Table of contents for 1484 in The Week

Iran fired some 170 drones and well over 100 ballistic and cruise missiles on Saturday night. Most of the drones were low-flying and slow, and would have taken six hours to travel the 600 miles between the two countries; a greater threat was posed by ballistic missiles capable of making the journey in less than 15 minutes. And although its plan was well telegraphed, Iran likely hoped that this swarm would still manage to penetrate Israeli air defences and inflict significant damage; yet in the event, only a handful of missiles got through, causing relatively minor damage to an air base in the Negev desert. With just such an attack in mind, Israel spent the past 15 years upgrading its air defence systems, said Jamie Dettmer on Politico, helped by…

Yayoi Kusama, who was named as the world’s top-selling contemporary artist. Works by the 95-year-old, who is known for her fascination with polka dots, sold for a total of $80.9m at auction last year. By contrast, David Hockney, who took the top spot in 2022, sold $50.3m worth of art. Levi’s, which reported a 20% increase in footfall at its US stores and a sharp rise in its share price in the week after Beyoncé released her country album, Cowboy Carter. “Denim on denim on denim on denim”, she sings on a track called Levii’s Jeans; Beyoncé has also been posting images of herself in “double denim”.…

The High Court has upheld a prayer ban at one of England’s highest-performing state schools. The case was brought by a Muslim pupil who argued that a ban on “prayer rituals” at the Michaela Community School was discriminatory and breached her right to religious freedom. The judge, however, ruled that in joining the secular school, she had tacitly agreed that she’d be subject to some restrictions. Headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh described it as a “victory for all schools”.…

New York Hush money trial: Donald Trump became the first former US president to appear as a defendant in a criminal court this week. The 77-year-old is facing charges in New York stemming from a payment of $130,000 he allegedly made to the former porn actress Stormy Daniels in the run-up to the 2016 election, to stop her going public about a sexual encounter she claims they had in 2006, a year after he married Melania. His lawyers had sought to have the trial delayed until after November’s presidential election; this week, Trump described the trial (the first of four criminal trials he is facing) as a politically motivated “witch hunt”. Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in an attempt to cover up the payment to…

British men have fared very poorly in an international comparison of average penis size. According to Worlddata, which reviewed 40 studies spanning 88 countries, the nation with the largest average erect penis length is Ecuador (6.9in), followed by Cameroon (6.56in) and Bolivia (6.5in). The UK ranks 68th, with an average length of 5.16in. Almost “the only people we can feel superior around, when it comes to our trousers, are Cambodia and Yemen”, lamented Caitlin Moran in The Times. “The rest of the world is putting on a sympathetic face and saying, ‘But you have lovely eyes, Britain! And a kind heart!’” The proposed design of a train station in China has been ridiculed for resembling a giant sanitary pad. Authorities in Nanjing, where the station is due to be built,…

CHINA Screaming blue murder over Three Bodies The New York Times A Netflix adaptation of one of China’s most celebrated science-fiction works has not gone down well in China itself, says Li Yuan. The Three-Body Problem, the apocalyptic novel on which the film is based, sold millions of copies and gained a cult following. Yet far from celebrating its arrival on screens around the world, Chinese people are furious. The complaints on social media are legion: the series isn’t all set in China; the characters are too “racially diverse”; the leading female character isn’t “pretty enough”. The greatest fury, however, is reserved for the film’s opening scene, which shows a central character’s father being beaten to death by Maoist zealots in the 1960s Cultural Revolution. But why such a fuss?…

In recent years, microbes have been used to grow various sustainable textiles. But now, for the first time, scientists at Imperial College London have gone a step further, genetically engineering bacteria to produce a faux-leather that dyes itself. Using chemical dyes is one of the most environmentally toxic processes in fashion – and the black dyes used on leather are particularly harmful. The researchers began by taking bacteria that naturally make cellulose, a strong but flexible material, and modifying them to produce a black pigment on demand. The microbes were placed over a mould where, over two weeks, the cellulose they made took on the shape of a shoe’s upper. The shoe was cream in colour but, by shaking it at 30°C, the scientists activated the bacteria to produce the…

Last year, Robbie Williams revealed that he had taken to reading comments about himself on Mail Online. “It was hellish,” he recalled. “The person (me) that they were describing was the most horrendous person that ever walked the planet.” To cheer himself up, he decided to read the comments under articles about “good salt-of-the-earth folk”, so looked for one about Ant and Dec. “The second comment said: ‘I hate these two almost as much as I hate that fat c**t Robbie Williams.’” Rumours that Harold Wilson (pictured) had an affair with Marcia Williams, his powerful private secretary, have circulated for decades. Now, two of the former Labour PM’s aides have claimed that Wilson had a second affair that he kept totally secret. According to Joe Haines, 96, Wilson had a…

“A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.”David Brinkley, quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle “Revolutions are always verbose.”Leon Trotsky, quoted in Forbes “It’s the wretchedness of being rich that you have to live with rich people.”Logan Pearsall Smith, quoted on The Knowledge “You learn a lot about someone when you share a meal together.”Anthony Bourdain, quoted in The Economic Times “The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool.”Stephen King, quoted on Goodreads “There’s a God-shaped hole in every human heart. If it doesn’t get filled with something noble and elevated, modern society will quickly pump it full of garbage.”Jonathan Haidt, quoted in The Guardian “The best fame is a writer’s fame: it’s enough to get…

To The Times Having served for nine years as an MP, I know how low politicians can stoop when their backs are against the wall. But the Conservative attack on Angela Rayner is one of the most grotesque spectacles of hypocrisy I have witnessed. On one side is a billionaire Tory peer, Lord Ashcroft, and a multimillionaire Tory prime minister, Rishi Sunak, whose families have all avoided paying millions of pounds in UK tax as beneficiaries of non-dom status and who live lives of luxury. On the other is a woman who grew up in poverty caring for her illiterate mother, who is now mother to a child who is registered blind, and who through her own guts and character has risen to be deputy leader of the Labour Party.…

by Percival Everett Mantle 320pp £20 The Week bookshop £15.99 Percival Everett is “no stranger to debates about the representation of race”, said Marcel Theroux in The Guardian. His 2001 novel Erasure – the story of a highbrow African-American novelist who despairs at the way his work is received – was recently adapted for the screen as the Oscar-winning American Fiction. Now, Everett has turned his attention to the racial politics of one of America’s most hallowed works of literature – Mark Twain’s 1884 classic, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Everett retells the story from the point of view of Jim, the runaway slave who joins Huck on his journey down the Mississippi River. Although the novel has often been described as anti-racist, there has been “growing debate” over Jim’s portrayal…

Marcus Coates at Kate MacGarry Marcus Coates (b.1968) is one of the most interesting artists working in Britain today. His work investigates the slippery boundaries between what we might describe as “the natural world”, and the deep-rooted effects that human intervention has had on it. This show, Between Stories, brings together recent works in different media: a sound installation categorises the ululating chants of various different species, from blue whales to bats; a text piece chronicles daily events in specific places as a kind of nature calendar; and a large illustration based on vintage botanical drawings imagines a bizarre, hybrid landscape in which vegetal, human and animal anatomy become indistinguishable. Best of all is a series in which Coates, a keen ornithologist, has crumpled a series of his large, high-quality…

Med Salleh Kopitiam 35-39 Inverness Terrace, London W2 (020-7792 2140) Med Salleh Kopitiam has been around for a couple of years, “but explodes on you afresh each time you walk in, like a crazy accident”, says Giles Coren in The Times. Immediately, you are “joyfully received” into what feels like “a Malaysian family front room from the 1960s”, complete with a bike leaning on a wall and a “bulgy-screened” television. The menu is “an urgent mash-up of street snacks, hawker dishes and rice and noodle things, and the choice is to have it all in one go and lie there groaning for days afterwards, or go back another time to try other things”. I recommend the latter. Highlights are the beef rendang – tender, “dense and chocolatey” – and the…

Use strong passwords. It is tempting to reuse passwords across different accounts, but if one is cracked, they all can be, so use different, secure passwords: say, three random words, and don’t include your address. Password manager apps can help. Use two-step verification where possible. Beware false friends. Hackers may pose as other people on social media platforms, even if you have mutual contacts. Never accept friend requests from people you don’t know. They could steal your personal details and hack into your social network. Follow the A, B, C, D. Assume nothing. Believe nothing. Check everything. If in doubt, delete dodgy looking messages. Double-check the URL for a web page before inserting personal details. Check it matches official URLs: hackers often use subtly different ones. Don’t assume an email…

Zopa: a green shoot for London? Before morphing into a digital bank, Zopa made its name as the UK’s pioneering “peer to peer” lender. That market proved ephemeral. But could Zopa now “blow the doors off London’s stagnant IPO market”, asked City AM. The fintech – backed by Masayoshi Son’s giant tech incubator, SoftBank – is certainly revving up for a float, having made its first annual profit (of £15.8m) in 2023, which it dubbed a “landmark” year. “A string of senior executives have joined the bank in recent months to build up its regulatory and public markets expertise in preparation.” In line with its comparative maturity (it was founded in 2005), Zopa has “taken a more restrained approach to growth” than challenger rivals such as Monzo and Revolut. But…

It was the master spin doctor Alastair Campbell who supposedly came up with the “11-day rule”, said The Times. This posits that, if you are a minister whose alleged indiscretions are still leading the news after 11 days, you are “toast”. Now Keir Starmer is getting an early introduction to the rule. The issue of Angela Rayner’s council house sale was first raised in February, in a biography of Labour’s deputy leader by the Tory peer Michael Ashcroft. In 2007, Rayner had bought a house on Vicarage Road in Stockport, benefitting from a “right to buy” discount; she sold it in 2015, making a profit of £48,000. But she didn’t pay capital gains tax, because she treated it as her main residence, even though she’d married in 2010 and seems…

Rishi Sunak, after 57 of his own MPs – including Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch – voted against his smoking ban; more than 100 abstained or were absent from the free vote. The bill still passed, owing to Labour supporting his flagship policy to make it illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone born in or after 2009. Consumers, with news that food prices could rise yet further, thanks to record rainfall in the 18 months to March. The Met Office recorded 1,695.9mm of rain in England in that period, the highest for any 18 months since it started collecting data in 1836. Farmers say that with fields waterlogged, production has been drastically reduced – which will have knock-on effects on prices. Apple, which lost its crown as the world’s biggest…

Just 29% of adults in Scotland who voted for the SNP at the last general election believe that the party’s leader, Humza Yousaf, is doing a good job. 36% think he is doing badly. Norstat/The Sunday Times 60% of Britons (including 58% of 18- to 29-year-olds) think that life was better in the 2000s than it is today; 57% say life was better in the 1990s, and 45% say life was better in the 1980s. YouGov/Times Radio 23% of people in England and Wales say they trust their water companies to “do what’s right for the environment”, down from 31% two years ago. 21% believe their water providers “act in the interests of the environment”, down from 27%. Savanta/Ofwat and CCW…

Michael Palin’s quiet house Michael Palin met his late wife Helen on a trip to Suffolk when he was 15 and she was 16, says Simon Hattenstone in The Guardian. They were married for 57 years (below); and nine months ago, she died of kidney failure, having stopped her dialysis treatment because she was in so much pain. Her final two years, Palin says, were very uncomfortable, but her last two weeks could not have been happier. “Just before she died, when she knew she was going to die, were actually some of the best times we’ve had,” he says. “She was amazingly well looked after, and all the family were there.” Work has proved a useful distraction since her death, but it still feels recent. “Every now and then,…

In summer 1994, more than a million Hutus fled Rwanda to neighbouring Zaire. Among them were many armed perpetrators of the genocide; from their refugee camps, they launched attacks on Rwanda, and on ethnic Tutsis living in eastern Zaire. The Rwandan government could not tolerate this. Zaire, meanwhile, was crumbling, after decades of corrupt dictatorship under Mobutu Sese Seko, and domestic rebel groups sought to overthrow him – notably the AFDL, led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila. Rwanda sent its forces to fight alongside the rebels in October 1996, sparking the First Congo War. Uganda and Angola also joined on the AFDL side, and in May 1997 Kabila seized power, renaming Zaire the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 1998, however, Kabila turned against his Rwandan allies. When Tutsis in eastern DRC…

We’re all living in the age of O.J. Simpson Peggy Noonan The Wall Street Journal Where were you when you heard the verdict? The murder case of O.J. Simpson, who died last week, was a defining moment for America that is seared in the memory of everyone over 40, says Peggy Noonan. It marked “the beginning of the modern media age” and the strange cult of hypercelebrity. Crowds ran to California motorway bridges on 17 June 1994, to see the fleeing Simpson being driven past in a Ford Bronco, followed by police cars. They cheered and pumped their arms, as if it was an exciting drama, not a real-life double murder. “And people watching thought: Whoa, what are we seeing, what is this? Some new kind of fame was being…

The destruction of the world’s tropical forests is continuing at a relentless rate, with an area almost the size of Switzerland cleared last year. Some 37,000sq km (14,200sq miles) of previously undisturbed rainforest was felled in 2023 – the equivalent of ten football pitches a minute, new figures show. Brazil, along with Bolivia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, accounted for more than half the global losses. And while there were some reductions in the rate of rainforest loss, of 36% in Brazil and 49% in Colombia, these were offset by large increases in Bolivia, Laos and Nicaragua, according the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the University of Maryland. Much deforestation is driven by agriculture – though in Canada, fires led to record losses of boreal forests. “We are…

“They say history is written by the victors, but that hasn’t stopped Liz Truss having a go,” said Noah Keete on Politico. The former PM – best known internationally for her failure to outlast a lettuce – has now published a book about her political career, and the 49 days she spent at Downing Street. Part memoir, part manifesto, it is called Ten Years to Save the West, and in the US is grandly subtitled Leading the Revolution against Globalism, Socialism, and the Liberal Establishment. Truss may not be made rich by the book: reportedly, her small US advance of about $6,000 was far larger than the one she got from her British publisher. But she will be hoping to drum up sales on her forthcoming visit to Washington, said…

Scottie Scheffler, the world’s top-ranked golfer and heavy pre-tournament favourite, began this year’s Masters knowing that his heavily pregnant wife, Meredith, could go into labour at any moment, said Rick Broadbent in The Times. Had she done so, the American had “promised to walk off the course”, no matter where he stood on the leaderboard. Some things, he said, mattered more than golf, the birth of his first child being one of them. In the event, though, there was nothing to distract Scheffler from doing what he does best: making his rivals look ordinary. He went into the final day leading by a single shot, and “for about two-thirds of an enthralling finale the outcome was in some doubt”. Yet Scheffler “fended off each assault on his lead” as it…

Football Manchester City lead the Premier League after both Liverpool and Arsenal suffered home defeats. Bayer Leverkusen secured the Bundesliga title with a 5-0 victory over Werder Bremen. MotoGP Maverick Viñales won the GP of the Americas, and became the first rider to win a Sunday race with three different manufacturers. Rugby union Harlequins reached the semi-finals of the Champions Cup with a 42-41 victory over Bordeaux. They will play Toulouse, who knocked out Exeter Chiefs. Northampton Saints also reached the last four.…

by Suzi Ronson Faber 320pp £20 The Week bookshop £15.99 In 1971, Suzi Ronson (then Suzanne Fussey) was a 21-year-old hairdresser at a salon in Beckenham, southeast London, when one of her customers – Mrs Jones – mentioned her “artistic” son David, said Anthony Quinn in The Observer. The next week, Mrs Jones brought in David’s wife, Angie, who was so delighted with the “outrageous” haircut Suzi gave her that she took her to meet David himself – “a pale and epicene young man” who had just started calling himself David Bowie. With the help of a German antidandruff product, Suzi transformed David’s “mousy” hair into a “spiky red feather cut”. It was the birth of the “look of Ziggy Stardust”. Suzi, infatuated with the couple and their bohemian world,…

Recalling Ralph Richardson’s famed performance as Sir John Falstaff in a 1945 production at the Old Vic, Kenneth Tynan wrote that it had been “too rich and many-sided to be crammed into a single word”. I felt the same about Ian McKellen’s Falstaff in this slick, modern-dress adaptation of Henry IV Parts I & II, said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian. Donning a fatsuit to play Shakespeare’s antihero for the first time, aged 84, McKellen gives us a Falstaff who is “tragic almost from the start”: a “pub drunk, and in soiled shirt and braces”; a “wheeler-dealer, wheezing and snorting, adenoidal and dyspeptic”. Rather than a “carnivalesque” figure, this Falstaff is a “carnival grotesque”: it’s a “radically moving” and “richly complex” performance that deserves to be seen. Director Robert Icke…

Ripley is far from the first screen adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley: there was Plein Soleil in 1960, starring Alain Delon, and Anthony Minghella’s version in 1999, said James Jackson in The Times. Wisely, this one “tries something different”. Presented in “stylised black and white”, the eight-part Netflix series features Andrew Scott as Tom Ripley, the grifter who is hired to travel to Italy to convince the wealthy Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) to go home to the US; and who instead inveigles his way into Dickie’s life, as Dickie’s girlfriend (Dakota Fanning) watches from the sidelines with mounting suspicion. “At times it can feel as if you’re watching scenes from a play”, but “almost by stealth”, the series draws you in. Previous versions of Ripley have been…

“The last of 13 surviving green cab shelters providing rest and refreshment to generations of drivers in London has been listed by the Government in recognition of its architectural and historical significance,” said Harriet Sherwood in The Guardian. The wooden shelters were built by the Cabmen’s Shelter Fund, the first in 1875, when cabs were horse-drawn. Many had a rail fixed to the outside so cabbies could tie their horses while they rested. More than 60 were built in London between 1875 and 1950, of which 13 still stand. All now have Grade II status, on the advice of Historic England. The latest to be listed is in St John’s Wood (pictured), and is thought to have been one of the last built. “Full of intrigue, history, tea and bacon…

Harry calls Alice at 3am and she talks him through his drink craving. Susan is annoyed to be the subject of one of George’s controversial videos. Chris tells Harrison he’s still in love with Alice. Alice, exhausted at work, lies to Lilian about why she’s been up all night, saying Martha is sick. When Chris finds out, he quizzes Alice, who is evasive. Kate meets Miranda at dinner with Brian and they hit it off. Will is concerned that Emma and Ed are buying second-hand equipment, but they reassure him; Emma tells Fallon she’s excited about the business. At training, Harrison tries to smooth things between Hannah and George. Hannah suggests a drink to Chris but he awkwardly refuses. George jumps at the chance to help Fallon at the Tea…

1 large cauliflower 1 packet of mixed grains or couscous (soaked in hot vegetable stock) or shop-bought pittas or flatbreads, to serve pomegranate seeds (optional but pretty), to garnish For the shawarma paste: 50ml melted butter 50ml olive oil 3 garlic cloves, crushed 1 tsp sweet smoked paprika 1 tsp cayenne pepper (or Kashmiri chilli powder) 1 tsp ground coriander 1 tsp ground cumin 1 tsp ground turmeric 1 tsp ground allspice ½ tsp ground cinnamon juice of ½ a lemon For the pistachio yogurt: 75g coriander stalks and leaves 40g shelled pistachios 2 garlic cloves, peeled 2 tbsp lemon juice 250g Greek yogurt sea salt, to taste For the salad: ¼ red cabbage, shredded 2 little gem lettuces, sliced 2 carrots, grated 1 red onion, finely sliced handful of mild Lombardi pickled peppers…

Try the four-mile stretch from Talybont to Llangynidr along the Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal, where the towpath is lined with bluebells, anemones and primroses. There’s a peaceful 11-mile route from Stranmillis to Lisburn along the Lagan Canal south of Belfast city centre, through pretty woodlands and wildflower meadows. If you set off from Hawkesbury Junction, where the Coventry Canal meets the Oxford Canal, there’s a five-mile trail to Coventry city centre, lined with works by local artists, such as Stephen Hitchin’s The Journeyman, depicting the tools used to build the canal. Spot rare chaser dragonflies, blackcaps and chiffchaffs on a 12-mile route from Bradfordon-Avon along the Kennet & Avon Canal to Caen Hill Locks, on the outskirts of Devizes. Grade I-listed Five Rise Locks in Bingley is the steepest lock…

The Blind Bull Little Hucklow, Derbyshire This “snazzed-up” 12th century inn is a “welcoming retreat” in a beautiful Peak District hamlet near the elegant spa town of Buxton, says Vincent Crump in The Times. It was rescued from dereliction in 2020 by its current owner, who has created five guest rooms in an old piggery across the lane. Three have mini patios, three have claw-foot baths, and all are spacious, with minimalist prints, fancy bath products and predominantly white, loft-style decor. There’s also a one-bed cottage. The restaurant serves sturdy, sophisticated food, and there’s much to do nearby, including lots of “bucolic Dales walking”. Doubles from £130 b&b; theblindbull.co.uk.…

A shameful saga of malign incompetence Editorial The Times Alan Bates, the former sub-postmaster who led 555 victims of the Horizon scandal to the High Court, has said he will bring a private prosecution against the Post Office’s former managers if the police fail to bring criminal prosecutions. Quite right, said The Times. This was “the worst large-scale miscarriage of justice in British history” – “knowingly” perpetrated by senior managers who, as the ongoing inquiry makes clear, “were fully aware” that the Fujitsu system at the heart of the Horizon program was faulty. And let’s not stop at the Post Office. “It is particularly infuriating that a giant company such as Fujitsu”, which knowingly misled the Post Office, “has hardly been held to account”. Fujitsu’s other government contracts have remained…

The week’s best shares BAE Systems The Daily Telegraph Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted a U-turn in military spending, boosting BAE’s prospects. Once cheap and high-yielding, but now set for growth given sound finances and exposure to a range of market segments. Buy. £12.77. Keystone Law Group The Sunday Times This pioneering law firm embraces tech and modern working practices to provide cheaper rates for clients. Signing up new lawyers to take on more cases. Cash-generative with rising revenues and profits. Buy. 620p. Kitwave Group The Daily Telegraph Following healthy advances in sales and profits, this nimble wholesaler – focusing on sweets, snacks, drinks and chilled food – is expanding its product range and footprint via acquisitions. Yields 3.44%. Buy. 361p. Mitie Group The Times Tech investment at the outsourcing…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1410 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 29 April. Send it to The Week Crossword 1410, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid/listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) This week’s winner will receive Week-branded items including a notebook, coffee mug and tote bag, as well as two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 1 Midshipman before leaving is relaxed (4-5) 6 Best confectionery on the planet? (4) 8 This eastern language is secure reportedly (3) 9 What a commercial fisherman takes home? (3,8) 11 Rod’s bluffing card game (5) 12 Child slept briefly in novel (9) 13 Noisy things startle…

As Israel has insisted that it will respond to the Iranian assault, the big question now is how, said Dexter Filkins in The New Yorker. Ever since the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, a “cardinal rule” of its defence policy has been to respond to every attack on it, usually with even greater force. But such a reaction in this case would risk a full-scale war and “devastation across the Middle East”. The fact that the Iranian strikes did not cause mass casualties will have eased the pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu “to do something rash”, said Max Boot in The Washington Post. But he might nevertheless see this as a “perfect excuse to bomb Iran’s nuclear programme or other military installations”. Such a response would be justifiable, but…

A restaurant in Italy is offering a free bottle of wine to customers who are willing to relinquish their phones for the duration of their meal. Angelo Lella, the owner of Al Condominio, in Verona, said that the aim was to encourage diners to talk to one another. “There is no need to look at your phone every five seconds,” he said. During the lockdowns, many consumers turned to delivery apps such as Just Eat and Deliveroo to provide them with meals. And it seems that the habit has stuck. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, UK adults consumed 400 calories a week from takeaways on average in 2022, 50% above pre-pandemic levels. We are also still eating more on-the-go food such as sandwiches.…

Keir Starmer has said he is “very concerned” about the number of unpaid carers being forced to repay thousands of pounds, owing to minor breaches of benefits rules. Full-time carers can claim a care allowance of £81.90 a week; they can supplement this with a part-time job paying up to £151. But if they earn as little as £1 more than this, they must repay all the money received in benefits. The Department for Work and Pensions has the data that shows if someone is earning too much, but often it fails to notify claimants for months, resulting in them having to pay back huge sums. In 2022-23, 26,700 carers were forced to make repayments; 36 had to repay more than £20,000.…

Brussels NatCon chaos: A National Conservatism conference attended by right-wing politicians from across Europe descended into chaos this week, when police turned up with an order to shut it down. The event, held at a hotel in Brussels, and attended by Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and the far-right French politician Éric Zemmour, was due to last two days. But hours in, Nigel Farage (pictured) was giving his speech when police arrived and blocked the entrance. A local mayor said that the “far-right is not welcome”, and that the event presented a security risk; however, the Belgian PM Alexander De Croo described his order as an “unacceptable” attack on free speech. Brussels Russian “bribes”: Belgium has launched a criminal investigation into claims that several MEPs have accepted cash payments from Moscow. Alexander…

“The Duchess of Sussex is launching a new Netflix series celebrating ‘the joys of cooking, gardening, entertaining, and friendship’. Lifestyle, in other words. She just launched American Riviera Orchard, her absurdly named new lifestyle brand. If you’re beautiful and famous, lifestyle is an alluring prospect. You get to run a shop where your aura, rather than the quality of your products, lets you put the prices up. Its genius is that it is unending: no matter how many yoga mats you buy, you will never look like Meghan, have her friends or her house in California. What enriches her will make her customers poor and miserable, which isn’t much of a lifestyle.” Ed Cumming in The Daily Telegraph…

A trade in babies that we should ban Jenni Russell The Times I’m with the Pope, says Jenni Russell. He thinks surrogacy breaks a sacred bond between mothers and babies and should be banned. So do I. Its defenders present it as a charitable act made by selfless women on behalf of the infertile: in reality, it’s a “monstrous global industry” that exploits the vulnerable. This became horribly clear after the Ukraine invasion, when hundreds of Ukrainian surrogates struggled to reach border areas to fulfil their €50,000 contracts. All the media concern was for the distress of the parents coming to collect what they’d paid for, not for the mothers who’d “carried those children, fled with them and given birth” in horrific circumstances. And demand for rented wombs comes not…

Long waits for autism assessment An extraordinary rise in demand for autism assessments and ADHD treatments has overwhelmed the NHS, a new report warns. Since 2019, there has been a five-fold rise in people waiting to see a specialist who can diagnose autism, analysis of NHS England data by the Nuffield Trust has found. In December 2023, there were 172,000 patients with an open referral for suspected autism – the highest ever reported. There is no national data published on referrals for ADHD assessments, but surveys suggest long waiting times are the norm, and there has been a 51% increase in ADHD medication prescriptions since 2019. The report suggests the rise in demand is due to better awareness of autism and ADHD. However, it acknowledges that experts are undecided about…

Not long ago, anyone who suggested banning smartphones for under-16s would have been dismissed as an alarmist and a Luddite, said Kristina Murkett in The Spectator. But now, the tide is turning. According to a recent poll, 83% of parents with at least one child under 18 think that the devices are harming young people, and 58% would back a ban for under-16s (rising to 77% of those with primary-school-age children). The evidence that smartphones are harmful is “overwhelming”. Studies have found that using them damages “children’s concentration spans, sleeping habits, self-esteem, social interactions, physical exercise, sexuality, mental health, body image and more”. Yet parents keep handing them out (91% of children have a smartphone by the age of 11) because they think their child will be socially isolated without…

Great Britain “made no secret of their underdog status” as they took on France in the Billie Jean King Cup last weekend, said Tumaini Carayol in The Observer. France were the superior team on paper, and, on the basis of pressing their home advantage, had elected to play the match on clay – a surface not loved by most British players. When Katie Boulter was thrashed in her opening singles match on Friday, and Emma Raducanu then went a set and a break down to Caroline Garcia, the writing looked to be on the wall for Great Britain. But from that point on, everything changed, said Stuart Fraser in The Sunday Times. Raducanu turned around her match against Garcia – a former world No. 4 – to prevail 3-6, 6-3,…

Our selective support… To The Daily Telegraph I am bemused by reports that the RAF shot down Iranian drones targeted at Israel. Why hasn’t it assisted Ukraine in a similar fashion? Surely a country that has already been illegally invaded deserves similar, if not stronger, support. J.L. Greenwood, London …has consequences To The Daily Telegraph The use of RAF fighters to shoot down Iranian drones will result in retaliatory action by Iran in the form of attacks on British shipping navigating through the Strait of Hormuz. This irresponsible disregard for the lives of British seafarers is reprehensible. Throughout my 44-year career in the Merchant Navy, I had to look down the wrong end of an Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s weapon on a number of occasions. I’ve been fired on by Boghammar…

by Sheila Heti Fitzcarraldo Editions 168pp £10.99 The Week bookshop £8.99 This “thrilling” book by the Canadian novelist Sheila Heti “delivers almost exactly what its title promises”, said Claire Dederer in The Guardian. Having kept a diary for more than a decade, Heti “culled sentences” from its pages and arranged them in alphabetical order. Now, she has published the result as a book. It sounds like a recipe for indecipherability, said Francesca Peacock in Literary Review. Yet it’s amazingly easy to “pick up the themes”. We follow Heti’s many relationships, with both men and women, as well as her ongoing anxieties about writing. Alphabetical Diaries is often funny too – as when Heti follows the question “Why do women go mad?” by asking “Why does one bra clasp in the…

There’s “exciting news for audiophiles”, said Fiona Sturges in the FT. Serial, which kicked off the boom in true-crime podcasts ten years ago, is back for a fourth series. The show made its name with a “whodunnit” – the story of the murder of a Baltimore high-school student and the potentially unsafe conviction of her ex-boyfriend. Since then, Serial has broadened its range to examine other aspects of the US criminal justice system. The new series is about Guantánamo Bay, the US naval base in Cuba where hundreds of suspected terrorists have been detained. The subject has been covered by other podcasts, not least Radiolab’s The Other Latif. What Serial brings to it is many gripping new interviews with former employees – including interrogators, guards and chaplains, as well as…

Between them, Antwerp’s Museum Plantin-Moretus and the Ashmolean in Oxford own some of the most “outstanding” holdings of 16th and 17th century Flemish drawings, said Jackie Wullschläger in the FT. Including masterpieces by the likes of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Anthony van Dyck and Peter Paul Rubens, the museums’ respective collections of these works stretch to the hundreds. The two institutions have pooled their resources to stage a joint display of the “crème de la crème” – many of which have never been shown in public. First presented in Antwerp, the show has now travelled to Oxford, and marks the first time the Ashmolean has dedicated an event to its Flemish works. Bringing together more than 100 drawings from both museums, plus some exquisite loans, the result is an exhibition…

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell, 1956 (Penguin £8.99). I can still remember the ecstatic moment when I first read this book as an animal-mad nine-year-old. While Durrell was consorting with geckos in prewar Corfu, I was mixing it up with ducklings in 1970s Sussex, but still the sense of connection was immediate. H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald, 2014 (Vintage £10.99). MacDonald’s 2014 account of how she combined a year of grieving for her beloved father with training her goshawk Mabel was a huge hit. A decade on, and it reads as searingly as ever. In lyrical prose MacDonald describes how she learns to anticipate Mabel’s every feathered move. The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang, 1889 (Dover £3.95). In the 1880s, Andrew Lang repackaged spooky…

Programmes Our Changing Planet: Restoring Our Reefs The third season of the BBC’s ambitious seven-year project documenting threatened ecosystems. This time the team look at efforts to restore coral reefs. Sun 21 Apr, BBC1 18:00 (60mins). GOOD starring David Tennant A chance to see the actor’s critically acclaimed performance in C.P. Taylor’s dark Third Reich drama, filmed during its run at the National Theatre in 2022. Sun 21 Apr, C4 22:00 (110mins). Red Eye Six-part thriller set on a flight from London to Beijing, where three women’s lives collide after a British doctor (Richard Armitage) is arrested for murder. Sun 21 Apr, ITV1 21:00 (65mins). Growing Up Jewish Four young Jewish people and their families get ready for one of the most important events of their lives – their bar…

O.J. Simpson 1947-2024 O.J. Simpson, who has died aged 76, overcame a childhood in the projects to become one of America’s greatest footballers. A running back universally known as The Juice, he dazzled fans with his speed, agility and determination; he was named as the National Football League’s most valuable player in 1973, and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Handsome, charismatic and apparently affable, he later parlayed his success into a career as a sports commentator and actor. He appeared in dozens of movies and commercials – including one for Hertz, which had him sprinting through an airport, hurdling every obstacle. “Running, man, that’s what I do,” he said in 1975. “All my life I’ve been a runner.” And yet the race for which he will…

Every little helps When Tesco launched its own-brand tablet computer in 2013, it was the culmination of an ill-advised diversification that took in garden centres and even restaurant chains. An ensuing accounting scandal revealed a £6.4bn black hole. A new boss, Dave Lewis, began a painful campaign to get “back to basics”. Last week the retailer filed a £2.3bn pre-tax profit. Gulden year Following a string of profit warnings, Adidas was left reeling when rapper Kanye West’s antisemitic comments ended a partnership with West’s Yeezy brand, on which Adidas had become uncomfortably reliant. New CEO, the former footballer Bjørn Gulden, has focused on a return to “classic products”. Adidas, which was braced for a €700m loss last year, posted an operating profit of €268m. Brick by brick Having thrived on…

Neil Woodford Five years after the collapse of his £3.7bn flagship fund, the “former star stockpicker” Neil Woodford has been accused by the Financial Conduct Authority of having a “defective” understanding of risk, said Jack Simpson in The Guardian. The FCA notice warns that Woodford, once dubbed “Britain’s Warren Buffett”, may face further action. Some 300,000 investors were affected when the Woodford Equity Income Fund collapsed after withdrawals prompted “a liquidity crisis”. The FCA also delivered a “kicking” to the fund’s administrator, Link, said Alistair Osborne in The Times. Absurdly, Woodford now claims that the FCA’s only criticisms of him relate to liquidity issues, which were Link’s responsibility. So whose fault was it that an equity income fund was filled with so much “illiquid, unlisted exotica”, then? Ben Delo Legal…

Sam Jones breeds some of the most sought-after dogs in Britain: Bernedoodles, mountaindoodles and ultimate doodles – dogs that are sometimes delivered via private jet to their new owners in Guernsey or Bermuda. But when Jones first started breeding them, she received death threats via social media from fellow breeders. “They said I was a bad person and I was to leave the Bernese alone, because they were perfectly well – that was the polite version,” she tells me. What was the rude version? “That I needed to go and f**king die.” She tells this to me matter-of-factly while sitting in an armchair surrounded by six of her dogs, tails wagging. It seems strange that this softly spoken and friendly Welshwoman would rile people enough to prompt such abuse, but…

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