Table of contents for 1517 in The Week

What happened MPs voted last week by 330 votes to 275 to approve historic legislation that would legalise assisted dying in England and Wales for terminally ill patients. To be eligible under the bill, which was proposed by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, individuals would need to be at least 18, have proven mental capacity, have no more than six months to live, and have the consent of two medical professionals and a High Court judge. The free vote on the issue followed five hours of impassioned debate in the Commons. Almost 60% of Labour MPs, including Keir Starmer, backed the bill, although the leader of one of the departments that would oversee its implementation – Health Secretary Wes Streeting – opposed it. Some 85% of Liberal Democrats backed it, not…

Controversy of the week “It is a truth now pretty much universally acknowledged within the Government” that “in too many areas, it has hit the ground not running, but stumbling”, said Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. There have been a whole series of avoidable errors, from Lord Alli’s gifts to the installation and removal of Sue Gray. The Budget has roused “extremely vocal opposition”; another “squall to buffet No. 10” was the resignation of Louise Haigh. But now Keir Starmer is determined to turn the page, by announcing a new “Plan for Change” this week. Billed as “the most ambitious delivery plan in a generation”, it has been designed to make clear exactly what Labour hopes to achieve by the next election, with a series of “measurable milestones”: targets on…

Beekeepers, after the World Beekeeping Awards decided to pull all its honey prizes next year, owing to the scale of fraud in the global supply chain. Producers say that food watchdogs have not done enough to combat the widespread adulteration of honey with cheap syrups. At the organisation’s awards in 2022, nearly a third of honeys were rejected owing to suspected adulteration. Rupert Grint, the Harry Potter actor, who lost a battle with HMRC over £1.8m in unpaid tax. His advisers had tried to shrink his liability by declaring £4.5m in income from DVDs and TV rights as capital gains; but this loophole was closed in 1969, after The Beatles used it to avoid Harold Wilson’s 95% tax rate.…

Wolfsburg, Germany VW strikes: Almost 100,000 workers joined walkouts this week at nine of Volkswagen’s German plants, in protest at management plans for wage cuts and factory closures. The carmaker’s plans reflect the crisis in Germany’s car industry, which is suffering from weak demand, rising costs (accelerated by the transition to electric vehicles) and increased competition from China. The IG Metall union, representing most VW workers, has proposed measures to save €1.5bn, including the foregoing of bonuses in 2025 and 2026, but management insists structural change is inevitable. Talks are currently deadlocked. Kyiv Peace move: In an interview with Sky News this week, President Zelensky let it be known that Ukraine could cede territory to Russia in a ceasefire deal, and end “the hot stage of the war”, if the…

1 My Boy Lollipop by Robert Spencer, Barbie Gaye and Johnny Roberts, performed by Millie Small 2 Janie Jones by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, performed by The Clash 3 San Quentin, written and performed by Johnny Cash 4 Killing in the Name by Tim Commerford, Zack de la Rocha, Tom Morello and Brad Wilk, performed by Rage Against the Machine 5 Trøllabundin by Høgni Lisberg, Tróndur Bogason, Eivør Pálsdóttir and Hallur Jonsson, performed by Eivør Pálsdóttir 6* Love Me or Leave Me by Gus Kahn and Walter Donaldson, performed by Nina Simone 7 Into My Arms by Nick Cave, performed by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds 8 1977 by Ana Maria Merino Tijoux and Hector Nicolas Carrasco Gallardo, performed by Ana Tijoux Book: Wisden Cricketers’ Almanac Luxury: a piano * Choice if allowed only one record…

In 2016, when Trump was first nominated as the Republican Party candidate, the support of evangelical voters was far from guaranteed, because of his lack of piety. But influential evangelical leaders soon reached the conclusion that, though flawed, Trump had been sent by God to do his work on Earth. Some compared him to the Persian king Cyrus, a nonbeliever who rescued the Jews from captivity in Babylon. Others have gone further: some evangelicals regard Trump as a manifestation of the biblical king Jehu, who vanquished the corrupt house of Ahab to become the 10th ruler of the Kingdom of Israel. Jehu killed Ahab’s wife Jezebel by ordering her thrown out of a palace window; the pastor Jonathan Cahn has likened both Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris to Jezebel. Another…

Romania is reeling from what might just be the biggest political upset in its history, said Ioana Ene Dogioiu on Spot Media (Bucharest). A little-known outsider with a far-right, pro-Russia agenda, a man the pollsters dismissed as an irrelevance, has triumphed as the front-runner in the first round of the country’s presidential elections. Calin Georgescu, 62, stormed to a shock win with 23% of votes, setting up a run-off against the liberal reformist candidate Elena Lasconi (on 19.18%) and knocking the centre-left prime minister, Marcel Ciolacu, out of the running. Georgescu’s victory isn’t assured, said Tamsin Paternoster on Euronews (Lyon). Citing evidence of meddling in the election campaign by hostile foreign actors, Romania’s constitutional court has requested a recount; but it declined to rule that the race must be re-run.…

Almost one in seven A&E patients are repeat visitors, a new study has found. The analysis of five years of patient records at hospitals in Dorset revealed that a small group of people – making up just 1.7% of the county’s population – accounted for 13.8% of attendances. These patients were 72% more likely to live in deprived areas. They were also more likely to arrive by ambulance, to see their GP more often than the average, and to have conditions classed as urgent by A&E doctors. The authors of the study, by the British Red Cross, said that people may end up making repeated trips to A&E because their clinical needs are going unmet, and they have unresolved non-clinical problems, such as poor housing. The data showed that the…

There was good news and bad news in last week’s immigration figures, said Julia Hartley-Brewer in The Sun. The good news: according to Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates, net migration to the UK has fallen by 20% in the past year – suggesting politicians are finally listening to the clear majority of British voters on this issue. The bad news is that the numbers are still “huge”: there were 728,000 net arrivals in the year to June. “That’s the equivalent of the entire population of Leeds… in just one year.” Worse still, the real figure is probably higher: the ONS managed to miss 166,000 off its figures for 2022-23, so revised them up from 740,000 to a record peak of 906,000. “Immigration has become the touchpaper of British politics.”…

“No matter how dark the evil, there is always a corner for ridicule’s little lantern.”Timothy Snyder, quoted on Substack “There are only two kinds of people in the world. People who are bereaved and those who are yet to be bereaved.”John Banville in The Observer “The analysis of human character is the highest human entertainment. And literature does it, unlike gossip, without mentioning real names.”Isaac Bashevis Singer, quoted in Forbes “Just be glad you’re not getting all the government you’re paying for.”Will Rogers, quoted in The Washington Times “Be most slow to believe what we most wish should be true.”Samuel Pepys, quoted in The Knowledge “The first sign of civilisation is not a sharpened stone or tool, but a healed femur.”Attrib. Margaret Mead, quoted in The Sunday Guardian “Most recruiters…

by Jordan Peterson Allen Lane 576pp £30 The Week Bookshop £26.99 (incl. p&p) Jordan Peterson, a once-obscure Canadian psychologist, was “catapulted” to notoriety in 2016 when he gave a series of lectures fulminating against “gender pronouns” and political correctness, said Nina Power in The Daily Telegraph. “In a sensible world”, he later insisted, “I would have got my 15 minutes of fame”; but Peterson has rarely been out of the limelight since. To his millions of devotees, he’s a hero; to others, he’s a reactionary misogynist who has helped inflame extremism. There has always been a biblical strain to Peterson’s thought, and it is more marked than ever in his latest book, an eccentric study of the Old Testament. Peterson is vague about his personal religious beliefs, but this gives…

Running time: 2hrs 40mins “Think of it as an adult panto,” said Clive Davis in The Times. Director Max Webster has given Oscar Wilde’s classic comedy a “bold and brash” reboot, and it has an awful lot going for it. There’s some “comic acting of the highest order”, from Hugh Skinner as an anxious Jack, and from Sharon D. Clarke as a Caribbean-accented Lady Bracknell. And Ncuti Gatwa (of Doctor Who fame) is charming as the “preening sybarite” Algernon – “tossing off witticisms as if they’re going out of fashion”, said Nick Curtis in The London Standard. Traditionalists might not love the production, with its camp, almost knockabout humour and“Bridgerton-style colourblind casting”. But I found it “fizzing”, fascinating and fun. This 1895 play’s “subtext of homoerotic desire” has been mined…

In early 2024, Jacob Rees-Mogg agreed to be “shadowed by a documentary crew who wanted to chart the realities of life with ‘one of the most divisive politicians in Britain’” in the run-up to an election that was expected around Christmas, said Nick Hilton in The Independent. But then – “boom!” – Rishi Sunak called the poll in July, and Rees-Mogg lost his seat. Meet the Rees-Moggs, therefore, “starts as an intimate portrait of a family caught up in the tough reality that their much-admired patriarch is about to lose his job”. The six-part Discovery+ series features plenty of characters, said Joel Golby in The Guardian. Rees-Mogg’s heiress wife, Helena, is in it, his children are in it, his two homes are in it, “his nanny is in it, a…

An early 17th century portrait by Caravaggio is now on public display for the first time, says Emily Snow in The Collector. The painting, which was lost for centuries before its rediscovery in the 1960s, features in a new exhibition at the Palazzo Barberini in Rome. It depicts Maffeo Barberini, the son of a Florentine nobleman who later became Pope Urban VIII in 1623. It was identified in the 1960s. Experts agree that it is by Caravaggio: there is documentary evidence from the early 17th century that he was commissioned to paint Barberini’s portrait, and both stylistic and scientific analyses support the attribution. It is thought that the painting had been kept in the Barberini family’s art collection for centuries, and was then sold to a private collector in the…

Scamming arrives in Ambridge. Americans Chuck and Faith let themselves into their holiday cottage, booked online, only to discover it’s Jakob’s home. Kate insists they stay, forcing Jakob to join her in a yurt. After a bad night, Jakob leaves Kate for a room at Jim’s; Faith reveals to Kate that she grew up in Ambridge. At Brookfield, stranger Ellie shows up with her daughters to check in for their holiday, to Ruth’s bafflement. Clarrie is worried about Eddie’s latest scheme to sell junk from their barn – she’s afraid he’ll get distracted from the turkeys. As Ruth and Jakob investigate the fake listings, David turns the barn into accommodation for the scammed visitors. Faith chats to Eddie, whom she remembers from childhood. Joel, another victim, shows up at Jim’s;…

Barbara Taylor Bradford 1933-2024 It was Graham Greene who set Barbara Taylor Bradford on the road to becoming one of the world’s bestselling novelists, said The Guardian. The Yorkshireborn, New York-based writer had established herself as a successful journalist, with a dozen syndicated columns focused on interior design, but her attempts at fiction had failed. Then, in the mid-1970s, she read Greene’s quote: “Character is plot.” A light switched on, she recalled. “Suddenly, I understood what writing fiction was: it’s who you are, what your protagonist is.” A “wimpy sort of person” would get nowhere, she said. She resolved that she would write about the kind of strong, ambitious women that she’d always admired. And so A Woman of Substance was born. A blockbuster telling the story of a kitchen…

Rupert Soames The CBI chairman is a trenchant critic of Rachel Reeves’s Budget, but he still reckons corporate Britain is better off with Labour than the “chaotic” Tories, says Lucy Burton in The Sunday Telegraph. Soames – who once confessed that he has a “horrible habit of walking towards gunfire” when picking jobs – has spent the past year convincing corporate bigwigs to rejoin the self-styled “voice of business”, which suffered a mass exodus following “sexual misconduct claims”. Labour’s inconsistencies have actually rather helped his cause. Company bosses in January and February were saying: “We don’t need the CBI. I’ve got Labour politicians on speed-dial,” he says. “Don’t say I told you so, but I told you so.” George Osborne The boutique City advisory firm Robey Warshaw notched up record…

What happened Syria’s 13-year civil war suddenly reignited last week, when Islamist rebels mounted a lightning offensive against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Within five days of launching an attack from their territory in the northwest, insurgents led by the former al-Qa’eda offshoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) had seized Aleppo, Syria’s second city, and dozens of towns and villages nearby. The rebels then moved south in the direction of Damascus; this week, they were battling pro-Assad forces for control of the city of Hama, a government stronghold. Assad, whose regime is backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, vowed to “crush” the rebels. Russian and Syrian jets carried out air strikes on Aleppo and other rebel-held areas. The regime admitted that dozens of its troops had been killed trying to block the…

Britain is falling out of love with dating apps, research by Ofcom suggests. According to the regulator, Tinder has lost 600,000 of its UK users since 2023, while Hinge has lost 131,000, Bumble 368,000 and Grindr 11,000. Tinder and Hinge’s owner, Match Group, said that Gen Z users are seeking “a lower-pressure, more authentic way to find connections”. “Put another way, after years spent getting ghosted, catfished and generally treated as disposable, young people are now ready to stop swiping,” said Marie Le Conte in The Sunday Times. Waitrose has released its first-ever mince pies for dogs. The pies cost £3.20 for two, and feature a bone-shaped biscuit top.…

The Labour MP Louise Haigh resigned as transport secretary last week, after it emerged that she had a spent conviction for fraud. Sky News and The Times revealed that, in 2014, Haigh had pleaded guilty to falsely reporting the theft of a mobile phone to the police. Haigh explained that she had been mugged on a night out in 2013, and that she’d included the phone – which had been issued to her by her employer Aviva – on a list of the items that had been in a bag. However, she said she had later found the phone at home, but it seems she didn’t tell the police or her employer. Haigh reportedly told Keir Starmer about the offence when she was appointed to the shadow cabinet in 2020,…

Washington DC FBI pick: Donald Trump has nominated Kash Patel to lead the FBI, effectively dismissing Christopher Wray, the bureau’s current director. Patel, 44, a former public defender, is an ardent Trump supporter and the author of a book, Government Gangsters, which rails against the “deep state” and calls for the “corrupt ruling class” to be purged from federal agencies. Trump hailed Patel (pictured) as a “brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter”; but owing to his record of demanding that the FBI’s HQ in Washington be closed, and its senior officials all fired, his nomination is likely to come under intense scrutiny in the Senate. Trump has also chosen Keith Kellogg, a former national security adviser who has called for a “negotiated settlement” to end the Ukraine War, to…

“Women over 50 often feel ignored, said some study this week, like that’s a bad thing. I like being ignored. Mostly, I like it in shops. It’s terrifying when staff interact. They say, ‘How are we today?’ like it’s their business how we are today. It is not. Worst of all are those independent boutiques where you realise the moment you cross the threshold and the bell rings that it was a mistake. But how do you back out now? The owner follows you around with beseeching eyes that say: ‘If you don’t buy something I will go bust by 2pm.’ As for waiting staff in restaurants, I don’t need to be talked to about what’s on my plate. Just plonk it down and clear off.” Deborah Ross in The…

When it comes to electric – no pain, no gain Gaby Hinsliff The Guardian “Have cake, will eat.” That has been the default approach of our leaders when it comes to climate policy, says Gaby Hinsliff. Going green will generate new jobs, they cry; no need for major sacrifices or disruption. But their plans to convert us all to electric vehicles (EVs) have now hit a reality check. Under rules introduced by the Tories, carmakers will face heavy penalties if they fail to ensure EVs make up an ever-larger share of their UK car sales – 22% this year, 38% by 2027, 80% by 2030. This would be fine if people were rushing to buy EVs. They aren’t: demand for these relatively expensive vehicles is actually waning, leaving carmakers in…

“Good is never good enough” for Donald Trump, said Peter Baker in The New York Times. So despite having plenty of valid reasons to brag about last month’s election result, he inevitably resorted to hyperbole, claiming that Americans had given him an “unprecedented” mandate. Republican lawmakers have eagerly adopted this generous interpretation, with Wyoming senator John Barrasso hailing Trump’s “huge landslide”, and the Texas congressman Troy Nehls arguing that his colleagues must now embrace “every single word” of Trump’s agenda. It’s a shameless bit of spin designed to justify Trump’s extreme cabinet appointments and plans for his second term. As most of the final ballots from the election were tallied last week, Trump’s popular vote lead over Kamala Harris dropped to around 1.6%, which is “one of the smallest margins…

Calorie labelling may not work Since 2022, many cafés and restaurants in England have been obliged, by law, to include calorie counts on their menus. The thinking is that this will enable diners to make “informed choices” about what they eat; the hope, in other words, is that they will see that a chicken caesar salad contains nearly 1,000 calories, and opt for a plain omelette and a green salad instead. But according to a new study, this scheme has had little impact on the nation’s eating habits. Researchers visited 330 pubs, restaurants and cafés before and after labelling became mandatory for larger establishments, and surveyed 3,000 or so customers each time. It turned out that only a third of the diners even noticed the calorie counts; and that, of…

Judi Dench has revealed that her African grey parrot, Sweetie, is very rude. “We had a long chat just now,” Dench told The Sunday Times. “You shouldn’t ask what she says. She says: ‘You’re a slut,’ ‘You’re a slag.’ My God, she’s funny though. She’s very, very funny.” Dench has previously admitted that her grandson’s girlfriend has also fallen prey to the bird. She mentioned that she was wearing thermal underwear, prompting Sweetie to remark: “Slut.”“Honest to God, it’s true,” Dench said. “I don’t know where she learnt the timing.” Celebrity offspring Apple Martin was among 19 young women “presented” at a debutante ball in Paris last week. The 20-year-old was joined by her parents, Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, and was wearing a Valentino gown that was said to…

On screen, Gregg Wallace’s down-to-earth charm was one of MasterChef’s “key ingredients”, said The Daily Telegraph. The former greengrocer from south London was known for lively banter that was often laced with innuendo. It didn’t cause offence, but the BBC has now been thrown into crisis by allegations that, off camera, the 60-year-old’s “cheeky chappy routine” crossed the line into behaviour that was deeply inappropriate at work – and as a result, Wallace has “stepped aside”. More than a dozen women have alleged that he told “disgusting”, offensive and sexualised jokes, talked openly about his sex life and asked staff about theirs. Allegedly, he once arrived in the studio naked except for a sock over his penis. He is also accused of “jokily” pulling a female assistant’s head towards his…

It is hard to think of two football managers less alike than Pep Guardiola and José Mourinho. But with the former “engulfed by strife” for the first time in his career, he seems to be resorting to antics “taken straight from the José Mourinho playbook”, said Oliver Brown in The Daily Telegraph. Last Sunday at Anfield, as Manchester City slumped to a 2-0 defeat with “another limp, gaffe-ridden performance”, the Liverpool fans taunted Guardiola: “You’re getting sacked in the morning,” they chanted. In response, the Spaniard held up six fingers – one for each of the six Premier League titles he has won with City. True, he accompanied the gesture with a smile rather than a “José-esque snarl”, but it was still “classic Mourinho”, who, as Manchester United boss, had…

The assisted dying bill Two sides… To The Daily Telegraph I am 102. For the past two years I have been in a private care home. I am not terminally ill. I am not suffering unbearable pain. I am just bored out of my mind. Why should I sit around playing childish games and singing silly songs until I have a stroke or a heart attack and am carted off to hospital to be kept alive for as long as possible? Why cannot I die now in an organised and comfortable way? Why do other people have the audacity to think they know what’s best for me? Keith Herdman, London To The Economist I am a doctor who has worked with patients in and around the end of their lives…

by Hugo Vickers Hodder & Stoughton 352pp £30 The Week Bookshop £26.99 (incl. p&p) This “affectionate, crisp and gossipy biography” captures a “lost world”, said Ysenda Maxtone Graham in The Times. Its subject is Clarissa Eden – wife of Sir Anthony Eden – who lived a long life (she died, aged 101, in 2021), and a mostly “very jolly” one. The niece of Winston Churchill, she studied at the Slade and Oxford, and in her 20s had a rather “floating-about existence”, as she flitted between various jobs (one at Chatham House, another at Vogue) and attended lots of parties. For nine years, she had a secret affair with a “civilised and cultured Viennese married man”, but broke this off in 1952 to marry the 55-year-old Anthony Eden, then foreign secretary.…

“As we enter the year’s most convivial period, I have been hungrily consuming dining podcasts,” said Patricia Nicol in The Sunday Times. Ruthie’s Table 4, an interview series hosted by River Café co-founder Ruth Rogers, weaves broader historical and cultural context into entertaining discussions of formative food experiences. Recent guests have included Elton John, Tony Blair and Kristin Scott Thomas. Hearing John speak about “how safe he felt in his maternal grandmother’s postwar council house kitchen – where, despite rationing, she produced delicious bread puddings and fruit pies – felt more personal than anything in Rocketman”. In the “hugely enjoyable” Dish, Angela Hartnett provides the culinary expertise, while Nick Grimshaw is the “larkish maître d’” who puts the guests at their ease. All the episodes I’ve heard from the current…

The Iliad by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson, 2023 (Norton £14.99). I’m celebrating long books here – ones in which the author has space to build a whole world – so let’s begin with the foundational work of Western literature. Homer’s epic is a war story, blazing with the hectic glamour of violence; and it’s an anti-war story, grieving plangently over the horror and futility of conflict. Wilson’s translation gives it new cogency. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens, 1865 (Penguin £9.99). I’m writing about Dickens at the moment, and rereading this novel I’m struck again by the hallucinatory strangeness of its dark vision of London – corpses in the river, piles of filth mutating into money – and by the prodigious energy of Dickens’s prose. The Man on a…

Programmes Edward vs George: The Windsors at War Documentary about the rivalry between Edward VIII and his brother George VI, featuring previously unseen archive material. Sat 7 Dec, C4 21:15 (60mins). Walter Presents: Black Tulip Dutch drama about two feuding families, both industrial tulip growers, who become involved in a race to develop a rare black variety. Mon 9 Dec, C4 00:45 (50mins; all episodes available to stream). Hunt for the Oldest DNA Scientists make a breakthrough in deciphering the oldest DNA ever found. Wed 11 Dec, BBC4 21:00 (60mins). Guy Martin: Arctic Warrior Martin sets off for a Royal Marines’ camp in the Arctic, to experience this harsh environment and learn about the threat from Russia. Wed 11-Thur 12 Dec, C4 21:00 (60mins each). Alan Bennett: 90 Years On The playwright,…

● Be vigilant for rodents, and if you see signs that they are in the house, act fast. ● If you live in a flat or attached/terraced house, do let your neighbours know. ● Block cracks and entry points into your home, bearing in mind that mice can slip through holes as small as 6mm. Rats can easily chew through expanding foam, so use sturdier stuff: wire wool is good. ● Put the dog’s food and water bowls away at night; and don’t leave empty plant pots to gather water outside near the house. Rats will also be attracted by bird food. ● Beware of hoarding stuff: rodents don’t hibernate, so in the winter they are looking for warm places to sleep. ● Cats don’t always help get rid of…

Jim Abrahams 1944-2024 Jim Abrahams was one of a trio of filmmakers who – with minimal industry experience – hit upon the idea of making a low-budget spoof of the disaster movies that had dominated cinemas in the 1970s. There had been movie send-ups before, said The Guardian; what Abrahams and his friends David and Jerry Zucker did differently was to absolutely pack their film with one-liners, surreal visual gags and absurd non sequiturs, and have them delivered not by comic actors, but straight-faced by dramatic performers. “We wanted the audience to feel they were watching a serious movie that we had redubbed,” explained David Zucker. Airplane! was made for $3.5m, grossed more than $170m and established Leslie Nielsen (who’d appeared in The Poseidon Adventure, one of the disaster movies…

Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together by Michael Morris (Swift £22). “A deep, timely and optimistic look at how to harness our innate tribal instincts to positive effect,” says Andrew Hill in the FT. A fount of lessons for leaders. I Was There: Dispatches from a Life in Rock and Roll by Alan Edwards (Simon & Schuster £25). The “godfather” of music publicists was “so close to David Bowie that he could stand in for him during phone interviews”, and later invented “Brand Beckham”, says Neil McCormick in The Daily Telegraph. A great memoir and a “candid account of the sometimes dark arts of PR”. How Economics Explains the World by Andrew Leigh (Collins £20.99). An admirably succinct canter through the history of…

Who’s tipping what The week’s best shares Amazon The Daily Telegraph There’s still “plenty of room for growth” for the e-commerce retailer, which generates “huge amounts of cash” via its “laser focus” on cashflow. Also the market leader in “hugely profitable” cloud computing. Buy. $207.89. Clarkson The Times Bulls reckon the shipbroker’s long-term growth is supported by rising global GDP, which will drive commodity consumption. Cash-generative, with strong visibility and a well-supported divi. Not for the faint-hearted. Buy. £39.30. Cranswick Investors’ Chronicle The pork/poultry producer’s strategy to expand and diversify is “continuing to bear fruit” thanks to healthy demand, new product ranges and investment in pig farming. Revenues and profits are rising. Buy. £48.70. DCC The Times DCC is selling its health arm, and placing its tech division under “strategic…

It is 9am on a busy Monday at Maidstone Crown Court in Kent. The judges are ready for a packed schedule of murder and rape trials, but there is a technical problem. The alarm system has broken in the custody cells where prisoners are locked up while they wait for their case to be heard. There are eight courtrooms but only two defendants can be held securely at a time, which means that many of the trials due to take place today will need to be postponed. In the barristers’ robing room, frazzled lawyers are trying to work out whether their clients will be able to appear. One has a defendant in a sexual offences case on the way from a hospital secure unit and still does not know whether…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1443 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 16 December. Send it to The Week Crossword 1443, 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 5 Rubbish put away in turn (6) 7 Guys in steel out in bad weather? (8) 9 There are bags in it nowadays (3,5) 10 Beetle, small vehicle on a second-class road (6) 11 What investors do is essential part of romantic movies (4,8)  13 Sounds like…

Mercedes-Benz has announced that it is developing a solar paint that generates enough electricity to power a car for up to 12,000km (7,456 miles) over a year. The paint could provide 62% of the energy required for the average driver in Stuttgart, the firm said; in sunny LA, it would cover more than a typical driver’s needs, meaning that some of the energy could be used in their home. Prof Tapas Mallick of the University of Exeter described it as a “very promising” development. A Humboldt penguin who lost the ability to walk has learnt to stand on its own feet again thanks to a specially designed baby bouncer. Flop hatched in April at Dudley Zoo, and was reared by zookeepers after her mother died and her father began leaving…

Reform UK, with speculation that Elon Musk may be preparing to give Nigel Farage $100m to help his Reform UK party win the next election. The billionaire has made no secret of his disdain for Keir Starmer, and he and Farage share a friend in Donald Trump. If Musk does give money to Reform, it is likely to come through the British branch of X, to get around rules on foreign donors. Sir Chris Wormald, who was appointed to replace Simon Case as Cabinet Secretary, making him head of the civil service and the most senior official in the country. Kneecap, the rap trio from Belfast, after the Government agreed that, as business secretary, Kemi Badenoch had unlawfully denied them £14,250 in arts funding. Kneecap support a united Ireland, and…

47% of British adults say they’d like there to be another general election within the next six months, a poll by BMG Research has found; only 24% are against the idea. According to Freshwater Strategy, Keir Starmer is now less popular in Britain than Donald Trump. The PM has a net favourability of -30 points, versus Trump’s-24. 62% of British adults say they support the assisted dying bill, according to Deltapoll, and only 14% oppose it. However, 70% are worried that if the bill becomes law, disabled people could be encouraged to end their lives against their wishes. In addition, 61% of those polled think that if assisted dying is made legal, it should be available for free on the NHS, according to YouGov.…

AUSTRALIA Exiling our kids from the modern world The West Australian (Perth) Australia’s landmark ban on under-16s using social media is a big mistake, says The West Australian. The law, due to take effect in a year, was approved by MPs and senators last week, and will force tech giants such as X/Twitter and Snapchat to stop children signing up to access their content. Those that fail to do so will be fined up to £25m. Anthony Albanese, the PM, says the law will protect kids from the myriad dangers that lurk online – from sexual predators to cyberbullies. He’s wrong. In practice, it will prove a blunt tool that will do more harm than good. Plenty of kids will find a way around restrictions blocking access; those who don’t…

After Ukraine fired Britishmade Storm Shadow missiles at military targets inside Russia last month, President Putin asserted his “right” to attack the UK and its Western allies in response. But the truth, said Simon Tisdall in The Observer, is that “Britain and its allies have been under constant Russian attack” for years. Using “sabotage, arson, deniable cyberattacks”, disinformation and influence operations, Putin has menaced the West for its support of Ukraine. His “shadow war” on Nato members may be becoming more intensive and more dangerous, but it is long established. Putin’s aim is to sow chaos, spread fear and division, and to disrupt military production. Russia’s “grey zone” warfare continues every day, said Edward Lucas in The Times. Last month, unidentified drones “buzzed” four US air force bases in Britain;…

Joe Biden has done what he always said he wouldn’t do, said Sean O’Grady in The Independent: he has “put family before country” by pardoning his son Hunter. The 54-year-old had been due to be sentenced later this month in two criminal cases. The first related to him lying about his drug use when buying a gun; the other involved tax evasion. The cases would likely have resulted in at least some prison time. But, on Sunday night, the president granted Hunter an unconditional pardon, not just for those federal crimes, but for any others he may have committed between 2014 and 2024. He justified the move by claiming that his son had been “selectively and unfairly prosecuted”, and said he hoped Americans “will understand why a father and a…

Ben Stokes did not look quite on it during England’s recent series in Pakistan, said Nasser Hussain in the Daily Mail. As England slumped to a 2-1 defeat, their skipper struggled with bat and ball, and was uncharacteristically short-tempered with his players. So it was great to see Stokes back to “near his best” in Christchurch last week, as England beat New Zealand by eight wickets in the first match of their three-Test series. Stokes scored 80 in England’s first innings, and “demonstrated the kind of forceful, influential leadership” that we’ve come to expect, said Mike Atherton in The Times. And his players responded superbly. Harry Brook hit a brilliant 171 (although he was dropped four times), and among other notable contributions with the bat was that of 21-year-old debutant…

To The Guardian Rachel Dixon’s article on salt (see page 35) makes the point that our taste buds can adapt to less salt, but only if we are weaned off it gradually. For processed food manufacturers, it is difficult to help people do this as most consumers have a strong preference for well-salted products. Even minor reductions of salt in the recipe are instantly detected, and people will often react by changing to similar products with higher salt levels. To break this cycle, manufacturers need to act in concert. It can be done. And has been done. In 2001, John Krebs, the then-chair of the Food Standards Agency, asked me if I would lead an initiative to achieve meaningful reductions in the categories in which my company, Unilever, competed: soups,…

by S.J. Naudé Europa Editions 192pp £14.99 The Week Bookshop £12.99 This “strange and beautiful” – if nihilistic – novel tells the story of Daniel, a gay South African writer, said Daniel Clarke in the TLS. Translated from Afrikaans by Michiel Haynes, it “unfolds over a series of fragmented episodes, often set years apart”. The first takes place in London, and describes a sexual encounter Daniel has with two Serbian men he befriends at an art gallery. Months later, he visits them in Germany, and they go on a “surreal, Pinteresque camping trip”. Soon after this, Daniel returns to South Africa, to care for his dying, incapacitated father – a bully whom Daniel now taunts with tales of his sexual escapades. In the event-filled final third, he spends a month…

Candida Höfer at Ben Brown Fine Arts Since the 1970s, the great German photographer Candida Höfer has been capturing the interiors of grand cultural institutions. Printed on a monumental scale, the resulting images are exactingly symmetrical, unpeopled and always somehow stranger than they should be. This show, The Order of Beauty, brings together a selection of what might be described as Höfer’s “greatest hits” since the millennium, taking us through libraries, museums and theatres around Europe. You could linger in front of any one of them for hours, marvelling at, say, the berserk rococo mouldings on the ceiling of an abbey library in Switzerland, or the almost comical intrusion of safety apparatus and tourist directions to the Mona Lisa in a barrel-vaulted corridor of the Louvre. Detail and variety are…

Beaujolais nouveau is back Beaujolais nouveau – a light and fruity red so named because it is released on the third Thursday of November, just weeks after the harvesting of its gamay grapes – “was a big deal” in the 1970s and 1980s, says Andrew Ellson in The Times. This was in no small part due to the popularity of the “beaujolais run”, an event dreamed up in 1970 and then much hyped by The Sunday Times, which involved Britons driving to France and “racing back to the UK with the first bottle of the season”. The wine’s heyday was short-lived, however: by the 1990s, it had developed a reputation as cheap, unsophisticated and frankly naff, and sales in the UK waned. Yet now, decades on, beaujolais nouveau seems to…

The Hungry Student Cookbook by Charlotte Pike details 120 different meals that can be made on a very tight budget. There is great advice on how to stock up on food and clever cooking tips, plus a “Morning After” section for feeding hangovers. TikTok/Insta star and chef Poppy O’Toole has collated her reels and videos into a handy book – Poppy Cooks: The Actually Delicious Air Fryer Cookbook – with 100 foolproof, tasty recipes for air fryers. The classic book Curry Easy, by Madhur Jaffrey, the Queen of Curry, contains 175 quick and easy curry recipes, and is beautifully written and illustrated. Rukmini Iyer’s roasting tin cookbooks have a huge following, and The Green Roasting Tin has both vegetarian and vegan recipes grouped by the time they take to cook,…

Calverley Old Hall West Yorkshire The recent £5.1m renovation of this 15th century manor house was the Landmark Trust’s biggest-ever project, says Laura Battle in the FT. Hemmed in by modern housing in a village between Leeds and Bradford, it looks modest from the outside, but has “jaw-dropping” interiors, including a great hall with a hammerbeam ceiling. There are both antique and modern furnishings in the “magnificent” sitting room, the kitchen and the five bedrooms, one of which has “almost peerless” Tudor wall paintings, featuring elaborate rose and vase motifs, and some “grinning” harpies. Sleeps up to ten from £1,375 for four nights; landmarktrust.org.uk.…

Stellantis: exit Tavares For a while last week, it looked as though Carlos Tavares had pulled off a masterstroke of news management, said Jim Armitage in The Sunday Times. The boss of Stellantis – the carmaker behind Citroën, Peugeot, Chrysler, Jeep and Fiat – contrived to announce the closure of Vauxhall’s Luton plant, with the potential loss of 1,100 jobs, while placing the blame squarely on the Government’s onerous EV targets. The chickens have since come home to roost. Tavares, who led the creation of the global conglomerate in 2021, has been forced out after falling out with the board, said Neal E. Boudette in The New York Times. The trigger wasn’t Vauxhall, but “a decline in profits and slumping sales” in Stellantis’s “key North America region”, which has wiped…

Get ready for the “Bank of Elon” Lex Financial Times Fancy joining the Bank of Elon? “The idea is getting less farfetched,” says Lex. A long-standing belief that commerce and banking are “best kept separate” has prevented corporations such as Walmart, Google and Tesla from taking deposits and making loans. But that could change under Donald Trump – particularly if the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation passes from Democrat to Republican control, as seems likely. “That could open the door to all kinds of new bank owners.” Musk, for instance, has talked in the past about turning his X/Twitter social network into “an all-purpose financial platform”. It’s not such a bad idea. America already has 4,000 banks, but they often lack innovation and customer-friendliness, and new entrants would certainly improve price…