Home Sir Keir Starmer met Giorgia Meloni, the Prime Minister of Italy, in Rome and said that sending funds to Tunisia and Libya ‘appears to have had quite a profound effect’ in cutting the number of migrants arriving in Italy. In the seven days to 16 September, 1,158 migrants arrived in England in small boats; eight drowned off France. Sir Keir made a late declaration of gifts from Lord Alli, a Labour donor, including clothes for Lady Starmer. David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, defended the practice, saying that prime ministers ‘do rely on donations, political donations, so they can look their best’. Sir Keir’s hair was observed to be greyer than before.
About 780,000 pensioners in England b and Wales are expected to lose their winter fuel allowance because they will not manage to apply for benefits they are entitled to, according to an estimate by the Department for Work and Pensions. Junior doctors in England belonging to the British Medical Association union accepted a 22 per cent pay rise over two years. Lord Darzi, the former Labour health minister who had produced a report on the healthcare of London in 2007, presented a damning report on the National Health Service, finding that although hospital staff numbers had increased since the pandemic, the numbers of appointments and procedures have not; that there was a serious lack of capital investment; and that long waits in A&E were likely to be causing an additional 14,000 deaths a year. The Prime Minister responded in a speech saying, ‘It’s reform
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or die,’ and declaring that the NHS would receive ‘no more money without reform’. Inflation remained at 2.2 per cent. The Guardian was in talks to sell the Observer to Tortoise Media. Norman Ackroyd, the etcher, died aged 86.
Huw Edwards, the former BBC newsreader, was given a suspended six-month jail sentence after pleading guilty to three charges of ‘making indecent photographs’ by receiving 41 illegal images mostly of children aged 13-15. The magistrate remarked: ‘You did not keep them and you did not send them on to anyone else.’ One of the beneficiaries of the government’s early release scheme was charged with sexual assault after an incident on the day of his release and recalled to prison pending trial. Glasgow agreed to host a reduced version of the Commonwealth Games in 2026, with the backing of the Scottish government.
Abroad President Vladimir Putin said that if western countries allowed Ukraine to use their long-range missiles to strike Russian territory: ‘This will mean that Nato countries, the USA and European states, are fighting with Russia.’ President Joe Biden and Sir Keir Starmer kept their counsel on the matter after a meeting in Washington. Russia revoked the accreditation of six British diplomats it accused of spying. Russia and Ukraine exchanged 206 prisoners of war. Fire affected the town of Toropets in Russia after a Ukrainian drone attack on an ammunition store.
Three thousand members of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah were wounded and at least nine killed when their hand-held pagers exploded. The Greek tanker Sounion, carrying a million barrels of crude oil and hit by Houthi missiles on 21 August, was towed to a safe area in the Red Sea without any spill. With 12 million people displaced, the World Health Organisation said, famine was widespread in Sudan, where since April 2023 there has been civil war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces; the United Arab Emirates denied supporting the RSF with money and guns. China decided to raise the statutory retirement age from 50 to 55 for women in blue-collar jobs, and from 55 to 58 for women in white-collar jobs; for men the increase will be from 60 to 63.
The American Secret Service spotted a rifle poking out of shrubbery at Donald Trump’s golf course while he was playing. They arrested a man, Ryan Routh, 58, who was charged federally with possession of a firearm as a convicted felon. ‘Both are against life, be it the one who kicks out migrants, or be it the one who kills babies,’ the Pope said when asked about the US elections. ‘You must choose the lesser evil.’ Tupperware filed for bankruptcy. The rapper Sean Diddy Combs, formerly Puff Daddy, aged 54, was charged with racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. Dominique Pelicot, aged 71, admitted in an Avignon court to drugging his wife and recruiting dozens of men to abuse her for more than ten years. Bangladesh enforced its ban on the export of the fish hilsa to India. CSH
21 2024 . . .
