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The Metropolitan Police encouraged people to celebrate VJ Day despite reports in the Mail on Sunday (picked up from an investigation by Sky News) of plans by Islamic State commanders to blow up the Queen. The RMT union announced two more strikes on the London Underground for the last week in August. Network Rail was fined £2 million by the rail regulator for delays in 2014-15, many of them at London Bridge. A tanker carrying propane gas caught fire on the M56 motorway near Chester. England won the Ashes series after beating Australia by an innings and 78 runs at Trent Bridge; Australia had been bowled out for 60 before lunch on the first day.
Unemployment rose by 25,000 in the second quarter to 1.85 million. More than 300,000 households in Lancashire were told to boil drinking water after the parasite cryptosporidium was found. Dairy farmers complained about losing 14p on every litre of milk they produced; Morrisons launched a four-pint container at 102p from which an extra 23p would go back to farmers. A woman wearing a ‘distinctive cow-print onesie’ reportedly robbed a man at gunpoint in Belfast city centre. Police prevented an anti-internment parade from entering central Belfast, using water cannon against marchers, who threw petrol bombs and stones.
Labour debarred 1,200 people from voting for its next leader on the grounds that they supported other parties: 214 people from the Green party, 13 Tories, seven from Ukip, one from the BNP, and Ken Loach, the film director, a member of the Left Unity group. Jeremy Corbyn, the leading candidate, suggested that the party should consider securing for workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry through the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, saying: ‘I think we should talk about what the objectives of the party are, whether that’s restoring the Clause IV as it was originally written or it’s a different one.’
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