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The Bank of England warned of a ‘material risk’ to financial stability as it stepped in to buy a wider range of gilts. But markets got the jitters again when Andrew Bailey, its governor, announced to pension funds: ‘You’ve got three days left.’ Kwasi Kwarteng, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, would present his ‘fiscal statement’ to parliament on 31 October, Halloween, not 23 November as originally planned. The Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank said that under current plans, public spending would need to be cut by £60 billion a year by 2026-27 to put the economy on a safe footing. GDP shrank by 0.3 per cent in August. British Cycling announced an eight-year sponsorship deal with the oil company Shell.

King Charles and Queen Camilla are to be crowned at Westminster Abbey on Saturday 6 May. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, bade farewell to his chief of staff, Sam White, and said the party was on an election footing. Conor Burns, who was sacked as a trade minister and had the Conservative whip withdrawn after allegedly touching a man’s thigh in a Conservative party conference hotel bar, said that the action against him offended natural justice. Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the Scottish National party, said during its conference: ‘I detest the Tories and everything they stand for.’ The Supreme Court considered whether Holyrood could set up a Scottish independence referendum without the agreement of Westminster. The Ministry of Defence said it had detected 1,065 migrants crossing the Channel in small craft on Sunday, bringing the total for the year to 34,672. Dame Angela Lansbury, the actress, died aged 96. Clocks with hands were being replaced by some schools with digital clocks because GCSE candidates could not otherwise tell the time.

Unemployment fell to 3.5 per cent in the three months to August, according to the Office for National Statistics, but the number economically inactive because of long-term sickness hit a record high of nearly 2.5 million. Nurses voted on whether to strike. In England, the number of people testing positive for Covid rose to one in 50 by 24 September (from one in 65 a week earlier) and in Scotland remained at one in 45, according to the ONS. Larry the Downing Street cat chased away a fox.

Abroad

An explosion on the only bridge from Russia to Crimea left railway fuel wagons burning and brought down one carriageway of the road crossing, closing it to heavy vehicles. The attack was recognised to be of strategic and symbolic importance. Russia then struck cities across Ukraine, including Kyiv and Lviv (which suffered 15 hits), with 83 missiles, some fired from the Black Sea and the Caspian, 43 of which were said to have been shot down. Power cuts followed. Further strikes came the next day. ‘Leaving such a crime without a response is just impossible,’ President Vladimir Putin of Russia said of the explosion on the Crimean bridge. Russia had in previous days repeatedly attacked the city of Zaporizhzhia with rockets. Leaders of the G7 met by video link with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and declared: ‘We will continue to provide financial, humanitarian, military, diplomatic and legal support and will stand firmly with Ukraine for as long as it takes.’

Protests across Iran continued, focusing on compulsory headscarves for women. Switzerland discriminates against men in its rules on pension benefits, the European Court of Human Rights found. The Nobel Peace Prize was shared by three recipients: Ales Bialiatski, a Belarusian human rights activist, being held in prison without trial; the Ukrainian Centre for Civil Liberties; and the Russian human rights organisation Memorial, which was shut down by the authorities this year. Haiti asked for foreign military support to control gangs that have blocked the country’s main fuel terminal at Varreux since last month.

Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, declared a state of emergency over the ‘crisis’ of an influx of more than 17,000 migrants from the southern border since April. A former police officer, Panya Kamrab, rampaged through the town of Uthai Sawan in Thailand armed with a gun and a knife, killing 37, mostly children. At least 69 deaths of children in the Gambia were linked to cough mixture made by an Indian company, Maiden Pharmaceuticals. An explosion killed ten people at a petrol station at Creeslough, Co. Donegal. Mahathir Mohamad, twice prime minister of Malaysia, is to stand for parliament at the age of 97.