Top story: Minister forced to resign over Israel meetings
Hello – it’s Warren Murray with the news you need to know.
Priti Patel’s exit from the cabinet over unsanctioned meetings with Israeli ministers, businesspeople and a senior lobbyist has rocked Theresa May’s government. It is the second cabinet resignation in a week after Michael Fallon’s departure amid the Westminster sexual harassment scandal.
A new international development secretary is expected to be announced today. Here are the letters Patel and the prime minister exchanged confirming the resignation.
Labour’s Tom Watson last night claimed he had been informed of a further meeting by Patel during her holiday in Israel with officials from the British consulate general in Jerusalem. It suggested the government knew about the situation, wrote Watson, in a letter to the prime minister that listed fresh questions about the official account of her behaviour and purpose of her visit.
* * *
‘Beyond terrific’ – Donald Trump’s much-feted visit to China is proving to be very much at the cost of human rights defenders and their families, who are being harassed by state security and kept under house arrest to conceal their harsh treatment under Xi Jinping’s rule. Speaking at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Trump has called on Xi to act “faster and more effectively” on halting North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme. Striking a slightly obsequious note, Trump said: “I know one thing about your president: if he works on it hard it will happen.” He gave the thorny issue of trade similar treatment, saying the relationship was “shockingly” unbalanced in China’s favour, but adding that he didn’t blame China: “Who can blame a country for taking advantage of another country for the benefit of its own citizens? I give China great credit.”
* * *
One for the bees – Britain will back moves to ban neonicotinoid pesticides that harm bees and other pollinating insects. Michael Gove, the environment secretary, today announces the reversal of the government’s stance based on new research. The European commission wants a total ban on the chemicals’ use outside of greenhouses. A vote is expected in December and the UK’s new position makes it very likely to pass. British farmers who use the pesticides have questioned the evidence about their overall harm but, writing in the Guardian today, Gove says Britain’s £100bn food industry is at stake: “While there is still uncertainty in the science, it is increasingly pointing in one direction … We cannot afford to put our pollinator populations at risk.”
* * *
New skin saves boy – In a piece of genetic engineering you can get behind unreservedly, scientists have fixed the faulty DNA in a dying boy’s skin – saving his life and letting him get back to school and football. The seven-year-old had lost almost his entire epidermis and was gravely ill from a genetic disease called junctional epidermolysis bullosa. His doctors in Germany collaborated with Italian scientists who took a sample of surviving skin cells, used an altered virus to replace the faulty gene with a normal one, and then grew sheets of the cells in a laboratory. He received near full-body grafts in two separate operations in 2015, and two years on is doing well.
* * *
No time for diplomacy – We’ll probably see a tweet soon enough about how they were all “failing”, “minor-league” or that “few people knew them” anyway – but the US is running out of senior diplomats. The top ranks have become dangerously thin since Donald Trump took office, according to Barbara Stephenson, head of the American Foreign Service Association. An official hiring freeze under the Trump administration, fewer promotions and a drop by half in the number of applicants are depleting the strength of US diplomacy. “The rapid loss of so many senior officers has a serious, immediate, and tangible effect on the capacity of the United States to shape world events,” Stephenson said.
* * *
Extra anchovies please – What is Britain’s problem with two portions of oily fish a week? We don’t eat enough fish full stop, and the health arguments behind the omega-3 and other oils that come from varieties like salmon and mackerel are pretty well supported. A pill is probably not good enough – it’s believed we need to get the oils in dietary form. So put aside thoughts of tinned salmon and bloater paste, and think instead about crab baps, spaghetti with chilli sardines and lemon, or deep-fried Cornish sprats, Felicity Cloake suggests.
Lunchtime read: Doing Gaddafi’s dirty work
How MI6 and the CIA helped Muammar Gaddafi round up his enemies, in return for the Libyan dictator’s WMD disarmament and post-9/11 cooperation, is forensically examined by Ian Cobain in today’s Guardian long read.
Hitherto-secret documents, Cobain writes, “offer a unique glimpse of a realpolitik that would be unimaginable had it not been detailed on one page after another. They show that, in their eagerness to get close to Gaddafi and influence the dictator’s future conduct, Britain’s intelligence agencies were prepared to commit serious human rights abuses on his behalf.”
Sport
David Moyes has warned the West Ham squad not to cry about how much he will make them run in training as the newly appointed manager declared he will no longer be “Mr Nice Guy” at a defiant first press conference.
England’s success at youth level has got Germany’s general manager, Oliver Bierhoff, worried that their famous academy will soon be outpaced by the players being developed at St George’s Park. In rugby, England winger Anthony Watson says the England squad might donate their match fees to their Samoan counterparts when they meet later in November, after the Pacific Island’s rugby union was declared bankrupt. England centre Manu Tuilagi has claimed his injury problems are over after a witch-doctor on the island of Upolu exorcised him of a curse caused by three evil spirits.
Business
The Saudi prince Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has sold his stake in Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox, depriving the media baron of a key ally and potentially opening his empire up to hostile bidders.
Asian stock markets were buoyant once again, spurred on by yet another record-breaking session on Wall Street. The Nikkei in Tokyo rose 1.4% to a 25-year high while the ASX200 in Sydney was up 0.4% to its highest since January 2008. The FTSE100 is set to drop 0.2% at the open. The pound traded at $1.313 and €1.131 overnight.
The papers
The front pages are all about Priti Patel this morning, but with surprisingly few punning headlines. Both the Daily Mirror and Metro opt for “Priti Shambolic”, while the Guardian goes for alliteration, with Priti Patel and the Paradise Papers – the latest revelations show Oxbridge has invested millions offshore.
The Daily Mail leads on criticism levelled at Labour’s handling of the allegations against Carl Sargeant, but also sees Patel’s smiling departure as a warning to Theresa May. The Telegraph (“Another day, another crisis”), the Times and the Scotsman all dwell on the implications for a not so strong and stable government. The Financial Times also wonders about that, but leads on the potential sale of news channel CNN.
Elsewhere the Sun is happy for a group of NHS kitchen workers who’ve scooped £25m on the lottery, and the Express reckons blueberries might fix arthritis.
Sign up
If you would like to receive the Guardian Morning Briefing by email, bright and early every weekday, sign up here.
