Top story: Election campaign snaps into action
Hello – it’s Warren Murray digesting the news for you this morning.
Jeremy Corbyn will today seek to make the election about anything but Brexit as he positions Labour outside the “cosy cartel” of British politics.
Corbyn will use a Westminster speech to rail against the establishment, rich bosses and big corporations that don’t pay their share – promising to represent “the nurse, the teacher, the small trader, the office worker” and “put the majority first”. No 10 meanwhile is promising a Tory campaign with a “unique feel” – heavy on “doorknocking and personal conversations”. May flew into the Bolton North East constituency last night by helicopter to rally an audience of party activists.
Labour is scrabbling to hold emergency selections for candidates as about 10 MPs retire, but Alan Travis argues that predictions of its death may be exaggerated.
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Meanwhile heavyweights from influential equine group Shire Horses for Brexit have hitched themselves to Theresa May’s electoral wagon … hang on a minute …
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But is it art? – Owners of luxury high-rise flats are going to court to stop patrons of the Tate Modern peering into their homes with binoculars and posting photos on social media. The viewing platform of the London gallery’s Switch House extension offers views straight into the glassy Neo Bankside tower. Homes have been turned into a “goldfish bowl”, residents argue in their complaint. The Tate says it can’t comment but the platform was on the plans when the extension was built.
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Buffoon in chief – He thought he’d just bombed Iraq but it was Syria. He thought his “armada” was headed to North Korea when it was going the other way. Hilarious if it wasn’t so serious, writes Richard Wolffe, who says the trappings, resources and responsibilities of office have done nothing to transform Donald Trump – he has simply morphed from “neophyte candidate into a neophyte president” who fires off Tomahawks instead of firing people on TV.
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With Bill gone, Sky’s the limit? – What could the downfall of a ranting demagogue from the US mean for Rupert Murdoch and Sky TV? Plenty, as presenter Bill O’Reilly’s career at Fox News collapses under the weight of sexual harassment allegations and associated payouts to women running into the millions.
Ofcom must decide whether 21st Century Fox and the Murdochs pass the “fit and proper” test to wholly own Sky. But critics say just getting rid of O’Reilly is far from enough.
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Fillon fights on – The candidate for Les Républicains in France’s presidential election may have managed to reboot his campaign after allegations he gave “fake jobs” to his wife and children. Jon Henley writes that François Fillon’s support is firming just as his chief rivals, Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron, start to flag ahead of first-round voting on Sunday. Overnight, Fillon told a cheering crowd in Lille: “We’re going to rewrite the scripts and make history.” Still on the French election, Scott Sayare examines how Front National leader Le Pen has cleverly played up to the media while accusing it of bias at the same time.
Lunchtime read: Why artificial intelligence is racist and sexist
A world run by robots might be seen as a blank slate for equality – but the prejudices of their creators come as pre-loaded software, writes Laurie Penny. We’ve had Tay, Microsoft’s chatbot that praised Hitler; and a Google image search that thought African American people were gorillas. “Machines learn language by gobbling up and digesting huge bodies of all the available writing that exists online.” Penny argues we need a way to stop the “weary bigotries of the past becoming written into the source code of the present” – not just for machines, but for people too.
Sport
There was no repeat miracle for Barcelona as Juventus knocked them out of the Champions League race, and likewise Leicester City’s joy ride has come to an end, leaving Stuart James to wonder what comes next. José Mourinho says Anthony Martial needs to shape up, while Liverpool aren’t so keen to ship out Emre Can as his contract enters its final 12 months. Cristiano Ronaldo was whistled at before scoring a hat-trick in Real Madrid’s Champions League victory over Bayern Munich on Tuesday, and Sid Lowe ponders why fans are so ungrateful for his greatness. Amy Lawrence assesses the pitfalls and pressures of the youth football circuit.
In rugby, Rob Kitson says a blend of Anglo-Saxon power and Celtic thunder will give the Lions an abrasive and battled-hardened edge as they face the All Blacks, while Andy Bull takes a look at some key issues that will define the Lions’ success or otherwise.
Serena Williams is pregnant with her first child; meanwhile Marina Hyde has turned her attention to one of Williams’ longtime opponents, Maria Sharapova, who is using the deep waters of euphemism to try and wash away the stain of her drugs ban.
Business
Asian markets were calmer overnight as investors tread warily ahead of a potentially market-shaking French presidential election on Sunday. Big guns in the FTSE could continue to suffer selling today as the higher pound eats into the profits of multinationals. Burberry has been hit harder than most, but slumping sales in the US and Hong Kong have also put pressure on shares as business reporter Sarah Butler explains.
The pound is down ever so slightly at $1.279 this morning, and buying €1.193.
The papers
The upcoming snap election is the lead story again in most cases.
The Mail has what it calls an exclusive look at Theresa May’s manifesto, saying she will put a “triple lock” on Brexit with pledges to end EU free movement as well as pulling out of the single market and the European court of justice.
The Mirror’s headline is “Fowl Play” as it shows a reporter dressed as a chicken outside Downing Street with a placard challenging the PM to accept a TV debate. The Times splashes on the prime minister making a concession on immigration: she is willing to take foreign students out of migrant targets.
The FT leads on the EU “systematically” shutting British companies out of new contracts and encouraging firms to decamp to the continent in advance of Brexit. The Sun splashes with “Terror drivers will be shot dead” and says police have been told to shoot to kill through the windscreen in cases like the Westminster attack.
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