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Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said that within 12 weeks asylum-seekers could be flown to Rwanda. This followed the passing of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill. Five out of 110 people in a small inflatable boat died near the French coast. A BBC correspondent had watched French police trying to stop migrants boarding the inflatable boat at Wimereux, but once they were aboard, police made no attempt to stop them. After refusing to be rescued, 58 people remained on the small boat and continued their journey to Britain, escorted by a French Navy ship. Some 200 migrants in all landed in Dover that day. Train drivers for different companies decided to go on strike on different days between 7 and 9 May.
Rishi Sunak went to Poland and promised £500 million in support for Ukraine in addition to the £2.5 billion allocated for this year; he also said that Britain would increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of national income by 2030. The FTSE 100 index reached a new record closing price. Government borrowing was £120.7 billion in the year to March, lower than a year earlier but £6.6 billion more than the government had forecast. Petrol rose above 150p a litre. The Metropolitan Police apologised to Gideon Falter, the chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, whom an officer had called ‘openly Jewish’ (since he was wearing a kippah) while preventing him stepping into the path of a pro-Palestinian demonstration in London. The apology noted the trend of ‘those opposed to the main protests appearing along the route’ although they ‘know that their presence is provocative’. After this apology was criticised, the police issued another one saying: ‘Being Jewish is not a provocation.’ Sir Andrew Davis, the conductor, died aged 80. Lord Field of Birkenhead, who as Frank Field accepted the challenge to ‘think the unthinkable’ on welfare reform under Tony Blair and was sacked, died aged 81.
An MP called Mark Menzies resigned from the Conservative party after having the whip suspended in the light of an incident last year, when, according to the Times, he was alleged to have telephoned a 78-year-old party worker at 3.15 a.m. asking her if she could supply £5,000 so that he might be released by ‘bad people’ who had locked him in a flat. In 2015 Mr Menzies denied having got a dog drunk. Huw Edwards, the news presenter, resigned from the BBC on medical advice. The Prince of Wales was made Great Master of the Order of the Bath; the Princess of Wales became a Companion of Honour; the Queen was made Grand Master of the Order of the British Empire.
Abroad
The US House of Representatives approved $60 billion in military assistance for Ukraine after months of delays. Ukraine said it had put out of action a Russian submarine-rescue ship berthed in Sevastopol, the Kommuna, launched in 1913 as the Volkhov. The trial of Donald Trump on 34 charges of falsifying business records progressed. The House of Representatives voted to ban TikTok unless the app’s owner cut its ties with China. The US Supreme Court was asked to rule on whether Grants Pass, Oregon, could impose ordinances against sleeping on public property or in city parks. Daniel Dennett, the assertive atheist Darwinist American philosopher, died aged 82.
Major General Aharon Haliva resigned as Israel’s military’s intelligence chief, taking responsibility for failures before the attack by Hamas on 7 October. Israel prepared to evacuate more than a million Palestinians from Rafah before a planned ground invasion to counter Hamas. US police made dozens of arrests at universities embroiled in protests against the war in Gaza. Iran downplayed an Israeli attack on targets in Isfahan and Tabriz (in response to Iran’s missile attack on Israel on 13 April). US officials said one target was Iran’s air defence radar system protecting the Natanz nuclear facility at Isfahan.
The UN Security Council heard that gang violence in Haiti had left three million children in a catastrophic position which was getting worse. The EU approved Emblaveo, marketed by Pfizer, to deal with drug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria. A Chinese-owned supermarket in Abuja was shut by the Nigerian authorities for allegedly permitting only ‘individuals of Chinese descent’ to enter. A Belgian man was found not guilty of a drink-driving charge after the court accepted that he had a condition in which his stomach produced alcohol. CSH
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