In the world of politics, everything is used. And everything is recycled. The announcement that the British Ministry of Defence made last week, according to which the construction of British submarines will begin next year within the framework of the Aukus agreement with the United States and Australia, has allowed Andy Burnham's executive to claim both national security and industrial policy. This was expressed this Monday by the Treasury Secretary, John Healy, in his speech before the annual Labour Party conference, which is taking place in Liverpool until Wednesday.

The supposed Iranian plot of the also supposed attack against the Royal Air Force (RAF) base in Fairford, used by the United States in its bombings against Iran, is deflating by the moment. The five detainees from early Sunday morning, suspected of a possible terrorist attack, have been provisionally released this Monday afternoon. The arrest took place after a resident of the small village of Whelford, one of those surrounding the base, alerted to the presence of three white vans that were blocking access to her property, and saw a group of hooded people in balaclavas nearby.

In the film Passport to Pimlico (1949), the explosion of a World War II bomb uncovers an ancient royal charter proving that a part of this neighborhood in South London legally belongs to the Duchy of Burgundy. The discovery triggers a delirious debate over sovereignty and the identity of its inhabitants, who try to take advantage of the legal loophole to escape postwar restrictions. An administrative absurdity ends up becoming a matter of state.

The Data Protection Commission (DPC) of the Republic of Ireland has imposed a 403 million euro fine on Google Ireland Limited for infringing the European Union's (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the processing of its users' geolocation information. The penalty, one of the highest imposed to date by the Irish authority, is the result of an investigation initiated in February 2020 following several complaints filed by consumer protection organizations.

At Walthamstow School for Girls (WSG), a public community school for girls aged 11 to 16 in northeast London, students are not allowed to wear false nails, those extensions that, whether you like it or not, make handwriting or even typing on a laptop difficult. Nor can they be painted with certain designs. It is one more measure, among others, that the management agreed upon in 2023 with the students. It was also agreed which hair dye is acceptable and which is not. Or which jewelry or nose piercings can be worn and what makeup is allowed and what is not.

The future of Lego is played out in two pieces. One is literal: the famous Danish manufacturer is looking for ways to ensure its iconic plastic brick depends less and less on oil and generates fewer emissions. The other is technological: the company wants children to continue choosing its bricks in a world where mobile phones, tablets, and video games compete for their attention. The smart brick, a new piece with luminous elements, is the first major bet in this direction. And the environmental challenge is even more ambitious: to find alternative materials to fossil-based plastic without the cure ending up being worse than the problem.

Twenty-five years after 9/11, the international order born out of World War II seems to be in its terminal phase. The symptoms are clearly visible: wars that drag on, borders as spaces of conflict, a new arms race, protectionism, trade wars, disinformation, electoral interference, a crisis of liberal democracies, and a growing inability of international institutions to impose rules.

"Mind the gap!"? No! The popular London Underground slogan to avoid falling into the gap, sometimes huge – at Liverpool Street station on the Central line, for example – between the platform and the tracks, should be replaced by another attention-grabbing phrase: "Mind the noise!" (Watch out for the noise!).

There are objects that explain an era and there are those that explain a country, or at least the vision that the victors of history have of the country. The Bayeux Tapestry belongs to the second category. With almost seventy meters in length and nearly a millennium of history, it is both an exceptional work of art, a tool of political propaganda, and the visual account of the moment that forever changed the destiny of England. From September 10, for the first time in almost 950 years, it will be possible to see it in London, after France authorized its loan within the framework of an unprecedented diplomatic agreement between French President Emmanuel Macron and the government of the then British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer.

All houses have dirty laundry. And royal families, even more so. There are plenty of examples. In the Spanish monarchy, the British one..., even the Norwegian one, with the son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit, Marius Borg Hoiby, recently sentenced to four years in prison for two counts of rape and domestic violence. But they are the beatified royals of Buckingham Palace are the ones who take almost all the podium medals. Otherwise, a series like The Crown, whitewashing and glorification of a completely dysfunctional clan and institution, it could not have had so many, many seasons.

Donald Trump continues trapped in the Iran labyrinth, a war with no exit that was supposed to last, at most, six weeks, and which has already been going on for six months. An excess of confidence in the whispered words of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, led the US president to disregard his advisors' warnings. The conflict has no end in sight. And above all, it has no good outcome for the interests of the United States, even though the president has decided to virtually annex the strait, as can be seen in one of his latest communications on Truth Social. Under the title "Territories of the United States", on Friday morning he tweeted that Hormuz is now another of Washington's domains.

The investigation into a head-on collision that on Saturday morning caused the deaths of two police officers and five young people on the A66, near Middlesbrough – in the northeast of England, in the county of North Yorkshire – has been expanding and now totals 17 arrests. The case, which initially seemed like an accident caused by a vehicle traveling in the wrong direction to perform a TikTok challenge, now includes an investigation into possible organized crime activities. The country is watching with astonishment each new discovery.

British Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has responded to growing threats from Russia against the United Kingdom by raising his support for Ukraine by one degree. On his first international trip as first, the Labour leader arrived in Kyiv this Monday, where he announced that London will allow Ukraine to access classified military information necessary to manufacture its own version of the Storm Shadow cruise missiles. The British government will authorize the European manufacturer MBDA to declassify data relating to British components of the missile, a step that will allow Kyiv to move towards domestic production of this long-range weapon.

A Hong Kong court on Friday convicted activists Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung of inciting subversion. Both were part of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Movements of China, and had organized commemoration events for the Tiananmen Square massacre, during the repression of the pro-democracy protests in Beijing in 1989.

Ten and twenty years ago, Jean-Claude Juncker's interventions were commonplace in the European institutional landscape. Juncker, President of the European Commission (2014-2019) and, before that, the first president of the Eurogroup (2005) – Mr. Euro–, today occupies a liminal space: between the guardian of the essences of Europeanism and the alarm bell against internal and external threats to the EU.

The American dream of Harry and Meghan Markle has ended in failure. Or, if one wants to be more benevolent, in an experience that has not gone as they had imagined. Six years after the Megxit, the prince and the actress, who in 2020 gave a slammed door to the British monarchy in the name of freedom, privacy, and financial independence, are preparing their return to the United Kingdom. And they are not doing it for a holiday: they will arrive at the end of August, and their children, Archie and Lilibet, will start at a British school in September. Just last year, in an interview with the BBC, Harry stated that he could not imagine any scenario in which he could bring his wife and children to the United Kingdom, given his concern for security. Who will pay this bill now is, for the moment, a mystery, although the office of the British premier has assured that it is a private matter.

Andy Burnham's arrival at Downing Street has spurred British veterans who participated in the UK's nuclear tests during the fifties and sixties to pressure the government for the current premier to fulfill a promise he had repeatedly defended when he was Mayor of Greater Manchester.

The ultra Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform Party, regained the seat for the Clacton-on-Sea constituency – southeast England – in Thursday's by-elections called following the his own resignation, in early July. Farage had turned the by-election into a plebiscite between his figure and the Westminster establishment. In objective terms, Farage has achieved a solid victory (22,239 votes, 63.34%), just over a thousand more ballots than in the 2024 general election, with lower turnout now (44.37% compared to 58.7% two years ago).

Last week, 186 passengers on a river cruise ship from the company Viking Cruises had to be evacuated by Bulgarian border police after the ship Viking Ullur ran aground on a sandbank in the Danube. The incident took place near the Bulgarian town of Gomotartsi, in a context of exceptionally low water levels that continue to disrupt river navigation and freight transport in much of Central Europe.

In 1999, coinciding with the total solar eclipse visible in a small strip of the United Kingdom – the first in over seventy years – the Morgan family gathered in St. Davids, in the Welsh county of Pembrokeshire. Among those present were some elderly relatives who remembered the 1927 eclipse. "But, as often happens in the United Kingdom, the clouds prevented us from seeing the spectacle. Nevertheless, the most vivid memory is not of the missed eclipse, but of the family reunion".