Top story: Labour leader ‘instinctively hostile to Jews’
Hello. I’m Martin Farrer and these are the top stories from the Guardian this Monday morning.
Jeremy Corbyn has apologised for “pockets of antisemitism” in the Labour party as he attempts to shut down renewed claims of slurs and discrimination against Jewish people in the party. The accusations have dogged Corbyn’s leadership of the party and flared again at the weekend when he expressed regret for apparently showing support for the creator of an antisemitic mural in the East End of London six years ago. But Jewish leaders piled the pressure on Corbyn by issuing a strongly worded open letter accusing him of “siding with antisemites” and being “ideologically fixed within a far-left worldview that is instinctively hostile to mainstream Jewish communities”. They also asked supporters to stage a show of solidarity outside parliament today as Labour MPs hold their weekly meeting. In his own statement on Sunday night, Corbyn said he was “sincerely sorry for the pain which has been caused” and said Labour was campaigning “to increase support and confidence among Jewish people in the UK”. Our columnist Matthew d’Ancona says Corbyn’s apology doesn’t go far enough.
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Data row engulfs Brexit campaign – Things aren’t much better for Theresa May, who faces growing pressure today to launch an investigation into what members of her cabinet and her staff knew about links between the controversial data company Cambridge Analytica and the pro-Brexit campaign. Pro-remain campaigners have written to the prime minister to demand an inquiry after a whistleblower told the Observer that Vote Leave channelled £625,000 through another campaign to a firm linked to Cambridge Analytica in a potential breach of electoral law. The allegations mean that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, the leading Brexiters in cabinet, will face pressure to reveal what they knew about the finances of Vote Leave. Meanwhile, May has also been criticised after Downing Street was accused of outing the whistleblower, Shahmir Sanni, as gay. Sanni said his family in Pakistan, where homosexuality is criminalised, may now be in danger.
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‘Leave Trump alone’ – Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who says she had sex with Donald Trump in 2006, claimed last night that she was threatened with physical violence after she first attempted to go public with the story. After arranging to sell the story of her alleged relationship with the future president, Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, says she was approached by a man in a car park in Las Vegas in 2011 who told her: “Leave Trump alone.” Daniels told CBS television that the man “leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, ‘That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.’” Daniels has gone public with her claims despite signing a non-disclosure agreement with Trump’s lawyer in return for $130,000 in hush money. She told CBS that she signed the agreement out of concern “for my family and their safety”. You can read the key excerpts here and analysis from our Washington reporter Ben Jacobs in which he concludes that the affair shows how far US politics has sunk.
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Double hit for north – The children’s commissioner has called on the government to put the needs of northern children at the heart of its “northern powerhouse” project after a report found youngsters faced a “double whammy” of familial disadvantage and poor institutional performance. The study also found that up to 15% of children in some areas of the north are dropping out of education and training before they are 18 despite new laws aimed at encouraging them to stay longer. It also revealed that many children, especially girls, felt they would benefit from regeneration projects in towns and cities that only produced a few “shiny buildings”.
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‘I see myself as British’ – Sarah O’Connor has lived in the UK for 51 years. She went to school here and has worked all her life, paying tax and national insurance, and married and had children here. But now she faces being deported to Jamaica, the country she left when she was six, because she doesn’t have the paperwork needed to obtain a British passport. It seems barely conceivable that it could happen but, as our reporter Amelia Gentleman explains, O’Connor is one of many people who arrived as children from Commonwealth countries in the 1960s and are now facing problems as a result of a hardline immigration policy known as “hostile environment”. “It’s so ridiculous,” she says.
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And Smith must go … Pressure is growing on the Australian cricket captain, Steve Smith, after he admitted tampering with the match ball in the third Test against South Africa. Jason Gillespie, the former Test bowler, joined the ranks of former players calling for Smith to be stripped of the captaincy, arguing that it was impossible to envisage a scenario in which he stays in the job. Smith has been banned by the ICC for the final match of the series, which Australia trails 2-1, and remains in South Africa where Cricket Australia is carrying out its own investigation into the affair. Meanwhile, British newspapers made hay at the humiliation of the Ashes-winning skipper, with the Mirror trumpeting “Clown Under” on its back page.
Lunchtime read: Why the 2000s was cinema’s greatest decade
Asked what was the best decade for film-making, many critics would no doubt plump for the 70s and point to the two Godfather films, Scorsese’s first films and the dawn of the Spielberg/Lucas hegemony. But that’s not what our film critic Peter Bradshaw has opted for, instead kicking off a series of essays about the best decades by nominating the 2000s. This was, he says, the decade when digital technology helped cinema to become reborn and gave us the Lord of the Rings trilogy, a golden age of animation (Shrek, The Incredibles et al) and the emergence of the Taiwanese director Ang Lee with his influential Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Throw in the brilliant run of films by the “great noughties auteur” Michael Haneke (Hidden, The White Ribbon among others), the Coen brothers classic No Country for Old Men and Paul Thomas Anderson’s masterly There Will Be Blood, and there is the case for the defence.
Sport
In another cricket match, England are hanging on in the first Test against New Zealand. The hosts require three more wickets to win after Ben Stokes lost his head and his wicket moments ago in the last over before tea. Follow our live blog here here. Manu Tuilagi’s hopes of making his England return on the summer tour of South Africa have been dealt a significant blow after he sustained the latest in a long line of injuries during Leicester’s nail-biting win against Wasps. Just when it seemed the 2018 edition of the Masters had been afforded sufficient pre-tournament storylines, enter Bubba Watson, who enjoyed a comfortable success at the WGC Match Play in Austin. Ronnie O’Sullivan fired another broadside at snooker’s “numpties” after coasting to a record-equalling fifth ranking title of the season at the Ladbrokes Players Championship.
Business
MPs investigating the collapse of Carillion says the company’s bosses were more interested in collecting more pay and bonuses than keeping the business on an even keel. Our columnist Polly Toynbee says it shows how the outsourcing industry is a busted flush.
Asian shares have had another tough overnight session over fears of a US-China trade war but there are signs that Washington is prepared to back down in some key areas. The FTSE100 is set to fall 0.4% at the open, while the pound was up to $1.416 and €1.145.
The papers
Cheating Australian cricketers dominate the back pages today, but on the fronts – as is customary on a Monday – it is a bit of a mixed bag.
The Guardian splashes on the equality watchdog warning companies that they will end up in court if they fail to report their gender pay gap.
The Mail’s headline is: “Don’t let vultures destroy a British colossus.” It is not a story about pigeons and Nelson’s Column but a hedge fund that wants to buy GKN, the firm that made Spitfires.
The Times leads on Jeremy Hunt calling the NHS budget “crazy” as he launches a 10-year spending deal and backs moves for a ringfenced tax. The Express also leads on the NHS with a story about the PM under pressure from Tories over health spending.
Theresa May also features on the front page of the Financial Times, which leads with: “May battles to keep Britain in EU’s 10bn Euro Galileo satellite programme.” The Telegraph, meanwhile, focuses on Labour: “Jewish leaders say Corbyn is ‘hostile’.”
Over at the red tops, the Sun leads with a crime story and the Mirror splashes on the story of a man who was paralysed in the Manchester bombing who has regained movement in his legs.
For more news: www.theguardian.com
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