Home

Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister appointed David Cameron, prime minister 2010-16, as Foreign Secretary and sent him to the Lords for the purpose, though there was a delay before the peerage was gazetted. The Speaker of the Commons asked the government how the Foreign Office would be held ‘properly accountable to this House’. There were rumblings in Brexitward quarters. Richard Tice, the leader of the Reform party, said: ‘The champagne will be flowing in the Reform party headquarters tonight.’ Eluned Morgan, Lady Morgan of Ely, a Labour minister in the Welsh Senedd, apologised for saying: ‘What next? Thatcher’s hearse arriving at No. 10?’ The surprise was precipitated by the need to sack Suella Braverman as home secretary, although the post was offered a day before she published an article in the Times that had not been ‘fully cleared’ by Downing Street. She had written that ‘there is a perception that senior police officers play favourites when it comes to protestors’. Three days later, 300,000 people demanding a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas marched through London on Armistice Day in a protest that the Metropolitan Police said they had insufficient grounds to ban. Police arrested 100 right-wingers and held 150 breakaway protestors, some of whom had fired fireworks at police. Anti-Semitic chants and masking of faces were not generally pursued by police. After her sacking, Mrs Braverman wrote a 1,300-word letter to the Prime Minister, saying that he had ‘no personal mandate to be prime minister’, and had betrayed her and the nation; ‘I have become hoarse urging you to consider legislation to ban the hate marches’; ‘I must surely conclude now, you never had any intention of keeping your promises.’

James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, became Home Secretary and had to deal with a unanimous Supreme Court ruling that government plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda were unlawful. Thérèse Coffey was sacked as environment secretary and was replaced by Steve Barclay, the health secretary, who was replaced by Victoria Atkins, the financial secretary to the Treasury. Laura Trott became the chief secretary to the Treasury, and Esther McVey minister without portfolio. Nick Gibb, who said he had ‘been discussing taking up a diplomatic role after the general election’, resigned as schools minister.

The annual rate of inflation fell to 4.6 per cent, from 6.7 per cent the month before; this met a government pledge to halve inflation this year. Job vacancies fell by 58,000 to 957,000. Dame Alison Rose, who resigned as chief executive of the NatWest Group in July after she spoke about Nigel Farage’s bank account with Coutts (owned by NatWest), will receive her £2.4 million pay, but not share awards and bonuses of £7.6 million. Bristol city council asked the 400 residents of Barton House tower block to pack a bag and leave because of ‘a risk of building collapse’. The King paid £10 for a Big Issue on his 75th birthday.

Abroad

Fierce fighting continued in Gaza. Israel mounted a ‘targeted operation against Hamas’ by overrunning Al-Shifa hospital. Israel had said a Hamas military command centre was operating from tunnels beneath it, which the US said agreed with its intelligence. President Joe Biden had said: ‘My hope and expectation is that there will be less intrusive action relative to hospitals.’ To the families of hostages he said: ‘Hang in there, we’re coming.’ Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said more than 11,000 people had been killed there since the 7 October attack which killed 1,200 Israelis.

Russian state media published, then retracted, reports of a withdrawal of its forces from the left bank of the Dnipro river. An EU promise to Ukraine of a million artillery shells by March 2024 will not be met, according to Boris Pistorius, the German defence minister. President Xi Jinping flew to California for talks with President Biden. Hundreds joined a caravan of migrants from Latin America at the town of Huixtla, in southern Mexico, bound for the American border where more than 2.2 million have been detained in the past year. The Pope removed from the care of the diocese of Tyler, Texas, Bishop Joseph Strickland, who had opposed his reforms.

A volcano left a new island 300ft across half a mile off the Japanese island of Iwo Jima. Thousands of people were evacuated from Grindavik in Iceland where a volcanic eruption was expected.            CSH