Top story: Still letting and getting away with it
Hello, Warren Murray here to bump-start your Wednesday.
Rogue landlords banned by councils are continuing to operate, a Guardian/ITV investigation has revealed. Local authorities, meanwhile, have failed to make a single entry on to the central government’s new rogue landlord database in the six months since its launch.
Under existing laws, a landlord banned in one borough can continue operating in other boroughs. Or they can continue renting out homes in the borough where they are banned, so long as the lettings are managed by an approved third party. Here are some of England’s rogue landlords – we have taken an in-depth look at Bernard McGowan, whose reputed £30m business rolls on despite six Housing Act convictions since 2014. He hid in a toilet when approached for comment. Campaigners and housing researchers are calling for legal reforms including a “property MOT” in which all lettings need to have an annual standardised inspection by approved experts.
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Horror ride on escalator – One man had a foot severed and others were injured when an escalator accelerated to high speed before its steps collapsed at an underground station in Rome. Video showed people piling up at the bottom and scrambling to get off. Twenty people were injured, authorities said.
The accident happened at Repubblica station where Russian fans were streaming through for CSKA Moscow’s Champions League game against AS Roma at the Italian capital’s Olympic Stadium. Some reports suggested the escalator broke after singing and chanting fans started to jump up and down on it. Firefighters worked for around an hour to remove people trapped between the metal plates of the escalator’s steps
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Midweek catch-up – I can’t believe it’s another Wednesday already, can you?
> Police say they have identified the man who shouted racial abuse on a Ryanair flight. But they might not be able to take further action because the airline failed to kick him off and hand him over to authorities.
> An earth tremor of magnitude 0.4 prompted the temporary shutdown of the Cuadrilla fracking site in Lancashire. Fracking has only just resumed in the UK after being halted in 2011 because of earthquakes.
> Three Tory MPs have quit a committee chaired by the Speaker, John Bercow, citing a failure to tackle Westminster bullying. The House of Commons commission is to meet today to respond to an investigation by Dame Laura Cox.
> Steve Rose has reviewed Bohemian Rhapsody, the Queen biopic, and likes Rami Malek’s performance as Freddie Mercury but gives the film two out of five stars: “It honours Mercury the showman but never really gets to Mercury the person.”
> In technology news, Samuel Gibbs gives five stars to the Google Pixel 3 XL though it be a little on the large side. He also rounds up reviews of the iPhone XR and they mostly welcome this less expensive Apple offering.
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Khashoggi ‘bad deal’ – Donald Trump has said for the first time that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, may have been involved in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. “He’s running things and so if anybody were going to be, it would be him,” the president told the Wall Street Journal. When they spoke Salman denied knowing about the plot and said it was planned at lower levels, Trump said. “I want to believe them [the denials]. I really want to believe them,” he told the WSJ. Earlier the president seemed to fixate on the operation that killed Khashoggi as being a “bad deal … They had a very bad original concept. It was carried out poorly and the cover-up was one of the worst in the history of cover-ups.” Twenty-one Saudis will have their US visas revoked or be made ineligible for US visas over the journalist’s killing, the state department has announced. The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has called for the “highest ranked” of those responsible to be brought to justice. “Pinning such a case on some security and intelligence members will not satisfy us or the international community,” Erdoğan said.
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May to front backbenchers – Theresa May will today plead with Conservative MPs for their support on Brexit after facing a stormy cabinet meeting that had to be extended because of vociferous debate over the Irish border “backstop” and its alternatives. Sources present at the meeting said some ministers demanded a time limit on keeping the UK inside EU trade and customs arrangements, while others said May should drop the time limit in order to reach agreement with Brussels. May is due to address her party’s 1922 Committee of backbenchers this evening.
Lunchtime read: ‘God will decide if we make it’
Despite Trump’s claims of criminals and “Middle Easterners” bent on swamping the border, the migrants heading north towards the US tell of lives made impossible by gangs, violence, poverty and corruption. David Agren reports from Mexico.
Sport
He may not have scored the winner but Cristiano Ronaldo has enjoyed a happy return to Old Trafford, providing the assist for Paulo Dybala’s winner to hand Juventus a 1-0 win over the Portuguese’s old club, Manchester United. Countryman José Mourinho bemoaned the gulf in class between his side and the “top teams” of Europe, on a night when Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City cruised to a 3-0 win away to Shakhtar Donetsk.
Fifa president Gianni Infantino appears set on a collision course with UEFA over his proposal of a rebooted annual club tournament, which the European governing body has dubbed as “cynical” and an act of “ruthless mercantilism”. Meanwhile, as Andy Bull writes, the International Olympic Committee is on a PR offensive to promote how increasingly cost-effective it is to host the Games, as fewer cities prepare to tender bids.
Business
Markets in Asia shrugged off losses in the US and Europe to move into mostly positive territory on Wednesday morning. They were also steady as Donald Trump unleashed again on the Fed chairman, saying in a newspaper interview that Jerome Powell was threatening US growth by raising rates. The president said Powell, whom he appointed, seemed “happy” to be increasing borrowing costs.
The FTSE 100 took a battering on Tuesday but is set to bounce a healthy 0.5% this morning. The pound is still looking a little pale at $1.29 and €1.132.
The papers
The Guardian’s front page features our investigation into housing standards: “Revealed: Banned but still in business. How law fails to stop rogue landlords”. The Telegraph leads with news that a months-long investigation into a “leading businessman” about alleged sexual harassment and racial abuse of staff cannot be reported due to an injunction: “The British #MeToo scandal which cannot be revealed”.
The FT reports on “Plan for ships to bring emergency supplies in event of no-deal Brexit” and the Express is calling for the chancellor to announce tax cuts and more spending in next week’s budget: “Time to splash the cash”. Several papers feature a photograph of the Saudi crown prince shaking hands with Jamal Khashoggi’s son. The fallout from the journalist’s death leads on the Times – “Trump blames Saudis for ‘one of the worst cover-ups’” and the Mirror – “50 MPs take £300k Saudi freebies”. “Rubble and strife”, says the Sun, making light of a man allegedly blowing up his home while he and his ex-wife were inside. The Mail says we are “A nation gorging on fast food” and the i’s splash is “Natasha’s law on food allergies set to save lives”, about stricter food labelling after the death of a teenage girl who ate a Pret baguette.
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