announced a review of whether hatred
of men, old people and goths should be
added to the list. The Duchess of Sussex is
expecting a child in the spring, who will be
seventh in line to the throne.P
ay rose by an annual rate of 3.1 per
cent in the three months to August,
the highest rate in nine years. Inflation
fell back to 2.4 per cent from 2.7 per
cent. Unemployment fell by 47,000 to
1.36 million, remaining at 4 per cent.
The government decided to introduce
Universal Credit more slowly after much
criticism of injustices in its application.
Cuadrilla began fracking operations at
Little Plumpton, Lancashire, after a legal
challenge failed. A man appeared in court
charged with fraudulently claiming a
£2,525,485 lottery win in 2009. Clinical trials
proceeded on the effects on depression of
the horse anaesthetic and popular party
drug ketamine. The Ecuadorian embassy in
London, where Julian Assange has enjoyed
refuge since 2012, instructed him to attend
to the ‘wellbeing, food and hygiene’ of the
cat that shares his company.Abroad
M
ike Pompeo, the US Secretary of
State, met Saudi leaders in Riyadh
as Turkey and Saudi Arabia wrangled over
the disappearance of the Saudi journalist
Jamal Khashoggi, who Turkey said had
been murdered in the Saudi consulate in
Istanbul on 2 October. The United Nations
warned that 13 million people in Yemen
were facing starvation after three years
of civil war. The US military said it had
killed about 60 al-Shabab militants in anair strike in central Somalia. Paul Allen,
who co-founded Microsoft, died aged 65.
Sears, the US department store chain that
employs 90,000 people, filed for bankruptcy.
A food company in San Francisco that
grows chicken nuggets from chicken
feather cells plans to make them available
in restaurants before the year is out.T
he Russian Orthodox Church severed
its connections with the Ecumenical
Patriarchy of Constantinople over the
latter’s recognition of independence for the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church. MPs in the
former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia
debated the adoption of the name
North Macedonia after a referendum on
the question attracted only a third of the
electorate, too small a proportion to make
it valid. The Pope canonised Oscar Romero,
the Archbishop of San Salvador shot in
1980, and Pope Paul VI, author of the
encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968.N
ew laws in the western Chinese region
of Xinjiang prescribed detention in
‘vocational training centres’ for people
such as Uighur Muslims who refused
to watch state television. Sierra Leone
cancelled a £300 million project, financed
by China, for a new airport outside its
capital, Freetown. Abiy Ahmed, the Prime
Minister of Ethiopia, gave half of the
20 ministerial posts in his administration
to women, they being, he said, less corrupt.
Audi (owned by Volkswagen) accepted
a fine of €800 million from German
prosecutors investigating breaches of
diesel emission rules. A Frenchman out
shooting in the Alps killed a Welsh chef
on a bicycle by mistake. CSHHome
B
rexit was in crisis as the European
Council (of heads of state or
government) met. Theresa May, the Prime
Minister, told the House of Commons that
it was time for ‘cool, calm heads to prevail’.
These proved in short supply. Dominic
Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove, Penny
Mordaunt, Chris Grayling, Liz Truss and
Geoffrey Cox openly ate pizza in the office
of Andrea Leadsom. The EU rejected
Mrs May’s proposal that the UK as a whole
could remain under the EU customs union
for a definitely limited time after 2020
(when the planned transition period ends).
Some hoped for no deal; some hoped for
no Brexit. Mary Midgley, the philosopher,
died aged 99. Failure of overhead electricity
lines led to services from Paddington being
cancelled. At Manchester Oxford Road
station, 68 per cent of trains this year were
found to be late.
J
ohn Bercow’s position as Speaker was
called into question by Dame Laura
Cox’s independent report on the House
of Commons, which found bullying
and sexual harassment in a culture of
‘deference, subservience, acquiescence and
silence’ and concluded that the changes
needed would be hard to make ‘under
the current senior house administration’.
Mr Bercow called for an independent body
to be set up to investigate such allegations
and told friends he would resign next
summer. So-called religious hate crime
cases grew from 5,949 last year to 8,336 this
year, according to the Home Office; 52 per
cent of the crimes were directed at Muslims.
Not content with that, the Home Office