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Although it had long been known that between 1999 and 2015 more than 700 sub-postmasters were convicted of false accounting, theft and fraud (based on the faulty Horizon computer accounting system software), the government suddenly proposed to do something about it because of a public outcry following an ITV drama, Mr Bates vs the Post Office. The Metropolitan Police was investigating the Post Office over fraud possibly arising from money being ‘recovered from sub-postmasters as a result of prosecutions or civil actions’. Paula Vennells, who held high office in the Post Office from 2007 to 2019, said she was handing back her CBE ‘with immediate effect’, although it is the King’s role to annul it; more than a million people had signed a petition calling for its revocation. Among the week’s stabbings a man was found, fatally wounded, at seven minutes to midnight at Strawberry Hill railway station.

A week-long strike on the London Underground was averted by the intervention of Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, with an offer of more money for the RMT union workers. Parents who refuse to allow their children to change gender would face up to seven years in jail under proposals by the SNP to ban ‘conversion therapy’. Student loans in England are expected to cost the government an extra £10 billion a year, because of higher interest rates, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The Wales and Lions rugby player J.P.R. Williams died aged 74.

Chris Skidmore, annoyed at government plans for annual oil and gas licensing rounds, left parliament on being appointed Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds in place of Nadine Dorries. Helen Harrison, the partner of the ex-Conservative MP Peter Bone, was selected as the Tory candidate in the Wellingborough by-election caused by his removal as an MP by a recall petition. The Green party aimed to field candidates in every seat in England and Wales at the general election, its co-leader Carla Denyer said. BT proposed converting its old green street cabinets into charging points for electric vehicles.

Abroad

An Israeli drone was reported to have killed the senior Hezbollah commander Wissam Tawil in southern Lebanon. The Israeli army said it had ‘completed the dismantling’ of Hamas’s command structure in the northern Gaza Strip; it said it had killed around 8,000 militants there. More than 22,000 people had been killed in Gaza since 7 October, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry. Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, flew again to the Middle East for talks with leaders of the UAE and Saudi Arabia and of Israel. He said that the daily toll of war on civilians in Gaza was far too high. ‘Palestinian civilians must be able to return home as soon as conditions allow,’ he said. ‘They cannot, they must not, be pressed to leave Gaza.’ He was speaking after remarks by Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said that Palestinians should leave Gaza and make way for Israeli settlers, and by Israel’s national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who hoped ‘to encourage the migration of Gaza residents’ as a ‘solution’ to the crisis.

Russia has been using ballistic missiles supplied by North Korea in its war on Ukraine, the US National Security Council said. Ukraine and Russia exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war; Ukraine said 230 prisoners had been freed from Russian captivity and 248 Russians were released by Ukraine in the exchange, mediated by the United Arab Emirates. American and British naval forces shot down 18 drones and three missiles fired in one day by Iranian-backed Houthis in the Red Sea. South Korean MPs voted to make illegal by 2027 the slaughter and sale of dogs for their meat.

The Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington DC heard a case to decide whether Donald Trump was immune from prosecution as president. An emergency exit door blew out, leaving a hole in the side of the fuselage of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 aeroplane at 16,300ft; it returned to Portland, Oregon and landed without loss of life. Regulators ordered safety checks and inspectors found ‘bolts that needed additional tightening’. A moon landing by a craft sent by a private American company, Astrobotic, had to be abandoned because of a fuel leak. Élisabeth Borne resigned as prime minister of France after less than two years and President Emmanuel Macron replaced her with Gabriel Attal, aged 34. Kim Jong-un, the ruler of North Korea, whose birthday is unknown, was suspected of turning 40. Franz Beckenbauer, the German footballer, died aged 78.     CSH