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Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, asked Lord Mandelson to step back as ambassador to Washington. This followed the publication of alarming emails of support Lord Mandelson had sent to Jeffrey Epstein after the financier’s conviction for sexual crimes. Questions remained about what Sir Keir knew and when before Lord Mandelson’s sacking and appointment. Some Labour MPs expressed frustration with the Prime Minister’s leadership. His director of political strategy, Paul Ovenden, resigned over a lewd joke about Diane Abbott he had relayed eight years ago. Some claimed Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester who has set up a soft-left group called Mainstream, was going to try to become prime minister if elected an MP again. The blades fell off a 250ft wind turbine in the grounds of the Aviva insurance company in Perth.
More than 110,000 people joined Tommy Robinson’s ‘Unite the Kingdom’ demonstration in Whitehall, according to police. Addressing the crowd by video, Elon Musk said: ‘There’s got to be a dissolution of parliament and a new vote held.’ At the end of Whitehall, 5,000 counter-protestors joined a ‘Stand Up To Racism’ rally. In the seven days to 15 September, 862 migrants arrived in England in small boats. The first deportation of a Channel migrant under the ‘one in, one out’ returns deal with France was stopped when the High Court allowed the Eritrean man more time to present evidence. Danny Kruger, the Tory MP and shadow work and pensions minister, defected to Reform. ‘The Conservatives are over,’ he said.
President Donald Trump of America paid another state visit to Britain. Britain and the United States agreed to reduce delays for companies building nuclear power stations in either country. Microsoft announced plans to invest £22 billion in artificial intelligence in Britain. The economy failed to grow in July and grew by only 0.2 per cent in the three months to the end of July. Inflation remained at 3.8 per cent. State pensions should rise by 4.7 per cent from April under the triple lock. John Lewis announced losses of £88 million. With unsold stock, Wedgwood paused operations at its ceramics factory in Barlaston, Staffordshire. Jaguar Land Rover kept its car production factories closed for a further week, following a cyber-attack. Sir Robert Worcester, the founder of Mori opinion polls, died aged 91. Ricky Hatton, the former boxer, died aged 46. The Duke of Sussex had tea with his father, the King, in their first meeting for 19 months. The King attended the funeral of the Duchess of Kent in Westminster Cathedral. Constance Marten, 38, and Mark Gordon, 51, were sentenced to 14 years for gross negligence manslaughter of their newborn daughter while on the run. The Grade I-listed Custom House by the Thames is to become a 179-room hotel.
Abroad
Charlie Kirk, who co-founded the conservative student organisation Turning Point USA at the age of 18 in 2012, was shot dead at an outdoor campus event in Utah; Tyler Robinson, 22, was arrested and charged. Donald Trump vowed to send National Guard troops to Memphis, Tennessee, to counter crime. The United States reached a ‘framework’ agreement with China on TikTok’s operations in America. Robert Redford, the film actor, died aged 89.
Mr Trump said he was ready to impose stricter sanctions on Russia if Nato countries stopped buying Russian oil. Ukraine struck Russia’s largest oil terminal at Primorsk on the Baltic in a drone attack. Romania said that a Russian drone had breached its airspace. Russia and Belarus held joint military drills. Japan counted 99,763 people who were aged 100 years old or more.
Israel launched a ground offensive in Gaza City, from which 250,000 were thought to have fled. Israel’s war in Gaza amounts to genocide, a UN commission of inquiry said. The final stage of La Vuelta bicycle race in Spain was abandoned after pro-Palestinian protestors invaded the course in Madrid. Syria suffered drought. More than two million people were evacuated from floods in the Punjab province of Pakistan. North Korea has been executing more people over the past decade for crimes such as watching foreign television, a UN report found. Jair Bolsonaro, former president of Brazil, was found guilty of attempting a coup when his term ended in 2022; he was sentenced to 27 years in jail. A large lorry loaded with fizzy drinks slid rear-end first into a sinkhole in Mexico City. CSH
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