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Justin Welby resigned as Archbishop of Canterbury, after not reporting to the authorities what he knew in 2013 of the abuse perpetrated by John Smyth QC (who ran Christian summer camps in the 1970s and 1980s and died in 2018). An independent review by Keith Makin found last week that Smyth abused more than 100 young men and boys sexually and by beating. ‘When I was informed in 2013 and told that police had been notified, I believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow,’ Mr Welby said. Gary Lineker, who had presented Match of the Day since 1999, agreed to stand down at the end of the season.
Sue Gray turned down the job as the Prime Minister’s envoy to the nations; the mysterious role was said to be hers after she was dropped in October as his chief of staff. Sir Keir Starmer appointed Jonathan Powell, 68, Tony Blair’s old chief of staff, as his national security adviser. David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, said his description of Donald Trump as a ‘woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath’ was ‘old news’. At the Cop29 climate change summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, Sir Keir promised to reduce the United Kingdom’s emissions by 81 per cent of 1990 levels by 2035. In Holland, Shell won an appeal against a judgment requiring it to cut its carbon emissions by 45 per cent.
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill was published, sponsored by Kim Leadbeater, a Labour MP. June Spencer, who first played Peggy in The Archers in 1950, died aged 105. Frank Auerbach, the painter, died aged 93. The Bank of England cut interest rates from 5 per cent to 4.75 per cent. Unemployment rose to 4.3 per cent in the three months to September, from 4 per cent in the previous quarter. Pay in the three months to September grew at an annual rate of 4.8
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