Table of contents for 1495 in The Week

“The hurly-burly is almost done,” said the Daily Mail: polling day is upon us. The parties spent the final week of the campaign making last-minute pitches to voters. Rishi Sunak urged them not to “surrender” to a Labour “supermajority”, warning that it would lead to major tax hikes and pose a threat to national security. Keir Starmer asked voters for a strong mandate to get on with what he called “the change we need”. At their second head-to-head debate last week, Sunak gave what was widely regarded as his punchiest performance to date, but few expect it to stave off a punishing election defeat for his party. When the PM stunned his colleagues by calling an early election six weeks ago, they “feared the worst”, said Katy Balls in The…

Thursday’s “night of political drama” will begin when the exit poll is published at 10pm, said Tim Glanfield in The Sunday Times. This poll is only a sample of voters from 150 constituencies across the UK, but usually provides a pretty accurate picture of how each party has performed. The first of 650 constituencies to declare will be Sunderland, a safe Labour seat where a result is due by 11:30pm. By 2am, about 50 more will have been declared – many also safe Labour seats in northern urban areas. Watch the bellweather seat of Nuneaton: the party that wins here has gone on to govern after every election except one since 1983. In Rochdale, we’ll see if George Galloway holds the seat he won in February’s by-election. “The excitement will…

The NHS has warned that the country is experiencing a summer wave of Covid infections. On its website, NHS England warns that according to the UK Health Security Agency, the increase is being seen “across all indicators, including hospitalisations”. The number of people hospitalised with Covid was 3.31 per 100,000 in the week ending 16 June – up from 2.67 the week before. The wave is believed to be being driven by sub-variants of Omicron known as “Flirt”. The nickname derives from mutations in amino acids, represented by the letters F, L, R and T.…

Andy Murray, who decided not to compete in the Wimbledon singles games. The former world No. 1, who is set to retire later this year, recently had surgery to remove a spinal cyst. He will now bid farewell to the All England Club by playing in the doubles games, alongside his older brother Jamie. The Henley Royal Regatta, after water-quality testing, days before the event, revealed very high levels of E. coli bacteria in the Thames. The 4,000 rowers taking part in the regatta were advised to cover any cuts and avoid swallowing splashes of water. Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former adviser, who surrendered to jail having lost a last-minute appeal at the supreme court. Bannon was convicted of contempt for defying subpoenas issued by a congressional committee investigating the…

Washington DC Veterans pardoned: Declaring that he was “righting a historic wrong”, President Biden last week gave a presidential pardon to all US service veterans convicted of violating a now-repealed ban on consensual gay sex. Article 125 of The Uniform Code of Military Justice, which criminalised sodomy, was in force between 1951 and 2013, and thousands of military personnel were convicted under the article and dishonourably discharged from the military, with many being unable to claim benefits as a result. Those convicted will now be able to apply for a certificate of pardon, which would amend their discharge status and enable them to recover lost pay and benefits. “We have a sacred obligation to all of our service members,” Biden said in his proclamation. Biden has previously used his powers…

“The Omnicause is every cause you must care about if you’re A Good Progressive rolled into one, because everything in the world is connected. So trans rights are connected to Palestinian rights are connected to the environment, and any self-respecting progressive who cares about one has to care about the other two. Hence, Queers for Palestine, even though LGBTQ+ people live under the threat of death in Gaza. In short, ‘Everything that I don’t like is fascism.’ Gender, fossil fuels, policing, indigenous rights, Gaza – according to The Omnicause, they’re all linked. It’s the fatberg of causes, and the fat gluing them all together is Western narcissism.” Hadley Freeman in The Jewish Chronicle…

Thou shalt not bring God into the classroom Mark Chancey The Hill Louisiana has just passed an alarming new law, says Mark Chancey. It requires that a poster-sized display of the Ten Commandments hang in all state-funded school classrooms, from kindergartens to universities. “If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses,” declared the Republican governor, Jeff Landry. He and other proponents claim the commandments aren’t purely religious, but are“foundational documents” of the US. The law cites a quotation it attributes to James Madison about Americans governing themselves“according to the moral principles” of the commandments. The problem with this quote is that Madison never said it. Indeed, there’s no record of any of the founders saying any such thing.…

New slow-release ketamine pills can be a safe and effective treatment for depression, a trial has found. The anaesthetic is already prescribed to patients who have not responded to other treatments, but it is injected in a clinic and can cause side-effects, including high blood pressure and a spaced-out feeling. The hope was that if the drug were released more gradually, these side-effects would be reduced, while the pill form would allow it to be taken at home. For the phase 2 trial, 168 patients with treatment-resistant depression were randomly assigned to take either the tablets or a placebo twice a week for three months. Some 70% of those in the placebo group had a relapse during this time, compared with 43% of those who took ketamine. Side-effects were minimal…

It has been a bruising end to the election campaign for Reform UK, said Stephen Bush in the FT. Nigel Farage has attracted flak for asserting in an interview that the West “provoked” Russia into invading Ukraine. And his party has been hit by a string of embarrassing news reports about its supporters. Last week it distanced itself from a volunteer canvasser who had been filmed by an undercover Channel 4 reporter making offensive comments. Andrew Parker had called Rishi Sunak a “f**king P***”, and suggested that the Army should use migrants arriving on British beaches for target practice. Over the weekend, Reform disowned three candidates over other offensive remarks. Collectively, these stories have generated“the worst headlines in the party’s brief existence”. But since Reform UK is largely targeting older…

Euros Spain progressed to the last 16 with a 4-1 victory over Georgia. They will next play Germany, who beat Denmark 2-0. France beat Belgium 1-0 and will meet Portugal, who beat Slovenia. Tennis Emma Raducanu beat Renata Zarazúa 7-6. 6-3 in the first round of Wimbledon. Andy Murray pulled out of the singles, but will play doubles. Cricket England’s women clinched their ODI series against New Zealand with an eight-wicket victory. Maia Bouchier struck her first international hundred as England won with 153 balls to spare.…

Running time: 1hr 30mins “Talk about topical,” said Sarah Hemming in the Financial Times. The Old Vic must have known that Joe Penhall’s“riveting new political drama” would be timely when they programmed it; but what were the odds of it opening three weeks before the election… “well, perhaps best not to talk in betting terms right now”. Marking the return to the stage of James Corden as the titular constituent, this “gripping, comic and, ultimately, moving drama” also boasts an assured performance from Anna Maxwell Martin as a hardworking backbench MP – and landing on stage in the midst of a “mudslinging” scandal, it serves as an important reminder that our politicians are human beings who“conduct their work in an increasingly hostile environment”. The play does not have the “brash…

A watercolour drawing for the original edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone has fetched a record amount at auction, says The Guardian. The artwork by Thomas Taylor, which featured on the debut edition of the first novel in 1997, was sold after a four-way battle between bidders lasting nearly ten minutes, for $1.9m (£1.5m) at a sale by Sotheby’s auction house in New York on Wednesday. The dealer said it was “the most valuable Harry Potter item ever sold at auction”. It was Taylor’s first professional commission; he was 23 at the time, just out of art school, and working in a children’s bookshop. After being asked to illustrate the character by the publisher Barry Cunningham at Bloomsbury, he took two days to complete the illustration. He was…

Adam reports to Chris that Alice pleaded not guilty; Chris is worried she’ll go to jail. George and Eddie make a final Bartleby video but have different ideas about how to spend the sale money. Oliver reports that Roy is staying in Bulgaria for good and asks Lily to be his assistant at Grey Gables. George and Eddie bring Bartleby on a farewell village tour; when Eddie suggests buying pigs with the money, furious George calls Meg, the buyer, and calls off the deal. Lynda enlists Joy to run the Ambridge fête. Kirsty hosts a video call to Roy and his friends wish him well; he advises Lily to take the job. After a comment from George, Justin and Lilian discover rumours about Alice’s drinking circulating on social media. Susan…

This is my favourite type of salsa, says Karla Zazueta. Spicy and smoky, it’s found all over Mexico, and makes a great addition to any table. My father regularly made it when I was growing up, and every time he did, we’d have to leave the house, as the chilli fumes would get into every corner and make us cough. If you make it, remember to open the windows when you toast the chillies: that way you’ll prevent experiencing a spicy rush to your head. Serves 4 2 small garlic cloves, unpeeled 40g onion, peeled and whole 2 plum tomatoes 15 dried árbol chillies, stems removed 120ml hot water ½ tsp sea salt juice of 1 lime • Heat a comal (Mexican flat griddle pan) or a dry frying pan…

“A civic park of the future”, Stavros Niarchos Park in Athens was once a car park for the 2004 Olympics. Now there are olive-tree walks, fountains, a huge roof garden and playground, plus fine sea views (snfcc.org). Set between the sea and mountains south of Barcelona, Mossèn Costa i Llobera has a “stunning” sprawling collection of cactuses, from bold blue agaves to organ pipes from the American west (barcelona.cat). Jonsered Gardens, neat Gothenburg, Sweden, were resurrected in 2010 with accessibility and biodiversity as a focus. Explore ornamental, formal, kitchen and classic English gardens (tradgardsresan.se). Hermannshof, near Heidelberg, dubbed Germany’s horticultural gift to the world, boasts rich borders and ecological planting schemes (sichtungsgarten-hermannshof.de). Amsterdam’s Darwin’s Flower Garden, solely maintained by volunteers, has spectacular colourful borders and opulent herbaceous perennials (vriendenvanparkdarwin.nl). SOURCE: THE…

La Roqqa Tuscany Tuscany’s rugged Monte Argentario peninsula is home to the stylish and famous Hotel Il Pellicano; but it has this delightful, recently revamped competitor, in the “chic” village of Porto Ercole, says Erin Florio in Condé Nast Traveller. Inside, Milanese architects Palomba & Serafini have mixed midcentury pieces and “ultra modern” features (such as an “eye-catching” white spiral staircase), and set them off against walls of “sage green or Terra di Siena orange”. The 55 rooms and suites have floor-to-ceiling windows and sea views, and there’s a rooftop bar, an outdoor restaurant specialising in local seafood, and a “smart” beach club. Doubles from about €500 per night b&b; laroqqa.com.…

Tata Steel: furnace furore Industrial strife in South Wales would be an inauspicious start for any new government – particularly a Labour one, said Alan Crawford and Ellen Milligan on Bloomberg. No wonder the party pulled out all the stops to head off a bruising strike, now suspended, that might have forced the immediate closure of the vast Port Talbot steelworks. A Labour government that turned away would be “like the Tories with the mines in the valleys”, said one local steelworker. “They’d never be forgiven.” The episode was triggered when the Unite union announced strike action for 8 July. The plant’s Indian owner, Tata Steel, responded by threatening to halt operations forthwith, terminating thousands of jobs, said The Times. “Britain’s biggest steel producer” has been in talks with several…

A fundamental rethink of how to do business Rana Foroohar Financial Times Last week, I attended a retreat with 40 global business leaders where – and it’s a sign of the times – the usual topics of business, technology and management were eclipsed by politics, says Rana Foroohar. “Conversation revolved around the meaning of crucial 2024 election results, particularly in the US and Europe” (post-Brexit Britain being“ironically” deemed“ the least ugly house on the block”), and the risk of “hot conflict” in the South China Sea. Most CEOs are “hedging their bets, big time”, and that is being reflected in business and supply-chain models. “The push and pull of national concerns has replaced a single global ‘efficiency’ paradigm”, prompting “a burst of far more sophisticated strategies for regionalisation and de-risking”…

The prize of Alena Kate Pettitt’s childhood Barbie collection, the item that she still searches for fruitlessly on eBay, was a dining table. Press a button, and – magic! – a turkey dinner swung around from underneath and landed on top. It is a totemic image of homemaking: a hearty, home-cooked meal, served by an immaculate, apron-wearing hostess – an actual doll. “It was the best thing ever,” Pettitt said, of Barbie’s turkey, over coffee in Cheltenham. “I wish I still had it.” Pettitt, who is 38, is a self-proclaimed “trad wife”, one of the earliest and best known in a burgeoning movement of women who spend their days taking care of their homes and families and documenting their activities on social media. Her fame was assured in 2020, when,…

Marks & Spencer is to launch a clothing repair and alteration service in an effort to reduce textile waste. From August, customers will be able to book their M&S clothes in to be repaired, via an online form, and have their fixed items posted back to them within ten days. The repairs will be carried out by tailors working for the company Sojo, with prices starting at £5. Services offered will include zip and button replacements, and “invisible” knitwear repair. A nine-year-old double amputee who missed the King’s garden party because of traffic had tea last week with Queen Camilla instead. Tony Hudgell, who had to have his legs amputated as a baby owing to abuse he suffered at the hands of his biological parents, was on his way to…

When historians look back at Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call parliamentary elections for 30 June, “they will only have one word”, said Alexis Brézet in Le Figaro: “Disaster!” Macron had “almost everything”: the presidency, with three years left to run; “a majority, not absolute, but a majority all the same”; “indisputable authority”. Now he has lost it all. Macron had declared – after the far-right National Rally’s (RN) victory in last month’s European elections – that France needed a moment of political “clarification”. He wanted to unite the centrist bloc, divide the Left, and “isolate the RN”. But his gamble has failed, dramatically. The RN, led by Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, won the first round of the election last Sunday, with a record 33% of the vote. The…

In a sign that we are living in a boom time for professional tutors, one agency in London has advertised a role with a salary of £288,000 a year. The advert calls for an “excellent professional architect” to provide year-round support and mentorship to a “young lady” who is hoping to become an architect. The successful applicant would be expected to help with coursework and exams, and leverage their “connections” to secure her placements in “prestigious” firms. Following a spate of thefts, one Land Rover owner in London has resorted to chaining their car to a tree. Footage on social media showed the car attached to a heavy chain and padlock, with a second lock fitted on its steering wheel.…

89% of Reform UK voters believe that young people do not have enough respect for traditional values. 78% think that multiculturalism has made the UK worse. 77% support the death penalty for some crimes. YouGov 46% of British Jews intend to vote Labour in this week’s election, up from an estimated 11% in 2019. 30% intend to vote for the Conservatives this week. Institute for Jewish Policy Research 26% of voters say that Rishi Sunak’s warnings of a Labour “supermajority” have made them more likely to vote Labour. 13% say the warnings have made them more likely to vote for the Tories. 36% say they’ve not affected their vote. Techne UK/The Independent…

Irvine Welsh’s quest There was a time when Irvine Welsh did not shy away from ingesting dangerous chemicals, says Janice Turner in The Times; but these days, the Trainspotting novelist is more careful about what he puts into his body. He was sceptical about the Covid vaccine; he rarely drinks, and only takes drugs occasionally, if it’s “the good stuff”. As the years pass, fears of his mortality press in. When his mother died last year, he decided to walk into the Australian Outback alone to “have a Jim Morrison-type thing”, and commune with her and his late father. But he got lost. “I kept sort of panicking and it was really quite scary.” After five hours, he staggered back to Alice Springs with no spiritual revelations; then, a few…

Walking wards off back pain Experienced by around 619 million people worldwide, lower back pain is a leading cause of disability – and it frequently recurs. One in three people who have one bout will have another within a year. Now, a study in Australia has found that going for regular walks is an effective way of preventing recurrences. For the trial, 701 adults who had recently had back pain were followed for three years. Half were assigned to a walking programme, which meant going on five 30-minute walks a week and a few sessions with a physiotherapist; the rest went about their lives as normal. Those in the walking group went 208 days, on average, without a flare-up, whereas the non-walkers went only 112. Walkers also took less time…

Joe Biden went into last Thursday’s live presidential debate with just one job, said Katie Stallard in The New Statesman: to reassure Americans that he is fit enough to fight the election and lead the country for another four years. The Democrats had proposed the event unusually early in the campaign to put an end to months of speculation that the 81-year-old is lapsing into senility. And he’d spent several days preparing for it. But from the moment he shuffled onto the stage in Atlanta, it became clear that this was going to be a disaster. The president’s gait was stiff; his voice was hoarse and quavering; he mumbled his words and struggled to complete his sentences. At one point, while answering a question about the national debt, he started…

“Going on strike within days of a general election is a political act,” said The Independent. “Worse than that, it is futile.” No government can negotiate or take decisions during an election campaign. Yet junior doctors in England chose to strike over five days to Tuesday – their 11th industrial action since March last year, taking the total number of days lost to 44. Junior doctors do, in fact, have a decent argument for a pay rise. But this latest strike “puts pressure neither on the outgoing government nor, directly, on the incoming one”. Unfortunately, said The Sun, the junior doctors’ section of the British Medical Association, their union, is run by “militant Corbynites” eager to give a “last two-fingered salute to the Tories they despise”. In doing so, they…

The record books will show that the 2024 Austrian Grand Prix was won by George Russell in his Mercedes, said Giles Richards in The Guardian. But in truth, the final outcome is not what the race will be remembered for. What mattered in the Styrian mountains was the“ill-tempered and calamitously costly battle” between Lando Norris and Max Verstappen – a battle that culminated in both suffering back-tyre punctures when their cars collided with seven laps to go. Verstappen had comfortably led for most of the afternoon, but a slow pit stop on lap 52 had enabled Norris to close the gap. For the next 12 laps, the pair fought “nose to tail”, and their radio communications became increasingly fraught, with both accusing the other of dangerous driving. Matters came to…

Losing personal touch… To The Times Until the 1960s, the ballot paper in a general election showed only the candidates’ names, not their party affiliation. You were supposed to vote for whoever you thought would best represent you in parliament, rather than a political party. Candidates’ flyers and leaflets told you about the individual and what they stood for. If you wished to vote for a specific party, then you at least had to know which party the candidate supported. Now, most of the flyers tell you about the party, give you the candidate’s name, but give you no details about the candidate, their experience of life, or why they are suitable to represent you. Robin Garside, Weston Turville, Buckinghamshire …with the voting public To The Daily Telegraph In our…

by Chris Stein Corsair 304ppp £25 The Week Bookshop £19.99 The New York music scene of the 1970s has been “lovingly mythologised” in a string of books, including Patti Smith’s“bohemian memoir” Just Kids and Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain’s “grubby” oral history of punk, Please Kill Me, said Victoria Segal in The Sunday Times. Now it’s the turn of Chris Stein, the “enduringly stylish” guitarist who, in 1974, co-founded Blondie with his then girlfriend Debbie Harry. Stein’s memoir, Under a Rock, chronicles the band’s emergence from the 1970s punk scene to its brief period of mega-stardom, between 1978 and 1982, powered by hits such as Heart of Glass and Sunday Girl. If the book has a certain “flashbulb starkness” – Stein isn’t given to “deep analysis” – it makes up…

Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived. Henry VIII’s six wives are often reduced to this easily memorable couplet, said Evgenia Siokos in The Daily Telegraph. In this new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, their lives are examined and reconstructed in rich detail. The show brings together all manner of “artefacts, objets d’art and portraiture”. There are contemporary paintings and tapestries – “you quail before the penetrating gaze of Katherine Parr, the survivor, in a portrait attributed to Master John” – as well as clothing and jewellery from Henry’s court, plus a wealth of artworks and“paraphernalia” made long after their deaths. As a whole, it makes for a powerful corrective to the received wisdom, rescuing its six subjects from“reductionism” and allowing them “to be understood as vigorous, nuanced characters”. The…

Derek Jarman’s Garden by Derek Jarman, 1995 (Thames and Hudson £18.99). I have always been a fan of Derek Jarman (I even met him once) and I come back to his books again and again. This was the last he ever wrote and it is a beautiful gathering of thoughts and words on his fossicked garden of beach finds, sculptural stones, driftwood and adopted plants. Strands: A Year of Discoveries on the Beach by Jean Sprackland, 2012 (Vintage £12.99). Before she left to live in London, Sprackland decided to keep a record of her final year on the beach on which she had spent 20 years walking. It is a poetic and elegantly written ode to beachcombing. Adrift: The Curious Tale of the Lego Lost at Sea by Tracey Williams,…

Programmes Guy Martin’s Lost WW2 Bomber Martin takes part in an ambitious mission to recover the remains of a Lancaster bomber – and its missing crew – that has been submerged in a Dutch lake since 1943. Sun 7 Jul, C4 21:00 (90mins). The Turkish Detective New crime drama based on Barbara Nadel’s novels. British detective Mehmet Suleyman arrives in Istanbul to work with a local homicide unit. Sun 7 and Mon 8 Jul, BBC2 21:00 (50mins each). The Night Caller Robert Glenister and Sean Pertwee star in this psychological thriller about a lonely cab driver who becomes obsessed with a late-night radio DJ. Sun 7, Mon 8, Tue 9 and Wed 10 Jul, C5 21:00 (60mins each). Horsepower Docuseries going behind the scenes with trainer Andrew Balding at Kingsclere…

John Burnside 1955-2024 In the early part of his career John Burnside came across as “a Jekyll and Hyde figure”, said The Daily Telegraph. He wrote poetry about the beauty of the natural world, which he described as “celebratory and lyrical”, and novels featuring rape, murder and torture which, in the words of one critic, displayed a “livid streak of psychopathy”. His three “superb” volumes of memoir made sense of this “seemingly split personality”. In them, he described a traumatic childhood followed by years of mental illness and drink and drug abuse – hence the darkness of his novels; but since boyhood, he had also found refuge from the violence of his home life in the natural world, which he “hymned in verse”. Born into a Catholic family in 1955,…

Debbie Jevans The chair of the All England Club, who begins her “maiden” Wimbledon championship this week, is part of a new women’s doubles pairing, said William Turvill in The Sunday Times. For the first time, both senior jobs at the club are held by women – Jevans, 64, joins CEO Sally Bolton. Before embarking on a career in sports management, Jevans was a professional tennis player “who once squared up against Virginia Wade”, though she retired early at 23, when she got married. “If I regret anything, it’s not ever knowing how good I could have been,” she says. Her challenge now is to strike a balance between tradition and “edging” Wimbledon into the future. Will she follow the French Open into banning booze in the stands? “No, no,…

If the polls are “even close to being right”, Keir Starmer will become PM on Friday, said Glen Owen in The Mail on Sunday – a “seismic moment” for which Whitehall has been preparing for more than a year. His first task that morning will be to visit the King to request his permission to form a government. He’ll then address the nation from outside No. 10, before being “clapped through the door by staff”. Inside, he’ll be given a security briefing, and told by a senior Naval commander to draft four “letters of last resort” – orders to be carried out if the Government is “wiped out in a nuclear attack”. It will all happen at “dizzying speed”, said Toby Helm in The Observer. Almost before he has had…

Concerns were growing this week that thousands of voters could end up being “disenfranchised”, because postal ballots had still not arrived. The Daily Telegraph identified at least 91 constituencies where voters were affected, including 76 in England, 12 in Scotland and one in Wales. In Scotland, where schools have broken up, meaning voters were more likely to stay away on polling day, some councils opened emergency voting facilities. This week, Royal Mail denied claims that it was holding up deliveries, and called for a review of the printing and administration of ballot papers.…

Judi Dench and Siân Phillips, who became the first female members of The Garrick Club. The actresses were given fast-track membership at the club’s annual general meeting. Several women have been nominated for membership, but as it can take two years for members to be approved, there had been concerns that, despite its recent rule change, the club would remain all-male until 2026. Hard work, after Greece introduced a six-day working week for businesses that provide around-the-clock services. The regulation, introduced by the country’s pro-business government, means that employees of those firms can be compelled to work a 48-hour week, in return for 140% of their normal pay for the extra hours.…

Brussels Jobs spat: EU leaders have backed Ursula von der Leyen to serve a second term as president of the European Commission. The agreement, which must now be ratified by the European Parliament, was reached at last week’s EU summit, during which the leaders also picked the former Portuguese PM António Costa to be the next president of the European Council, replacing Charles Michel, and Estonia’s Kaja Kallas to be the EU’s foreign policy chief. All are members of centrist, pro-EU factions, and the process by which they were nominated was bitterly criticised by Italy’s hard-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni: she complained that six EU leaders from centrist parties had presented the names without consulting the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists Group in the European parliament – of which she…

1* Nocturnes, Op. 27: No. 2 in D-Flat Major by Chopin, performed by Arthur Rubinstein 2 My Foolish Heart by Victor Young and Ned Washington, performed by Billy Eckstine 3 Rock Around the Clock by Jimmy De Knight and Max C. Freedman, performed by Bill Haley and His Comets 4 Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G Major, BWV 1049 by Bach, performed by Orchestra Mozart (cond. Claudio Abbado) 5 Myfanwy by Joseph Parry and Mynyddog, performed by the Treorchy Male Choir 6 Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K.647 by Mozart, performed by Murray Perahia and the English Chamber Orchestra 7 And I Love Her by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, performed by The Beatles 8 Love Will Keep Us Together by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, performed by Neil Sedaka Book: The Children’s Encyclopedia by Arthur Mee…

Across Europe, politicians are pushing policies to increase childbirths. In France, Emanuel Macron has promised “demographic rearmament”, with better-paid parental leave and fertility check-ups. In Italy, Georgia Meloni regards boosting the birthrate as a patriotic “priority”. She has raised child allowances and increased investment in childcare facilities. The push to drive up birth rates in Europe is being led by the populist Right, and most of all by Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán. His government spends around 5% of its national GDP trying to prop up the birth rate. It provides three years of parental leave to mothers (but only ten days to fathers). It also offers lifelong exemption from income tax for women who have a child before age 30; and loans of $36,000, which are written off for…

NIGERIA A case of racial bias in the Hague Vanguard (Lagos) To read the roster of the International Criminal Court, you’d think only Africans ever committed atrocities, says Chidi Odinkalu. Since its founding in 2002, the tribunal in the Hague has convicted ten people of war crimes, genocide or crimes against humanity: every one has been an African. At one point, so many African leaders were rubbing elbows in the ICC detention centre – Congo’s Jean-Pierre Bemba, Liberia’s Charles Taylor, Côte d’Ivoire’s Laurent Gbagbo, all there at once – the place resembled “a committee meeting of leaders of the African Union (AU)”. This bias reflects the court’s inherent “colonial superciliousness”: at its inception, Western officials were quite open that it wasn’t meant to try the likes of them, but to…

People were surprised when it emerged that Phil Foden had flown home from the Euros to attend the birth of his third child: though 24, the Manchester City player looks even younger. In The Times, Patrick Kidd was reminded of Alan Johnson’s story about telling his boss, Tony Blair, that he had had three children by the age of 20. “Gosh,” the then PM supposedly replied. “You really are working class.” The former Bake Off presenter Sandi Toksvig has revealed that she decided to leave the show in 2020 because it was damaging her mental health. “No disrespect to the people who like to cook, but watching meringue dry and being told how many different kinds there are? I honestly thought I was going out of my mind,” she told…

“A committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing, but as a group decide nothing can be done.”Ranulph Fiennes, quoted in The Knowledge “You can only kick with one foot at a time. Otherwise, you fall on your butt.”Hungarian football legend Ferenc Puskás, quoted on Anfield Index “A nation is born stoic, and dies epicurean.”William Durant quoted in The Sunday Times “Books break the shackles of time.”Carl Sagan, quoted in The Guardian “We all know what to do, we just don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it.”Jean-Claude Junker, quoted in The Times “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”Soren Kierkegaard, quoted in Policy (Canada) “Some men are born posthumously.”Friedrich Nietzsche, quoted in The Guardian “We don’t want so…

With five overs to go in the T20 Cricket World Cup final, South Africa looked overwhelming favourites to beat India and claim their first-ever victory in a cricket World Cup, said Ali Martin in The Guardian. The Proteas needed just 30 runs, and had six wickets in hand, with the dangerous Heinrich Klaasen – who’d struck 24 from the previous over – still at the crease. What happened next “will go down in Indian cricket folklore”. India’s bowlers, led by the “utterly masterly Jasprit Bumrah”, delivered a “vice-like squeeze”. Wickets tumbled, and dot balls proliferated. South Africa managed just 14 runs off the next four overs, losing two wickets in the process. That left them needing 16 from the final over – and on its first ball, what small hope…

To The Guardian According to Thomas Jefferson, democracies get the government they deserve – and I believe that includes the campaign, the candidates and the level of debate as well. The only people to blame for the standards in our democracy are we, the voters. We chose to vote for a known liar just because he promised to “get Brexit done”. (He didn’t.) We rejected Ed Miliband because he looked a bit silly eating a bacon sandwich, and we rejected Neil Kinnock because he refused to reduce complex arguments to soundbites and was labelled the “Welsh windbag”. We demonise the most vulnerable in our society because the right-wing press tells us to. So I disagree with your headline that voters deserve better. We’re getting exactly what we deserve. Daryl Birden,…

by Anita Desai Picador 112pp £12.99 The Week Bookshop £9.99 Anita Desai’s new book – her first in 13 years – is an “evocative” novella set in Mexico, about a young woman grappling with her mother’s past, said Lucy Scholes in the Financial Times. Bonita, an Indian visiting Mexico to improve her Spanish, is “sitting on a shaded bench in a park in San Miguel” when a“flamboyantly dressed older woman” approaches her and asks if she’s the “little girl” of her “adored” friend Rosarita. Bonita suggests she’s mistaken: her mother was called Sarita, not Rosarita – and besides, she never came to Mexico. But the “older woman brushes aside these protests”, and her certainty sows doubt in Bonita’s mind. She asks herself, who was her mother really? Desai is best…

Euan Uglow at Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert Euan Uglow (1932-2000) was one of the strangest and most interesting painters to emerge from these shores after the Second World War. He was, by all accounts, an intense character – models would be encouraged to contort themselves into the most uncomfortable of poses for months on end – and mathematically precise in his approach to composition. And while the results often looked like bohemian, contemporary homages to Sargent’s society portraits, they were hard-won and distinctly strange: a set of drawings in this fascinating show illustrates how he used plumb lines and sighting strings to construct his work according to precise mathematical formulae. The main draw, however, will always be his paintings, of which there are a good two dozen here: nudes are so delicate…

How to cut oil from your dressings While it’s“hard to deny the transformative power of a good salad dressing”, some people are understandably concerned about how much oil they require, says Anna Berrill in The Guardian. Extra-virgin olive oil – the bedrock of the traditional vinaigrette – has become, for some, off-puttingly expensive; and the high fat content of oil-dominated dressings is a worry for anyone wishing to lose weight. Yet it’s perfectly possible to make delicious dressings that contain little, or no, oil. Chris Shaw, head chef at Toklas in London, suggests mixing yoghurt, garlic, and some form of acid – either vinegar or lemon juice. He loosens this with a little olive oil or water – and pairs it with robust leaves, such as gem lettuce or radicchio,…

● All cars need servicing regularly; consider a service plan with your car manufacturer. They will offer monthly payments from as little as £20 to spread the cost of servicing. ● Repair issues promptly. When you take your car for an MOT, look at the “advisories” on the sheet and get them fixed. ● If you have more than one car in your household, a multi-car insurance policy might be better value. Be as accurate as possible with your mileage, as you may pay more than you need for insurance if you overestimate. Never let cover auto-renew: always shop around. ● Invest in good-quality tyres. They are safer, and will last longer, than budget ones. Check they are inflated correctly, as underinflated tyres will impact fuel economy. ● Turn off…

Romay Davis 1919-2024 Romay Davis, who has died aged 104, was the oldest surviving member of the “Six Triple Eight” – the only US army battalion composed of black women to serve overseas during the Second World War. The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion had been formed to tackle a fall in morale ascribed to the fact that US soldiers serving in Europe had not had any mail from home for two years, said The Washington Post. The army had not had the resources to distribute it, and 17 million pieces of post had been allowed to pile up in dank warehouses in England. Letters containing vital family news were going unread, and “lovingly assembled care packages” were being eaten by rats. The task of the 855 women of the…

Boeing has become a lightning rod for corporate disaffection in the US. The latest news won’t help. The plane-maker is reported to have been offered “a sweetheart plea deal” by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) – enabling it to avoid a criminal trial on charges related to two fatal crashes of 737 Max planes in 2018 and 2019, said João da Silva on BBC Business. Lawyers for the victims’ families said they would “strenuously object” to the move, describing it as “outrageous”. The putative deal – tabled days before the deadline to file criminal charges – would see Boeing “plead guilty to a fraud charge” stemming from the crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia, which killed 346 people, said Niraj Chokshi in The New York Times. The terms include a…

Love & Whiskey by Fawn Weaver (Melcher Media £19.99). Entrepreneur Fawn Weaver reveals “the untold story of one of America’s most iconic whiskey brands”, Jack Daniel’s – and the pivotal role played by the 19th century African-American master distiller, Nathan “Nearest” Green, who taught young Daniel his trade, says CNBC. It’s part memoir, part history, part whiskey-making guide. To fully enjoy it, buy a bottle of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey and take nips as you read. Not the End of The World by Hannah Ritchie (Penguin £22). In this antidote to doom-mongering, data scientist Hannah Ritchie uses facts and figures to debunk environment myths, “and shows what a difference human beings can make when they put their minds to a problem”, says The Guardian. The Everything War by Dana Mattioli…

Who’s tipping what The week’s best shares Babcock International Group The Times The engineer’s “remarkable turnaround” coincides with a sector structural growth story. A big contractor to the MoD, it runs Devonport naval dockyard and has a growing nuclear division. Still has “fruits to bear”. Buy. 532.5p. Eco Animal Health Group The Mail on Sunday Eco majors on low-dose, preventative animal medicine, including Aivlosin (an antibiotic for pigs and chickens) and respiratory infection vaccines for hens. A leader in a growing market with rising sales. Buy. 123p. Games Workshop Group The Times Profits exceeded expectations at the fantasy hobby miniatures maker, which sells models, books and boardgames in 500 shops worldwide and online. Vertically integrated with margins north of 60%. “Clear growth avenues”. Buy. £107.5p. IMI The Daily Telegraph The…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1421 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 15 July. Send it to The Week Crossword 1421, 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 Order the dear seats right upfront (7,5) 8 Large shows for former seamen (5) 9 Snack for redhead? (6,3) 11 Real tennis long forgotten being played seriously (2,7) 12 Cheers foreign aid given by Brussels (5) 13 Consumed pork pie right in studio (7) 15 Being against…