Biden meets Boris
Boris Johnson and Joe Biden went for a gentle stroll today on the promenade overlooking Cornwall’s stunning Carbis Bay for their first ever face-to-face meeting.
On the eve of the G7 Summit, the two leaders will discuss transatlantic travel and a new “Atlantic Charter”, aimed at refreshing the so-called “special relationship” between the two countries.
Biden once called Johnson a “physical and emotional clone” of Donald Trump.
But the initial rendezvous was highly cordial. Johnson called Biden’s administration “a breath of fresh air… new and interesting” and said the talks in Cornwall were “very good.”
The leaders and their spouses walked along the seafront and Biden joked that both he and Johnson had “married way above our stations.” Will the PM manage to win him over?
Ahead of the meeting, US envoys have accused Johnson of “inflaming” tensions in Northern Ireland in his ongoing standoff with the EU over the Brexit-induced Irish Sea border. But US officials have since denied the stories of a rebuke with regard to the NI protocol. Perhaps there was a clue from Jill Biden – she wore a jacket proclaiming ‘Love’ on the back.
However, Biden is expected to tell the PM later that he must compromise with the EU over border checks or he risks unsettling the Good Friday Agreement – the foundation for peaceful coexistence in Northern Ireland.
Biden’s eagerness to stress America’s formal role in protecting the Agreement is unsurprising. It’s a cause close to his heart – he talks proudly of his Irish roots – and he has disapproved of Brexit from the start. What is more, the disagreement is a timely opportunity for him to demonstrate that, under his presidency, the US is returning to an interventionist approach.
There is an irony to the pressure Biden is exerting on Johnson. He is now dangling a US-UK free trade deal as a reward for the UK if it compromises with Brussels. After leaving the EU to be free from the shackles of EU regulations – and with many viewing a UK-US trade deal as the golden prize – it now looks as though achieving such a deal is contingent upon greater cooperation with none other than Brussels.
Whether US pressure will work is another matter. Biden realises that the UK is on board with the bulk of his big picture strategy to cement the alliance of democratic nations. In the end, this will likely take precedence over refereeing a squabble between “friends and neighbours”.
Hancock bites back
Matt Hancock was on the defensive today at a parliamentary hearing to investigate the response to Covid, taking the opportunity to bat away the slew of explosive claims set out by Dominic Cummings a fortnight ago.
Over the four-and-a-half-hour session, the health secretary emphatically denied allegations that he lied to Boris Johnson, obstructed progress with his 100,000 testing target and sought to blame the Chancellor and head of the NHS for PPE shortages.
He also defended the government’s handling of the pandemic, saying that although it was warned there could be 820,000 deaths more than a month before lockdown, there was no evidence at the start of the pandemic that the public would adhere to a lockdown.
Like Cummings, he said he wished he had acted faster, saying he “bitterly regrets” not overruling scientific guidance that the virus could not be spread asymptomatically – hardly a denial of Cummings’ claim that the government plan is to “blame the scientists” at the impending inquiry.
His claims that there was never a national shortage of PPE or rationing of Covid treatment and that he followed clinical advice on patients being released from hospitals to care homes also raised more than a few eyebrows.
Hancock went to great pains to avoid mentioning Cummings by name throughout the session but still managed to take a not-so-subtle swipe at the PM’s former adviser, saying: “The best thing to say is that government has operated much better over the last six months.”
Cummings has missed the deadline to give written support for his accusations to the Commons’ health and science committees – a move that the health secretary said was “telling”.
This may certainly turn out to be true, but not in the way Hancock meant.
One of the theories circulating in Westminster is that the ever-cunning former advisor was waiting for the health secretary to back himself into a corner before releasing the most damaging evidence.
Watch out for Nuclear Dom’s next move in the coming days.
US inflation jumps
US consumer prices have surged 5 per cent in a year – the highest annual inflation rate since August 2008.
It represents a 0.8 per cent hike since April and surpasses the widely expected figure of 4.7 per cent.
The price jump is part of a global trend. Andy Haldane, the Bank of England’s chief economist, has warned of a spiral of 1970s-style inflation in the UK if the Bank doesn’t act quickly to curb price rises.
And the price of goods leaving factories in China – the world’s biggest exporter – is up 9 per cent in a year, a hike that is likely to filter through to Western supply chains and, ultimately, consumers.
Central banks risk underestimating the inflationary threat by dismissing it as transitory – as it was after the 2008 crash – and are nervous about raising rates, fearing saddling companies with higher debt repayments.
Yet with Joe Biden’s $6trn stimulus package pouring fuel on an already roaring recovery, it looks as if inflation is here to stay. Or not.
Caitlin Allen,
Reaction Reporter