Top story: Falling short all over Westminster
Hello, it’s Warren Murray with your TGIF briefing.
An alleged lewd comment to the Commons leader, Andrea Leadsom, was one of the reasons Michael Fallon had to resign as defence secretary, it has emerged. Allies of Fallon have said he “fundamentally denies” making the comment about where Leadsom might put her hands to warm them up.
Leadsom is now in charge of cleaning up the Commons and has warned MPs it is appropriate for them to lose ministerial posts or the party whip, or for parliamentary staff to lose their jobs, in cases of sexual harassment. “I am setting the bar significantly below criminal activity. If people are made to feel uncomfortable, that is not correct.” Theresa May has faced a Tory outcry after rocketing her 41-year-old chief whip, Gavin Williamson, into the defence ministry. Some Conservative MPs openly criticised the decision to reward a key lieutenant with the senior post rather than carry out a broader reshuffle of her fractious cabinet.
On the Labour side, the Luton North MP Kelvin Hopkins has been suspended from the party while it investigates a claim of sexual advances towards a party activist. The Commons speaker, John Bercow, has written to the party leaders instructing them to provide their sexual harassment policies for publication. Bercow told the house he expected the parties to take as much responsibility as parliament for properly dealing with sexual misconduct complaints.
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Brady’s ashes dumped – The Moors murderer Ian Brady, who died in May, has been secretly cremated and buried at sea, it can now be revealed. A judge had Brady’s body incinerated without ceremony, then the ashes were put in a weighted urn and, at 2.30am on Thursday of last week, dropped overboard somewhere off Liverpool. Brady tortured and murdered five children in the 1960s along with Myra Hindley, who died in prison in 2002. Greater Manchester police have finished an audit of the case after Brady’s death and expressed regret after finding they had left jaw bone and hair samples of Brady victim Pauline Reade in storage at the University of Leeds. Her remains were found on Saddleworth Moor in 1987. The GMP said: “This is a deeply sensitive matter and understandably it has caused some upset with the family … we have given them a number of options, all of which GMP will pay for.”
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Interesting timing – The interest rate rise happened as expected, with the Bank of England lifting the cost of borrowing back up to 0.5%. But our financial editor, Nils Pratley asks: why now? “The UK is in the very odd position of cutting rates a year ago to deal with a Brexit whack that didn’t happen, but now raising rates when the Brexit risks to the economy feel more real and immediate.” We have a very user-friendly Q&A on what 0.25 percentage points more in interest means for home owners, buy-to-let borrowers and savers.
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Tweet serenity – What did you do with those 11 minutes when Donald Trump’s Twitter account stopped working? The social network did little to convince anyone when it said the @realDonaldTrump handle was “inadvertently deactivated … due to human error by a Twitter employee”. The twitterati cried FAKE NEWS! and soon enough it emerged the account had been taken offline by “a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee’s last day”. The company has promised a full internal review.
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Skirting the issue – “Is it really necessary for a young woman to question her gender identity in order to wear trousers?” School dress codes may be slowly adapting to the acceptance of different gender identities – but after 42 years of sex discrimination laws, why are schools still able to force girls who identify as girls to wear skirts? Barrister Anna Macey argues it is flat-out discrimination – trousers are warmer in winter, more practical on the way to and from school, and more modest when sitting down or playing. “It’s time every schoolgirl and her parents challenged sexist policies, and fought for the right of women of all ages to wear trousers.”
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Robbery under the high seas – We have a quite stunning immersive feature today on the plundering of second world war shipwrecks by undersea scrap metal merchants. Crews pretending to be fishermen have scavenged the waters around Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, desecrating the graves of thousands of British, American, Australian, Dutch and Japanese servicemen from the second world war.
The grave robbers may be targeting these older wrecks because they contain “low-background” metals – forged before the nuclear testing era, virtually free of radiation and therefore highly prized for some scientific, medical and space applications. It is a crime against history and the war dead, says maritime archaeologist James Hunter: “You may as well just go into a war cemetery and dig it up.”
Lunchtime read: Three degrees of devastation
Is the goal of limiting global warming to 2C slipping out of reach? With UN climate negotiators meeting for talks next week, latest projections warn the world is heading towards a 3.2C temperature rise by the year 2100.
If it came true, the Egyptian jewel of Alexandria, Brazil’s postcard city of Rio de Janeiro and the Japanese economic powerhouse of Osaka are among areas that would be flooded by rising seas. Much, much closer to home, Lincolnshire’s coast and farms would sink, changing the entire shape of eastern England forever. A special Guardian investigation has found that efforts to stop this happening are patchy at best, making the coming Bonn summit crucial.
Sport
As Joe Root puts the troubles of England’s buildup to the Ashes behind him and prepares for his first match as captain – at any level – overseas, he has called on his team to create a winning habit and be ruthless on their tour of Australia. Following the release of the match schedule, Eddie Jones has said the 2019 Rugby World Cup will differ from its predecessors and hopes his extensive local knowledge will assist his squad in the tournament. Another England coach, Gareth Southgate, has warned his players that nobody should feel safe about their positions after a day of extensive changes to his latest squad.
Patrice Evra brought back memories of Eric Cantona after being sent off for aiming a kick at a Marseille supporter before his side’s Europa League game at Vitória de Guimarães. Elsewhere, Arsenal progressed despite a goalless draw with Red Star Belgrade while Everton’s misery deepened as they crashed out following a heavy defeat in Lyon. And the mayor of Hamilton in New Zealand has called for calm ahead of the Rugby League World Cup game between Tonga and Samoa following a number of clashes between the two sets of fans this week.
Business
The Asian markets have been flat-ish this morning though stocks in Apple have been anything but. Reuters reports that Apple reached new heights (the company is now nearing $900bn in market capitalisation) after it forecast holiday sales would beat market expectations. The iPhone X is launching today.
The pound has been pummelled, falling against the dollar, euro and other major currencies despite yesterday’s interest rate rise. Overnight it was buying $1.30 and €1.12.
The papers
It’s another day of sex scandals on the front of most papers.
The Sun follows up on the Michael Fallon resignation saying that a comment he made to fellow cabinet minister Andrea Leadsom may have sealed his downfall. The Guardian highlights the reaction from fellow Tories to the “unbelievable, ludicrous, astonishing” appointment of the new defence secretary Gavin Williamson. The Times follows that theme with the headline “May under fire after key ally gets defence job”. The i has a similar headline and says there is despair in Tory ranks. The Telegraph says the PM is planning for a succession in Downing Street and the appointment of Williamson as defence secretary puts him firmly in the race.
The Mirror splashes with the news that police have “secretly” kept body parts of one of Moors murderer Ian Brady’s victims for the past 30 years. The FT stays with ... business. It predicts the decision of the Bank of England to raise interest rates is not the end of the story. Lastly the Express says there are 56,000 migrants “on the run” in the UK.
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