Table of contents for 1512 in The Week

What happened Rachel Reeves announced £40bn of tax rises on Wednesday in a Budget that she said would help “fix the foundations” of the economy and spur growth. The biggest revenue-raiser was a 1.2% increase in the rate of employers’ national insurance contributions, to 15%, together with a near halving of the threshold at which employers start paying that levy. Those measures, said Reeves, would raise about £25bn a year. The Chancellor increased capital gains tax on the sale of shares and some other assets, and announced reforms to inheritance tax, limiting exemptions for businesses and agricultural land, and bringing inherited pension pots within the tax. However, contrary to expectations, she said the freeze on income tax and NI thresholds would not be extended beyond 2028. Delivering Labour’s first Budget…

Controversy of the week “What were your ancestors doing 200 years ago,” asked Julia Hartley-Brewer in The Sun. I’m pretty sure mine weren’t “busy benefiting from the slave trade” – and, since the vast majority of Britons back then had nothing to do with such horrors, I’d wager yours weren’t either. So why should the descendants of ordinary Britons pay reparations to those descended from the victims of the transatlantic slave trade? This question dominated last week’s biennial meeting of Commonwealth heads of government in Samoa, where Caribbean nations lobbied for the issue to be put on the agenda – despite Keir Starmer’s best efforts to keep it off. They wanted to agree plans to examine reparatory justice for the transatlantic slave trade, said James Landale on BBC News, something…

Neal’s Yard Dairy, which has had as much as £300,000 of its award-winning cheese stolen. The London-based company said it had delivered over 22 tonnes of cheddar to a fraudulent buyer, who had posed as a distributor for a French food retailer, before realising it had been conned. In response, Jamie Oliver urged the public to keep an eye out for “posh cheese going for cheap”. Halloween, as it has been blamed for huge increases in the consumption of single-use plastics. A study by Gumtree, the online marketplace, found that 46 million Halloween-themed items are binned every year, and that spending on the day has quadrupled over the past decade to £1bn annually.…

The Hague, Netherlands ICC allegations: The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan KC (pictured), has denied allegations of sexual misconduct, which were leaked to the media last week. Khan is accused of unwanted sexual touching of a junior colleague on multiple occasions in 2023 and 2024; the alleged victim, a lawyer in her 30s, filed a formal complaint after the matter was referred to an internal watchdog. In May, Khan requested arrest warrants for the Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leaders, and the ICC has since been under intense scrutiny. Avignon, France Pelicot testifies: Gisèle Pelicot, the woman at the centre of France’s biggest-ever rape trial, took the stand last week, telling a court in Avignon that she chose to make the proceedings public in…

“It’s no surprise that one in ten Britons have a nap on company time, when supposedly working from home – and that’s just the ones who admit it. It is a shame, however, that this habit is viewed negatively. All the focus is on lost productivity, whereas I reckon a refreshing siesta might actually boost output. It’s healthier than hitting the vending machine for a sugar rush. I generally feel fatigued come 3pm. A restorative nap would be just the ticket, yet remains unacceptable, not to say impractical, in an open-plan office. Back when I had my own little room at work, I would regularly doss down under my desk in the afternoon, waking up fresh as a daisy 15 minutes later.” Robert Crampton in The Times…

The case for letting prisoners out Editorial The Economist Our prison system isn’t working, says The Economist. For 30 years we’ve been locking up ever more people for ever more time. The result? Grim, overcrowded jails that cost a fortune and make criminals worse. For everyone’s sake, we need to free up prison space. Italy has shown how not to set about fixing this problem. Rampant overcrowding led its government to let out 24,000 inmates in a couple of months in 2006, “unleashing a small crime wave”. But other nations have made it work. The Dutch, for instance, cut their prison population by 44% in the decade to 2015, helped by investment in community sentences, which cost around a tenth as much as locking people up does, and led to…

A vaccine for the vomiting bug Doctors around the UK are about to start a phase 3 trial of the world’s first mRNA vaccine against norovirus. More commonly known as the winter vomiting bug, norovirus can spread rapidly in hospitals, care homes, schools and other places where people are in close contact, and the only treatment is to remain hydrated. Millions of people in the UK catch it each year, and though for most sufferers the virus brings only a couple of days of misery, thousands are hospitalised with it each year, and scores die. The trial will involve 25,000 adults around the world, about a tenth of them in England, Scotland and Wales. Half will receive the jab and the others will be given a placebo. They will all…

Geoff Hurst, the last surviving member of England’s 1966 football team, once noticed a cabbie staring at him in the rearview mirror on the way to Heathrow, says Patrick Kidd in The Times. As they got closer to the airport, the driver broke the silence: “Oi, mate,” he said, “give us a clue.” His passenger sighed. “My name is Sir Geoff Hurst,” he announced grandly. “I played for West Ham and England and scored a hat-trick in the World Cup final.” The cabbie was unmoved. “Don’t be a prat,” he replied. “Which terminal do you want?” When Adele spotted Céline Dion in the audience at her show at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas last weekend, she went into the crowd and hugged the Canadian singer tearfully. The British star has…

There was “a fierce outcry” after the police marksman who killed Chris Kaba, Sergeant Martyn Blake, was acquitted of his murder last week, said Femi Oluwole in The Independent. Kaba was killed in September 2022, after police performed a “hard stop” on the car he was driving in South London. Kaba’s family said the decision was “painful proof that our lives are not valued by the system”. The Clapham and Brixton Hill MP, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, said “there was a lot of pain and anger and hurt”. The London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, acknowledged this too, and said that he would continue to “hold the Metropolitan Police to account to ensure any lessons are learnt”. The press have predictably dwelled on Kaba’s criminal record since the verdict, said Sophia Purdy-Moore in The…

There were plenty of times over the past year when Manchester United could have fired Erik ten Hag, said Will Unwin in The Guardian. The Dutchman’s position had been under “constant scrutiny” since Jim Ratcliffe purchased a 25% stake in the club. And, prior to United’s shock FA Cup final win over Manchester City in May, there’d been a growing consensus that his time was up: he’d just guided his team to an eighth-placed finish in the Premier League, their lowest ever, and United’s top brass were known to be talking to other coaches. Yet in the event, they extended his contract, hoping that he might turn things around. This week, however, their patience finally ran out: after a dismal 2-1 defeat at West Ham that left United 14th in…

Football Arsenal drew 2-2 with Liverpool at the Emirates; Manchester City beat Southampton 1-0 at home to remain top of the Premier League. Man City and Spain midfielder Rodri won the Ballon d’Or award at a ceremony in Paris; England’s Jude Bellingham came third. Formula 1 Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr won the Mexico Grand Prix, after which second-placed Lando Norris accused his championship rival Max Verstappen of “dangerous” driving. Rugby union Bath went top of the Premiership, with a 40-13 win at home over Sale.…

Running time: 5hrs Here’s a confession, said Dominic Maxwell in The Times. I’ve never read The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy’s early 20th century novels chronicling the trials and misadventures of a wealthy English family between 1886 and 1920. Nor have I seen either of the two long, luxurious TV adaptations. Those better acquainted may find cherished bits of the saga are missing from this superb condensed version, which is adapted by Shaun McKenna and Lin Coghlan, and presented in two parts (five-hours long in total) by the Troupe Theatre Company at the Park Theatre in north London. But as theatre it’s “faultless”: a “must-see” production that’s “sumptuous, panoramic, intense, amusing; vividly of its time yet arrestingly modern in its understanding of the games we play”. I went in anticipating a…

Archaeologists have unearthed a new residence at Pompeii, which is decorated with a series of erotic frescoes, says Tom Kington in The Times. One shows a satyr “frolicking with a naked nymph on a bed”; another depicts a scantily-clad Phaedra (who, according to Greek legend, became infatuated with her stepson Hippolytus). A third painting is thought to show Venus and Adonis. The newly discovered house was found in a block in central Pompeii that was buried and preserved by ash and pumice during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79. The building is “notable for having no atrium” — the central courtyard typical of Roman architecture from the 6th century BC onwards. It also has an altar (with a small bust of Dionysus inside) painted with snakes, and a fresco…

Dropping into Little Grange, Alice has a heart-to-heart with Emma and later tells Brian that reaching out to the Grundys is helping her recovery. Alice persuades Chris to come to Apple Day, where he relents and finally talks to Emma. Ben tells Ruth he’s got a part-time job as a healthcare assistant, working with Azra. George asks Brad to visit him in prison; Brad admits to Jazzer that he’s not keen. Ian and Lottie continue to bond over the PTA and a school disco. Brad asks Emma for a lift to the prison, assuming she’s going too; she later finds out that George hasn’t asked her. Chatting at the Stables, Emma asks Alice if she still has feelings for Chris. Brad is anxious about the prison visit – inside, George…

I like to define caprese cake as the Italian brownie, says Angelo Coassin. It was invented in 1920 by a pastry chef from the island of Capri. The story goes that he accidentally forgot to add the flour when he was making a cake, and what resulted was so delicious that it became the island’s signature dessert. Caprese cake Serves 4-6 300g dark chocolate, finely chopped 220g unsalted butter 5 large eggs, separated a pinch of salt 220g caster sugar 150g almond flour 1 tsp vanilla extract icing sugar, to finish • Preheat the oven to 170°C fan, and line a 22cm baking tin with parchment. • Place the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and melt in the microwave on high in three to four 20-second bursts, stirring…

Geoff Capes 1949-2024 Standing 6ft 6in, and weighing more than 26 stone, Geoff Capes was a “mighty figure who commanded international respect as a shot-putter”, said The Guardian: he won gold in the Commonwealth Games in 1974 and 1978, and represented Britain at three Olympic Games; but in the 1980s, he became far more widely known as Britain’s Strongest Man (a title he won in 1979) and The World’s Strongest Man (in 1983 and 1985). Thereafter he was regularly seen on British TV screens tossing cabers, dragging lorries and ripping apart telephone books. A frequent guest on Record Breakers, Capes won a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for throwing a brick 146ft, said The Daily Telegraph. He won the World Highland Games five times, and was the…

Dean Forbes The tech entrepreneur heading the £1.7bn industrial software house Forterro had a tougher start in life than many of his peers, says The Guardian. Dean Forbes was twice made homeless as a teenager, but that didn’t stop him from getting ten GCSEs and parlaying his first job in telesales into a stellar career. Forbes, 46, is being feted as the UK’s “most influential” black person, topping 2024’s Powerlist Black Excellence Awards. He takes over from the former editor of British Vogue, Edward Enninful, and calls the title “a career and professional high”. Forbes grew up in Lewisham, in southeast London. “We didn’t have much. We were very poor. My mum worked when she could, but she suffers from muscular dystrophy.” He credits her with teaching him and his…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1438 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 11 November. Send it to The Week Crossword 1438, 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 9 Animator upset a loved one (9) 10 Partly revitalised musical (5) 11 Endless row in Bow? (3) 12 Fancy dates embraced by a Frenchman in these lodgings (5-1-5) 13 Right, one winter traveller is less safe (7) 14 Parts of a larger group fixed loans externally…

What happened Donald Trump and Kamala Harris continued their tour of crucial battleground states as the US election entered its final week, with the polls suggesting that the pair were still neck-and-neck. Harris maintained a small lead of perhaps 1% over Trump in national polling averages, while polls of the swing states showed Trump leading by a tiny margins in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, and Harris leading by similar margins in Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan. At her last major rally, in Washington DC, Harris vowed to put America on a “different path” and called Trump a “wannabe dictator” (see page 15). Her campaign received a boost when Arnold Schwarzenegger, the ex-Republican governor of California, endorsed her candidacy. Trump’s campaign attracted criticism when a comic at a rally in…

Pubs fed up with people queuing up to buy drinks are putting up signs to encourage them to order in the traditional way – by standing around the bar, trying to catch the bartender’s eye. The culprits, The Daily Telegraph reports, are Gen Z, who are said to be clinging to lockdown habits designed to ensure social distancing. “This is not a Post Office, there is no need to queue like one,” one pub sign reads. The grumble that “Christmas is getting earlier every year” is grounded in fact, reports The Guardian. A detailed analysis of “Christmas creep” shows that, for instance, the average supermarket launch date for Mr Kipling’s mince pies has retreated from 28 September in 2020 to 7 September this year.…

The MP Mike Amesbury was suspended from the Labour Party this week after CCTV footage appeared to show him punching a constituent in the street. In the video, obtained by Mail Online, the MP for Runcorn & Helsby seems to punch the man, who was later named as Paul Fellows, at about 2:15am on Saturday; Fellows falls onto the street, then Amesbury hits him several more times. The pair had reportedly been arguing about the closure of a local bridge for engineering works and Labour’s move to means-test the winter fuel allowance. Amesbury claims to have “felt threatened”. Another clip appears to show him standing over Fellows after punching him, shouting: “You won’t threaten the MP ever again, will you?” Police are investigating.…

Los Angeles, California Rape settlement: The film director Roman Polanski has settled a civil lawsuit accusing him of raping a minor in Los Angeles in 1973. In the suit, the unnamed woman alleged that Polanski raped her at his home when she was 16, “causing her tremendous physical and emotional pain and suffering”. Polanski initially denied the allegations, but his lawyer confirmed last week that he had settled the case for an undisclosed sum. The 91-year-old has lived in France ever since fleeing the US in 1978, shortly before being sentenced after pleading guilty to unlawful sex with a 13-year-old. Los Angeles, California Menendez review: An LA district attorney has recommended that Lyle and Erik Menendez be resentenced for the 1989 murder of their parents in light of new mitigating…

A funeral home in Poland has apologised after a corpse it was transporting fell out of a hearse and into traffic. Polish media reported that a man was driving in the city of Stalowa Wola when a sheet covered his car window; it slipped down to reveal a body lying on the road. Hades Funeral Services blamed the incident on “an unexpected technical failure” and apologised, saying that “an unfortunate event occurred which does not reflect the high standards of our company”. A Japanese village suffering from a dwindling population has created life-sized mannequins to combat loneliness by keeping people company. The figures were made out of fabric and old clothes by residents of the hamlet of Ichinono, which has fewer than 60 residents, most of whom are retirees, and…

SOUTH AFRICA Let Afrikaans die in its own good time Daily Maverick (Cape Town) “One of South Africa’s national languages is under threat of disappearing.” That was the cry heard when President Cyril Ramaphosa unveiled plans to force schools that teach in Afrikaans to adopt English or any of South Africa’s 11 other official languages. The proposals are part of a drive to free children of the “language of the oppressor”, says Ismail Lagardien, Afrikaans being the language introduced by the Dutch and then used as a “weapon for control” over non-whites during Apartheid. But today, the vast majority of the more than seven million Afrikaans speakers in South Africa and Namibia are people of colour. It’s “ethno-nationalists and ethno-purists” who are behind this campaign; the kind of people who…

It took 25 days to act, said Arash Azizi in The Atlantic, but last Saturday Israel finally responded to the salvo of missiles fired at it by Iran. The operation – named “Days of Repentance” – involved more than 100 Israeli fighter jets, and targeted air-defence systems, radars, military bases and missile production factories across Iran, including on the outskirts of Tehran. It was the “most significant attack on Iran by any country since the 1980s”, but fell a long way short of the apocalyptic strike some had feared. Israel didn’t target Iran’s nuclear or energy infrastructure, nor did it assassinate any political or military leaders. According to insiders, Israel even used intermediaries to give Tehran a day’s warning, to avoid mass casualties (Iran said four soldiers died in the…

In England’s first test in Pakistan, they broke batting records on their way to 823 for seven – the fourth-highest total in the format’s history. By the time the three-test series had ended, however, Ben Stokes and his men themselves were “broken”, said Simon Burnton in The Observer: they’d slumped to a nine-wicket defeat in Rawalpindi, to lose the series 2-1. As in the second test, it was Sajid Khan and Noman Ali who were their “torturers in chief”. Two spinners with “previously mediocre reputations”, they’d only come into Pakistan’s side after the first loss. But over the course of the subsequent two matches, they produced an “astounding display of quality and stamina”, delivering 87.4% of Pakistan’s overs and taking 39 out of a possible 40 wickets. Batting was “awkward…

Electoral interference To The Guardian Donald Trump is again showing his declining mental acuity when complaining about the possibility of British interference in American presidential elections. During his 2016 and 2020 campaigns, his most ardent British sycophant, Nigel Farage, gave numerous speeches on the campaign trail. Earlier this year, Farage said that he intended to work on Trump’s election campaign rather than run for election himself. That promise turned out to be false, but he has made more recent political excursions to the US. Trump conveniently finds British interference in elections acceptable when it benefits him. Mike McNally, United States Credit to the Navy To The Daily Telegraph In 1829, after an exchange of cannon fire at close range, HMS Pickle captured the slaver Voladora off Cuba with slaves bound…

by Malcolm Gladwell Abacus 320pp £25 The Week Bookshop £19.99 Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, published in 2000, explored a “dazzling range of topics” – from New York crime rates to sales of Airwalk sneakers – through the lens of epidemiology, said Edward Posnett in The Guardian. It argued that social change is like a contagion, and it made its 36-year-old author famous: being a “viral work about viral phenomena”, it was “a testament to its own thesis”. Now, Gladwell has revisited many of the same themes in this “fascinating and provocative” follow-up. While the book has the same self-confidence and lucidity, it also “bears the mark of an older” and more “wizened” author, who “lives in a country very different to the Clinton-era United States”. Gone are the “joyous”…

As a leading light of the Bloomsbury Group, Vanessa Bell is by no means an obscure figure, said Florence Hallett on The i Paper. Yet though she was an accomplished painter, Bell (1879-1961) is more commonly remembered as “the freewheeling foil to her intellectually intimidating, altogether more formidable sister Virginia Woolf”. Her art, “all too easily dismissed” as too “nice” and too “colourful”, has often attracted less interest than her sex life. The scale of this “neglect” is made clear by this new exhibition in Milton Keynes, the “most comprehensive survey of her career ever staged”. The show features more than 140 works, including not just paintings and drawings, but ceramics, furniture and even designs for adverts and book jackets. It presents Bell as a restless artist who shifted “distractedly…

Life after Life by Tony Parker, 1990 (available used). Parker recorded interviews with 12 British men and women who had been convicted of murder, then transcribed and edited their words to create a series of extraordinary first-person narratives. Along with Truman Capote’s (very different) In Cold Blood, this book opened my eyes to the possibilities of writing about crime. This House of Grief by Helen Garner, 2014 (W&N £9.99). A wonderful account of the trial of an Australian man charged with the murder of his two sons in 2005. Garner documents every twist in the proceedings – and her own feelings about the case. The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm, 1990 (Granta £10.99). A brilliant, bracing examination of the relationship between Jeffrey MacDonald, convicted of killing his wife…

Programmes The Soldiers That Saved Britain Filmmaker Mobeen Azhar traces the story of his grandfather, to learn more about the role played by British Indian Army soldiers during WWII. Sat 2 Nov, C4 19:10 (60mins). Asia New seven-part wildlife series visiting some of the continent’s most remote locations. Sun 3 Nov, BBC2 18:20 (60mins). Until I Kill You Psychological drama based on real events. In 1991, nurse Delia (Anna Maxwell Martin) meets and falls for the free-spirited John (Shaun Evans), but then discovers his darker side. Sun 3-Wed 6 Nov, ITV1 21:00 (60mins each). Storyville: Hollywoodgate With unprecedented access, Ibrahim Nash’at follows a group of Taliban leaders from the US withdrawal in 2021 through their first year back in power. Tue 5 Nov, BBC4 22:00 (90mins). Lucan Fifty years on…

Owing to having a keen interest in wine but no excess of funds, I’ve developed a knack for finding “firstclass” bottles at “Ryanair prices”, says Henry Jeffreys in The Guardian. The price of prestige wines has risen sharply, but there are still unheralded wines that offer amazing value: I’ve long been a fan of “Languedoc reds from Faugères, up in the hills above Pézenas”. And Majestic has Château La Liquière “Terre du Sud” AOP Faugères for a “ridiculous” £11.99 when you buy it as part of one of its “Mix Six” cases. Savour its “heady rosemary and dark cherry aromas”. Another region with plenty of bargains is Rioja: if you like the “cooked strawberry, coconut and tobacco taste” of red Rioja, try Asda’s Extra Special Marques del Norte Rioja Reserva…

● Children are 40% more likely to read if their parents do, according to BookTrust, so model the behaviour you want and read more yourself at home. Fill your shelves with books, and devise regular outings to libraries or bookshops. ● Work out what books your child might enjoy – talk to booksellers or librarians or check out BookTok, which is a subsection of TikTok devoted to reading, where users post videos about the books they love. ● All reading is positive, it doesn’t have to be fiction – try comic books, graphic novels, manga or joke books. You could suggest they join or form a teenage book club. ● Audiobooks are great to get teens back into reading, and can be soothing at night. ● Children are never too…

Lily Ebert 1923-2024 Lily Ebert was 20 when she was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau along with most of her family. On arrival, her mother and two of her siblings were sent left; Lily and her other two sisters were sent right. Subsequently, she saw smoke belching from a chimney. She assumed it was a factory, but another inmate told her that this was a crematorium. “They’re burning your families there. Your parents, your sisters, your brothers. They’re burning them.” At Yom Kippur, saying her prayers while crammed into a barracks, she vowed that she’d live to bear witness to this atrocity. And she did, said The Guardian: one of the last survivors of Auschwitz-Birkenau, she toured schools; she spoke in Parliament; she wrote a bestselling memoir; and in her 90s, she…

Basecamp Research Increased interest in how AI can transform biology is good news for this genetic medicines specialist, which accesses “the largest ethically sourced database of biological information” to design “novel proteins” for “a new generation of medicines”. A recent funding round raised $60m. Flo Health Founded in London by two brothers from Belarus, this menstruation and ovulation tracking app “takes a broader approach to women’s health” than peers, and has five million paid subscribers. It recently secured $200m from General Atlantic, with a $1bn valuation. Part of the cash will be used to focus on menopause. Sano Genetics Getting a new drug to market typically takes ten-15 years. Sano, founded by three Cambridge graduate students, aims to make clinical trials for “precision medicine” (tailoring treatments to an individual’s DNA)…

Who’s tipping what The week’s best shares Arrow Electronics The Daily Telegraph This “very well-run” US chips and electronics distributor, which serves diverse markets, benefits from scale and staff expertise. Green shoots are emerging as declining industry trends reverse. “The only way is up.” Buy. $132.39. F&C Investment Trust The Times This “City favourite”, whose official mandate is income growth, has a global portfolio of stocks and private equity – including chip designer Nvidia, and healthcare, real estate and unlisted firms. Trades at a 9% discount. Buy. £10.54 Pinewood Technologies The Mail on Sunday Pinewood provides software to car dealerships to facilitate selling, serving and repairing. Expanding via a deal with Marshall Motor Group. Brokers forecast a profits surge in 2025. Buy. 338p. Tesco The Daily Telegraph The retailer is…

Tito, the late Indian tycoon Ratan Tata’s German shepherd, who was named as the recipient of a large chunk of its owner’s £91m fortune. Tata, who died last month without having married or had children, was known to be devoted to his dog; he also named his cook and his butler as beneficiaries of his estate. The A19, which was voted the UK’s best A road. In a survey by the Transport Focus watchdog, the 124-mile stretch in North Yorkshire won praise for its “decent surface and good markings”. Contrition, with the news that a burglar who stole a treasured engagement ring has returned it to its rightful owner. Darren Horsnell, 62, had realised the ring was missing from its place next to the ashes of his late fiancée Tracey…

More than a quarter of American adults believe that civil war could break out after the US election. 12% say they know someone who might take up arms if they think Donald Trump has been cheated out of victory. 5% say they know someone who might do the same for Kamala Harris. YouGov/The Times 33% of British adults say they’ve avoided going to A&E because of concerns about the state of the NHS. 38% are avoiding making routine GP appointments, and 27% are avoiding making urgent ones. Ipsos/The Daily Telegraph 76% of French people support the notion that “democracy is the best existing political system”, while 23% do not. Ipsos…

How Pointless changed me Alexander Armstrong has presented Pointless since its launch in 2009, and he is “very proud” of the BBC game show. “I think it delivers a really cracking 45 minutes of entertainment,” he told Emily Bootle in The i Paper. Still, he reckons he has paid a price for his long-running association with the programme. He used to be routinely offered work as an actor; but, he says, “the minute you become an everyday person on daytime television”, the acting work dries up. On the other hand, the experience of presenting Pointless has had unexpected benefits. “I used to be so shy,” he explains. “Speaking to strangers, particularly in public or with a camera on me. I mean, I could act it – that’s how we got…

The first “sighting” of Lord Lucan was in Melbourne, Australia in December 1974; a bank clerk reported a suspicious British man that he thought was the missing peer. Police arrested him: it was actually John Stonehouse, the Labour MP who had staged his own death in Miami to start a new life. Subsequently, sightings of Lucan were reported in France, Guam, Mozambique, India and New Zealand. He has been spotted at a colony of former Nazis in Paraguay, at a sheep station in the Australian outback, backpacking on Mount Etna and working as a waiter in San Francisco. In 2003, a retired detective claimed to have tracked Lucan to Goa. In fact it was “Jungle Barry” Halpin, a folk singer from St Helens. In 2012, the earl was reported to…

Is Ozempic the cure for addiction? Maia Szalavitz The New York Times Could Ozempic solve “America’s most difficult drug problems,” asked Maia Szalavitz. New studies suggest that drugs used to treat diabetes and obesity, including Ozempic and Wegovy, may also ease the cravings of alcoholism and drug addiction. One recent study noted that people with opioid addictions taking these drugs – known as GLP-1 receptor agonists – had an overdose rate 40% lower than those not taking them. Another study found that the hospitalisation risk for people with both type 2 diabetes and opioid-use disorder was cut by 40%-70% in patients taking Ozempic or Wegovy, compared with those taking older medications. Those statistics don’t serve as causal proof, but they hint at the possibility of a “breakthrough in addiction care”.…

Drug deaths in England and Wales have soared by 11% in a year, according to the Office for National Statistics. In 2023, there were 5,448 drug-related fatalities (93 per million people) – the most since records began in 1993. Just under half involved opiates such as heroin, and people born in the 1970s (members of so called Generation X) were more likely to die from drug misuse than those in any other age group. Male drug-related fatalities outnumbered female ones by a factor of two to one (men are more likely to take drugs). There were also regional variations: the number of deaths per capita in the Northeast of England was, at 174 per million, more than three times that in London (58 per million). The growing use and potency…

In theory, the system for supporting children with special educational needs (SEN) is “beautifully simple”, said Sonia Sodha in The Observer. Children whose conditions or circumstances – whether it’s autism, ADHD, dyslexia or emotional difficulties – make it harder for them to learn are assessed, and their needs are clearly set out. Then schools have a duty to meet those needs. In practice, though, the system has become “hideously complex, adversarial and destructive”. Last week, the National Audit Office published a “damning” report into SEN provision in England. Spending has risen considerably: over the past decade, the Department for Education (DfE) has increased SEN funding by 58%, so that it now exceeds £10bn per year, while local authorities have also racked up large SEN deficits. Yet the system is “still…

“You’ll never find an insurer saying, ‘I don’t believe in climate change.’”Lloyd’s John Neal, quoted in The New Yorker “No ideas and the ability to express them, that’s a journalist.”Karl Kraus, quoted in the London Review of Books “Money is like an iron ring we’ve put through our noses. We’ve forgotten that we designed it, and it’s now leading us around.”Bernard Lietaer, quoted in The New York Times “The saddest illusion of the revolutionary is that revolution itself will transform the nature of human beings.”Shirley Williams, quoted in The Knowledge “Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least.”Robert Byrne, quoted in Forbes “I don’t chase records. They chase me.”Cristiano Ronaldo, quoted on Tuko News “I’ve never seen the point of other countries … If I leave…

To The Guardian Emma Brockes points out that the word “fascist” gets thrown around a lot. It was the same in George Orwell’s day. In a 1944 Tribune column he said that, “as used, the word ‘fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless… I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, social credit, corporal punishment, fox hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s broadcasts, youth hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.” The best definition he could come up with was to suggest that “almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘fascist’”. Neil Smith, Solihull, West Midlands To The Guardian Although Emma Brockes provides examples of the usage of the word “fascist” to mean anyone opposed to…

by Tessa Hadley Jonathan Cape 128pp £12.99 The Week Bookshop £9.99 Tessa Hadley is an “old hand at short stories”, but The Party is her first novella, said Fiona Sturges in The i Paper. Set in Bristol soon after the Second World War, it begins with two sisters – Evelyn and Moira – attending a gathering in an old dockers’ pub. There, they get talking to “two strange men” – both much posher than they are – by whom they are “simultaneously fascinated and repelled”. Displaying her customary “emotional acuity”, Hadley dissects the sisters’ rivalrous relationship, with its “see-sawing camaraderie and resentment”, and vividly evokes the atmosphere of late 1940s Bristol. A study in “artfully compressed, quietly subversive drama”, The Party is “captivating”. After the pub scene, the action moves…

Homage to Surrealism at The Mayor Gallery To call this homage to the surrealist movement a show of “museum quality” might do it a disservice: celebrating its centenary this year, surrealism is an artistic mode much misrepresented by our institutions, which alternately seek to lionise or demonise its leading lights, or to reclaim it in the name of a modish agenda. This show gives us the impromptu assemblages, humorous photographs and improvised games that formed the movement’s most interesting legacy. There are likely more than 100 exhibits here, many tiny pieces inside vitrines, including work by de Chirico, Magritte, Cornell, the writer André Breton and the poet Paul Éluard. We get a blue plastic baguette from Man Ray, an extraordinary, proto-psychedelic abstract by Dorothea Tanning, Max Ernst’s bizarre type-settings, and…

Stage 31 Magdalen Road, Exeter (01392-496700) This 20-seater Exeter restaurant is modest in proportion, says Jay Rayner in The Observer, but its ambitions are not small. Run by a “cooly talented young team”, it offers “well priced, wittily crafted tasting menus”, based on whatever ingredients happen to be available. There’s no written menu: staff explain the dishes as they arrive. Some ingredients are described as coming from “Granny’s garden”, by which they mean the garden in Bodmin that belongs to the “grandmother of one of the chef-partners’ girlfriends”. We start with home-cured charcuterie: venison salami (“with a pleasing tang of armpit”), 24-month-aged ham, “soft and smoky” jerky. A succession of plated dishes follow, all of which are “bloody good”. Sirloin steak is bathed in a miso and caper butter; crisp-skinned…

Chip calculates what you can afford to save without impacting day-to-day expenditure. It has its own savings account, or you can invest through the app (free, or £6/mth). Plum has tips on how to save money and invest. It connects to your bank accounts to analyse spending habits, and automatically saves small amounts, which can also be invested through an Isa or Sipp (free). Emma, which allows you to see all your accounts in one place, can track spending, income and expenses, and even suggest where you can make savings on unused subscriptions (free, or £5/£10/mth). Snoop allows you to connect your accounts and credit cards on one dashboard and get spending summaries (free, or £5/mth). Moneyhub creates a spending overview and an accurate evaluation of your net worth (free…

The Whitebrook Monmouthshire “Cocooned in riverfront woodland” in the Wye Valley, The Whitebrook is one of the UK’s best restaurants with rooms, says Alicia Miller in The Sunday Times. Chef Chris Harrod “dishes up Monmouthshire on a plate”, using only the freshest local ingredients (and his efforts have “earned the place a Michelin green star as well as a traditional one”) in dishes such as his Huntsham Farm suckling pig with caramelised celeriac, pear and lamb’s sorrel. The eight rooms are all pleasant, with walk-in showers, and the inn (originally a 17th century drover’s cottage) sits beside a beautiful hiking trail, the 136-mile Wye Valley Walk. Dinner and b&b double from £440; thewhitebrook.co.uk.…

Lloyds/Close Brothers/Santander: car trouble “The tide has turned for UK banks”, whose shares are now “racing ahead”, said Lex in the Financial Times. NatWest is leading the pack (its stock has doubled in a year), with Barclays close behind. Lloyds might be up there too, were it not for “a negative motor finance ruling” last week, which “knocked nearly a tenth off its value”. The Court of Appeal ruling – that brokers must fully inform customers about commissions when taking out car loans – comes amid a wider probe by the City regulator into the misselling of motor finance, said Graham Hiscott in The Mirror. Its significance is that the estimated £16bn cost of alleged mis-selling could now jump even higher, if it encourages further claims. The debacle is already…

Businesses will make or break this Budget Rupert Soames The Times The hope underpinning the Budget is that it will “signpost a turning point for our economy”, which has barely grown since the global financial crisis of 2008, says the CBI chairman. But the truth is that its success or otherwise lies mainly in businesses’ hands. “Frustrating though it may be for policy-makers, it is the policy-takers who determine the outcomes.” It depends on decisions taken in hundreds of thousands of UK companies on “whether to invest in R&D and productivity, whether to hire more people, whether to be brave and ambitious or cautious and nervous”. These decisions won’t be based solely on the Budget, but on how it fits into wider government policy – ultimately, companies “will judge things…