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Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, told the Commons that new applications for refugee family reunion visas would be suspended. She later said in a radio interview: ‘I have St George’s bunting. I also have Union Jack bunting.’ An injunction stopping the Bell Hotel, Epping, from housing asylum seekers was overturned by the Court of Appeal. Ahmad Mulakhil, 23, and Mohammad Kabir, 23, reported to be Afghan asylum seekers, pleaded not guilty to charges in connection with the rape of a 12-year-old girl in Nuneaton on 22 July. Only 56 migrants arrived in England in small boats in the seven days to 1 September. Tommy Robinson, the right-wing agitator, faced no further action after his arrest in connection with an assault at St Pancras on 28 July. Graham Linehan, the comedy writer, was arrested by five armed police at Heathrow in connection with some posts he wrote on X about men who identify as women. A Metropolitan Police special constable, James Bubb, 27, who says he is a woman and calls himself Gwyn Samuels, was found guilty of raping a girl aged 12. Joe Bugner, the boxer, died aged 75. Liverpool signed Alexander Isak for £125 million.
The cost of government borrowing reached its highest since 1998, adding to the Chancellor’s woes as she prepared for the Budget on 26 November. Gold hit a record high. The opposition played a merry game of guessing which of Angela Rayner’s three homes was her main residence and how much stamp duty and council tax she should pay. Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, remarked that she came from a ‘very humble background’. He decided to replace Nin Pandit with Dan York-Smith as his principal private secretary. He got rid of James Lyons, his director of communications, and gave Tony Blair’s former adviser Tim Allan a job. He appointed Darren Jones, until then chief secretary to the Treasury, as chief secretary to the Prime Minister, attending cabinet. He made Baroness Shafik his chief economic adviser, and focused on ‘delivery, delivery, delivery’. Zack Polanski, the ‘eco-populist’ candidate for the leadership of the Green party, won hands down. A Labour MSP, Colin Smyth, was barred from the Scottish parliament building after allegations he had put a camera in a lavatory there.
BAE Systems at Govan will build 13 anti-submarine type 26 frigates – eight British and five Norwegian – to operate jointly; the exports are worth £10 billion. Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Tories, said they would remove net-zero requirements on oil and gas companies in the North Sea. Children will be offered a chickenpox vaccine from January, at 12 and 18 months. Angela Mortimer, who beat Christine Truman for the Wimbledon ladies’ singles title in 1961, died aged 93. Names for storms in 2025-26 were announced, the 21st being Wubbo.
Abroad
A Russian air attack on Kyiv killed at least 23, including four children, and hit buildings housing the British Council and the EU delegation. Russia is believed to have jammed the satellite signal of a plane carrying Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, to Bulgaria. Xi Jinping, the ruler of China, and Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, met in Tianjin and claimed a deepening trust. Mr Modi held hands with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. Mr Xi and Mr Putin then cosied up in Beijing, joined by Kim Jong-un, the ruler of North Korea, at a giant weapons parade.
Tony Blair, the former prime minister, joined a White House meeting with President Donald Trump on plans for postwar Gaza. The Houthi rebels of Yemen confirmed that their Prime Minister, Ahmed Ghaleb Nasser al-Rahawi, was killed in an Israeli air strike. Norway’s wealth fund dumped its £1.8 billion holding in Caterpillar over Israel destroying Palestinian homes with bulldozers. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled 7-4 that most tariffs imposed by Mr Trump were ‘invalid’. Many said online that Mr Trump had died but he said he hadn’t. In Minneapolis two children were shot dead and many wounded at mass by an assailant called Robin, formerly Robert, Westman, 23, who died of a self-inflicted wound.
An earthquake in eastern Afghanistan killed hundreds. A dug-out canoe bound for the Canaries carrying 160 capsized off Mauritania; 17 were rescued. Thousands of Australians joined anti-immigration rallies. The South Australia government is to ban popular fish-shaped soy sauce containers. CSH
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