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Today’s Political Headlines include the widows of the Munich massacre victims calling for Corbyn to apologise, the Muslim Council calling for an investigation into Boris, May’s fanciful customs plan and the Government’s £100m pledge to end rough sleeping. 

Widows of Munich massacre victims call for Corbyn to apologise
The Daily Mail reports that widows of the victims of the Munich massacre have called for an apology from Jeremy Corbyn after details of a trip he made to the Tunisian cemetery where members of terrorist group Black September are buried were revealed in Saturday’s Mail. Labour claimed that Corbyn was there to commemorate victims of an Israeli air strike on a PLO base, but in an article written at the time he said he had laid wreaths on other graves.

Muslim Council calls for investigation into Johnson as Islamophobic incidents increase
The Guardian says that the Muslim Council of Britain is to write to the Prime Minister to demand a full disciplinary investigation into Boris Johnson, claiming that there has been an increase in Islamophobic incidents since his article on the burqa was published. Data from the Tell Mama project shows that there has been an increase in abuse towards women wearing niqabs and hijabs in the last week.

May’s customs plan is ‘fanciful’, experts say
According to The Times, trade experts have described Theresa May’s planned customs deal with the EU as ‘fanciful’, questioning the pledge that most businesses would pay the correct or no tariff at the border, and the assertion that businesses would be able to reliably track goods in order to prevent smuggling. The paper says that if her proposal fails, she would have to choose between remaining in the customs union or pulling out completely.

Government pledges £100m to end rough sleeping
The BBC reports that the Government has promised to end rough sleeping in England by 2027 in its new Rough Sleeping Strategy, to be announced by Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary James Brokenshire today. It has promised to spend £100m ‘to help people turn their lives around’, including spending on mental health, substance misuse and housing.

Johnson calls for stamp duty cut
The Daily Telegraph carries a column by Boris Johnson, in which he claims that ‘absurdly high’ stamp duty should be cut and targets for affordable housing should be ditched in an attempt to increase rates of building. He claims that developers have become an ‘oligopoly’, land-banking and building poor-quality homes.

Minister apologises after Tory tweet leaves Chris Boardman ‘genuinely sick’
The Mirror says that Chris Boardman, the Olympic medal-winning cyclist whose mum was killed while cycling, has claimed that he was left ‘genuinely sick’ by a Conservative claim that new laws would protect ‘our most vulnerable road users’ from cyclists, leading transport minister Jesse Norman to issue an apology and the party to delete the tweet in question.

Moderate Tories set up ‘pragmatic Brexit’ group
The Daily Telegraph reveals that a bloc of 50 moderate Conservative MPs led by Simon Hart and Andrew Percy have established the Brexit Delivery Group, which aims ‘to find a pragmatic Brexit outcome’ and challenge the European Research Group. The party’s head of policy, Chris Skidmore, has called for the party to unite and to talk about domestic issues.

Stewart calls on military to boost prison leadership
The Times reports that prisons minister Rory Stewart is asking for assistance from military leaders to set up a military-style staff college for prison governors, although he has abandoned the idea of making governors wear uniforms. The paper adds that prison sources have cast doubt on the idea that the military’s experience is relevant.

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Today’s Political Headlines include May’s call for Boris to apologise over burqa remarks, six-figure HS2 salaries, Labour’s antisemitism challenge and the petition to recall Paisley. 

May agrees with call for Johnson to apologise over burqa remarks
The Guardian reports that Theresa May has agreed with a call by Conservative party chairman Brandon Lewis for Boris Johnson to apologise for a newspaper column in which he claimed that women in burqas look like letter boxes and bank robbers. Lord Sheik, founder of the Conservative Muslim Forum, has called for the Conservative whip to be withdrawn from him for the comments. Johnson has not apologised.

HS2 salary levels raise concerns
The Times reveals that a quarter of the staff employed by HS2 earn six-figure sums. 318 officials are paid at least £100,000 a year, an increase from 155 in 2015-16, while spending on consultants doubled in the space of a year, reaching more than £600m. The paper adds that Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss wrote to Transport Secretary Chris Grayling in the spring, raising concerns about salary levels.

Leaked papers show scale of Labour’s antisemitism challenge
The Guardian has seen leaked Labour disciplinary papers circulated to members of the party’s national executive committee which illustrate the challenge faced by the party in tackling antisemitism. Separately, The Times reports that footage from 2011 of Jeremy Corbyn accusing the BBC of being biased towards Israel in an interview with Iranian state TV channel Press TV has emerged.

Paisley recall petition to open
The BBC says that a petition to recall North Antrim MP Ian Paisley is to open today. The petition is the first of its kind and was triggered when Paisley was suspended from the Commons for 30 days after he failed to declare two holidays paid for by the Sri Lankan government. The petition remains open until 19 September.

Sturgeon delays referendum decision over Brexit confusion
The Guardian reports that Nicola Sturgeon has indicated that Brexit confusion means that she will not be able to make a decision on holding a second Scottish independence referendum this autumn. Following a meeting with Theresa May yesterday, Sturgeon said that she had a ‘huge amount of scepticism’ that a deal would be reached by October.

Zahawi calls on private schools to admit children in care
The Sun says that Education Minister Nadhim Zahawi has called on private schools to give boarding places to thousands of children in care so that Jeremy Corbyn would be unable to remove their charitable status. He praised 40 schools that already participated in a Government-backed scheme to do so and asked others to join it.

EU patients could lose access to medicines after Brexit, pharmaceutical firm warns
The Guardian reports that the pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca has warned that patients in the EU may not be able to receive vital medicines produced in the UK in the event of a no-deal Brexit. To try and avoid the risk, it will test medicines in both the UK and the EU, but cannot guarantee that it will be successful.

Rail body calls for customs areas to be set up at freight terminals
The Financial Times says that the Rail Delivery Group is recommending that customs areas should be set up at rail freight terminals, not at the Channel Tunnel, after Brexit. It argues that this would help to prevent ‘congestion and delays’. HMRC says that this should not be necessary, if the proposals put forward in the Government’s Brexit white paper are adopted.

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Today’s Political Headlines include the extradition request for Russian nerve agent suspects, the Labour plot in a Sussex B&B, tougher sentences for downloading child abuse images and the no deal Brexit warning from police chiefs. 

UK ready to submit extradition request for Russian nerve agent suspects
In an exclusive, The Guardian asserts that the UK is about to submit an extradition request to Russia for two people suspected of carrying out the nerve agent attack in Salisbury. The paper claims that the move follows months of investigation by the police and the security investigations and that the Crown Prosecution Service has now completed its process and is ready to file its request, although a ‘scornful response’ is expected from Russia.

Labour moderates plot at luxury Sussex venue
The Daily Express reveals that a group of around 12 moderate Labour MPs have held at least two away days in a luxury Sussex B&B ‘to discuss how to take back control of the party’. One MP claimed that a plan discussed was to allow Corbyn to win the next election and for the moderates to then form their own party or a separate Labour party in Parliament. Chris Leslie claimed that the meetings were about policy and that Corbyn had not been discussed.

Tougher sentences for viewers of child abuse images
Robert Buckland, the Solicitor General, has told The Daily Telegraph that paedophiles who download child abuse images will face tougher sentences and should be dealt with as harshly as those who abuse children. The offence will be brought into the ‘unduly lenient sentence’ scheme, allowing members of the public to challenge sentences. Official figures show that less than one in four people convicted of the offence goes to jail.

Police chiefs issue no deal Brexit warning to Javid
The Guardian has seen a leaked letter from the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners to Home Secretary Sajid Javid, warning that a no deal Brexit would ‘pose significant risks to our local communities’ and cause ‘a significant loss of operational capacity’. The letter details 32 different measures which rely on EU membership.

May blamed for chaotic no deal preparations
The Daily Telegraph claims that Theresa May is being blamed for ‘chaotic’ preparations for a no deal Brexit. Officials are currently compiling seventy technical notices to explain what firms and self-employed workers need to do to prepare, but ministers have complained that they were not consulted before the papers were announced, while civil servants are having to create extra documents in order to meet May’s promise.

May holds talks with Sturgeon
The BBC says that Theresa May is to hold talks with Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon today. May is in Scotland to launch the Edinburgh and South East Scotland city deal and will also visit the Edinburgh Festival. Ahead of the meeting, Sturgeon has called on May to set out her ‘plan B’ if European leaders reject her Brexit proposals.

Labour abandons action against Hodge
The Times reports that Margaret Hodge has accused the Labour Party of lying in its explanation for the abandonment of the disciplinary action against her. She rejected the suggestion that the investigation had been dropped because she had expressed regret to the party’s chief whip, Nick Brown. She admits telling Jeremy Corbyn that he was ‘perceived as being antisemitic’ but denies swearing at him.

Truss calls for planning restrictions to be lifted
The Daily Mail says that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Liz Truss, is facing a ‘furious backlash’ after she called for more houses to be built on greenfield sites and for planning rules to be liberalised, allowing houses to be extended upwards without planning permission. She claimed that if this did not happen, Corbyn would win the next election.

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