Teacher strike

For the second time in a week, the rail network has again been brought to a standstill today by the biggest industrial action in decades.

As passengers face more travel chaos , the Government is fighting back against unions. It will today unveil plans to change the law to allow businesses to use skilled agency workers to cover striking staff .

Whitehall sources said the legislation, which is expected to be in place by the autumn, will allow supply teachers to keep schools open after the UK’s largest teaching union threatened to ballot for a strike.

The Education Secretary today warns that a teachers’ strike would be “unforgivable” in the wake of Covid. Read Nadhim Zahawi ‘s article for The Telegraph in which he argues that young people have already suffered “more disruption than any generation that’s gone before them”.

On the railways, commuters were warned to avoid using trains today and on Saturday amid walkouts by the RMT union. Only around one in five trains will run today.

Use our interactive tool to check if they are running from your station. And rail chiefs are braced for a fresh wave of strikes in just two weeks after talks to reach a deal with unions failed.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister faces fresh Tory criticism of his economic approach to inflation, which underpins rail worker pay negotiations.

The decision to increase the state pension and benefits by inflation but reject calls to grant public sector pay rises in line with prices was called “crazy” by one ex-minister.

Associate editor Camilla Tominey says that, in trying to please the masses, the PM leaves hard-working taxpayers with the crumbs .

Mr Johnson faces a further test of his leadership today in the Tiverton and Wakefield by-elections .

Johnson to tell Charles he is proud of migrant plan

Boris Johnson is prepared to declare he is “proud” of his Rwanda migrant policy during talks with the Prince of Wales in the East African country tomorrow, The Telegraph understands.

The pair will meet for the first time since it emerged that the Prince privately described the planned deportation of asylum seekers to the country as “appalling”.

Rwanda is hosting this year’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, which both men are attending. The Prince and the Duchess of Cornwall yesterday toured the children’s room at the Kigali Genocide Memorial – calling for the world to learn from the atrocity .

Meanwhile, the Commonwealth Secretary General has been accused of suppressing a report that criticises her administration as a toxic row flared on the eve of the organisation’s most important summit in years.

Murdoch and Hall ‘calling time on their marriage’

Rupert Murdoch declared himself the “happiest man in the world” when he married Jerry Hall. Six years on, the media mogul and the former model are reportedly to split.

It would be the fourth divorce for Mr Murdoch, 91, after his wedding to 65-year-old Ms Hall, who was previously in a long-term relationship with Sir Mick Jagger, in London in March 2016.

Nick Allen reports on what we know about their break-up .

Daily dose of Matt

In today’s cartoon , Matt finds a joke in both the rail strikes and inflation. For a weekly behind-the-scenes look at his work, sign up for Matt’s newsletter .

Also in the news: Today’s other headlines

‘Butt out, Biden’ | Nikki Haley, the potential Republican presidential candidate, has warned that Brexit is none of Joe Biden’s business, and that he should not weigh in on the future of the Northern Ireland Protocol. In a speech in London, she lambasted Democrats in the US for trying to undermine Britain’s attempts to overhaul the protocol – after Mr Biden’s allies threatened to block a trade deal with the UK.

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• ‘Targeted attack’ | Three teenagers arrested after PCSO stabbed
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Around the world: Russia gains key territory

Russia has taken several villages in the last few days, raising fears its forces will soon be in a position to seize the strategically important cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. As senior foreign correspondent Roland Oliphant reports, the Russian advances have led to “hellish battles” . In a lighter take, Ed Cumming explores how Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky became the latest celebrity accessory .

Comment and analysis

• Allister Heath | The true causes of basket-case Britain
• Ben Wright | World’s favourite money-making strategy is dead
• Allison Pearson | Storms ahead for the Conservative party
• Con Coughlin | UK must be prepared to go to war with Russia
• Reader letters | Union strikes can only hamper rail reforms

Sport briefing: McIlroy attacks defector

Rory McIlroy has accused Brooks Koepka of being “duplicitous” for joining the Saudi rebel circuit after the PGA Tour announced a radical revamp to stop the exodus, with commissioner Jay Monahan calling the LIV Series “an irrational threat”. McIlroy said he was not impressed with the American after his previously vocal opposition to the breakaway league. In cricket, Michael Vaughan says Ben Stokes’ cricketing nous and aggressive tactics are key to England’s turnaround .

Editor’s choice

1. Feeling the heat | Why Britain’s swimming pools are under threat this summer
2. ‘Best friends forever’ | The cult as damaging for women as waiting for a fairy prince
3. Alternative timepieces | No Rolex? Here are the luxury watches you CAN buy

Business briefing: ‘Recession is looming’

Britain is “definitely” tumbling into recession, the outgoing president of the CBI has warned as inflation surged to a 40-year high. Lord Bilimoria said families were “tightening their belts” as the Office for National Statistics reported inflation of 9.1 per cent in May, driven by a significant increase in food costs. Meanwhile, an influential Lords committee accused Brussels of holding the City of London to a higher standard than communist China in granting it access to financial markets.

Tonight’s dinner

Ceviche of salmon, dill and celery | A sharp, refreshing dish by Mitch Tonks that is perfect for a summer evening.

Travel: The other side of the Med

When it comes to holidays, no track is more beaten than the short hop south to the sun-soaked Med. But it is a lopsided migration – half of this storied sea remains largely ignored. Like its European counterpart, the African side offers golden sands, history-filled cities and exceptional food. SJ Armstrong has your guide to holidaying without the crowds .

And finally… for this morning’s downtime

Sapphire and Steel | Before The Lazarus Project or The Matrix, Joanna Lumley and David McCallum bent reality and terrified the nation – at a fraction of the cost. Forty years on, Ed Powers argues why the cheap as chips chills will forever haunt viewers .

If you want to receive twice-daily briefings like this by email, sign up to the Front Page newsletter here . For two-minute audio updates, try The Briefing – on podcasts, smart speakers and WhatsApp.

TalkTV: Piers Morgan calls strikes ‘opportunism’

Mr Morgan discussed trade unions’ fresh demands for increases to pay with journalist Kevin O’Sullivan.

The British journalist then went on to discuss his conversation with the Royal Mail union boss who was now pushing for pay raises for his staff.

Mr Morgan claimed if workers around the country were to all receive pay rises, the UK’s economy would go bust.

Britain is currently experiencing 9.1 percent inflation in the economy, the highest peak in 40 years.

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Mr O’Sullivan said: “Now I was once your boss. You’ve been my boss several times now, and we’re both on Talk TV now.

“Why don’t we join everyone else, let’s both go out and strike, like everyone else shall we?”

Mr Morgan told Talk TV: “Well that’s the point isn’t it, I had one of the… I had the Royal Mail union boss on last night.

“And I said to him, you know if all workers deserve a pay rise, where does this all end?

“Does every worker now in the country go out and want the same pay rise to cover inflation, 11 percent.

JUST IN: If Theresa May hadn’t capitulated to EU we wouldn’t be in this mess! ARLENE FOSTER

Piers Morgan (Image: Getty)

Mick Lynch (Image: Getty Images)

Mr Morgan added: “In which case- the country basically goes bust, we don’t just go into recession we go into depression.

“And I think there’s got to be a sense of realism about this, there’s a lot of opportunism going on.

“And for all the strikes people are doing they’re massively inconveniencing a lot of other workers who just want to go to work, who have probably had nightmare two-three years of the pandemic.

“So it’s a complex one I’m all for unions getting a good deal for their workers, but when they start going on strike like this and it starts to spread like a virus having just got through a pandemic I think it’s very problematic.”

READ MORE: Sturgeon risks fury as SNP ‘almost certain’ to have changed laws to secure Queen consent

Loose Women: Denise Welch discusses doctors strike

Teachers and NHS staff have now all threatened to strike for higher wages.

RMT union boss Mick Lynch has been leading the way with rail strikes across the country, by demanding the Government increase pay for his workers by up to 7 percent, the union boss has also asked for no more job cuts to the rail sector.

British Airways are following in their footsteps with planned summer holiday strikes on their airline.

Many Government ministers are worried that giving into workers’ demands will cause more damage than good.

Inflation in the economy would make it worse for those who are already facing financial struggles in the UK.

Strike action UK (Image: Getty Images)

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Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab claimed increasing workers’ demands for high wages would worsen inflation for the whole country.

Mr Raab told BBC Breakfast: “No, one of the things that will drive up inflation and keep it higher for longer and it is forecast to come back down next year is that if we don’t have some wage restraint.

“Because I understand why unions feel they should fight their worker’s corner, the risk is, for example, we see RMT succeed in their claim for a 7 percent increase in rail worker’s pay, rather than the 3 percent offered by Network Rail, that will keep inflation or that will stimulate the pressures on inflation.

“Which will keep it higher for longer, and that will only hurt the lowest paid and the most vulnerable in our communities more.

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Boris Johnson has always been a bundle of contradictions. From his self-description as “basically a Brexity Hezza” to being the “libertarian” who brought in some of the world’s most draconian Covid measures, the Prime Minister’s policy on cake has always been “pro having it and pro eating it”.

The Battenberg nature of the Government’s latest chequered economic offering, however, appears to speak to an operation pie-eyed on pleasing the masses, rather than letting Tory voters eat cake.

A rise in the state pension and benefits in line with double-digit inflation may well appeal to those who are never likely to vote Conservative and perhaps that is the point.

Yet those currently in employment but saddled with the highest tax burden since the Second World War will feel like they are only getting the crumbs from the Treasury’s table.

Announcing that the pension triple lock would be reinstated after it was put on pause during the pandemic is undoubtedly a good foil to the argument that the poorest pensioners will have to choose between heating and eating this winter.

Similarly, the idea that benefits will also rise with inflation for about six million people – is, like the state handouts that have already been announced, a good way of looking like you are helping the neediest through the cost of living crisis.

The only problem with such profligate policies, as Margaret Thatcher pointed out, is that other people will have to pay for them. In this case, taxpayers will be footing the £20 billion bill with seemingly nothing in return.

While those who don’t pay National Insurance Contributions (NICs) will be better off, those who are already having to shoulder the burden of the Health and Social Care levy are actively being told by Downing Street to accept pay rises below inflation, which is likely to hit 11 per cent this year.

In the week that 40,000 rail workers have ground Britain to a halt, and with teachers, NHS staff and refuse collectors threatening to follow suit, that is not a surprising stance from No 10 as the UK faces a 1970s-style summer of discontent. But it is a contradictory one.

PM doing his best impression of Orthrus

As when Chancellor Rishi Sunak stands at the despatch box, announcing yet more freebies while insisting he’s all for “fiscal discipline”, Mr Johnson appears to be doing his best impression of Orthrus, the two-headed serpent-tailed dog from Greek mythology.

One head is promising the British public “a high wage economy” while the other is telling workers not to ask for too much money.

Only on Monday, Mr Johnson declared: “Too high demands on pay will make it incredibly difficult to bring to an end the current challenges facing families around the world with rising costs of living.”

Yet Downing Street has struggled to explain how it would not be inflationary to allow pensions and benefits to rise in line with prices.

Surely if it applies to workers’ wages, then it applies to non-workers’ wages too?

Apparently at Cabinet on Tuesday, “The Prime Minister, Chancellor and Chief Secretary to the Treasury led a discussion on the importance of fiscal discipline” while announcing the inflation-busting rises.

Little wonder, then, that one Whitehall source described the fiscally-disciplined-tax-and-spend plan as “bonkers”, while it was left to David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, to remind the Government that it might want to encourage growth in the private sector to promote higher productivity.

With nothing whatsoever in the Spring Statement for small, medium-sized or even large businesses, that sector appears to have been all but forgotten in No 10’s quest to help everyone but the people who pay their wages.

Is this how the great Tory dream of electoral realignment ends? With a dorky guy in a blue tie walking through a cartoon door in the centre of a Devon market town to symbolise Boris Johnson’s departure? Don’t laugh. These jokers could be in government soon.

That’s how it’s looking, at any rate. Unless something significant changes in the next two years, we should expect Sir Keir Starmer in No10 at the head of a so-called “progressive” coalition , alongside the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party. A second Scottish referendum would no doubt be the price of power, but we shouldn’t expect Sir Keir to baulk at it.

Don’t tell me that Sir Keir is boring or weak. How can he be weaker than a man who no longer commands the support of 40 per cent of his own MPs and has now lost one of his party’s safest seats? If we were to see a Tiverton-like swing away from the Conservatives at a General Election, the party would be left with just 83 seats.

What’s more, something happened this week that hasn’t happened in a decade: Labour gained a seat in a by-election . It’s hard to believe it has been that long, but then again you have to remember that the party spent half of that time with Jeremy Corbyn in charge.

This success is all the more striking when you sit down and really try to think of a single policy proposal put forwards by Labour in the last year or so.

There was the oil and gas windfall tax, for what it’s worth (only about £2 billion in the Labour design). There was its opposition to letting the temporary rise in universal credit expire. There was the party’s love of lockdown.

And there was the spectacle of two dozen Labour MPs making clear their support for train strikes by joining picket lines this week, in defiance of their leader.

But if you really want to know what Sir Keir stands for, you should read his 14,000-word pamphlet published by the Fabian Society – and tell me if you are any the wiser, because I certainly wasn’t.

In other words, this is not an opposition fizzing with new ideas and energy. Sir Keir is not an exciting, dynamic or even especially competent fellow. For Christ’s sake, this is a man who has admitted on national television that he doesn’t even know what sort of anatomy a woman is supposed to have (not a charge you can level at Boris).

But for all of that, most voters are looking at him and thinking that he looks like a better option than the current Prime Minister.

Some Conservatives seem to take comfort from the notion that, in Wakefield, where there was only a 10 per cent swing against them, there was no Labour surge. Instead, many Tory voters just didn’t show up – or voted for an independent.

This should be the opposite of comforting. It proves that the Conservative Party is now so repellent to voters that Labour doesn’t even need to put forwards an especially compelling alternative. All the party has to do is potter along as it has been.

This isn’t just a one-off, either. A few years ago, essays were being written about the death of moderate Leftist parties across the democratic world and speculating on the idea that it was impossible to knit together an electoral coalition of the working class and posh, urban progressives. The Right was supposedly onto a winning formula in its patriotic alliance of the conservative working classes and the wealthy suburbanites against the gender-obsessed, identity politicians of the clueless Left.

Then Joe Biden won in America and Olaf Scholz won in Germany. The pandemic and the ensuing economic mayhem it unleashed is a pretty fierce electoral opponent, even if the social democratic party waiting in the wings isn’t.

The problem the Conservatives have is that even the supposedly popular actions they are taking are simply being discounted. They are handing out £37 billion for heating, are they? Well, so they should – after all, they paid everyone more than that during the pandemic through the furlough scheme.

The party could try explaining that things are different now, with inflation spiralling, but then they have to explain why it is that they keep saying that more public largesse is impossible – and then buckling under pressure and finding it is possible after all.

They would have to explain how it is that when they talk about rail workers’ and teachers’ wages, inflation is but a temporary hitch, soon to abate, but when they’re talking about tax rises, handouts and interest rates, it’s a dire threat that requires us to be prudent with the public purse.

Tory optimists argue that it’s just a question of holding tight and riding out the inflation shock, then sweeping in with some tax cuts before the general election. This is a bit like trying to thread a needle while riding a surf board – you could get lucky, but you probably won’t. Even if inflation comes down, prices won’t. We will be stuck paying much higher heating and shopping bills than we were before.

And the likelihood is that inflation won’t come down until interest rates go much higher , which will send a ripple of economic pain and bankruptcies through the economy.

That’s before we even get to the question of leadership. Voters are tired of Boris Johnson’s excuses, tired of his jokes and tired of his promises.

It looks like he might try to regain a bit of his old pizzazz by facing down the unions. It would, as it happens, be the right thing to do to help keep a lid on inflation and limit the economic fallout from the pandemic.

But winning that sort of battle requires moral authority, which the Tories are sorely lacking.

No wonder the Prime Minister is already losing the battle for public opinion with the RMT union’s Mick Lynch .

With this week’s by-elections, the Conservatives have been given another warning – one that they will again choose to ignore. They are sticking with an unrecoverable Government, waiting for something, anything, to turn up.

Prepare to be unimpressed as they unleash a blitz of new catchphrases and policies to “change the narrative” and “relaunch” Mr Johnson’s bandwagon in the next week.

It will be the third time – or perhaps the fourth. It won’t change anything.