Table of contents for 1513 in The Week

What happened Donald Trump swept to an emphatic victory over Kamala Harris in the US presidential election, to seal a historic return to the White House as America’s 47th president. With some results still to be declared, Trump looked on course to win all seven swing states that had been expected to decide the race, and possibly the popular vote too – a feat that has eluded every Republican candidate since 2004. Trump also becomes the first former president in 132 years to be returned to the White House after having previously lost a presidential contest. Speaking at a campaign event in Florida early on Wednesday morning, he said his victory would usher in a new “golden age” for the US. “America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,”…

Controversy of the week “Leaders of opposition parties sometimes struggle to have their voices heard,” said The Times. That won’t be a problem for Kemi Badenoch, who was elected leader of the Conservative Party on Saturday, winning 53,806 votes from Tory members to her rival Robert Jenrick’s 41,388. The 44-year-old MP for North West Essex is outspoken, charismatic and “admirably combative”. The party has made a “rational gamble” in choosing her: that boldness and clear convictions are needed to get the party out of its electoral slump, even if, on the flip side, she can be brusque and accident-prone. Badenoch is “a high-risk but potentially high-reward choice”. Her diagnosis is “that her party’s failures have been driven by timidness”, said Katy Balls in The Guardian: by “a slow slide into…

MPs, some of whom are being given “refresher” lessons in how to behave in the Commons, following a series of faux pas. MPs have been apparently addressing one another as “you” instead of referring to “the Right Honourable”; one was told off for taking a swig from a milk carton, despite a strict ban on food and drink; another allegedly appeared in the Commons barefoot. Northern Rail, which admitted that it still uses fax machines to relay vital messages to train crew. When asked why at a recent meeting, officials said that it was their “challenge” to replace faxes with digital tech, but that the unions would have to agree.…

47% of British adults said they believed that a victory for Kamala Harris would be the best result for the UK, according to a poll taken by BMG Research before the US election. 27% believed a victory for Donald Trump would be best. In a second poll taken by Ipsos before the result of the Tory leadership election was announced, half of British adults (49%) said they cared who won the US election, but only 31% said they cared who became the next Tory leader. 38% of British adults believe the Budget will leave them worse off. 7% think it will make them better off, and 41% think it will not make much difference. 51% expect the economy to get worse over the next 12 months. 17% expect it to…

The fear of Armageddon Luke Evans is one of few gay actors regularly cast in straight action roles – in films from The Hobbit to Fast & Furious 6 – says Simon Hattenstone in The Guardian. “But what a punishing odyssey he has been on to get there.” Raised by Jehovah’s Witness parents in south Wales, he spent much of his childhood knocking on doors, which he hated. At school, his peers called him “Jovey”; then, from when he was seven, they started calling him “bender” and “gay boy”. By the time Evans (pictured) got to secondary school, he knew he was gay, and believed it would condemn him to terrible things. “All that was in my head was: if I don’t sort this out, I’m going to lose my…

How class now figures in British politics Oliver Heath and Laura Serra The Conversation The young don’t vote. That has been a subject of much concern in recent years, say Oliver Heath and Laura Serra: in the last election, there was a big gap of 20 percentage points between the reported turnout of the under-30s and the over-60s. Yet there’s a gap of a very similar size that “has received almost no attention at all”: a “class” gap in electoral participation. Back in the 1960s, most working-class people turned out to vote – in 1964, their turnout was 89%, only slightly less than the middle-class turnout of 93%. The big difference in those days was whom they voted for: 55% of the former voted Labour; 75% of the latter Conservative.…

Talking to the voices in your head Hearing voices is a common and distressing symptom of schizophrenia. The voices sound very real and can be disabling; they can even compel patients to harm themselves or others. But a new study from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London has found a therapy that could help end the torment. The trial involved 345 people in England and Scotland with schizophrenia and other forms of psychosis; some had their usual treatment (typically antipsychotic medication and talking therapy), while the others worked with a therapist to create an avatar that represented the voice in their head. First, they chose a computer-generated face that looked the way they imagined the owner of the voice appeared, in a process akin to…

Lily Allen has pointed to the meagre returns musicians make from Spotify, while defending her decision to post photographs of her feet on the OnlyFans site, which subscribers can look at for £8 a month. “Imagine being one of the biggest pop stars/musicians in Europe and then being reduced to this,” said one critic on X/Twitter. “Imagine being an artist and having nearly 8 million monthly listeners on Spotify but earning more money from having 1,000 people subscribe to pictures of your feet,” Allen replied. The supermodel Heidi Klum is known for going the extra mile at Halloween, and this year was no exception. Her E.T. costume was created by 30 special-effects designers. It took her seven hours to get into it (and was so hard to remove that she…

I am a “fervent” fan of the royal family, said Vanessa Feltz in the Daily Express. “Not a drop of republican blood runs through my veins.” And I’ve always been relaxed about their wealth, because I’d assumed that the palaces, the estates, the jewels and paintings are not truly theirs, but effectively held in trust for the nation. This is true of the Crown Estate, which funds the royal household but gives most of its profits to the government. What I didn’t know, though, was that the King and Prince William also privately own two “fiefdoms”, the Duchy of Lancaster, and the Duchy of Cornwall, which are worth £1.8bn, according to an investigation by The Sunday Times and Channel 4 – and which charge the public millions in rents and…

After two narrow defeats to New Zealand in the summer, England went into the first weekend of the autumn series badly needing a “moraleboosting win”, said Robert Kitson in The Observer. And they seemed about to get one last Saturday when they led the All Blacks 22-17 with four minutes to go. But in the “breathtaking finish”, Steve Borthwick’s men agonisingly missed out on what would have been their first home victory over New Zealand for 12 years. A try by Mark Tele’a drew the visitors level, before a “brilliant touchline conversion” by Damian McKenzie took them two points clear. Still, the drama wasn’t over: in the dying seconds, England had two opportunities to “land the killer blow”, both of which fell to substitute fly-half George Ford. First, he struck…

Cricket England won the second One Day International against West Indies by five wickets, to level the three-match series 1-1. Football Liverpool reclaimed the top spot in the Premier League with a 2-1 victory over Brighton. Padel Argentina beat Spain 2-1 in the men’s final of the World Padel Championships in Qatar. In the women’s event, Spain beat Argentina. Tennis World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka won her first two matches at the WTA Finals in Riyadh to secure qualification for the semi-finals.…

Running time: 2hrs 15mins Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 film about Cold War brinkmanship risked looking like a vehicle for Peter Sellers to “showboat” in three roles. Instead, owing to the talents of its director and star, Dr. Strangelove “rocketed into” the cinematic canon. “It takes a confident – foolish? – team to tamper with a work quite so revered, and so suited to the screen,” said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian. Nevertheless, Armando Iannucci and director Sean Foley have had a go at adapting it for the stage, with mixed results. Steve Coogan takes on the three Sellers roles, plus a fourth (Major Kong). His Dr. Strangelove, the former Nazi weapons expert, is actually funnier than Sellers’s version; and though he is not quite as effective in the other three roles,…

“The mind of Tim Burton is a strange and wonderful place,” said Nick Curtis in The Standard. Best known as the director of films such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood, Burton is also “an animator, painter, writer, sculptor, puppeteer, photographer and technological innovator” whose singular vision has birthed no end of “fantastical, delightful, macabre ideas”. This touring exhibition, now in London for its final stop, brings together more than 600 exhibits to present a “comprehensive” overview of Burton’s weird and wonderful career. Featuring everything from early influences and “juvenilia” to props, puppets, costumes and video from his best-loved films, as well as illustrations and photographs, it shows how, since his 1970s adolescence, this most idiosyncratic of directors has created a visual idiom that is “distinctly his own”. It…

James by Percival Everett, 2024 (Mantle £20). Everett has described his novel as a “conversation” with the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It is a powerful conversation. Jim, an enslaved man who discovers he is to be sold away from his family, becomes James, a potently articulate protagonist and commentator in the tumult of the Deep South. Orbital by Samantha Harvey, 2023 (Vintage £9.99). Set on the International Space Station over 24 hours, this short and lyrical novel charts the lives of the six people in the cramped spacecraft as they observe the world beneath them, in all its beauty and vulnerability. Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner, 2024 (Jonathan Cape £18.99). An uncategorisable novel – part spy-story, partmeditation on prehistory – that takes an American assassin to rural France to infiltrate…

Programmes Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light The final chapter of Hilary Mantel’s epic trilogy set in the court of Henry VIII. Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis star. Seven episodes. Sun 10 Nov, BBC1 21:00 (60mins). Shoot to Kill: Terror on the Tube Investigation into the manhunt following the 7/7 bombings that resulted in the death of Jean Charles de Menezes. Sun 10-Mon 11 Nov, C4 21:00 (60mins each). Immigration: How British Politics Failed The first part of a two-part documentary in which David Cameron, Nigel Farage, migrant activists and others go on record about how the issue became central to our politics. Mon 11 Nov, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). Secrets of the Spy Whale Documentary about the mystery of a whale discovered wearing a harness with a Russian camera,…

Lark is a secluded Scandi-style cabin on the North York Moors, with a woodland pond and campfire. There are twin brass bathtubs on the terrace, plus a cosy log burner inside (sleeps 2 adults, 2 children, from £205/night; canopyandstars.co.uk/lark). Well-marked forest trails start right from the garden gate at The Dell of Abernethy, a rambling farmhouse in the Cairngorms converted into self-catering cottages (from £160/night; thedellofabernethy.co.uk). Hidden in a leafy hollow by King’s Forest, West Stow Pods near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, has four cosy “MegaPods”, two woodland lodges, and a subterranean Hobbit-style pod set into a grassy knoll (from £84/night; weststowpods.co.uk). Forest Garden is a “glorious” woodland eco-retreat in East Sussex, with a wooden sauna cabin and a natural pond. There are four wooden cabins and two unique yurts,…

Abbaye des Vaux-de-Cernay Cernay-la-ville, France Set in rolling countryside 45km from Paris, this medieval monastery was the summer home of a Rothschild baroness in the 1870s. Last year, Paris Society (a trendy nightclub group) reopened it as an “irresistibly hedonistic” hotel, says Delilah Khomo in Tatler, inspired by British models such as Soho Farmhouse. Interiors are cosy yet “theatrical”, with wood panelling and “swishing drapes”. There are three grand restaurants (the Sunday brunch spread is “palatial”), a pool, spa and cinema, and much on offer outdoors, including tennis courts and a boating lake. Doubles from €300; abbaye desvauxdecernay.com.…

Musk is the real election winner Lex Financial Times Even before it became clear who would win the US election, Elon Musk had “parked his Tesla on the White House lawn”, says Lex. He turned the US election into “an effective pulpit” for his views and a money-spinner for his companies. Tesla’s market value has increased by $300bn since its April lows, and interest in its boss among Google users has doubled since Musk tweeted his support for Trump in July. The election cycle has almost certainly created “more ad sales for Musk’s social network and personal megaphone, X”, and “more car sales”. Tesla already sells half of all electric cars in the US. If a triumphant Trump scraps some clean-car subsidies, its lead over “less-advanced rivals” such as General…

What happened Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves sought to reassure markets and voters about last week’s Budget following a significant backlash. The PM and Chancellor insisted that the £40bn in tax rises and extra £28bn of extra annual borrowing were one-off measures to kickstart reform, not the start of several such increases. The Budget pushed up long-term government borrowing costs. The bond markets steadied after two days, but criticism continued in other quarters. There was anger over plans to limit inheritance tax exemptions on farms (see page 20) and family firms. Health leaders warned that the £25bn rise in employers’ national insurance contributions (NICs) would harm GP practices, hospices, social-care providers and other organisations run as private businesses. In a blow to Reeves, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) estimated…

In a new trend on social media, users are pushing back against the negativity of the online world by expressing gratitude for the “privilege” of having mundane lives. Posts include: “What a privilege it is to worry about doing household chores”; “what a privilege it is to stress about work” (with a video of a commute), and “what a privilege it is to feel bloated from overeating”. Brat, the word redefined by the singer Charli XCX earlier this year, has been named by Collins Dictionary as its word of the year. On TikTok, the star explained that the archetypal brat is “that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes”, and who “has a breakdown, but kind of like parties through…

University tuition fees for domestic students in England will rise from next year, the Government has announced. Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, said that fees would increase in line with inflation, from £9,250 to £9,535, in September 2025, the first rise in eight years. She also announced that the Government would raise the maximum available maintenance loan, from £10,227 to £10,544 for students in England (with more for those in London). She said that increasing tuition fees had “not been an easy decision”, but that it was necessary to maintain the sustainability of the sector.…

Dublin Ghost parade: Thousands gathered in Dublin’s city centre this Halloween night eagerly expecting a procession by one of Ireland’s best-known theatre groups, the Galway-based company Macnas. It never appeared. The event had been listed on an AI-generated website based in Pakistan called My Spirit Halloween, and there was strong suspicion it was a deliberate hoax. But the site’s owner, Nazir Ali, was quick to deny it. “Everyone is posting that we are scammers and want some good revenue from the Google AdSense by posting fake news,” he told The Times (Dublin). But the fake notice was really due to an employee cutting and pasting it from last year’s listings by mistake. Ali admitted that Halloween was one of the most lucrative topics for improving a company’s Google rankings, but…

“The 1980s was without doubt my favourite ever decade, when the old scolding of the past – the sexist, racist, homophobic scolding – was gone, but the new scolding yet to come. Today’s poor youngsters, steeped in sobriety and anxiety, know it, in their scold-weary heart of hearts. Some 60% of Gen Z-ers recently picked the 1980s as the decade they would have most liked to live through. It’s not just the pop songs, Sony Walkman cassette players and leg warmers they like. It’s the fact that you could pretty much say (and write) what you liked. I was 30 when it closed – I can’t help thinking how lucky I was to have enjoyed the last hurrah of liberty hall.” Julie Burchill in The i Paper…

An Italian man has described an unusual condition: after a hit-and-run incident in Rome in 2019, he woke up from a coma convinced it was 1980. When Luciano D’Adamo, 68, regained consciousness in the hours after the accident, he believed he was 23 and was shocked to see “an old man, not me” in the mirror. He also failed to recognise his wife, and was alarmed when his 30-year-old son called him “Papa”. He has had years of treatment since, and his wife has made folders full of notes and photos to jog his memory; some things now come back to him in “flashes”. Terry Rosoman, a marketing director from south Wales, has used the running app Strava to trace the largest ever GPS cock and balls, to raise money…

Farmers learn to think of their work as a long game, said Guy Kelly in The Daily Telegraph. They plan their crops carefully; they harvest one with an eye on the next; and when they’re hit by blight, rising costs or bad weather, they remind themselves that theirs is a multigenerational project, and that better times will come. But in her Budget last week, Chancellor Rachel Reeves shattered that understanding by removing the 100% relief from inheritance tax (IHT) that has long enabled farmers to pass their businesses on. In future, IHT will be levied at 20% on farm assets over £1m. The money will be payable over ten years, but since farmers tend to be asset rich but income poor, many heirs will face bills they have no way…

The conditions were so wet in São Paulo on Sunday that Max Verstappen described it as like “driving a jet-ski”. But to those watching, said Tom Cary in The Daily Telegraph, it looked more like the Red Bull driver was “walking on water”. In one of the greatest comebacks of all time, the three-time F1 champion won the Brazilian Grand Prix by 19 seconds after starting in 17th place on the grid. And the most astounding thing about his victory wasn’t even that he made up so many places. It was that on a day when most drivers struggled to stay on the track, the Dutchman looked to be taking part in a “completely different race to everyone else”. He set 17 fastest laps in total, and his fastest lap…

Fix this foundation To The Daily Telegraph Labour has pledged that over the parliament, they will build 1.5 million new homes – that is around 1,150 homes and one primary school every working day. This is not being achieved due to a critical shortage of construction professionals. Such is the demand for them that bricklayers, roofers, carpenters and plasterers all appear on the Government’s list of professions eligible for a skilled worker visa from abroad. I am a 64-year-old quantity surveyor, and am still approached by recruiters on a weekly basis. If this shortage is not dealt with, Labour won’t be able to fulfil its promise to “fix the foundations”. Jonathan Yardley, Wolverhampton Can pay, should pay To Prospect In this country, we stop paying national insurance when we receive…

by Lucy Hughes-Hallett Fourth Estate 640pp £30 The Week Bookshop £23.99 (incl. p&p) In the court of James I, England’s monarch between 1603 and 1625, “male beauty was the key that unlocked all doors”, said Francesca Peacock in The Daily Telegraph. And no one exploited this more adroitly than George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham, the subject of Lucy Hughes-Hallett’s “delightfully fleet-footed” biography. Born in 1592, Villiers was the second son of a minor country squire, and was blessed with the “face of an angel”. In James’s court, he rose “like a comet”, advancing through the ranks of the nobility to become England’s “only non-royal Duke” in 1623. While his relationship with James I was undoubtedly intimate – the pair shared beds, and James addressed him as “my sweet child”…

In my time as a podcast critic, “I have surfeited on horror”, said James Marriott in The Times: I am now “blithely unsurprised by the depthless human capacity for evil”. Yet “even I, a jaded, broken connoisseur of human turpitude”, had my interest piqued by the premise of Kill List, a podcast about a site on the dark web where members of the public arrange the contract killings of their enemies. “Seeking house to be burned down with occupants inside. No survivors,” runs a typical order, quoting a few thousand dollars. “Kill him and make it look like a car accident on the road,” demands another. The twist, as journalist Carl Miller relates, is that the website is a scam, conning the homicidal. Miller “doesn’t have any assassins on his…

Heemin Chung at Thaddaeus Ropac It’s difficult to sum up what makes the paintings of Korean artist Heemin Chung (b.1987) quite so spectrally beautiful. Hewn from a distinctive combination of acrylic paint, printed imagery and sheets of gel that harden into waves of cloudy, 3D relief, they resemble organic matter – say, the shredded body of a transparent sea mollusc – as much as they evoke decades-old plastic detritus. Here, cascades of synthetic material shroud undercoats of dirty North Sea grey and congealed-blood reds. The forms on display in UMBRA are based on digital photographs of street junk the artist has encountered walking around her hometown, Seoul: a city she believes has already embraced a frightening future in which technology has – in her words – completely altered its inhabitants’…

1 York Place Clifton, Bristol (0117-244 7775) This Clifton restaurant is the second Bristol venture from Freddy Bird, chef at the well-regarded Little French in Westbury Park, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. It’s definitely a place to visit when you’re hungry, since Bird is a cook who likes to “fill the plate to the very edge without recourse to daintiness or understatement”. I opt for the exceedingly reasonable lunch and early-evening setprice menu, which offers three courses and a glass of wine for £29.50. “Moon-shaped squash fritters” come in a “shattering batter”, and are drizzled with miel de cana (or sugar cane molasses); nestled between them are nuggets of ricotta. Next, impeccably cooked pork belly on a heap of nutty lentils, served with sweet-sour quince jelly and vividly purple…

SOURCE: THE DAILY TELEGRAPH…

Peter Jay 1937-2024 As a brilliant undergraduate, Peter Jay was dubbed “the cleverest young man in England” – and, for many years, he garnered all the glittering prizes, said The Times. Head boy of Winchester, he won a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford, became president of the Oxford Union, and secured a first in PPE. From there, he breezed into the civil service, joined the Treasury and rose rapidly up the ranks before moving into journalism. As economics editor at The Times, he became renowned for his writing about monetary policy and, in 1974, Time magazine named him as one of the 150 world leaders of the future. Yet when, three years later, he was invited by the foreign secretary, David Owen, to become British ambassador to Washington, jaws dropped.…

Mohsin Issa The Asda billionaire Mohsin Issa is making the most of his freedom from the supermarket aisles, says Retail Gazette. Having stepped down as CEO in September, he has teamed up with his partner, Victoria Price, to launch Boulder Investco – a Jersey-based investment fund with the remit of backing fast-growing UK startups. Early picks include Liverpool’s hot stock Applied Nutrition, and Manchester-based Vinted rival Go Thrift. It’s a departure for Mohsin, 53, who, with younger brother Zuber, built “a garage in Blackpool” into the nationwide EG Group before buying Asda in 2020. He met Price, who now leads Alvarez & Marsal’s private capital division, when she was an accountant with the supermarket’s former auditor, EY. Hamish Badenoch If Kemi Badenoch’s coronation as Conservative leader spells curtains for her…

Many pickpockets work in a team, with one thief distracting their intended victim while an accomplice steals from them, then disappears into the background; the stolen property – often a phone nowadays – is usually passed on by the actual thief as soon as possible. A common trick in the busy areas where they work is to “crowd” their intended victim, then reach into a pocket or bag. Pickpockets often confuse their victims by asking for help or directions, or even by giving them a hug. Then there’s what German police call the “defiler” trick: a pickpocket “accidentally” covers their victim in ketchup, ice cream or other liquid; then, while pretending to clean it up, they rob you. Theft is common on escalators, too. One thief might stand behind the…

Sea eagles are due to be returned to the Severn Estuary after an absence of 150 years. The birds, which have a wing span of up to 2.4 metres, were persecuted to extinction in the UK in the early 20th century, but were reintroduced to Scotland from Norway in the 1970s. There are now estimated to be 152 pairs across the country; and a project has been launched to investigate the feasibility of bringing the species back to Wales. It’s hoped that the first birds will arrive in 2026. A crack team of African giant pouched rats has been trained by scientists to recognise the scent of commonly smuggled animal parts such as rhino horn, pangolin scales and elephant tusks. The eight rats that completed the programme were also taught…

The Government’s new Value for Money tsar, with reports that he will be paid the equivalent of a £247,000pa salary – more than the prime minister. David Goldstone, the chair of the Office for Value for Money, will be paid £950 a day, and is expected to work one day a week. He previously oversaw the delivery of the London Olympics, which cost four times its original estimate. Vegans, after the National Trust voted that half the food sold at its cafés and other food outlets should be plant-based, to help tackle climate change. Some 57,500 members voted for the motion, with 20,111 against. The Nemo, a new hybrid potato that has been hailed as the saviour of the spud. The unusual-looking pink-and-cream potato – named after the clown fish…

The Government has introduced legislation to ban the sale of single-use vapes in England from June 2025. A ban is also due to come into effect in Scotland at the same time. It said the ban would reduce littering and plastic waste and curb the number of young people vaping. The Government also unveiled its amended version of the Torydrafted Tobacco and Vapes Bill. This will ban the sale of tobacco in England to anyone born after 1 January 2009, and extend the smoking ban to some outdoor spaces – but not pub gardens, as had previously been mooted.…

San Francisco, California Housing pressure: With the average rent in San Francisco more than $3,000 a month, a startup offering “sleeping pods” for $700 a month has been deluged with inquiries. For that money, occupants get access to a small double mattress in a stacked pod, shielded by a “privacy curtain”, and with enough headroom for an adult to sit upright. The rent includes access to shared bathrooms, a kitchen, a work area and storage space. Brownstone Shared Housing has put its 17 remaining pods, housed in a former bank in downtown SF, up for rent, and has had more than 300 applications for them. Stockton, California Drugs bust: A routine traffic stop in California’s Central Valley last month uncovered enough fentanyl “to kill a quarter of the state’s population”,…

Mexico must not become a Trojan horse Arturo McFields The Hill Corruption; murders; drug trafficking – the new Mexican government elected this summer has many significant challenges on its plate, says Arturo McFields. While tackling these long-standing problems, it also needs to address a more recent, pressing issue: the country’s “risky business with China”. Mexico has lately extended “its arms open wide” to Chinese trade. In 2023, Mexico spent $4.6bn on Chinese cars, a fraction more than it spent on American cars ($4.4bn); and the Chinese electric vehicle-maker BYD is in the process of choosing a site in Mexico for a large manufacturing plant. But this burgeoning trade between the two nations threatens to set Mexico at odds with its main trading partner, the US, which views China’s heavily subsidised…

The term “Zeitenwende”, meaning “a changing of the times”, is being heard rather frequently in Germany at the moment, said Dirk Kaufmann and Nadine Mena Michollek in Deutsche Welle (Bonn). Coined by Chancellor Olaf Scholz in relation to shifting foreign and defence policy demands after Russia invaded Ukraine, it has also come to describe massive changes in the German economy. And no company symbolises these changes quite like Volkswagen, which is reportedly considering closing three of its ten German plants, axing tens of thousands of jobs and cutting pay, as it looks for €4bn in savings after seeing its profits massively eroded by Chinese competitors. There are some companies that, owing to their size and history, are almost impossible to separate from their home country, said Michael Rasch in Neue…

Donanemab, one of the first drugs proven to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, has been rejected for use on the NHS in England. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) said that the benefits did not justify the cost, since it merely slows the disease, conferring a “small benefit”, and side effects can be serious. The drug costs about £25,000 a year in the US, but additional costs related to side effects can take the figure to £60,000. It was also announced last week that tens of thousands of dementia patients would be enrolled in clinical trials to speed the discovery of new treatments. The £20m Dementia Trials Accelerator initiative will identify people at risk of dementia or who are in its early stages. The condition is…

In “a deeply irresponsible move”, Israel’s parliament last week banned the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa), said The Guardian. Unrwa was created in 1949 to support Palestinian refugees after the foundation of Israel and the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. It runs schools, health centres and food distribution hubs in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Israel alleges that Unrwa has been infiltrated by Hamas – 12 of its staff were accused of taking part in the 7 October atrocities. Unrwa has dismissed nine, but denies that it has been infiltrated. At any rate, the move to ban it within Israel, and in all Israeli-controlled territories, is “indefensible”, and has been rightly condemned by Israel’s allies. It will cripple aid to ordinary Palestinians…

“Indifference is the invincible giant of the world.”Ouida, quoted in Forbes “How is the world ruled and how do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists and then believe what they read.”Karl Kraus, quoted on Asia Times “I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first.”Peter Ustinov, quoted in The Times “When a girl marries, she exchanges the attention of many men for the inattention of one.”Helen Rowland, ibid. “The big joke on democracy is that it gives its mortal enemies the tools by which it can be destroyed.”Joseph Goebbels, quoted in Baptist News Global “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”James Baldwin, quoted in The New York…

To The Guardian Calls for reparations are not new. In 1787, the African writer Quobna Ottobah Cugoano described his childhood experiences of enslavement. His book was the first British publication in which an African writer had pressed for reparations to be made to African nations for the loss of their people and the impact of so much human trafficking. Then in 1824, Elizabeth Heyrick took up the cudgels. She wrote forcefully of the unconditional right of slaves to receive recompense, saying “let compensation be made in the first place where it is most due”. Eventually, it was, of course, the enslavers who were compensated. But now, more than 200 years later, there is still time to acknowledge the need for reparative justice, and to offer a formal apology to those…

by Tim Winton Picador 528pp £22 The Week Bookshop £17.99 In a recent essay, the Australian novelist Tim Winton urged writers “to look the climate crisis in the eye”, said James Bradley in The Spectator. That’s something Winton does in his 13th novel, a gripping futuristic thriller set “in a world transformed by rising temperatures”. Having grown up in a place so hot that summers had to be spent underground, the unnamed narrator describes being recruited, in his late teens, by a shadowy organisation known as “the Service”. Its mission is to fight “the descendants of the billionaires and corporate executives whose profiteering cooked the planet”. Still living off the proceeds of their forebears’ actions, they now live in fortified bunkers, or platforms in the sea. Juice is a novel…

The artist David Shrigley has launched a campaign for arts education – by installing a ninemetre praying mantis in his former school in Leicestershire, says Lanre Bakare in The Guardian. Students have increasingly dropped humanities and arts subjects in favour of science-based subjects. The proportion of children doing arts GCSEs (such as art, dance, drama and music) has dropped by nearly 50% since 2010. More than half of students in England were choosing at least one humanities subject until 2015-16 – but by 2021-22, that had dropped to 38%. Shrigley, a Turner-nominated artist, believes that “Stem” subjects – science, technology, engineering and maths – should be changed to “Steam” to include the arts, which he believes are at the core of a rounded education. Creativity, he argues, is a crucial…

Jolene and Kenton discuss Fallon’s plans for her new café – Kenton’s worried about the pressure on Harrison. Brad touts for work for George’s social media business. Lillian angrily refuses, but Justin secretly proposes a promo video for the EV station; when Lillian finds out, she’s furious. Kirsty and Rex realise the lease on the rewilding land is up for renewal. They scramble to revamp their website, but Justin insists they need a solid business plan if they’re to stay. Kirsty’s worried – if BL pulls out, Rewilding Ambridge is finished. Fallon’s upset when Jolene is lukewarm about her plans for the EV café, but they make up. Harrison has a meeting with his boss, who asks if full-time work is putting him under stress; he says Fallon is his…

● Stand up and move for five minutes every hour. Most British adults sit for eight hours per day. You should also walk for 30 minutes at least five days per week. ● Do lunges, deadlifts and squats. No one exercise is best for back pain, but these will help strengthen muscles to protect the back. ● Lift weights regularly. The spine is designed to withstand heavy loads, and can become deconditioned if you don’t. Start gently, adding weights in small increments. ● Try to get seven or eight hours of sleep. If you aren’t getting enough sleep, your body creates an inflammatory response which can cause back pain. ● Don’t buy an expensive office chair. It’s not so much the seat itself or how you sit on it, but…

Thelma Mothershed Wair 1940-2024 In its landmark 1954 ruling Brown v. the Board of Education, the US Supreme Court decreed that segregation on racial lines in US schools was unconstitutional. But in Arkansas, the Democratic governor, Orval Faubus, resolved that there would be no desegregation on his watch. And when nine black children registered to join the relatively prestigious Central High School in Little Rock in September 1957, they arrived on their first day to find its entrance blocked by a line of National Guard soldiers, and a hostile white mob. Images of this “ugly confrontation” were beamed around the world, said The Times. President Eisenhower tried to persuade the governor to abide by the court’s ruling, and when Faubus refused, he invoked the Insurrection Act to allow federal troops…

Big Tech companies have been gunning to secure nuclear power to turbocharge their energy-hungry AI development efforts, but Meta’s plans have been “thwarted”, said the FT – by a colony of “rare bees”. CEO Mark Zuckerberg told staff there were “multiple complications” attached to the project, but the discovery of the rare species on the land earmarked had put the kibosh on it. How about that for “a honeytrap”, said Alistair Osborne in The Times. Meta is continuing to explore other deals, but British nuclear protesters might well take note. “Look out for a sudden explosion of apiarists in the vicinity of Sizewell C.”…

Fudge of the Budget The manifesto promise was admirably clear, said Nils Pratley in The Guardian. “Private equity is the only industry where performance-related pay is treated as capital gains. Labour will close this loophole.” But Rachel Reeves “flunked it” – raising the existing CGT rate on “carried interest” by just a smidgen from 28% to 32%. From 2026, “carry” will be treated as income – but even then will “be taxed favourably” at 72.5% of the usual rate. The buyout barons “cannot believe their luck”. Lobby power Politicians globally have vowed to end special treatment for private equity, “only to retreat”, said The Sunday Times. Credit this time to the British Venture Capital Association, which stressed its economic importance “with a monomania” – pointing out that buyout houses have…

Who’s tipping what The week’s best shares Applied Nutrition The Times Newly listed, this fast-growing health and fitness specialist sells protein shakes, energy drinks and vitamins to retailers and gyms in 80 countries, and direct to consumer. Highly profitable with strong cashflow. Buy. 136p. Babcock International Group The Mail on Sunday Labour’s defence spending pledge is good news for this engineer which – given its work on the new Sizewell C power station – should also benefit from support for secure, clean nuclear power. Buy. 472p. Eneraqua Technologies The Mail on Sunday This heat pump and water efficiency group’s technologies decarbonise properties and save water – slashing bills. Set to benefit from government focus on energy-efficient rental properties. Buy. 41p. HA Sustainable Infrastructure Capital The Daily Telegraph This US trust…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1439 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 18 November. Send it to The Week Crossword 1439, 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 Sweet white wines no great shakes? (11) 9 Love concerning little daughter in a tangle (7) 10 Presidential policy after a reshuffle? (3,4) 11 Unpredictable head of school’s spiteful (6) 12 Whine and sob terribly – provider of lucky break needed (8) 14 Pay English poet…