Keir Starmer has announced a new UK-Germany treaty covering technology, science and trade as part of a “wider reset” with Europe. Speaking after talks with Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin today the prime minister also announced a joint action plan to tackle illegal migration and a commitment to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes”. The Israeli military has launched a large-scale raid in the occupied West Bank, says the FT. Infantry forces used armoured carriers, bulldozers, snipers and drones to seal off a large refugee camp in the northern city of Jenin that is known as a hotbed of Palestinian militancy. At least nine Palestinians have been killed. Horny Hong Kong teenagers are being told to play badminton instead. New sex education guidance issued by the Beijing-backed authorities suggests that boys who feel aroused in the presence of girls should seek out a sports hall as quickly as possible to save themselves from the “deviant act” of pre-marital sex – sparking an outbreak of jokes about shuttlecocks.

The real “vanguardists” upending British politics

The past decade in British politics has been dominated by two forms of “vanguardism”, says Aaron Bastani in UnHerd: the invasion of the Labour party by Jeremy Corbyn’s Momentum movement, and the invasion of the Conservative party by the Brexiteers. Naturally, mainstream commentators hated both: unconventional political advisors like Dominic Cummings and Seamus Milne were tarred as Svengalis and their movements were treated like an “invasive pathogen”. But in the background, a “genuinely vanguardist” organisation was quietly emerging. A highly efficient political machine with a “suitably anodyne” name, Labour Together, which in recent days has been at the epicentre of the mushrooming government cronyism scandal.

Jess Sargeant, who previously worked at Labour Together, was recently appointed deputy director in the Cabinet Office’s Propriety and Constitution Group. “Unusually, Sargeant was not subjected to an independent recruitment process.” That would be concerning in any civil service role, but in this instance it’s especially troubling as the body in question is responsible for the enforcement of Whitehall rules. What this appointment reveals is the extent to which Labour Together is not just trying to influence policy, but also “capture key parts of the permanent state apparatus”. To get a sense of its ambition, witness its finances: since Starmer won the Labour leadership, the group has raised £4m, a sum which makes the right-wing think tanks of Tufton Street look “trivial by comparison”. Much of that dosh made its way into campaign funds for approved MPs – David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Yvette Cooper – “not something think tanks usually do”. Morgan McSweeney, Labour Together’s director between 2017 and 2020, is now a major honcho in Downing Street. Keir Starmer has been in No 10 for less than two months. “Already we are witnessing a masterclass in anti-democratic politics.”

To win in November, Kamala Harris will have to defy US history, says The Washington Post. Only once in the last 188 years has a sitting vice president been elected commander-in-chief. George HW Bush did it in 1988, but he was the first to accomplish the feat since Vice President Martin Van Buren, known as the “Little Magician”, scored the top job at the White House in 1836.

The centre of York was home to some of the Roman Empire’s most savage gladiatorial contests, says The Oldie. The world’s only well-preserved Roman gladiator cemetery is in Driffield Terrace, a street of smart period homes to the west of the city. Among the 80 skeletons discovered in the early 2000s, “buried a metre below some of the well-heeled residents’ patios”, was one poor gladiator with a large carnivore bite mark – thought to be courtesy of a bear, leopard or lion – sustained in the market town’s bloody arena. “Ee bah gum!”

Let Germany’s spies do their job

The horrific terrorist attack in Solingen last week, in which three people were stabbed to death, has caused “pure panic” in German politics, says Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt in Der Spiegel. As ever when such terrible events occur, politicians are “outdoing each other” with nonsensical suggestions as to what should be done. The attacker was a Syrian asylum seeker, so naturally Conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz has said no more Syrians or Afghans should be allowed into Germany, “as if all people from these countries were potential terrorists”. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s proposed ban on people carrying knives with long blades – as if terrorists “would care about such rules” – is no better. But everyone is overlooking the only thing that would actually help prevent these attacks: “better counterterrorism.”

Germany’s security services are bound by an absurdly tight “legal corset” restricting their access to online data. For years they’ve relied on partners who are less squeamish about monitoring global data flows, like the UK and USA, to find out what terrorists are planning. This has prevented attacks in the past but doesn’t always work: the Solingen attacker had pledged his loyalty to ISIS in a video before the event, but authorities only found out about it “when it was too late”. It’s time we Germans stopped piggybacking off the counterterrorism measures of other powers and finally got our own “hands dirty”. We don’t have to become “global data vacuum cleaners” like the US, but we need to at least do “what we can”.

Donald Trump’s dancing may cost him millions of dollars, says The Times. The estate of the late songwriter Isaac Hayes recently cited 134 instances when the former president used his 1966 track Hold On, I’m Comin without permission, demanding he pay $3 million in licensing fees. Representatives of other artists, including Bruce Springsteen, Rihanna, Adele, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Phil Collins, Leonard Cohen and Prince, have also taken legal action in the past to prevent Trump playing their songs at his rallies. Celine Dion’s team objected to the use of her titanic hit My Heart Will Go On at a rally in Montana. “In no way is this use authorised,” the statement said. “And really, that song?”

During recent renovations at the National Gallery, workers discovered a secret letter hidden inside one of the Sainsbury Wing’s concrete columns, written by the building’s main donor. It reads:

If you have found this note you must be engaged in demolishing one of the false columns placed in the foyer of the Sainsbury wing of the National Gallery. I believe that the false columns are a mistake of the architects and that we would live to regret our accepting this detail of his design.

Let it be known that one of the donors of this building is absolutely delighted that your generation has decided to dispense with the unnecessary columns.

John Sainsbury, 26 July 1990

It’s a Barbie brick phone, which manufacturers hope will help young people beat their smartphone addiction, says BBC News. The bright pink blower is being launched in the UK and Europe with no front camera, very limited access to the internet and only one game: the retro Nokia classic Snake. Manufacturer HMD says it hopes the £99 Malibu mobile will tap into a “surge” of adolescents crying out for less tech in their lives.