Having been delayed and delayed for so many months, will the “full” Sue Gray report into widespread lawbreaking in Downing Street be worth the wait? In other words, will it exonerate the prime minister? Or will it confirm, not only that he broke the law, but that he also encouraged others to do so?

Sean O’Grady www.independent.co.uk 

The spin is that the report will make for very uncomfortable reading for Boris Johnson, whatever the Metropolitan Police made of his witness statement. Unless that spin is misguided, or the product of some attempt to massage expectations, and the reality will merely be gruesome rather than appalling, it seems reasonable to assume that the conclusions Ms Gray reaches will turn out to be just as damaging as any number of fixed penalty notices.

From what is known so far about the parties – and other unnecessary, unlawful social gatherings – including the details conveyed in Ms Gray’s interim report, it’s reasonable to assume that the prime minister knew about many of these events, even if he did not attend all of them. Most importantly, he created an accommodating atmosphere in which they could take place.

This is consistent with the sense that even if he didn’t directly encourage people to break the rules, his was an indulgent attitude that allowed those around him to “let off steam” and relax after a tough day. Hence customs such as “wine Fridays”, and the notorious wheelie case ferrying booze from the Co-op. Though he dare not admit it, the PM obviously thought it acceptable that he and his colleagues decide for themselves the risks to their health against their need for a glass of wine and some agreeable company. But that allowance was not extended to the rest of the population, for whom such personal discretion was banned.

No matter how it is dressed up, this attitude is tantamount to collaboration in lawbreaking, and treating with contempt the very laws that the government was imposing on others. It was as if those in No 10 did not believe in all the carefully defined rules about social distancing and indoor gatherings, and thought them only for the little people outside.

It is remarkable that they could do so even as Professor Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance regularly attended with solemn updates about “excess” deaths and variants of concern. But it seems they did, and the chief culprit in these episodes of screaming hypocrisy was none other than the prime minister himself. It is even odder that Mr Johnson could treat Covid with such insouciance after his own dose of it amounted to a brush with death.

The charge against Mr Johnson – and against very senior officials such as the cabinet secretary, Simon Case – is not so much that they busted the public health laws, but rather that they were massive hypocrites. They did things, said things, tolerated things and failed to stop things happening in Downing Street that the public were banned from doing.

Even the Queen was visibly obeying the rules (and even when Downing Street offered exemptions for the funeral of Prince Philip). The fact is that Mr Johnson was at many of these gatherings, and even if his presence wasn’t strictly unlawful, it was wrong. Ms Gray’s report will, at last, confirm what has been assumed since Partygate broke last December: that those in Downing Street partied while others died and grieved, and Mr Johnson was responsible for allowing them to do so. In the court of public opinion, he was convicted long ago.

Richard Murphy is Professor of Accounting Practice, Sheffield University Management School, a chartered accountant and economic justice campaigner. He blogs at Ways to tackle inflation – all that needs to be said in a couple of minutes and tweets @RichardJMurphy .

Professor Richard Murphy says politicians are doing almost nothing to help people who are struggling because they believe the market can solve a problem better than anything the government can do www.mirror.co.uk

High inflation, record energy prices, and a shortage of workers. We are facing an economic crisis.

Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England, said this week it has several causes – War, Brexit, Covid, all one-off shocks. But what Bailey did not say is the government is making things very much worse with their Tory beliefs driving their response to this crisis.

They are sitting back and doing almost nothing because they believe the market can solve a problem better than anything the government can do.

They’re wrong, of course. We need strong government right now. Their inaction is costing us all, dearly.

Here’s where they are getting it wrong:

1) They’ve got the cause of inflation wrong

Inflation is a general increase in the level of prices. Electricity, gas, diesel and petrol, food and other basics are all going up in price. The government thinks that we have 1970s type inflation. However, that inflation was fuelled by pay rises bigger than growth in the economy so people had too much to spend. We have the exact opposite now though. People haven’t got the money to pay for the basics needed to live.

Despite this, the Bank of England is raising interest rates to try to push net wages down – because that’s what Tory ideology tells them they must do. And the Bank follows the government line on this – because if they don’t the Chancellor has the power to overrule them.

Interest rate rises make life for many much harder. That’s what happens when you put up the price of money. We need interest rate cuts instead, now.

2) They won’t spend to help out

The government could help by increasing benefits and pensions. They could also increase the pay of their own lowest paid employees. And they need not wait. They could do this now. But they won’t. They’re ideologically opposed to benefits, including pensions. Cutting government spending is all they believe in.

And how could they pay for this? Actually, this policy would pretty much pay for itself because every penny spent on these extra benefits and pay would go straight back into the economy as those receiving them spend all the money they get to survive. That would support businesses, jobs and taxes paid. But this might also create government short-term government debt and they’d rather those with low incomes suffer than ever take the risk of creating a penny more of government debt. They don’t care if a pensioner freezes or starves if government spending is saved as a result. We need those increases and that logic out of politics for good.

3) They won’t tackle price increases

The government could tackle some of the big price rises we’re facing right now if it wanted to stop inflation. 20p or more out of every £1 spent on gas, electricity, diesel and petrol goes to the government. As their prices have risen so has the amount the government gets from them in tax, so they’re profiting as people struggle to pay their bills. If the government simply fixed the actual amount they get from each unit of energy sold at their 2020 rate by cutting VAT and duties they could cut prices right now.

But they won’t because they want to pay off the government’s debts and pass the burden on to the public. People are losing so the government can balance its books. That’s the price of ideology. We need them to cut fuel and energy prices now.

4) They won’t help people back to work after Covid

According to the government we have had a labour crisis in the UK since the end of the Covid epidemic. That’s because the number of people working since Covid began is down 482,000 whilst vacancies have increased by 427,000. The Bank of England say we need interest rate rises to tackle this to force wages down. I say we need decent ventilation, workplace protection and support for older people to get them back into the workforce after Covid. But the government says that Covid is over, and this is more important than helping real people get jobs. We need those Covid protections now.

5) They aren’t helping people get pay rises

The real problem we have is that millions of people in the UK don’t have enough to live on. The so-called national living wage is useful, but it’s not enough to really live on and it’s become a base level pay rate that far too many employers now choose to pay. The government ideologically wants to keep it that way because this maximises employer’s profits. But what the government should be doing is pushing up wages.

Until the 1990s there were pay boards in the UK that set the wage rates for about 20 industries from construction, to agriculture, to hairdressing. Their job was to make sure that when unions could not protect people’s pay they still got a fair deal. We need those boards back, now. We’d have more, better paid jobs – and less zero hour, gig economy jobs – as a result and what is more, employers would have to train their staff to get value for money from them, which would be a real bonus. But the government hates such interventions, thinking them left-wing. Their ideology is costing the country fair pay that we need now.

6) They won’t impose windfall taxes

It goes without saying that if people are paying more for the electricity, gas, diesel, petrol, food and other things they’re buying and those things cost no more to make (and so far, they, by and large, don’t) then someone, somewhere is making a lot more profit as a result. The oil companies are. So too are the banks because of interest rate rises. But the government is objecting to taxing them more because their ideology is that all profit is good, even if it comes from forcing people into poverty. They even voted against a Labour plan for windfall taxes, but we need them now.

New powers for the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities over local government finances, announced in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, is of significant concern for local authorities.

Paul Dennett, Labour Mayor of the City of Salford. www.politicshome.com 

These new powers appear to allow for the Secretary to cap borrowing and force any council to “divest itself of a specified asset” – powers which have traditionally been reserved for local authorities placed in special measures.

Britain is already considered to be amongst the most centralised of any state structure in the world – with vanishingly few powers for local authorities to raise or levy local taxes, to determine the areas priorities for expenditure or effectively plan for growth and development. All of these are increasingly determined by one-size-fits-all national frameworks, ring-fenced funding (often top-sliced from other pots with fewer restrictions on its usage) and an un-hypothecated formula for their distribution.

On top of this, 12 years of austerity have seen core Revenue Support Grant funding for local authorities cut by over 50 per cent – putting many areas onto the breadline.

In this situation, many councils (including my own) have made ambitious steps to become more fiscally independent – primarily through borrowing, the creation of revenue streams through the commercialisation of services, capital investments and rental services.

Salford’s capital programme is substantial and has been used in part to finance the creation of MediaCity, a huge asset for our city and country as well as a great source of employment growth and business rates, driving population growth and increased council tax. MediaCity is the largest hub for digital and tech businesses in the UK outside of London – a prime example of a project helping to level-up a post-industrial city, attract international investment in R&D and develop the industries of the future.

Wise investments are a key component in shielding local services from the impact of austerity, increasing fiscal self-reliance and fuelling growth.

The Secretary’s new powers seem to provide no distinction between good and bad council borrowing or investments. And we know that the Treasury and central government has a rigid and fiscally conservative approach to book-keeping, with a hugely constrained vision for local authorities still educated by the outdated “new public management” mantra – expected simply to preside over an ever-diminishing list of services, making cost savings by selling off those services and assets to bargain-basement private providers.

Local authorities have huge potential in the levelling up agenda, possessing a wealth of intricate and detailed knowledge of their local areas often overlooked by top-down Whitehall mandarins, in addition to a wealth of expertise in the delivery of services which is near universally overlooked and undervalued within our Westminster-centric politics.

The logic of this position appears to be formally accepted in the corridors of power – with a welcome focus on devolution being a central part of the levelling up conversation. Yet time and time again, when new policy announcements are brought forward, the same instinctive drive towards relentlessly restricting local government’s powers and reducing discretion over its spending continues to cut the rug from under our feet.

If more central funding is not an option for councils, then borrowing and growing asset bases must be an essential component of successful local government policy moving forward. Without it, we will see the condemnation of local authorities to a future of decline.

A couple who have lived in Devon for 60 years say they are at the end of their tether because of the housing shortage. Even though they have £500,000 plus to spend they say they may be forced out of the area they know and love after a nightmare two years of searching for a home.

Colleen Smith www.devonlive.com

The couple who have been tenant farmers have saved all their lives for a retirement home but now find the property shortage in East Devon means they may end up having to move to Wales or Scotland.

The couple are in their 60s and were looking for a property in East Devon so that they could be close to work and carry on farming. They have told of being gazumped, viewings being cancelled at the last minute and finding estate agents refusing to let them even view.

“At this rate we could end up in a tent in a field,” the wife said. “The last straw was today when we had a viewing cancelled. The agent said the executors had taken an offer. How do they know we weren’t going to make a higher offer? I thought this morning ‘It’s a good job I’m not the suicidal type because I’m at the end of my tether and that cancellation would have finished me off’.

“I have phoned about houses in Sidmouth and been told ‘Sorry we’ve got 20 viewings and we’re not taking any more’. Other times you book an appointment and at the last minute they cancel it.

“My husband has lived here for nearly 60 years and farmed in East Devon all his life. We lived in the farmhouse and now we need to find a home for our retirement and we’ve not got a chance of finding a house here,” she said. “I’ve heard of gazumping happening where people accept an offer and then somebody else ups the offer by £25,000 to £30,000. It’s laughable.

“We looked at a house in Newton Poppleford that was £650,000 and found out that it had huge cracks and subsidence and needed gutting.”

Estate agents in East Devon said demand was 100 times higher than the number of houses available. At Stags in Honiton, partner Kevin Clarke confirmed the shortage: “I really do feel for this couple. There’s a lot of stressed buyers out there. We try and make a point of honouring all the viewings that are booked in because we know people are quite stressed. Our job is to achieve the best price for our client and to do that we need to market a house for a while. It’s easy to sell quickly but we need to sell it for the best price.

“There just aren’t that many properties available to buy at the moment, although this is improving now at the time of the year. The number of buyers is very high. We live in a beautiful part of the country and lots of people want to live here.”

At Wilkinson Grant in Topsham, Jenny Pickford said: “I have absolutely nothing to offer in that price range. Most of what we are dealing with is in the £700,000 plus price range. The demand is 100 times higher than it was and there just isn’t the housing stock available for people to buy.

“Prices do vary depending on where you are. In Exmouth you could get a lovely detached family home for £700k. In Topsham for the same price it would be more like a terrace with no parking in the part of the town with all the character properties.

“The market is still very good for sellers. High prices are being achieved and selling in excess of the guide prices. The good news is that we are seeing more new instructions coming in.”

She explained that vendors are often overwhelmed by the demand: “Some get 20 viewings booked in and they don’t want that amount of traffic through their house. It’s a really stressful experience having to sell your home. “

Good news for the region? More cash being poured into our “Golden Opportunity” for longer.

How many more of these is Boris building? – Owl

Alan Jones www.independent.co.uk

The new nuclear power station being built at Hinkley Point will start operating a year later than planned and will cost an extra £3 billion, it has been announced.

French energy giant EDF published the findings of a review into the cost and schedule of the power station taking account of the continuing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The revised operating date is June 2027 and the budget has increased by £3 billion.

EDF said this will have no cost impact on British consumers or taxpayers.

The delay means the first reactor unit will start operating in June 2027, a year later than planned and costs are now estimated in the range of £25bn to £26bn.

A reduction in workers allowed on the site in Somerset due to pandemic safety measures resulted in the loss of more than half a million days of critical work in 2020 and 2021, said EDF.

Stuart Crooks, managing director of Hinkley Point C said in a message on Thursday evening: “You will all have experienced the severe impact of Covid-19 on the project over the last two years. You will remember how we suddenly had to cut numbers on site from more than 5,000 to around 1,500.

“For many months after that, we remained far below our plan for site numbers as our ability to fully ramp up activity was thwarted by the need for measures to prevent infection.

“Keeping workers safe with social distancing in canteens, buses and at work meant we had no choice but to become less efficient.

“In civil construction alone, having fewer people than planned means we lost in excess of half a million individual days of critical work in 2020 and 2021.

“Our supply chain was also hit hard and is still impacted now. In April 2020, 180 suppliers were fully shut down, but even as late as February this year, more than 60 suppliers were operating with reduced productivity due to Covid.”

Mr Crooks said that in January 2021, EDF estimated a six-month Covid impact, assuming an imminent return to normal conditions, but the second second wave of Covid-19 stopped that happening.

“In total, the start date for Unit 1 has gone back 18 months since construction started in 2016. In such a complex project, it wouldn’t be credible to say we can measure exactly how much of this is due to Covid-19 impact, but it is clearly in excess of 12 months.

“Other factors have affected the schedule and costs.

“Marine works have also cost more, although they are now in a good position – with legal hurdles finally cleared to allow the team to get on with the job.

“Running the site for longer and less efficiently during the pandemic also adds cost. We are facing the same issues as other major projects with UK-wide supply and labour shortages and inflation.”

Lib Dems announce former Army Major for Tiverton and Honiton by-election

Lewis Clarke http://www.devonlive.com

Ed Davey declares by-election a two-horse race between “Boris Johnson’s Conservative party and hard-working local champion”

Richard Foord will be Lib Dem candidate for the upcoming Tiverton & Honiton by-election

The Liberal Democrats have announced that Richard Foord will be their candidate for the upcoming Tiverton & Honiton by-election sparked by Neil Parish’s resignation in the wake of the ‘porn gate’ scandal.

Richard lives in Uffculme with his wife and family. He grew up in the West Country and served for ten years in the army after graduating from Sandhurst, reaching the rank of Major and receiving three campaign medals for service in Iraq and the Balkans.

Living locally, Richard is active across the community. He volunteers at two scout groups in the area and has raised thousands of pounds for charities, including running the London Marathon for the Royal British Legion.

Richard has pledged to be a strong local voice for Devon if elected, by fighting for urgent action on the cost of living, cutting ambulance and GP waiting times, and getting a fairer deal for Devon farmers.

In April, the Liberal Democrats won the Cullompton South by-election against the Conservatives. They have also been winning across the UK, gaining neighbouring Somerset Council at the local elections and winning two successful parliamentary by-elections against the Conservatives, including the rural constituency of North Shropshire.

Announcing his candidacy, Richard said: “Boris Johnson’s Conservatives are taking rural communities in Devon for granted. Towns and villages across the constituency are being hit hard by unfair tax hikes and receiving no help with spiralling energy bills and rising prices at the fuel pump.

“This Conservative Government has run our local health services into the ground. Ambulance waiting times across Devon are soaring, and thousands are left waiting for weeks in pain, for a GP or dentist appointment.

“I was proud to serve my country in the Armed Forces for ten years and now want to serve my community in Westminster. We need politicians who listen to the needs of local people and work tirelessly to deliver for our area.

“This by-election is a chance to send a message that it’s time for a change. Towns and villages in our areas have been ignored for far too long. If elected, I pledge to take no-one for granted and stand up for our local communities in Parliament.”

Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said: “Richard is an incredible candidate, whose dedication to others has shone not only through his career, but also in his voluntary roles in the community.

“This by-election will be a two-horse race between Boris Johnson’s Conservatives and hard-working Liberal Democrat local champion, Richard Foord. This Conservative government has taken Devon for granted with local health services being neglected and botched and with trade deals undercutting farmers at every turn.

“The Liberal Democrats are the clear challengers to the Conservatives in Tiverton & Honiton. On June 23, you can elect a strong local champion who will stand up for our communities and help kick Boris Johnson out of Number 10.”