Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1243 i The Week

Brexit showdown in the Commons “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Boris Johnson had cause to reflect ruefully on that observation by the former boxing champion Mike Tyson this week, said The Times. For whatever his Brexit plan was on taking office in July, it surely didn’t involve “suffering a 27-vote parliamentary defeat on the first test his Government has faced in the House of Commons”. Nor can it have involved the defection of one of his MPs just as he stood up to make his first statement from the dispatch box as Prime Minister, a move that wiped out his majority. Johnson had hoped to stop MPs seizing control of the Commons order paper this week – a move designed to enable them to…

Amazon, which released figures showing that it paid just £220m in direct taxes in the UK last year, despite generating nearly £11bn in revenue from doing business here. It was the first time the online giant had published details of its UK tax liabilities. These revealed that most of its direct contribution came in the form of employer tax (Amazon employs 27,500 people in the UK), followed by business rates and corporation tax. The National Trust, whose membership is soaring. The charity’s membership increased by 400,000 last year, pushing it to 5.6 million for the first time. It is supported by 65,000 volunteers who gave more than 4.8 million hours of their time in 2018/19. Margaret Atwood, who won a place on the Booker shortlist for her novel The Testaments,…

In a voting intentions poll taken on Monday and Tuesday, the Tories were at 35%, Labour were at 25%, the Lib Dems at 16%, the Brexit Party at 11%, and the Greens on 7%. 46% of voters said they don’t want there to be a snap election; 35% are in favour of one. Opposition to holding an election is highest among Tory voters, at 70%. YouGov/The Times Asked which of the party leaders would make the best prime minister, 45% of adults said Boris Johnson. 19% said Jo Swinson, 17% Jeremy Corbyn, and 19% don’t know. 53% of Tory voters said that Tory MPs who tried to block a no-deal Brexit should be banned from standing for the party at the next election. 33% disagreed. Survation/Daily Mail…

Martin Lewis’s grief Two days before his 12th birthday, Martin Lewis’s childhood came to an abrupt end, says David Collins in The Sunday Times. That day, he came home to be told that his mother had been hurt in a riding accident; the next morning, she died. “When I lost my mother, I lost about three to four years of my education,” says the money-saving expert, 47. “I had no focus, I had no drive. I was crying every day. I couldn’t really cope with life.” Compounding his grief was a sense of guilt. “I thought if I hadn’t gone out [that day], it wouldn’t have happened. There was no logic to it.” His life started to get back on track in his late teens; but it was taking a…

Initially, British troops were welcomed in Catholic areas of Northern Ireland, because they provided protection from sectarian mobs and the hated RUC. However, nationalist communities’ relationship with the army quickly soured because they came to see it as a tool of the unionist government in Stormont. In 1971, internment without trial was introduced, and it overwhelmingly targeted Republicans, even though the Ulster Volunteer Force, a loyalist paramilitary, was bombing Catholic pubs and churches at the time. Meanwhile, the IRA had come under attack for failing in its traditional role of protecting Catholics during the riots. At that point it was led by Marxist pacifists, and graffiti on Belfast’s walls suggested its initials stood for “I Ran Away”. Later that year a violent splinter group, the Provisional IRA, emerged, bent on…

Preparing for the world to go up in smoke Bryan Walsh The New York Times The supervolcano underneath Yellowstone National Park doesn’t erupt very often, says Bryan Walsh: there have been three eruptions in the past 2.1 million years, most recently 640,000 years ago. But if it were to happen, a 2015 study found that it would be “the greatest catastrophe since the dawn of civilisation”. Magma would “burst through the ground in a titanic eruption, discharging the toxic innards of the Earth to the air. It would continue for days, burying Yellowstone in lava within a 40-mile radius”. That would only be the start: it would cover large swathes of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah in toxic volcanic ash up to three feet deep. The ash cloud would plunge much…

GPs are prescribing a growing number of opioid painkillers, raising fears that a US-style opioid epidemic could hit Britain. Prescriptions for oxycodone and fentanyl – two of the opioids at the heart of America’s crisis – have doubled in the past decade, according to NHS England, to nearly three million last year (equivalent to 8,000 packets a day). During the same period, there has also been a 400% increase in deaths attributed to opioids in England and Wales, with around three per week on average in 2018. The British death rate is still dwarfed by that of the US, where opioid overdoses accounted for some 47,600 deaths in 2017. However, doctors have warned that it risks going up. “This analysis... should serve as a much-needed wake-up call,” said Duncan Stephenson…

“Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.” General James Mattis, quoted in The Atlantic “Whose bread I eat, his song I sing.” German saying, quoted in Forbes “I abhor comfortable violence. I abhor those whose words go further than their deeds.” Albert Camus, quoted in The Sunday Telegraph “When a place gets boring even the rich people leave.” Author Jane Jacobs, quoted in The Times “They preferred the name of the tree to the taste of the apple.” Poet Tony Hoagland on intellectuals, quoted in The New Yorker “That will teach the English to try and behave like Frenchmen.” Charles de Gaulle on the Profumo affair, quoted in The Guardian “All happiness depends on courage and work.” Honoré de Balzac, quoted in The Independent…

Football In the Premier League, Arsenal drew 2-2 with Tottenham. Manchester City beat Brighton 4-0. Manchester United drew 1-1 with Southampton. Rugby union Jacob Stockdale scored two tries in Ireland’s 22-17 victory over Wales. Tennis In the US Open, defending champion Novak Djokovic retired from his fourth-round match, and Grigor Dimitrov beat Roger Federer in five sets. Cricket England women’s captain Heather Knight scored an unbeaten 78 as Western Storm beat Southern Vipers to win the Super League title.…

This new film by British director Joanna Hogg is “like one of those shards of glass you think you can pick up by hand”, said Tom Shone in The Sunday Times. It’s so “sharp and clear and deceptively miniature”, you only register too late that “you’ve been cut”. The characters in this memoir of a tortured love affair that Hogg had in her 20s, are so vividly portrayed you feel you know them. It “should have Mike Leigh, Terence Davies and Ken Loach making room for her on the bench of British masters. It really is that good.” It’s a film that positively “squirms with self-destructive tension”, said Joshua Rothkopf in Time Out. Set in the early 1980s, the story centres on Julie, a well-heeled upper class young film-maker (Honor…

Collage could hardly be described as the most glamorous of art forms, said Nancy Durrant in The Times. Yet, while many might associate it more closely with primary school craft activities than with great art, it is a tradition with a “fascinating” history behind it. This excellent new exhibition in Edinburgh sets out to chart the story of collage, arguing that it is a “versatile” medium that offers endless creative possibilities to artists who work with it. Beginning in the late Renaissance, when painters would paste “scraps” over mistakes in their work, the show brings us right up to the present day, taking in everything from 16th century anatomical diagrams and Victorian “homemade Valentine’s Day cards” to Georges Braque’s cubist collages and surrealism, pop art and punk. We see how…

Best books… Martin Sixsmith The author and TV presenter, whose book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee was the basis for the film Philomena, picks his five favourite books. His latest novel, An Unquiet Heart, is published by Scribner at £20 The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, 1958 (Vintage, £9.99). An aristocratic Sicilian family fears for the future during the Garibaldi revolution of 1860. Lampedusa paints the old regime with all its faults and fecklessness but, like Chekhov, he laments the passing of a society he loved. A delicate meditation on mortality, decay and the fading of beauty. Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov, 1957 (Penguin, £8.99). A Soviet émigré, Professor Pnin reels from one comic disaster to another as he arrives to teach Russian literature at a provincial American college.…

Rum is having a moment, says Susy Atkins in The Daily Telegraph. This summer I’ve enjoyed it both in cocktails and as a long drink: rum and tonic is every bit as refreshing as G&T. Garnish with lime. I make my favourite rum cocktail, a “Dark and Stormy”, with a Caribbean classic, Goslings Black Seal – a rich, intense dark rum. Stir 50ml rum, 25ml fresh lime juice and a dash of angostura bitters, plus a little sugar syrup, over ice in a tall tumbler. Top up with ginger beer (not ale) and garnish with a lime twist. If you favour the bold, intense flavours of ginger, cracked peppercorn and all spice, then “plunge straight into” Dark Matter Spiced Rum, made in Banchory, Scotland (40%, £29; Tesco, down to £25…

Citta dei Nicliani Peloponnese Made famous in Britain by Patrick Leigh Fermor’s eponymous 1950s travelogue, the Mani is a region of timeless, “rugged” beauty in the south of mainland Greece. In the tiny village of Kitta, the Citta dei Nicliani occupies one of its many old fortified tower houses, and has nine delightful guest rooms, says Pamela Goodman in House & Garden. Hearty local food is served in the leafy courtyard, and the owner’s collection of fine wines has few equals in Greece. For larger parties, Leigh Fermor’s house in nearby Kardamyli is newly available as a holiday let. Doubles from £95 b&b, cittadeinicliani.com; or visit ariahotels.gr for the Leigh Fermor house.…

Marks & Spencer: Footsie exit It’s the end of an era at M&S, said Louis Ashworth in The Daily Telegraph. The former bellwether of the British high street has been “booted” off the FTSE 100 in the latest quarterly reshuffle – ending a nonstop presence dating back to the blue-chip index’s foundation 35 years ago. The relegation deals “a fresh blow to Archie Norman”, the City veteran who put Asda on the map, and who has been trying in vain to turn around M&S’s fortunes. Failure to address long-running problems, particularly in clothing, has seen M&S shares suffer a “steady erosion” on his two-year watch, tumbling 35%. And staying in the FTSE 100 is about more than “prestige”: several funds track the index overall and will now “have to…

We’ll take one for the team, says the EU Peter S. Goodman The New York Times There is never a good time for a major economy “to descend into befuddling uncertainty over the rules that govern trade”, says Peter S. Goodman. But now is an unfortunate moment for the EU to be struggling to cope with the Westminster mayhem. The bloc’s largest economy, Germany, is “teetering” on the edge of recession; Italy is weakening too. “Heading towards the Brexit cliffs in a diminished state wasn’t supposed to be part of the plan”: only two years ago, the EU economy was expanding fairly rapidly. Yet the fear now is that a hard Brexit could send the whole eurozone into recession. But though Europe’s economic bargaining power is reduced, that’s unlikely to…

Controversy of the week Ruth’s resignation Who’d ever have thought that “a young, gay, working-class woman would transform the fortunes of the Conservative Party in Scotland”, asked Mark Shepard on The Conversation. But that’s just what Ruth Davidson did when she became leader of the Scottish Tories eight years ago. Back in 2011, the party north of the border was on its knees. But under Davidson’s charismatic leadership, it moved from the margins of politics to be the main opposition in Holyrood: it galvanised unionist support in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum and went on to win 13 seats at the 2017 general election – the party’s best haul since 1983. Without her, Theresa May would not have been PM. Before Davidson, “to admit to being a Conservative in Scotland…

The Chancellor Sajid Javid claimed he was “turning the page” on austerity on Wednesday, as he unveiled his spending plans for next year. Javid committed £13.8bn in extra spending in total, £2bn of which will go on Brexit preparations. He said councils will get an extra £1.5bn for social care next year; defence spending will get a £2.2bn boost (up 2.6%); there will be another £6.2bn for the NHS, and £7.1bn for schools over three years. Economists warned that the Chancellor risked breaching government spending rules that state borrowing as a proportion of output must remain 2% below GDP.…

Dresden, Germany Far-right surge: The far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) experienced a massive surge in support in regional elections in two eastern German states on Sunday – but fell short of outright victory in both cases, to the relief of the country’s main parties. In Saxony, the capital of which is Dresden, the AfD’s vote share rose from 10%, in the election in 2014, to 27.5% – putting the party only just behind the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU), which came first with 32%. In Brandenburg, which surrounds Berlin but does not include it, the AfD’s vote share doubled from 12.2% to 23.5%; there, it came two points behind the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD). Opinion polls had suggested that the AfD might do even better. However, turnout was unusually high,…

“Being Royal is not supposed to be fun, and no one makes it look less fun than the Duchess of Cambridge, who has had a free pass in the media lately, possibly because the most riveting thing she has done is plant some astrantias at the Chelsea Flower Show. None of us has a clue what she is thinking – about the ice caps, or wimmin’s issues. Can we imagine her writing cryptic Instagram posts, like Meghan Markle with her life-affirming cupcakes? And who is in the Duchess of Cambridge’s girl gang? No one knows. Softly, softly, she is channelling herself into a Mary of Teck figure: the less we know, the less there is to disrespect or question. Presently, she’s the biggest hope for survival the House of Windsor…

Time to say farewell to steak and chips Peter Franklin Unherd Soon, most of us will stop eating beef, says Peter Franklin, and it won’t be because we’ll all agree with vegans that meat is murder. It’ll be due to the logic of advanced capitalism. The alternatives to meat now being developed – plant-based substitutes and vat-grown meat produced from cultured animal cells – will taste the same as beef but, unlike cow meat, they’ll be subject to the “transformative power of the modern production line”. It’s not just a matter of the sheer volume of goods produced; it’s the speed of manufacture from raw material to finished article, and the ability to vary supply with fluctuating demand, to dispense with low-value by-products like offal and excrement, and to develop…

What the scientists are saying… Good athletes have bad teeth Top athletes may have healthy bodies – but their teeth are often another matter, possibly because of the energy drinks they consume. Scientists at UCL surveyed 352 male and female athletes from 11 sports, including cycling, swimming, rugby, football and athletics. They found that 94% brushed their teeth twice a day (compared with 75% of the general population), and 44% flossed regularly (compared with 21% of the population). Yet their teeth were in remarkably poor shape: 49% had untreated tooth decay, and fully 32% reported that their oral health was so bad that it negatively affected training and performance. Writing in the British Dental Journal, the researchers attribute their findings to the athletes’ high consumption of high-sugar energy products: 87%…

Prince Andrew: a PR disaster Sitting next to the Queen on the way to church at Balmoral hadn’t helped, said Janice Turner in The Times. His “tangled press releases were met with derision”. So last week, in his effort to fight allegations – which he fiercely denies – that in 2001, he had sex with a 17-year-old named Virginia Roberts (now Giuffre), Prince Andrew opted for “the last resort of the modern scoundrel, and cried ‘fake news’”. As 16 women spoke in a New York court about being groomed and abused by the late Jeffrey Epstein, “sources close to the Prince” got busy. No US official has queried the authenticity of the damaging 2001 photograph of the Duke with his arm around Roberts’s waist, but a “princely pal” did…

Boxing: is Lomachenko an all-time great? In boxing, they like to say that the good big man always beats the good little man. But at the O2 on Saturday night, Vasyl Lomachenko managed to make “height, weight and reach” count for nothing, said Jeff Powell in The Mail on Sunday. At 5ft 7in, the Ukrainian boxer may have been two inches shorter than Luke Campbell, his British opponent, but that didn’t stop him delivering a “masterclass” to add the WBC belt to his haul of world lightweight titles. Lomachenko arrived to plenty of hype – this, after all, is a man who has won world championships across three different weight divisions, and is widely considered to be the top pound-for-pound boxer in the world – yet he lived up to…

A train ride through time To The Observer After Will Hutton’s analysis of the HS2 project (“If Johnson wanted to lead the world, he’d stop hedging his bets and back HS2”), we should remember the destruction of so much of the rail network post-1961. Often referred to as the Beeching cuts, they are better described as Marples cuts (transport minister Ernest Marples was the driving force), which were disgracefully carried on by his successor in Labour’s government, Barbara Castle. It was not just quaint old country branch lines with loadings that could be carried in a taxi or two that went, but a main line built in 1899 with the same motivation as HS2 (adding to capacity) – the Great Central from Manchester, via Sheffield, to London Marylebone. It was…

Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair (1614) is a famously sprawling play and a tricky one to stage, said Alex Wood on What’s On Stage. Lacking the “dazzling” wordplay of Shakespeare, and not as focused as some of Jonson’s other work, the piece follows the comings and goings of a vast number of characters at what is now Smithfield Market in London: shopkeepers, judges, aristocrats, pickpockets and tricksters, each with their own “quirks and desires”. It hasn’t aged as well as the best Jacobean theatre, but Blanche McIntyre’s modern-dress production makes “a very solid stab at bringing it into the modern day”. There is much here that still strikes a chord, said Sarah Hemming in the FT – “hypocrisy, snobbery and thievery don’t date, neither does the point that everyone has flaws”.…

It’s hard to imagine how an arthouse film could “better fit the current British moment” than this “small marvel” of a feature debut, shot on a shoestring by director Mark Jenkin, said Danny Leigh in the Financial Times. Set in a picturesque Cornish village, it’s about the seething tensions between the entitled urbanites who buy second homes in the area and the resentful locals who find themselves priced out of the market. Yet Bait is far stranger than that makes it sound, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. Shot in black and white with a Bolex cine-camera, complete with glitches and scratches left on the print, it resembles an episode of EastEnders shot by the great expressionist German director, F.W. Murnau. What stands out is Jenkin’s “infectious love of tactile…

Huang Yuxing at König London The Chinese painter Huang Yuxing (b.1975) is an artist to watch. His paintings meld Chinese and Japanese artistic traditions with nods to impressionism and the violently colourful psychedelic imagery found in badly printed underground magazines of the early 1970s. At times, they even recall the paintings of Scottish artist Peter Doig, when he’s at his most cryptic. Never wholly abstract nor figuratively literal, most of the works on show here resemble landscapes of sorts, depicting peaking forms that could be interpreted as mountains, clusters of skyscrapers or even the patterns of a particularly erratic seismograph. Recognisable objects – a building, or a piece of fruit, say – can occasionally be picked out from Huang’s pile-up of ambiguous forms. But what really makes you engage with…

Emma has had another row with George, who still doesn’t want to visit Will. Ruth struggles to move past Pip’s decision to join the rewilding team. When Will tries to kiss Emma, she recoils; he accuses her of leading him on. On their date, Kate and Jakob realise they’re incompatible, but they still share a kiss. Ruth offers an olive branch to Pip, which Pip readily accepts. David tells Pip that Crowthers has gone into administration. Clarrie returns from a shopping trip without Poppy, confessing she left her with Bev; but Bev arrives alone, and explains to Will that she wants Poppy to have some time away. Will is inconsolable. Emma finds Will cleaning his gun, and spots live cartridges. He tells her to leave. Ed and Eddie join Emma…

The Clachan Inn Main Street, St John’s Town of Dalry, Dumfries and Galloway (01644-430241) This lovely rural village pub on the edge of Galloway Forest Park serves “top-flight comfort food” at prices of blisteringly great value, says Giles Coren in The Times. Four of us sat in the low-ceilinged, red-walled bar, decorated with fishing rods and framed fish, and enjoyed a “magnificent three-course banquet” that cost just £106, including “plenty of booze and lovely service”. Among the starters were an “excellent” salt and pepper squid with a sharp curry mayonnaise, pickled fennel and green chilli, and a “brilliant” Blackface lamb scrumpet – the meat cut into strips, breaded, fried and served with raw courgette strips, anchovies and green herb sauce. Mains included a “great glossy nugget of ox cheek…

New cars: what the critics say Autocar Ssangyong has finally “found its mojo”. The small Korean manufacturer has been selling its rugged SUVs in the UK since the 1990s, but it has never produced a good-looking car. The fourth-generation Korando breaks the pattern, but these days it also has much more competition. Its price, and a seven-year, 150,000-mile warranty and improved drive, do make it a compelling option, though. Auto Express The new Korando looks much “sleeker and sharper”, with quality materials and “pleasingly solid” switches. Top-spec models have a great, clear digital instrument cluster to replace analogue dials. Lower-spec infotainment systems lack a navigation system, but do have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. There’s a “vast” amount of room for rear passengers, and the 551-litre boot is competitive. The…

North Coast 500 Travel along “Scotland’s Route 66” on this 3-day tour starting at Inverness and stopping at Ullapool and Thurso. From £149pp, excluding accommodation 0131-226 3133, rabbies.com. Depart 31 October. Three nights in Stockholm Stay at the art deco Haymarket by Scandic hotel, 15 minutes from the Royal Swedish Opera, offers stay at from £322pp b&b, including London flights. 01733-224808, thomascook.com. Depart 24 October. Austrian city break Spend 5 nights at the 4-star Simm’s Hotel, Vienna, on a b&b basis, from £325pp (based on two sharing), including Manchester flights. 020-3897 1185, loveholidays.com. Depart 15 October. Essential Japan This 7-day tour, from Tokyo to Osaka, costs from £1,516pp, including transfers, accommodation, some meals and guide (excluding flights). 0800-802 1046, tourradar.com. Depart 23 November.…

Having dropped below the crucial $1.20 mark ahead of this week’s Brexit showdown, the pound steadied after rebels defeated the PM’s no-deal plan. Sajid Javid delivered his first spending review, declaring that the Government had “turned the page on austerity” as he outlined £13.8bn of investment. Labour dismissed the plans – billed as the fastest increase in spending in 15 years – as “grubby electioneering”. President Trump called on the US Federal Reserve to reduce interest rates again this month to help support the US economy; the plea is likely to go unheeded. Public lawyers from a group of US states are preparing an inquiry into whether Google broke antitrust rules – the search giant’s first big competition test in the US. The battle for British defence company Cobham heated…

Maggie Brereton and Ina Kjaer In a strike back against “macho” working practices, two “star female partners” who quit KPMG over bullying concerns are launching a rival, “named after the Greek goddess of the dawn”, said the FT. The pair – both experienced deal-makers – sent “shockwaves” through the Big Four firm when they protested its handling of allegations against former deal advisory boss Sanjay Thakkar. They said their new company, Eos Deal Advisory, would provide a counterblast to “a very old-school way of selling deals”, and bring “proper diversity to the market”. It’s certainly not a bad time to launch. The falling pound means companies “are becoming cheaper by the day”, noted Maggie Brereton, and “there’s a wall of private equity money out there”. Tom Steyer The American Left…

The popularity of the name Alexa has slumped in the past year – most likely because it is now so closely associated with Amazon’s voice assistant. The number of babies named Alexa in England and Wales had remained fairly stable for years, but between 2017 and 2018 it more than halved: only 118 Alexas were registered last year, down from 301 in 2017. Cars with inbuilt projectors could be on the horizon, so that film lovers need never be far from entertainment. Ford has filed a patent for a projector built into a boot door, which would face out at 90 degrees when the boot was open. Owners might keep a folding screen in the car – or find a plain wall to project films or sporting events onto.…

The Government has admitted that the timetable for the completion of HS2 is unrealistic – and that its projected cost has risen to £80bn (up from £56bn). The first phase of the high-speed line, from London to Birmingham, was due to open in 2026, but Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said it could now be as late as 2031. The second phase – from Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds – might not open until 2040. The future of the project is already under review, with a “go or no go” decision expected by the end of 2019.…

Odessa, Texas Shooting rampage: A man armed with a semi-automatic rifle killed seven people last week, as he drove along a motorway between the west Texas towns of Odessa and Midland. The killing spree began after the gunman – identified as Seth Ator, 36 – was pulled over for a routine traffic violation. He opened fire on the officers, before driving off. As police gave chase, he shot passers by and other motorists at random. As well as the seven people killed, 22 were wounded, including a 17-month-old girl. Police caught up with him outside a cinema complex in Odessa, and he was killed in the ensuing shoot-out. Although his motive was not clear, Ator, who had a criminal record, had just been sacked from his job as a truck…

One of Russian cosmonauts’s most cherished pre-flight rituals is under threat. Back in 1961, the great Yuri Gagarin relieved himself on the back wheel of the bus that was taking him to the launch pad. Ever since, male cosmonauts have stopped to pee on the bus wheel for luck, while women bring vials of urine to pour over it. But the tradition is now imperilled – because new Russian spacesuits have no flies (astronauts generally wear nappies). Sergei Pozdnyakov, whose company makes the suits, blamed the inadequate specifications. “It doesn’t say anywhere that they have to pee on the wheel,” he complained. Students at a school in Mexico have been made to wear cardboard boxes on their heads during exams, to cut down on cheating. The campus director of Tlaxcala…

It’s hard to overstate the generosity that Turkey and Lebanon have shown to Syrians fleeing the civil war that has raged in their homeland since 2011, said Selim Sazak in Foreign Policy (Washington). The two countries opened their doors to those displaced by the conflict when the rest of the world “barely lifted a finger” to help. Turkey alone took in 3.6 million refugees (at a cost of tens of billions of dollars), while Lebanon (population: six million) is host to more than a million and a half refugees. But the mood in both countries has soured, and there’s now “overwhelming” demand for repatriation. In Turkey, the call is backed by 85% of locals, posing a dilemma for President Erdogan: he’s losing support and needs to prevent anti-refugee sentiment giving…

A prehistoric palm tree-like plant has produced male and female cones in Britain for what is believed to be the first time in 60 million years. Cycads dominated the planet’s flora 280 million years ago, before the arrival of flowering plants. Fossil records show they thrived in Britain during the warm Jurassic period, but as the climate cooled, they died off in Europe and became confined to tropical areas. In the UK, the plants are only usually grown indoors – but as an experiment, botanists at Ventnor Botanic Garden on the Isle of Wight, which has a climate milder than almost anywhere else in Britain, began growing the plants outdoors 15 years ago. They not only survived, but after ten years started to produce male cones; now they have produced…

Robbie Williams has for years been plagued by ghosts. He rented a Los Angeles mansion from the Ghostbusters star Dan Aykroyd, which was “completely and utterly haunted” by Mama Cass, he told Jo Wood’s Alien Nation podcast. In 2013, his wife Ayda Field had to recruit a Native American healer to cleanse their London home of the ghost of its former owner, Michael Winner. But his most scary experience was the “dark energy” he encountered in a house in Primrose Hill, which he thinks was built on a plague burial site. “Music started spontaneously, locked doors opened... it got darker and darker.” He admits, though, that he “was doing a lot of coke at the time”. The former defence secretary Penny Mordaunt (pictured) is used to giving short shrift to…

Great things were expected of Anthoine Hubert, said Rebecca Clancy in The Times. Last year, the driver won the GP3, the series below Formula Two; he only joined F2, which is a feeder for F1, earlier this year, yet he had already won two races. And he wasn’t just talented: he was popular among his fellow drivers too. But at Spa-Francorchamps on Saturday, the 22-year-old from Lyon was tragically killed in an accident. Driving at around 150mph, he lost control of his car and slammed into the barriers; he was then hit by the car of Juan Manuel Correa, who couldn’t do anything to avoid him. The young Frenchman died soon afterwards. Hubert is one of several drivers to have been killed by racing-related injuries in recent years, said Giles…

To The Times Five years ago I was one of many writers who successfully protested against the policies of the justice secretary, Chris Grayling, who tried to stop books being sent into prison. By the end of 2014, the High Court had declared Grayling’s restrictions illegal. It is sad, therefore, to learn that prisoners are still having extreme difficulties. A review by the Howard League for Penal Reform has revealed that books are regularly either being returned to sender or being held up by red tape. Prayer books and Bibles have been held in storage because they did not come from an approved supplier. The Government’s argument was that prisoners enjoyed “compensating access” to prison libraries. This was not true then and is not true now. Overcrowding and staff shortages…

Lana Del Rey: Norman Fucking Rockwell! Polydor £10.99 Lana Del Rey has “always been a pop classicist at heart”, said Rob Sheffield in Rolling Stone – and she has “finally made her pop classic”. This long-awaited album – trailed by a string of brilliant singles – is “even more massive and majestic than everyone hoped it would be”. It is an instantly “iconic” record, on which Del Rey shows that “no other songwriter around does such an expert job of building up elaborate romantic fantasies, and then burning them to the ground”. This superb album, full of emotional ups and downs, feels like Del Rey’s “realest” one yet, said Rhian Daly on NME. There’s a lacerating honesty, which finds the songwriter both “hopelessly in love and resigned to misery”; an…

In this bracing true-life drama, Vanessa Redgrave plays the mother of L.S. Lowry, the artist renowned for his paintings of life in the industrial north of England. Bedridden and miserable, she spends her time lamenting her decline in social status, and pouring scorn on the efforts of her dutiful son (Timothy Spall) to make it as an artist. “It’s quite the turn”, said Kevin Maher in The Times. At the age of 82, Redgrave gives us “one of the great maternal monsters of cinema, up there with Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest”. Sadly, she isn’t matched by Spall, said Tim Robey in The Daily Telegraph. Forever delivering sighs and winsome smiles to camera, he is far too “eagerly ingratiating”. A shame, too, that director Adrian Noble doesn’t try to lend…

The Victoria and Albert Museum hopes to return artworks that may have been looted by the Nazis to the descendants of the families that owned them, says Jessica Carpani in The Sunday Telegraph. Last year, the museum became the first British institution to appoint a “provenance and spoliation” curator, when it hired Jacques Schuhmacher, 35, a German expert from Frankfurt, to investigate its Gilbert Collection – made up of 1,000 gold and silver objets d’art donated in 1996 by Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert, a Jewish immigrant couple. So far, Schuhmacher has identified 80 items with a “troubling” past, including a gold box (pictured) taken by Nazi art dealers from the collector Friedrich Gutmann, who was murdered at Theresienstadt concentration camp. They will go on display at the V&A in December…

Programmes Conspiracy Files: The Billionaire Global Mastermind? An investigation into how George Soros, the Hungarian-American investor and philanthropist, became a bogeyman for the Right. Sun 8 Sep, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). State of the Union Written by Nick Hornby, this new series is about a couple who meet in a pub each week before their joint therapy session. Sun 8 Sep, BBC2 22:00 (first two episodes back-to-back, 25mins). Virtual Sex: Adventures in Futureland Comedian Jamali Maddix’s series about the people making a living online begins with an episode on sex workers, including the stars of “bespoke porn”. Sun 8 Sep, C4 22:00 (60mins). Spotlight on The Troubles: A Secret History Marking the 50th anniversary of the start of the conflict, this series draws on unseen film footage and new evidence. Tue…

This is our take on a British classic, say Shamil Thakrar, Kavi Thakrar and Naved Nasir. The tang of pineapple and spice of pepper work wonderfully together. Pineapple and black pepper crumble Serves 4-6 for the filling: 1 large, fresh ripe pineapple (you need around 750g of flesh) 1 vanilla pod or 2 tsp vanilla extract 100g granulated sugar a few twists of black pepper for the crumble: 100g plain flour 100g rolled oats 100g granulated sugar 100g salted butter, cubed, at room temperature vanilla ice cream or custard, to serve • Trim the pineapple of its skin, prising out the “eyes”, and cut into 2cm chunks. Discard the core. • Place in a saucepan with 200ml of water. Split the vanilla pod in half, run a knife down the…

Margaret Thatcher’s favourite spin doctor Tim Bell 1941-2019 A swashbuckling ad man, Tim Bell oversaw the “Labour isn’t working” campaign that helped usher Margaret Thatcher to power in 1979, and became her favourite spin doctor. A man so charming it was said dogs crossed the road to be patted by him, Bell was a “smooth and patient courtier”, said The New York Times – able to steer Thatcher away from some of her more naive ideas and with a skin thick enough to withstand her tirades. Convinced that he had a unique talent for detecting shifts in the public mood, she sought his advice on everything from her speeches to her clothes, and invited him to Christmas at Chequers – joyless, gift-less occasions he described as “sort of horrible”. Yet…

Some 380 jobs are now at risk at Orb Electric Steels in Newport, South Wales, following owner Tata Steel’s decision to close the site, where there has been a factory since 1898. It’s another blow in a terrible week for British manufacturing, said Larry Elliott in The Guardian. According to the latest “shockingly bad snapshot of industry” from IHS Markit and the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply, UK factory output has plummeted to a seven-year low. “Manufacturing, which contracted in the second quarter and will do so again in the third, is in recession – even if the wider economy is not.” An end to Brexit uncertainty “cannot come too soon” for Britain’s factories.…

Great news for investors seeking “some positive news amid the gathering economic storm”, said Siobhan Riding in the FT. Share payouts in Britain are currently “at a 29-year high”. What’s happened? The average UK dividend yield (payouts as a proportion of the share price) rose to a historic high of 4.8% in 2018, according to Link Asset Services. Although the average yield is expected to dip slightly to 4.2% this year, it remains well above the 30-year average of 3.5%. Why the corporate largesse? Strong dividend growth has been boosted by large special payouts. Banks, enjoying strong profit growth, are returning cash to shareholders; house-builders “have a strong record of declaring special dividends” when good times are rolling; and miner Rio Tinto recently announced a “surprise” $1bn shareholder windfall. The…