Top story: Corbyn speech to close upbeat Labour conference
Good morning. I’m Martin Farrer and welcome to the Guardian’s morning briefing, with all the day’s top stories.
It’s a big day for Jeremy Corbyn, who will close the Labour conference in Brighton with a speech claiming that the party is a “government in waiting” and that Theresa May has to either pull herself together or make way. Corbyn, who has presided over a positive conference marred only by rows over antisemitism and a growing business backlash, will say that the prime minister’s warring cabinet is damaging the chances of negotiating a good Brexit deal. Noting growing inequality and describing Grenfell Tower as a “tragic monument” to a degraded regime, Corbyn will proclaim Labour as the “common sense” party of British politics. “Yes, we didn’t do quite well enough and we remain in opposition for now,” his speech will say. “But we have become a government-in-waiting. And our message to the country could not be clearer: Labour is ready.”
As if to prove Corbyn’s point, Boris Johnson appeared to contradict the prime minister’s objective of a two-year transition after Brexit when he said he expected Britain would be able to manage its own borders and immigration immediately on leaving the EU in 2019.
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Trump trade war – Thousands of jobs could be at risk in Northern Ireland after the Trump administration imposed a 219% tariff on sale of Bombardier C-series jets made in Belfast to the US airline Delta. The US commerce department upheld a complaint from Boeing that the Canadian company had received unfair, anti-competitive subsidies from the Quebec government. Bombardier employs 4,000 people in east Belfast, with 1,000 tied to the C-series jet. Bombardier said that the move, which is subject a final ruling in February, was “absurd and divorced from the reality about the financing of multibillion-dollar aircraft programs”.
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Women take the wheel – At the weekend, Saudi women were allowed to attend the national stadium for the first time. Now they’ll be able to drive themselves there after King Salman issued a royal decree to overturn the kingdom’s notorious ban on women driving cars. “I think our leadership understands our society is ready,” the Saudi ambassador to the US told reporters in Washington on Tuesday. The reform is part of widespread changes to Saudi society described by a government minister as “cultural revolution disguised as economic reform”.
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A Strange defeat – Roy Moore, one of the most controversial figures in Republican politics, is on course to become a US senator after he defeated the Donald Trump-backed candidate Luther Strange in the Alabama Republican Senate primary. He is now favourite to win the Senate election in the conservative state in December. Moore has twice been removed as the state’s chief justice, once for refusing to remove a monument to the Ten Commandments that he installed in a courthouse and then for refusing to accept gay marriage. Moore’s win is an embarrassment for Trump who travelled to Alabama at the weekend to rally support for Strange.
Back in Washington, Trump has blamed every White House administration for the past 25 years for failing to solve the problem of North Korea. But, in characteristically bullish fashion, he has pledged to “fix the mess”.
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Lady Lucan dead – The wife of vanished peer Lord Lucan has died at her home in London, police said. The 80-year-old had been reported missing and police confirmed her body was found after they forced entry to the house in Westminster. Lord Lucan disappeared in 1974 after the couple’s nanny was found dead. Despite many reported sightings over the years, he was declared dead in 1999. Earlier this year Lady Lucan gave a TV interview in which she revealed her husband’s violent nature and how he beat with a cane to get the “mad ideas out of your head”.
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Traffic jam – A 47-year-old man who feared he may have cancer after a lump was discovered in his lung has been given the all-clear after the mass was discovered to be a toy Playmobil traffic cone he swallowed when he was a child. The man from Preston told doctors he remembered swallowing the item not long after receiving a Playmobil present on his seventh birthday. Doctors said it appeared to be the first case of a “tracheobronchial foreign body” being undiscovered for so long.
Lunchtime read: Migrant workers at risk in Qatar World Cup projects
Thousands of migrants working on building new stadiums and infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup in Qater are being subjected to potentially life-threatening extremes of heat, according to a new study of summer temperatures in the Gulf state. Human Rights Watch says hundreds of workers are dying but they claim that the Qatar authorities have refused to adequately investigate the deaths. HRW says the new analysis shows that the imposition of statutory midday breaks for workers meant they were still working too many hours at times of the day when it was still extremely hot and sunny.
Sport
With almost impeccable timing, Ben Stokes has seen his Ashes participation and position as the England Test vice-captain thrown into jeopardy after being arrested in Bristol in the early hours of Monday morning. Despite the incident, Stokes will today be named in the Ashes squad along with James Vince and Gary Ballance, who will both be recalled with Tom Westley cut. Mauricio Pochettino described Harry Kane as a “killer” in front of goal after watching him drag Tottenham Hotspur almost single-handedly to a 3-0 Champions League win at Apoel Nicosia. In Moscow, Liverpool were left to rue missed chances in a 1-1 draw with Spartak, while Kevin de Bruyne led Manchester City to a 2-0 defeat of Shakhtar Donetsk at Etihad Stadium. In rugby, the new chief executive of the RFU, Steve Brown, has admitted averting a possible player strike is among his most pressing priorities. And Tennessee Titans wide receiver Rishard Matthews has said he will continue to kneel for the national anthem until Donald Trump apologises for remarks made on Friday at an Alabama rally.
Business
The entrepreneur and inventor James Dyson has announced that his company is working on an electric car prototype that will be “radically different” to those already on the market. Dyson says his engineers have come up with a motor design but are working on battery types and a chassis.
The FTSE100 is set to open up very slightly after a mixed session in Asia where the US dollar continued its recent rise. The pound dropped to $1.343 and €1.139.
The papers
Many papers lead with stories from the Labour conference, though with unsurprisingly different emphasis. The Telegraph warns about “Corbyn’s ‘tax on robots’”, a reference to possible Labour plans to use revenue from tech firms to retrain redundant workers. The Guardian also has a warning but this is one from Corbyn himself to the Tories: “Shape up or ship out.” The Mail’s take, meanwhile is “Nastier and nastier”, citing the antisemitism row and anti-royal sentiment in Brighton.
The tabloids are united in marking the death of much-loved Coronation Street star Liz Dawn who played Vera Duckworth for more than 30 years. “Ta-ra chuck,” says the Sun, while the Mirror has “Ta-ra, Vera love ...”. The Star’s splash head is “The end of a Vera”.
Europe is the focus of the Times’ lead, which says “Britain faces soaring cost of Brussels pensions” alongside a picture of arrested England cricketer Ben Stokes. The FT leads with French president Emmanuel Macron’s calls for a new settlement in Brussels: “Macron calls for end to civil wars in radical pitch for stronger EU”.
For more news: www.theguardian.com
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