Top story: ‘Common sense’ and a ‘profound apology’

Hello again. From tomorrow your Guardian Morning Briefing will take on a different look as we expand our coverage of the UK election campaign. Make sure you are subscribed to have the latest election news hit your inbox bright and early each weekday.

Boris Johnson is due to visit the Queen today and then formally announce that a general election will be held on 12 December. His Conservative party’s campaign has been forced on to the defensive after Jacob Rees-Mogg suggested those killed in the Grenfell Tower fire had lacked “common sense” in following fire service advice to stay put instead of fleeing. Rees-Mogg issued a “profound apology” but the Tory MP Andrew Bridgen compounded the anger of survivors and relatives by suggesting Rees-Mogg was “cleverer” than those who died. Meanwhile the Tories have been criticised for propagating fake news after releasing a misleadingly edited video in which Labour’s Keir Starmer is made to look like he can not answer a question about Brexit. Meanwhile Conservative plans to rubbish Labour’s spending plans using civil service costings have been scuppered after the head of the civil service decided that publishing the Treasury analysis only weeks before the election would be improper. This is understood to have enraged the chancellor, Sajid Javid, as it blows apart the Conservatives’ plan to open their election campaign by attacking Labour’s economic credibility.

In a Guardian exclusive, we can reveal that Conservative candidates have been instructed by party HQ not to sign pledges on the NHS, the environment or trade deals. But supporting shooting is allowed “as an important part of rural life”, says an internal document that sets out boilerplate replies to questions that candidates might face. A row continues to simmer over the report into Russian interference in UK politics: Marina Litvinenko, the widow of the murdered ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko, says Boris Johnson’s delay in publishing the report helps the Kremlin and feeds suspicions of a government “cover-up”.

The Liberal Democrats’ leader, Jo Swinson, has been accused of not taking sufficient action against party activist Steve Wilson, who had to apologise after claiming the Labour MP Dawn Butler had made up her experience of racism in the Commons. The Green party launches its campaign today in what it hopes to frame as “the climate election”. The party will pledge to spend £100bn a year on the climate crisis, raising corporation tax and radically overhauling the tax system – all while stopping Brexit. Airport expansion would be stopped and HS2 scrapped and replaced with investment in rail electrification and local bus services. And Nigel Farage has visited leave-voting, Labour-held Bolsover – just the kind of seat he would like to steal for his Brexit party. But at least 20 of Farage’s purported 600 or so candidates have already quit.

Midweek catch-up

> Gordon Sondland, Donald Trump’s ambassador to the EU, has changed his impeachment inquiry testimony to confirm the president made an “improper” demand that Ukraine investigate Joe Biden’s son in return for $400m in military aid.

> The British backpacker Grace Millane died of strangulation during a Tinder date, a New Zealand jury has been told. The prosecution in the murder trial says the accused, 27, whose name is suppressed, took photographs of Millane’s body, watched pornography, hired a carpet cleaning machine and searched online about fires in the bushland area where her body was later found buried in a suitcase he had bought. The accused man’s defence is that her death was a sex game gone wrong.

> The world’s people face “untold suffering due to the climate crisis” unless there are major transformations to global society, more than 11,000 scientists have warned in a joint statement. They urge an end to population growth, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, halting forest destruction and slashing meat eating.

> Government ads praising the Conservatives’ flagship universal credit have been banned as misleading. The advertising watchdog said they made unsubstantiated claims, including that people moved into work faster on universal credit and that jobcentres would pay an advance to people who need it. Aditya Chakrabortty writes this morning: “That campaign was paid for by taxpayers like you and me … Almost a quarter of million pounds was taken off us to lie to us.”

> This morning in our series on children in the justice system we discuss how vulnerable youngsters in care homes across the country are being bundled off to court for damaging residential facilities or assaulting staff – showing, says one prominent MP, that the system has failed.

‘Alarming evidence’ – British universities are not adequately responding to the growing risk of China and other “autocracies” influencing academic freedom, the foreign affairs select committee has said. It highlighted the role of officials from China-funded Confucius Institutes in confiscating papers that mentioned Taiwan at an academic conference; the use of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association as an instrument of political interference; and evidence that one or more Uighur dissidents studying in the UK had been monitored, with family back in China being harassed. The committee says there is “alarming evidence” of meddling, some of which appears to be coordinated by the Chinese embassy in London.

Fishing gear litters oceans – More than 640,000 tonnes of nets, lines, pots and traps used in commercial fishing are dumped, discarded or lost in the sea every year, the same weight as 55,000 double-decker buses. Greenpeace says the gear, which is deadly to marine life, makes up the majority of large plastic pollution in the oceans. About 300 sea turtles were found dead as a result of entanglement in “ghost gear” off the coast of Mexico last year, while in October a pregnant whale was found with fishing gear entangled inside its mouth. “The world’s governments must take action to protect our global oceans and hold the under-regulated fishing industry to account for its dangerous waste,” said Louisa Casson from Greenpeace UK. This should start with a strong global ocean treaty being agreed at the United Nations next year.”

Today in Focus podcast: Mexico’s war with the drug cartels

Tom Phillips joins the search for some of the thousands of people who have gone missing or been murdered in the country’s bloody drug wars. Plus Luke Harding on the government’s delay in releasing a report on Russian meddling in UK politics.

Today in Focus Cartel warfare in Mexico Sorry your browser does not support audio - but you can download here and listen https://audio.guim.co.uk/2019/11/05-69456-20191106_TIF_MEXICO.mp3 00:00:00 00:30:55

Lunchtime read: ‘It is well known she likes to dance’

In 1962, a year after the building of the Berlin Wall, three men in grey trenchcoats came to a secondary school in Mahlow on the southern outskirts of the East German capital. They took 14-year-old Regina Herrmann out of class and told her the ruling Socialist Unity party considered her father an enemy of the state, a “capitalist exploiter”, because he ran his own business, a hairdressing salon. She would not be allowed to continue attending a school in the socialist one-party state, and could bury her dreams of becoming a doctor. In the coming months and years, Herrmann often had the feeling she was being followed. There were sudden rumours she was a Flittchen, an easy girl. At her father’s salon, men would make lewd comments or touch her inappropriately; twice, someone tried to rape her.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Regina Herrmann in Zurich, Switzerland after escaping from communist East Germany. Photograph: Adam Berry/ Getty Images

It was only after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 that Herrmann found in the Stasi archives documents instructing five unofficial collaborators to target her in bars and nightclubs: “It is well known,” the file said, that Herrmann “likes to dance and is happy for her dance partners to invite her to the bar afterwards.” In communist East Germany, systematic degradation of this kind by the Stasi – the draconian state police – resulted in lost careers and mental health issues. Herrmann, now 72, is one of thousands of victims of the GDR’s regime who have, until now, been denied access to long-promised support schemes. In reunified Germany, former employees of the Stasi draw generous public-sector pensions while many of their victims had their lives, careers and health ruined by its intrusions – while struggling to prove to authorities that things would have been very different if not for the police state’s oppression.

Sport

Frank Lampard praised Chelsea’s spirit after they fought back from 4-1 down to claim a point against Ajax and keep alive their hopes of reaching the last 16 of the Champions League. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was among the fresh legs brought into the Liverpool side and he scored a delightful goal in a 2-1 win over Genk at Anfield as Jürgen Klopp’s side topped Group E. Granit Xhaka has been stripped of the Arsenal captaincy following his extraordinary fallout with a large section of the club’s fans, Unai Emery has confirmed.

Saracens have blazed a trail across Europe but a salary-cap breach has stamped an asterisk on a great club and the game. Sonny Bill Williams will be unveiled as the highest-paid player in the history of either code of rugby next week after agreeing a two-year deal with Toronto Wolfpack. The Los Angeles Chargers owner, Dean Spanos, has denied reports his team are open to moving the NFL franchise to London. And England cannot play in the Olympic Games but their success at this year’s football Women’s World Cup means Team GB, coached by Phil Neville, will appear in Tokyo – a concept branded unsatisfactory by three of the four constituent parts.

Business

Asian markets are little changed – MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan hasn’t moved, with Australian shares and Japan’s Nikkei stock index both up slightly. US stock futures edged lower in Asia after the S&P 500 fell 0.01% on Tuesday, having reached a record high in the previous trading session. The pound is getting $1.287 and €1.163 while the FTSE is lower ahead of the open.

The papers

Jacob Rees-Mogg’s comments about Grenfell victims lacking “common sense” for not leaving the burning building are the lead in the Guardian: “Rees-Mogg condemned over remarks on Grenfell” and the i: “Rees-Mogg grounded by Tories”. The Sun has: “God save fur Queen”, with a report that the Queen has banned the use of fur on all her new outfits. Several newspapers use the story as an opportunity to run pictures of the Queen decked out in her finest furs. The news of a breakthrough DNA test for babies leads on the Mirror’s front: “Birth test revolution” and the Express: “DNA test at birth to save lives”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Guardian front page, Wednesday 6 November 2019.

The FT has: “Javid furious as top civil servant blocks pricing of Labour pledges”, the Times reports: “China tries to gag UK universities” and the Mail says: “Rail union’s mass misery for millions”, with news that workers for South Western Railway will stage a 27-day strike over December and New Year’s – but it manages to make the story partisan, saying the strike comes from “Corbyn’s militant pals”.

And the longest headline we have seen on any paper in some time features on today’s Telegraph, which leads with a quote from Boris Johnson: “‘The tragedy of the modern Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn is that they detest the profit motive so viscerally … they point their fingers at individuals with a relish and a vindictiveness not seen since Stalin persecuted the kulaks.’”

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