Table of contents for 1432 in The Week

What happened The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) announced fresh strike action in England, after its members rejected a pay offer that ministers had hoped would end their dispute. The union, which represents 465,000 nurses, had negotiated a deal that would have given its members a 5% rise this year, and a cash payment for last year. However, in a ballot they voted to reject it by 54% to 46%. In response, the RCN announced a 48-hour walkout over the next bank holiday weekend, from 30 April to 2 May. For the first time, the strike will include nurses in emergency departments and intensive care. Pat Cullen, the RCN’s general secretary, said that her members were ready to keep striking until Christmas. Last week, junior doctors in England staged their…

Joe Biden’s tour of Ireland went “if not exactly to plan, then according to expectations”, said Michael Day in The i Paper. There was a brief – or arguably “curt” – visit to Northern Ireland, followed by “an extended, sentimental wallow” in the glories of the Republic. Biden addressed the Oireachtas, the Irish parliament, saying: “I only wish I could stay longer.” He prayed at the shrine of Our Lady of Knock. He went to a pub, where he confused the All Blacks rugby team with the Black and Tans, the notorious British security force, claiming that a rugby-playing cousin had “beat the hell out of the Black and Tans”. The visit ended in an address to thousands outside St Muredach’s Cathedral in Ballina, his ancestral town in County Mayo,…

Ultra marathons, after a Scottish competitor was disqualified from the GB Ultras Manchester to Liverpool race, for travelling part of the route in a car. Joasia Zakrzewski became the subject of an inquiry after mapping data showed that she’d covered a mile in one minute and 40 seconds. She said that she had felt unwell on the day, and apologised for not withdrawing from the race. Working from home, after JPMorgan Chase, America’s largest bank, became the latest global company to insist that its staff come into the office. Managing directors have been told they must be in the office full time, to lead by example; other staff have been warned to abide by existing three-day-a-week rules. The cost of living, with new figures showing that food inflation increased to…

35% of UK adults say they “do not care very much” about the coronation of Charles III on 6 May. 29% don’t care at all. 24% care a fair amount, and 9% a great deal. 46% say they’re likely to watch the ceremony or take part in celebrations. YouGov Labour’s “attack ad” accusing Rishi Sunak of not thinking paedophiles should be jailed made 17% of voters feel less favourable about the Tory party, and 12% of adults feel less favourable about Labour. Opinium/The Observer 50% of adults in Great Britain say that they “wouldn’t be bothered” if Northern Ireland left the UK. 22% say they’d be very or mildly upset; 11% would be very or mildly pleased. YouGov…

David Bowie’s drummer Seven years on from the death of David Bowie, he is more venerated than ever, says Ed Potton in The Times. But when Mick “Woody” Woodmansey, the drummer and last surviving member of Bowie’s band the Spiders from Mars, first met him, he was not impressed. “To be honest, I thought he was an idiot,” he says. A no-nonsense Yorkshireman, Woodmansey, 73, was baffled by Bowie’s seat-of-the-pants approach to working. The producer Tony Visconti “would say, ‘David, we’re ready for vocals on this one,’ and he’d go, ‘Just give me 20 minutes, I haven’t written the lyrics yet.’” He wasn’t much wowed by the music, either. “He played me his earlier work and I thought, ‘I’ve f***ed up here, it’s shit. I’m a loud drummer – how…

In 2021, people began leaving their jobs in large numbers. In Britain, 400,000 people quit their jobs in the third quarter of that year, up from 270,000 for the same period two years earlier. In October 2021, 4.2 million Americans quit: nearly 3% of people in jobs, which is close to the historical record (the long-term monthly average is around 2%). These sorts of levels were maintained through 2022. Anthony C. Klotz, professor of management at the University of London, dubbed it “the Great Resignation”. Many of those who didn’t like their jobs had stayed put during the lockdowns, Klotz explained, and emerged from it with extra savings and good opportunities to find new work: there were labour shortages in both countries, and record numbers of job vacancies. Many who…

Why George W. Bush was a real hero Nicholas Kristof The New York Times It’s a tough thing for a liberal to admit, says Nicholas Kristof, but George W. Bush is a hero – at least in one respect. While he’s deservedly condemned for the “catastrophe” of the Iraq War, he was also the author of the “single best policy of any president in my lifetime”: the mammoth government programme to fight HIV and Aids around the world. Pepfar, the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief, was launched in 2003 and turned the tide of the epidemic. It has invested more than $100bn in treating people with Aids and preventing the spread of the virus, saving 25 million lives so far. “Think of that: 25 million lives.” It’s more than…

It’s the story that has captivated a nation, said Celia Vasco in Publico (Madrid). Ana Obregon, one of Spain's biggest TV stars of the 1990s and 2000s, has been a fixture of the tabloid press for decades. But when ¡Hola! magazine published photographs of the 68-year-old leaving a Florida hospital with a newborn baby in her arms, the attention reached a new intensity. The magazine revealed that Obregon had had a child through surrogacy – a practice that is illegal in Spain. The media frenzy was only heightened by the news that the child’s biological father is Obregon’s son, Alessio, who in 2020 died of cancer, aged 27. Spanish law considers surrogacy “a form of violence against women”, and many were horrified by the prospect of a woman her age…

The world has reached a “turning point” in its energy use, according to a new report from the energy think-tank Ember. Humans are set to use less oil, coal and gas to produce electricity this year than last year – the first ever annual drop in the use of fossil fuels to generate electricity not caused by a pandemic or a global recession. In 2022, wind and solar produced 12% of global electricity, up from 10% the previous year. Together with nuclear and hydropower, total low-carbon sources produced 39% of global electricity. Because overall demand for electricity grew, fossil fuel emissions also rose last year. However, Ember’s analysts predict that 2022 will represent the peak of carbon pollution, with future reductions driven by the boom in Chinese renewable energy. “In…

In one of his essays, George Orwell pilloried the use of “political language” – consisting “largely of euphemism, question begging and sheer cloudy vagueness”, said Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express. A prime modern example of such “linguistic deceit and waffle” is the term “smart motorway”, to describe a road in which the hard shoulder has been turned into a live lane. The Government embraced the idea as a means of easing congestion; and traffic planners assured worried motorists that with “active traffic management” – radar-based cameras and electronic signs – they’d be safe if they broke down in “thundering traffic” without access to a dedicated emergency space. But campaigners were never convinced, and now – following a spate of deadly accidents – the Government has finally come to its…

“ChatGPT: the parrot that has swallowed the internet and can burp it back up again.”Andrew Orlowski in The Daily Telegraph “Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction.”Ronald Reagan, quoted in the Vineyard Gazette “We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not.”Joan Didion, quoted on The Daily Beast “What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.”Dwight D. Eisenhower, quoted in Automotive News “Competition is grand, but people also like watching a victim twitch. In fact, some prefer it.”Tennis historian Ted Tinling, quoted in Sportstar “Why shouldn’t the American people take half my money from me? I took all of it from them.”Edward…

Snooker Play was disrupted at the World Snooker Championship on Monday when a Just Stop Oil activist poured orange powder paint over a table. Football Liverpool beat Leeds 6-1 in the Premier League, with Diogo Jota and Mo Salah both scoring twice. Cricket England batsman Harry Brook scored his maiden century in the Indian Premier League. The 24-year-old struck 100 not out from 55 balls for Sunrisers Hyderabad against Kolkata Knight Riders. Tennis GB were knocked out of the Billie Jean Cup, losing their tie against France 3-1.…

by Rory Carroll Mudlark 416pp £25 The Week Bookshop £19.99 “At 2.54am on 12 October 1984, 25lb of gelignite exploded beneath the bath in room 629 of the Grand Hotel, Brighton,” said Max Hastings in The Sunday Times. The blast “struck the epicentre” of that year’s Conservative Party conference, killing five people and “wrecking the lives of others, including Norman Tebbit and his wife, who was paralysed from the chest down”. But it missed its principal target, Margaret Thatcher, who was working in her room – the Napoleon Suite – five floors below. In Killing Thatcher, journalist Rory Carroll tells the story of the attack, setting it “in the context of the long IRA bombing campaign against the hated ‘Brits’”, and charting the police hunt for the perpetrator. Adopting no…

The RSC has reopened its refurbished Swan Theatre with an eagerly anticipated adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s bestselling novel Hamnet, said Sam Marlowe in The Stage. As “snug and supple” a fit for the Stratford stage as one of the bespoke gloves made by William Shakespeare’s bullying father, it imagines the playwright’s courtship and marriage to Agnes (aka Anne) Hathaway, and the death of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet. Tom Piper’s design – with its “wooden beams and ladders, wheat sheaves, lavender and rosy apples” – turns “bewitchingly” from “a rustic home to the wooden O of the Globe Theatre”, and the action is garlanded by Oguz Kaplangi’s folksy music. In this “soft-focus version”, some of “the texture and particularity of O’Farrell’s writing” is lost, but this “historical-biographical fantasia” will still “win…

Josephine Hart’s 1991 novel Damage was the Fifty Shades of its day, “only much darker and much more elegantly written”, said Helen Brown in The Daily Telegraph. It was made into a film starring Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche, and now Netflix has turned it into a four-part TV series – with “disappointingly cringeworthy” results. Richard Armitage plays William, a brain surgeon who lives in a beautiful home with his “sexy barrister wife” (Indira Varma). At a party, however, he “locks eyes” with his son’s girlfriend Anna (Charlie Murphy) and “wordlessly inserts a rather small, grey cocktail olive into her open mouth”. And thus “the romp begins”. The two leads turn in “admirably committed performances”, but the series has all the subtlety of a US soap opera. Anna and William’s…

Roy Lichtenstein never disguised the fact that his famous pop art paintings were based on comic strips, says Dalya Alberge in The Guardian. But a new documentary has revealed just how extensive his copying was. WHAAM! BLAM! Roy Lichtenstein and the Art of Appropriation shows that about 300 of them were based on specific comic strips. One of the artists sampled was Hy Eisman, now 96, who was shocked to discover Lichtenstein had reproduced his work for the 1963 painting Girl in Window (bottom; Eisman’s version top) when the filmmakers contacted him. “It’s called stealing,” said Eisman. “I worked like a dog on this stupid page and this guy has $20m to show for it.” But Bradford R. Collins, professor of art history at the University of South Carolina, defended…

Mia is determined to stop Jim’s protest and tells Justin she can help with a counter-protest. Helen’s adamant about keeping Rob’s return quiet – but Lee cracks, telling Tony and Pat. Later, tense Helen tells Natasha that Rob’s ex-wife Jess wants to see her – Natasha offers to go along. Oliver reports to George that Caroline’s memorial bench was smashed by the Grey Gables intruders, and that the police are involved. George pressures Brad to deny everything. Jim thwarts Justin’s attempt to get a Borsetshire Business Angel award. Harrison questions Brad about the break-in; he lies under caution until Harrison reveals that George has spilled the beans. Alice is still upset about Jenny’s will; Chris tries to help by talking to Ian and Adam. Helen discovers from Jess that Rob…

Lilidorei, the world’s largest play structure, is a wonderland with gingerbread houses and giant slides in a forest clearing at Alnwick Castle, Northumberland (adults £13, 3-16s £16.50; lilidoreialnwick.co.uk). WildPlay, in the Whinlatter Forest, Keswick, Cumbria, has nine play areas along a 600m trail, with rope bridges, log swings and water features (free; forestryengland.uk). Margam Country Park, an adventure playground in Port Talbot, has a mini castle, huge slide, steam train and lake kayaking, plus a fairy-tale village for younger children (entry free; margamcountrypark.co.uk). There’s a huge turreted wooden castle with a moat and drawbridge at Tudor Towers at Hever Castle in Kent, and an “Acorn Dell” for younger children with a giant sandpit (adults £17, children £11; hevercastle.co.uk). Heartlands, in Redruth, Cornwall, has a shipwrecked boat, a mini beach with…

Seeking out sea cows in Florida Forget Minnie and Mickey – Florida’s “most captivating residents” are the manatees, or sea cows, that inhabit its inland waterways and coastal areas, says Jacqui Agate in The Sunday Times. Last year was a bad one for these “placid giants”, as algal blooms threatened the seagrass beds on which the creatures feed. Conservation groups are currently struggling to solve the problem. For the best chance of spotting a manatee, head out on a boat trip with Flamingo Adventures in the Everglades National Park, or with Paradise Boat Tours in Bradenton, where the animals can be seen “frolicking” around Anna Maria Island, a barrier isle with “white powder” beaches. The snorkelling tours on offer in Crystal River are more controversial; if you go, choose a…

Fox/Dominion/Smartmatic: Fox in the stocks The “staggering” £787.5m settlement between Fox and the voting equipment company Dominion is one of the largest libel payouts in history, said Sam Levine in The Guardian. Dominion sued Fox News for $1.6bn in damages for knowingly broadcasting false claims that its voting machines had helped rig the 2020 presidential election. But while Fox doled out an unprecedented sum – about 30 times Dominion’s annual revenue – it was “able to avoid something priceless: the public humiliation of a trial and an apology”. Without a trial, Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, Tucker Carlson and other news anchors will not have to own up to their role in spreading rumours that Murdoch himself described as “really crazy”. The terms of the settlement reportedly do not contain a…

The good news about the latest UK inflation figure is that at least it’s inching in the right direction, said Kate Andrews on Spectator.co.uk. The bad is that it remains stubbornly “in double digits”. The headline CPI rate fell from 10.4% in February to 10.1% in March – confounding both the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility, which had forecast inflation would be under 9% by now and “falling rapidly”. As predicted, energy prices are still “falling at a significant pace”, but these price drops have been offset by a rise in domestic costs – notably food inflation, which has spiralled again, “at the fastest rate in 45 years”: from 18% year-on-year in February, to 19.1% in March. “The figures will cause fresh headaches for both the…

Liz Truss “Many Brits who’ve outstayed their welcome in the Old Country head across the Pond,” says Matt McDonald in The Spectator. Could our short-lived former PM be among them? Liz Truss received a warm welcome in Washington last week when she delivered the 2023 Margaret Thatcher Freedom Lecture. In a speech “perfectly tailored” to US conservatives, “she hit on hot-button culture war issues, was hawkish on China”, and took potshots at the Left. The “rapt audience” cheered her soundbites (“We need a UK-US trade deal, not a UK-US tax deal”) and didn’t seem too worried about “the economic disarray” triggered by her fiscal policies. At a party later, Truss “was swarmed by well-lubricated political fanboys… You got the sense she could get used to this.” Rain Newton-Smith Rain Newton-Smith’s…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1359 An Ettinger pass holder and two Connell Guides will be given to the sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday 1 May. Send it to The Week Crossword 1359, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid/listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) This week’s winner will receive an Ettinger (ettinger.co.uk) travel pass holder in assorted colours, which retails at £115, and two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 5 Charles on his mother's horse (6) 6 Quiet snow leopard might do this (6) 9 Paired artist in attendance (8) 10 Austin moves with great speed (6) 11 Documents covering latest of government cuts (6) 13 Type of service within the influence of Royal…

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What happened Fierce fighting between the Sudanese army and a rival militia has killed at least 270 people, including three UN workers, and raised fears that the country is on the brink of a civil war that could unsettle the entire region. Most of the fighting took place in the capital Khartoum, trapping its residents inside homes, schools and mosques. Sudan’s de facto leader, army general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, came under attack in his own palace; tanks were reportedly deployed on the streets; and video footage showed aircraft ablaze at the city’s international airport. Violence was also reported elsewhere in the country, including in Port Sudan, the country’s principal port on the Red Sea, and in the western province of Darfur. The conflict pits members of the Sudanese Armed Forces…

The winner of a prestigious photography award turned down his prize last week, after revealing that his entry had been generated by AI. Boris Eldagsen’s haunting image of two women, entitled Pseudomnesia: The Electrician, won a creative category at last week’s Sony World Photography Awards. The German artist said he’d wanted to start a debate about the future of photography in the AI era. The Brecon Beacons National Park has officially adopted its Welsh name, Bannau Brycheiniog. Pronounced “Ban-eye Bruck-ein-iog”, it means “the peaks of Brychan’s kingdom”, a reference to a fifth century ruler. The park has also scrapped its logo of a fiery beacon, saying it didn’t reflect its climate friendly ethos.…

The Prime Minister is being investigated by Parliament’s standards watchdog over a possible failure to declare an interest, it was announced this week. It is thought that the investigation relates to a stake held by Rishi Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty, in Koru Kids, a childcare firm that is expected to benefit from new incentive payments for childminders, announced in the spring Budget. Sunak is believed to have declared the stake in a register of ministers’ interests, but that register was only updated this week, and questions have been raised as to why he did not mention the shares when asked if he had any interests to declare at a Commons committee hearing last month.…

Paris Abuse claims: The veteran French actor Gérard Depardieu, who is already under investigation over rape and assault charges, and was accused of rape in 2018 by the actress Charlotte Arnould, has now been accused by 13 women of engaging in unwanted sexual touching and other sexually inappropriate behaviour while on TV and film locations. The accusations against the 74-year-old actor appeared in an article this week in the investigative news outlet Mediapart. The women – mostly young female actors, make-up artists and technicians – claim his abuses were tolerated or ignored by other crew. Depardieu denies any criminal behaviour. Galicia, Spain Cocaine raid: Spanish police have seized 1,300 kilograms of cocaine-based paste stored in a sophisticated cocaine “mega-lab” in Galicia, the largest of its kind in Europe. The criminal…

“Teenagers now spend more than seven hours a day on their phones. An eerie thought too rarely entertained is that they are not ‘addicted’ to their phones, but that they simply prefer the digital world to the alternative. In our online lives we are permanently the centre of attention. Social media algorithms construct a perfectly catered version of reality for each of us. Video games offer uncomplicated fantasies of action and achievement. Even the misery of social media – which causes much teenage anxiety – is an attractively high-stakes kind of misery. A world of moral campaigning and terrifying beauty standards is enticingly dramatic compared to school and homework.” James Marriott in The Times…

Sucking up to the gangsters in Beijing Matthew Syed The Sunday Times It was playing against Chinese table-tennis players as a teenager, says Matthew Syed, that I learnt a truth that Western politicians such as Emmanuel Macron have yet to learn. They told me of fellow players who’d been arrested and tortured during the Cultural Revolution for the crime of being successful; of relatives who had perished, beside 45 million others, under Mao’s insane economic plan, the Great Leap Forward. The truth I learnt was this: for 30 years, the biggest threat to the world “has been the criminal mafia known as the Chinese Communist Party”. And still is. Genocide among the Uyghurs; land grabs in the South China Sea; “no limits alliances” with vile regimes such as North Korea…

It’s one of the most damaging US intelligence breaches in years, said Amy Zegart in The Atlantic – and also one of the weirdest. The leaks of top secret Pentagon files apparently began some time in January, on a small online forum on Discord, a messaging platform popular with video gamers, set up by a group of people connected by a shared love of guns and military gear. The leader of the group, known as “O.G.”, worked at a military base and began sharing images of classified documents, many revealing sensitive information about the war in Ukraine. In early March, another member of the group reposted these files on a larger Discord forum devoted to the Minecraft computer game and a Filipino YouTube celebrity. From there, the images made their…

Britain’s diabetes crisis The number of people with diabetes in the UK has exceeded five million for the first time ever, according to Diabetes UK. A new report from the charity shows that 4.3 million people have been diagnosed with the condition, and estimates that a further 850,000 are living with it, but do not know it. Around 90% of those who have diabetes suffer from type 2, which is associated with individuals being overweight or inactive; about two-thirds of adults in the UK are overweight or obese. Another 2.4 million people are at high risk of developing the type 2 form in the UK, according to the report. “Alarmingly,” it notes, “the condition is becoming increasingly common among those under the age of 40.” Diabetes, particularly if left untreated,…

Mary Quant, who died last week (see page 38), was devoted to her husband, Alexander Plunket Greene, but they were known for having blazing rows. During one fight while dining at Rules in Covent Garden, she screamed that she’d rather eat with the restaurant’s cat – and proceeded to do so. Moving to another table, she tied a napkin around the cat’s neck, and ordered jugged hare for them both. “The really funny thing was,” she said, “the cat played along with it beautifully.” Emma Watson outed herself as a follower of astrology last week, as she marked her 33rd birthday on Instagram. “This is 33,” she wrote, alongside a selection of moody fashion shots of herself. “Holy moly. Before 29 I hadn’t even heard of a Saturn Return as…

Throughout its 184-year history, the Grand National has reliably produced equal quantities of “drama and danger”, said Sean Ingle in The Observer. And this year’s edition had “pretty much everything: sorrow, suffering, glory and pain”. The chaos began before the race even started, when spectators were greeted by the “extraordinary sight of dozens of animal rights activists using ladders to climb into Aintree’s grounds”. The goal of the protesters was not so much to prevent the race taking place as to draw attention to their message: that horse racing is an unacceptably cruel sport. When the “world’s most famous steeplechase” finally got under way, 15 minutes later than scheduled, it proved both exhilarating and distressing. Of the 39 runners who started, only 17 made it to the finish – and…

by Erica Berry Canongate 432pp £16.99 The Week Bookshop £13.99 “We are programmed to fear the wolf,” said Kathryn Hughes in The Sunday Times. Wolves are invariably disturbing presences in childhood stories, and we take our “terrors with us into adult life”, whether referring to “lone wolf” terrorists or speaking of men with “wolfish” grins. Of course, we’ve “blown the whole thing out of proportion”: as the American author Erica Berry points out in her “richly discursive” book, we have more to fear from mosquitoes – or dogs – than from wolves. In America and Europe over the past 18 years, wolves have killed “precisely two” people. Berry’s book is partly a work of cultural anthropology, analysing humanity’s relationship with the “symbolic wolf”, said Maggie Lange in The Washington Post.…

The Rossettis were a “weird” bunch, said Melanie McDonagh in the Evening Standard. Born in London to Italian political exiles and raised to be “precocious artists and poets”, they were a major fixture of Victorian Britain’s cultural landscape. Dante Gabriel (1828-82), a painter, would become the co-founder and de facto leader of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, renowned for his “manic”, pseudo-medieval depictions of long-haired “stunners”; Christina (1830-94) was a celebrated poet; and William and Maria, the youngest siblings, were writers too. This new exhibition focuses on Dante Gabriel’s paintings and Christina’s poetry, but it also includes some of the art of Dante Gabriel’s wife, Elizabeth Siddal. Featuring “splendid” loans alongside much-loved paintings from our national collections, the show argues that this trio of creative spirits truly pushed the boundaries of 19th…

Middlemarch by George Eliot, 1871 (Penguin £8.99). Route one choice, but even I, a fundamentalist atheist, read Middlemarch and believed in God. The range and complexity of character, the absurd levels of insight in the narration: it’s a miracle. Emma by Jane Austen, 1815 (Penguin £7.99). Austen singlehandedly created the modern realist novel from a hallway table in Hampshire in the early 1800s. At a time when most authors were dealing in crazy broad strokes, she invents, in Emma, a new type of narrative irony, designed to subtly reveal character in a way that would still be employed by writers 200 years later. Rabbit is Rich by John Updike, 1981 (Penguin £9.99). The various American novelists who bestrode literature like colossi for years are now massively out of fashion, in…

Programmes The Windsor Castle Fire: The Untold Story Documentary piecing together a detailed account of the 12-hour fight to save the castle, with testimony from firefighters and witnesses. Sat 22 Apr, C4 20:15 (65mins). Little Richard: King and Queen of Rock’n’Roll Ringo Starr and Keith Richards are among the interviewees in this portrait of the late, great Little Richard, charting his career and influence. Sat 22 Apr, BBC2 21:30 (90mins). Malpractice New medical thriller from the Bafta-winning director of Boiling Point – an A&E doctor comes under medical investigation after a patient’s death. Sun 23 Apr, ITV1 21:00 (65mins). Storyville – Nelly and Nadine: Ravensbrück, 1944 Documentary following a woman’s discovery of the unlikely love story between her grandmother and another woman at Ravensbrück concentration camp. Tue 25 Apr, BBC4…

Victorian Harrogate hotel Set within beautifully landscaped gardens in the heart of the spa town, The Majestic Hotel offers a 2-night stay from £176pp b&b (with one dinner). 020-3608 0135, secretescapes.com. Arrive 24 May. India in 13 days Experience the land of a thousand colours, starting in Delhi with stops in Jaipur and the Taj Mahal in Agra. From £1,599pp b&b (incl. flights). 020-3925 6587, exoticca.com. Depart 21 September. Charming Bruges retreat Spend 3 nights at the Hotel De Orangerie, formerly a 15th century convent that overlooks the Dijver canal. From £193pp room-only (excl. flights). 020-3308 9005, slh.com. Arrive 11 July. All-inclusive Cuba stay Stay 7 nights at the Iberostar Varadero hotel, right on the beach and offering water sports and luxurious facilities. From £1,369pp (incl. flights). 020-3451 2690, firstchoice.co.uk.…

Hunt would make a bad fund manager Philip Pilkington The Daily Telegraph The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt says he is going to overhaul the pension system, says Philip Pilkington. He points to reforms in Australia and Canada, which he claims have left Britain trailing behind. He objects to the current “defined contribution regime” for being “too risk-averse” (and, therefore, delivering lower returns than might otherwise be achieved). “Insofar as Hunt’s reforms aim to give savers more choice as to what they invest in, they should be lauded.” But we must be wary of allowing large asset management companies to take more risk with people’s money. In Australia, the pension market is dominated by “supers” – behemoths that invest in everything from stocks and bonds to private equity funds and infrastructure projects.…

The week’s best shares Impax Asset Management The Times The sustainable investment specialist’s inflows are up 6%. Margins are expected be hit by cost inflation and new hires, but Impax reckons it can see a 60% rise in assets under management and has firepower for acquisitions. Buy. 781p. Intelligent Ultrasound The Mail on Sunday This Cardiff-based minnow has developed an AI ultrasound kit for obstetrics and local anaesthetics. It has received US approval and signed a contract with US giant GE. Still lossmaking, but prospects are bright. Buy. 7.25p. Intertek Group The Daily Telegraph Intertek provides safety and quality inspection services across a multitude of sectors. Highly profitable, with a clear competitive advantage, and upbeat growth prospects and sound fundamentals justify its valuation. Buy. £40.54. Smurfit Kappa Group The Daily…

Ford, which won permission for the first self-driving car on UK motorways. The new Mustang Mach-E offers “hands off, eyes on” driving, which means that in adaptive cruise control, the car does all the work – but the driver must focus on the road, and be ready to take back control. If the car detects that the driver is not paying attention, it will slow down and eventually stop. Harry Potter fans, with confirmation that Max (the streaming service formerly known as HBO Max) is making a new TV series based on J.K. Rowling’s books, with the author herself acting as executive producer. It’s reported that the series will be made over a decade, with a season dedicated to each of the seven books.…

The SNP’s treasurer Colin Beattie resigned this week, following his arrest as part of Police Scotland’s ongoing investigation into the party’s finances. Colin Beattie, the MSP for Midlothian North and Musselburgh, had been questioned before being released without charge pending further investigation. SNP members expressed frustration over the timing of Beattie’s arrest, which came just before the SNP’s new leader, Humza Yousaf, gave his first major Holyrood speech as First Minister.…

Kansas City, Missouri Doorbell shooting: A white homeowner has been charged with first-degree assault for shooting a black teenager who’d rung on his doorbell at 10pm. Ralph Yarl, 16, had gone to pick up his brothers from a friend’s house in Kansas City, but went to the wrong address. Andrew Lester, 84, shot him through the door, wounding him in the head and the arm. Police initially let Lester go without charge, triggering protests. Lester claims that he thought Yarl was a burglar; it has been suggested that he might use the state’s “stand your ground” law, allowing householders to protect their properties, in his defence. Dimmitt, Texas Farm explosion: Some 18,000 cows were killed last week following an explosion at an intensive dairy farm in Texas. The blast, near…

A Chinese man spent 21 hours kneeling on the ground outside his ex-girlfriend’s office, in an unsuccessful bid to win her back after she broke up with him. The unidentified man arrived outside the building in Dazhou, Sichuan province, with a bouquet of roses at 1pm, and stayed until 10am the next day, though it was pouring with rain and onlookers urged him to give up. When police attempted to move him on, he asked: “Is it illegal for me to kneel down here? If it is not illegal, please leave me alone.” A newly single father-of-five from Dartford in Kent has celebrated the end of his 23-year marriage by driving around with the words “Just divorced” daubed onto his car. Angus Kennedy, 58, says that though his separation with…

INDIA “Emperor Modi” erases the Mughals Haaretz (Tel Aviv) India’s Narendra Modi is literally rewriting history, says Swati Chaturvedi. According to new school textbooks issued by his government, 250 years of Muslim Mughal rule between the 16th and 18th centuries simply never happened. In a “barbaric expurgation”, the dynasty has been disappeared. No longer can teachers mention Akbar the Great, one of India’s most enlightened rulers. Nor can they identify the emperor Shah Jahan as being responsible for both the Taj Mahal, that “soaring symbol of India”, and Delhi’s historic Red Fort, from which every Indian PM has addressed the nation. Not even Mahatma Gandhi has been spared. As every textbook until now has explained, the leader of India’s struggle for freedom was shot dead by Nathuram Vinayak Godse, a…

“You can almost hear the collective sigh of relief emanating from the Palace,” said Sarah Vine in the Daily Mail. Last week, after months of “will they, won’t they”, and more than a week after the RSVP deadline, Prince Harry finally confirmed that he would be attending his father’s coronation on 6 May – though his wife will remain at home in California with their two children. Meghan’s rejection of King Charles’s invitation was “unmistakably a snub”. But it was probably for the best, given all the hurt the pair have caused through their Netflix documentary and Harry’s memoir, Spare. At least Charles, Camilla and the rest won’t have to walk on eggshells, for fear of upsetting “these two moaning minnies with their tiresomely endless grievances and perceived slights”. “Damned…

How to stay ahead of Manchester City. That is a question that “no one has really managed to answer consistently over the past five years”, said Barney Ronay in The Guardian. And currently, it’s a question with which Arsenal are having to wrestle. Mikel Arteta’s side have led the Premier League for nearly the entire season, and have often seemed on the point of pulling away from City. But they have never quite shrugged off the “Pep Guardiola-led engine of perfection” – and it looks like that failure may come back to haunt them. Last Sunday, the Gunners dropped two points, drawing 2-2 with West Ham after squandering a 2-0 lead, said Jason Burt in The Daily Telegraph. And extraordinarily, exactly the same thing happened against Liverpool the previous week.…

To The Times Why can’t the King apologise for slavery, asks the former BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan. Perhaps because his great-great-great-grandfather has already done so. Prince Albert made a very full apology in a speech to the Society for the Abolition of Slavery on 1 June 1840, six years after Britain had abolished slavery throughout its empire. To repeat an apology implies that the previous one was insincere and Prince Albert’s was anything but that, being most heartfelt. Michael Cole, BBC TV court correspondent, 1985-88 To The Times Michael Cole is mistaken in suggesting that Prince Albert “made a very full apology” for slavery in 1840. His speech regretted “that the benevolent and persevering exertions of England to abolish that atrocious traffic” had not yet succeeded. It described the continuation…

by Jenny Jackson Hutchinson Heinemann 320pp £14.99 The Week Bookshop £11.99 It’s unusual to come across “a novel about the 1% that isn’t a satire or an insane potboiler”, said India Knight in The Sunday Times. But Jenny Jackson’s “blissfully enjoyable” debut is neither. Instead, it’s a story about a “family of New York property squillionaires” who happen to be “nice people”. The Stocktons are an “exceptionally tightly knit” family of five who have lived for decades in the same Brooklyn Heights brownstone. But when Chip and Tilda, the parents, decide to downsize, it triggers various family tensions that suck in all three of their adult children. A “very funny” novel about class, money, family and love, Pineapple Street is “one to pack for summer, whether you’re headed for the…

● Check what kind of ticket it is: a penalty charge notice (PCN) or fixed-penalty notice (FPN) from a council, or a ticket from a private firm with a different appeal process. ● Gather as much evidence as possible. Are the details correct? Are the signs and road markings clear? Councils should consider mitigating circumstances, so keep a record. ● Act fast: councils usually offer a discount if you pay in 14 days. If you appeal in that time and lose, you can pay the reduced rate or you have 28 days for a formal appeal. ● If the council rejects your appeal, you can appeal to an independent tribunal. If this is dismissed, you should pay the fine within 28 days, otherwise it will increase. ● For a private…

Dame Mary Quant 1930-2023 If The Beatles wrote the soundtrack for the legend of Swinging Sixties London, then Mary Quant created the look, said Jess Cartner-Morley in The Guardian. One of the most influential fashion designers of the 20th century, Quant, who has died aged 93, is most closely associated with the miniskirt. She did not invent it (André Courrèges might lay claim to that), but it was she who took it mainstream. She also gave it its name, in honour of her favourite car, the Mini Cooper – and in her hands the miniskirt became emblematic of “life in the fast lane”. Its hemline was shocking, said Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell in The Atlantic; but the miniskirt was not really meant to be sexy. For Quant, the main point was not…