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Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, proposed reaching net zero in 2050 ‘in a better, more proportionate way’ such as by delaying a ban on the sales of new petrol and diesel cars and delaying the phasing out of gas boilers. Ford the car makers told him it would undermine the three things it needed from the government: ‘ambition, commitment and consistency’. Inflation decreased from 6.8 per cent annually in July to 6.7 per cent in August despite a rise in oil prices. Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, appointed commissioners to run Birmingham, which had run out of money. A man was killed by two dogs, said to be Bully XLs, in Staffordshire. Mr Sunak said he would ban the breed by the end of the year under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. Christine Middlemiss, the chief veterinary officer, said there would be an ‘amnesty’, saving the dogs from death, perhaps referring to exemptions under the Act. The Federation of Independent Retailers called on the government for help over shoplifting; the police refused to come if called. In the past year 100 officers in the Metropolitan Police had been sacked for gross misconduct; more than 1,000 were currently suspended or on restricted duties, the force said. The British Medical Association organised a strike by consultants for two days, overlapping with a strike by junior doctors for three.

The cost of housing migrants in hotels rose to £8 million a day, according to the Home Office, from nearly £7 million in March. People-smuggling gangs cut the price for crossing the Channel by small boat to £1,500 from £3,500. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, visited the Hague and suggested that when he was prime minister he would negotiate the return of migrants in small boats in exchange for Britain taking a quota of asylum-seekers from the EU. Sir Keir visited Paris as an hors d’oeuvre to the state visit by the King and Queen, and met President Emmanuel Macron, who gave him a pair of cufflinks. Sir Keir said he wanted a ‘much better deal for the UK’ in a review of post-Brexit trade with the EU. Avanti West Coast and CrossCountry were both awarded new contracts by the Department for Transport. The government stonewalled any inquiries on the future of the HS2 railway project.

A woman accused Russell Brand, the television presenter and comedian, of rape and three others accused him of sexual assault; he denied the accusations, which formed part of an investigation by the Sunday Times, the Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches. Tim Davie, the director-general of the BBC, ordered a review of any complaints against Brand, what was known, and what was done. Roger Whittaker, the singer-songwriter who had a hit in 1970 with ‘Durham Town’, despite placing the city on the river Tyne, died aged 87.

Abroad

More than 7,000 migrants arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa in two days, taking the number who have arrived in Italy this year to 130,000. Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, visited Lampedusa. France and Germany proposed a four-tier EU, perhaps with Britain as an associate member. The numbers killed by the flood that breached two dams at Derna in Libya remained uncertain: perhaps about 4,000 were dead and 10,000 missing. Protestors burnt down the house of the mayor of Derna. Li Shangfu, China’s defence minister, was not seen for a fortnight and the Wall Street Journal reported that he was being replaced.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine visited New York to address the General Assembly of the UN: ‘Russia is pushing the world to the final war,’ he said. In an attack on naval facilities in Sevastopol, Ukraine had ‘almost certainly’ functionally destroyed a large amphibious landing ship, the Minsk, and the submarine Rostov-on-Don, according to the British Ministry of Defence. The price of Brent crude rose above $95 a barrel as Saudi Arabia and Russia cut production.

Azerbaijan attacked the ethnically Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh and demanded surrender. Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada, told the House of Commons in Ottawa that there were credible links between India and the shooting dead of a Canadian Sikh leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in British Columbia in June. A Spanish investigating judge imposed a 200m limit on Luis Rubiales, the deposed president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, approaching Jenni Hermoso, the footballer player he kissed, pending resolution of a criminal complaint of sexual assault.        CSH