Good morning. Today in Manchester, Rishi Sunak is expected to stand in front of a lectern reading “LONG-TERM DECISIONS FOR A BRIGHTER FUTURE” and announce the scrapping of the HS2 rail link to that very city – and with it a key plank of his promise to level up the north.
The Conservative party conference – which closes today and is likely the last before a general election in 2024 – has been completely dominated by the prime minister’s repeated refusal to confirm whether or not the £100bn high speed line will continue as planned.
Peter Walker, the Guardian’s deputy political editor, who has been at the conference all week, says it has led to a chaotic gathering. Let’s get into why, after the headlines.
Five big stories
US | Kevin McCarthy has been abruptly removed from his role as House speaker, ousted by hard-right members of his own Republican party less than a year after his election. It is the first time in US history the speaker has been dismissed, and came after he led a bipartisan effort that avoided a government shutdown.
Italy | At least 21 people died and 18 were injured when a tourist coach crashed off an overpass near Venice, falling 30 metres on to power lines and catching fire. Those on board included Ukrainians, German and French citizens, said Venice prefect Michele Di Bari, adding the bus was “totally crushed”.
Transport | Two planned strikes by London Underground workers this week have been called off, the RMT union announced. Its members had been due to strike on Wednesday and Friday, closing the tube over plans to reduce staff numbers by up to 600 posts to save costs.
Health | Trans hospital patients in England will be banned from being treated in female- and male-only wards, under plans announced by the health secretary. Steve Barclay also said patient requests to have intimate care provided by someone of the same biological sex would be respected.
Diplomacy | India has told Canada it must remove 41 diplomats from its embassy in Delhi as the diplomatic spat continues between the two countries. The Indian foreign ministry has given Canada a week to repatriate two-thirds of its diplomats stationed in India, reducing the number to 21.
In depth: ‘Ask them about their chances of winning the election, they laugh and change the subject’
“This is almost certainly going to be the last Conservative party conference before the election,” Peter says from a cafe in the Manchester Central Convention Complex (a former railway station) plastered in the party’s “long-term decisions” branding, which even the Spectator has described as possibly “the worst slogan ever”.
“So this conference should be ultra-disciplined, and a drip feed of key policies,” Peter says. “But, while the branding is all about taking long-term decisions, it’s striking how nothing much new has been announced. It’s either policies that have already been leaked in advance, or culture war talking points.
“From the meat tax, to seven bins, to phones in schools [see yesterday’s newsletter for more], they appear to be hitting out at problems that don’t exist,” Peter says. “It’s almost like Sunak has become an answering service for rightwing newspaper editors.”
Elsewhere, alongside a number of “very cringey” moments Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall refused to apologise after suggesting Jewish Londoners don’t feel safe with Sadiq Khan as mayor; Nigel Farage ruled out rejoining the Tory party after Sunak suggested he might be allowed in; and home secretary Suella Braverman said the Tories were “too squeamish” in the past to deal with immigration properly from fear of being called racist, describing the Human Rights Act as the “criminal rights act”.
But by far the biggest talking point at conference – both for delegates and business leaders (who paid £3,300 for lunch with Sunak) – has been the prime minister’s indecision over HS2. “The only thing anyone can focus on is the lack of something – a decision on HS2,” Peter says. “And, no one can understand why Sunak has created such a massive own goal – and in the very city that is now probably not going to get the railway line it was promised.”
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Three weeks of failing to decide about HS2
It’s now three weeks since the Independent revealed a long lens photo showing that Sunak and the chancellor Jeremy Hunt met to discuss scrapping the Manchester leg of HS2 amid rising costs that made it “unachievable”.
“It’s been weeks of Sunak failing to answer questions about it,” Peter says. When asked about it on BBC breakfast on Tuesday, he again ducked the question. “I know there’s lots of speculation but all I can say is I’m not going to be forced into a premature decision because it’s good for someone’s TV programme. What I want to do is make the right decision for the country.”
He’s finally expected to answer the question in his keynote address to conference – his first as prime minister – later this morning. “It’s kind of the worst thing imaginable,” says Peter. “Cancelling a massive bit of levelling up in the city that it was going to benefit most.”
Peter says no one knows for certain that Sunak will cancel the Manchester leg of HS2, but that’s the expectation. “The talk is they are frantically working out a package of other measures to make it look less bad,” he says. “There could be more money for Northern Powerhouse rail [which would link Liverpool to Leeds] or more money for buses.
“There could be a magic rabbit out of a hat, but it’s hard to think what that could be.”
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How Sunak’s dithering is going down
In a word: badly. In a word cloud of 2,000 people polled by Savanta, “useless”, “rubbish” and “incompetent” are the top three words, followed by quite a few words beginning with C, including “corrupt”, “crap” and “confused”.
Andy Street, the Conservative mayor of the West Midlands, said Sunak was in danger of “cancelling the future”. “This has become a debate about Britain’s ability to do the tough stuff successfully, as previous generations of Britons certainly did,” he said outside the Midland Hotel, where Sunak is staying. “And of course now it’s become a debate about Britain’s credibility as a place to invest.”
Despite being 16 points behind Labour in the polls, Peter says, Tory MPs publicly talk about “a narrow landing slip” that could deliver them victory. “But in private if you ask them about the chances of winning the election, they laugh and change the subject.
“There’s this weird sense of resignation, as if they all know they’re going to lose the election, and no one is that bothered”.
What else we’ve been reading
The war in Ukraine is showing no sign of stopping. After 18 months, western support looks like it might start wavering – Gaby Hinsliff highlights the importance of ensuring that does not happen. Nimo
Don’t say you can’t learn from our journalism. This top tip from science editor Ian Sample’s deep dive into wrinkles will change me: “If you sleep on your side or stomach, and end up in the same position every night, the pressure on the face can induce further lines.” Rupert
“We might have to face the fact that being popular within the very odd world of Conservative party conference is the equivalent of having infectious diarrhoea pretty much anywhere else”: the withering words of Marina Hyde are further evidence that this has been one of the most bizarre party conferences in a very long time. Nimo
Our writers are really getting into the eternal cats v dogs debate. In this ode to cats, Sirin Kale says “you have to squint hard to find the beauty in an XL bully, or a Chinese crested. But I’ve never met an ugly cat.” Rupert
In recent years, skincare has become increasingly complicated, with influencers and cosmetics companies insisting that loads of different (and often expensive) products are the way to keep you glowing and healthy. Amy Fleming spoke to dermatologists about what their daily routines look like and what they avoid. Nimo
Sport
Football | Manchester United’s Champions League hopes are hanging by a thread after Mauro Icardi’s late goal gave Galatasaray a 3-2 victory at Old Trafford. Arsenal lost Bukayo Saka to injury and Lens shocked the Gunners with goals from Adrien Thomasson and Elye Wahi, pictured, to pull off a stunning 2-1 win.
Football | Eberechi Eze looks set to miss England’s Euro 2024 qualifier against Italy after the Crystal Palace midfielder sustained a hamstring injury that could keep him out for six weeks.
Swimming | World Aquatics’ plans to debut a new open category for transgender athletes at this week’s swimming world cup in Berlin have been cancelled after no entries were received. Swimming’s governing body, which last year voted to ban transgender women from the elite female category, had promised to stage the “pioneering pilot project” to promote its “unwavering commitment to inclusivity, welcoming swimmers of all sex and gender identities”.
The front pages
“PM declares politics broken in bid to wrest back control” – the Guardian leads on Tory conference news, as do others. “PM: I’ll tear up rule book on ‘30 years of broken politics’” says the Daily Express while the Daily Telegraph says “Sunak: I’ll change the status quo”. The Daily Mirror takes a different tack with “13 … Unlucky for us” – as Rishi Sunak blames the “political system”, that’s how many years the Conservatives have had to fix Britain. The i splashes with “Braverman’s hardline job application to become Tory leader”. She said, as the Times tells us, that a “Migration hurricane is coming”. The Daily Mail is in ecstasy: “What a wig-lifter! This was the first properly spellbinding, dramatically assured speech seen at a conference for years”. The Metro has “It’s justice for Jade” as the government ends the “bizarre farce that gives killer parents their day in court”. Top story in the Financial Times is “Bond sell-off deepens as high rates prospects spook markets”.
Today in Focus
HS2: how the costly rail project ran out of track
It started out with high hopes and a higher budget. Helen Pidd explains why the government has lost faith in the ambitious – and controversial – rail project
Cartoon of the day | Martin Rowson
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
Two Pakistani siblings are making music that tackles issues that are otherwise “conveniently shoved under the carpet because they make people uneasy”, they say.
Urooj Fatima and her 18-year-old brother Mohammad Kapri cover topics like sexual violence, “honour” killings, police brutality and child labour to a growing audience. They record their music on a computer and a microphone bought by money left for them by their late father, who wrote revolutionary poetry as well as plays that condemned human rights violations.
The siblings believe their rap music is a symbol of the resistance that is growing among the younger generations to Pakistan’s social and political problems. Attitudes are no longer what they once were, says Fatima, and life is getting more tolerant: “Change, it seems, has come”.
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Bored at work?
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