Crypto News: In the thick of it

Understatement is one epithet that is rarely, if ever, applied to Dominic Cummings. The language in the former Downing Street chief of staff's WhatApp messages, revealed in the official Covid-19 inquiry, served as a reminder of that.

Calling it strong would be an understatement. Cummings, Johnson's senior aide, testified that his language was "appalling" but apparently his florid turns of phrase "if anything, understated the position." Which set the tone for the chaos that both he and Lee Cain, Johnson's former director of communications, described today.

At one point, Johnson even toyed with the idea of letting old people contract Covid in a bid to protect the economy and wider society from a lockdown, according to diaries kept by Patrick Vallance, the former chief scientific adviser. The then-prime minister appeared to think Covid was "just nature's way of dealing with old people," Vallance recorded.

Cain said the idea was never taken seriously but that it spoke to the "dysfunctional system" at the heart of government as policy oscillated back and forth. Johnson's inconsistency was so exhausting that Cummings branded him the "trolley," suggesting that he rolled all over the place.

Photographer: Dominic Lipinski/Bloomberg

Leaks were a problem, according to Cain. Cabinet was feral, Cummings said. Cummings tried to press Johnson into a reshuffle in summer 2020 to get rid of Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Education Secretary Gavin Williamson. The Cabinet Office, which should have been the Covid response nerve center, was a "dumpster fire," Cummings said, a rare moment of linguistic restraint.

The inquiry is in its second phase, covering the political decision-making at the height of the crisis, and Cummings is the most high profile official to have testified so far. As my colleagues Emily Ashton and Ellen Milligan report this evening, the fallout could even wrap itself around the current prime minister.

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The stories you need to know about this evening

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Tensions are continuing to rise in the Middle East. Saudi Arabian forces have clashed with Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels after they tried to fire a missile over the kingdom toward Israel. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said the "last political opportunities" are approaching to halt the Israel-Hamas war. Israel pushed deeper into Gaza and struck targets in Lebanon and Syria overnight. The United Nations warned the situation in Syria is "at its most dangerous for a long time." The conflict is broadening out at a frightening pace.

Against a backdrop of escalation, Keir Starmer set out to quell tensions inside his Labour party with a speech designed to set the record straight after comments to LBC last month, when he said Israel had "the right" to withhold power and water from Palestinians. Today the Labour leader's tone did moderate but the message was essentially the same.

Israel has the "right to self-defense," Starmer said, and it is too early to seek a cease-fire because doing so would strengthen Hamas, which the UK designates a terrorist organization. Instead, as others advocate, Starmer called for "humanitarian pauses" to alleviate suffering among Palestinian civilians as well as urgent work on a two-state solution. Israel did not escape criticism. "Siege conditions" in Gaza are "unacceptable" and should not continue, Starmer said. Palestinians must not be forced to leave their homes "en masse." Support for Israel's right of self-defense is "not a blank check," he warned.

The question now is simple: will it work? Has Starmer managed to defuse the row within Labour that has seen several councillors quit and senior party members, including on the front bench, oppose him by calling for a total Israeli cease-fire? It may be too early to say but the immediate signs were positive.

David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, called it "a powerful speech" on X, formerly known as Twitter. Lisa Nandy, shadow secretary of state for International Development, reposted it. Nandy was seen as a key waverer, so that repost mattered. After three weeks of infighting, might Starmer --- whose party is still leagues ahead of the Tories in the polls — have finally inspired an outbreak of unity?

The number of British businesses in financial distress has soared, driven by high interest rates and mounting trouble in the construction and property sectors.

Official figures Tuesday showed the number of company insolvencies in England and Wales jumped 10% from a year earlier to 6,208 in the third quarter. That was only slightly lower than in the three months through June, the Insolvency Service said. Together, the two quarters were the worst for corporate failures since 2009, during the depths of the financial crisis.

Going green. Check out Bloomberg Green's EV ratings dashboard to help choose between every electric car currently on the market in the UK.

The Lord and the billionaire. Next CEO Simon Wolfson and Frasers founder Mike Ashley are battling for the future of the UK high street.

Conspiracy theories. The fight over an environmental program in London has radicalized activists and mainstream politicians.

One key story, every weekday

Debris sit in a pool after Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers Beach, Florida, US, on Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2023. Photographer: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg

A year after Hurricane Ian ripped through southwest Florida, wealthy risk-takers are transforming one beach town.

In Fort Myers Beach, many of the middle-class cottages that once dotted the Estero Island town were wiped off the map. Ian killed 21 people and swept away a third of the homes and businesses on the narrow, 6.5-mile-long strip of sand, leaving a blank canvas for affluent newcomers — and a preview of what could take hold in other coastal communities as climate change spawns more intense storms.

Driving along the island's white-sand beach in his Jeep Grand Wagoneer, Alex King, a real estate agent wearing Crocs and a marlin-themed shirt, points to four mansions taking shape among more recently built, bunker-like houses that survived the storm. They're surrounded by empty lots once home to decades-old bungalows on wooden stilts, violently cleared by Ian's 15-foot storm surge in September of last year.

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