What happened
Deep divisions have reportedly emerged within Keir Starmer’s cabinet ahead of next month’s Autumn Budget as ministers clash over Rachel Reeves’s approach to taxing the wealthy. Some senior figures believe that recent policies – including ending non-dom status and adding VAT to private school fees – have driven high earners out of Britain and risk further damaging growth.

Who said what
One unnamed cabinet minister warned that the government had “crossed a line in trying to encourage aspiration”, saying the changes were “doing a lot of harm to the country”.

Starmer’s cabinet is “deeply divided over economic policy”, said David Maddox in The Independent. Ministers “believe Rachel Reeves has already gone too far with measures targeting the wealthy and businesses”, and have “urged the chancellor to change course if she is to have any hope of achieving growth”. If she is to raise taxes, Reeves’s second budget “needs a narrative of fairness”, said Heather Stewart in The Guardian. The chancellor “should reach for the language of solidarity and social justice that this government tends to recoil from”.

What next?
Reeves has vowed not to raise income tax, VAT or national insurance, but economists say she may have no choice if growth stalls and borrowing limits tighten.

What happened
Former teammates of Lewis Moody have rallied around the ex-England rugby captain after he revealed that he had been diagnosed with motor neurone disease.

Who said what
Geordan Murphy said his former Leicester teammate would confront the illness with the same “fearless” approach he adopted as a player. “MND is a horrific disease and there’s no cure, which is heart-breaking,” he said, but “no stone will be left unturned in terms of what he can do, both for himself and his family.” Fellow 2003 World Cup winner Will Greenwood backed Moody (pictured above) to “fight” the degenerative muscle-wasting disease with “every ounce of his strength”.

While there is “no proven link between playing rugby, concussion and MND”, the 47-year-old open-side flanker “is the latest high-profile rugby player to suffer from the terminal disease”, said The Times.

What next?
Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Moody said he was “focused on staying positive, living life and dealing with the changes I will experience as they come”. A GoFundMe set up by Murphy and fellow Tigers player Leon Lloyd has already raised £40,000.

Many US students are turning to technology that predates the rise of smartphones. It is a direct – and creative – reaction to the smartphone bans instituted by schools across the country.

Schools with so-called “bell-to-bell” phone bans have turned into looking glasses, peering into the past. Around the hallways and in the classrooms, old technology has been making a comeback. Gen Z and Gen Alpha’s “appreciation for flip phones, digital cameras and other gadgets of the recent past is well-documented”, said The New York Times.  That fondness “seems to have taken on new urgency in response to a wave of smartphone restrictions in schools that has reached more than a dozen states”. As a result you can find old iPods, Walkmans and Polaroid cameras in the hands of many an affected student.

The younger generation’s nostalgia for a time before smartphones is not new. “The breakneck speed of tech has led to a fondness for a quieter, more comfortable time,” said The Independent. This has especially been true since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Many schools with the bans found that not having phones was generally well-received by both students and teachers. “You just saw a lot more people being outgoing and finding people to talk to when they might not have in the past,” Madeline Ward, a former student at Bethlehem High School in upstate New York, told The Washington Post. “Students deserve more,” said Joel Snyder, a government and economics teacher in Los Angeles, in a piece for education news site Chalkbeat. “More space to be present in the classroom, more opportunity to engage with each other and more time away from screens.”