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‘China is carrying out the biggest military build-up in peacetime history,’ warned James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, in his Mansion House speech, but said ‘no significant global problem’ could be ‘solved without China’. The government borrowed £139.2 billion last year, £13 billion less than expected, bringing public debt to 99.6 per cent of GDP. In an opinion poll by YouGov for the BBC’s Panorama, 58 per cent of the 4,592 people asked thought that the United Kingdom should continue to have a monarchy and 16 per cent did not know. The Prince of Wales (Prince William) was paid a ‘very large sum’ by the owners of the Sun to settle historical phone-hacking claims, according to a witness statement for a High Court hearing in which Prince Harry is suing News Group Newspapers. A national emergency alert test on 23 April failed to reach one in five compatible smartphones. As relentless rain continued, South West Water extended a hosepipe ban imposed last August.
An independent investigation by Adam Tolley KC found that some behaviour by Dominic Raab, the Justice Secretary, amounted to bullying (though ‘he did not swear’), so he resigned from the cabinet, but warned that: ‘In setting the threshold for bullying so low, this inquiry has set a dangerous precedent.’ He blamed activist civil servants and complained of ‘systematic leaking of skewed and fabricated claims to the media’. Alex Chalk, a Wykehamist and barrister, was made Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor; Oliver Dowden succeeded Dominic Raab as Deputy Prime Minister, a post with no salary. Prezzo is closing 46 loss-making branches, a third of the Italian restaurant chain.
The CBI said it had ‘tried to find resolution in sexual harassment cases when we should have removed those offenders from our business’; police are dealing with two complaints of rape. The group suspended its activities and many member organisations left. Diane Abbott MP had the Labour party whip removed after the Observer published a letter by her saying: ‘In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus’; they experienced prejudice, but not racism, she suggested. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said her letter was anti-Semitic. Indians became the second-highest proportion of migrants in small boats across the Channel: 675 this year, compared with 909 Afghans and only 29 Albanians.
Abroad
Britain airlifted diplomats and their families from Sudan, where warfare between two military factions continued, notably in Khartoum, where hundreds were killed. An operation began to help another 4,000 Britons leave, during an unreliable ceasefire. The first three flights took fewer than 300 Britons. More than 1,000 EU citizens had by then been airlifted out, mainly by the French and Germans. Some of the 125,000 Eritrean refugees in Sudan were forced back over the border to oppressive Eritrea. The Russian mercenary Wagner Group denied having men in Sudan; Russia had expected in 2017 to set up a naval base at Port Sudan on the Red Sea and secure gold-mining concessions.
Ukraine established positions on the eastern side of the Dnipro river near Kherson city, according to Russian military bloggers, so the Institute for the Study of War reported. Russia accidentally bombed Belgorod, in its own territory; two days later 3,000 had to be evacuated when an unexploded bomb was found. China’s ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, said in a television interview that ‘former Soviet countries don’t have an effective status under international law’, but a few days later the Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said China respected the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all countries. To counter the threat of China, Australia said it would establish ‘longer-range strike capability’. Barry Humphries, best known for his stage character Dame Edna Everage and for the Private Eye comic strip Barry McKenzie, with Nicholas Garland, died aged 89. President Joe Biden announced he would stand again for the presidency in 2024, two weeks before his 82nd birthday, with Vice-President Kamala Harris again his running mate. Fox News parted company with its popular presenter Tucker Carlson. Spain dug up the body of José Antonio Primo de Rivera (1903-36), founder of the Falange, from the Valle de los Caidos and reburied it in a Madrid cemetery. Credit Suisse revealed that before its rescue in March, it had suffered withdrawals of 61.2 billion Swiss francs (£55.2 billion). Harry Belafonte, who won fame with the ‘Banana Boat Song’ in 1956, died aged 96.
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