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The number of drug deaths in Scotland fell to 1,051 in 2022, the lowest since 2017, but still the worst record per head in Europe. Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, who in March had pledged ‘to stop the boats once and for all’, said that ‘there is not one simple solution and it can’t be solved overnight’. On a sunny Monday, 661 migrants landed in Britain in 16 small boats; one man, on making landfall, made the Albanian eagle gesture popular among football supporters. England was defeated 1-0 by Spain in the final of the women’s football World Cup; the Spanish Prime Minister said that Spanish FA president Luis Rubiales kissing the forward Jenni Hermoso on the lips afterwards was an ‘unacceptable gesture’. Sir Michael Parkinson, the sports journalist and television interviewer, died aged 88.
Lucy Letby, a nurse, was given a life sentence without possibility of release on being found guilty after a ten-month trial of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six more at the Countess of Chester hospital. She did not appear in court for the sentencing or to hear the victim impact statements of her victims’ parents. Doctors who had asked for the nurse to be taken off duty and for the police to be called in had been told by hospital managers to apologise to her.
The government paid debt interest of £7.7 billion in July, the most ever for that month; but the shortfall between tax income and spending in July was £4.3 billion, less than general forecasts of about £5 billion. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, called on the Prime Minister somehow to make Nadine Dorries leave the House of Commons, even though it is not sitting: ‘I would say to Rishi Sunak, “Get a grip of this.
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