Table of contents for 1417 in The Week

What happened A range of senior health professionals called publicly this week for urgent action to address a growing crisis in the NHS. The British Medical Association described the pressure on the service as “intolerable and unsustainable”, and warned that patients were “dying unnecessarily” as a result of government inaction. Dr Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said a “twindemic” of surging flu admissions and increased Covid cases was compounding systemic problems. He claimed that as many as 500 people a week were dying as a consequence of delays in emergency care. Ambulance delays in the week up to Christmas were the worst on record, and more than a dozen NHS trusts and ambulance services have declared critical incidents in recent days. The Liberal Democrats called…

“The Covid-19 pandemic has gone full circle,” said Ian Williams in The Sunday Times. Three years after it first appeared in Wuhan, the virus is “ripping through” China. The country’s zero-Covid policy was “rapidly and chaotically” lifted on 7 December, leaving its population with neither natural immunity or effective vaccination – which has been done patchily, using inferior Chinese vaccines. Beijing’s suppression of data means accurate assessments are difficult. But leaked official figures suggest 250 million people were infected in the first 20 days of December (including half the population of Beijing); the analyst Airfinity estimates that 9,000 people are dying every day. The outbreak is likely to be the world’s largest, said Gordon Chang in The Daily Telegraph. Hospitals and crematoria are overwhelmed. “Have you seen hell?” asked one…

Teachers and lecturers, who said they were braced for an epidemic of plagiarism thanks to the release last month of a new AI-based text generator. ChatGPT is so good at producing human-sounding answers to essay questions that its US developers are racing to find a way of “watermarking” its output. As well as helping students cheat, they think it could be used by hostile states to spread propaganda online, without the need for “troll farms”. High streets, after new figures revealed that Britain’s five biggest banks have closed more than half their branches since 2015. One of them, HSBC, now has 327 branches, down from around 1,070, with more closures scheduled. A separate study found that 17,145 shops closed for good in 2022: 47 a day on average, and more…

Paris Anti-waste law: A partial ban on the use of disposable cups, plates and cutlery has come into force in France. Under the terms of the law, any restaurant with more than 20 seats must now serve eat-in food either wrapped in paper, or on washable plates; they must also provide reusable cutlery and cups. Takeaway food will be exempted from the ban. France’s 30,000 fast-food restaurants have had three years to prepare for the change, but some say they still don’t have the necessary storage or cleaning facilities. There are also concerns that they will switch not to china, but to hard plastics that may not withstand many washes. Les Gets, France No snow: Around half of France’s ski slopes have been forced to close in the past fortnight…

1 (The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, performed by Gene Pitney2 Fugue in G minor, BMV 578 “Little Fugue” by Johann Sebastian Bach, arranged by Leopold Stokowski, performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin3 Michelle by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, performed by The Beatles4 What the World Needs Now Is Love by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, performed by Jackie DeShannon5 Come Fly With Me by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn, performed by Frank Sinatra6 The Ghost of Tom Joad, written and performed by Bruce Springsteen7 Somewhere, from West Side Story, by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, performed by Reri Grist8* Coolhand by Sasha Spielberg, performed by Buzzy Lee Book: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck Luxury: H-8 Bolex camera…

A Thai man accidentally left his wife by the side of a road, and drove nearly 100 miles before he noticed. Boonton Chensu, 55, was driving across the country with his wife Amanuy, 49, when he pulled over in the middle of the night for a pee. While he was gone, Amanuy decided to relieve herself outside too; but when Boonton got back in the car, he didn’t notice her absence and drove off, assuming she was in the back seat, leaving her to walk more than 12 miles to seek help. By the time she was able to get in touch with him, he was 150km away, but he soon raced back to pick her up. A farmer from a village near Cardiff is considering becoming a Boris Johnson…

Save the whale to save the planet Whales could be an important carbon sink – providing another good reason to save them. Although nature-based solutions to climate change often focus on forests and wetlands, the oceans absorb an estimated 31% of the CO2 released into the atmosphere. Now scientists have argued in a new paper that whales play an important, and overlooked, role in that. The mammals accumulate carbon in their bodies during their lifetimes. Their longevity (they can live for up to 100 years) makes them “one of the largest stable living carbon pools” in the ocean, the study says; and when they die, they sink to the ocean floor, locking up carbon for centuries. Even their excrement helps, being rich in the nutrients required by phytoplankton – organisms…

Dame Vivienne Westwood 1941-2022 A fashion designer, revolutionary and “emblem of English eccentricity”, Vivienne Westwood exploded onto the scene in the mid-1970s as “one of the chief progenitors of the punk aesthetic”, said The Times. She was in her 30s when she and her art school drop-out boyfriend Malcolm McLaren started selling her bondage and fetish-inspired clothing from a shop at the far end of the King’s Road in London. Originally called Let It Rock, and later renamed Sex, it was conceived as a salon as much as a store, and it soon became a meeting place for a group of rebels and recidivists who’d be at the forefront of the British punk movement. Punk icon Jordan managed the store; Chrissie Hynde worked there as a sales assistant; and the…

“Can it really be seven years” since the last season of Happy Valley? “It doesn’t feel that way”, said Anita Singh in The Daily Telegraph, “and yet the sweet little boy who played Sergeant Catherine Cawood’s grandson is now a lanky teen”, and Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton), who was “once a skinhead”, has spent so long in jail that he now resembles “an errant member of Aerosmith”. All other aspects of the BBC series, though, are unchanged: the characters and sense of place remain rock solid, and Cawood (Sarah Lancashire) is still “one of television’s finest creations”. At the start of this third and final series, Cawood is about to retire, and human remains have been found in a reservoir. The discovery will bring her back into the orbit…

Serves 4 200g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting100g shredded suet½ tsp fine salt125ml whole milk100g butter, cut into small dice, plusextra for greasing100g light soft brown sugar½ tsp ground mixed spice2 clementines • First, generously grease a 600ml pudding basin (approx. 16cm diameter) with butter, and put a full kettle on to boil. • Whisk together the self-raising flour, suet, and salt in a bowl. Add the milk and bring it together into a dough, first with a knife, then, as the mixture becomes more cohesive, with your hands. • Reserve a quarter of the pastry for the lid, and roll out the rest using a floured rolling pin to make a large circle. Ease this into the greased pudding basin and smooth it so it is flush against…

UK retail: brutal “rationalisation” Close your eyes and look forward to a “brighter summer”. That was the new year message from the Retail Think Tank, which is predicting a “year of two halves” for the sector and urging traders to avoid “talking the market down”. Top marks for optimism, said The Sunday Times. The thesis depends on inflation (currently running at 10.7%) falling enough to make an impact on squeezed household budgets and spiralling retail costs. And there are plenty who doubt it. The “more pessimistic” British Retail Consortium reckons the high street is set for “another tough year” – a sentiment echoed by Julian Dunkerton of fashion brand Superdry, who maintains predictions of a rosy second half are just “fantasy”. Meanwhile, UK high streets are being hollowed out, said…

The energy sector’s “silent bailout” Alex Brummer Daily Mail The “disgracefully opaque” rescue of Britain’s energy sector has hit a new low, says Alex Brummer. The regulator, Ofgem, has raised the standing charge on household energy bills to reclaim some of the costs resulting from the collapse of more than 30 energy suppliers. It’s a cynical “stealth tax” hike, never approved by MPs. Hard-pressed households are being made to pay for a lack of regulatory scrutiny that created “a playground for the unscrupulous”. And we still don’t know the precise sums involved in this “silent bailout”. Gordon Brown’s Labour government paid a heavy political price for the 2008 banking rescue. But at least that bailout was “fully costed” and accompanied by “swift managerial changes and limits on dividend and bonus…

There were chaotic scenes in branches of Aldi last week as shoppers fought over bottles of an energy drink promoted by two YouTubers. Prime is not normally stocked by supermarkets; video clips showed large crowds of people queuing outside Aldi stores and, inside, shoppers climbing over aisles to seize the £1.99 bottles. One told MailOnline that her son had his bottle of Prime snatched out of his hand by a pensioner. The shoe polish brand Kiwi has decided to stop trading in the UK because too few Britons now wear the kinds of shoes that need polishing. It blamed the shift on the rise in remote working, and the growing acceptability of trainers in offices and other once-formal settings.…

Rishi Sunak has used his first major speech of 2023 to make five pledges upon which voters should judge his premiership. Addressing an audience in London on Wednesday, the PM said that he would halve inflation this year (although such a fall is already forecast), grow the economy, cut NHS waiting lists, ensure that national debt was falling, and pass new laws to reduce the number of migrants crossing the Channel in small boats. In the wide-ranging speech, Sunak said that he wants teenagers in England to be obliged to learn maths in some form until the age of 18. Previously, he had said that he was not planning to force students to take maths at A-level, but that he wanted them to be equipped for the growing number of…

Niagara Falls, New York Big freeze: At least 60 people were killed in the winter storms that hit large swathes of the US over the holiday period, leaving 1.7 million homes without power and freezing sections of the Niagara Falls (pictured). One of the worst-hit areas was the city of Buffalo, just south of the falls, where about 30 people were killed and dozens were left stranded after 120cm of snow fell in just 72 hours. In Montana, temperatures fell to -39°C, and in California, heavy rains caused chaos. This week, a second storm struck in several states, bringing with it more snow, ice and rain. Washington DC TikTok ban: The US government has banned the video-sharing app TikTok from being used on federal government devices, citing national security concerns.…

“Social media seethes with people complaining about undelivered parcels. I think I know why they’re so late. It’s not just the strikes; it’s because the parcel carriers are too busy sending endless, pointless ‘updates’. My email inbox is full to bursting with this drama-queenery. Your order is being prepared. Your order is waiting to be dispatched. Your order has been dispatched. Your order is being shipped. Your order is at our hub. Your order is still at our hub (five days later). Your order is with our courier. Your order is not yet out for delivery. How much detail do they think we need? It’s like they’re giving birth, not posting a jumper.” Carol Midgley in The Times…

UNITED STATES Software that is penetrating the fog of war The Washington Post It’s not just courage and love of country that’s enabling Ukraine to outfight Russia, says David Ignatius. Another key factor is advanced battle-management software provided by the US tech firm Palantir. These systems – which analyse and collate a mass of data from satellites and other sources – have had a transformative effect, allowing Ukraine’s commanders to “penetrate the notorious ‘fog of war’”. Officers armed with laptop computers can instantly bring up detailed digital maps of the battlefield, showing their own and enemy positions. They can then use a targeting program to select the most effective weapons. After each drone or missile strike, damage assessments are fed back into the digital network to strengthen the predictive models.…

Bob Dylan has been offered a cameo in Coronation Street after admitting that he likes to binge-watch the soap. Dylan said that he loves Corrie, as well as Father Brown and The Twilight Zone, because it make him feel “at home”; by contrast, he hates news shows. “I don’t watch them,” he told The Wall Street Journal. “I never watch anything foul smelling or evil. Nothing disgusting, nothing dog ass.” Ranulph Fiennes is now 78, but the explorer has admitted that he still often beds down in his estate car, when he visits London from his home in Devon, rather than shell out for a hotel. “If I’ve been doing a lecture, and there’s no budget to put me up in a hotel, I’ll drive up to the area around…

Pelé 1940-2022 He was football’s “first global superstar”, and by common consensus its greatest player, said The Times. Pelé, who has died at the age of 82, was blessed with extraordinary skill in every aspect of the game. Both “physically powerful and graced with a feline speed”, he could shoot from distance, or “simply walk the ball into the net after dribbling past an entire defence”. In a career spanning three decades and 1,363 matches, the Brazilian scored 1,280 goals and propelled his country to three World Cup victories. Such was his brilliance, he became a hero to millions, inspiring quasi-religious adoration wherever he went. When a reporter suggested he was as famous as the Son of God, Pelé, without any sense of boastfulness, agreed that might be so, noting…

Tate Modern’s first big show of the year will be Hilma af Klint & Piet Mondrian (20 April-3 September). It’s a chance to see the work of two very different pioneering abstract artists together: the Swedish painter Hilma af Klint (below, a work from 1907), and the Dutch modernist Piet Mondrian. Both started as landscape painters; alongside Mondrian’s grids will be shown the flowers that he painted all his life but rarely displayed. Later in the year, Tate will open its long-delayed retrospective, Philip Guston (5 October-25 February 2024). Postponed in 2020 over fears that the artist’s depictions of Ku Klux Klan figures might cause offence, the show will trace the career of one of 20th century America’s most influential artists – from his anti-fascist frescoes to his abstract expressionist…

Adil joins Jolene’s choir and has a run-in with Lily. There’s an excruciating misunderstanding as Rex confronts Ed and Fallon about their supposed affair – until Fallon and a mortified Emma figure out his mistake. Jill apologises to Ben and they make up. Things go well at the choir performance – Adil and Lily sing a duet and Jolene and Fallon unite the choirs for the final carol. With Ben acting as peacemaker, Jill comes home to Brookfield for Christmas. On Christmas Day, Jazzer tells Chelsea and Brad he wants to propose – they try to put him off so that Tracy can get in first. David is worried when Ben says he’s leaving his nursing course, but Ruth supports the decision. Fallon realises George has a crush on her…

Fork 14 Station Street, Lewes, East Sussex (01273-809445) The “quirky, charming” town of Lewes has tended to have a fairly limited dining scene, says Grace Dent in The Guardian. But with the arrival of this neighbourhood restaurant, things are looking up. Fork may be “small and intimate” – those sitting near you will “hear every word of your chat” – but it’s “bursting with ambition”, and the food it serves is “fancy and imaginative”. A quenelle of chicken liver pâté served on “moist, homebaked brioche” is the sort of dish that “sets out a restaurant’s stall”: every element feels “pondered over, including the placement of the micro cress and pea shoots”. Better still is cauliflower velouté, which “sounds as if it might be a humble soup, but is in fact…

● Have a hot lunch, and include foods that boost your body heat. Oats and brown rice are slow to break down, and the digestion process releases warming energy. Spices help too, especially cayenne pepper, while ginger increases blood flow. ● If you’re using the oven, leave the door open after turning it off, and work in the kitchen so you can enjoy the heat. ● Move around at least every hour. Try simple indoor exercises such as shoulder shrugs (which pump blood down into your fingers), windmilling your arms, and jumping jacks (which raise your heart rate). Or do some mopping or vacuum cleaning. ● If you turn your thermostat down one or two degrees, there’s a good chance you won’t even notice the difference. Set your heating so…

A radical way to level up To The Times You report on impending deals to create more regional mayors. These deals may be useful, but they miss the more important need for private sector devolution. Too many businesses founded in the regions end up being owned and managed in the southeast. The need for finance, the sale of shares to meet capital taxes and the wish to lobby politicians all foster this drift towards London. The effect is not only to move better-paid jobs within those businesses out of the regions, but also the services and the employment they provide. In my working life in Merseyside, Royal Insurance, Unilever, Pilkington’s, large shipping companies and many other substantial businesses have moved away from the northwest. Unless this problem is tackled, levelling…

Amanda Blanc and Alison Rose In FTSE blue-chip circles, 2022 was the year of the female CEO. Amanda Blanc turned round the fortunes of insurer Aviva – returning billions to investors while shrugging off “outrageous sexism from some shareholders at the AGM”, said The Sunday Times which voted her its “businessperson of the year”. Her counterpart at NatWest (formerly RBS), Alison Rose, became one of only a handful of FTSE bosses to be awarded a damehood in the New Year Honours List. The honour comes 11 years after Rose’s predecessor, Fred Goodwin, was stripped of his knighthood for “recklessly tipping the bank into a collapse that required a £46bn bailout in 2008”, said Patrick Hosking in The Times. Rose has helped restore it to “stability and profitability”. Orlando Bravo Once…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1344 An Ettinger pass holder and two Connell Guides will be given to the sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday 16 January. Send it to The Week Crossword 1344, 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 an Ettinger (ettinger.co.uk) travel pass holder in assorted colours, which retails at £115, and two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 6 Prince associated with weather getting worse (7) 7 Customary practice of university oracle (5) 9 Italian leader’s ready to tackle source of corruption (4) 10 One such was Strauss, being top man for a waltz moving millions (7,3) 11 Get fashionable hairstyle for break…

Public order, after Extinction Rebellion announced that it is abandoning its disruption tactics. In a new year statement entitled “We quit”, the climate change activists said that “bridge-building” is a “radical act”, and that in 2023 they’d be prioritising “attendance over arrest and relationships over roadblocks”. However, other eco-activist groups, such as Just Stop Oil, have vowed to step up their direct actions. The British music industry, with news that all top ten bestselling singles in the UK last year were by British artists, for the first time since the year-end charts began over 50 years ago. Harry Styles’s As It Was topped the list; Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill came sixth, and Ed Sheeran appeared three times.…

Almost one in four adults in the UK have bought medicine online or at a pharmacy to treat their illness after failing to see a GP face to face. Nearly one in five (19%) have gone to A&E to seek treatment for the same reason. Savanta ComRes 72% of general voters say the party’s management of the NHS in the past decade has been a failure. 14% say it has been a success. 57% believe the Tories’ austerity policies have failed. 16% think they’ve been a success. Opinium/Compassion in Politics Eight in ten young people aged 12 to 21 in the UK say they dislike their bodies and are embarrassed by the way they look. stem4/The Guardian…

Lebowitz and an off-grid life Fran Lebowitz has neither Wi-Fi nor a mobile phone, which has an upside, says Fiona Sturges in The Guardian: it means the New York-based writer can remain gloriously apart from all the rancour and division on social media. “I might even be cancelled, but I would never know it,” she says. “If I’m cancelled, don’t tell me!” She is not the sort to temper her views to pacify public opinion. “But I am aware that there are people, especially those who have some sort of public standing, who deliberately provoke other people [online]. I would never do that. The fact that I know people get angry at me is, to me, just unfortunate; like, why are you angry at me? But I’m not thinking: ‘Oh,…

When choosing to die isn’t your own choice Sonia Sodha The Observer As a self-professed liberal, I instinctively feel that people with terminal illnesses should be allowed to end their lives at a time of their own choosing, says Sonia Sodha. Then you hear the reports from Canada – and doubts come rushing in. Canada legalised assisted dying for those with terminal illnesses six years ago, and in 2021 extended it to those with “grievous and irremediable” medical conditions. But extremely worrying stories have emerged of doctors failing to show due diligence in ensuring that requests for euthanasia truly are voluntary; of social workers and medical staff actively encouraging – in some cases almost coercing – people with disabilities to end their lives. Indeed the very concept of “meaningful consent”,…

There have been nearly 9,000 excess cancer deaths in Britain since the start of the pandemic, according to a report in The Lancet Oncology. Its authors say the extra deaths are due to delays in diagnosis and treatment, and are calling for government action to tackle the “cancer emergency”. According to NHS data for November, 69,000 patients in the UK waited longer than the recommended 62 days from a suspected cancer referral to the start of treatment in the last year. This was twice as many than in 2017-18, they said. They also note some specific reasons for the delays. These include the suspension of secretarial support to consultants, which has made them less productive; “obsolete” IT systems that slow down workflow; and “antiquated” equipment, including radiotherapy machines that take…

Pope Benedict XVI 1927-2022 “History may well judge that the most important contribution Joseph Ratzinger made in his 50 years as a key figure in the Catholic Church was to resign as pope,” said Paul Vallely in The Independent. “That may sound a perverse judgement on a man who did so much else.” In his youth he was a radical who helped shape the reforming Second Vatican Council. Later, for two decades, he was Rome’s doctrinal enforcer: dubbed “God’s rottweiler”, he cracked down on any deviation from conservative orthodoxy. As pope, he held the line against liberalism on issues from bioethics to gay marriage. But on 11 February 2013, aged 85, he abruptly announced during a routine event that he was resigning, on the grounds that he did not have…

Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen Fourth Estate £9.99 (£7.99) Like his 2001 hit The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen’s “almost eerily accomplished” new novel is a portrait of a dysfunctional midwestern family, said The Daily Telegraph. Set in an Illinois town in the early 1970s, it centres on the Hildebrandt clan: liberal pastor Russ; his wife Marion; and their troubled children. Although it’s “ambitious in scale”, its real pleasure lies in the up-close character studies, said the FT. It may be Franzen’s “best book yet”. The Ruin of All Witches by Malcolm Gaskill Penguin £9.99 (£7.99) This riveting, “deliciously suspenseful” work of history recreates life in a 17th century New England frontier town, said The New York Times. Malcolm Gaskill, a professor of history at East Anglia, masterfully evokes the atmosphere of mistrust…

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, 2017-2021 (Starscape, from £12.99 each). Wells’s series may well be the best sci-fi of the modern era. A combination of high-concept ideas with profound emotional understanding and incredible wit, all via the perspective of a cheap security cyborg, mass-produced by a soulless interstellar corporation. Becoming Johnny Vegas by Johnny Vegas, 2013 (HarperCollins £9.99). I’ve never been one for celebrity autobiographies, but Vegas’s is a definite exception. It explores mental health issues, hedonism, isolation, rejection, and success, in ways tragic, bittersweet, and hilarious. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 2015 (Pan £9.99). This award-winning sci-fi epic has much to recommend it. Narratives about evolution, anthropology, technology, and the angels and demons of human nature on a grand scale. The Tale of the Duelling Neurosurgeons by…

Programmes Twelfth Night from Shakespeare’s Globe A chance to see the Globe’s boisterous 2021 production of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy, with Americana-infused musical numbers. Sun 8 Jan, BBC4 20:00 (155mins). The Kardashians: Billion Dollar Dynasty How the family harnessed social media to become a juggernaut global brand. Sun 8 and Mon 9 Jan, C4 21:00 (60mins each). Mystery Road: Origin Prequel to the acclaimed Australian detective drama. Young cop Jay Swan returns to his outback hometown to investigate a series of strange robberies. Sat 7 Jan, BBC4 21:00 and 21:55 (55mins each). The US and the Holocaust Three-part documentary exploring how the US responded to the Nazi genocide and the resulting refugee crisis. Mon 9 Jan, BBC4 22:00 (120mins). Billion Dollar Downfall: The Dealmaker Dramatic account of the life of the…

There’s good news for beer lovers intending to go dry in January, said Simon Lewis in The Daily Telegraph: these days, the best alcohol-free and low-alcohol beers are “almost indistinguishable from the ‘real’ thing”. I recently tried 60 low-alcohol beers, and found several that gave me that “aaah” moment: ● My favourite overall was Erdinger Alkoholfrei (£1.65 for 500ml, 0.5% ABV; Waitrose), a widely available weissbier which “pours with a deep, lacy froth” and has a “pleasant sherbet fragrance”. ● My favourite pale ale was Days Pale Ale (£22.50 for 12 x 330ml, 0% ABV; Amazon), which is “vibrant and juicy”, with “hints of mango and plum”. ● For those aiming to cut down, rather than cut out the booze, I recommend the “tart and juicy” Small Beer Session Pale…

Relax on a Bavarian spa weekend in Ramsau bei Berchtesgaden. Stay at the Berghotel Rehlegg, wander through fairy-tale forests, or drink hot chocolate while looking over Hintersee lake (three nights, full-board, from £780pp, including flights and transfers; inntravel.co.uk). Track chamois, ibex and lynx, and sculpt your very own igloo, on a trip to the French Alps (four nights, room-only, from £635pp, including activities; undiscoveredmountains.com). Wilderness Scotland has produced an itinerary for a winter road trip through the Cairngorms, incorporating reindeer spotting, stargazing and whisky-tasting (five nights’ b&b from £1,785pp, including three lunches and some activities; wildernessscotland.com). On a sledding weekend in Norway’s Trøndelag Mountains you’ll learn to handle the dogs yourself (two nights, full-board, from £913pp; naturetravels.co.uk). SOURCE: THE TIMES…

To The Daily Telegraph I have become increasingly frustrated by people blaming those taking early retirement for Britain’s labour crisis. I was until recently employed by a high-profile media organisation, the management of which seemed to think that anyone over the age of 50 was an inconvenience, to be disposed of at the earliest opportunity and replaced by some bright young thing with “modern” opinions. Those of us of a certain age were regularly described as “bed blockers” and our opinions and contributions increasingly ignored. Small wonder, then, that I was one of many who decided that an early exit was preferable to continuing to work for an organisation that neither wanted nor valued me. If our Government is serious about stemming the tide of early retirements, it might focus…

Elon Musk made history in 2022 by becoming the first person ever to sustain a personal loss of more than $200bn – mainly thanks to a 63% landslide in Tesla’s stock price from its peak. Shareholders will be hoping that, after his Twitter adventure, “Musk has his sights in 2023 set squarely on consolidating his lead in the fast-growing EV market,” said Richard Waters in the Financial Times. But early omens weren’t promising. Tesla shares fell by another 3% in premarket trading on Tuesday, after sales growth in its most recent quarter “missed analysts’ expectations”, reported DealBook in The New York Times. After a disastrous year for Musk, the “pressure” is still on. Covid lockdowns in China, and knock-on supply chain disruption, haven’t helped, said Martin Strydom in The Times.…

Domestic UK house prices fell “for a fourth consecutive month” in December as rising interest rates deterred buyers, said Arthi Nachiappan in The Times. It marked “the longest losing streak” since the 2008 recession. According to Nationwide, prices contracted by 0.1% between November and December, taking the value of the average home to £262,000. Nationwide economist Robert Gardner said there was room for optimism for potential sellers, since mortgage rates are easing back from the high levels hit after the September mini-Budget. But Andrew Wishart, of Capital Economics, said that the full impact of higher rates on the housing market had “yet to be realised”. He predicts 12% falls over 2023. Commercial “No one involved in commercial property anticipates an easy ride in 2023,” said George Hammond in the Financial…

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