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Andy Burnham, the Prime Minister, began a tour of the United Kingdom, making small announcements. But on the matter of the early release of the killers of PC Andrew Harper, he said he was ‘increasingly confident’ that work to increase space in prisons would ‘prevent their early release altogether’. All 50 chief constables in the United Kingdom urged him to prevent it. Probation officers voted in favour of strike action over the early release scheme. Trains in the north-west of England were disrupted for two days after a 90-second power failure in Manchester affected a Network Rail operations centre and signalling. More regions were declared to be in drought, encompassing 45 million people, of whom 27 million are restricted in their use of water. In the seven days to 10 August, 911 migrants crossed the Channel, 230 of them in one dinghy. Asylum seekers were removed by police from properties in Thetford for their own safety after crowds attempted to storm their homes and a policewoman was bitten. Counter Terror Police investigating the murder of Ann Widdecombe reopened an inquiry into a firebombing incident in April 2025 at the home of Nigel Farage, which he said was ‘directly linked’ to the murder.
