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Axel Rudakubana, 18, pleaded guilty to the murder of three girls in a knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class at Southport on 29 July 2024, and to ten attempted murders as well as possessing al Qaeda literature and producing the poison ricin. He had been charged with murder on 31 July but police insisted then that the incident was not being treated as terror-related; the culprit was charged with two terrorism offences on 29 October. From 30 July, rioting had swept the country for a week. Now it was disclosed that the murderer had been referred three times to Prevent, the anti-terrorism programme, when he was 13 and 14. Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, gave a press conference. ‘Terrorism has changed,’ he said, with ‘acts of extreme violence perpetrated by loners, misfits, young men in their bedroom.’ He said the murders were an act of ‘extreme violence, clearly intended to terrorise’. He said that releasing information about Rudakubana earlier could have meant the trial collapsing. Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, announced a public inquiry. Lord Carlile, a former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said that the police should have disclosed after the murders that Rudakubana was not an immigrant.
The Home Secretary had five days earlier announced a three-month national ‘rapid audit’ of grooming gangs to be undertaken by Dame Louise Casey, in addition to five new local inquiries. Piers Corbyn, 77, was among nine people charged with public order offences after a pro-Palestine rally during which conditions were breached that had limited it to Whitehall; his brother Jeremy, 75, was interviewed by police. Sir Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, opposed a third runway at Heathrow, which Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, was accused of seeking. A new Chinese embassy at the historic Royal Mint Court near the Tower of London was supported by a joint letter from the Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary.
The Prime Minister visited Kyiv, saying: ‘We are with you not just today, for this year or the next – but for 100 years – long after this terrible war is over and Ukraine is free.’ Dame Joan Plowright, the actress and widow of Laurence Olivier, died aged 95. Denis Law, the footballer, died aged 84. The Revd Don Cupitt, the Cambridge theologian who espoused ‘Christian atheism’, died aged 90.
Abroad
Directly upon his inauguration as President of the United States, Donald Trump declared immigration to be a national emergency and promised to reinforce the border with Mexico. He ordered officials to deny citizenship to children of migrants in the US illegally or on temporary visas, though this seemed to be against the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. He designated drug cartels and international gangs to be foreign terrorist organisations. He withdrew from the Paris climate agreement and, in his inaugural address, declared that America would ‘drill, baby, drill’ for fossil fuels. He signed an executive order to withdraw from the World Health Organisation. He said that America would only recognise ‘two sexes, male and female’ and he halted ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ programmes within the federal government. He postponed by 75 days implementation of a law banning the Chinese-owned app TikTok. He pardoned more than 1,500 people arrested in the riot at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. ‘I was saved by God to make America great again,’ he said. During a speech celebrating the inauguration, Elon Musk gave a straight-armed salute, as popularised by the film Ben Hur (1907) and Mussolini.
A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect; on the first day three female hostages were released from Gaza and 90 Palestinians were freed from Israeli jails in return. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, was among several who resigned from the Israeli cabinet because of the agreement, which left unfulfilled the war aim of destroying Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Israel launched an operation in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, killing at least ten Palestinians.
Osama Najim, the head of Libya’s judicial police, was arrested in Turin on a warrant alleging war crimes. Rwanda-backed M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo took Minova, near the provincial capital, Goma. Fire engulfed a hotel in the Turkish ski resort of Bolu, killing at least 76 people. A sunfish deemed to be lonely when its aquarium in Japan was temporarily closed was comforted by cardboard cutouts of humans. CSH
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