Inside Politics: Johnson’s COP26 summit in ‘deep trouble’ and Covid travel rules ease

Charlie Watts, the legendary Rolling Stones drummer, has had to pull out of the band’s upcoming US tour after having emergency surgery. Watts underwent a “successful procedure” and is in good spirits, even joking that “for once, my timing has been a little off.” We wish him well in his recovery. Back at Westminster, Boris Johnson can’t get no satisfaction. His plans for the COP26 climate summit are said to be in “deep water” and Labour is attempting to take full advantage. Elsewhere, the Tory co-chairman is facing growing questions about the overlap between his business interests and party role. Covid travel rules have been relaxed.

Parliament is in recess. Johnson heads to northeast Scotland today for the second leg of his trip and visits a renewables project. Keir Starmer also remains in Scotland. He visits a windfarm near Glasgow, with his Scottish counterpart Anas Sarwar.

Coming up shortly:

-Transport secretary Grant Shapps on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme at 8.10am

-Shadow communities secretary Steve Reed on Times Radio at 8.35am

HOLIDAY BOOST: Changes to Covid travel rules dominate the front pages this morning. Fully jabbed Britons returning from France will no longer have to quarantine, in what the Daily Mirror is calling the “French reconnection”. From 4am on Sunday, anyone returning from Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia, Latvia, Romania and Norway will also no longer need to self-isolate. There are now 36 countries on the green list but 16 of them – including the Caribbean islands, Croatia, Malta, Israel and Taiwan – are on the “green watchlist”, meaning they could suddenly be moved to amber. Spain also remains on the amber list, despite fears it could be moved. As always Simon Calder, our travel correspondent, has a full breakdown of what the changes mean.

CORONA FILES: In other Covid-related news, a blueprint for responding to a coronavirus outbreak was drawn up by the UK government in 2005, The Independent can reveal – but the plan was seemingly “lost” in Whitehall, never acted upon or even considered when Covid-19 swept the planet. Elsewhere, the Mail reports on the comments of Jonathan Van-Tam, England’s deputy chief medical officer, who has hinted the vaccine programme could be rolled out to all those aged between 12 and 15.

CLIMATE DELAYERS: Labour is going big on its criticism of Johnson’s climate ambitions ahead of COP26 in Glasgow later this year. While on a visit to Scotland yesterday, party leader Keir Starmer branded the PM and his government “climate delayers”, as he warned that the biggest threat to international efforts to stem global warming is no longer outright denial but failure to act with the necessary urgency. Speaking to The Independent, the Labour leader said the prime minister was “letting the country down” with his inaction on climate change, less than 100 days before he is due to host the United Nations summit. Starmer is also calling for a “ hard-edged” timetable for phasing out North Sea oil and gas exploration and confirmed Labour does not support the new Cambo oil field off the coast of the Shetland Islands.

SECRET COMPANY: The Tory Party chairman and his apparently less than transparent business practices are back in the news today. Ben Elliot, who is already facing questions on the overlap between his business interests and Conservative Party role, is using a partner in a secretive company to help manage party donors and arrange access to the prime minister, The Times reports.

THERE’S MORE...: Labour reckons there is something a bit off about the business of a PR firm co-founded by Elliot, which has lobbied the government on behalf of subprime lender Amigo, Chinese telecoms company Huawei, and health firm Iceni Diagnostics in the last year. The party has also called for more transparency about Elliot’s ownership of a stake in Hawthorn Advisors, a PR firm that works to influence government policy on behalf of its clients, The Guardian reports. Anneliese Dodds, party chair, said the public should know what access Hawthorn has “got to the corridors of power and what it used that access to lobby for”. “The lobbying rules that exist today aren’t fit for purpose under the crony Conservatives,” she told the paper.

LORD DOM: Johnson offered Dominic Cummings a seat in the House of Lords, the former No 10 chief of staff has claimed. Cummings also said the prime minister wanted to give his wife Carrie a government job with “lots of foreign travel”, according to an interview in The Spectator. If Mr Cummings had taken a peerage he would have been able to vote on laws and could even have been appointed as a minister.

“Paris told us what we have got to do – the ambition to get to 1.5 degrees. But Glasgow has got to deliver the reality of how we get there. That means diplomacy, it means building coalitions, it means leading by example. Acting globally on the diplomatic stage is all about reputation and trust and the reputation of this prime minister is at a low ebb. Just at the point where we need a prime minister that can lead for Britain, we have a prime minister that’s letting Britain down.”

Starmer on the COP26 climate summit later this year.

“COP26 is in deep trouble, and Boris Johnson knows it. Privately, No10 has already significantly downgraded what Glasgow can achieve. An internal row is now underway between the PM’s advisers on how low to set the bar.”

Times Radio chief political commentator Tom Newton Dunn.