Top story: May hails show of resolve against Putin
Hello, it’s Warren Murray with today’s news from top to bottom.
A wave of expulsions of suspected Russian intelligence agents has taken place across the world as allies backed the UK over the Salisbury poisoning. Theresa May welcomed what she called “the largest collective expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in history” after more than 100 Russian diplomats alleged to be spies in western countries were told to return to Moscow. May has told the Commons that Yulia and Sergei Skripal’s critical condition is unlikely to change in the near future and they may never recover. More than 130 people might have been exposed to the novichok nerve against used against the Skripals, May said.
Australia has become the latest country to join the campaign, giving two Russian diplomats seven days to leave. In a moment of reckoning for the Kremlin, the US is throwing out 60 Russian officials including a dozen based at the UN and has ordered Moscow to close its west-coast consulate, in Seattle. Germany, France and Poland are each to expel four agents, Ukraine is to expel 13, while Canada is expelling four and will deny an application for three more diplomatic posts. Other countries joining in have included Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Estonia, Latvia, Croatia, Finland, Hungary, Sweden, Romania, Albania and Macedonia. Iceland has announced it will not send officials to the World Cup.
Our diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, says the Salisbury attack “may be the moment when the west collectively decided it was time to warn that Russia’s ‘disruption as usual’ had to come to an end”. New Zealand’s prime minister, meanwhile, announced that the government couldn’t find any Russian spies to expel, though it did summon the ambassador and make its “serious concern” known to Moscow.
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London has fallen – House prices have continued to drop in London, according to Hometrack. Values fell by 5% in almost half of postcodes in the capital, and by up to 8% in the central City of London – there were also falling values in suburban areas such as Harrow, Kingston upon Thames and Elmbridge. It seems well overdue: staggeringly, since 2009 there has been an 89% rise in property prices across London, putting home ownership out of reach for most. Still, in the capital as a whole, annual prices rose by £5,000 in January to take the value of a home to £486,000, while average house prices dropped in the north-east of England by £7,000 to stand at £123,000. Cities such as Edinburgh, Liverpool and Manchester have been registering house price growth in excess of 7% per year.
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‘We just want leadership’ – An antisemitism row continues to swirl around Jeremy Corbyn and Labour, with the party today accused of ignoring a complaint about the leader appearing to endorse antisemitic material. Rafael Behr writes that from antisemitism, to Russia, to Brexit, Labour centrists must be starting to feel that Corbyn’s version of the party is not for them. Might Corbyn’s behaviour precipitate a Labour split? The example of the Social Democratic party, founded 37 years ago this week, is telling, Behr writes. “It might be very hard to convert a Corbynised party into something else, but that doesn’t mean it would be any easier starting again from scratch.”
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Kim possible – North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, may have turned up in China for an “unannounced state visit”, according to reports. Hotels along the route of a North Korean train’s journey into China were closed to bookings to avoid scrutiny, while security was tightened in Beijing and a North Korean embassy car made its way to the Great Hall of the People where foreign dignitaries are often hosted. The intriguing development comes as Kim Jong-un tries to remodel himself in short order from nuclear rogue to international peacemaker. Kim is preparing to meet South Korea’s President Moon and, if all goes to plan, Donald Trump, which is why Beijing might have summoned him. “China won’t be at any of those meetings... so I think they feel they’ve got to get back in the game,” said one expert.
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So how does it taste? Nestle says it has cut the sugar in a chocolate bar by 30% by spraying it into warm air while mixed with milk and water. The “structured sugar” dissolves faster in the mouth, says the confectionery company, delivering a sweeter taste. Public Health England wants food makers to cut out 20% of sugar over the next two years. It will issue a report soon to show whether food manufacturers have made any progress. A sugary drinks levy comes in on 6 April.
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Can that fell to Earth – China’s broken Tiangong-1 space station is still falling from the sky, and there is still nothing you can do about it. There are even predictions it might come down on April Fool’s day. Science writer Michael Slezak traces the spacecraft’s doomed path and assesses the likelihood of it hitting and hurting anyone.
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One good intern – A former intern is starting legal action against the magazine publisher Monocle after her experience working there for £30 a day. Amalia Illgner says it was her dream to work at the chic monthly but the experience was soured when she filed a big story and realised that “everyone else … the fact-checker who was emailing me, the subeditor, the features editor, the photographer … was being paid to work on this story. I had taken home £150 for the week, and my byline had a monetary value of zero.” It is a story, she says, repeated all over the arts, media and politics in the UK where interns are churned through but end up receiving little or no money, and no job at the end. Illgner is pushing for all interns to be paid the national minimum wage.
Lunchtime read: Dash of Tabasco to save its home
The centuries-old home of the famed fiery condiment is under threat from the seas encroaching on Avery Island. The McIlhenny company of Tabasco fame has the money to do something about it – building levees, installing pumps, replanting wetlands. But, writes Oliver Milman, elsewhere along the coast of Louisiana a manmade calamity is unfolding at the rate of a football field of land lost to the water ever 100 minutes.
The lower reaches of the Mississippi river have been too aggressively channelled via levees and other barriers, while wetlands have been drained or cut apart for farming, logging and oil and gas drilling. The marshes are dying as a result and the land they hold together dissolving away. “We’ve had 300 years of bad decisions,” said David Muth of the National Wildlife Federation. Another land loss expert puts it more bluntly: “I hate to use the words ‘written off’, but those coastal communities are on their own.”
Sport
Australian players, including captain Steve Smith, and coaching staff were waiting to hear their fate as Cricket Australia chief James Sutherland landed in South Africa before the conclusion of an investigation into the ball tampering scandal that has rocked the sport. Never mind coaches or supremos, writes Matthew Engel – on a cricket field the captain is responsible and there is no easy way out now for Smith.
Eddie Jones’s training sessions are likely to come under scrutiny after a report published on Monday revealed that the severity of injuries sustained during England camps in his first full season in charge drastically rose. The European champions, Portugal, suffered a dramatic first-half collapse and had João Cancelo sent off just after the hour in an embarrassing 3-0 World Cup warm-up defeat by the Netherlands. And Zeke Upshaw, a player with the Detroit Pistons’ G-League affiliate The Grand Rapids Drive, has died two days after collapsing during a game.
Business
Asian shares have risen on news that the US and China might negotiate their way out of a trade war. It set off a rebound earlier on Wall Street, and Asian markets have followed suit with gains across major indices.
The pound traded at $1.423 and €1.143 overnight.
The papers
The expulsion of Russian diplomats by Britain’s allies in the wake of the Salisbury poisoning dominates the front pages today. The Guardian splashes on “Russian diplomats in US and Europe expelled as UK allies turn the screw”, while the Financial Times goes with “Washington takes lead as Britain’s allies expel 100 Russian diplomats.”
The Express has the same story under the headline “World unites against Putin”, while the Mirror has the short and sweet: “Putin the pariah”. The Telegraph leads on May’s claim that “We’ve crippled Russia’s spy web”.
Away from the fallout from the poisoning, the Times and the Mail lead on antisemitism in the Labour party. The Mail goes protests by the Jewish community, with the headline “Enough is enough, Mr Corbyn”, while the Times has: “Antisemites will destroy Labour, senior MPs warn”. The Sun has a story about a transgender man who has married a transgender woman.
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