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Sir Tony Blair, the former Labour prime minister, said in a 5,700-word essay: ‘The Labour party is playing with fire; or, more accurately, with its future, and that of the country.’ He said the party shouldn’t choose a new leader before deciding policy. In the first part of his government-commissioned report into economic inactivity by young people, Alan Milburn highlighted the 957,000 people aged between 16 and 24 who were not in work, training or education. Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, suspended import tariffs on chocolate and biscuits and gave away children’s tickets on buses during the month of August. She reduced VAT from 20 per cent to 5 per cent on children’s meals and zoo tickets from 25 June to 1 September. She also postponed a rise in petrol duty until the end of the year. The typical household energy bill will rise £209 in July to an annual £1,850. Public-sector borrowing in April hit £24.3 billion, the highest for the month since the Covid pandemic in 2020. BP removed its chairman, Albert Manifold, immediately over ‘governance standards, oversight and conduct’. Morrisons is planning to close 100 convenience stores.
Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the Scottish National party and the estranged husband of Nicola Sturgeon, the former first minister of Scotland, pleaded guilty to embezzling £400,310.65. Four men and a woman were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud, following claims that fake independent candidates were entered on the ballot for a ward in Tameside borough council in the local elections; Tameside is in the parliamentary constituency of Angela Rayner. Lord Hermer, the Attorney General, referred to the Court of Appeal the non-custodial sentencing of three teenage boys who raped two girls in separate attacks. Single-sex spaces such as lavatories must be used according to biological sex, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission said in new guidance approved by ministers.
Temperatures of 34.8°C at Kew Gardens broke the record from 1944 for the hottest May day; this was then broken again with temperatures of 35.1°C the following day. About 500 houses in Kent and Sussex suffered interrupted water supplies from South East Water. Thousands of holidaymakers waited for more than four hours to get through French checks at Dover. After no crossings for 13 days, 989 migrants crossed the Channel in small boats over the bank holiday weekend. Judith Chalmers, the TV presenter, died aged 90.
Abroad
Brent crude fell below $100 as hopes rose for a peace agreement between America and Iran. But the United States launched new strikes on Iranian missile sites and boats attempting to place mines. Some access to the internet was restored in Iran. Israel launched a wave of strikes against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. President Donald Trump said that America would send an extra 5,000 troops to Poland a week after the cancellation of a planned deployment of 4,000 troops to the country. The US charged Cuba’s former president Raul Castro with murder over the downing of two planes in 1996. Tulsi Gabbard resigned as the US director of national intelligence. A man was killed after opening fire on secret service agents outside the White House.
Russia launched a wave of strikes against Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine; the attack followed one by Ukraine on Starobilsk in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine. A Turkish court declared invalid the election of Ozgur Ozel to the leadership of the main opposition, the Republican People’s party. Three Red Cross volunteers died in the Democratic Republic of Congo from suspected ebola, probably caught while dealing with dead bodies.
In his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo called for the ‘disarming’ of artificial intelligence ‘driven by the desire to secure geopolitical or commercial dominance’. About 1.5 million pilgrims began the annual Hajj to Mecca. Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, a jihadist group, tightened a fuel blockade of Bamako, the capital of Mali. A bomb derailed a military train in western Pakistan, killing 20; the Balochistan Liberation Army was blamed. A gas explosion at the Liushenyu coal mine killed at least 82 people in Shanxi Province, China. Alberta will hold a referendum on 19 October on whether the province should remain in Canada or move ahead with a second binding vote on independence. CSH
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