Portrait of the week: Israel tensions rise, inflation stalls and Australia votes No

Home

Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, spoke on the telephone with the rulers of Qatar and Saudi Arabia about Israel’s war against Hamas. The annual rate of inflation remained at 6.7 per cent. Wages in the period of June to August rose at an annual rate of 7.8 per cent. The United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority, which had blocked a previous bid, said its concerns had been addressed over a $69 billion takeover by Microsoft of Activision Blizzard; Microsoft will now control games such as Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush. A new set of coins reflecting the King’s interest in nature is being minted, with a dormouse on the 1p, a capercaillie on the 10p and bees on the £1.

Most popular

Andrew Watts

Does Cornwall have a pasty problem?

Prisons in England and Wales will be allowed to release ‘less serious offenders’ on probation early to relieve overcrowding, Alex Chalk, the Justice Secretary, said. Signals failed at Euston, stopping all trains for several hours. People were left hanging vertically for half an hour on the Rage rollercoaster at Southend, Essex.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards recommended suspending Peter Bone from the Commons for six weeks after a complaint of his exposing himself to a man working for him more than ten years ago and hitting him with a pencil. The MP was suspended from the Conservative party. Andrew Bridgen MP, formerly a Conservative, complained that the Conservative MP Crispin Blunt had hit him on the back of the head with his hand and said, ‘You’re a bastard’; this he denied. The Guardian sacked its cartoonist Steve Bell because it mistakenly thought his drawing of Benjamin Netanyahu referred to The Merchant of Venice rather than to a celebrated cartoon by David Levine of President Lyndon Johnson.