our NHS long-term plan. It is why I am ending the postcode lottery for survivors of domestic abuse. It is why the Race Disparity Audit and gender pay reporting are shining a light on inequality, so it has nowhere to hide. And that is why I set up the independent public inquiry into the tragedy at Grenfell Tower – to search for the truth, so nothing like it can ever happen again, and so the people who lost their lives that night are never forgotten.  Because this country is a Union. Not just a family of four nations. But a union of people – all of us.  Whatever our background, the color of our skin, or who we love. We stand together. And together we have a great future. Our politics may be under strain, but there is so much that is good about this country. So much to be proud of. So much to be optimistic about. I will shortly leave the job that it has been the honor of my life to hold – the second female Prime Minister but certainly not the last. I do so with no ill will, but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love.

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May's departure will deepen the Brexit crisis as a new leader is likely to want a more decisive split, raising the chances of a confrontation with the European Union and a potentially unpredictable snap parliamentary election. May set out a timetable for her departure - she will resign as Conservative Party leader on June 7 with a leadership contest beginning the following week. Her voice cracking with emotion, May, who endured crises and humiliation in her failed effort to find a compromise Brexit deal that parliament could ratify, said she bore no ill will. "I will shortly leave the job that has been the honor of my life to hold," May said. "The second female prime minister, but certainly not the last." "I do so with no ill will but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love," May said, with her husband, Philip, looking on. May, once a reluctant supporter of EU membership, who won the top job in the turmoil that followed the 2016 Brexit vote, steps down with her central pledges - to lead the United Kingdom out of the bloc and heal its divisions - unfulfilled. "It is, and will always remain, a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit," May said, adding that her successor would have to find a consensus to honor the 2016 referendum result. PM Boris Johnson? May bequeaths a deeply divided country and a political elite that is deadlocked over how, when or whether to leave the EU. The leading contenders to succeed May all want a tougher divorce deal, although the EU has said it will not renegotiate the Withdrawal Treaty it sealed in November. Sterling reversed initial gains it made on May's resignation. Boris Johnson, the face of the official Brexit campaign in 2016, is the favorite to succeed May. Betting markets put a 40% implied probability on Johnson winning the top job. Others tipped by betting markets are Dominic Raab, a Brexit supporter and former Brexit secretary, with a 14% implied probability on his chances. Environment Secretary Michael Gove, former House of Commons leader Andrea Leadsom and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt each have a 7% probability, according to betting markets. Defense Secretary Penny Mordaunt and International Development Secretary Rory Stewart each have a 4% chance of the top job while Home Secretary (interior minister) Sajid Javid has a 3% chance.

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 There's something fishy about the reports, if they are indeed accurate and not some form of British intelligence disinformation. We are told by The Sun that two Special Boat Service (SBS) squads have been flown to the Middle East in order to deploy on commercial ships entering the Persian Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz. The SBS is a naval counterpart of Britain's elite paratrooper SAS regiment. They are both trained to work in top-secret missions. The reported deployment of these elite British forces comes at a time of escalating tensions in the Gulf between the United States and Iran. US allies Saudi Arabia and the other oil-exporting monarchy, the United Arab Emirates, are calling for stepped up defenses to counter alleged aggression from Iran. Last week, four oil tankers were apparently sabotaged near the UAE port of Fujairah. There have also been reports of drone attacks on Saudi oil pumping stations from Houthi rebels based in Yemen. The finger of suspicion has been pointed at Iran for being behind these acts of sabotage, even though Tehran vehemently denied any involvement and has in fact warned of "malicious conspiracies" to incite a war. US politicians have lately ramped up the hostile rhetoric against Iran. President Donald Trump raged at the weekend that if "Iran threatens the US" it would be the "official end" of the Islamic Republic. War hawks like Republican Senator Tom Cotton told Fox News that if a war was to erupt the US should defeat Iran with just two strikes, "the first one and the last one". Another hawkish voice, that of Senator Lindsey Graham, called for the US to use "overwhelming force" if American interests are harmed. The unhinged hyperbole out of Washington of inflicting mass destruction against Iran sounds ominous. It is also criminally reckless aggression which violates international law and the UN Charter.  That's why the international public must be acutely vigilant of "false flag" attacks being staged, aimed at giving the impression that Iran is targeting the vital interests of the US or its allies. Iran has repeatedly said that it has no interest in going to war with the US. It is not in Iranian interests to plunge their country into catastrophic conflict, although Tehran has warned that if it is attacked it will respond with formidable defenses, as well as shutting down the global oil economy by blocking the narrow Strait of Hormuz. The deployment of British commandoes in "top secret" missions at this crucial juncture raises perplexing questions. It comes just as British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt warned Iran to not antagonize Washington from what he called "destabilizing activities". "I would say to the Iranians: do not underestimate the resolve on the US side," said Hunt with weasel words. First question right off is: how are individual British soldiers assigned to huge oil tankers supposed to afford protection to those ships? Iran is known to have an arsenal of lethal anti-ship missiles which it can launch from its coastline. So how are a few squaddies — regardless of their supposed elite status — meant to fend off incoming ballistic missiles, if the Iranians decided to go to war? The British commandoes are then, according to sketchy media reports, to be airlifted off the oil tankers by naval helicopters and redeployed on the southern side of the Persian Gulf, possibly in Oman or the UAE where Britain maintains colonial-era military bases. Indeed, the whole escapade sounds very dodgy, like a rejected script for a cheesy James Bond movie. The ostensible purpose of protecting commercial ships can be dismissed as implausible given the circumstances of puny manning and anti-missile equipment. That raises the more sinister question about what exactly these British commandoes are really up to? Like all special forces, their expertise is in dirty tricks and clandestine operations. It would seem far more plausible that they are being used to set up false-flag provocations which can be conveniently blamed on Iran and thereby provide a pretext for all-out aggression against Tehran. President Trump may not personally want war with Iran. He certainly despises the Iranian leadership, but at the same time says he wants to engage in future diplomatic talks to resolve animosities. However, many other politicians and military hawks in Washington have no such qualms about attacking Iran. Hawks like national security adviser John Bolton have openly called for bombing Iran to force regime change. Presumably, Bolton and others have never forgiven the Iranians for kicking out the US-backed puppet dictatorship of the Shah 40 years ago. Iran's sordid history of British and American oil exploitation, and the CIA/MI6 orchestrated coup in 1953 which was a textbook case of false flags and dirty tricks ushering in the brutally oppressive Shah regime until it was overthrown in 1979 by the Iranian people, clearly demonstrates that Britain is the "go-to accomplice" for US imperialist war in the Middle East. It would not be at all surprising if British military planners were hatching a devious scheme to trigger war in the Persian Gulf for the benefit of the American military-industrial complex. Sabotaging oil tankers or pumping stations which the dutiful Western news media then uncritically blame on Iran would be as easy as saying, "Jolly good show old chap!".

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British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has selected Rita French, who once served as his principal private secretary, for the job, the Guardian reported Monday. “As the UK enters a new chapter in its history, I will work to ensure that our values are at the heart of all we do,” Hunt said, before slipping in news of the appointment. “Ambassador French’s new role will be central to our work in defending human rights across the globe. Standing up for human rights is not only the right thing, it helps to create a stable, more prosperous world,” he said. In her new job, French will be in charge of promoting the UK’s affairs at the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council. The British Foreign Office said she would be an advocate for human rights inside the government, as well as a “global champion for human rights” across the globe, according to the report. The appointment is unprecedented and indicates the UK’s resolve to improve its rights image after years of damaging ties with countries on its own human rights blacklist. However, it remains to be seen whether French would only act within London’s fairly limited perception of human rights, which tolerates outrageous arms deals and ignores the allies’ human rights records in favor of better deals, or she would break out of that circle and express the views of external human rights groups as well. The UK is currently under fire for extensive ties with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates despite their ongoing atrocities against the people of Yemen, which have been made possible partially by British weapons sold to them by the ruling Tory government since the war began in March 2015. London has also drawn criticism for teaching Bahraini security forces how to crack down on protesters and extract forced confessions using torture tactics. This is while countries like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates are noted by the UK Foreign Office for their long record of abusing human rights. Still, British Prime Minister Theresa May has frequently toured the Middle East in quest for more arms deals. Commenting on her appointment, French called human rights “the essential foundations for a fair, open and transparent society” and pledged to speak up in its support. “I will speak up for human rights, providing a voice on the international stage for those who are not being represented,” French added. “I also wish to form stronger partnerships with states, supporting their efforts to fulfill their human rights obligations.” Observes have passed off the move as part of London’s push to stifle protests and silence human rights activists ahead of leaving the European Union (EU) because the post-Brexit UK would likely be forced to put trade before human rights considerations. Hunt has denied such allegations, saying the appointment is a start to give rise to the UK’s regard for human rights. French joins a range of new British special envoys, including the gender equality special envoy, Joanna Roper, and the special envoy for media freedom, Amal Clooney. Labour predicts ‘uphill battle’ for French Shami Chakrabarti, shadow attorney general, said the new job would prove a real challenge for French as she has to deal with a government bent on maintaining ties with authoritarian regimes.  “Rita French’s task will be an uphill struggle in a party that has consistently campaigned to scrap human rights instruments and cosied up to every despot in the pursuit of trade,” she said. “The race to be next Tory leader has so far involved pretenders competing to be the most authoritarian. We wait to see if this announcement sees a reversal of this worrying direction of travel,” she added.

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