Table of contents for 1499 in The Week

What happened Rachel Reeves accused the Tories this week of leaving an “unforgivable” £22bn “black hole” in the public finances, as she set out a series of spending cuts and warned that there will be tax rises in the Budget in October. One of the main cuts announced by the Chancellor was scrapping winter fuel payments for the ten million or so pensioners who don’t receive means-tested benefits. Others included cancelling new road schemes, such as the planned tunnel under Stonehenge and the Arundel bypass in Sussex; stopping “non-essential” Government spending on consultants; and reviewing many hospital building projects. She also announced plans to sell “surplus” public buildings and land. Reeves’s predecessor as chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, accused her in turn of “trash-talking” the economy with a “cock-and-bull” story about the…

The first fortnight of Kamala Harris’s run for the presidency has been “a marvel for the Democrats and a jarring wakeup call for the Republicans”, said E.J. Dionne Jr in The Washington Post. The landslide victory that Donald Trump seemed sure of, with a doddery President Biden as his rival, suddenly appeared to vanish. For the Democrats, “the relief of starting the 2024 campaign all over again with an energetic candidate” filled them with a confidence, even a “joy”, that they had lacked all year. Donations surged, with a record-breaking haul of $200m, said Joan E. Greve in The Guardian. So did voter registrations and volunteer sign-ups. Early polls suggested Harris had cut Trump’s six-point national lead in half. This week, a Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll showed the vice-president leading…

Hundreds of people, some of them masked, attacked a mosque in Southport, Merseyside, on Tuesday, hours after a peaceful vigil was held for three girls who were killed in a knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop on Monday. The mob set police vans on fire and hurled bricks and bottles at officers, 53 of whom were injured. Merseyside Police said it believed the far-right English Defence League had been involved in the unrest, and that it had been fuelled by false rumours on social media that the attacker was Muslim and a migrant. The mother of seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe, one of the children killed in the attack, issued a plea on Tuesday night for the violence to “please stop”. The other girls killed were Bebe King (pictured),…

Jasper, Canada Fire devastation: A “monster” wildfire ripped through 89,000 acres of the largest national park in the Canadian Rockies last week and destroyed a third of the tourist town of Jasper, Alberta. The fire was started by a lightning strike, spread rapidly in strong winds and grew into the most severe fire to hit the pristine Jasper National Park in over a century. By the time it reached Jasper itself, fire crews were faced with a 100-metre-high “wall of flames”. Some 25,000 people were evacuated, and firefighters from as far afield as Mexico and Australia were flown into Alberta to help combat fires raging across the province. Cool, wet weather later helped slow the fire’s spread. Across the border, the Park Fire in northern California had, by Tuesday, set…

“The best time to see a country’s political culture is before or after an election. Almost uniquely, the UK, France and the US are all in this phase now. Britain’s cheery transition of power reflects well on its politics. The UK has many forces keeping it sane. Hardly any Briton believes that God supports their preferred party. Almost everyone gets news from the BBC, meaning there’s a shared reality. The nation’s chief faultline, class, is only blurrily expressed in voting. Britain also has a monarch who is supposed to embody the nation. That leaves politicians as functionaries tasked with providing light entertainment while making sure that people can get doctors’ appointments.” Simon Kuper in the Financial Times…

An inquiry into the need for public inquiries Samira Shackle The Guardian Believe it or not, says Samira Shackle, there are no fewer than 18 public inquiries sitting in Britain right now, looking into everything from Grenfell to Covid. But do they achieve anything? They used to, on occasion: the 2004 inquiry into the Soham murders led to tighter background checks for those working with children. Yet the more inquiries have proliferated – there are twice as many now as in 2017 – and the more complex, drawn out and costly they’ve become, the less effective they’ve been at delivering justice and reform. By the time the inquiry into the blood scandal reported this May, more than 3,000 victims had died. And when they do see the light of day,…

Dogs feel their owners’ stress After a hard day at work, dog owners may be tempted to seek comfort from their pet. But while this may make the human feel better, it could leave their dog feeling worse. A new study has found that dogs can sniff out when people are stressed – and that it makes them feel more pessimistic. For the research, a team from the University of Bristol used trial and error to teach 18 pet dogs that when a food bowl was in one position, it would contain a treat, and when in another position, it would be empty. The researchers then placed the bowls in various spots between the two original positions and sat back to watch how the dogs behaved: running up to the…

As with most Olympic Games, the run-up to Paris 2024 was beset by controversy, said David Goldblatt on UnHerd. Critics challenged its much-vaunted green credentials; complained about the large-scale clearance of homeless people from the city centre; and moaned about the disruption to everyday life caused by the unprecedented security operation last week (18,000 troops on standby, snipers on rooftops, 45,000 armed police; facial recognition cameras everywhere; numerous roads fenced off; and a no-fly zone over Paris). Pro-Palestinian groups protested that, owing to its war in Gaza, Israel should be subject to the same bans as Russia and Belarus; Israel warned that Iran was plotting terrorist attacks aimed at Israeli athletes and spectators; and a Russian national was arrested on suspicion of plotting to destabilise the Games, said Flic Everett…

“The Great British penny could be at risk of being scrapped,” said Chris Matthews in the Daily Mail. This year, for the first time ever, the Treasury has placed no new orders at all for new coins from the Royal Mint, saying that the 27 billion already in circulation in the UK are sufficient. It does not expect to order any new 1p and 2p coins in the coming years, and officials are said to be considering “a range of scenarios” for the future of copper coins, as the UK increasingly becomes a cashless society. Many Britons reacted to the news with “howls of dismay”. Get rid of coppers, and with them many “greatly loved experiences” will be consigned to history: penny arcades, piggy banks, penny sweets. Don’t panic, said…

To The Independent The prison sentences recently handed down to the Just Stop Oil protesters, whose actions created significant disruption to people’s lives, were condemned by Chris Packham as “judicial thuggery”. Packham also described climate change as the most serious existential threat ever faced by the human species, with no shortage of scientific evidence to support this claim. Disruption to our lives may be the least of our concerns unless the man-made causes of climate change are addressed far more vigorously. The protesters were driven by a sense of urgent desperation, believing that only direct action would impel decision makers to act with the speed and conviction necessary to save this planet from an unprecedented disaster. The majority of us must accept some responsibility. We are reluctant to alter the…

As athletes from around the world gather in Paris for the 2024 Summer Olympics, the Fitzwilliam is staging a show that explores the artistic legacy of the Games the last time they were held in the French capital, exactly a century ago, said Laura Freeman in The Times. Back in 1924, Paris was the undisputed “artistic centre of Europe, if not the world”, and “for every athlete leaping further, hurdling higher and fighting tougher than any man or woman” ever had before, “there was an avant-garde artist breaking the boundaries… and every painterly rule in the book” – often using sport as their inspiration. The exhibition brings together paintings, sculptures and photographs, as well as archival films and fascinating ephemera to show how the 1924 Games engendered a remarkable meeting…

After Leaving Mr Mackenzie by Jean Rhys, 1931 (Penguin £9.99). Rhys was one of those amazing, tragic, ahead-of-her-time women and her life mirrored that of Julia, the main character in this book, which is a raging scream against the patriarchy and a biting critique of how women are viewed. Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, 2020 (Picador £9.99). Reading this book is an immersive experience – you emerge shattered and changed forever. Shuggie is a queer boy growing up in Glasgow’s council estates. The only respite from the male toxicity and squalor he endures is his mother, Agnes, a drunk siren whose messy love is a beacon in Shuggie’s darkness. The Trick Is To Keep Breathing by Janice Galloway, 1989 (Vintage £9.99). Galloway is one of Scotland’s finest writers and this was…

Programmes WW2: Women on the Frontline Series exploring the histories of women who played pivotal roles in WWII, including the dancer Josephine Baker. Sat 3 Aug, C4 19:00 (60mins). Titanic in Colour Newly colourised vintage photos and footage reveal the full glory of the famous liner, and cast a fresh light on the people who built her. Sun 4 Aug, C4 20:00 (60mins). Corridors of Power: Should America Police the World? This eight-part docuseries about the US’s role in international affairs opens with the Iranian hostage crisis and America’s dealings with Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Tue 6 Aug, BBC4 22:00 (60mins). Irvine Welsh’s Crime Second season of the crime drama based on Irvine Welsh’s novel, starring Dougray Scott. Wed 7 and Thur 8 Aug, ITV1 21:00 (60mins each). A Kanneh-Mason…

Sir Kenneth Grange 1929-2024 Sir Kenneth Grange came of age at around the time of the Festival of Britain, said The Times, “and the emergence of mass-produced televisions, washing machines, refrigerators and vacuum cleaners, all needing sleek design to make them as attractive as possible”. Rejecting the traditional “we have always done it this way” approach, he sought to produce goods that were stylish, functional, durable and affordable. And they came “thick and fast”, said Wallpaper magazine: cameras for Kodak, mixers for Kenwood, “pens for Parker, razors for Wilkinson Sword, irons for Morphy Richards, lighters for Ronson”, lights for Anglepoise. There was a point in the 1970s when if it “was made in Britain and you could hold it – comfortably – in your hand”, chances are it had been…

David “Spotty” Rowland The multimillionaire property tycoon turned financier – who once persuaded his friend, Prince Andrew, to unveil a bronze statue of him at his palatial house in Guernsey – has run into a spot of trouble on the Continent, said Ben Martin in The Times. EU regulators are “poised to revoke” the operating licence of Banque Havilland, the Luxembourgbased private bank owned by Rowland, blocking it from functioning in Europe. The exact reason remains unclear, but it comes amid heightened scrutiny of clients and processes. Last year, the UK Financial Conduct Authority provisionally fined the bank £10m for acting “without integrity” over an alleged “plan to try and devalue the Qatari currency”. The son of a scrap-metal dealer, Rowland, 79, was a precocious entrepreneur who became a property…

What happened The list of the six candidates vying to lead the Tory Party was finalised this week, officially setting off a three-month campaign to succeed Rishi Sunak. They are: Kemi Badenoch, Priti Patel, James Cleverly, Tom Tugendhat, Robert Jenrick and Mel Stride. Each had to win the support of ten Tory MPs to secure a place on the ballot. Suella Braverman ruled herself out, saying that most Tory MPs disagree with her “diagnosis” of why the party lost the election – and with her “prescription” for how to win. After a month of campaigning, Tory MPs will hold two votes on 4 September to narrow the field to four candidates. They’ll then whittle the shortlist down to a final two in October, before party members pick a winner, to…

British workers are seeking respite from their jobs by taking refuge in the loos, a survey has suggested. It found that 24% of workers admit to spending more time on the lavatory at work than they would at home, and that more than a quarter use this time “away from their desks” to check on their social media. The findings indicate that some people spend 104 hours a year in their work WCs. For the first time since records began, a majority of British households do not have a landline phone. According to Ofcom’s annual technology tracker, just 47% of homes now have a landline, down from 54% last year and 84% a decade ago. While almost four-fifths of over-65s still have a landline, only 16% of those under 25…

The Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has delayed – and says she may repeal – a Conservative law designed to combat “cancel culture” at universities. Under the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, which had been due to come into effect next week, universities, colleges and student unions would have been required actively to promote free speech on campus, or face sanctions by the regulator, including fines. Phillipson said she was aware of concerns that the measures risked being “burdensome” for universities, which already face a mounting financial crisis, and for the regulator, the Office for Students.…

Neil Kinnock on Glenys Neil Kinnock’s wife Glenys was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2017, and died last December at the age of 79, says Decca Aitkenhead in The Sunday Times. At times, her decline was barely perceptible. Four years ago, he says, “if you had had a 20-minute conversation with her, she would have managed to sustain the fiction of being Glenys. But after she’d repeated herself three times, and not picked up on something you’d said, you’d think, bloody hell, she’s drunk, or tired.” Towards the end, their daughter, Rachel, sensed that Glenys had not got long; but “in a peculiar way, it’s always sudden”, he says. She died at home with Neil, her husband of 56 years, beside her. “I suppose there is such a thing as a…

A postman in France who hoarded 13,000 letters, apparently so that he could clock off early, has been charged with breach of trust. The man, who has not been named, was supposed to be delivering post in L’Isled’Abeau near Lyon. Instead, he filled his garage with undelivered mail, where it was found by police who were investigating residents’ complaints about their erratic post. “I was overwhelmed by the work, which is huge. I’m speaking for all the postmen and women in France,” the facteur explained. “You don’t realise it, but it’s a huge job. You have to distribute, you have to distribute.” Dublin’s waxwork museum has removed a figure of Sinéad O’Connor after it was criticised for being “hideous”. The late singer’s brother, John O’Connor, told RTÉ that he’d been…

HUNGARY Brussels’ feeble attempt to slap down Budapest Die Tageszeitung (Berlin) How do you fix a problem like Viktor Orbán? Not the way Brussels is doing it, says Eric Bonse. The Hungarian PM has sown discord across Europe since Hungary assumed the EU Council presidency in July. The role of the president is to represent the European Parliament in its international relations; Orbán, however, is a Kremlin apologist who has vetoed sending aid to Kyiv: he supports policies completely at odds with those of Brussels and its foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, the vice-president of the European Commission. To Borrell’s fury, Orbán has gone on peace missions to Kyiv, Moscow and Beijing and met Donald Trump in Washington, so scuppering EU efforts to present a united front on Ukraine. And…

On Boom Radio, Gyles Brandreth recalled enjoying a romantic moment with his wife on a beach in Jamaica, when they noticed that they were not alone. “Coming along the beach was a little bent wizened old woman,” he said. “She was teetering along the beach towards us and it wasn’t until she got right in front of us, this little old person, that we realised that it was actually Mick Jagger.” The Tory leadership hopeful Tom Tugendhat’s campaign got off to a poor start, when social media users spotted that its slogan created the acronym “TURD”. Set against an image of the Union flag, the slogan originally read: “Together we can, Unite the party. Rebuild trust. Defeat Labour.” By the next morning it had changed to: “Together we can, Unite…

“There never was a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him asleep.”Ralph Waldo Emerson, quoted in Forbes “If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.”Orson Welles, quoted on The Bulwark “It’s much easier to make people cry than to make them laugh.”Vivien Leigh, quoted in The Knowledge “The British have a habit of always hanging the gold around an athlete’s neck too soon.”Michael Johnson in The Times “Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.”Benjamin Disraeli, quoted in The Jewish Chronicle “When someone on social media tells you it’s raining, the traditional media’s job is to look out the window.”Journalist Helen Lewis in The Atlantic “Why should I use my indicators? It’s none of your business where…

Cricket Ben Stokes hit England’s fastest-ever Test half-century to seal a 3-0 series win over West Indies. Football Fifa has given a one-year ban to the head coach of Canada’s women’s Olympic football team, Bev Priestman, after her assistants were caught using spy drones to spy on a rival team’s practice. Olympics Tom Pidcock defied a fourth-lap puncture to retain his mountain bike title. Nathan Hales won gold in trap shooting. The men’s 4x200m freestyle swimming team – James Guy, Tom Dean, Matt Richards and Duncan Scott – became the first British relay team to win consecutive golds.…

Book of the week Coming of Age by Lucy Foulkes Bodley Head 240pp £22 The Week Bookshop £17.99 What does your “reminiscence bump” look like, asked David Shariatmadari in The Guardian. If that sounds “like a blow to the head with a touch of amnesia”, it is not – but it can still be painful. As the psychologist Lucy Foulkes explains in her new book, the term refers to the period during which adults report the “greatest number of important autobiographical memories”. It tends to start when we’re about ten and “peaks at 20, taking in a plethora of firsts”: first kiss, first love, first dabblings with drink or drugs, as well as bullying, break-ups and bereavements. And as Foulkes (pictured) shows, these “enduringly vivid” years “define the adults we…

Jamie Hawkesworth at Huxley-Parlour There is a long line of British artists who, consciously or not, have specialised in documenting their home country and turning scenes that might have been deemed parochial into something unknowable and excitingly foreign. Photographer Jamie Hawkesworth (b.1987) follows in this tradition. For more than a decade, he has been travelling around the UK capturing images of commonplace structures and views, as well as the people he encounters. This show, The British Isles, consists of a dozen of these photos. What’s immediately clear is that Hawkesworth is neither a documentary photographer, nor a latter-day Martin Parr. Instead, he endows his subject matter with a romantic, cinematic glow, recalling but not imitating the great American photographers of the 1970s. Through his eyes, a puddle on a pavement…

The rise of grocery store tourism The “hot new travel trend on TikTok” involves neither museums nor beaches, said Stacey Leasca in Food & Wine. Instead, users are flocking to videos of TikTokers wandering around foreign supermarkets and commenting on their wares. I have to admit, I get the appeal, said Cathy Adams in The Sunday Times. What really draws me back to France is not lovely hotels with views of the Eiffel Tower, but the chance to “mooch around a giant Monoprix”. Just the thought of the products on offer – The rémoulade! The cheese counter! – makes me weak at the knees. And foreign supermarkets can tell you something about a country. The miniature trolleys you can find in supermarkets in Poland and elsewhere struck me as being…

● Mow less frequently to allow wildflowers to grow; the longer grass will hold onto moisture and be more resistant to drought. ● Robotic mowers work well, but don’t run them at night, when they can harm hedgehogs, which are nocturnal. ● Hand weed using a hori hori knife to remove deep roots. Most lawns will grow well without chemical fertilisers, but if yours needs a boost, try a liquid seaweed feed every four to six weeks until late summer. Don’t apply before heavy rain. ● Poor drainage or shade will encourage moss, which can be removed by scarifying with a spring tine rake. Aerate the soil with a fork at 15cm intervals, or try an aerator. ● Don’t worry if the lawn turns brown in dry weather. It will…

John Mayall 1933-2024 John Mayall, who has died aged 90, was known as the “godfather of British blues”. During his middle-class childhood in postwar Cheadle Hulme, he’d found resonance in a sound pioneered decades earlier on the plantations of the Mississippi Delta and in the tenements of Chicago’s South Side. By the time he put British blues on the map, in the mid-1960s, the genre had fallen into decline in America, said The Times, overtaken by pop and soul. Mayall, and the white blues rockers whose careers he mentored (and whose fame ultimately eclipsed his), “breathed new life” into the blues, then sent it back across the Atlantic. In so doing, they helped revive the careers of such legendary bluesmen as John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters. Born in Macclesfield,…

“My Government’s legislative programme will be mission-led,” declared an ermine-clad King Charles from his gilded throne at the state opening of Parliament. We’re so inured to “corporate twaddle” that the royal descent into “management speak” went largely unremarked, said Pilita Clark in the FT. The worst examples are rightly mocked. For instance, Mondelez—maker of Oreo biscuits — recently unveiled a new approach to marketing, called “humaning”. “We are no longer marketing to consumers, but creating connections with humans,” the snack giant said in a press release that prompted “immediate and widespread ridicule”. It’s an instance of what Stanford professors Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao call “jargon monoxide”: “empty and misleading communication that is meaningless to both bullshitter and bullshittee”. But office jargon will always be with us: people will always…

The week’s best shares 1Spatial The Mail on Sunday 1Spatial’s traffic management software is a boon for utilities, transport contractors and local authorities dealing with roadworks – in Europe and the US. Shares have doubled since 2021; there should be more to go. Buy. 70p. 3i Group The Times The UK private equity group’s £22bn portfolio – mostly invested in “value” consumer brands – has delivered a 24% total return, helped by a €1bn payout from Dutch discounter Action. The “steep premium” reflects quality. Buy. £29.98. Accesso Technology Group The Mail on Sunday This digital ticketing firm is profiting as sites go hi tech: customers include Legoland, Disney World, the Egyptian pyramids and ski resorts. “Firing on all cylinders.” Shares – whacked by Covid – should respond. Buy. £7. ITV…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1425 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 12 August. Send it to The Week Crossword 1425, 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 4 School fighter’s a fool to behave unacceptably (2,3,3,5) 8 Cleaner’s flying aid? (10) 9 Bird stuck in gate alas! (4) 10 Most harsh southern mountain (8) 12 Vocalist from Tangiers perhaps? No thanks (6) 13 I work for spinster (5,6) 17 Councillor facing river emergency (6)…

Determination, after an Australian hockey player opted to have part of his finger amputated so that he could compete at the Paris Olympics. Matt Dawson broke his finger during training in Perth, and was told that if he had surgery to repair it, it could take months to recover – and he’d miss the Games. So instead, he shocked teammates by having the top of his digit removed. Harry Edward, Britain’s first black Olympic medallist, who is to be commemorated with a blue plaque on his former home in Bloomsbury, central London. Born in Germany in 1898 to German and Dominican parents, the sprinter moved to England after being interned during the First World War, and represented Britain at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, winning two bronzes. He later emigrated…

Paris Heatwave: The €1.4bn effort to clean up the Seine in time for the Olympic Games seemed this week to have paid off… eventually. The downpours that marred Friday’s opening ceremony overwhelmed Paris’s sewers over the weekend and, on Monday, tests were again showing unsafe levels of E. coli. But the delayed swimming leg of the men’s triathlon was finally able to go ahead on Wednesday – by which time competitors and spectators were being more troubled by extreme heat than rain. With temperatures reaching 36°C, tennis players were given extra breaks and BMX bikers competing in the Place de La Concorde were handed umbrellas to shelter under. On social media, Simone Biles – the gymnastics superstar who helped the US team to gold on Tuesday – fought back against…

1 See My Baby Jive by Roy Wood, performed by Wizzard2 Dashing White Sergeant, traditional, performed by Jimmy Shand3 Don’t You (Forget About Me) by Keith Forsey and Steve Schiff, performed by Simple Minds4 You Can Dance (If You Want To) by Lorenzo Queen, K. Davis and L. Pinckney, performed by Go Go Lorenzo and the Davis Pinckney Project5* September by Al McKay, Maurice White and Allee Willis, performed by Earth, Wind & Fire6 Can’t Take My Eyes Off You by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio, performed by Andy Williams7 Rocket Man by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, performed by Elton John8 Spring 1 by Vivaldi and Max Richter, performed by Daniel Hope with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin (cond. André de Ridder) Book: Flowers of Crete by John Fielding and Nicholas Turland…

The Heritage Foundation isn’t merely a talking shop. Founded in 1973 as a conservative counterweight to liberal think-tanks such as the Brookings Institution, it became a major player in 1981, when its policy proposals were taken up by the Reagan administration, which implemented around 60% of them during its first year in office. The Foundation has offered policy blueprints to every Republican president since then. It claims that the Trump administration adopted 64% of the 334 policies it proposed. It also put together a database of trusted conservatives to serve under Trump. Several hundred were hired from this list, some 70 of whom were Foundation staff and alumni. The Foundation sits in a larger ecosystem of conservative think-tanks, backed by corporate interests and right-wing billionaires, such as Charles and David…

Is Benjamin Netanyahu losing the US? Joshua Keating Vox Benjamin Netanyahu broke Winston Churchill’s record last week by making a fourth address to a joint session of congress – an unprecedented honour for a foreign leader. The Israeli prime minister is a familiar presence in Washington DC, says Joshua Keating. He made his first speech to congress back in 1996 and has frequented Capitol Hill since serving as a diplomat in the early 1980s. For him, Washington once served “as a sort of relief valve”. It was a place where he could count on strong support, however embattled his position at home. But things felt different last week. Although the Israeli premier was accorded the usual formalities, he cut a rather forlorn, marginalised figure. Dozens of lawmakers, including around half…

An AI program has boosted cancer detection rates by more than 7% in a trial involving 35 GP practices in the east of England. The “C the Signs” AI tool analyses patients’ medical history, test results and treatments, along with their postcode, age and family history to determine if they are at higher risk of the disease. If it sees particular patterns, it prompts GPs to ask questions about possible symptoms and recommend tests and referrals. When it was fed data on 118,677 patients, it identified 7,056 out of the 7,295 who had received cancer diagnoses. And in the trial, the cancer detection rate at the practices that used it rose from 58.7% to 66%, while remaining static at other practices. “Our system has detected over 50 different types of…

“The new Labour Government has certainly hit the ground running,” said Callum McGoldrick on CapX. In the month since the election, it has unveiled a mass of policies, initiatives and quangos. These include Great British Energy, a new state-owned firm that Labour says will be “at the heart of this Government’s mission to make Britain a clean-energy superpower”. The company will invest in renewable energy projects alongside the private sector, helping to get them off the ground by, for instance, funding upfront development work such as the securing of planning consent and grid connections. The company is backed by £8.3bn of public money. The question now is whether it will prove to be an effective catalyst for change, or just an expensive gimmick. GB Energy is a promising and welcome…

Hypocrisy in the West To The Economist You ran a story on the meeting between Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, and Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president. Just before the meeting, Russia launched missile strikes across Ukraine, including on a children’s hospital. Every sincere person would condemn this brutal and unprovoked attack by Russia on a sovereign nation. You then said Mr Modi still went ahead with the meeting and gave Mr Putin a bear hug. Yet how many times have Western leaders given bear hugs to Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, while Israeli forces bombed civilians, including children, in Gaza? What we in India fail to comprehend is the double standards of the West, where Mr Putin is seen as a violent renegade, and rightly so, but Mr Netanyahu’s constant violations…

The pre-publicity for Cameron Mackintosh’s latest revival of Lionel Bart’s evergreen classic – this time both choreographed and co-directed by Matthew Bourne – spoke of a “revised” and “reimagined” version. Fans of Oliver! may have been alarmed, but it turns out they had nothing to fear, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph: the “big Twist” is simply that the show, which transfers to London in December, has an “intimacy and a quality of simplicity in keeping with the ‘poor theatre’ aesthetic” of the original 1960 designs, and Bart’s own theatrical roots. There has been no skimping on spectacle. It’s just that the spectacle has been squished, with the action taking place across “tight levels of stage”. This Oliver! is “a visual delight”, and shows some intriguing influences, said Matthew…

“The 1970s sex comedy was a peculiarly British institution, fuelled by a mix of Victorian prudishness and the bawdy, end-of-pier tradition” that would also manifest itself in The Benny Hill Show and the Carry On… films, said Ed Power in The Irish Times. As we learn in the two-part Channel 4 documentary Saucy! Secrets of the British Sex Comedy, these low-budget flicks had huge popular appeal in their day. For instance, Adventures of a Taxi Driver – “a blizzard of bare bums and knob gags” – apparently made more at the UK box office in 1976 than Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. This documentary doesn’t really examine why this might have been the case, but it is enlightening and should entertain those who “find other people’s wobbly bits innately hilarious”. “The documentary…

For budding artists who dream of seeing their work in a public gallery, your moment has arrived, said Nick Clark in the Evening Standard – thanks to Turner Prize-winner Oscar Murillo. For five weeks, he has taken over the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern for a project that invites visitors of all ages to pick up a brush and add their own strokes to a series of vast canvases. “It’s about unbound freedom and unbound connection to just letting go,” says the artist. Called The Flooded Garden, the piece is inspired by Monet’s paintings of his garden at Giverny, said Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. To get a sense of that, you need to go upstairs, and look down on the oval arena in which the piece takes place. Within…

Vince gets Elizabeth’s advice on handling the bullying case, without revealing it’s about Freddie. George helps Emma and Ed with a fallen tree, but they’re mystified when he’s reluctant to accept Brian’s tip. Paul overhears Denise and Alistair talking about their relationship; he angrily confronts them and runs away. After a run-in with Alistair in the shop, Paul storms off. When Alistair arrives to explain himself, a furious Paul tells him he can shove his job. Elizabeth learns that Freddie was the bullying victim but Vince says it’s all sorted. Fallon tells Emma she feels stuck at the Tea Room; Emma suggests she runs the new café at the EV station. Alistair begs Paul not to resign. Neil takes George to The Bull and speculates about Alice going to jail.…

Makes: 600g 250g blanched hazelnuts 50g milk chocolate, melted, or plant-based dark chocolate, melted 1 tsp vanilla bean paste 25g cocoa powder, sifted 75g icing sugar, sifted good pinch of sea salt milk of your choice (optional) First, preheat the oven to 180°C fan/200°C/gas mark 6. Place the blanched hazelnuts onto a baking tray and pop in the oven for 5 minutes. Give the tray a bit of a jiggle to move the hazelnuts around, then roast for another 5 minutes. We want the hazelnuts to be a light golden-brown colour – roasting them will intensify the flavour and just make the hazelnuts even more… hazelnutty. Once the nuts have been roasted, put them into a food processor and blitz until the oils have been released and the hazelnuts have…

Global knives, made from a single piece of light stainless steel with no joints, to stop blisters, are favoured by Meera Sodha and Rachel Roddy (from £110; globalknives.uk). Yotam Ottolenghi and Itamar Srulovich swear by Victorinox knives, which are easy to work with and maintain. A chef’s knife and a paring knife are key, and Philip Khoury loves the bread knife too (victorinox.com). Andi Oliver and Paul Ainsworth rate HexClad knives – “beautifully made, great looking, incredibly sharp and perfectly weighted” (from £50; hexclad.co.uk). Spence Blades‘s knives are “a joy to use”, says José Pizarro: a paring knife, a boning knife and a chef’s knife will be your “friends for ever” (from £175; spenceblades.com). Tim Hayward and Mitch Tonks suggest buying the best Santoku knife you can afford. These Japanese…

New Park Manor Brockenhurst, Hampshire Set in the heart of the New Forest, with “woodland walks from the doorstep”, the recently revamped New Park Manor is one of the UK’s most family friendly hotels, says Helen Ochyra in The Times. A godsend for “frazzled parents”, it has a range of delights for children including indoor and outdoor pools, a cinema room, arcade games and a playground. Staff are “endlessly patient”, and for two hours a day there is free childcare in the Ofsted-registered Four Bears Den. The 25 rooms have playful decor (including chalkboards), and there’s a spa and two restaurants, one adults-only. Doubles from £165 b&b; luxuryfamilyhotels.co.uk.…

Royal Mail/Evri: delivering deals How is the “Czech Sphinx” Daniel Kretínský progressing in his quest to bag Royal Mail? In a word, slowly, said Alex Brummer in The Mail on Sunday. With questions from MPs, investors and unions mounting, the £3.6bn deal agreed by International Distribution Services (IDS), Royal Mail’s owner, is still very much up in the air. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds is expected to invoke powers under the National Security and Investment Act to “call in” the deal before Parliament goes into recess. Meanwhile, a shareholder rebellion is mounting. Big City investors representing more than a fifth of IDS shares plan to vote against the £3.70-a-share offer – on grounds that it “seriously undervalues Royal Mail” if the regulator, Ofcom, recommends changes to the Universal Service Obligation (guaranteeing…

Trump’s empty dollar threat… Katie Martin Financial Times Donald Trump’s latest pronouncements on the “tremendous burden” placed upon US companies by the strong dollar have “rekindled a familiar conversation”, says Katie Martin. If Trump were to win power, would he try to weaken the world’s dominant reserve currency? “The short answer is no, or at least not without trashing the economy.” But the greenback’s role as “the glue that holds global trade and investment together” means “fund managers have little choice” but to take Trump’s “salvo” seriously. If he does choose this path, it won’t be easy. Deutsche Bank analyst George Saravelos has calculated that the dollar “would have to drop by a lot to matter” – possibly by 40%, to close the trade deficit. That seems like “a substantial…

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