Table of contents for 1571 in The Week

After years in decline, the British wool industry is enjoying a small revival. At a recent auction in Bradford, wool fetched its highest price for a decade. This is largely the result of dwindling supply and pent-up demand for carpets and the like from a recovering hospitality sector; but it has also been credited to a growing interest in sustainable fashion and natural fibres such as tweed, fostered by TV shows such as The Crown. Most farmers are still selling wool at a loss, however. Tens of thousands of people used Cancer Research UK’s online screening tool in the days after King Charles urged the public to check their eligibility, in a speech about his own diagnosis. In his televised message, the King said that his doctors had told him…

Controversy of the week “Civilisational erasure” Pity Europe, said Michael Ignatieff on Substack. According to the Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy, the continent is facing “civilisational erasure” as a result of unchecked migration and a “loss of national identities and self-confidence”. Its nations are burnt-out and trapped in a cycle of decay, it says, owing to over-regulation, woke policies and cratering birthrates. The document positively drips with America’s “contempt” for its long-time allies. Yet in many ways, Team Trump isn’t wrong, said Tim Stanley in The Daily Telegraph. Europe has “strangled” its economies with excessive regulation, and is behind China and the US in crucial industries such as AI. It has neglected defence in favour of welfare. And when confronted with actual war, its response has been to hold…

Football fans, who learnt that the cheapest tickets for the World Cup final in New Jersey in July will cost £3,119. In Qatar in 2022, the cheapest tickets for the final cost £450. The cheapest tickets in the knockout rounds cost from £142 to £590, depending on how popular Fifa deems the teams to be. Motorway travel, with figures showing that the UK’s major roads are so congested that, on some sections, it would be quicker to cycle. The worst spot is the northbound approach to the Dartford tunnel on the M25 – where traffic crawls along at an average speed of just 14.9mph – and a stretch of the M27 at Sefton, Merseyside, where the average is 15.8mph.…

18% of women who gave birth in an NHS hospital in England this year felt that their concerns were not taken seriously by healthcare professionals during childbirth. 15% felt they had not been given relevant advice or support by a midwife at the start of labour. 7% reported they had been left alone “during the later stages of labour”. Care Quality Commission When British voters were asked to imagine how Santa would vote, the most popular answer – given by almost a third of those who believed he would vote at all – was that he would vote Green. YouGov Labour is the least trusted political party in Britain: 38% of UK voters said that they distrust it “a lot”. The New Statesman/Merlin…

A life-long friend returns A decade ago, Julian Lloyd Webber was forced to adjust to a totally new life, says Vanessa Thorpe in The Observer. Having played the cello for hours a day since childhood, a neck injury forced him to give up on his 40 years as a virtuoso performer. “It was really strange and scary,” he recalls. “There were immediate practical and financial worries, but mainly I felt the devastation of losing everything I had worked for since I was 13.” He threw himself into a job as principal of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire; but at night, he often dreamed of performing. Finally, three months ago, he picked up a cello to play for the first time in 11 years. “I didn’t say anything, not even to my…

The Housekeeping Olympics – “a vibrant celebration” of the “dedicated people who meticulously care for guests” – were held in a 12,000-seater arena in Las Vegas last month. In the 35th iteration of the games, ten teams competed in events including a “motorised vacuum obstacle race”, “bed-making against the clock” and a “mopping relay”. The games were dominated by teams from big resorts; social media users described them as a symbol of “dystopian” capitalism, and a “humiliation ritual”. A fugitive has been recaptured by Italian police after he was spotted hiding, by pretending to be a statue in a nativity scene. The Ghanaian man had gone missing after being sentenced to nine months for an assault in Bologna; but he was recaptured after the mayor of Galatone, in southern Italy,…

Football Mohamed Salah came on as a substitute in Liverpool’s 2-0 defeat of Brighton and provided an assist for the second goal. A week earlier, the Egyptian had accused his club of throwing him “under the bus”. Boxing Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury have agreed to fight next year – probably in Riyadh in September. Joshua faces Jake Paul, a social media influencer turned boxer, on 19 December. American football Kansas City Chiefs will miss the play-offs for the first time since 2014, after losing to Los Angeles Chargers.…

Fly, Wild Swans by Jung Chang William Collins 336pp £25 The Week bookshop £22.99 Wild Swans, Jung Chang’s 1991 memoir describing her and her family’s experiences under Chinese communism, was one of the most successful non-fiction books of all time. Now, Chang has written a sequel, which picks up the story where Wild Swans left off – with her move to England, aged 26, in 1978. The book charts her life in England, her career as a writer and her deteriorating relationship with her homeland (she used to visit regularly, but is no longer welcome). Critics described the book as a worthy successor to the earlier memoir, though some complained that Chang revisits much material from the earlier book. Praise: “Chang’s use of personal and intimate experience to make unfathomable…

After a boozy Sunday lunch among the Stables flatmates, Lily and Josh fall ill. There’s a flood in the surgery’s waiting room; Azra calls in Akram to help. Paul has his annual appraisal with Alistair, who tells him he must learn to drive to keep his job. With so much strain on Azra, Akram broaches the idea of moving back to Pakistan – he wants to farm and says it would be good for the family; Azra isn’t sure. As Paul succumbs to the norovirus too, he confesses to Lily and Josh that he has failed his driving test seven times. Josh seems oblivious that his girlfriend Nina is ignoring him, to Lily and Paul’s concern. Ed seeks help for George. Azra is touched when Alan offers the Maliks the…

Nine of the best food books from 2025 How I Cook by Ben Lippett HarperCollins £26 (£22.99) Ben Lippett – the author of this superbly practical cookbook – “reminds me of the early Nigel Slater”, said Rose Prince in The Spectator. His recipes sound simple – sausage and sage pappardelle, chocolate mousse – but they’re always clever and well explained. A food influencer, Lippett has a “blokeish gen-Z prose style”, said Bee Wilson in The Guardian. I wasn’t sure, at first, if I was the target audience. But as my copy, now covered in Post-it Notes, attests, I “became a true believer”. Moveable Feasts by Chris Newens Profile £18.99 (£16.99) Winner of the Jane Grigson Trust Award for debut food writers, this book offers a culinary tour of Paris’s 20…

Frank Gehry 1929-2025 Frank Gehry, who has died aged 96, was one of the 20th century’s most influential architects. In a globe-trotting career spent defying the constraints of modernism, with its clean, straight lines, he produced a series of bold, exuberant designs that were expressive, fluid and sculptural. With unmissable “wow factor”, these became instant landmarks, said The Times. The most famous, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, helped to revitalise a whole city, and cemented his reputation as one of the modern era’s first “starchitects”. Gehry disliked the term, and was dismayed by the idea that he was creating a spectacle, said the FT. He took pride in being a practical architect, not a “fey dreamer”. Yet he did regard himself as an artist, and did not deny seeking to make…

What happened Doctors strike again Doctors in England voted this weekend to reject a last-ditch Government offer and continue with a planned five-day strike. The Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, had proposed a new deal last week that would have provided some 4,000 more speciality training posts for early-career doctors and covered some of their expenses, such as exam fees. But in an online ballot by their union, the British Medical Association (BMA), “resident” – formerly junior – doctors rejected the offer, by 83% to 17% on a 65% turnout. At 7am on Wednesday, they were due to start the 14th strike they ’ve staged since their pay dispute began in March 2023. Streeting called the strike a “self-indulgent, irresponsible and dangerous” act that would hit at a “moment of maximum…

A book about the ethics of AI research, published by a major academic publisher, has been found to contain references to journals that appear not to exist. According to The Times, many of the citations in certain chapters of Social, Ethical and Legal Aspects of Generative AI seem to be fictitious, which could indicate that the material was AI generated. In one chapter, eight of the 11 citations could not be verified. Springer Nature, the publisher, says it is investigating the claims. Of the 18-year-olds who had an offer to start at a UK university in the autumn, 89,510 said they intended to live at home – a record high; 6.9% more than in 2024. It means 31% of them planned to live at home, up from 22% a decade…

The UK’s unemployment rate rose to 5.1% in the three months to October – the highest figure since January 2021. Younger workers were particularly affected: the Office for National Statistics reported an 85,000 increase in the number of jobless 18- to 24-year-olds during that period. Many firms said they had slowed down their hiring this year ahead of the Budget; they also said employment had been hit by last year’s Budget, particularly national insurance rises. Public sector wage growth was running at an annual rate of 7.6% by October; in the private sector it was 3.9%.…

Oslo Tough trip: The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was seen in public for the first time since January last week, when she travelled to Norway’s capital to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Machado, 58, who went into hiding last year owing to safety fears, and who is subject to a travel ban at home, said she’d escaped Venezuela in disguise, aided by the US, which continues to apply pressure on the Maduro regime. She apparently passed through ten military checkpoints in Venezuela, before crossing to the island of Curaçao by boat. She arrived in Oslo too late for the ceremony, but was greeted by crowds of supporters, and by her daughter, who’d collected the prize on her behalf. Paris Sarko’s memoir: Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s newly released…

1 She Loves You by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, performed by The Beatles 2 (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, performed by The Rolling Stones 3* So What, written and performed by Miles Davis 4 Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23: I. Allegro non troppo by Tchaikovsky, performed by Sir Stephen Hough and the Minnesota Orchestra (cond. Osmo Vänskä) 5 Joe’s Blues, written and performed by Joe Pass 6 The Lemon Song by Led Zeppelin and Chester Burnett (Howlin’ Wolf), performed by Led Zeppelin 7 Für Elise by Beethoven, performed by Lang Lang 8 Flower Duet (from Lakmé) by Léo Delibes, performed by Renée Fleming, Susan Graham and the Philharmonia Orchestra (cond. Sebastian Lang-Lessing) Book: a much-loved, secondhand copy of Killing Floor by Lee Child Luxury: a plain wind-up…

Fuentes was born and raised in La Grange Park, Illinois. He describes his childhood, in a largely white suburb near Chicago, with a home-maker mother, a breadwinner father of Mexican heritage, and a strong Catholic ethos, as idyllic. He thinks women should stay at home, and shouldn’t have the right to vote. He told Piers Morgan recently that he had never had sex with a woman; he said he was not gay, “but I will say that women are very difficult to be around.” He studied politics at Boston University, but dropped out after his first year to become an activist. In 2019, Fuentes started to criticise the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, whom he saw as insufficiently right-wing and in the pay of corporate donors. (“Conservative Inc.” is his name…

UKRAINE How Moscow is committing “domicide” Bellingcat (Amsterdam) In the days after Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the strategically important southeastern city of Mariupol was subjected to a “brutal siege”: homes and infrastructure were razed; at least 25,000 people were killed. And now, in flagrant violation of international law, the Kremlin is quietly “Russificating” the city “one apartment block at a time”, says Bellingcat. We’ve identified 23 multi-storey housing complexes “being built in the ashes of Mariupol and advertised for sale, with low interest-rate loans, to Russian citizens”. Construction of the first buildings has been completed and new residents have already moved in. In the meantime, the original Ukrainian residents cannot return home; to do so, they must become Russian citizens and present, in…

A&E departments are “under siege” from patients with ingrown toenails and other non-urgent conditions, NHS England has said. Its data shows that 200,000 people went to A&E last winter with minor ailments that could have been treated by a pharmacist or GP. That included 384 with hiccups, 3,890 with ingrowing toenails and 6,382 with blocked noses. A&E staff also saw 96,998 patients with sore throats between November 2024 and March 2025, and 8,669 with itchy skin. With hospitals under intense pressure in the flu season, it is “more important than ever” that patients seek help from the right part of the health service, said Professor Julian Redhead, the national director of urgent and emergency care. However, other experts noted that people often go to A&E because they can’t get a…

If England are to “keep their campaign alive” in the third Test in Adelaide (which got under way as The Week went to press), then one thing is clear, said Rory Dollard in The Independent: they’ll need a meaningful contribution from Harry Brook. So far, the 26-year-old has “failed to fire”, managing just 98 runs in four innings – with a highest score of 52 – and “gifting his wicket with some poorly judged attacking strokes”, including twice snicking the ball while driving expansively on the up. Brook’s talent is beyond doubt, said Lawrence Booth in the Daily Mail. He can score all round the wicket, at a faster rate than virtually any other batter. “He averages 55 from his 32 Tests, scored England’s first triplecentury for 34 years against…

Rowan Atkinson claims not to care what the critics say about him, said Kevin Maher in The Times. He’d be unmoved, then, to learn that I found his new Netflix series quite “charming”. A sequel to 2022’s Man vs Bee, it’s a “comedic survival drama” in which Atkinson reprises his role as hapless everyman Trevor Bingley. In the run-up to Christmas, Trevor loses his job as a school caretaker in a pretty village. He’s about to close up for the last time when he finds a baby abandoned there, and feels obliged to take it home. Lonely and broke, Trevor is thrown a lifeline when he’s offered a house-sitting job in a London penthouse, said Rebecca Nicholson in the FT. There’s just one problem: he can’t offload the baby; the…

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave by Frederick Douglass, 1845 (Dell £8.99). Douglass was a dazzling orator, prolific author and publisher, diplomat, pioneering ethnographer, early champion of women’s suffrage and the most photographed American of the 19th century. He also spent his first two decades in bondage. Narrative is a powerful exposé of the brutalities of US slavery from a time when its end was nowhere in sight. Beloved by Toni Morrison, 1987 (Vintage £9.99). How does a writer find the words to convey both the horror of enslavement and the humanity within such a dehumanising experience? I don’t think I’ve come across any text that does so quite as effectively as this. A Fistful of Shells by Toby Green, 2019 (Penguin £14.99). This is a…

Programmes Secrets of the Conclave With unprecedented access, this documentary went inside the Vatican as 133 cardinals gathered this year to elect one of their number as the next Pope. Mon 22 Dec, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). Carols from King’s The traditional candlelit carol service in King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, with music and readings of Christmas poems by Tennyson and U.A. Fanthorpe among others. Wed 24 Dec, BBC2 17:45 (75mins). A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Room in the Tower Mark Gatiss adapts E.F. Benson’s wartime short story about a man who fears his nightmares are becoming a reality. With Tobias Menzies and Joanna Lumley. Wed 24 Dec, BBC2 22:00 (30mins). Films It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) It wouldn’t be Christmas without Frank Capra’s fantasydrama starring James Stewart. Sun 21 Dec, ITV1…

● If you get a message that looks like it’s from a friend asking for a Christmas gift card, don’t reply and ring them to check. ● Look out for fake delivery texts saying postage hasn’t been paid or demanding a customs charge. Forward phishing texts to 7726 and block the number. ● Bogus charity scams are popping up on social media. Check if a charity is legitimate before you donate on register-of-charities. charitycommission.gov.uk. Real charities will not use money transfer companies and won’t ask for sensitive information. ● Double-check web addresses for close misspellings when you’re shopping online. Report fake websites to ncsc.gov.uk and actionfraud.police.uk. ● Beware of scams about the winter heating allowance. The Department for Work and Pensions will never ask for bank details via text or…

Joanna Trollope 1943-2025 “Joanna Trollope, who has died aged 82, was one of those rare writers who can be said to have invented a genre,” said The Guardian. In the late 20th century, popular fiction written by, and mainly for, women “tended to be classified as either‘romantic novels’ or‘historical sagas’”. By contrast, Trollope wrote, with warmth and intelligence, about the situations and dilemmas faced by real women in their everyday lives. The book that made her name was The Rector’s Wife (1991), about an attractive middleaged woman who moves to a rural village with her increasingly embittered clergyman husband, decides that she has had enough of acting as his unpaid assistant, and takes a job in a supermarket. It knocked Jeffrey Archer off the top spot and was followed by…

Picking a word of the year isn’t easy, says The Economist. Anyone remember “youthquake” – the Oxford English Dictionary nomination in 2017? Or its 2022 follow-up “goblin mode”? Here are some of this year’s runners and riders: Taco One of those acronymic neologisms markets love. Coined by the FT’s Robert Armstrong, it stands for “Trump always chickens out” – and originally alluded to the many tariff fights that the US president picked and then backed down from. Debasement trade Another strong contender. Essentially: buying up hard assets such as gold due to worries that overspending governments are destroying the value of fiat currencies. Neijuan Mandarin for “involution”, it describes cut-throat competition despite diminishing returns. Much used in relation to the EV industry – and by workers describing the sense of…

Olivier Janssens In 2014, the Belgian tech entrepreneur made headlines by becoming the first person to pay for a private jet flight using bitcoin – flying from Brussels to Nice in the Côte d’Azur, for an estimated 15 bitcoin (or €7,700). A decade on, both his fortune and his ambitions have mushroomed in line with the crypto’s value. And now, said Josh Spero in the FT, he is planning to build a spectacular private fiefdom, “with its own court system”, on the Caribbean island of Nevis – part of the St Kitts and Nevis federation. Janssens has hired Skidmore, Owings and Merrill – the architects behind 7 World Trade Centre in New York and London’s Broadgate Tower – to help create his version of “paradise on Earth” on the tropical…

Combat Stress is the UK’s leading veterans’ mental health charity. We provide specialist clinical treatment and support for the Armed Forces, focusing on those with PTSD, Complex PTSD and moral injury. Some personnel leave the service and their experiences can’t easily be left behind. The work we do is life-changing and often life-saving, providing the only intensive mental health treatment service to UK veterans. Our services –both in-person and online – are provided at a time that can be isolating and daunting. Our 24-hour helpline, 0800-138 1619, is available to all veterans and their families for confidential mental health advice and support. We also have online self-guided resources, to help veterans with a variety of mental health difficulties, including: depression, anxiety, anger, and alcohol and substance misuse. To find out…

What happened Australia’s government announced plans to strengthen the country’s gun control laws, following Sunday’s terrorist attack at Bondi Beach, in Sydney. In the 20-minute rampage, a father and son opened fire on a crowd of about 1,000 people who had gathered to celebrate the first day of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah. The father, Sajid Akram, 50, had licences for six firearms, the number recovered at the scene. He was shot dead by police; his son, Naveed Akram, 24, was arrested and taken to hospital. They appear to have been inspired by Islamic State. The victims of the attack – Australia’s deadliest mass shooting since 1996 – included two rabbis, a Holocaust survivor and a ten-year-old girl. Many more might have died had it not been for the heroism…

Reform UK, which appeared to have become Britain’s largest party, by membership. Internal figures seen by The Times suggest that Labour now has less than 250,000 members, which would mean it has shed 100,000 since the election; Reform, according to its own “live counter”, has 270,971 (and counting). Dick Van Dyke, the Hollywood actor known for his attempt at a cockney accent in Mary Poppins, who turned 100. “The funniest thing is, it’s not enough,” he said, of reaching that milestone. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, after the Metropolitan Police said it would not be opening a new criminal investigation into claims that, in 2011, he’d asked his close protection officer to gather information about his accuser, the late Virginia Giuffre. In a statement, the Met said that it had carried out an…

The Conservatives will abandon plans to prohibit the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 if they win the next election, Kemi Badenoch has said. The Tory leader pledged to abolish the “destructive” Zero Emission Vehicle mandate which imposes quotas on car makers for sales of electric cars. She said Labour’s plans were having a “disastrous effect” on the UK car industry, and warned that pivoting too quickly to electric vehicles would only benefit China. She also vowed to cut subsidies for the electric vehicle sector, saving £3.8bn over a decade.…

“I always enjoy designer and socialite Nicky Haslam’s latest annual snooty tea towel, and seeing which phrases, items and people Haslam has deemed ‘common’ in time for Christmas. I agree with Haslam about air fryers, storm names, Stephen Fry, clapping the chef and ‘What’s not to like?’. I’d need to put out a bath towel, though, not a mere tea towel, to list my own bugbears, which include the phrases: ‘As you do!’; ‘Prosecco o’clock’; ‘girlie weekend’ and ‘hot take’. And I’ve heard enough about Dubai, ick, cringe, game-changers, pivoting, iconic anything, intermittent fasting, doomscrolling, cupcakes, kimchi and matcha to last me a lifetime.” Robert Crampton in The Times…

Call a halt to this “ermine arms race” Editorial The Guardian “Indefensible” is how Keir Starmer described the House of Lords before the last election. Labour, he said, would radically reform the bloated, unelected chamber, with an eye to replacing it altogether. So much for that promise. True, a bill to remove the 85 remaining hereditary peers is near completion, but his Government seems to have given up on any deep reform. Its only concern seems to be overturning the Tory majority in the chamber by packing it with more Labour supporters. Last week the Government appointed 34 more peers, taking its total to 96, more than any government since David Cameron’s. And as a result of this “ermine arms race”, the Lords has grown bigger still: it now has…

The Left has given up on school reform Jonathan Chait The Atlantic “Every once in a while, a state or city discovers a new and better way to educate poor children,” says Jonathan Chait. And strangely enough, every time, the political Left seeks to discredit and debunk it. This phenomenon was recently on display in Mississippi, where new teacher training, rigorous testing, and switching to phonics-based reading instruction has produced startling improvements. In the decade to 2023, the state’s fourth-grade reading scores rose from 49th place in the nation to the top 20. “Mississippi now does a far better job of teaching literacy than do many Northern states.” The response of critics on the Left has been to claim – falsely – that Mississippi’s results are based on statistical manipulation.…

The eruption that led a plague When the Black Death swept across Europe in the mid-14th century, killing up to 50 million people, it was blamed on everything from vapours from earthquakes to the unusual alignment of the planets. Almost 700 years on, it’s well established that the plague was, in fact, caused by a pathogen, Yersinia pestis, which was transmitted to humans by fleas living on black rats. Now, a study has shed light on how those rats came to be transported across the Black Sea to Europe. It seems the catastrophe was set in motion by a massive volcanic eruption in the tropics in around 1345 (the existence of which was inferred from ice core data). By throwing up a vast cloud of ash and sulphur, this would…

To The Times Some think Mark Rutte has overstated the threat to Europe, but he has only been echoing what a growing body of commentators have been saying for several years. Russia presents a clear threat to the relative peace and stability of Europe. Russia dominated eastern Europe from 1945 to 1989 through force of arms, and in 2022 shattered the peace of Europe by a full-scale attack on a sovereign state. We have a choice: we either try to talk our way back to a peaceful continent or re-arm ourselves to deter a future conflict. General Lord Dannatt MC, chief of the general staff 2006-09 To The Times There is something slightly absurd about the united leadership of Europe (including the UK) labouring mightily away to find a peace…

In the Young Vic’s big opening for December, the “talking ghost of a tiger haunts the streets of the battle-ravaged Iraqi capital while ruminating on the nature of existence”, said Dzifa Benson in The Daily Telegraph. That sounds like a tough sell. And Rajiv Joseph’s Pulitzernominated play – originally staged on Broadway with Robin Williams as the tiger – has taken 14 years to cross the Atlantic. But in the capable hands of director Omar Elerian, and featuring an astonishing central performance from Kathryn Hunter, this multilayered and “engrossing” tragi-comedy about the absurdities of war proves to be “funny, profound, must-see theatre”. Joseph’s “madly surreal” and “quietly humane” play is based on a real event, said Sarah Hemming in the FT. In 2003, a starving Bengal tiger in Baghdad’s zoo…

If your gift is to Sponsor a Dog with Dogs Trust, the recipient will get a photo of the dog, updates three times a year, plus postcards, a window sticker and fridge magnet (from £1/week; dogstrust.org.uk). Adrenaline-junkie teenagers will love the Junior Lamborghini Driving Thrill – driving three laps of the track in a supercar with an instructor at one of 38 UK locations (ages 11-16, £70; virginexperiencedays.co.uk). A 12-month OS Maps Premium Subscription is invaluable for keen walkers and runners. There’s access to 3D and topographic maps, and routes can be downloaded and used offline (£30; shop.ordnancesurvey.co.uk). Give the best of British honey with a Honey Gift Subscription. Each month the recipient will get a jar of both British seasonal and limited-release honey, plus a recipe card (£45 for three…

Peter Island Resort British Virgin Islands Founded in the 1970s, this private island resort was wrecked by Hurricane Irma in 2017. Last December, it reopened following a sevenyear rebuild, and it feels “more luxurious” than ever, says Sophie Dodd in Travel + Leisure. The resort is focused around one beach, leaving most of the hilly, 1,800-acre island (with four other “pristine” beaches) untouched. There are four villas, and 50 rooms and suites, some with their own hot tubs, as well as two restaurants (a steakhouse and a seafood restaurant). The spa is “serene”, and the friendly staff can arrange activities including sailing trips to other islands. Doubles from £746; peterisland.com.…

AA/RAC: exit routes By a rare coincidence, said the Financial Times, the private capital owners of both AA and RAC are “set to exit” their road recovery businesses next year – with both targeting a £5bn valuation. While RAC (owned by CVC, Silver Lake Partners and Singapore’s GIC) is reportedly leaning towards a London listing, the AA (owned by a consortium including TowerBrook, Warburg Pincus and Stonepeak) is keeping its options open, said Julia Kollewe in The Guardian. It hasn’t ruled out a float, but is also sounding out private buyers. The AA, founded in 1905, endured “a torrid time” during a previous six-year stint on the market before being taken private for a knock-down £219m in 2020. Like the RAC, which dates back even further, it now claims to…

Cheer up! The outlook’s not all gloom Chris Giles Financial Times Three in four people polled by YouGov after the Budget thought the economy was being managed badly, and most believe it “will be in a worse state in a year’s time”, says Chris Giles. New data showing a second monthly contraction, in October, is unlikely to cheer anyone up. But is the pessimism warranted? And could it become a self-fulfilling prophecy? “Some compelling new Bank of England data” throws light on this issue. Officials have compiled all their forecasts since 2007, which shows how often things turn out better than predicted. In November 2022, for instance, the BoE forecast a prolonged recession. It never happened; the size of the economy is now 7.4% larger than predicted. Even the growth…

The week’s best shares Avon Technologies Citywire Avon, which makes respiratory kit for fire and military personnel, has won a $21m gas mask and filters order from a European nation through its Nato procurement framework agreement. Jefferies names a £24 target. Buy. £17.82. BAE Systems The Times The aerospace and defence firm is set to benefit from increased Nato spending and rate cuts. There’s scope for further M&A activity to bolster profitability amid earnings per share growth. Capital gains are ahead. Buy. £17.27. Begbies Traynor Group Investors’ Chronicle The insolvency specialist’s restructuring arm is growing and gaining market share. Deal delays have hit the corporate finance advisory division, but property advisory revenues are up – ditto group profits. Yields a chunky 4%. Buy. 109p. Persimmon The Times Solid fundamentals and…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1496 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 29 December. Send it to The Week Crossword 1496, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid/listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. This week’s winner will receive Week-branded items, as well as two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). Asterisked clues were the work of the late Dave Crossland, (41 Down), chosen by The Times editor as his favourites. Remaining clues were written by Tim Moorey & Paul McKenna. ACROSS 1 Preserve of the motorist? (7,3)  6 * Admitting love, His Majesty King Edward becomes husband of Mrs Simpson (5) 11 Delivery of the cream for universities (4,5) 12…