PM candidate Johnson will demand EU talks free trade - campaign chairman

Political reporter(wp/reuters):::

Boris Johnson will make an offer to the European Union over post-Brexit free trade but if it rejects that gambit then Britain will leave the bloc without a deal on Oct. 31, the man in charge of his campaign to be prime minister said on Tuesday.

“With Boris, what he’s actually said clearly is: ‘We’re not going to go back and renegotiate’,” Johnson’s campaign chairman, Iain Duncan Smith, told Sky News.

“What we’re going to do is we will put a different offer down and say to them: ‘Look - we want to get to free trade. Now we can either start talking about that now if you are serious and you want to have a process that means we don’t end up ... with tariffs etcetera after the 31st - if that’s what you want, the EU, then we are prepared to talk,” Duncan Smith said.

“But if all you are interested in doing is saying: ‘All you can have is this deal’, then the answer is: we will be prepared to leave on the 31st.”

South Norwood Country Park assaults: Man held after six women attacked

Crime reporter(wp/bbc):::

A man has been arrested after six women were attacked over two months in a south London park.

The victims were attacked during the daytime in South Norwood Country Park, Croydon, between 3 May and 21 June.

Four of the women, aged from their early 30s to mid 60s, were sexually assaulted.

A man, whose age has not been released, remains in custody having been held on suspicion of sexual assault and robbery, police said.

About 80 people took part in a protest calling for more safety measures following the attacks.

Labour's Corbyn calls for investigation over report he is 'too frail' to be UK PM

Political reorter(wp/reuters):::

British opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn called on the head of the civil service to investigate a Times newspaper report which cited unidentified senior officials as saying they were concerned he was too frail to be prime minister.

“This matter has inevitably undermined confidence in the principle of civil service neutrality, which is integral to the healthy functioning of our democracy,” Corbyn wrote to Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill.

“I would urge you to ensure that there is a speedy and thorough independent investigation, rather than one carried out by the Cabinet Office,” Corbyn wrote.

The Times reported last month that senior civil servants have become increasingly concerned about Corbyn’s health and warned that he might be forced to stand down as Labour leader because he was not up to the job “physically or mentally”.

“The idea that civil servants should be briefing newspapers against an elected politician, against a prospective government is something that should be very concerning to a lot of people,” Corbyn said on July 1 of the story.

Corbyn, 70, has said he is “a very fit, a very healthy and very active person.”