Britain risks a new wave of terrorist attacks by “bedroom radicals” indoctrinated online over lockdown, a security official tells The Daily Telegraph. Ali Harbi Ali, the 25-year-old accused of murdering David Amess, turned to extremism after watching hate preacher Anjem Choudary on YouTube, a former friend tells The Sun. Covid deaths in the UK are three times higher than in western Europe, says the FT’s John Burn-Murdoch on Twitter. Britain’s “early lead on vaccine rollout” means protection is waning. “Nailing booster rollout” is critical. In August, China secretly test-launched a hypersonic missile that circled the globe. It took the US government entirely by surprise. “Sicily has banned children from having godfathers in a bid to tackle the mafia,” says the Daily Star. It’s now an offer you can refuse.
Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak’s rivalry typically takes the form of wrangles over spending, says Tim Shipman in The Sunday Times. But “mischievous rumours persist” that the PM appointed the 6ft 5in Simon Clarke as Sunak’s deputy at the Treasury “because it amuses him to surround his 5ft 6in Chancellor with ministers who tower over him in public”.
Noted
Apple is far too ready to cave in to the whims of Beijing when it comes to censorship, free speech activist Benjamin Ismail tells BBC News. The latest disgraceful example is its removal of an app about the Koran from China’s App Store – the app is accused of hosting “illegal religious texts”. Apple has already agreed to remove apps that discuss Tiananmen Square, the Dalai Lama and independence for Tibet and Taiwan.
Tomorrow’s world
About 200 nude people wearing white body paint have been photographed near the Dead Sea by American artist Spencer Tunick. Having staged dozens of nude shoots around the world, he’s highlighting the climate catastrophe facing the Dead Sea, which recedes a metre every year. Tunick, 54, covered his models in white paint to evoke the Bible story about Lot’s wife, who was turned into a pillar of salt.
Life
The new Saudi ambassador to the UK, Prince Khalid, went to Eton, Oxford and Sandhurst, and is married to the Duke of Northumberland’s niece, Lucy Cuthbert, says Alice Thomson in The Times. The 44-year-old is also the cousin of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom the CIA blames for murdering Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Khalid is “absolutely sure he had nothing to do with it”. Did he ask his cousin directly? “It was unnecessary.”
Quoted
Quoted 18-10
“Bond cannot now have sex with anyone for fear of coming across as gropey or too masculine. So what we are presented with isn’t an undulating shagscape of inviting Bond girls with whom anything is possible, but a band of slightly weary career women who pass him pityingly between them, like carers.”
Camilla Long on No Time to Die in The Sunday Times
Snapshot answer
A Co-op in Hertfordshire has stocked its fridges with nothing but HP Sauce and Heinz salad cream. Supermarkets across the country are trying to disguise shortages with the goods they have to hand – an Asda in Gloucester filled an aisle with Lynx Africa deodorant and a Tesco Extra in Cardiff constructed a vast display of sunflower oil.
