The Week 1578

Murder rates in England and Wales have fallen to their lowest level in nearly 50 years. There were 499 homicides recorded by police in the 12 months to September 2025, a drop of 7% year-on-year, according to figures released last week by the Office for National Statistics. The fall was largely driven by a 23% drop in fatal stabbings, which were down from 227 to 174 in the year to last September. Firearm offences also fell – by 9%, to under 5,000, their lowest since 2003. A 13-year-old boy has been hailed as a hero for swimming for four hours through rough seas off Western Australia, to get help for his mother and younger siblings. Austin Appelbee and his family were swept out to sea soon after setting out from…

What happened Starmer’s tilt to China Keir Starmer travelled to China last week with a delegation of business leaders, the first such trip by a British leader for eight years. The Prime Minister said it was time for a more “sophisticated relationship” between the UK and China, whose dealings under the Tories had veered between a “golden era” and an “ice age”. President Xi praised Labour for its historic record of deepening ties with Beijing. Among the deals struck during the visit were: visa-free travel for British citizens to China for up to 30 days for holidays and business, a right already enjoyed by 50 other countries, including France and Germany; a cut in China’s tariff on Scottish whisky; and the lifting of Chinese sanctions on six serving MPs and…

What happened Days after the US deployed what Donald Trump described as a “massive armada” to the Gulf, Iranian officials agreed to sit down imminently for nuclear talks. President Masoud Pezeshkian said Tehran had agreed to the US’s invitation at the behest of “friendly governments in the region”. Trump has warned that he could resort to force if no agreement is reached; Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said while he was confident of a deal, Tehran would “immediately and powerfully respond” to any US aggression. The US deployment, which followed antiregime protests in Iran and a brutal crackdown in which up to 36,500 people were killed, is led by the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group. It was 500 miles off the coast of Iran on Tuesday. Trump has urged…

Controversy of the week A contest to savour A by-election is due at the end of this month, which “could have profound consequences for the future of both the Labour Party and British politics”, said John Harris in The Guardian. It’s being held in the Manchester constituency of Gorton and Denton, an area once regarded by one and all as a Labour stronghold. And had Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, been allowed to stand, the party would have enjoyed pretty decent odds of retaining the seat. But now that Keir Starmer and his allies have blocked Burnham from taking part, there’s no certainty what might happen. Labour might still succeed in keeping the seat – it has “a formidable get-out-the-vote machine, and droves of activists” – but it’s…

A film crew making a low-budget horror in Wales had to relocate the shoot to North Yorkshire, so that its actors could smoke real cigarettes. In Wales, smoking is banned on film sets, but in England it’s permitted provided the actor is smoking for the role. The team making the film, Rabbit Trap, said that using CGI to make fake cigarettes look real would have been too expensive. A new parenting trend is sweeping through social media: “Fafo”, short for “f**k around and find out”. In one viral video, a mother explains that she chucked her daughter’s iPad out of the car window, to punish her for acting up. In another, a stroppy child declares he’s leaving home. His mother says “see ya” and closes the front door behind him.…

The London Academy of Excellence, a state sixth-form college in Newham, east London, after 62 of its pupils received Oxbridge offers – more than a quarter of its Year 13 cohort. The tally is a record for the high-achieving selective academy. Aamilah Aswat, who became the first black female jockey to win a National Hunt race. The 20-year-old, who got a taste for riding on a visit to a city farm in her home town of Gloucester when she was five, romped to victory on 9-1 shot Guchen in a handicap hurdle at Kempton Park.…