Table of contents for 1526 in The Week

What happened Trump’s new trade war President Trump fired the first salvo in a trade war on Tuesday by imposing a blanket 10% tariff on all goods imported from China. Beijing responded by announcing tariffs on a range of US products, including coal, liquefied natural gas and farm equipment. Trump had threatened to impose a 25% border tax on imports from two of America’s other top trade partners, Mexico and Canada, at the same time; he complained that they, like China, hadn’t done enough to stop the flow of the illicit drug fentanyl into the US. But he paused that move for 30 days after the two countries pledged to reinforce their respective borders with the US, to help curb irregular migration and drug smuggling. The last-minute agreement relieved pressure…

Controversy of the week “I can scarcely believe I’m writing this,” said George Monbiot in The Guardian, “but on green issues, this government is worse than the Tories.” Last week, Chancellor Rachel Reeves officially gave her backing to a long-contested third runway at Heathrow. The project is an act of “environmental vandalism” that will produce millions of tons of extra carbon emissions. But growth, the Chancellor insists, “trumps other things”. Labour’s net zero strategy is now utterly incoherent, said Helen Coffey in The Independent. “At a time when every other industry has been forced to slash emissions”, Reeves wants to expand one of our heaviest polluters. Aviation “is fiendishly difficult” to decarbonise, and Reeves’s “cunning plan” – to replace traditional kerosene with sustainable aviation fuels, or SAFs, made from recycled…

John Swinney, Scotland’s First Minister, who was forced to deny reports that the SNP was planning to ban cat ownership. In fact, a report had advised that the Government consider “containing” cat ownership in rural areas that are home to red-listed bird species. Earth, after the sighting of a 100-metre-wide asteroid heading this way triggered global planetary defence procedures. Currently, it is estimated that the asteroid, 2024 YR4, has a 1.3% chance of smashing into Earth on 22 December 2032. It could do serious local damage, but it wouldn’t trigger a mass extinction event: the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was 10km to 15km across. Keir Starmer, who was accused of breaking lockdown rules by having a session with his voice coach at Labour HQ on 24 December 2020. Allegedly,…

Paris Budget wars: France’s centrist PM, François Bayrou – who this week rammed the 2025 budget through parliament by invoking an emergency clause in the constitution enabling him to dispense with the need for a vote – looks set to survive a motion of no-confidence brought by Leftist MPs. Like his centrist predecessor, Michel Barnier, who had to resign in December after losing a no-confidence vote, Bayrou has had to contend with a parliament split into three rival blocs – Left, Right and centre, the outcome of the snap election called by President Macron. But unlike Barnier, Bayrou has the temporary backing of one major left-wing party, the Socialists, having made compromises on his budget’s €53bn package of tax rises and spending cuts aimed at shrinking the vast deficit. Hoping…

1 Go Down, Moses, traditional (arranged by H.T. Burleigh), performed by Paul Robeson 2 O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, traditional (translated by John Mason Neale), performed by Choir of King’s College, Cambridge 3 Scarborough Fair, traditional, performed by Simon & Garfunkel 4 I Wanna Go Back to Dixie, written and performed by Tom Lehrer 5* “Duettino” Sull’Aria (from The Marriage of Figaro) by Mozart, performed by Edith Mathis, Gundula Janowitz and the Deutsche Oper Berlin (conducted by Karl Böhm) 6 Strose To Stroma Sou, traditional and Mikis Theodorakis, performed by Mikis Theodorakis 7 September Song by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson, performed by Gracie Fields 8 Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring by Bach, performed by Ylang Ylang Book: Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (trans. by Edward FitzGerald) Luxury: my doll, Sarah Jane * Choice if allowed only one record…

Bob Lambert was a member of the SDS who posed as Bob Robinson, a radical left-winger, as part of a five-year mission to infiltrate environmental groups in the 1980s. In 1984, he met a woman known only as Jacqui. She was 22, and fell in love with him; she’d found him to be “very charming and charismatic”. Their son was born in 1985; Lambert was at first a devoted, hands-on father, but he vanished two years later, claiming he had to flee abroad to escape prosecution for his animal rights activism. In fact, he had been married all along, with two children. Jacqui only discovered the deception in 2012, when she saw his photo in the press because of the police spying scandal. It has since transpired that Lambert deceived…

UK farmers have been banned from using a neonicotinoid pesticide that has been shown to be highly toxic to bees. Thiamethoxam (brand name Cruiser SB) is used to kill an aphid that spreads the yellows virus to sugar beet, reducing sugar content and lowering yields. In 2020, a quarter of the country’s crop was lost to the disease at a cost of £67m. However, just one teaspoon is enough to kill 1.25 billion honeybees – that’s enough to fill four lorries – and even a non-lethal dose can affect bees’ cognition, making it harder for them to forage for nectar. The neonicotinoid was banned in the EU in 2018, but the UK then granted several emergency authorisations for its use. Rejecting this year’s application from British Sugar and the National…

The launch of a new AI chatbot from the Chinese startup DeepSeek last month caused widespread panic, said The Economist. About a trillion dollars was wiped off the value of the US tech giants, as it became clear that DeepSeek had made an AI model nearly as good as OpenAI’s or Google’s, for a fraction of the cost – even though it had been barred from using cutting-edge chips by US export controls. Policymakers in Washington fretted that the US’s lead in AI technology seemed under threat. But for the world at large, DeepSeek’s success “should be a cause for optimism”. It shows how “competition and innovation will make AI cheaper and therefore more useful”. Before DeepSeek, it seemed likely that AI would be dominated by a handful of firms…

“To be mainstream on the internet is to be homeless.” James Marriott in The Times “Men have a duty to experiment with facial hair.” James May, ibid. “The trouble with politics is that it fastens onto the points of disagreement.” Tory MP, quoted by Martin Kettle in The Guardian “I’ve already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be.” Joan Didion, quoted in The Guardian “Lawsuit: a machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.” Ambrose Bierce, quoted on Inc.com “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.” Alfred Wainwright, quoted in The Industry “I wish I could tell you it gets better. But it doesn’t get better. You get better.” Joan Rivers, quoted in Good Housekeeping “Conscience…

To The Guardian What part of the economy is the Chancellor trying to grow, and for whom (“Reeves plans to create ‘Silicon Valley’”)? When it comes to growth, “it’s the little things, stupid”. Instead of remote, long-term and hugely expensive projects that may well prove economically ineffective, but are certainly environmentally destructive, people need to see and experience changes that make a positive difference to their everyday lives. More (paid) workers cleaning up rubbish from the streets. Funding local libraries and museums. Reopening community and youth centres. Revitalising adult education for all. More police on the beat. It’s all job creation and paid jobs bring in tax revenue. What’s not to like? With ministers sneering about bats and newts, much of the time it seems that the only guardians of…

The curator and art dealer picks five favourites. His latest, Gilbert & George and the Communists (Cheerio £19.99), is an account of his travels with the duo in the USSR and China, and a sequel to his memoir Bacon in Moscow A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov, 1840 (OUP £8.99). Our hero is a restless contradictory character, troubled by his unsuccessful search for romantic love. I’m fascinated by Lermontov’s portrayal of a decadent 1840s society – he wrote it when he was 26 and died a year later after a duel. On my trip through the Caucasus in 1991, I paid homage at the site in Pyatigorsk. I was travelling with the journalist Dan Farson – Francis Bacon had introduced us, and he came to Moscow and Shanghai with…

Programmes Virdee New crime drama. Estranged from his Sikh family after marrying a Muslim, detective Harry Virdee throws himself into the case of a missing teenager. Mon 10 Feb, BBC1 21:00 (60mins). Sort Your Life Out Stacey Solomon and her team of decluttering experts return to help families overhaul their homes and lives. Tue 11 Feb, BBC1 20:00 (60mins). Storyville: 26.2 to Life – Inside the San Quentin Prison Marathon Documentary about three “lifers” undertaking a marathon inside the infamous prison, and the transformative effect it has on their lives. Tue 11 Feb, BBC4 22:00 (90mins). Tales from the Riverbank Clare Balding embarks on a tour of Britain’s major rivers, looking at the people and wildlife who live on them. Thur 13 Feb, C5 20:00 (60mins). Films The Elephant Man (1980) John…

Zozzo means filthy in Italian, and that’s a fairly accurate way to describe this delicious Roman pasta recipe, says Rosie Mackean. It is a hybrid of rich eggy carbonara and tomatoey, meaty amatriciana, with a few sausages thrown in for good measure. With this, it is much easier to get the creamy emulsion in a large quantity than with carbonara, as the acid in the tomato sauce helps to coagulate the egg yolks. Slurpy, fun and absolutely heavenly, this is a great pasta main for a dinner party. Serves 6 250g guanciale (Italian dry cured pork cheek), trimmed and diced (use pancetta if you can’t find guanciale) 6 Italian-style sausages 2×400g cans of cherry tomatoes 800g dried bucatini pasta 9 egg yolks 80g pecorino romano cheese, finely grated, plus extra…

Fairbnb only lists short-term rentals that are usually lived in by their owners, and donates 50% of its commission to community projects. It has 2,000 listings in ten countries across Europe (fairbnb.coop). Socialbnb connects travellers with hundreds of social and ecological projects worldwide, many with rooms to rent (socialbnb.org). Formerly a green travel blog, Ecobnb now lists about 3,000 sustainable places to stay in more than 55 countries (ecobnb.com). Kindred is a house-swapping platform, with 80,000 homes available. All members have to make their own homes available, and everyone is vetted (livekindred.com). Launched by former Airbnb colleagues, Landfolk aims to get people into nature. It operates in six countries, mostly in Scandinavia (landfolk.com). Sawday’s (which owns the glamping site Canopy & Stars) is one of the highest-scoring B Corp travel…

andBeyond Mnemba Island Tanzania A tiny “blob” of sand in the Zanzibar archipelago, Mnemba is Tanzania’s most “glam” private island resort, says Lisa Grainger in Condé Nast Traveller. Opened in 1996 but rebuilt last year, it’s “the antithesis of bling”, with just 12 “Crusoe-esque” villas – “curvaceous” structures made from wood and palm, into which “sea air (and an occasional bird, crab, or bat) can waft”. The bar and restaurant are shaded by casuarina trees and sit beside a blindingly white beach. Trips to Zanzibar’s main island are easy, and there’s a spa with a “breezy” yoga deck, and a watersports centre manned by friendly local instructors. Doubles from £620; andbeyond.com.…

Liang Wenfeng When the DeepSeek founder returned to his home village deep in rural China for the Lunar New Year holiday, he received a hero’s welcome, said the FT – as “a digital David fighting America’s Big Tech Goliath”. Yet Liang – a hedge fund “quant” turned startup founder – is the first to admit his main early influence was a US trader. He drew inspiration from Jim Simons, a pioneer in quantitative investment (using mathematical models to determine opportunities) whose Renaissance Technologies fund had been using “machine-learning techniques” since the 1980s, said The Wall Street Journal. Liang’s own pivot to AI, with the formation of DeepSeek in 2023, followed on. He once likened acquiring sought-after Nvidia chips “to buying a piano”. You do it “because you can afford it”…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1451 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 17 February. Send it to The Week Crossword 1451, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid/listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. By Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) This week’s winner will receive Week-branded items, as well as two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 8 Advertise widely what sounds like the correct entrance (9) 9 Ideas disguised in casual remark (5) 10 Since more certain, one convinces another person (7) 11 Try set dinner with first and last in nutrition ignored? Not for these (7) 12 In a lazy way, gully sighs when hit (10) 13 Century for fellow…

Only 44% of parents of children in reception at primary school (aged four or five) believe that children should know how to use a book – by turning its pages, not swiping them – before starting school, the charity Kindred² has found. 24% do not think it’s essential for children to be toilet trained before they start school. 90% believe their own child was ready to start school – though a survey of teachers indicates that one in three pupils were not deemed ready. More than 10% of 16- to 24-year-olds in the UK identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual in 2023, up from 4.4% in 2018, according to the Office for National Statistics. The growth is mainly due to more people identifying as bisexual, the ONS says.…

Lucy Letby’s lawyers have submitted an application for her case to be examined by the Criminal Cases Review Commission – the body that looks into potential miscarriages of justice. On Tuesday, they held a press conference at which a panel of neonatal experts presented what they called an “impartial, evidence-based report” challenging the medical evidence used to convict Letby of the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of seven more at the Countess of Chester Hospital. The chairman of the review, Dr Shoo Lee, co-authored a 1989 paper on air embolisms, which the prosecution had used to back up its case. He said his work had been “misinterpreted”. The view of the panel, he said, was that the babies had died as a result of natural causes or…

Washington DC Aid pulled: America’s main foreign aid agency was effectively shuttered this week and its future thrown into jeopardy. The US Agency for International Development (USAID), set up in 1961, employs 10,000 people and is the world’s largest foreign aid donor: it disbursed $40bn in 2023. However, Donald Trump has claimed that it is run by “radical lunatics”, and he has tasked Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) with scaling it back. On Monday, staff were turned away from USAID’s Washington HQ and senior officials were put on leave, reportedly for trying to stop Musk’s team from accessing secure areas owing to their lack of security clearance. Musk said USAID was being “shut down”; Trump suggested it was being merged with the State Department. With payments frozen,…

“Excellent news that the Mona Lisa is being removed from the Louvre and placed in a separate facility away from the main collection. Anyone who has seen it in real life will only remember a) it’s teeny, and b) the crazy throng of tourists with selfie sticks frantically trying to take their own snap of a picture printed on mugs and tea towels in the gift shop. The Mona-only gallery is like putting a blob of jam on a plate to attract wasps away from your picnic. (I suggest the Louvre builds a travelator like that for the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London.) That way the bucket-list morons get to tick off an item and everyone else can enjoy the art.” Janice Turner in The Times…

Why Britain can’t dig its way into a hole Robert Colvile The Sunday Times Rachel Reeves is a brave woman, says Robert Colvile. In her pro-growth speech last week, the Chancellor vowed to build no fewer than nine new reservoirs – quite some pledge, seeing as the UK hasn’t managed to build even one of these increasingly vital pieces of infrastructure since 1992. To see why, you need only consider the saga of the proposed Abingdon reservoir. Thames Water has been trying to build this since “about 1991” to save London from drought, yet has been foiled by a relentless campaign of “attritional warfare” by Nimbys, using every trick and legal ruse in the book. The reservoir isn’t necessary, Thames Water should just cut leaks; more impact assessments are needed;…

Bring on the “Iron Dome for America” Editorial National Review Ronald Reagan got a lot of flak in 1983 when he proposed the idea of a space-based missile defence system to protect America from nuclear attack, says National Review. Critics accused him of provoking the Soviets and mocked his “Star Wars” plan. Then-senator Joe Biden called it “one of the most reckless and irresponsible acts in the history of modern statecraft”. In the event, the plan, while not coming to fruition, arguably helped end the Cold War by making Moscow realise it couldn’t compete with the US. There were similar jibes last week when Trump called for a “next-generation missile defence shield”. Because the executive order was titled “Iron Dome for America”, critics rushed to point out that Israel’s version…

Dementia hits graduates faster People who graduated from university die more quickly following a dementia diagnosis than their less-educated peers, new research has found. Scientists at the Erasmus University Medical Centre, in Amsterdam, analysed the results of 261 studies into the survival of people with dementia, 36 of which contained information about the participants’ education. They found that, on average, patients lived ten-and-a-half years after diagnosis – but that each additional year of studies cut the survival time by two or three months. This would mean that someone who completed an undergraduate degree at 21 would live about a year less after diagnosis than someone who left school after GCSEs/O levels. It is not, the scientists say, that education harms the brain; on the contrary, it likely builds cognitive reserve…

On the day of John Prescott’s funeral in Hull last week – where his cortège was led by two Jaguars – Andrew Marr recalled meeting the Labour bruiser at a party conference years ago. Prezza marched towards him, waving his arms “like a demented crop sprayer”, then jabbed his finger into Marr’s chest. “You f**king bastard, I will f**king ’av you,” he thundered, before storming off. Thirty seconds later, Prescott was back. “Sorry,” he said. “Wrong bloke.” Karla Sofía Gascón, the transgender star of the Oscar-nominated film Emilia Pérez, was forced to apologise last week, after old tweets surfaced in which she’d called George Floyd a “drug addict and a hustler”, and said that Islam should be banned. We’ve seen a lot of celebrity apologies, said Charlotte Ivers in The…

If there’s one area of the British state crying out for reform, said The Times, it’s the welfare system. Recent figures show that 3.3 million working age people in Britain are on incapacity benefit, 700,000 more than four years ago. Of these, 2.5 million are claiming the highest level of benefit, which carries no requirement to seek work – up from 1.85 million in 2018. The total bill for all health-related benefits is estimated to be almost £65bn, and is set to hit £100bn by the end of the decade. “This is simply unsustainable.” Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall has promised bold action to “get a grip on the benefits bill”, and a green paper on the issue is due in the spring. It is expected to impose more…

“The opening weekend of a Six Nations campaign is all about starting fast and then sustaining that momentum,” said Robert Kitson in The Observer. And in their opening game against Ireland in Dublin, England “were encouragingly quick out of the stalls”. Early on, there was a “snap and crackle” to their tackling, and a determination to “give it a real go with ball in hand”. At the interval, following a “bristling” first-half display which included a try for debutant Cadan Murley, England led 10-5. The second half was a different story. While the Irish upped their game, Steve Borthwick’s side failed “to kick on when it really counted” – and during a barnstorming 21 minutes, Ireland scored 22 unanswered points, with tries from Bundee Aki, Tadhg Beirne and Dan Sheehan.…

Football Chris Wood scored a hat-trick as Nottingham Forest beat Brighton 7-0 in the Premier League. Golf Rory McIlroy claimed his 27th PGA Tour title – and his first of 2025 – by winning the Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Shane Lowry of Ireland came second. Cricket England’s women ended the Ashes with a defeat by an innings and 122 runs in the Test match. Australia won every match of the multi-format series. Tennis GB lost 3-2 to Japan in the Davis Cup, and could now be relegated from the top tier.…

Shadi Al-Atallah at Niru Ratnam It helps to be in possession of a strong stomach when confronting the work of Saudi-born painter Shadi Al-Atallah (b.1994). The canvases fielded in this harrowing show, entitled Hole, take their cue from a stretch the artist endured in a psychiatric facility – one can only infer that it was far from a therapeutic experience. Working against a sombre palette – dull beige, concrete grey, matte black – that recalls the French miserabilist Bernard Buffet at his most miserable, Al-Atallah conjures claustrophobic images of intolerable violence and suffering: naked limbs thrashing against each other in life-or-death struggle, bruised bodies, torturer’s-eye views of vicious beatings. Certain pieces – notably Growing Pains (2025) – seem to nod to Francis Bacon at his very scariest, whiplash strokes of…

Marianne Faithfull 1946-2025 “A blonde-haired, blue-eyed convent girl with aristocratic forebears and a heart awash with romantic decadence,” Marianne Faithfull was just 17 years old when she was spotted by the Rolling Stones’ manager Andrew Loog Oldham at a party for the band in London, said The Daily Telegraph. It was 1964, and the Stones were still mainly covering old blues numbers. Oldham had recently ordered Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to write a song of their own – and supposedly locked them in a kitchen until they came up with the goods. The result was a wan and wistful ballad called As Time Goes By (the title ripped off from the song in Casablanca). Richards called it a “terrible piece of tripe”; and it was, as Faithfull observed, an…

In a historic first, India surged to the top of the global IPO rankings in 2024 – hosting a record-breaking 336 IPOs. Can the momentum continue? Listings torrent Although India dramatically outpaced the US in terms of IPO volume – there were 183 new American listings last year – it still trails in terms of value. The EY Global IPO Trends survey calculates that $19.9bn was raised last year, compared with $32.8bn in the US. But a further “torrent of mega listings” means equity fund-raising could surpass $23bn in 2025. Local bedrock Last year’s strong debuts were driven by millions of households increasingly investing their savings in local markets, said the FT. The number of Indians with access to mutual funds has more than quadrupled since 2020 to around 180…

The week’s best shares Andrada Mining The Mail on Sunday Problems have resolved and production is rising at this Namibia-based miner, focused on tin, tantalum and lithium – all vital to electronics production. Should benefit from geopolitical tensions constraining supply. Buy. 2p. Diploma The Daily Telegraph The gasket and seal supplier’s performance has been sound, backed by an ambitious M&A strategy. Given its strong market position, solid balance sheet and exposure to fast-growing economies, there’s further to run. Buy. £44.08. IG Group Holdings Investors’ Chronicle The spread-betting and contracts for difference trading platform has extended its buyback programme after double-digit revenue and profit growth. Increasing its UK presence via the acquisition of trading app, Freetrade. Yields 4.5%. Buy. £10.34. Marshalls The Daily Telegraph The landscaping, building and roofing products supplier…

People from all over the country travelled to the Isle of Skye last week, to rescue a young humpback whale that had got tangled in some rope. The whale was spotted in a salmon farm by a member of the public, who raised the alarm with British Divers Marine Life Rescue. It gathered a team from across the UK, who worked with locals and the emergency services to cut the rope away in a set sequence using knives attached to poles, until the whale was able to swim away. A 21-year-old from Cambridge is believed to have become the first woman and youngest person to have rowed solo from mainland Europe to South America. Zara Lachlan, who is due to join the Army in September, set off from Lagos on…

Overtourism, after 260 buses carrying 10,000 day-trippers suddenly descended on an Italian ski resort, overwhelming the town of Roccaraso, in the Abruzzo mountains. The visitors had been lured by clips on TikTok, and cheap package deals. Beyoncé, who won her first album of the year Grammy for her country-inspired album. Last year, the Country Music Association Awards failed to give Cowboy Carter a single nomination. Supersonic flight, with news that a Denver-based startup is designing a passenger plane capable of flying at Mach 1.7 – faster than the speed of sound. The plane has been dubbed “Son of Concorde”, and several major airlines have already put in orders.…

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has overtaken Labour and the Tories in a major opinion poll for the first time. According to YouGov, public support for Reform stands at 25%. Labour is on 24% and the Conservatives 21%. Donald Trump’s net approval rating is the lowest for any newly elected president since the Second World War, apart from him, according to the poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight. His rating is currently 7%. At the start of his first term, it was 3.2%. 37% of British shoppers admit that they’ve deliberately omitted to scan an item at a self-service checkout. 32.5% of shoppers have deliberately mis-weighed loose items, and 38% have passed off an item as cheaper than it actually is. The Grocer/Daily Mail…

Bill Gates’s childhood Bill Gates was a billionaire by the age of 31, but when he was growing up in Seattle, no one would have predicted a glittering future for him. Quite the contrary. His parents were loving and ambitious for their children; but he was “tricky”, he told Alice Thomson in The Times: disorganised, fidgety and obstructive. At school he messed around, and got Bs and Cs. Today, he’d perhaps have been diagnosed as autistic, but his parents “had no guideposts or textbooks to help them grasp why their son became so obsessed with certain projects, missed social cues and could be rude or inappropriate”. It was even suggested that he might be “retarded”. Things started to improve when he got the top mark in a regional maths exam…

An Instagram account that reviews sticks has exploded in popularity. “Official Stick Reviews” was started by two American stick aficionados, Boone Hogg and Logan Jugler, after they found a particularly pleasing specimen while hiking in Utah in 2023. Their inaugural video praised the stick’s “nice grip” and “excellent grain”; since then, their account has amassed nearly three million followers, who rate sticks according to factors such as appearance, rarity and “aura”. “We just want to share sticks,” Hogg explained. The Wallace and Gromit villain Feathers McGraw is proving a hit at tattoo parlours around the country. Faith Garvie, a tattoo artist based in Liverpool, told the BBC that she’d done “six Feathers” over the course of a single week. Pictures of the tattoos on social media show the penguin in…

There were no survivors of last Wednesday’s mid-air collision between a Black Hawk army helicopter and a passenger jet heading into Washington DC’s Reagan National airport, said Benjamin Wallace-Wells in The New Yorker. In total, 67 people, including several young figure skaters, died when the two aircraft plunged into the Potomac River. The next day, President Trump called a press conference. Reading from a prepared script, he referred gravely to “a tragedy of terrible proportions”, and a nation “overcome with grief”. Then his tone changed as he started to ad-lib his own thoughts: that the crash was likely the fault of his predecessors, Joe Biden and Barack Obama, and their efforts to boost diversity in the Federal Aviation Administration. This, he said, had led to “lower” standards and meant people…

“It’s deeply peculiar,” said Zoe Strimpel in The Sunday Telegraph. The younger generation could hardly be more woke, with their demands for safe spaces and noisy concern for every kind of injustice. But they seem also to be “increasingly authoritarian”. A shocking new survey by Channel 4 found that 52% of Gen Z (13- to 28-year-olds) are in favour of the UK becoming a dictatorship, while 33% think we would be better off “if the Army was in charge”. Yet if you think about it, their responses make sense, said Sam Ashworth-Hayes in The Daily Telegraph. Gen Z have grown up in a dem0ocracy “that seems unable to deliver its basic functions”, with wages stagnant, living standards falling and the median house price more than eight times the average income.…

Industrial inaction To The Spectator Matthew Lynn is correct to emphasise the economic dangers of deindustrialisation. But there are cultural dangers too. It’s now 40 years since Correlli Barnett and I made a television programme called Assembled in Britain, drawing attention to the alarming retreat of manufacturing. What can you say about a civilisation that cannot produce the goods it needs, other than that civilisation loses integrity and pride? In 1944, W.J. King wrote The Unwritten Laws of Engineering, pointing out that manufacturing civilisations were daily able to demonstrate the valuable relationship between effort and reward, and that they were required to maintain respectful chains of command. Every MP should read it. We have a lot to learn from factories, but maybe it is too late. There aren’t many left.…

Over nine series and 55 episodes, Inside No. 9 became a TV phenomenon, said Sarah Crompton on What’s on Stage. Written by and starring Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, this darkly comic BBC TV anthology series was made up of 30-minute-long stand-alone vignettes that, with their combination of the eerie and the absurd, “sit somewhere between Hancock’s Half Hour and The Twilight Zone”. The series finally came to an end last year, making this spin-off the duo’s “final hurrah”. Stage/Fright is not as “groundbreaking” or radical as the TV show, but it is “great, all-encompassing fun” – and, owing to the TV original’s legions of devoted fans, it is already sold out in the West End. However, a nationwide tour will surely follow at some point. This is an “end-of-the-pier show…

A team of specialists is trying to prove that a painting bought for less than $50 at a Minnesota garage sale is actually a van Gogh worth $15m, says Kelly Crow in The Wall Street Journal. The “thickly painted piece depicts a pensive fisherman” with a white beard repairing his net on an empty beach. In the lower-right corner is scrawled the name “Elimar”. LMI Group International, a New York art-research firm, bought it from an anonymous antiques collector for an undisclosed sum in 2019, and “has investigated it ever since, pouring in well over $30,000” using a 20-strong team of experts, from chemists to curators to patent lawyers. Maxwell Anderson, a former curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is staking his reputation on “Elimar”: he thinks it was…

Lilian comforts Joy, who is downcast about the cancelled panto outing and confesses she and Mick aren’t getting along. Tracy is cross with Susan who borrowed, and has lost, her best shoes. A spat between Lynda and Vince results in a £500 wager: Lynda bets she can put on a panto by Friday. Joy and Mick have an awkward chat about their future. Tasked with finding a star for the show, they separately approach panto dame Berwick Kaler – after some negotiations, he agrees. Lynda and Lilian cast the villagers for Cinderella, while a suspicious Vince sniffs around. Discovering that Vince has booked the village hall for Friday, the panto is moved to Brookfield. Susan and Tracy continue to fight. With cast members dropping out, a difficult star and missing…

The rise of super-spreads When it comes to topping their morning toast, most people are creatures of habit, says Grace Cook in the Financial Times. Whether it’s Marmite or jam, familiarity is key; and as a result, the “condiments aisle” has rarely been a site of innovation. Now, though, that is changing: a new generation of “super-spreads” is redefining what can go on the “humble slice”. Many entrants in this “elite category of condiment” are similar to peanut butter. For instance, the “earthy and complex” Sunflower Seed Butter produced by Estonian brand Sunfly. Its developer says that it is a “game changer” for those with dietary needs, as it is free of nuts and other common allergens. Alternatively, try the Malaysia-inspired brand Madam Chang’s range of kayas: these curds, made…

● Relax in the evening, says Merijn van de Laar, sleep expert and author of How to Sleep Like a Caveman. Have soothing conversations. Do not think about work or relationships: it will get your brain spinning. ● Forget the idea that you need eight hours: it is not a magic number. Most people get seven; but if you function well on six, that’s fine. There is no evidence that people who sleep less die earlier, unless obstructive sleep apnoea is involved. ● Similarly, try not to worry if you wake up often. If you are resting, it is still productive time. Being wakeful and worrying is what will make you tired the next day. ● Worrying will also make it harder for you to get to sleep. If you…

Unilever: ice cream wars “As the largest ice cream company in the world, we have over 100 years of experience in spreading joy and happiness,” boasts Unilever, home to brands such as Magnum, Ben & Jerry’s and Viennetta. Now the joy is due to be spread further, said The Sunday Times, with contentious plans to demerge and float the £13bn ice cream division. Unilever boss Hein Schumacher “finds himself caught in a tussle between London, New York and Amsterdam”. Nelson Peltz, the activist investor on Unilever’s board, is pushing for a New York spin-off on grounds it will fetch a higher valuation. Meanwhile, the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has personally urged executives to choose London. That, however, “could revive Anglo-Dutch tensions that surfaced in 2018 when Unilever reversed on a plan…

The global war on red tape Editorial The Economist Donald Trump is not the only one taking a “wrecking ball” to rules and regulations, says The Economist. He is “part of a global trend”: from Buenos Aires and Delhi, to Brussels and London, “an anti-red-tape revolution is under way”. A big overhaul is certainly needed; in the rich world, “getting anything built has become a daunting task”. Americans are reckoned to spend 12 billion hours a year complying with federal rules; filling in “sustainability disclosures” in Denmark costs a typical firm €300,000. History shows that deregulation can be “a magic potion which peps up the animal spirits”. Thatcher’s Britain, India in the early 1990s, and southern Europe in the 2020s all sped ahead following pro-market reforms. In Argentina, disciplined and…