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Sir Tony Blair, the former Labour prime minister, said in a 5,700-word essay: ‘The Labour party is playing with fire; or, more accurately, with its future, and that of the country.’ He said the party shouldn’t choose a new leader before deciding policy. In the first part of his government-commissioned report into economic inactivity by young people, Alan Milburn highlighted the 957,000 people aged between 16 and 24 who were not in work, training or education. Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, suspended import tariffs on chocolate and biscuits and gave away children’s tickets on buses during the month of August. She reduced VAT from 20 per cent to 5 per cent on children’s meals and zoo tickets from 25 June to 1 September. She also postponed a rise in petrol duty until the end of the year. The typical household energy bill will rise £209 in July to an annual £1,850. Public-sector borrowing in April hit £24.3 billion, the highest for the month since the Covid pandemic in 2020. BP removed its chairman, Albert Manifold, immediately over ‘governance standards, oversight and conduct’. Morrisons is planning to close 100 convenience stores.
Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the Scottish National party and the estranged husband of Nicola Sturgeon, the former first minister of Scotland, pleaded guilty to embezzling £400,310.65. Four men and a woman were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud, following claims that fake independent candidates were entered on the ballot for a ward in Tameside borough council in the local elections; Tameside is in the parliamentary constituency of Angela Rayner. Lord Hermer, the Attorney General, referred to the Court of Appeal the non-custodial sentencing of three teenage boys who raped two girls in separate attacks. Single-sex spaces such as lavatories must be used according to biological sex, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission said in new guidance approved by ministers.
