Sir Bill O’Brien obituary

The life and career of Sir Bill O’Brien, the former Labour MP, who has died aged 96, could easily have been adapted by any self-respecting novelist to provide a snapshot of the characteristic 20th-century working man (and they were always men) who becomes an admired and respected solid citizen, having successfully harnessed decades of gritty industrial experience to elected public office, first in the town hall and then at Westminster.The archetype was further richly fulfilled in O’Brien’s case as he was a Yorkshire miner, born into poverty, who learned to have the courage to speak truth to power within his own dying industry – which meant standing up to Arthur Scargill as leader of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) – and always to defend what he believed to be the right course of action, irrespective of political fashion.He was categorised as a moderate, but in reality he was an unapologetic pragmatist. “I’m not extreme in any way,” he once said. He would also cheerfully acknowledge that sometimes he agreed with the views of Tony Benn – regarded at the time as the arbiter of Labour’s left – and sometimes he did not

Tesla’s UK sales fall almost 60% in July as BYD surges; Neil Woodford fined and banned over fund collapse – as it happened

Just in: Sales of Teslas in the UK more than halved, year-on-year, in the UK last month as the electric carmaker’s struggles continue.Industry body data just released shows that just 987 new Teslas were registered in the UK in July, almost 60% less than the 2,462 registered in July 2024. This means Tesla’s UK market share shrank to 0.7% in July, from 1.67% a year ago

The dark side of cryptocurrency

Andrew Bailey is right to distance the British financial system from cryptocurrency, but he is being too polite about it (Editorial, 29 July). Cryptocurrency is evil. Being speculative in nature, it serves no purpose as a useful currency, and being secretive, it facilitates international drug dealing, people trafficking and terrorism. In addition to helping destabilise our precarious world, it has a huge, unnecessary carbon footprint. It’s time for our financial authorities to speak truth to money

OpenAI stops ChatGPT from telling people to break up with partners

ChatGPT will not tell people to break up with their partner and will encourage users to take breaks from long chatbot sessions, under new changes to the artificial intelligence tool.OpenAI, ChatGPT’s developer, said the chatbot would stop giving definitive answers to personal challenges and would instead help people to mull over problems such as potential breakups.“When you ask something like: ‘Should I break up with my boyfriend?’ ChatGPT shouldn’t give you an answer. It should help you think it through – asking questions, weighing pros and cons,” said OpenAI.The US company said new ChatGPT behaviour for dealing with “high-stakes personal decisions” would be rolled out soon

Ray French obituary

Although Ray French was a dual rugby international, winning four caps for England at rugby union and then, after signing professional terms to play rugby league, appearing four times for Great Britain, it was as the BBC’s rugby league commentator that he came to national prominence.French, who has died aged 85 after living with dementia, succeeded Eddie Waring as the BBC’s voice of the sport in 1981, spending 27 years in the role. Waring had established a public profile, beyond his verbally eccentric rugby commentaries, via frequent appearances in light entertainment shows and knockabout comedy routines. And, like Waring before him, French too became a somewhat divisive figure among a cohort of rugby league supporters who believed he entrenched a stereotypical perception of their sport. With his distinctive Lancashire enunciation, catchphrases and characteristic lexicon, his critics accused the national broadcaster of choosing a figurehead designed to “keep the sport in its place”: an idiosyncratic pastime of northern England

US sports lobby Home Office for travel exemption after golf caddie refused UK entry

Sports organisations in the US will press the Home Office to apply exemptions to new travel rules for American citizens entering the UK, after Harris English’s caddie missed out on around £130,000 by being denied access for the Scottish Open and the Open Championship.The case of Eric Larson has alerted sport governing bodies such as the NFL and NBA, which stage games in London, that sportspeople or staff can be prohibited from entering the UK under electronic travel authorisation (ETA) rules if they have a criminal conviction. Larson was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 1995 for involvement in drug dealing and rebuilt his career as a caddie for several leading PGA Tour players after serving 10 years.Larson’s past had been largely forgotten until the Scottish Open, when it was revealed that any American citizen given a custodial sentence of at least 12 months will now be denied UK entry. ETA implementation started in January this year