Table of contents for 1505 in The Week

What happened Keir Starmer faced down a significant rebellion this week over his plans to remove winter fuel payments from all but the country’s poorest pensioners. Many Labour MPs have expressed serious disquiet about the move, which will deprive around ten million pensioners of up to £300 a year. Union leaders have also criticised the decision. In a Commons vote on Tuesday, only one Labour MP – Jon Trickett – voted against the cut. But 52 others didn’t vote. No. 10 insisted that only a dozen of these MPs formally abstained in protest; the rest had specific reasons to be away from Parliament, although critics said some were likely confected. The Government won the vote with a majority of 120. Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the winter fuel payment cut in…

Controversy of the week “And then there were four,” said The Daily Telegraph. Mel Stride was eliminated from the Conservative leadership race in the second round of voting by MPs on Tuesday. That left two contenders from the right of the party leading the field – Robert Jenrick, with 33 votes, and Kemi Badenoch, with 28 – and two from the centrist wing: James Cleverly, and Tom Tugendhat, both on 21. Priti Patel had been eliminated last week. The final four “will make their pitch” at the Tory conference in Birmingham at the end of the month; MPs will then whittle them down to two, before members get the final vote. Badenoch has long been the favourite, said Noah Keate in Politico, but Jenrick has emerged as a serious challenger.…

Bedbugs, with the discovery of what is claimed to be a quick and easy way of eradicating the biting insects. Scientists in France recommend thoroughly cleaning the affected area, then spreading a thin layer of a powdered clay called Terre de Sommières, which apparently dehydrates bedbugs, killing them in 24 hours. Letter-writing, after Royal Mail announced that the price of a first-class stamp will go up to £1.65 next month. It blamed the 30p increase on “urgent” financial challenges.…

Dublin Stereotyping row: A school textbook presenting a “traditional” Irish family as potato-eating xenophobes has been withdrawn from schools in Ireland. In the new edition of Health and Wellbeing SPHE 1, the “traditional” family (who are white, red-headed and wearing Aran jumpers) eat potatoes every day, only listen to Irish music, never mix with people of other religions and dislike “change or difference”. Set against them is a “progressive” family who are mixed race, find other cultures “exciting” and are open to new experiences. The depiction caused a furore on social media, where it was described as offensive and degrading. Paris New PM: President Macron has appointed the former EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as prime minister, two months after his snap election resulted in a hung parliament and political…

“Yes, of course it is practical, but the now-ubiquitous mini-backpack is hideous. Once the preserve of hippies and gap-year students, backpacks have infiltrated modern Britain, with hardly a nod in direction of style or decorum. The market in the UK is worth around £90m a year, presumably as a result of an explosion in sales of what’s described variously as a ‘day bag’ or ‘office bag’. And they have largely confined the briefcase to oblivion. So rarely does one see a proper leather briefcase on a bus or train that, if you do, the bearer comes across as some sort of demented P.G. Wodehouse character or a member of the Rees-Mogg family.” Mark Palmer in The Spectator…

Don’t let them out of jail, try to get them in Robert Colvile The Sunday Times We need to release prisoners early – not just to relieve pressure on an overloaded system, but because we’re locking up too many people in the first place. That’s the view of Britain’s most senior judges, set out in a new penal-reform paper. And they do make some strong points about how expensive our prisons have become and how bad they are at rehabilitation, says Robert Colvile. But the idea we’re locking people up too much is hard to credit when you consider just how hard it is to get jailed today. Since 2007, there have apparently been more than 50,000 occasions on which offenders have been spared jail despite having more than 50…

Diabetes and dementia linked A drug that is already used to treat diabetes may cut the risk of developing dementia by a third, a major study has found. Globally, around 55 million people have dementia, a number that is expected to almost triple by 2050; but there is no cure, and existing treatments only bring about small improvements. For the new research, scientists in South Korea analysed data on 220,000 people aged 40 to 69 with type 2 diabetes. Half were taking sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT-2) inhibitors, pills that lower blood-sugar levels in patients with diabetes; the rest were taking dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitors. All were free of dementia at the start of the study and, over the next two years, 1,172 were diagnosed with the condition. Those taking SGLT-2 inhibitors…

During campaigning, former presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr was accused of having eaten dog, and admitted to having once dumped a dead bear cub in Central Park. Now, a third story has emerged – of the time he found a dead whale on a Cape Cod beach, used a chainsaw to cut off its head, then drove the head back to New York on the roof of the family car. “Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car,” his daughter Kick recalled in an interview in 2012. “We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.” Diane…

“If at first you do not succeed, try again.” This mantra has long “been a guiding principle” for England’s most prolific striker, Harry Kane, said David Hytner in The Guardian. And on Tuesday, as England took on Finland, the 31-year-old – who was marking the occasion by wearing gold boots – sealed his 100th appearance for his country by proving its value once again. During the first half, and early in the second, the England captain had numerous nearly-but-not-quite moments. With any other player, it would have been tempting to conclude that this was “going to be one of those nights”. Kane had other ideas. With 57 minutes on the Wembley clock, he received a “lovely first-time pass from Trent Alexander-Arnold”, manoeuvred the ball into space with the outside of…

Paralympics Great Britain finished in second place in the medal table, with 49 gold medals and 124 medals overall. China, the top country, won 94 golds. Tennis Aryna Sabalenka won the US Open for the first time. The Belarusian beat the American Jessica Pegula 7-5 7-5. The British 15-year-old Mika Stojsavljevic won the girls’ title. Cycling Primož Rogliĉ, of Slovenia, won the Vuelta a Espana for the fourth time, equalling the all-time record. Football France beat Belgium 2-0 in the Nations League.…

Running time: 2hrs 30mins London’s autumn season is bookended by “weighty Stoppards”, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. In December, The Invention of Love (1997), Sir Tom’s erudite portrait of A.E. Housman, is being revived at the Hampstead Theatre. But first we have this “cleverly engaging” – if “not wholly lovable” – staging of The Real Thing (1982), one of his most “accessible and emotionally resonant successes”. This “witty”, twisty play has as its central character a distinctly Stoppard-like playwright named Henry, said Will Lloyd in The Sunday Times. Henry’s actress wife, Charlotte, is starring in his latest play as a woman who is suspected of cheating on her husband. But Henry has left her for a younger actress, Annie, whose actor husband has been cast in Henry’s play…

“Pitched somewhere between The White Lotus, Glass Onion and the latest Harlan Coben series”, Netflix’s six-part drama The Perfect Couple is “a glossy spin on the rich-people-are-awful sub-genre of murder-mystery,” said Sophie Butcher in Empire. Nicole Kidman stars as Greer, a fabulously rich novelist whose son’s wedding on Nantucket is ruined when a body turns up on the beach. Suddenly, everyone staying at the family’s huge beach house for the weekend is a suspect. The dialogue is often a bit cheesy, and the whole thing is “schmaltzy, silly and very soapy”; but it’s elevated by an impressive supporting cast that includes Meghann Fahy and Dakota Fanning; and the compelling plotting and well-established characters “will have you hooked”. The series ticks off “every cliché of the megabucks mystery thriller”, said Benji…

Peter Doig is Europe’s most expensive living artist, says Dalya Alberge in The Observer. In 2017, Rosedale, his depiction of a house in a snowstorm, sold for £21m. In 2021, Swamped, another “enigmatic” painting, of a canoe, sold for nearly £30m. Since 2007, he estimates that his paintings have achieved combined sales of almost £380m. But Doig, 65, has revealed that he has made barely £230,000 himself from selling them. The Scot says it is collectors who are profiting, buying and selling his works on the secondary market for “crazy prices”. He also has no idea who they are, because the art trade is so opaque. Doig said that he recently had a “real row” with one of his former art galleries because they refused to tell him who had…

At the cricket, Emma confronts Clive with a few home truths and he clears off. Joy sets up a community litter campaign. After Xander’s first day at school, Ian sets up a parents’ group chat and gossips with school mum Lottie; Adam’s not so keen to get involved. Chatting to Joy, Susan learns that George bought cider on the night of the accident, but Alice only bought vodka; as realisation dawns, she tells Neil something is very wrong. Mia and Brad have a picnic on Lakey Hill before she heads to uni in Newcastle. He says he loves her but thinks they should break up; stunned Mia agrees. Neil and Susan turn up at Emma’s and, after some prodding, Emma tells them everything. They persuade her to call the police…

This delightful pairing showcases the contrasting tastes and textures of aubergines and potatoes in a medley that is both comforting and full of depth, says Romy Gill. With its earthy and slightly bitter undertones, aubergine sits well next to potato and each one complements, rather than overshadows, the other. The combination creates a hearty wholesome dish, which is prepared with different spices in homes across India. Serves 4 2 small aubergines, diced into 3cm (1in) cubes 1 tsp salt 1 tsp ground turmeric 60ml sunflower oil 1 tsp cumin seeds 200g red onions, peeled and thinly sliced 10g ginger root, peeled and thinly sliced 4-5 large garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced 2-3 green chillies, cut in half lengthwise 1 large tomato, chopped large handful of fresh coriander, chopped 1…

Retailer Julian Richer offers some advice for young people getting into business: ● Run your business ethically – it gives you and your stakeholders a clear conscience, which makes the firm easier to manage. ● Look for the big picture, but always remember the devil is in the detail. ● Avoid giving equity away unless you really have to. It’s always better to borrow. ● What goes up slowly, goes down slowly, so try not to grow too fast. ● Keep a sharp eye on your cash flow. Lots of profitable businesses go bust because they can’t pay their bills. ● Wherever possible, buy freehold property; it’s better and cheaper than renting and freeholds should increase in value, which is good for the balance sheet. ● Aim for a niche…

It’s hard to imagine a better advertising slogan than “Never Knowingly Undersold”, said Chris Blackhurst in The Independent. Audi’s “Vorsprung durch Technik” and Tesco’s “Every Little Helps” arguably come close. But John Lewis’s iconic price guarantee – dating from 1925, was dropped in 2022, as John Lewis “wilted under the pressure of competition”. Now the slogan is back – in tweaked form – as new-broom boss, Peter Ruis, brings “renewed vigour and sharper focus”. Now it’s “Never Knowingly Undersold on quality, service & price” – and a promise to price-match the company’s 25 biggest competitors, in store and online. Welcome back “NKU”: you’ve been missed.…

The language of City dealmaking is “dense and confusing”, says City AM. Patrick Sarch, head of UK public M&A at law firm White & Case, helps us sort our white knights (a friendly acquirer who swoops in to save a target company from a hostile bidder) from our poison pills (when a target tries to put off a hostile bidder by issuing new shares to existing shareholders). Pac-Man defence When a target company tries to turn the tables by launching its own offer for an unwelcome bidder. Macaroni defence Issuing a large number of bonds that must be repaid at a premium if the company is taken over, making it more expensive for the bidder. Starburst Breaking up a company when under pressure from activist investors or a hostile bid.…

Who’s tipping what The week’s best shares Currys The Times Curry’s, which has about 800 stores in the UK and abroad, sells everything from TVs to dishwashers. Revenues are up, debt and pension liabilities are down. Shares have jumped on takeover interest, but are cheap versus peers. Buy. 80p. Empiric Student Property The Times An acute shortage of student homes is driving demand in the purpose-built market. Now Empiric’s disposal and refurbishment programmes are “materially complete”, it’s set for growth. Prospective 4.2% yield. Buy. 96.4p. Haleon The Daily Telegraph The Aquafresh and Panadol owner is growing solidly, while rising margins suggest it has “clear competitive advantage” over peers. Simplifying ops and focusing on core brands, for which demand is set to grow. Buy. 382.3p. Knights Group Holdings The Mail on…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1431 Two Connell Guides and three Week-branded items will be given to the sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday 23 September. Send it to The Week Crossword 1431, 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 Week-branded items including a notebook, coffee mug and tote bag, as well as two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 1 Express poll, underlying support not changed (2,2) 5 China is forced to spend millions for defence (8) 9 Take courses after university in Italian city (5) 10 Tunes, sounding as if they may succeed (4) 11 One close outside back of room for changing (8) 12 Alert…

What happened MPs and relatives of victims of the 2017 Grenfell Tower disaster demanded that the people and firms responsible for the litany of failings that led to the fire face criminal prosecution. Last week, Martin Moore-Bick’s seven-year inquiry into the tragedy published its findings in a damning 1,700-page report. It concluded that all 72 deaths had been avoidable, and that the fire had been preceded by “decades of failure” by central and local government, the building industry, regulators and other bodies (see page 13). The Metropolitan Police, which has been examining the case for seven years, pleaded for patience. It said that 180 of its officers were investigating 58 people and 19 companies in connection with the tragedy, and that it would now need to examine the inquiry report…

Users of the running app Strava are paying “mules” to do their jogging for them, the Telegraph reports. The app allows amateur runners to post their routes and times, which may win them “kudos” (the equivalent of “likes”) from other users. But on TikTok, people are now offering to run races for other people. In a video, a runner explains that he can either take a Strava user’s phone on the run, or access their Strava account. Often, he says he will be asked to run the race slowly, so that when the real user speeds up, everyone is impressed. For the first time, online has overtaken TV in Ofcom’s annual survey of the nation’s news habits. 71% of adults now say they consume news on the web, while 70%…

More than 1,700 inmates were released from prisons in England and Wales this week as part of the Government’s scheme to ease prison overcrowding. Announced in July, the scheme allows for the release on licence of prisoners sentenced to less than five years once they’ve served 40% of their term, instead of 50%. Those convicted of sex crimes, or who were jailed for more than four years for violent offences, are not eligible. However, some of the eligible prisoners may be sex offenders who were serving additional terms – and their victims may not have been warned of their early release. There have also been concerns that the probation service has not been well enough prepared for the extra workload.…

Washington DC Russian meddling: The US Justice Department is in the process of seizing 32 Russian-controlled internet domains, which it alleges form part of a major state-run disinformation campaign known as Doppleganger, it was revealed last week. The unsealed indictment accuses various Russian companies of spreading propaganda aimed at weakening international support for Ukraine, bolstering Russian interests and subverting American elections. It says that, among other things, Kremlin-directed companies have used cyber-squatting, fabricated influencers and fake profiles to “covertly promote AI-generated false narratives on social media”. US prosecutors have also indicted two employees of the Russian state-controlled broadcaster RT, whom they accuse of overseeing a $10m scheme to pump out propaganda on social media designed to sow “discord and division” in the US. Washington DC Iran sanctions: The US has…

Japanese workers who fear their employers’ fury when they quit their jobs, are increasingly turning to companies that quit for them, The Times reports. Aya Sato, 24, paid £120 to employ a “proxy resignation” agent when her first attempt to resign from her job at a bank was met with sighs of exasperation from her boss, who then started shouting and desk-thumping, and eventually threw a pencil case. “For Westerners, changing job is something positive,” explains one resignation agent. “For Japanese, it’s wicked to quit.” A new statue of Elizabeth II, in Antrim Castle Gardens in Northern Ireland, has received a mixed reception. The bronze sculpture, which shows the late Queen flanked by her husband, Prince Philip, and two corgis, was unveiled last weekend. “Looks more like Mrs Doubtfire than…

CHINA A people losing love for their president Nikkei Asia (Tokyo) For decades, China’s Communist Party had “a covenant of sorts” with the people it governs, says William Pesek: we’ll deliver prosperity, if you submit to one-party rule; that was the deal. But that pact is breaking down. The US-based Freedom House has logged 6,400 public protests since June 2022, and the figure is rising. For Xi Jinping this is the latest and “arguably most dangerous” reminder of “his failure to boost living standards and economic growth” – many of the protests involve disgruntled workers or people stung by plunging land values. Next year is the climax to his ten-year Made in China 2025 project to move manufacturing to higher-value sectors. But China is nowhere near where he’d hoped, its…

For members of the Pélicot family, one date will be etched on their memories forever, said Luc Leroux in Le Monde. It was on 2 November 2020, in a police station in southern France, that Gisèle Pélicot, now 72, was told what investigators had found on her husband Dominique’s computer: tens of thousands of images of her being raped and sodomised by him and by scores of strangers, while she was drugged and unconscious. In court last week, where 51 men, including Pélicot, are on trial, Gisèle testified that she had no idea of her husband’s depravity; their marriage had been happy, their sex life conventional. Her world had “collapsed” when she saw herself lying like a “rag doll” in her bed, being “sacrificed on the altar of vice”. Her…

“Ask 100 people what it means to be British, and you’ll get 100 different answers,” said Robert Tombs in the Daily Mail. For some, it will be cream teas and cricket; for others, the Beatles or the NHS. And yet, whatever these superficial differences, “there was once a time when the vast majority of people could agree that they were proud of our country”. Sadly, “that is no longer the case”. According to the latest British Social Attitudes survey, just 64% of us are proud of Britain’s history, down from 86% in 2013; only 49% would rather be British than a citizen of another country, down from 62%. Some of the change might be the result of people moving to Britain in large numbers, without much regard for our history…

Jack Draper has enjoyed an incredible season of tennis this year, said Stuart Fraser in The Times. It saw him become Britain’s No1; in June he won his first ATP tour title; and, last week, in the US Open at Flushing Meadow, he reached his first Grand Slam semi-final. And he knew he’d have his work cut out if he was going to beat the world No. 1, Jannik Sinner. But what he didn’t anticipate were the physical problems – including repeatedly “vomiting on the court” – that would make his challenge even tougher. Conditions were muggy “inside the world’s biggest stadium” and Draper sweated profusely from the start: his racket repeatedly slipped in his hands; twice, he had to change his shoes and socks. By the second set, he…

Educating the workforce To The Daily Telegraph Mel Stride’s article on immigration raises valid concerns, but his proposed solutions fail to address the recruitment challenges faced by industries such as construction. As a manager in the industry, I’ve seen the difficulties of finding skilled British workers. When we recently advertised for structural detailers, we received eight applications, with just one from a UK national, who lacked the necessary qualifications. The successful candidates were immigrants with relevant degrees and specialised skills. We need a comprehensive approach, starting with stronger partnerships between industry and educational institutions, and campaigns to promote careers in industries with skills shortages. Paul Watson, Shefford, Bedfordshire Ban the bishops To The Times Your article “Hereditary peers could be gone in 18 months” was encouraging. However, it did not…

by David Hepworth Bantam 432pp £25 The Week bookshop £19.99 At its inception, pop music was about youth, said Danny Kelly in Literary Review. Performers, listeners: all were young. The form was “ephemeral, disposable”. But as David Hepworth argues in his fascinating new book, at some point that changed. Today, from Bruce Springsteen to the Rolling Stones, “a phalanx of 70- and 80-year-old artists continues to work, attracting adoring multitudes and banking stupendous-sized cheques”. The trend sucks in even the most bitterly riven bands – as Oasis’s imminent reunion attests. Hepworth thinks the turning point was Live Aid, said Alexis Petridis in The Guardian. That show’s big successes weren’t acts in their 20s, but the likes of Queen and Elton John. It heralded a “sea change”, which he deftly analyses.…

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie, 1904 (Vintage £7.99). Much, much wilder and stranger than Disney would have you believe, Barrie’s original Peter Pan is dangerous, exciting and also, as his creator describes him, a “tragic boy”. It’s a complex and magical piece of work. The Once and Future King by T.H. White, 1958 (HarperCollins £12.99). Malory’s Morte d’Arthur pushed through White’s bizarre sensibility. Radiantly well written, deeply moving, morally serious and wildly funny in the silliest ways possible, it’s like nothing else. Grinny by Nicholas Fisk, 1973 (available used). Weird sci-fi/horror alien home-invasion fantasy. What if a Great Aunt Emma you’d never heard of turned up on the doorstep and said, “You remember me?” and your parents came over all weird and asked her to stay? It traumatised a generation.…

Programmes Nightsleeper Real-time thriller about the hacking of a Glasgow-London sleeper train, as two passengers battle against the clock to save it. Sun 15 and Mon 16 Sep, BBC1 21:00 (60mins each). Britain’s Atomic Bomb Scandal Documentary tracing the legacy of Britain’s nuclear tests in the 1950s and 1960s, which left many soldiers – and their descendants – with catastrophic health issues. Sun 15 Sep, C4 21:00 (60mins). Mozart: Rise of a Genius Three-part exploration of the composer’s musical genius and eventful life, starting in 1777 as he leaves Salzburg and his secure job as court musician. Mon 16 Sep, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). In My Own Words: Hanif Kureishi The writer looks back on his life and work, including his experience of growing up as the child of immigrants in…

Fondation Maeght, Alpes-Maritimes, France, perched on a wooded hillside inland from the Riviera, has works by some of the greatest 20th century sculptors, including Braque, Giacometti and Miró (from €14; fondation-maeght.com). Kröller-Müller Museum, in Arnhem, the Netherlands, is one of Europe’s largest sculpture gardens, and has pieces by Rodin, Hepworth and Moore (from €6.50; krollermuller.nl). Museum of Underwater Sculpture, Ayia Napa, Cyprus, is a submerged sculpture forest, which you can snorkel over or dive down to (free; musan.com.cy). Austrian Sculpture Park, Graz, Austria, has quirky pieces such as Erwin Wurm’s life-size Fat House, which appears to be made of marshmallow (free; museum-joanneum.at). Middelheim Museum, in Antwerp, Belgium, has more than 100 sculptures dotted through the park, plus a restaurant in the old castle (free; middelheimmuseum.be). SOURCE: THE OBSERVER…

Gundari Folegandros, Greece Known for its “dramatic peaks and plunging canyons”, the little Greek island of Folegandros is spectacular, but blessedly untouristy. This new hotel is its first five-star “boutique resort”, says Francesca Syz in The Daily Telegraph. Perched on a cliff ten minutes by car from the main town, it has 25 suites, all “spacious and light-filled”, with sea views through floor-to-ceiling windows and terraces with infinity pools. The restaurant is overseen by the “legendary” Michelinstarred chef Lefteris Lazarou. There’s also a communal pool, a spa and an organic farm. A second restaurant is due to open next year. Suites from £520 b&b; gundari.com.…

The “Internet of Things” is still not a thing Adrian Wooldridge Bloomberg The tech-industry hype around the “Internet of Things” continues unabated, says Adrian Wooldridge. A breathless new report from McKinsey reckons “the total value potential for the IoT ecosystem could reach £12.6trn by 2030”. Hmm, maybe. Fridges that let you control their temperature remotely! Umbrella handles that glow when it’s about to rain! Pillboxes that yelp when you forget to take your meds! All sound useful – for a moment or two. But, in reality, the upside of attaching household devices to the internet is often minimal – a “cumbersome way of addressing a non-problem”. Manufacturer surveys suggest that fewer than half of internet-capable devices are actually hooked up to the internet. Why is that? Because being able to…

The Princess of Wales, who revealed that she has completed her chemotherapy treatment, and is planning a limited return to public engagements in the coming months. In a video released by Kensington Palace, she said that the past nine months had been “tough” and “scary”, and she was relieved the treatment was over. Dwayne Fields, the first black Briton to reach the North Pole, who was named as the UK’s new Chief Scout, taking over from Bear Grylls. Fields – an explorer, TV presenter and naturalist who grew up without access to nature in inner-city London – said that joining the Scouts as a boy had “shaped who I am today”. 1990s nostalgia, with reports that sales of crisps that were popular in that era are soaring again. Supermarket sales…

A New York Times poll of likely voters taken before the US presidential debate on Tuesday gave a slight lead to Donald Trump for the first time since Kamala Harris secured the Democrat nomination. 47% of respondents said they would vote for Harris in the election in November; 48% said they’d opt for Trump. This reduced her lead in the average of all polls to 2.5%. Three-quarters of members of Gen Z (born after 1996) aim to be their own boss. 39% think they could launch and run a business from their smartphone. 45% reckon they could make money from social media. By contrast, only 57% of millennials (born between 1980 and 1996) have become entrepreneurs or plan to. Santander/Daily Telegraph…

Lessons from Grand Designs As the presenter of Channel 4’s Grand Designs, Kevin McCloud has spent a lot of the past 25 years in the company of couples who are in the midst of ambitious – and often highly stressful – house-building projects, says Andrew Billen in The Times. A former trainee opera singer turned designer, he comes into these people’s lives as the expert, but he has also learnt from them. Early on, he scoffed when a woman said she meditated with a spiritual companion; but she also told him that the key was to focus on the things that make you happy. When designing a home, he says, people often think that a “tap that produces sparkling water” or a walk-in fridge are the things that will bring…

From 2005, Arconic, the French wing of a US metals conglomerate, had clear test results showing that its Reynobond 55 PE cladding, in cassette form, “reacted to fire in a very dangerous way”, and could not be classified as meeting EU safety standards. Senior officials discussed this issue in emails marked “confidential”. Despite this, and despite being aware of a series of cladding fires, it continued to sell its product in places with “weak regulatory regimes”, such as the UK. After further tests in 2013, Arconic downgraded the product’s EU safety classification. But its UK sales team did not pass this on to its customers, and sold it using fire-performance claims it “knew to be false”. For its part, the insulation company Celotex knowingly gamed the fire tests – using…

How to end the trade in US hostages Danielle Pletka The Washington Post There were tears of relief last month when three Americans, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, were released by Russia as part of a prisoner swap with the West. The exchange reduced the number of US hostages held abroad, says Danielle Pletka, but dozens more still languish in Russia, Iran, Syria, Nigeria, and elsewhere. The roster of those released from wrongful captivity is still longer – and their freedom has often come at a steep price. The US basketball star Brittney Griner, for instance, was freed by the Putin regime in exchange for the notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout. To secure the freedom of five citizens from Iran last year, President Biden had to release $6bn…

GPs spend more than a third of their time treating a relatively small but growing group of patients who have multiple illnesses, new research has found. The analysis of more than ten million patients at 824 surgeries revealed that in 2019, 16% had three or more long-term conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure and dementia, up from 9.7% in 2005; and that these patients accounted for 34.5% of the time GPs spent with their patients, up from 22.5%. In the same period, the number of people without any serious illnesses had fallen from 51.5% to 43.6%. The study, published in the British Journal of General Practice, also found that the average person sees their GP less often than they used to; but that the consultations last longer and…

Keir Starmer’s Government has pulled off the impossible, said Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian: finding common ground between vocal supporters of Israel and trenchant defenders of the Palestinians. Unfortunately for Starmer, what both sides agree on is that Labour’s recent suspension of 30 arms export licences to Israel is a disgrace. The first group say it is a craven sop to Labour backbenchers that will only encourage Hamas. Britain’s chief rabbi said the move “beggars belief”. Critics on the Left, meanwhile, protest that the ban – which left 320 other arms licences for Israel untouched – was far too limited. Amnesty International said the decision to keep supplying Israel with parts for F-35 fighters was “catastrophically bad”, while the Campaign Against Arms Trade called it “utterly outrageous and unjustifiable”. Some…

“Big shots are little shots who kept shooting.”Christopher Morley, quoted in Forbes “Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.”George Santayana, quoted in The i Paper “The power of accurate observation is generally called cynicism by those who have not got it.”George Bernard Shaw, quoted on The Knowledge “My foreign policy is to be able to take a ticket at Victoria Station and go anywhere I damn well please.”Ernest Bevin, quoted in the Financial Times “I always arrive late at the office. But I make up for it by leaving early.”Charles Lamb, quoted in the Iceland Review “Civilisation is in a race between education and catastrophe.”H.G. Wells, quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle “The magnificent and the ridiculous are so close that they touch.”Bertrand de Fontenelle,…

To The Guardian I appreciated your in-depth reporting on the Grenfell report, but I can’t help thinking that the system of company directors is also failing people. Directors are rarely held accountable for their decisions affecting the health and safety of others. In many cases, where companies are prosecuted, the company folds and the directors set up a new one under another name. Instead, we should have a directors’ licence system, with points added after health and safety prosecutions, like a driving licence. Once you’ve collected nine points, you can no longer operate as a director for any company. All directors would then have a vested interest in ensuring health and safety and would not be as cavalier about safety issues, as many are. I suggested this, in my role…

by Rachel Kushner Jonathan Cape 416pp £18.99 The Week bookshop £14.99 Despite having written the critically acclaimed The Flamethrowers (2013), and the Booker-shortlisted The Mars Room (2018), the US novelist Rachel Kushner is probably not “on the radar” of many British readers, said Anthony Cummins in The Observer. That ought to change with the publication of Creation Lake, a “hugely enjoyable” espionage drama that pulsates “with twisty revelation”. The narrator is an attractive young American spy, with “large (and fake) breasts”, who is tailing a group of communists in southwest France, hoping to “incite them to commit eco-terrorism”, said Rachel Connolly in The Daily Telegraph. Her assignment involves delving deep into the history of the radical French Left – and she becomes obsessed in particular with a mysterious intellectual named…

The Week reviews an exhibition in a private gallery Altar States at Josh Lilley It’s rare to find an exhibition that seems to revel in the ugliness of the works it contains – and rarer still that the show should turn out to be quite so compelling. Altar States at Fitzrovia’s Josh Lilley gallery is just such an exhibition, full of gaudy, quasi-symbolist paintings and wonky sculptures, from Robert Zehnder’s landscapes, pockmarked with tumescent, grime-hued hills, to the aggressively bright, amorphous abstractions of Heather Guertin. It encourages the viewer to consider the kind of subjective spiritual value with which the artists here inject their work, transforming it – for them – from the decorative to the totemic. So, Fin Simonetti gives us the scaled-up top half of a bear’s jaw…

The American way with salad Someone has to say it, says Olivia Potts in The Spectator: “Americans are weird about salad.” A word that to us generally means green leaves – with tomato if we’re feeling adventurous – in the US encompasses any number of ingredients, some decidedly bizarre. For a start, American salads often aren’t savoury: hence “Snicker salad” (a combination of whipped cream, apple slices and chopped-up Snickers bars) and “Coca-Cola salad” (strawberry jelly, tinned pineapple, cherry pie filling and Coca-Cola). But the savoury repertoire is scarcely more conventional. Jello salads – a mix of fruit, vegetables and sometimes protein, suspended in jelly – are beloved in the Midwest, but “pop up” everywhere. “At the Thanksgiving table, a creamy, jelly-laden salad will often be rubbing shoulders with a…

Brian Trueman 1932-2024 When Brian Trueman was reading the news on Granada TV in the late 1950s, his demeanour was so serious, and his delivery so deadpan, colleagues named him “Old Stoneface”. But unbeknown to most viewers, Trueman had a vast well of silliness lurking inside him, said The Times. This would be unleashed some 25 years later when Trueman, who has died aged 92, was asked to provide the scripts for a new children’s cartoon about the “madcap adventures” of a superspy rodent – “a secret agent so secret that even his code name has a code name”. In each brief episode, Danger Mouse (voiced by David Jason) is tasked with saving the world from the villainous Baron Silas Greenback (Edward Kelsey) – a whispering toad as malevolent as…

Alex Baldock At the UK’s largest electrical goods-repair centre, just outside Newark-on-Trent, more than 1,000 Curry’s employees mend some 1.4 million appliances a year, from smartphones to fridgefreezers. The company’s chief executive, Alex Baldock, a 53-year-old Oxford history graduate, moved into retail 12 years ago after stints as a management consultant and a banker. “I always wanted a proper job,” he says. The giant repair and refurbishment plant, along with a linked recycling centre, are at the centre of his strategy to keep the retailer, with 727 stores in six nations, relevant. “If all we did was sell laptops… well, other people do that. But competitors can’t do repairs like we do,” Baldock told Sarah Butler in The Observer. “Our purpose and profit go hand in hand.” Daniel Ek The…