Keir Starmer is facing a revolt from Labour MPs after abandoning a manifesto pledge to allow workers to sue for unfair dismissal from day one of their employment. Under the change in the policy, which was originally championed by former deputy PM Angela Rayner, employees will have to be in their job for at least six months to qualify. The death toll from the high-rise apartment complex fire in Hong Kong on Wednesday has risen to 128, with around 200 still missing. Authorities say the fire alarms were not working effectively and attribute the blaze’s rapid spread to mesh-covered bamboo scaffolding covering the flats. A Brittany town is so fed up of the French being perceived as rude and unwelcoming that it has launched a “courtesy week”. Residents of Saint-Brieuc are being told to stop moaning and strike up polite chatter with one another as part of a drive to become the nation’s “capital of courtesy”. Bonne chance.

Worry about the young leaving, not the billionaires

Labour has been heavily criticised for driving billionaires such as Lakshmi Mittal to quit the country, says Alice Thomson in The Times. But these non-doms, useful as they are to the wider economy, have always come and gone with tax regimes, flitting from London to Milan “with their Louis Vuitton luggage on private jets”. Far more worrying is the burgeoning trend for the aspirational young to pack their bags and board an economy flight in search of what they can’t find here: “jobs and prosperity”. These aren’t the so-called “quiet quitters” who want to do as little as they can from under a duvet. They’re skilled, driven folk – and crucially for the UK, “much-needed future taxpayers”.

Many of those leaving are engineers, accountants, doctors and teachers. Last year nearly 2,000 GPs, resident medical officers and nurses were given visas with potential for permanent residency in Australia. They’ll be joining the 3,324 British doctors who have settled there in the past three years – “high on sunshine” and very well-remunerated for their British taxpayer-funded expertise. The Americans are luring high-flyers with the promise that they could quadruple their salaries; young expats in Portugal are “thriving” thanks to a one-year 100% tax break for under-35s earning less than £25k a year. This brain drain isn’t going to let up any time soon. Some 28% of 18-to-30-year-olds say they are actively planning or have seriously considered emigrating, because here in the UK they feel “overtaxed, underhoused and undervalued”. The government needs to wake up and realise it’s “losing the international talent war”.