Ten Things You Need to Know Today: 11 November 2022

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1. Kwarteng ‘warned Truss’
2. Market rallies on lower inflation
3. Government ‘snatching lunches’
4. Twitter could go bankrupt
5. Record waiting lists ‘costing lives’
6. Trump ‘a drag’ on Republican ticket
7. Police officer killed in Brussels
8. Nuclear test victims want inquiry
9. ‘Poppy fascism’ criticised
10. BBC’s cold feet over Savile project

published 11 November 2022

1. Kwarteng ‘warned Truss’

Kwasi Kwarteng has claimed that he warned Liz Truss she was going too fast with her economic plans. Speaking to TalkTV in his first interview since he was sacked by the then PM, the former chancellor said he had warned her to “slow down” after September’s mini-budget. Kwarteng was fired by Truss two weeks after their economic statement caused panic on financial markets. Kwarteng said he told her she was “mad” to fire him.

Inflation in the US dipped to the lowest level since the start of the year last month, with annual consumer price inflation in the world’s largest economy falling to 7.7%, down from 8.2% in September and better than economists’ forecasts of 8%. The three main US markets rose strongly on the prospect of smaller interest rate rises in the future and the pound enjoyed its biggest daily gain since January 2017 against the weakening dollar, rising 2.9% to $1.1680.

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Ministers are “snatching school lunches away from children by stealth,” said the Liberal Democrats after the party found that more than 100,000 children in England may be missing out on free school meals. Teachers told The Guardian that children not eligible for free school meals are coming to school with mouldy bread, empty wraps and sometimes nothing at all. “I’ve been in education now since 2006 and I’ve never known anything like it,” said one teacher.

A US regulator says it is monitoring events at Twitter with “deep concern” after the social media platform’s top privacy and compliance officers reportedly quit and trolls began to run riot on the site. The new chief executive Elon Musk is “not above the law” warned the Federal Trade Commission. CNN said “the world is watching the world’s richest man single-handedly destroy one of the world’s most powerful and important communication platforms”. Musk has reportedly told employees that bankruptcy is not out of the question for the company.

Nearly 20,000 people a day are waiting at least four hours in A&E as the worst-ever NHS waiting times cost lives. Amid what The Times called a “dramatic collapse in NHS performance”, patients are “dying avoidably” as record numbers spend at least 12 hours stuck on a trolley in hospital corridors waiting for a bed to become available. Waiting times are worse than ever across almost all measures, including cancer and planned surgery, according to monthly NHS England data.

Donald Trump is facing a wave from criticism by fellow Republicans who have blamed him for the party’s disappointing performance in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Many of the prominent candidates endorsed by Trump failed to win, including Mehmet Oz, the celebrity television doctor who ran for the Senate in Pennsylvania. Paul Ryan, the former House Speaker and Republican vice-presidential candidate, said that Trump was a “drag on our ticket” and the New York Post said “Trumpty Dumpty” had “had a great fall”.

A police officer has been killed and another has been injured in a knife attack in Brussels. The two officers were attacked close to Brussels North railway station last night. According to reports in local media, the attacker died in hospital after he was shot at the scene. Anti-terrorist officials say they have taken over the investigation. The attack is the second knife-related incident involving police officers in Brussels this week, according to Euronews.

The blood records of nuclear test veterans “have been kept hidden for 70 years”, said The Mirror. Servicemen, who were unwittingly used in medical experiments during tests from 1952, could have been denied proper care because their blood records were kept hidden by the state, the paper reported. It added that the “Cold War heroes” want a public inquiry and noted that Labour has backed calls for parliament to debate the issue.

No one should be shamed into wearing poppies in the days leading up to Remembrance Sunday, the minister for the Armed Forces has said. James Heappey, a former officer who served in Afghanistan, said he would rather fewer people wore poppies and understood what they symbolised than everyone being forced to wear one because “Twitter went nuts if you didn’t”. A “form of poppy fascism” has sprung up in the UK in recent years, said Newstalk.

The BBC’s Jimmy Savile drama has been delayed amid “public backlash over the project”, said the Daily Mail. Filming on The Reckoning, which stars Steve Coogan as Savile, ended in January 2022 and the four-part series was expected to be broadcast this year. However, the Corporation has chosen to push the premiere back until at least 2024. Sources told the Mail the BBC is “in such a panic that they're going through the footage with a fine-tooth comb to ensure it’s perfect”.

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