Top story: ‘Shape up,’ says PM
Good morning everyone, Graham Russell here with what’s going on today.
Theresa May will use her keynote speech at the Tory party conference to demand an end to infighting over Brexit and for the party to shift its focus from the job security of senior Tories to that of ordinary people. “Let us do our duty by Britain. Let us shape up and give the country the government it needs,” she will say.
That task might prove difficult after Boris Johnson cranked up the gaffe machine once more, saying UK investors could turn war-torn Sirte in Libya into the next Dubai once authorities “clear the dead bodies away”. More calls for May to sack him followed and the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, called his comments “unbelievably crass, callous and cruel”. At least 12 cabinet colleagues – more than half of the cabinet – have expressed their frustration with Johnson during the conference.
May’s speech is likely to be policy-heavy, with a major council house building project in the works. The PM is reportedly set to present a more personal tone in an effort to shed her “Maybot” tag.
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Las Vegas footage released – Police have published body camera footage from Sunday’s massacre showing officers taking cover as gunfire rings out, injuring one officer. The detailed extent of killer Stephen Paddock’s planning is emerging too: police said he set up cameras inside and outside his hotel room, including one on a food service trolley. His girlfriend, Marilou Danley, has returned to America after being named a “person of interest” by police. Donald Trump, who visits Las Vegas on Wednesday, has said gun control will be discussed “as time goes by”.
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King runs rule over Catalonia – King Felipe of Spain has ignored the police crackdown that injured nearly 900 people at the weekend to instead berate Catalonia’s president for trying to break “the unity of Spain”. Following the 90% vote for independence in preliminary results, he described Catalan society as “fractured” and said the region could jeopardise its own economic and social stability as well as that of all Spain. It follows widespread strikes and protests across Barcelona.
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Kim Wall ‘had stab wounds’ – The Danish submarine inventor suspected of killing a journalist will be detained for another month after a Copenhagen court heard she had been stabbed 15 times. Suspect Peter Madsen’s computer also contained material featuring women being tortured and killed. Madsen says the journalist died when a 70kg hatch cover fell on her head.
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More problems at chicken factory – The company at the heart of a food hygiene scandal has admitted it has found “other areas of concern” at its West Bromwich chicken processing plant. Executives at 2 Sisters Food Group said on Tuesday the closure of the plant after food safety records were altered would cost it up to £500,000 a week, but that it would use the incident as a “wake-up call”.
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Basil faulty? – A dash of pesto in your bowl of pasta might be less healthy than you think after tests revealed the UK’s bestselling pesto brand was saltier than seawater. Sacla jars had more than double the recommended amount, with one product’s salt level increasing nearly a third since it was last analysed.
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Lunchtime read: Three days on a mountain with Tracey Emin
“The only time Tracey Emin actually joked about killing me was when we went swimming at Le Lavandou,” writes Jonathan Jones after spending three days with the artist at her French mountain hideaway. “By now we’d been talking for a couple of days and food was running short. She drove us to the town, where we got groceries from a shop whose owners are very slowly teaching her French. Then we went to the beach. As we swam out towards the luxury yachts, she said this was the plan all along: to lure me to France, get me out to sea and drown me in revenge for bad reviews I’d written.”
Sport
Arsenal’s majority shareholder, Stan Kroenke, has bid almost £525m to buy out Alisher Usmanov, the second-largest shareholder who has tried several times to wrest control of the club. Time will tell if this is a path to glory or a signal there is more trouble ahead. In rugby, Harlequins prop Kyle Sinckler is almost certain to miss England’s autumn international campaign after receiving a seven-week ban for eye-gouging Northampton’s Michael Paterson. Former British No2 Dan Evans has been banned from tennis for one year after claiming leftover cocaine in a washbag or trouser pocket had contaminated legitimate medicine.
Who are the best young talents in the Premier League? We’ve sorted the wheat from the chaff for you. And Vijay Mallya, the flamboyant multimillionaire co-owner of the Force India F1 team and self-proclaimed “King of the Good Times”, was arrested on Tuesday over allegations he supported his team with money-laundered cash.
Business
More woes for Yahoo after it admitted all its 3bn user accounts were affected by a 2013 data theft, tripling its earlier estimate of the largest breach in history. And the International Monetary Fund warned governments that rely on debt-fuelled consumer spending they face another financial crash within several years. Its study follows a series of warnings about rising levels of household debt in the UK.
The pound is buying $1.326 and €1.126.
The papers
Tory turmoil dominates the front pages in various forms, with most opting to look ahead to Theresa May’s speech today.
The Guardian goes with the PM’s call for party unity on Brexit with a sizeable picture story leading on Donald Trump saying gun laws will be discussed in the wake of the Las Vegas shooting (thought not any time soon, it appears).
The Times and Independent take a similar line, with the broadsheet adding a side story on social care minister Jackie Doyle-Price saying ethnic minorities communities are better at looking after their elderly.
The FT has “Cabinet tensions rise as ministers defy Johnson’s ‘red line’ on Brexit” while the Telegraph and Metro focus on Johnson’s speech. “The roaring lion,” says the Telegraph, reporting on how the foreign secretary invoked his hero Winston Churchill to urge the Tories to be bold in his speech (which May didn’t attend).
The Sun and Mirror carry haunting images from inside the Las Vegas killer’s hotel room, showing rifles, dozens of spent cartridges and a body.
The Daily Mail gives its front page to Royal Mail workers voting to strike over pay and conditions. “Posties’ threat to Christmas” is the headline.
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