Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Monday 4 Nov 2019

1. Public spending ‘will rocket under Tories or Labour’

Spending on public services would soar under both a Labour or a Conservative government if the parties fulfil their election pledges, according to research by the Resolution Foundation. The think tank says spending would reach heights last seen in the 1970s – and neither party has said how it would raise the required funds.

Nigel Farage says he will not stand in general election

2. Corbyn: I told front bench dissenters to fall in line

Jeremy Corbyn has told The Guardian that he alone made the decision that Labour would vote for a general election on 12 December - and that he has warned dissenters on his front benches to fall in line because the party’s Brexit “debate is over”. He told the newspaper: “I made that decision. And they gulped, and said, ‘Yes, Jeremy!’”

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3. Doctors accuse politicians of ‘lying’ about NHS

The doctors’ professional standards group has spoken out against politicians using the NHS as “a tool to swing voters” - and has accused the main parties of telling “outright lies” about the health service. The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges says politicians will make “undeliverable promises” in the run-up to the 12 December election.

Health bosses condemn ‘outright lies’ of election campaign

4. Greta Thunberg in race to reach summit

Teenage activist Greta Thunberg has just 28 days to travel by land and sea from Los Angeles to a UN climate summit in Spain, after the location of the event was switched from Santiago following civil unrest in Chile. The 16-year-old, who refuses to fly, sailed from England to New York on a carbon-neutral racing yacht three months ago for a tour of the US to campaign for action on climate change. She has now appealed for help to reach Madrid in time for next month’s summit.

Minister compares Delhi to ‘gas chamber’ as pollution crisis worsens

5. McDonald’s CEO fired for employee relationship

McDonald’s has fired its British-born chief executive Steve Easterbrook after the fast-food chain boss admitted having a consensual relationship with an employee. The company agreed the relationship was consensual but said it violated company policy and showed “poor judgement”. Easterbrook said he accepted it was “time for me to move on”.

6. French resistance hero Yvette Lundy dies at 103

Second World War hero Yvette Lundy has died at the age of 103. The Frenchwoman was a leading member of her country’s resistance against the Nazi occupation and was made a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour in 2017 – one of France’s highest civilian awards. Lundy was sent to a death camp in 1944, when she was 28, for her resistance work.

7. Vietnamese girls ‘being trafficked through UK private schools’

At least 21 Vietnamese teenagers have gone missing from boarding schools and private colleges in the UK in the last four years, according to an investigation by The Times. The newspaper says that some have never been found, while others have been discovered working in nail bars. Trafficking gangs reportedly exploit student visas, with the girls arriving at schools and then vanishing within weeks or months.

8. Trump threatens to cut California wildfire funding

US President Donald Trump has threatened to withdraw funding to help California fight the wildfires that have ravished nearly 100,000 acres of the state and forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes. Trump made the threat following a Twitter spat with state governor Gavin Newsom, with the president blaming the Democrat for not preventing fires.

9. Gorbachev: nuclear weapons pose ‘colossal danger’

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, has told the BBC that nuclear weapons still pose a “colossal danger” to the world as part of a “chilly war”. Accords that Gorbachev signed with US President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons have recently been torn up by the US and Russia.

10. Briefing: who is responsible for the Brazil oil spill?

Anger is growing in Brazil over a mysterious oil spill that has forced the closure of some of the country’s most naturally diverse beaches.

In early September, oil began washing up on Brazil’s northeastern shores, covering a stretch of coast around 1,300 miles long, killing a number of animals and destroying swathes of pristine coral. So what happened?

Brazil oil spill: who is responsible?