Portrait of the week: Ukraine talks, inflation rises and a new house for the Prince and Princess of Wales
Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, joined President Volodymyr Zelensky and the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Finland, the EU and Nato in a visit to Washington three days after the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska. On his return he chaired a virtual meeting of a 'coalition of the willing' to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine. Asylum seekers were to be removed from the Bell Hotel, Epping, Essex, after the High Court granted an injunction sought by Epping Forest district council against their being housed there. The ten councils controlled by Reform would try to emulate Epping. The number of migrants arriving in England in small boats in the seven days to 18 August was 968. Ricky Jones, 58, a councillor suspended by the Labour party, who, speaking to a crowd in Walthamstow last year, said of 'disgusting Nazi fascists' that 'We need to cut all their throats and get rid of them all', was found not guilty of encouraging violent disorder by a jury.
Hashem Abedi, who was jailed for a minimum of 55 years in 2020 for helping to plan the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017, was charged with attempting to murder three prison officers at Frankland prison. The pressure group For Women Scotland lodged an action at the Court of Session, claiming rules on transgender pupils in schools and transgender people in custody are 'in clear breach' of a Supreme Court judgment in April. A Labour MP, Afzal Khan, resigned as Britain's trade envoy to Turkey after a visit to the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Terence Stamp, the glamorous 1960s film star, died aged 87.
Inflation rose from 3.6 to 3.8 per cent. Gilt yields, reflecting the cost of government borrowing, rose above the peak reached during Liz Truss's financial difficulties. GDP rose by 0.3 per cent in the second quarter, compared with 0.7 per cent in the first. The average two-year mortgage rate fell below 5 per cent for the first time since September 2022. Britain's largest bioethanol plant, in Hull, began closing down, following the removal in May of a 19 per cent tariff on ethanol imported from America. Britain's biggest power generator, German company RWE, blamed weak winds for a £1.8 billion fall in profits. The chain of 46 Soho House clubs was bought for £2 billion. The Met Police will axe 40 of its 93 horses to save money. No horses will run at race meetings on 10 September in protest at a proposed rise in betting tax. A-level grades were again the highest ever, with 28.3 per cent being A* or A. The Prince and Princess of Wales will move from Adelaide Cottage into the eight-bedroom Forest Lodge in Windsor Great Park.
Abroad
President Donald Trump of the United States and President Vladimir Putin of Russia met for three hours in Alaska without reaching an agreement on the war in Ukraine. Mr Putin had been greeted with a red carpet and a lift in the American presidential car. At the end of their meeting, Mr Putin said in English: 'Next time in Moscow.' Mr Trump had promised 'severe consequences' if Russia did not move towards a ceasefire, but after the meeting he said that the 'best way' was to go 'directly to a peace agreement'. He said that Ukraine could not reclaim Crimea or join Nato. But he added that Mr Putin had agreed that Russia would accept security guarantees for Ukraine; no American troops would set foot in Ukraine. At the Washington follow-up meeting, Mr Zelensky said that he and Mr Trump had had a 'very good conversation'. The plan was for a trilateral meeting, then for a bilateral one between Mr Putin and Mr Zelensky. Territory remained an unsolved problem. Four people in New York City died from Legionnaires' disease, which was traced to 12 cooling towers where bacteria were growing.
Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Israel to call for an end to the Gaza war and an agreement to secure the release of the hostages held by Hamas. Tulsi Gabbard, the director of US national intelligence, said Britain had withdrawn its demand for access to global Apple users' data. Two boats carrying 90 migrants capsized off Lampedusa; 60 were rescued.
Hundreds were killed by floods in northern Pakistan. Aid agencies warned of starvation in Burma's Rakhine State, which is under a military blockade. The communist mayor of Noisy-le-Sec in France said he had cancelled a screening of Barbie to protect town hall officials from 'insistent threats' from young Muslim men who accused the film of 'promoting homosexuality'. CSH
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The Independent
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- The Independent
Irish leaders welcome clarity on EU-US trade deal and pharma tariffs cap of 15%
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The Independent
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What the UK's migration numbers really show
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The government has been repeatedly accused of failing to tackle immigration, with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage saying the 'public is right to be very angry' over the rise in asylum seekers being housed in hotels and shadow home secretary Chris Philp claiming ministers had 'lost control of our borders'. Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick has claimed that the country 'is well past breaking point', while Tory leader Kemi Badenoch questioned whether it would be possible to 'set up camps' for migrants, rather than housing them near local communities. While the number of asylum seekers housed in hotels is up eight per cent year-on-year, the numbers have been consistently falling since December last year. The number of people in hotels - 32,059 - is also significantly lower than the peak of over 56,000 under the Tory government in September 2023. Labour has also made progress on cutting the backlog of asylum claims and speeding up the number of deportations, with enforced returns up by 25 per cent and an increasing number of criminals deported in the year to June. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said on Thursday that the numbers showed Labour had 'strengthened Britain's visa and immigration controls, cut asylum costs, and sharply increased enforcement and returns'. The bad news: asylum claims and small boats at record levels The number of migrants being housed temporarily in hotels has risen by eight per cent to 32,059 in the year to June. This was up from 29,585 at the same point last year, when the Conservatives were in power, but down from 32,345 in March, and has been falling since last December. That figure is still far below the peak of 56,000 asylum seekers living in hotels in September 2023. Shadow home secretary Chris Philp slammed 'weak' ministers for there being 'more immigrants in hotels than at the time of the election'. But Labour has blamed the Tories, with Ms Cooper on Thursday saying the party 'inherited a broken immigration and asylum system that the previous government left in chaos'. The party has said it is committed to ending the use of asylum hotels by the end of this Parliament and had already reduced asylum costs by 11 per cent. Enver Solomon, chief executive of charity the Refugee Council, said that 'there's still far too many people in hotels', adding: "Everyone agrees that hotels are the wrong answer – they cost the taxpayer billions, trap people in limbo and are flashpoints in communities.' The rising numbers in hotels come as a record number of people – 111,084 – submitted claims for asylum in the year ending June 2025, the highest number for any 12 months since records began in 2001. Small boat migrants – numbers of which have topped 50,000 so far this year under Labour – accounted for 39 per cent of these claims, but many thousands of people also claimed asylum after travelling to the UK on legal visas. In the year 2025 so far, some 6,700 people have claimed asylum after coming to the UK to study, and 5,900 people after arriving for work. Most applicants were from Pakistan, accounting for 10.1 per cent, followed by claimants from Afghanistan and Iran. Labour has made progress on slashing the backlog, with the number of people awaiting a decision continuing to fall. The total number waiting was 70,532 in June this year, down from more than 90,000 at the end of 2024, after the former Tory government stopped processing applications while they waited to see if they could send people to Rwanda under their failed deportation scheme. The numbers waiting for more than 12 months for a decision are also falling significantly, although some 19,000 are still waiting. 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Earlier this year, the prime minister announced that specialist immigration enforcement teams were being sent into prisons to 'speed up the removal of prisoners who have no right to be in this country'. The latest figures are the highest number of criminals removed in years, but are still below the peak in 2016. Migrants and asylum-seekers coming from Albania, Romania, Brazil, and India are among the top nationalities being deported, figures show. But the top return destination for migrant removals is France, with 8,403 people sent there in the past year. The government's new one-in, one-out deal with France will allow a small number of migrants to be returned after crossing the Channel. But the numbers are small – understood to be around 50 people a week – and so far none are known to have been sent back.
Daily Mail
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