Donald Trump hints at post-Brexit US-UK trade deal after ambassador says NHS ‘on the table’: Donald Trump [indicated] a post-Brexit trade deal between the US and the UK “was possible” as he rounded off the end of the first day of his state visit. In a series of tweets following a meeting with the Queen, he wrote: “big Trade Deal is possible once U.K. gets rid of the shackles. Already starting to talk!” The US Ambassador to the UK, Woody Johnson, told the Andrew Marr Show that the whole of the economy, including the NHS will be “on the table” in a US-UK trade deal after Brexit. (MORE)
NHS staff quitting due to burnout and bullying, report says: NHS staff are quitting because they are stressed and burned out from heavy workloads, having too little time with patients and suffering bullying and harassment at work, an official report has said. The exodus is deepening the service’s workforce crisis in England, making it harder for patients to see a GP or hospital specialist and forcing the NHS to rely on expensive agency staff. Disillusioned doctors and nurses are leaving the health service at all stages of their careers because they find working in it too much, the new workforce strategy drawn up by NHS leaders warns. (MORE)
Britain Is in No Position to Scoff at Donald Trump: . . . Britons might be launching their predictably sniffy anti-Trump response to the visit, but the reality is that the United Kingdom today is in no position to scoff at other countries’ political misadventures. Both nations are still reeling from a political storm that hit in 2016. But as the United States processes the unorthodox and disruptive presidency of Donald Trump, Britain has become increasingly paralyzed—even broken—by the drama triggered by its vote to leave the European Union. Last month’s elections to the European Parliament were a disaster for outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May’s ruling Conservative Party and little better for the major opposition party, Labour, led by Jeremy Corbyn. Trump arrives in a country very much not at ease with itself.
There is little true purpose to his state visit, save to the extent that an invitation to Buckingham Palace indulges the American president. Tellingly, no one-on-one meeting has been arranged with the lame-duck May, who announced her upcoming resignation after failing to get her Brexit plan through Parliament. Like his hosts, Trump seems more interested in her successor than in poor May herself.
Boris Johnson, the Conservative former foreign secretary, is the candidate best placed to succeed May—but no fewer than a dozen Tory members of Parliament have confirmed they are running. Trump told the Sunday Times that Johnson was “a friend” who “would be excellent.” The basis for this estimation was, typically, that “he has been very positive about me and our country.” Johnson evinces an unsinkable confidence in his own ability to renegotiate a better deal with the EU, despite little evidence that a new, more palatable, agreement can be struck. Trump is also a fan of the bombastic Nigel Farage, the former leader of the Eurosceptic UK Independence Party who has returned to front-line politics as head of the newly formed Brexit Party.... (MORE)
NHS staff quitting due to burnout and bullying, report says: NHS staff are quitting because they are stressed and burned out from heavy workloads, having too little time with patients and suffering bullying and harassment at work, an official report has said. The exodus is deepening the service’s workforce crisis in England, making it harder for patients to see a GP or hospital specialist and forcing the NHS to rely on expensive agency staff. Disillusioned doctors and nurses are leaving the health service at all stages of their careers because they find working in it too much, the new workforce strategy drawn up by NHS leaders warns. (MORE)
Britain Is in No Position to Scoff at Donald Trump: . . . Britons might be launching their predictably sniffy anti-Trump response to the visit, but the reality is that the United Kingdom today is in no position to scoff at other countries’ political misadventures. Both nations are still reeling from a political storm that hit in 2016. But as the United States processes the unorthodox and disruptive presidency of Donald Trump, Britain has become increasingly paralyzed—even broken—by the drama triggered by its vote to leave the European Union. Last month’s elections to the European Parliament were a disaster for outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May’s ruling Conservative Party and little better for the major opposition party, Labour, led by Jeremy Corbyn. Trump arrives in a country very much not at ease with itself.
There is little true purpose to his state visit, save to the extent that an invitation to Buckingham Palace indulges the American president. Tellingly, no one-on-one meeting has been arranged with the lame-duck May, who announced her upcoming resignation after failing to get her Brexit plan through Parliament. Like his hosts, Trump seems more interested in her successor than in poor May herself.
Boris Johnson, the Conservative former foreign secretary, is the candidate best placed to succeed May—but no fewer than a dozen Tory members of Parliament have confirmed they are running. Trump told the Sunday Times that Johnson was “a friend” who “would be excellent.” The basis for this estimation was, typically, that “he has been very positive about me and our country.” Johnson evinces an unsinkable confidence in his own ability to renegotiate a better deal with the EU, despite little evidence that a new, more palatable, agreement can be struck. Trump is also a fan of the bombastic Nigel Farage, the former leader of the Eurosceptic UK Independence Party who has returned to front-line politics as head of the newly formed Brexit Party.... (MORE)