Home
Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said: ‘We are working on a viable plan for the Strait of Hormuz.’ Insisting that ‘it’s not our war, but it is our duty to protect British citizens’, he urged business leaders to help protect households from soaring prices. Brent crude sloshed up to $116 and back a little. From 1 April average household energy bills fell by the equivalent of £117 a year, until they go up in July. Some 12 million drivers mis-sold car finance agreements will receive compensation averaging £829. A 17‑year‑old boy admitted shoplifting goods worth £137,342 from branches of Boots and £2,415 from Holland & Barrett shops in London. A Tesco supermarket in Orkney gave away bananas after accidentally ordering 38,000 of them.
Dax Harkins was forced to resign as chief executive of National Savings & Investment after it was found to owe £476 million in payments to bereaved families. Ahmad Mulakhil, 23, an Afghan who abducted and raped a girl of 12 in Nuneaton four months after he came to Britain on a small boat, was sentenced to 16 years in prison. Seven people were injured when a car rammed into pedestrians in Derby; a man was arrested. Aberdeen City Council paid a contractor £7,349 to remove 100 saltires from lampposts last month after its own employees had faced verbal abuse when attempting the task last year. The Radio 2 presenter Scott Mills was sacked by the BBC over allegations relating to a ‘historic relationship’. Mary Rand, the Olympic athlete, died aged 86. The Duke of Norfolk will be able to keep his hereditary role as Earl Marshal, and Lord Carrington his as Lord Great Chamberlain, despite hereditary peers being ejected from the House of Lords.
Sir Keir Starmer said it was ‘a little bit far-fetched’ to believe that Morgan McSweeney, his former chief of staff, could have faked the theft of his phone. A question was whether messages on the phone might throw light on the appointment of Lord Mandelson as ambassador to Washington. The Metropolitan police had taken the unusual step of publishing a transcript of his 999 call, made on 20 October, to report that his work phone had been snatched in the street. Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, said: ‘I wonder what a director of public prosecutions would make of the defence: “Sorry, I can’t produce my WhatsApps, my phone’s been stolen.”’ Women bellringers rang 1,344 changes at Canterbury Cathedral to celebrate the enthronisation of the Most Revd Sarah Mullally as Archbishop.
Abroad
USS Tripoli and 3,500 sailors and marines arrived in the Middle East. President Donald Trump of America said he was extending the period during which he would refrain from attacking Iranian energy plants to two weeks (6 April), but said: ‘Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t.’ Iran continued to attack its neighbours. A Kuwaiti oil tanker was hit while docked in Dubai. Aluminium plants in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain were also hit. Nato forces shot down an Iranian ballistic missile over Turkey. A US Air Force E-3 Sentry early warning and control aircraft was destroyed in an Iranian strike on Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan airbase. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan held talks in Islamabad. Israel hit Iran’s Khondab heavy water complex near the city of Arak, which it had bombed last year. Israel continued to attack targets in Lebanon. Spain closed its airspace to American planes involved in attacks on Iran.
The Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen joined the war by firing missiles at Israel; they had their own strait to exploit: the Bab el-Mandeb across the Red Sea. The personal email account of Kash Patel, the director of the FBI, was hacked by a group linked to Iran. The Pope said God does not listen to the prayers of those whose ‘hands are full of blood’.
President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a deal during a visit to Saudi Arabia to share Ukraine’s drone defence expertise. For a second time in a week Ukraine hit the oil port facilities at Ust-Luga on the Baltic. Russia expelled a British diplomat over allegations of spying. President Mohamed Muizzu of the Maldives asserted his country’s sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, rejecting Britain’s agreement to hand them over to Mauritius. Twenty-two migrants who embarked from Libya died off Greece after six days in a dinghy; 26 survived. Balen Shah, 35, a former rapper, was sworn in as Prime Minister of Nepal; his predecessor, K.P. Sharma Oli, 74, was arrested. CSH
Comments