In the headlines
The new defence pact between the UK, US and Australia has “supremely cheesed off” the EU, says Politico’s Esther Webber. France has lost a $55bn contract to build Australia’s submarines and the EU’s new Indo-Pacific strategy has been upstaged. But China is apoplectic. Its state-run Global Times says Australians are “likely to be the first batch of western soldiers to waste their lives in the South China Sea”. Expensive PCR tests are to be scrapped for double-jabbed travellers returning to England, as part of today’s travel rule overhaul. Boris Johnson wants to reinstate imperial measurements. “Yes,” says the Financial Times’s Henry Mance on Twitter. “Can’t wait to be able to go to a pub and order a pint again.”