The Week 1580

China’s Yangtze River, which has been in ecological decline for 70 years, is recovering, thanks to a ban on all commercial fishing, The Guardian reports. The third-longest river in the world, the Yangtze was once home to the baiji, a freshwater dolphin that was worshipped as a goddess – but which was declared extinct in 2007. The fishing ban was put in place in 2021; now, a study in the journal Science has found “promising signs of initial recovery in biomass, diversity” and “even threatened species”. A sheep once dubbed “Britain’s loneliest” has given birth to twin lambs. The ewe, who has been named Fiona, was spotted at the bottom of a steep coastal cliff in the Highlands in 2023 by a kayaker; it is thought she’d been there for…

The Munich conference What happened World leaders and military chiefs gathered last Friday for three days of speeches and talks at the Munich Security Conference. A dominant theme of the forum was the need for Europe to strengthen its defences against Russian aggression. President Macron of France and the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, both gave speeches calling for Europe to forge a new path towards sovereign deterrence and hard power. Keir Starmer echoed that message in his address, making the case for closer cooperation between Britain and the EU on military procurement, and faster rises in defence spending. The Prime Minister described Europe as a “sleeping giant”, noting that the continent’s combined economies “dwarf Russia’s, more than ten times over”. At last year’s Munich conference, the US vice-president, J.D. Vance,…

What happened Keir Starmer this week abandoned plans to delay local elections in England, following advice that they could be ruled unlawful by the courts. In January, ministers had announced that polls due to be held this May could be postponed until 2027, if councils wished, to free up “capacity” for a major reorganisation of local government. But the delay sparked anger from opposition parties, who complained that it would disenfranchise some 4.5 million voters; and following a legal challenge brought by Reform UK, the Government backed down on Monday. The PM’s latest major U-turn – his 14th – came as he attempted to reset his Downing Street operation following a tumultuous period of leadership speculation. Last week, Chris Wormald became the latest senior figure to leave Government, departing as…

Controversy of the week Defining terrorism The “dangerous fanatics” of Palestine Action have been given a “free pass” to continue promoting hatred and committing acts of violent disorder, said The Sun. Last Friday, the High Court ruled that the Government’s decision to proscribe the group as a terrorist organisation had been unlawful. Palestine Action had, the three judges accepted, carried out some acts of terrorism, said Alistair Gray in the Financial Times. But they ruled that the challenge to the ban – which was put in place last July, after activists broke into RAF Brize Norton and damaged two planes – was successful on two main legal grounds. The first was that the decision to outlaw the group amounted to “unjustified interference” with the right to freedom of expression and…

The UK’s unemployment rate rose to a near-five-year high of 5.2% in the three months to December, while wage growth cooled. Joblessness among 16- to 24-year-olds also increased to 16.1%, a level not seen for more than a decade. The news put pressure on Keir Starmer’s Government; some businesses said they had hired fewer staff because Labour had raised employer national insurance contributions, alongside other costs. Ministers were reported to be considering whether to abandon a pledge to pay 18 -to 20-year-olds a higher minimum wage (see page 40).…

The party leader Nigel Farage has unveiled the first four members of his front-bench team, which includes the Tory defectors Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman. If Farage’s party wins the next election, Jenrick will be the chancellor and Braverman the education secretary. Its deputy leader Richard Tice would take on a combined business, energy and trade brief, and Zia Yusuf, current head of policy, would lead on home affairs. Reform, which Farage insists is no longer a “one-man band”, currently has only eight MPs. However, the party has been leading national polls since spring.…