Table of contents for 1483 in The Week

“The word ‘landslide’ doesn’t quite capture the scale of it,” said Katy Balls in The Spectator. Two new mega-polls have forecast that the Conservative Party won’t just lose the next election, but will suffer a historic wipeout. The Survation and YouGov surveys predict the Tories will plummet to 98 and 155 seats respectively, fewer than in 1997; according to Survation, up to 11 Cabinet members are set to lose their seats including, potentially, the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, and even PM Rishi Sunak. Senior Tories are convinced Sunak has them trapped in a doom loop, said Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. And next comes “mental May”, as some MPs are calling next month’s local elections – when the Tories face losing not only half of the 1,000 council seats they are…

A town council in Norfolk has introduced a system that allows councillors to raise a card if they want to leave a meeting because they’re in distress. The system was set up after a Tory councillor accused fellow members of “achieving nothing”, causing a Green councillor to experience a brief “psychiatric emergency”. Councillors who raise a card can take time out in a room, where they can be advised on “grounding techniques”. Mattel has launched a new version of Scrabble that is designed to be less “competitive”. The double-sided board features the original game on one side, and the new game, Scrabble Together, on the other. It is simpler, quicker and less “intimidating”, and allows players to team up.…

Only one in four British Muslims believe that Hamas committed murder and rape in Israel on 7 October. 46% say they sympathise with Hamas. 46% say that Jews have too much power over UK government policy. JL Partners/The Daily Telegraph 60% of Gen Zers (those aged 12 to 27) believe that table manners are no longer relevant. More than a third admit to using their phones at the table, and more than three-quarters say that leaving elbows off the table is outdated nonsense. Censuswide/Prezzo 29% of adults in Great Britain feel very or fairly positively towards seagulls. 58% feel very or fairly negatively towards them. The rest don’t know. YouGov…

Morton and the age of me Samantha Morton has a backstory that is grimly reminiscent of Ken Loach’s social realist films, says Sylvia Patterson in The Guardian. Born in 1970s Nottingham to parents with poor mental health, she spent her childhood being moved between children’s and foster homes – enduring bullying, cruelty and sexual abuse along the way. Even since finding fame as an actress, she’s had difficult times: aged 30, she had to learn to walk and talk again after suffering two strokes; she has also endured years of painful endometriosis. She was told she’d never have children; that she ended up having three is a testament to a resilience that she attributes to her Christian faith, empathy – and the attitudes that prevailed in her generation. “With the…

America is suffering a crisis in local journalism too. According to Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, the US has lost some 2,900 newspapers since 2005: just 6,000 now remain, the vast majority of which are weeklies. In that same period, the country has lost almost two-thirds of its newspaper journalists – about 43,000. Last year, an average of 2.5 papers shut or merged every week; many more are forecast to close between now and the end of 2025. Those that have survived are often in the hands of those who seek to maximise profits at the expense of quality: about half of America’s papers are owned by hedge funds, private equity firms, and other investment companies. Even flagship papers such as The Baltimore Sun and the Chicago Tribune have…

There’s a heat-seeking missile aimed at Biden Paul Begala CNN Which of the two main presidential candidates will be hurt most by Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s independent run? Some people, “a little slow on the uptake perhaps”, have persisted in believing that as a vaccine critic and conspiracy theorist, Kennedy will draw more votes from Trump than Joe Biden, says Paul Begala. It was always clear that this was nonsense: the man’s called Kennedy, for goodness sake, the “most famous name in Democratic history”. But with his recent choice of running mate, he has ended the debate. Not very much is known about Nicole Shanahan – as recently as February, Kennedy himself had apparently only spoken to her once – but what we do know leaves little doubt about her…

A cylindrical slab of metal that crashed through the roof of a house in Florida last month is believed to have been a used battery that was jettisoned from the International Space Station (ISS) in March 2021. The object, which weighed about 2lbs, made a “tremendous sound” when it struck on the afternoon of 8 March, said the owner of the house, Alejandro Otero. “It almost hit my son.” Just five minutes earlier, at 2:29pm, a 2.9-tonne pallet carrying nine used batteries from the ISS had been spotted re-entering Earth’s atmosphere over the Gulf of Mexico. Nasa had expected it to burn up, but others had warned that up to half-a-tonne of fragments could hit the Earth’s surface. According to new research, there is now so much junk in space…

Is assisted dying an idea whose time has finally come, asked Laura Hughes in the Financial Times. Across the UK, there is growing momentum behind efforts to change the law. Politicians in Scotland, Jersey and the Isle of Man are all considering legislation to permit assisted dying for the terminally ill. Keir Starmer has promised MPs a free vote on the issue if Labour wins power. And a poll last month showed that 75% of Britons are in favour. In France, President Macron has said that his government will draft a law creating a “right to die” for adults with incurable diseases. If the law is passed, France will join Switzerland, the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several US states in giving terminally ill…

“Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.”Herbert Hoover, quoted in The Lock Haven Express “Art today is institutionalised narcissism, a conspiracy between creators and curators to make poor people feel stupid.”Critic Stephen Bayley, quoted on The Knowledge “Excellence is not an act, but a habit.”Will Durant, paraphrasing Aristotle, quoted in The Sunday Times “In any debate, a good speech identifies the weaknesses in the other side’s case; but a great speech confronts its strengths.”Michael Foot, quoted in The Times “Well-behaved women seldom make history.”Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, quoted in National Review “Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us without words?”Marcel Marceau, quoted in Forbes “The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently…

To the Financial Times It really is not good enough for Labour to call for the legal advice on Israel’s war on Gaza to be published, and not commit to publication of all such legal advice in future. I remember referring to the government’s then legal advice during a debate on Afghanistan, and receiving a letter afterwards saying that I should not have done so. Most people will remember how contentious the question of the legality of the proposed war on Iraq was in 2003. Even the cabinet didn’t see this legal advice. When it was extracted much later, we saw how a side agreement had been put in place to enable the attorney-general to change his mind and say war would be legal. There is no good reason why…

by Neel Mukherjee Atlantic 320pp £18.99 The Week Bookshop £14.99 The UK-based Indian writer Neel Mukherjee’s latest novel comprises three narratives about “21st century ethical and political dilemmas”, said Tanjil Rashid in The Guardian. In the first, Ayush, a publisher living in London, struggles with his “human footprint” and the “neoliberal” outlook of his husband. In the second, Emily, an academic, becomes obsessed with an illegal immigrant taxi driver, after his cab is involved in a hit-and-run. In the third, the lives of a family in India fall apart when they receive the “well-meant gift” of a cow. With themes including climate change, animal cruelty and the “white saviour complex”, Choice “is very much of its moment”, said Benjamin Markovits in The Daily Telegraph. And much of it is “beautifully…

Gauguin and the Contemporary Landscape at Ordovas Savile Row’s Ordovas gallery has earned a reputation for putting together stylish and scholarly shows that juxtapose art old and new, and its current exhibition plays to type. It features just five works, exploring the influence of nature – a gorgeous rural scene by Paul Gauguin, painted in Brittany in 1890, and two pictures apiece by Peter Doig and the Swedish artist Mamma Andersson – but it demands contemplation. Parallels between the works rhyme across the room: a barely glimpsed peasant woman in the middle distance of the Gauguin composition finds an echo in a blurry, naked figure taking a running jump into a lake in Doig’s 1996 depiction of a West Coast nudist colony; similarly, a moodily poetic 2023 canvas by Andersson…

Italy’s risotto crisis I realise it’s probably “peak middle class” to fret about the future of “posh rice”, says Rachel Cooke in The Observer. But I am nonetheless concerned about Italy’s “risotto crisis”. Risotto can only be made with varieties such as arborio and carnaroli, which are super-absorbent yet retain their texture over a slow cook. And these are exclusively grown in the Po Valley, a floodplain in northern Italy just south of the Alps. Once, farmers there struggled “to keep the water away”. Now, thanks to climate change, things are topsy-turvy. “In 2022, the worst drought in 200 years struck the Po, the river that feeds the system of canals that irrigates the paddy fields.” Rice production dropped by more than 30%. Last year, it was again lower than…

● Turn the bag inside out to clean the inside. Use a vacuum upholstery attachment to remove crumbs and a shaver for pilling. ● Turn the bag the right way again and stuff it with tissue paper or a towel to hold its shape while you’re cleaning it with leather cleaner. Test the product on an inconspicuous area first. Then, with a horsehair brush and water, use small circular motions to work up a lather. Use a damp cloth to wipe it off. ● Massage leather conditioner into the seams and corners to keep the bag supple. For suede or nubuck, use a specialist suede brush. If the leather is very dry, you may need more than one layer of conditioner; do this over a few days so it is…

Lynne Reid Banks 1929-2024 Lynne Reid Banks, who has died aged 94, caught the social-realist zeitgeist with her debut novel, The L-Shaped Room. Written in the late 1950s, it tells the story of a young middle-class woman who falls pregnant as a result of a casual encounter. Cast out by her family, she ends up living in a run-down boarding house in a west London backstreet, along with several prostitutes, a gay black man and a Jewish writer who becomes her lover. She described the novel as “nothing spectacular”, said The Daily Telegraph, but its frank discussion of previously taboo subjects delighted the critics (“She can suggest all the indignity of being sick in the Tube in half a sentence,” enthused one). The book became a bestseller, and was turned…

Standard Life Aberdeen’s expensive rebrand to Abrdn in 2021 has been the gift that keeps giving for City wags. Sadly, one snr cmpny exctv has come down with a case of “irritable vowel syndrome”, said The Daily Telegraph. The head of investment, Peter Branner, claims the asset manager is a victim of “corporate bullying” by the media, with its “childish” jokes about missing vowels. “Lv Abrdn aln”, said the FT. “Nt fn anmr ok?” It’s time we showed more empathy with Brnnr, as he is known, said Alistair Osborne in The Times. So let’s find something else to make fun of. Would highlighting the fact that only 42% of Abrdn’s funds have beaten their benchmarks over three years swing it?…

The tug of war in economic forecasting Chris Dorrell City AM When it comes to economic forecasting, says Chris Dorrell, Britain has two main official sources: the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Bank of England. Yet the pair seem to be “drifting” ever further apart. Take GDP. The OBR expects the UK economy to grow by 0.8% this year and by 1.9% in 2025 – a “markedly more optimistic” prediction than the 0.2% and 0.6% growth expected by the Bank. This divergence becomes even wider the further out you go. By the end of the Bank’s forecast horizon in 2026, it predicts cumulative GDP growth will be 2.7 percentage points lower than in the OBR’s central forecast, meaning around £30bn less in tax revenues. Clearly, this has big real-world…

What happened William Wragg, the MP for Hazel Grove in Greater Manchester, resigned the Tory whip this week after falling victim to a “honeytrap” sexting scandal. Wragg had earlier admitted to passing colleagues’ phone numbers to a man he met on Grindr, a gay dating app. He said he was scared the man had “compromising things on me”, having earlier sent intimate pictures of himself. At least 20 Westminster politicians, staff and journalists then received unsolicited WhatsApp messages from senders calling themselves “Abi” or “Charlie”. Some were of a sexual nature; at least three MPs responded with explicit photos of themselves. Two police forces opened investigations into what is widely believed to be a “spear-phishing” attempt to gather sensitive or compromising material on targets. Wragg, who will now sit as…

A landmark review of NHS gender identity services for children and young people in England has found that clinical interventions had been “built on shaky foundations”. In the 388-page report, commissioned by NHS England, paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass made 32 recommendations, including that the previous policy of giving children hormones from age 16, needed to be reviewed, given the risks and lack of reliable evidence; and that the approach for children referred to gender services should shift from medical interventions to “holistic assessments of their needs”. Cass noted that the “toxicity” of the debate meant professionals were “afraid” to openly discuss their views.…

L’Entente Cordiale, whose 120th anniversary was celebrated this week. To mark the alliance between France and Britain, which ended centuries of hostility, French soldiers participated in the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, while British guardsmen joined a ceremony at the Élysée Palace in Paris. John Tinniswood, who has been crowned the world’s oldest living man. The 111-year-old Liverpudlian said that the secret to his long life was “just luck”. On receiving his Guinness World Records certificate at his care home in Southport, he remarked: “It doesn’t make any difference to me. Not at all.” Pensioners, with the news that state pensions rose by 8.5% on Monday. The big rise was ensured by the “triple lock” instituted by the coalition government in 2011 (see page 42).…

Paris No-show fines: French patients would have to pay a €5 fine if they miss a GP appointment, under new rules proposed by the prime minister, Gabriel Attal, this week. Doctors in France report an estimated 27 million no-shows per year, he said, and he predicted that the fines would free up 20 million appointments. Patients would give their credit or debit card details when booking, allowing doctors to fine them if they fail to turn up without 24 hours’ notice or a good excuse. However, the plan has immediately come under fire from doctors’ unions and patients’ groups, who said it would strain doctor-patient relations, and was an attempt to blame members of the public for the health system’s shortcomings. The plan is one of several proposed by Attal…

“I’ve long thought that monarchy allows us to imagine our kingdom, our national story, as more interesting and singular than it is. Monarchy is attractive, but it looks backwards by nature. If there was an opportunity for dynamic monarchy – the Norman lawmakers, perhaps, or the Tudor propagandists – we haven’t taken it. The instruments of monarchy are imperial, and in daylight they look increasingly odd and piteous. It’s a truism of addiction – and many are addicted to monarchy – that the larger your fantasy life, the smaller your real one. Bunting is everywhere – from The Great British Bake Off to the coronation – as our national decline becomes explicit.” Tanya Gold in The New Statesman…

Our “absurd” hang-up over ID cards Editorial The Times The British have always shied away from the idea of identity cards, says The Times, but it’s time we overcame this hang-up. As President Macron of France notes, one of the main pull factors for those crossing the Channel on small boats is that it’s just so easy to vanish into the UK’s black economy. The lack of a central ID database means we don’t even know, with any real accuracy, how many people live in Britain. “This, to put it plainly, is absurd.” The least we should do is introduce an ID certificate for new arrivals, to ensure that only those with a verified right to live in the UK can legally work and claim entitlement to NHS treatment and…

“An underappreciated aspect of Donald Trump’s career,” said John Cassidy in The New Yorker, “is how lucky he has been.” He had a rich father, who financed his first ventures into Manhattan real estate. In the early 1990s, when his casino and hotel empire was mired in debt, the banks agreed to bail him out. A decade later, when his finances were again under strain, NBC transformed his fortunes by selecting him to host its new reality show, The Apprentice. Now, as he faces massive legal fees, Trump “appears to have lucked out again, with Wall Street delivering him a huge financial windfall”. His net worth leapt to about $5bn at the end of last month when Trump Media, the parent company of his social network Truth Social, went public,…

The people with no “mind’s eye” Most of us can easily picture anything from an apple to our loved ones’ faces, and can conjure up detailed images of certain moments in our lives, but for those with aphantasia, mental imagery is either weak or non-existent. The condition was only named in 2015, when Adam Zeman, a professor of cognitive and behavioural neurology at the University of Exeter, and his collaborators identified 21 people who had no ability to visualise things at all. Since then, they’ve heard of thousands more people with aphantasia and also its opposite, hyperphantasia, in which the mental imagery is so vivid, it seems almost real. And dozens of papers have been published on the subject. Typically, people who have aphantasia only find out in their teens…

American presidents may be powerful, says Patrick Kidd in The Times, but there are limits to their authority. In a new book about elections, Michael Crick writes that Ted Heath went to bed after he’d been made prime minister in 1970, with orders not to be disturbed. But he was woken with a cup of tea and a complaint from his housekeeper, that “a man called Nixon keeps telephoning and demanding to speak to you”. She had told him that the PM was busy three times, but he wouldn’t take the hint. Anya Taylor-Joy, the star of The Queen’s Gambit, has revealed that she secretly married in April 2022, and marked the occasion by devouring two “anatomically correct heart cakes”, soaked in pools of blood-red fruit syrup, with her husband,…

Nato turned 75 last week, said Eliot Wilson in The Spectator, but the alliance was “in no mood for celebration”. For much of its lifetime, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has been a great success, helping avoid a “face-to-face showdown” with the Soviet Union, and ultimately winning the Cold War. Yet today, the organisation is facing new challenges and existential questions. There’s certainly no prospect of “a gentle retirement”, said The Times. As Vladimir Putin continues his barbaric war on Ukraine, just beyond Nato’s border, the alliance’s sphere of protection has expanded to encompass 32 nations, including Finland and Sweden, which joined in the wake of Russia’s invasion. But the spectre of a Donald Trump victory in November weighs heavily: he has repeatedly complained that European nations free-ride on US…

If Manchester United’s new co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe is “still pondering a final decision” on the future of manager Erik ten Hag, he will be none the wiser after watching “another chaotic meeting with Liverpool” at Old Trafford on Sunday, said Phil McNulty on BBC Sport. In a “remarkable first half”, Liverpool threatened to blow United away. The fact that the visitors were only one goal up after 45 minutes was “almost a source of triumph for an outclassed United”. Then, more remarkably still, Liverpool gifted United an equaliser after 50 minutes, when Jarell Quansah passed straight to Bruno Fernandes, who beat the stranded keeper, Caoimhin Kelleher, from 45 yards. Soon after, 18-year-old Kobbie Mainoo produced “a moment of magic” to put United ahead. Liverpool managed to salvage a draw,…

Tennis Saudi Arabia will host the WTA Finals for the next three years despite objections from LGBTQ+ players. Players have been told that same-sex couples will be allowed to share rooms. Cricket England’s women moved third in the world cricket rankings after a 2-1 victory in their one-day series against New Zealand. Heather Knight’s side won the preceding T20 series 4-1. Swimming Olympic champion Tom Dean will not defend his individual 200m freestyle title after Matt Richards beat him to the spot at the British Swimming Championships.…

In the ten years since Brian Cox last appeared on the London stage, he has “supercharged his fame”, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph – thanks to his TV role as Logan Roy, the domineering paterfamilias in Succession. It is apt, then, that he has now taken on “one of the mightiest father figures in the 20th century American canon” – the ageing, bitter actor James Tyrone in Eugene O’Neill’s autobiographical masterpiece. It’s a famously long and challenging play, said Nick Curtis in the Evening Standard. But Jeremy Herrin’s production is “full of pathos and ruined grandeur”, with uniformly superb performances. Cox is “magnetic as Tyrone, volcanic one moment, maudlin the next”; his “bombastic soliloquies” are “compelling”. This play is set over one day in 1912 in a rundown…

This Town, the new BBC drama from Peaky Blinders’ creator Steven Knight, is above all a love letter, said Anita Singh in The Daily Telegraph: to ska music, to the Birmingham and Coventry of Knight’s youth, and “to youth itself with all its possibilities, heartbreak and comedy”. Set in 1981, it stars Levi Brown as Dante, a young man with a gift for poetry whom we meet accidentally wandering into a riot in Handsworth. He eventually forms a band with his friend Jeannie (Eve Austin), and his cousin Bardon (Ben Rose), a talented dancer who keeps being “commandeered into helping his IRA-member dad raise funds for the cause”. The BBC has billed the series as “a high-octane thriller”, which is rather misleading, as it’s not tense enough to be a…

Almost 100 works of art that disappeared from a museum in Kherson during the Russian occupation have re-emerged in Russian-occupied Crimea, it was reported in ARTnews last week. Shortly before Ukrainian troops liberated the city, in November 2022, entire collections were removed from Kherson’s museums. The curators of the Kherson Art Museum say that it is missing 15,000 items – more than three-quarters of the total. It now seems that some of them were taken to the Central Museum of Tavrida, in the Crimean city of Simferopol. The looted pieces, including early 20th century oil paintings such as Ivan Shulha’s Fishermen on the Seashore (above; detail), were reportedly spotted in a “propaganda video” filmed in the museum and broadcast on Russian TV. What happened to all the other stolen items…

At the Easter event, Jolene is out of sorts and George is busted for cheating. Next morning in bed, Brian and Miranda laugh about the stir they’ve caused; Justin calls by to warn Brian off Miranda, to no avail. Emma refuses to return to work in spite of Jolene’s pleading; when Robert stops by to update Jolene on the doorbell footage, she breaks down and tells them both about Markey’s threats. At Harrison’s hearing, things are on a knife edge, despite Harry’s attempts to help clear his name; in the end he keeps his job. Kenton is furious about Markey; Jolene calms him, suggesting they return to normal by manning the pub together. Alice accompanies Harry to his doctor’s visit where Azra tells him he has cirrhosis. Miranda’s presence in…

In Poland, you will find a version of this apple pie on every sweet counter and dessert menu, says Ren Behan. There are a few stages to making it, but it’s hugely rewarding, and delicious. Let it fully cool before releasing it from the tin, to let the meringue shrink down. Serves 8-10 For the pastry: 450g plain flour, plus extra for dusting 1 tsp baking powder 200g butter, at room temperature, cut into cubes grated zest of 1 lemon 225g caster sugar 4 egg yolks (save the whites for the topping) 1 tbsp natural yoghurt 1 tsp vanilla bean paste For the filling: 6 large Bramleys or other cooking apple (about 1.5kg) juice of ½ a lemon 200ml water 4 tsp soft, light brown sugar 1 tsp ground cinnamon For the…

Primavera Sound, overlooking the Med in Barcelona, is a “brilliantly curated” festival. Lana Del Rey and Pulp are headlining (from €125; 29 May-2 Jun; primaverasound.com). The largest music festival in Scandinavia, Roskilde, about 20 miles from Copenhagen, has eight stages from rock to electronic; Foo Fighters are on the line-up (from 1,200DKK; 29 Jun-6 Jul; roskilde-festival.dk). Based in the docks of Lisbon, NOS Alive has a variety of genres: Dua Lipa, Pearl Jam, Arcade Fire and Smashing Pumpkins are booked (from €79; 11-13 Jul; nosalive.com). This year’s North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam has veterans such as Dave Holland and younger musicians including Raye, plus Sting and Jamie Cullum (from €135; 12-14 Jul; northseajazz.com). Sziget, on an island in the Danube in Budapest, is eastern Europe’s Glastonbury. Stormzy, Fred Again,…

Round Hill Jamaica With its traditional local architecture, charming service and “pastoral” setting above a secluded beach near Jamaica’s Montego Bay, Round Hill has changed little since its 1960s heyday, says Charlie Hobbs in Condé Nast Traveller. John F. Kennedy, Ian Fleming and Paul McCartney were among the guests back then. These days, fans include Ralph Lauren, who owns a villa here and had a hand in a recent makeover – not least in the 36 rooms, with their clean white decor and pink and navy accents. There are also 27 villas, as well as a pool, tennis courts, a large spa and two restaurants, the flagship serving Caribbean cuisine. Doubles from $590; roundhill.com.…

Many are outraged by the rise in the state pension, which increased by 8.5% this week, thanks to the “triple lock” – the Government’s commitment to increase annual payouts in line with last September’s high CPI inflation reading. “What is the hope for young people? There is none,” said barrister Hashi Mohamed on Tortoise. The pension triple lock will merely benefit baby boomers – already “the luckiest generation of modern times”. Plenty of pensioners will be grateful for the rise, given the hit to pension pots from “inflation and the cost-of-living crisis”, said Katie Williams on MoneyWeek.com. But for the more well-heeled, this rose has “a thorn” – a potentially higher tax bill. Since income tax rates “remain frozen”, many “will now be pushed into a higher rate of tax”.…

Jan Marsalek The fugitive chief operating officer of the defunct German payments company Wirecard, which was exposed as a fraud in 2020, has an even more sinister profile than previously thought, said Sam Jones in the FT. An Austrian police warrant, based on new evidence collected by British intelligence, suggests that Jan Marsalek, 44, was a Russian superspy: one of the Kremlin’s most powerful European assets, who used his position at the top of a Dax-listed company “to facilitate violent clandestine operations across the continent and in Africa”. The revelations add to concerns that Wirecard – a “darling of Europe’s fintech scene”, which grew so powerful that it nearly took over Deutsche Bank – may for years have been used as a Russian shadow financial network. According to the warrant,…

The week’s best shares AG Barr Investors’ Chronicle Volumes have “increased markedly” across the firm best known for Irn-Bru, with Rubicon the “standout” performer. Sales were bolstered by the Boost portfolio, which includes energy drinks, and Moma oat drinks. Buy. 542p. Fidelity National Information Services Inc. The Daily Telegraph After a “terrible five years”, the US payment processing firm’s fortunes are recovering: 2023 results were solid. Moving into new areas, cutting costs and building recurring revenues. Buy. $72.44. Hilton Food Group The Times The food packaging specialist has been hit by inflation and interest rates, but sales and profits are recovering. Benefitting from a new meat and seafood partnership with Walmart in Canada. Yields 3.8%. Buy. 868p. ME Group International The Sunday Times ME owns and runs 31,000 photo booths…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1409 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 22 April. Send it to The Week Crossword 1409, 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 Guy on field injured in soccer war (9) 9 Determined topless lady seen in front of soldier (7) 10 Short layer ignored (7) 11 Rock great in Tangier possibly (7) 12 What’s said to have been postwar food, taken at intervals? (9) 14 Gallery in foremost…

Strike action by consultants in England was cancelled last week, after 83% of consultants belonging to the British Medical Association backed an improved pay deal. According to the BMA, the Government’s offer consisted of an extra £3,000 for senior doctors between four and seven years after becoming consultants, equivalent to a 2.85% pay rise, in addition to the 6% rise they won last year. However, ministers and the BMA have yet to resolve the junior doctors’ pay dispute.…

Travellers, who will have to wait another year for the 100ml hand-luggage limit for liquids at British airports to be lifted. The Department for Transport had set a June deadline for the installation of new scanners with advanced explosive-detection capabilities. However, Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted said they would not manage this, citing supply chain and construction issues. The deadline has been moved to 2025. Haitches, which have been banished by University Challenge. The quiz’s presenter, Amol Rajan, wrote this week that, after a flood of complaints that he pronounced the letter H as “haitch” rather than “aitch”, he had realised he was “wrong” and would change his ways. “This matters to a lot of people,” he conceded.…

Washington DC Biden boost: No Labels, the bipartisan group that had planned to field a unifying alternative to Joe Biden or Donald Trump, has abandoned its bid to take on the favourites in the presidential election, having failed to find a suitable candidate. The campaign had raised tens of millions of dollars, but high-profile Republicans including Nikki Haley and Chris Christie had turned down its approaches to stand, as had Joe Manchin, a Democrat senator. The news came as a relief to Democrats, who feared that a rival candidate could take votes from Biden and hand the presidency to Trump. In a further boost to Biden, his campaign announced that it had raised $90m in March alone – meaning the incumbent has almost $100m more in his war chest than…

How serious is the problem? Hundreds of Britain’s local and regional newspapers have closed in the past two decades. According to the Commons’ Culture, Media and Sport Committee, more than 320 local papers closed down between 2009 and 2019. The Charitable Journalism Project estimates that there are fewer local newspapers in Britain today than at any time since the 18th century. In 2007, 209 out of 380 local authority districts had a daily local paper; by 2019, that number had fallen to 142. Many that have survived have been “rolled up into conglomerates with little true feeling for the communities they serve”, and are now shadows of their former selves, said Alan Rusbridger, the former editor of The Guardian, in Prospect. The last circulation figures for the Birmingham Post, for…

Authorities in the Russian republic of Chechnya have effectively banned dance music – as well as music that is too slow. According to the culture minister, Musa Dadayev, “all musical, vocal and choreographic works” played in public should have “a tempo of 80-116 beats per minute” to ensure it conforms with “the Chechen mentality and sense of rhythm”. Modern dance music usually exceeds 120 bpm. The ban comes into effect in June. Mount Etna, the largest active volcano in Europe, delighted tourists and locals this week by blowing almost perfect “smoke rings” into the sky above Sicily. The circles, known as volcanic vortex rings, are made of condensed gases and water vapour, and are formed by magma bubbling beneath a cylindrical vent. The rings can hold their shape in the…

RUSSIA The invasion of the foreign monster weeds The Moscow Times (Amsterdam) An environmental catastrophe is unfolding in Russia, says The Moscow Times. A “monstrous” white-flowered weed known as Sosnowsky’s hogweed that can tower up to five metres in height and is highly invasive (a single specimen can distribute up to 100,000 seeds) is tearing across the country. This is no small matter. The plant’s highly toxic sap causes third-degree burns that can take months to heal and puts thousands of people in hospital every year. Russian cranks are now claiming that it’s all part of a US plot to wage “bacteriological warfare against Russia”. In reality, the problem is self-inflicted: hogweed was imported from its natural habitat in the Caucasus Mountains after the Second World War to provide cheap…

A week after the new Hate Crime Act passed into law, it is already clear that it is “a disaster for Scotland”, said Brian Monteith in The Scotsman. As widely predicted, it has proved an “especially bad law”. Intended to reduce hate, by extending the existing law against stirring up racial hatred to other protected characteristics (such as age, disability, religion, sexual orientation and transgender identity), it has instead deepened division, by incentivising “belligerent activists to lodge formal complaints to police”. About 8,000 reports were made in the first week alone. Many of them targeted J.K. Rowling, who had tested the law by describing ten well-known trans women as men, and challenging the police to arrest her. Ironically, even more complaints were made against the architect of the bill, First…

by Oliver Smith Bloomsbury Continuum 256pp £20 The Week Bookshop £15.99 The travel writer Oliver Smith is not your typical pilgrim, said Caroline Eden in the Financial Times. Although his new book is about a dozen pilgrimage destinations and the spiritual seekers who are drawn to them, he is avowedly “not religious”. He decided to embark on a journey after losing his job at Lonely Planet magazine. A plan to tramp Spain’s Camino de Santiago was scuppered by the pandemic, so he settled instead on visiting an “array of hallowed places” around Great Britain, from Iona to Glastonbury Tor (pictured). Along the way, he ventured to various other spots, such as Britain’s most remote pub, and – as he recounts in this book – made some “Bill Bryson-like pit stops…

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, 1960 (Arrow £8.99). I read this as a teenager and it’s probably the first book I really understood as a moral tale – one to return to again and again. The Wilder Shores of Love by Lesley Blanch, 1954 (W&N £9.99). Intrepid tales of four extraordinary 19th century women and their adventures and love affairs in the Middle East – Jane Digby being my best, as she travelled man-byman across Europe to end up with her rose garden and young husband in Damascus. Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier, 1941 (Virago £9.99). Du Maurier is a favourite writer of mine and as a teenager I loved this novel – a gentle romantic thriller with a perfect pirate hero. The Hare with Amber Eyes…

Programmes Blue Lights Second series of the Belfast-based police drama. An epidemic of drug crime leads the team to a loyalist estate. Mon 15 Apr, BBC1 21:00 (60mins). Pompeii: The New Dig Three-part series following a team of archaeologists as they excavate an entire city block in the biggest excavation at the site for a generation. Mon 15 Apr, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). It’s Showtime Heart-warming documentary telling the story of a group of working-class men from Darlington who clubbed together to buy a racehorse. Tue 16 Apr, ITV1 21:00 (80mins). Michael Palin in Nigeria The comedian embarks on a 1,300-mile journey across the “Giant of Africa” to explore its stunning landscapes and diverse culture, starting in the former capital, Lagos. Tue 16 Apr, C5 21:00 (60mins). Imagine… Pet Shop Boys:…

Peter McAleese 1942-2024 Peter McAleese, who has died aged 81, was a Scottish soldier and mercenary known for leading an audacious mission to assassinate Pablo Escobar, the head of the Medellín Cartel and – at the time – the world’s richest criminal, with a multibillion-dollar fortune. From his hideout in the Colombian jungle, Escobar was controlling up to 80% of the world’s cocaine trade, and ordering thousands of murders. McAleese was hired by a rival cartel, but he believed that the operation was secretly backed by the Colombian government. Escobar’s tentacles, he said, spread so far that any official involvement in the plot would have led to the Medellín Cartel being alerted to it. It failed in any case, however – and only by the skin of his teeth did…

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