Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Wednesday 4 Sep 2019

1. Johnson moving for election after losing first vote

Boris Johnson has said he will call a general election if the Commons forces him to seek an extension to the 31 October Brexit deadline. MPs voted last night by 328 to 301 to take control of the parliamentary agenda and will now try to push through a bill designed to prevent a no-deal withdrawal from the EU. A total of 21 Tory rebels voted with Labour.

2. Labour to ‘let PM stew in his own juices’

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn last night told Boris Johnson that he would not back his calls for an October general election until a law preventing a no-deal Brexit had been passed. Labour chief whip Nick Brown is said to have told party members to let the prime minister “stew in his own juices” and and be made to “own” his mess.

3. Prince Andrew events cancelled over Epstein scandal

Several of Prince Andrew’s public engagements in Northern Ireland next week have been cancelled by organisers amid concerns about his friendship with the convicted paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, Sky News reports. The prince is still due to spend several days on the North Antrim coast and to attend the annual Duke Of York Young Champions Trophy, a golf tournament for under-18s.

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4. Marks & Spencer set to drop out of FTSE 100 index

Marks & Spencer is expected to drop out of the FTSE index of the UK’s 100 biggest firms today, following a 40% drop in the high-street stalwart’s shares over the past year. It would be the first time that M&S has not appeared in the FTSE 100 since the index was launched, in 1984. The firm’s import-only clothing business is struggling and its food business has shown signs of weakness.

5. Hurricane Dorian: Bahamas death toll ‘will rise’

The prime minister of the Bahamas, Hubert Minnis, has warned that the death toll of Hurricane Dorian will rise. Seven people are confirmed to have been killed, with many more missing, since the tropical storms hit the northern Bahamian islands on Sunday. The storm has moved off and weakened to 110mph but still threatens the eastern US states.

6. Mississippi wedding hall turns away interracial couple

The owner of a wedding hall in Mississippi has triggered a race row after being caught on video refusing to host an interracial couple’s marriage because “we don’t do gay weddings or mixed race”. The unnamed woman posted a now-deleted Facebook apology saying she had been “ignorant” after the footage of her conversation with the groom’s sister at Boone’s Camp Event Hall in Booneville went viral.

7. Heroin worth £120m seized in ‘UK’s biggest haul’

Heroin worth £120m was found on a container ship docked in Suffolk by the National Crime Agency (NCA) officials last month, in what is thought to be the UK’s largest ever seizure of the drug, it has emerged. Packets of the drug had been stitched into towels and bathrobes. They were confiscated and the container was followed to Holland, where the men who came to unload it were arrested.

8. Baby egged in Worcester in racially aggravated assault

A baby was hit with an egg in Worcester yesterday in a drive-by attack that police believe was racially aggravated. The mother was pushing the nine-month-old’s buggy across the road when the egg was thrown from a car in what police said was a “nasty and unprovoked assault”. The baby was not seriously injured.

9. Jacob Rees-Mogg criticised for slouching in Commons

Ardent Brexiteer and leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg was criticised yesterday for lying almost horizontally on the front bench of the chamber during the Brexit debate. Green Party MP Caroline Lucas told Rees-Mogg that he was being “contemptuous”, while actor Hugh Laurie tweeted that he appeared “insolent and insufferable”.

10. Briefing: who is Dominic Cummings?

Unelected bureaucrat Dominic Cummings was appointed to “deliver Brexit in just 99 days” and is “widely feared in Whitehall even amongst ardent Brexiteers”, according to ITV political editor Robert Peston.

He was famously described by former prime minister David Cameron as a “career psychopath”, while Nick Clegg said he had “anger management problems”.

So just who is the man behind Boris Johnson?

Dominic Cummings: the man behind the electoral thumping