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Good morning. Poor Oliver Dowden. There he was, gearing up to launch a cheery campaign advising people to stockpile tinned meat and invest in a wind-up radio to better endure any future “unforeseen entity upending our way of life” – and then the prime minister went ahead and announced one. Bulk buy the Spam while you can, folks: to everyone’s surprise, there’s an election coming, and it’s no time to be answering the door.
In six weeks’ time, it’ll all be over. Right now, the trickiest question for most people is why it’s even started. To answer that, today’s newsletter – put together with the help of Nimo Omer – will run you through what happened yesterday, beat by frenzied beat. Here are the headlines.
Post Office scandal | The former chief executive Paula Vennells broke down in tears as she told a public inquiry that she had been misled by her staff about the safety of the prosecutions of branch operators. Vennells claimed she was unaware that people were being wrongly prosecuted or chased for missing funds and said: “I was too trusting.”
Middle East | Ireland, Spain and Norway have announced they will formally recognise a Palestinian state. The three European governments made the announcements in a coordinated move that triggered an immediate response from Israel, which is recalling its ambassadors from Dublin, Madrid and Oslo.
Carer’s allowance crisis | The government’s spending watchdog is to investigate the growing scandal over carer benefits that has plunged tens of thousands of unpaid carers into debt after they unwittingly breached benefit rules. The National Audit Office said its intervention was triggered by public and political concerns over the mounting human and financial costs of overpayments.
Grenfell fire | The bereaved and survivors of Grenfell Tower must wait until at least 2027 – a decade after the blaze that killed 72 people – before those suspected of being responsible for the disaster could face criminal trials, it has emerged. Families called the wait for charges for people to be held accountable “unbearable”.
Art | At least 1,000 paintings that the artist Damien Hirst said were “made in 2016” were created several years later, an investigation has found. In March, the Guardian revealed that several well-known formaldehyde sculptures made by pickling animals in 2017 were dated by Hirst’s company to the 1990s. Continue reading...
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