Two men have been charged over a suspected Iranian terror plot at RAF Fairford last month. Mohmed Abdulkarim, 24, is charged with assisting a foreign intelligence service, while Nouman Essghir, also 24, is charged with entering a prohibited place for a purpose prejudicial to the UK. Israelis are heading to the ballot box today for what is widely viewed as one of the most pivotal elections in the country’s history. Polling suggests Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition will lose its majority in the Knesset, but that the opposition bloc will also fall short of the 61 seats needed to form a government, potentially leading to weeks of political wrangling. England captain Harry Kane has won this year’s Ballon d’Or, becoming the first Englishman for 25 years to win football’s most prestigious individual trophy. The 33-year-old Bayern Munich striker, who scored a whopping 73 goals last season for club and country, beat French forward Kylian Mbappé and Argentina’s Lionel Messi to the prize.

London is run like a high-street vape shop

Hammersmith Bridge is a metaphor for everything that’s wrong with British government, says Simon Jenkins in The Guardian. The historic crossing has been closed to traffic for seven years and is barricaded by what looks like Checkpoint Charlie in Iron Curtain Berlin. The council has already spent £54m on “stabilisation”, and with estimates for a full restoration job running to £300m (with “astronomical” maintenance costs thereafter) a growing body of opinion says it should simply be replaced. In most cities, designing a new bridge would be a “competitive challenge” embraced by the mayor. Unfortunately, British mayors spend their time vying for headlines, “or Downing Street”. Sadiq Khan appears to have no view on Hammersmith Bridge at all.

London may be the “richest, smartest, coolest” place in Britain, but it’s run like a high-street vape shop. Its buses are ever slower – one recent study found that the No 22 had an average pace under 6mph, some 16% more sluggish than a decade ago – homeless people ever more prevalent, waiting times at hospitals ever longer. London’s traffic is officially the worst of any capital in the world, in large part because of an appalling epidemic of roadworks. In 2017 The Economist published a notorious map showing roadworks in Paris and London – Paris had a spatter of red dots, London was a “sea of blood”. In most cities, such works are subject to “intense regulation” for the obvious reason that they’re a damn nuisance to everybody. In London “there is no regulation worthy of the word”. Chaotically privatised water and cabling companies have “virtually unlimited freedom” to dig where and when they please, leaving central London a “permanent construction site”.