Table of contents for 1574 in The Week

A 23-year-old from Cheshire has cycled 15,534 miles from Derby to Sydney, retracing a route his father took at the same age in 1984. Jamie Hargreaves set off in May, took a ferry to France, then headed across Europe to Turkey. He wasn’t able to follow his father’s path through Iran, and instead cycled through Russia and the “Stans” to rejoin the route in Pakistan. He visited Everest Base Camp in Nepal, before cycling through Southeast Asia – arriving in Sydney in mid-December. For decades, Craig the elephant was a tourist favourite in the Amboseli National Park in Kenya, says The Times. Now his death, aged 54, is being hailed as a victory for local efforts to curb ivory poaching. Craig was believed to have been one of Africa’s largest…

Controversy of the week The Fattah fiasco “What would you like the priorities of His Majesty’s Government to be?” asked Douglas Murray in The Spectator. “I have quite a long list”, starting with the economy and borders. But according to Keir Starmer, Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s case has been “a top priority for my government since we came to office”. Whose case, I hear you ask? Fattah is an Egyptian activist, a popular leader in the Arab Spring of 2011, who was later sentenced to 15 years by General Sisi’s regime. He was awarded British citizenship in 2021 through his mother, who was born in the UK, and governments both Conservative and Labour have lobbied hard to free him; he finally arrived in Britain on Boxing Day. What ministers did not…

Jonathan Carley, a 65-year-old former teacher, who was fined £500 for attending a Remembrance Sunday event in Llandudno wearing the uniform of senior admiral, despite never having held such a rank. He was also wearing an array of medals, including the prestigious Distinguished Service Order. In court, he pleaded guilty to offences under the rarely invoked 1894 Uniforms Act. His lawyer said he’d been “publicly humiliated” by his exposure. Tweenagers, after the private equity firm that owns Claire’s – purveyor of cheap jewellery and other accessories in bright colours – started insolvency proceedings for the chain, and The Original Factory Shop. Some 2,500 jobs are now at risk.…

51% of British voters have a negative view of Nigel Farage, while 33% have a positive view of him. 4% of voters say their view of Farage has turned negative because of the allegations of racism against him that date back to his time at Dulwich College in the 1970s; however, 5% say that they have changed their opinion from negative to positive as a result of the allegations. JL Partners/The Independent 18% of Gen Z people in Britain (those born between 1997 and 2012) think that the best system for running a country effectively involves a strong leader who doesn’t need to bother with elections. 14% of Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) agree. Among UK adults as a whole, the figure is 12%. FGS Global Radar…

We sorely need Auntie to keep us together James Kirkup The Daily Telegraph Prospects are looking bleak for the BBC, says James Kirkup. Its Christmas viewing figures have fallen to a record low: once it drew audiences over 20 million; its most-watched programme this season – The King’s Christmas Broadcast – attracted just 4.6 million. Audiences are steadily abandoning traditional telly in favour of online, on-demand platforms. According to Ofcom, “children now spend more time watching YouTube than all public service broadcasters put together”. Yet those on the Right who see this as cause “for celebration” should think again. They may rail against what they view as the BBC’s progressive bias, but they fail to see the great harm their longed-for downfall of the corporation would have on national cohesiveness.…

“Over the past three-and-a-half years, it has become a familiar sight on the outskirts of many Russian cities and towns,” said Andrei Soldatov in The Observer: “long lines of fresh graves in local cemeteries, their mounds covered by large wreaths in the colours of the Russian flag”. The BBC’s Russian service has confirmed the names of 160,000 people killed fighting for Russia against Ukraine. Most estimates put the total Russian dead at around 250,000, with perhaps three times that wounded. This is far more than died in earlier wars in Afghanistan or Chechnya, which provoked widespread dissent. But when it comes to Ukraine, Russians prefer not to talk about it. The Kremlin has “complete control of the media”; its propaganda both conceals the true cost of the conflict and casts…

Ruben Amorim’s “brief was clear” when he was appointed Manchester United’s head coach 14 months ago, said Ian Ladyman in the Daily Mail. It was to improve the side he inherited from Erik ten Hag. But despite being given plenty of time, and having “better players” than his predecessor, he singularly “failed in that task”. And that is why, on Monday, United announced they were sacking him – making him the sixth manager dismissed by the club since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement in 2013. It wasn’t just poor results that did for Amorim, said Paul Hirst in The Times. Equally fatal was his perceived intransigence over tactics, A devout believer in a defensive formation, he assured club bosses that he would eventually move to a more attacking system. On Boxing…

Begum’s right to return To The Times Your correspondent Ann Armstrong argues strongly that Shamima Begum should be allowed to return to this country, and despite my utter loathing of the Islamist creed Begum espoused, I agree. Begum should face justice for any crime she may have committed, but seems to me primarily a victim of child sex-trafficking; she “married” a Dutch-born Islamist within nine days of arriving in Syria. Begum was born in the UK and, prior to her misadventure, has never lived anywhere else: she is as British as I am and it is unclear why she has not been brought back, if necessary to face trial. One can envisage that her return might shine an unflattering light on the extent to which authorities had failed to counter…

Cole Escola’s comedy about the life of Mary Todd Lincoln has been a smash hit in New York, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. A “knowingly bogus” portrait of the former US first lady as a volatile dipsomaniac and frustrated cabaret star, the show has been running on Broadway since June 2024, and has won two Tonys. Now Oh, Mary! has arrived in London, and it deserves the same success here. It’s more “snappy lark” than history lesson, and it’s no Hamilton. But its “transgressive charge” is laced with a truth about the necessity of self-expression, and as the pale-faced, rouge-cheeked protagonist, the brilliant American actor Mason Alexander Park “gives the funniest performance in town”. This unashamedly silly show “won’t be to everyone’s taste”, said Sarah Crompton on What’s…

When it came out in 2016, The Night Manager was “a class above other spy thrillers”, said Jack Seale in The Guardian. Starring Tom Hiddleston as Jonathan Pine, an ex-Army hotel concierge who is trained up by MI6 to infiltrate a global arms-dealing operation, it swept in, became a global hit for the BBC, “won a ton of awards, then swooshed away” without stooping to anything so “vulgar” as “an inferior second season”. Yet a decade later it’s back, with Hiddleston and his co-star Olivia Colman returning to foil international crime cartels once again. This series also “floats far above most of the competition”. But it is a little derivative of the first run. “Pine suffers another tragedy, adopts another fake identity” – and “pitches himself into another game of…

Fallon tries to talk to a despondent George, but he makes nasty accusations, leaving her rattled. Harrison’s back and notices Fallon’s mood – after another run-in with George, Kenton ends up telling Harrison what happened. Harrison tells Fallon he’s worked on controlling his anger. Joy’s Christmas Eve Tractor Run is a huge success. Helping Ed at work, George accidentally hits him with a branch. Ed plays down his wound, but Brad tells Emma he suspects George of harming Ed. Emma, Will and Eddie confront George, who confesses, making vicious comments; Will throws him out. After a realisation about George, Amber asks Brad if she can stay with him. The next day George barges in, demanding to see Amber; he lashes out at Brad, with Jazzer intervening. On New Year’s Eve,…

Pyro 53b Southwark Street, London SE1 (020-3179 2800) I went to this “Greek, cooking-over-fire joint” near London’s Borough Market with modest expectations, said Giles Coren in The Times. Since it opened six months ago, “there’s been barely a whisper in the press”. And I knew nothing about it, except that it has a huge outdoor space with “beach vibes”. It was too cold to enjoy the beach-style exterior, but there were cosy fires inside – and the food turned out to be “stonking”. A starter humbly named “market crudités” proved to be a “dazzling array” of crunchy vegetables. With them we had “spectacular Missolonghi tarama”, smoked aubergine and roast garlic purée, and warm potato pita cooked on the hearth. A scallop, sliced and served in a homemade XO sauce, was…

● Check you’ve got the correct level of anti-freeze in the engine’s coolant and that your screenwash contains anti-freeze too. ● 24% of winter breakdowns are due to battery problems. The first sign is if your engine is slow to turn over in the cold. If the starter motor just clicks and the dash lights flicker, the battery is flat. The alarm going off is another possible indicator. ● If you are worried about it, switch off drains on the battery such as lights, wipers or phone chargers before starting the car. ● Check your tyre pressure every other week and before long journeys. Inspect the tyre tread – the legal tread depth is 1.6mm, but if it is below 3mm, it will affect grip. ● The particulate filter in…

Brigitte Bardot 1934-2025 “In the 1950s, before the sexual revolution, before the New Wave, before feminism, there was Bardot,” said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. With her tousled blonde hair, kohl-rimmed eyes and famous pout, Brigitte Bardot represented to postwar audiences sex, youth, freedom and, above all, modernity. The “unacknowledged zeitgeist force that stirred cinema’s young lions … against the old order”, she became her country’s “most sensational cultural export”. Effectively the “French Beatles”, Bardot – or BB (pronounced bébé in French) – was a provocative, shameless screen siren who mesmerised the French public, and made male moviegoers in that still “puritan land” of America “gulp and goggle with desire”. In Roger Vadim’s And God Created Woman – the film that made her an international star – conservatives were scandalised…

Rich Stromback The Michigan-born former ice hockey player (turned investor, entrepreneur, film producer, party planner…) has become such a presence at January’s annual World Economic Forum that he has been dubbed “Ultimate Davos”. This year the great schmoozer has excelled even himself. Stromback is the driving force behind “USA House”: a church that will serve as an all-American HQ for Donald Trump’s retinue during his Davos visit, said Alistair Osborne in The Times. Sponsors such as Microsoft, McKinsey and crypto firm Ripple are paying up to $1m to “genuflect” before the president, who’ll be bringing his own twist to the conference theme: “A Spirit of Dialogue”. USA House’s programme ends with a “Minerals & Energy Summit”. “Is that the one about invading Greenland?” Pavel Durov Try as he might, Pavel…

Caracas raid: Trump rips up the rulebook I never thought I’d feel nostalgia for the Iraq War, said Nesrine Malik in The Guardian. But it turns out that the run up to that conflict, when America did at least strive to convince the world of the righteousness of its cause, was the “good old days”. There was no such effort to legitimise the US strike on Venezuela and the abduction of its president, Nicolás Maduro (see page 14). Nobody sought consent from any international body or Congress. And while a flimsy legal case was made for the coup – a court charged Maduro this week with, inter alia, “narco-terrorism conspiracy” and possession of machine guns – the Trump administration’s predatory objectives were transparent. The US will “run” Venezuela, said Trump;…

In the drinks industry, the new buzzword is “coasting”, reports The Guardian. Reflecting the growing trend for moderation, it refers to choosing wines, spirits and lagers that have about half the alcohol content of the normal version of that drink. Ocado reports that, in 2025, its sales of wines with an alcohol volume of around 3% to 9% soared 4,000%. In a third of postcode areas in England, dogs now outnumber children, according to an analysis by The Times. It says this is partly due to a rising number of couples who are “dinkwads” – dual income, no kids, with a dog. The UK’s estimated canine population has risen from nine million to 13 million since 2019; the number of children has flatlined lately at around 14.5 million.…

Britain and France have pledged to put “boots on the ground” in Ukraine if a ceasefire is agreed between Kyiv and Moscow. After a summit in Paris, Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron said that they would establish “military hubs” around the country to deter another Russian invasion, with the French leader suggesting that thousands of soldiers could be sent. It is unlikely that the troops would be expected to fight in the event of a Russian attack; No. 10 said it would be “a reassurance force”. Russia, which has often stressed that it won’t accept the presence of Nato troops in Ukraine, is expected to reject the idea.…

Paris Bullying verdict: France’s First Lady, Brigitte Macron, has for years had to put up with malicious claims on social media that she was born a man, and that she had “paedophile” relations with her husband when he was 15 and she was his drama teacher. (The president is 24 years younger than her.) The Macrons have mounted several legal cases to combat them: one in the US against the influencer Candace Owens is ongoing. And now eight men and two women (aged between 41 and 65) accused of spreading such rumours have been convicted of cyberbullying by a Paris court. All ten received fines; one has been sentenced to six months in prison. Paris Social media ban: A bill introduced by Emmanuel Macron’s government last week, and due to…

1* Georgia on My Mind by Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell, performed by Roger Winslet and Sophie Breakenridge 2 Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs by Michael Coleman and Brian Burke, performed by Brian and Michael 3 Kiss from a Rose by Seal Samuel, performed by Seal 4 Summertime by George Gershwin, DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin, performed by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong 5 Nuvole Bianche, written and performed by Ludovico Einaudi 6 Weird Fishes/Arpeggi, written and performed by Radiohead 7 Blue Ridge Mountains by Robin Pecknold, performed by Fleet Foxes 8 Pump Up the Jam by Manuela Kamosi, Thomas de Quincey and Farley “Jackmaster” Funk, performed by Technotronic Book: Outside by Gill Meller Luxury: freshly ground coffee * Choice if allowed only one record…

A Sicilian love cheat is suing a restaurant whose owners posted a video on TikTok that alerted his wife to his affair. The 42-year-old had claimed he was having dinner with his colleagues in Catania, but his marriage ended after his wife saw a video showing he was actually on a clandestine date. His case has been taken up by Codacons, a consumer group, which said the posts had violated privacy laws, with “unpredictable consequences”. Wild swimmers in the Highlands braved the chilly waters of Loch Vaa this week to create an ice sculpture of a killer shark. Fiona Clarke, who has previously carved a penguin fishing, said her next creation would be “Nessie with a ‘See You Jimmy’ hat”. A motorist was given four parking tickets in the space…

CUBA Fidel Castro is gone but Cuba is still a mess Foreign Affairs (New York) “It is hard to be hopeful about Cuba’s future,” says Michael J. Bustamante. Things had started looking up when Barack Obama restored diplomatic ties in 2014 in response to moderate economic reforms introduced by its then leader, Raúl Castro: investors made their way to the island, as did celebrities such as the Rolling Stones. Alas, the hope that Cuba would be brought “into the 21st century” now seems very distant. Instead, it is being buffeted by its “worst economic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union”. Since 2020, GDP has fallen by a staggering 11%, and more than one million Cubans – around a tenth of the population – have emigrated, most to the…

“That’s the secret to life… replace one worry with another.”Charlie Brown, quoted in The Edmonds Beacon “Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.”Orson Welles, quoted on The Knowledge “Ninety percent of everything is crap.”Sturgeon’s law, coined by Theodore Sturgeon, quoted in Time Magazine “Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.”Will Rogers, quoted in The New York Times “The more you hurt yourself, the more people laugh.”Adrian Edmondson on comedy, quoted on RNZ “Humour is a rubber sword – it allows you to make a point without drawing blood.”Mary Hirsch, quoted in The Guardian “If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets.”Chris Rock, quoted on…

To The Guardian Donald Trump’s own description of US actions in Venezuela – that it will “run” the country until a political transition has occurred, and install US oil companies to control production – outlines conduct that is plainly illegal under international law, and sets a dangerous precedent. The UN Charter prohibits the use or threat of force against another state, except in self-defence or with Security Council authorisation. Neither applies here. However illegitimate a government may be, regime change by invasion, occupation or foreign administration is unlawful. Trump’s words amount to an admission of occupation. Under the Hague Regulations and Geneva Conventions, an occupying power may not assume sovereign authority, dictate political outcomes, or exploit natural resources. To do so constitutes pillage – a war crime. This matters far…

Middlemarch by George Eliot, 1871 (Penguin £9.99). These lists are so hard, so I gave myself the arbitrary guideline of really long books with one word titles, because why not? I’m starting with the greatest of all. Middle march changes every time you read it. A book that contains the whole universe in one frustrating love affair. Its greatest secret? It’s funny, too. Illywhacker by Peter Carey, 1985 (Faber £10.99). Peter Carey is probably my favourite writer, and sticking with the theme happily means including his sprawling, rule-breaking overview of Australia, told by a very bad-tempered liar. It’s raucous, heartbreaking, with a shocker of an ending. Darkmans by Nicola Barker, 2007 (Fourth Estate £19.99). Barker is extraordinary, one astonishing book after another. Darkmans is full of pranks, jokes, and unruly…

Programmes Valley of the Kings: Secret Tomb Revealed Documentary following a team of archaeologists as they excavate the burial chamber of Pharaoh Ramses III. Sat 10 Jan, C4 19:00 (60mins). Walter Presents: The Ring Dutch crime drama. After one impulsive act, a lawyer finds herself drawn into a web of secrets and blackmail. Tue 13 Jan, C4 00:05 (60mins). Monty Don’s Rhineland Gardens The gardener embarks on a tour of gardens along the Rhine, starting in the Swiss Alps near the river’s source. Fri 16 Jan, BBC2 20:00 (60mins). David Baddiel: Cat Man A celebration of all things feline, as the comedian talks to fellow cat lovers, including Ricky Gervais, and meets Larry, the Downing Street cat. Fri 16 Jan, C4 20:00 (60mins). Films A Few Good Men (1992) Taut legal drama directed…

250g frozen peas, defrosted 2 courgettes (300g) 1 small onion (150g) 1 large leek, finely chopped (175g) 50g plain flour 15g fresh parsley, finely chopped 10g fresh mint leaves, thinly shredded 1¼ tsp dried mint 1 tsp Aleppo chilli flakes (or regular chilli flakes) ½ tsp ground turmeric 1 tsp dill or fennel seeds, slightly crushed 3 large eggs, lightly beaten salt and black pepper 3 tbsp olive oil To serve: lemon wedges sour cream • Put the peas into a food processor and blitz for a few seconds – you want them to be slightly crushed but not mushy. Place in a mixing bowl and leave aside. • Trim the courgettes and peel the onion, then, using the coarse side of a box grater, grate them on to a clean…

The slopes in Tetnuldi, Georgia, are normally very quiet, with good, consistent snow and almost 1,000m of vertical. There are 25km of marked pistes, but the main attraction is the world-class back-country skiing, best explored with a guide (tetnuldi.com). Pontresina in Switzerland is within easy reach of St Moritz and has long, wide pistes for high-speed laps, plus spectacular offpiste action, a huge snow park and masses of cross-country skiing (pontresina.ch). The tiny resort of Sainte-Foy in France has just four lifts, and is only 20 minutes from Les Arcs, Tignes and Val d’Isère. There’s a long-winding blue run and wide, fast reds, plus off-piste too (saintefoy-tarentaise.com). Riksgränsen, close to the Arctic in Sweden, is a good snow-sure option, popular with adventurous skiers for freeriding, skitouring or heli-skiing on the whaleback…

BYD/Tesla: changing places It has been in the runes for a while, but the Chinese powerhouse BYD has finally overtaken Tesla as the world’s biggest seller of all-electric vehicles. “The milestone caps an extraordinary rise for BYD”, whose battery-powered cars enjoyed a 28% sales rise globally in 2025, said Sam Meredith on CNBC. The 2.26 million vehicles sold trounced Tesla’s 1.64 million tally, which fell by around 8% on the year before – marking Tesla’s “second straight annual drop”. The figures will embarrass Elon Musk, who once “openly laughed” at the idea of Shenzhen-based BYD as a viable competitor. Tesla’s “annus horribilis” saw intensified competition from a range of Chinese rivals, including Geely, MG and Chery, said Freda Lewis-Stempel on This is Money, amid “mixed reviews of new models” and…

Gold A “stratospheric” 66% rise in 2025 – its best performance since 1979 – “surprised even the most bullish metal mavens”, said Suzanne O’Halloran on Fox Business. Trump’s Venezuelan adventure has set the price alight again. As questions swirled about what it might mean for the global order, the price jumped above $4,400/oz. “Venezuela may have provided the spark, but the bullion rally is drawing strength” from gold’s role as “a strategic hedge” amid geopolitical risk, high government debt and “shifting monetary regimes”, said India Today. Bank of America analysts predict $5,000/oz by year-end. Still, gold is now vulnerable to a potentially sharp pullback. “If financial markets go through a difficult patch, investors looking to liquidate positions might first reach for assets that have delivered strong gains… or ones that…

Share tips for 2026 Apple The Sunday Times 2026 should be the year that Apple wakes up and joins the AI revolution. Under a new AI boss, the $4trn tech behemoth is set to formalise a deal to incorporate Google’s powerful Gemini system into 2.4 billion devices. Buy. $270.33. AstraZeneca The Sunday Times The pharmaceutical giant has a well-diversified, broad mix of medicines – with oncology at the heart of the business, alongside drugs for heart disease and rare conditions. Several promising new treatments are approaching final stage clinical trials. Buy. £135.92. Balfour Beatty Investors’ Chronicle The global engineering and construction firm is focused on well-funded, higher-margin power generation, decarbonisation and defence work. The balance sheet is strong, and a record £22bn order book provides revenue visibility. Buy. 715p. Diageo…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1498 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 19 January. Send it to The Week Crossword 1498, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid/listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Paul McKenna This week’s winner will receive Week-branded items, as well as two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 9 Ditch rendezvous I had entered as a suitable choice (9) 10 Talk round price (5) 11 Roads in Rouen accepting second schemes (5) 12 In a different way I tailored leader (9) 13 Support is right in Kindle (7) 15 Who’d unravel cold poem in returning rose? (7) 17 Unruly spin solicited a choice that’s not…

Innovation, after Lego announced that it was keeping up with the times by including “smart” bricks in some of its Star Wars sets. With lights and miniature speakers embedded within them, the bricks will make an appropriate range of whooshing sounds when used in Luke Skywalker’s fighter plane, and will enable a model of R2-D2 to issue the droid’s trademark bleeps. Hull, which emerged as the only place in the UK to be included in National Geographic’s annual list of the top 25 places in the world to visit this year. Its inclusion comes as the city’s £30m maritime renovation project – Hull Maritime – nears completion. The FTSE 100, the index of the UK’s 100 largest companies, which capped a stellar 12 months on the year’s first day of…

The Government plans to toughen up its rules on drink-driving for England and Wales by decreasing the legal alcohol limit. Drivers currently cannot exceed 35mcg of alcohol per 100ml of breath – the highest legal level in Europe. Under the proposals, this figure would drop to 22mcg. Learner drivers would have to comply with an even lower limit, and might have to wait six months between sitting the theory and practical tests to develop their skills. The plan is designed to reduce serious and fatal injuries on roads by 65% by 2035.…

Saint Paul, Minnesota Walz bows out: Tim Walz, the Democrat governor of Minnesota who ran for vice-president in 2024, has announced that he is dropping his bid for a third term in office. The military veteran and former schoolteacher said he wasn’t able to “give a political campaign my all”, owing to the widening scandal over social services fraud in Minnesota. Prosecutors have charged around 90 people, mostly Somali-Americans, with stealing billions from public programmes in the state, an issue that has led to Walz’s administration coming under severe fire from President Trump and other Republicans. Cheyenne, Wyoming Abortion bans struck down: Wyoming’s supreme court has struck down legislation that severely restricted access to abortion in the state and introduced the US’s first full ban on abortion pills. The two…

“While the world’s eyes were on Venezuela, the weight-loss drug Wegovy was released in pill form: Novo Nordisk won the race to launch a semaglutide pill in the US, with the starting price at $149 a month – far less than the injectable version. I can’t help but see the new, affordable ‘fat pill’ as a Pandora’s box moment. Look back on a century of pill-popping – Valium, Prozac, opiates – and its side effects: humans are driven by animal appetites. If you start interfering with basic drivers such as hunger, it will have consequences; users report feeling as if someone has pressed the ‘mute’ button on life’s pleasures. I’d rather stay hungry, in pursuit of earthly pleasures.” Rowan Pelling in The Daily Telegraph…

Is Trump starting to show his age? Dan McLaughlin National Review “Is it time to start being seriously worried about Donald Trump’s age?” It has become a topic of discussion again lately, says Dan McLaughlin. Reporters have pointed out that the president has been making fewer public appearances; that he has appeared to doze off in some meetings; that he had been “less than forthcoming” about a recent MRI; that he bruises easily. It’s true that Trump is starting to show his age, but not to an alarming degree. This isn’t another Joe Biden situation. Trump remains a very forceful character, quite capable of leading meetings and tweeting at all hours. As time goes on, the worry is not that he’ll become “too somnolent to supervise his subordinates”; rather, it’s…

“For the benefit of those who have allowed themselves to be carried away by the gossip of the past few days, I know what is going on. I am going on.” That’s what Harold Wilson told his restive party as the plotters circled in 1969, said George Eaton in The New Statesman. Keir Starmer kicked off 2026 with a message similar to that of his favourite former Labour leader. “I will be sitting in this seat by 2027,” he vowed in a 45-minute BBC interview. But will he? His pitch, set out this week, is that this is the year in which Britain will “turn the corner”, said The Times. Inflation, interest rates and energy costs will ease, wages will rise and the economy will gather pace. Unfortunately for Starmer,…

“Few sports stars in history are so precocious that their place in the pantheon is assured by the time they are 18,” said Sean Ingle in The Guardian. Pelé, Nadia Comaneci and Boris Becker all belong in that elite company. And now another name – that of Luke Littler – can be added to the list. Last Saturday, the teenager from Warrington became only the fourth player to retain the PDC world title, as he thrashed Gian van Veen 7-1 in little more than 40 minutes. Given that in the previous two rounds, the Dutchman had beaten ex-world champions Luke Humphries and Gary Anderson, most experts expected him to give Littler a “proper test”. And when he claimed the first set, before hitting “back-to-back 145 and 127 finishes to go…

Tennis Emma Raducanu, who is still recovering from a foot injury, lost 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 to Maria Sakkari as Britain were beaten 2-1 by Greece in the United Cup. British men’s No. 1, Jack Draper, confirmed that he will miss the Australian Open as he continues to recover from an arm injury. Cricket Jacob Bethell, 22, scored a maiden first-class century on the fourth day of the fifth Ashes Test in Sydney. England lost the series. Football Liam Rosenior has been confirmed as Chelsea’s new head coach, following the departure last week of Enzo Maresca.…

Britain should be bold on Europe Editorial The Economist Nearly a decade on from Britain’s “reckless vote” to leave the European Union, debate over Brexit is back, says The Economist. The intervening years, following “the hardest possible Brexit deal”, have not been happy. Estimates of the resultant loss to British GDP range from “an irksome 4% to a dismal 8%”. Even the promise of reduced immigration hasn’t been kept. No wonder polling confirms that most Britons now think the split was a mistake and favour closer ties. The EU has plenty of other things to worry about, but shifts in geopolitics – a less reliable America and a more menacing Russia – mean it too has reason to rethink its ties with Britain. There’s a real opportunity for the two…