Home
In the contest for the leadership of the Conservative party, Jeremy Hunt and Nadhim Zahawi were the first of the eight contenders to be eliminated, followed by Suella Braverman, Tom Tugendhat and Kemi Badenoch. After two televised debates, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, the frontrunners, refused to take part in a third, which was cancelled. The debates were bitter and accompanied by negative briefings. Lord Frost said he had ‘grave reservations’ about Penny Mordaunt, and had ‘had to ask the PM to move her on’ when she was his junior during Brexit negotiations. After parliament rose for the summer two names were to be put before party members in a postal ballot. Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, removed the Conservative whip from Tobias Ellwood when he failed to support the government in a vote of confidence it called in itself, which it won by 349 to 238.
A temperature above 40°C was recorded in Britain for the first time; it reached 40.3°C at Coningsby in Lincolnshire. A number of houses burnt down at Wennington, on the Essex-London border. The Met Office had issued a ‘red extreme heat warning’, which it invented last year; schools closed early; hospitals cancelled appointments; the RSPCA warned snake-owners to be ‘extra vigilant’ lest their enlivened pets escape; Network Rail told passengers to travel only if necessary and the East and West Coast mainlines closed. Railway workers in the RMT union will strike on 27 July and 18 and 20 August. Train drivers belonging to Aslef agreed to strike on 30 July. Communication Workers Union members at BT are to strike on 29 July and 1 August. Royal Mail workers voted to go on strike. Another 330 migrants arriving in seven small boats in the Channel brought the total for the year to more than 15,000.
The annual rate of inflation rose to 9.4
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in