In your briefing today:

📣 Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has warned Russia is planning strikes on European countries supporting Ukraine, using drones or rockets. Tusk said Vladimir Putin would pretend the attacks were “accidental” to “paralyse or at least weaken the motivation of Nato countries” to rush to the defence of the member state coming under attack, in a speech to the Polish parliament. (Guardian)

📣 Earl Spencer’s new book has thrown up yet more revelations that will embarrass and infuriate the Royal Family: the latest part of its serialisation alleges that the Queen offered to restore Princess Diana’s royal HRH title, on the day of her funeral.

The Earl says he was made the offer as he travelled with the Royals to Diana’s private burial at Althorp, the Spencer family’s estate in Northamptonshire. He decided to reject the Queen’s “well-meaning” gesture as it was a “consolation prize”. (Mail)

📣 The rapist police officer convicted earlier this week of nine charges of abuse against women between 2006 and 2022 was promoted after his arrest for an alleged attack on a woman, it has emerged.

Campbell Petrie, 50, kept his job and was allowed to retire following his second arrest for the offences which led to his conviction this week. The case has sparked fierce criticism of Police Scotland’s vetting standards. (Mail)

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📣 First Minister John Swinney has said the death of a woman who waited hours for an ambulance was “profoundly disturbing”, after call logs of police officers’ pleas for an ambulance were released. (Daily Record)

📣 Ministers have been warned that they will need to use compulsory redundancies to hit their target of reducing headcount in Scotland’s civil service by 12,000 roles by 2031. (Scotsman)

📣 Scottish drug dealers are selling brightly-packaged cannabis-laced sweets via social media, raising fears children will be tempted to try them. (Daily Record)

📣 100 tubas are headed to Haddington: they will perform Anthony Braxton’s Composition No 19 (for 100 Tubas) in a walled garden, as part of the Lammermuir Festival. It’s the first time the piece has been performed outside the US. (Guardian)

📣 Nurses reported seeing patients die and others deteriorate in sweltering heat on NHS wards this summer, with one children’s ward hitting 44C, according to one nurse. (Mirror)

📣 The man suspected of being the “Putney pusher” told relatives the police investigation was “murdering him” and that he had “no fight left” days before his death. (Guardian has the exclusive)

📣 With weeks to go before the vital US midterm elections everything is getting more expensive in the US: food, fuel and housing is all rising in cost. (WSJ)

📣 Today in “what’s AI up to now?”: Hackers used Anthropic’s Claude AI to break into OpenAI, its rival. (WSJ)

⚽️ It was another difficult day for Celtic: the second time in a week they’ve conceded three goals, this time to workmanlike but hardly brilliant Hungarian visitors, Ferencvaros, to lose 3-1. Despite a decent first half, sloppy defending - especially immediately before and after the break - did for Martin O’Neill’s men. Salt in the wound: former player Daniel Arzani scored the stunning third. (Report) (🎥 Highlights)

⚽️ Two English clubs enjoyed dream European debuts.

⚽️ If you’re playing Fantasy League, don’t forget it’s a Friday evening deadline: Brentford meet Chelsea in the first fixture of this weekend at 8pm.

🗣️ Can the AI arms race be stopped? That’s what The Economist asks this week, with a giant mushroom cloud made up of apparently random numbers illustrating its cover. “Two things should make you consider what artificial intelligence could mean for humanity,” is how it opens its leader on the subject.

“One is that those working with the technology are warning about it leading to a catastrophe - human extinction, even. The other is how technological innovation is aggravating the destruction of Ukraine. These things offer conflicting lessons for whether AI’s rapid progress can or should be slowed down.”

The newspaper finds both evidence that bad actors want to use AI for their own ends, and spreading public fear of AI doom. But that use of AI on the battlefield is, thinks The Economist, a compelling case for investing in the technology: “The war shows how technology translates into hard power - and that Russia uses it without regard to the old rules or norms of combat.”

Warnings about AI are not a marketing ploy by AI companies or an attempt to suppress competition, it says. “AI progress is fast enough, the safety incidents hair-raising enough, and the warnings of the companies long-standing enough to be taken seriously. AI does not have to kill off every human to bring about a catastrophe,” it warns. The stakes in this debate “could not be higher”. (Economist (£))

🗣️ The new far-right threat to Britain is far more serious than those that came before, writes Matthew D’Ancona. The mobile guerrilla campaign of Patriot Platform, the anti-migrant group led by Daniel Thomas, AKA Danny Tommo, “is an organised, networked, increasingly consequential movement. […] Contempt for his bigotry should not blind us to his abilities. This was real tradecraft.”

He also warns that facts will not solve the problem. There are now far fewer boat crossings than there were. “You cannot address political anger by throwing facts at the problem,” says D’Ancona.

The rise of Patriot Platform also poses problems for Reform: there are signs, says D’Ancona, that Nigel Farage is “starting to lose the dressing room” over the issue.

It’s as if Farage’s colleagues have “swallowed whole G.K. Chesterton’s famous poem, “The Secret People” (1907) and its menacing refrain that “we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet.” It is as though they expect that silence to be broken soon.” (The New World (£))

🗣️ Donald Trump is enjoying his last harrah, reckons Freddie Hayward: running campaign events ahead of November’s midterms which are less campaign events, more entertainment.

“This pre-midterm convention - the first of its kind - wasn’t really a convention. It was more like a WWE match where the villains - the stinking commies, the scary Islamists, the mad scientists experimenting on children’s bodies - were out there. Fans of the Trump franchise came to see their favourite characters perform in the flesh.

“Here was the scourge of Big Pharma, the perma-tanned hulk RFK Jr; there was the oblong-shaped treasury secretary, Scott Bessent. UFC fighters, opera singers, comedians and border guards.”

Trump, says Hayward, is now an electoral liability for the Republicans. (New Statesman (£))

🗣️Toby Young pitches to Harry and Meghan to send their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, to the state school he co-founded and opened in 2013.

It’s ranked “outstanding” by Ofsted, he points out, and they’d not only get a great classroom education, but they’d also learn lots in the playground too. “Based in Hammersmith,” he writes, “the school attracts pupils from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds and an equally diverse social mix, from the Victorian houses of Brackenbury Village to the local council estates. (We set aside 30 per cent of the places for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.)

“The Sussex children would leave with a good understanding of modern Britain, and friends from all walks of life, instead of being confined to a privileged bubble in the Home Counties. Isn’t that what Harry and Meghan, who are vocal champions of diversity and inclusion, want for their kids?” (Spectator (£))

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