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Here are this week’s most compelling and exclusive stories from the UK and Europe.

BIG PICTURE

Head-to-head

That's enough of Nigel Farage for now. I'm sure there'll be more to say in the weeks to come.

The two men who could actually end up in Downing St took to the stage last night with different goals for a live TV debate.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak needed to make inroads in the 20-point polling lead Labour has over his Conservative Party. Opposition leader Keir Starmer was in play it safe mode, carrying the “ming vase” of a polling advantage that could land him a big majority.

In that position, Mr Sunak had little to lose and attempted a fightback with a hard-nosed, if tetchy first live head to head.

Our correspondent Thomas Harding, watching in the spin room in Manchester, felt Mr Sunak might have done enough to gain some momentum, while Mr Starmer at times looked awkward.

Mr Sunak hit out at Labour’s tax plans that he said would cost each taxpayer £2,000 a year.

It was curious that for 26 minutes of the hour-long debate the Labour leader failed to rebut the £2,000 charge that the Prime Minister freely and frequently repeated.

It then felt that he had been prompted from outside to respond, calling the assertion “absolute garbage”.

But Mr Sunak kept striking on the taxation point, declaring: “If you feel that Labour are going to win, start saving.”

The focus on tax meant Conservative proposals for a free vote on an annual cap on worker and family visas were not as much of a flashpoint as expected.

Mr Sunak's view is that migration levels are still too high and the government could go further in efforts to ensure annual immigration figures fall in a future parliament. The proposed plan would give parliament a direct role in setting levels of migration, with MPs having a vote on the number.

Mr Starmer meanwhile said he will set up a cross-border police unit to smash the trafficking gangs. The prime minister repeatedly challenged his opponent to explain how it would make a difference.

The arrival of 63 asylum seekers on a single boat in Dover on Tuesday added to the more than 10,000 who have arrived in the UK so far this year after crossing the Channel, and immigration has become a campaign battleground.

So perhaps it's not all plain sailing for Mr Starmer. In past centuries universities (guess which ones?) served as parliamentary seats, sometimes adding an extra flavour to parliament.

Those days are gone but Mr Starmer's own seat has a fair share of university life.

That is powering a challenge to the Labour leader in his own backyard. The challenger also brings together the two main streams of global protest seen since the Second World War.

Independent candidate Andrew Feinstein has put the Palestinian cause at the heart of his campaign for Mr Starmer’s London constituency of Holborn and St Pancras, where the prominent South African has lived for more than 20 years.

Mr Feinstein is not only taking a stand on Gaza but he is wound up by Labour’s shift to the right, decried by critics to the left of the party.

“A choice between the Tories and Labour, between Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak. I don't think is a choice that inspires many people,” he said. “People are crying out for alternatives.”

It is part of a movement of independents that arose from divisions within Labour, and is gaining momentum as Mr Starmer is accused of a purge of the party's left.

Within Holborn and St Pancras are the university campuses of Bloomsbury, where Mr Feinstein has spoken at student camps of the lessons from South Africa since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.

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Climate won't wait

To the Mansion House yesterday where the finance industry was holding the Net Zero Delivery Summit.

It is designed as a financial way station between last year's Cop28 and the 29th iteration in Azerbaijan this winter.

The insights ranged from how to tackle airliner contrails in the sky – more than one-third of aviation pollution – to building schools to UN standards, such as a selection of buildings that withstood the most recent floods in Pakistan.

Reducing carbon emissions is capital intensive but so too is adaptation to withstand the impact of climate change.

The City of London's leadership views the market to finance the carbon transition as one of the biggest opportunities open to investors.

I sat down with Chris Hayward, policy chairman at the City of London Corporation, who said the UK general election on July 4 was an opportunity to bring “clarity, consistency and continuity” to the policies to deliver net zero at home and internationally.

“One of the biggest challenges with the private sector is to give the investors the confidence to invest [because] they need to know that governments are absolutely committed,” he said on the sidelines of a summit to launch the report in London on Tuesday.

“I think that we need politicians around the world, frankly, that are committed to the consensus that the Paris agreements are still of fundamental importance.”

One of the pillars of the climate accords sealed in Paris in 2015 was the need for the rich to underwrite the transition to climate-friendly policies by developing nations to the tune of $100 billion annually.

“What we've got to do is start to see the flow of funds from the global north to the global south because that is where the real challenge of climate action is,” said Mr Hayward.

Meanwhile in Bonn, the UN climate change process is shifting gear. African delegates warned on day two of the working summit of “ballooning costs” in dealing with climate-related hazards.

Small island states are pushing for a new funding pledge higher than the previous $100 billion target for rich countries.

Hendrikje Reich, a German negotiator, said donors were looking at “where we can do better” as she called for high quality investment as well as quantity.

“It’s important to reach the goal but what really matters is the impact.”

Paris dials the Gulf

France and Gulf countries, including the UAE, are at the happy point of shared “common views and strategies for the future”, according to Laurent Saint-Martin, the chief executive of Business France.

The boss of the state-run board that promotes French business abroad spoke to The National at a big regional economy conference in the French capital, where new ventures were disclosed.

The UAE university dedicated to AI, the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, and two top French universities are embarking on a dual education programme, the director of research development and engagement at the MBZUAI, Ramzi Ben Ouaghrem, has told The National.

Mr Ben Ouaghrem, who is French, was speaking on Tuesday on the sidelines of Vision Golfe, a forum that aims to strengthen ties between France and the UAE in innovation and green technology.

“We're collaborating with Ecole Polytechnique and the Sorbonne Centre of Artificial Intelligence to build partnerships between MBZUAI and these French universities, together with industry partners,” said Mr Ben Ouaghrem.

Developing AI is a flagship project for French President Emmanuel Macron, who said in a speech last month that “artificial intelligence is not simply an economic and technological revolution – it carries the potential for a profound paradigm shift in our societies”.

Terror manuals redux

Staying in Paris, we can reveal that terror masters are circulating new attack manuals im time for the Olympic Games at the end of July.

These have been uncovered by Matt Mooney, who said there is a “moderately high” probability there will be a drone attack using a home-made bomb during this summer's games.

In one example in his possession, the manual “was less than 10 pages long” but what “was notable [is] the level of detail the individual brought to it”.

Mr Mooney, a former US Department of Homeland Security official, claimed the threat to Paris from drones is part of a “drumbeat of violence” being directed against sporting events, including the European football championship and cricket’s T20 World Cup.

This effort is “almost certain” to result in ISIS supporters trying or plotting to conduct “low-sophistication, lone-actor attacks targeting Olympics”, said Mr Mooney, who now works for the Recorded Future threat intelligence company in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

With the French authorities increasing security in Paris, a mass casualty attack on the scale seen in 2015, when ISIS killed 130 people in an attack on the Bataclan concert hall and other targets, is unlikely, he said.

Instead, ISIS and other extremists are producing attack manuals to help their followers adapt drones to carry explosive devices.

Mr Mooney gave an example of one that Recorded Future analysts came across.

“What we observed was a pro-ISIS supporter, so not an official element of the ISIS media apparatus, but someone who's active in their forums, who produced a relatively detailed analysis,” he told The National

“It focused on the commercially available drones and provided analysis on the types of drones that we can use and purchase.”

OTHER STORIES THIS WEEK

	Modi claims victory for alliance in India elections but BJP falls short
	Students and migrants – the scapegoats of the UK and EU elections
	Does Syrian Kurdish democracy pose a threat to Turkey?