Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1333 i The Week

What happened The Bashir scandal The BBC apologised and ordered a review of its editorial policies following the publication last week of a damning report into Martin Bashir’s famous 1995 interview with Diana, Princess of Wales. The inquiry, led by the former Master of the Rolls Lord Dyson, found that Bashir faked documents to gain access to Diana through her brother, Earl Spencer, and obtain the Panorama interview. These deceitful methods, the inquiry found, were later covered up by a “woefully ineffective” 1996 internal investigation led by Tony Hall, the then-director of news, who later became the BBC’s director-general. Hall left that post last year, and this week he resigned as chairman of the National Gallery. Prince William said his mother had been betrayed “not just by a rogue reporter”,…

Cinemas, which reported better than expected sales, of both tickets and popcorn, over their reopening weekend. The Vue chain said that 40% of its screenings had been sold out. The wet weather, and the release of Peter Rabbit 2, are said to have helped drive the much-needed box office boost. Les Dennis, the comedian, actor and erstwhile TV game show host, who revealed that he is about to make his operatic debut. Dennis, 67, will appear as Sir Joseph Porter in an English National Opera production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore, which opens at the London Coliseum in October. British billionaires, with news that they have proliferated during the past year, despite the economic turmoil. According to The Sunday Times Rich List, there are now 171 billionaires in the…

Covid-19 infection rates were stable in the UK this week, with 2,493 Covid cases recorded on Tuesday, and a seven-day average of seven deaths per day. However, it is still unclear if the next stage of England’s reopening, due on 21 June, will go ahead as planned, owing to uncertainty about the Indian variant. Several areas are seeing spikes in Covid cases (see page 5), including Bolton, where they were at 452 per 100,000 this week. In England, 30-year-olds are now being offered vaccines.…

Reykjavík Warmer tone: Relations between the US and Russia grew a little warmer last week, after the new secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov held the first high-level discussions between the two nations since Joe Biden took office in January. The US now says it will not, after all, impose significant sanctions on the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline delivering gas direct to Germany (see page 16). Blinken said there were “many areas where our interests intersect and overlap”, and that he wanted a “predictable and stable” relationship. The Kremlin welcomed “positive steps” in relations. The meeting, in Iceland’s capital, came on the back of a series of tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats, and simmering tensions over a range of issues, including Ukraine, the Arctic,…

This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs featured the comedian and writer Alexei Sayle 1 Volver by Carlos Gardel and Alfredo Le Pera, performed by Carlos Gardel 2 Joe Hill by Alfred Hayes and Earl Robinson, performed by Joan Baez 3 The Aviator’s March by Yuli Khayt and Pavel Herman, performed by Yevgeny Kibkalo and conducted by Alexei Kovalev 4 Pirate Jenny (Seeräuber Jenny) from The Threepenny Opera by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, performed by Lotte Lenya 5* Me and Bobby McGee by Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster, performed by Janis Joplin 6 Shipbuilding by Elvis Costello and Clive Langer, performed by Robert Wyatt 7 It Was a Good Day, written and performed by Ice Cube 8 Bonkers by Armand van Helden and Dizzee Rascal, performed by…

Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system is famously inhospitable to new political entrants, so there have been fewer waves made by insurgent parties here. However, Labour has, like many of its sister parties, faced an attack on two fronts: first UKIP and then the Tories under Boris Johnson took a chunk out of its vote in England and Wales; while in Scotland, the SNP has supplanted it as the social democratic option. And under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, Labour faced a brief, but internal, far-left insurgency. As in much of Europe, that also proved short-lived. Today, there are three main groupings in Labour: the Corbynites, a still-strong Blairite wing, and the socially conservative “Blue Labour” tendency. Each wing has a different prescription for solving Labour’s problems. The tricky question of whether…

SWITZERLAND Is lockdown a rocky road to dictatorship? Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Zürich) On 13 June, Switzerland will become the first country in the world to hold a referendum on the government’s right to impose pandemic restrictions. And the pitch of the debate is “shrill”, says Fabian Schäfer. Critics say laws passed by parliament last September, which put Switzerland’s Covid response onto a firm legal footing, “disenfranchise” citizens and risk a slide towards “dictatorship”. Some have even taken to calling them “enabling laws”, a not-so-subtle reference to the 1933 measure which allowed Hitler to rule Germany by decree. This is a pretty extreme position. Granted, lockdown measures are a “massive” restriction of rights. But these laws are the wrong target for anger over that. Powers to ban gatherings, shut restaurants and…

The number of obesity-related hospital admissions in England passed one million for the first time last year. According to NHS figures, there were around 1.02 million admissions in 2019-2020 in which obesity was listed as a factor – 17% more than the year before, and 600% more than a decade earlier. Naveed Sattar, professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow, told the BBC that obesity was the strongest risk factor for type 2 diabetes, and a strong risk factor for heart disease, lung disease, kidney disease and “multiple other conditions” – including Covid-19. Part of the rise is likely to be down to better recording practices, but doctors and campaigners say the figures highlight the strain that high levels of obesity are putting on the NHS. Women accounted…

When Roman Protasevich checked in to his Ryanair flight to Lithuania at Athens airport on Sunday, he found himself being shadowed by a Russian-speaking man, said Andrew Roth in The Guardian. Protasevich, a Belarusian activist who lived in exile in Lithuania, was disturbed: he assumed the man was from Belarus’s security services. As a former editor of the Nexta channel – which had played a vital role in reporting and orchestrating mass protests against the dictatorial rule of Alexander Lukashenko last summer – he was a wanted man in his home country. Even so, Protasevich had no inkling of the extraordinary events that would follow. While the plane was crossing Belarus’s airspace, it was forced to land in the capital Minsk, after Belarusian air traffic control cited a spurious bomb…

“Treachery is largely a matter of dates.” Talleyrand, quoted in The Guardian “Worldly faces never look so worldly as at a funeral.” George Eliot, quoted in Forbes “If you believe that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have got you labelled a radical 50 years ago, a liberal 25 years ago, and a racist today.” Thomas Sowell, quoted in The Critic “You have to bite the hand that reads you.” Tina Brown, quoted in the New Statesman “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.” George Orwell, quoted in The Washington Post “The dust of exploded beliefs may make a fine sunset.” Geoffrey Madan, quoted on The Browser “There was never…

Rugby union Toulouse beat La Rochelle 22-17 to win the European Champions Cup. Tennis American Coco Gauff won the Emilia-Romagna Open in Parma, defeating Wang Qiang of China 6-1, 6-3. It was the 17-year-old’s second WTA title. Roger Federer lost in three sets to Pablo Andújar in his first match at the Geneva Open. Athletics British sprinter Dina Asher-Smith – a hopeful for gold at the Tokyo Olympics – won the 100m at the Diamond League event in Gateshead, beating America’s Sha’Carri Richardson and Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.…

“Has there been a more remarkable late-career run than Paul Weller’s?” I can’t think of one, said Dan Cairns in The Sunday Times. Fat Pop, Weller’s 16th solo album, is “another beauty” in a glorious sequence that started with 22 Dreams in 2008, “stylistically and lyrically, the album roams far and wide, encompassing pop, reggae, blues, soul, balladry, polemic, whimsy and regret”. The title track is a “sinuous, clarinet-flecked, Ian Dury-like ode to music”. The “arch, self-mocking” Cosmic Fringes recalls early Roxy Music and Ziggy-era Bowie. And In Better Times is the “sonic equivalent of a sun-dappled walk along a meandering riverbank”. This is Weller’s second album in less than a year, after On Sunset, said Ludovic Hunter-Tilney in the FT. And it ranges so widely across genres, it feels…

“The shallowness, the bitching, the profligacy and the cheap and sentimental small town backstory” wreck most fashion designer biopics, said Camilla Long in The Sunday Times – but Ryan Murphy’s new Netflix miniseries Halston is “a scream”. Ewan McGregor “never sails below storm force 10” as the coke-addicted designer who rose to fame when Jackie Kennedy wore one of his pillbox hats. Whispering lines such as “but I am an artist” and “orchids are my process” from behind a mask of sunglasses and thick fake tan, McGregor’s Halston is a “shrieking, camp martyr”, every twist and turn of whose “ridiculous” life the series treats with crazy seriousness. Halston’s star rose and fell repeatedly, and by the time of his death from an Aids-related illness in 1990, he had lost the…

Seven Men by Max Beerbohm, 1919 (BiblioLife POD £15.99). When Walter Benjamin said that “all great works of literature either dissolve a genre or invent one”, he might have been referring to this, the most unclassifiable book ever written. Five biographical stories about six fame-hungry men from the literary world of the fin-desiècle; the seventh is Beerbohm himself, who wanders among his fantastical creations. The Ballad of Peckham Rye by Muriel Spark, 1960 (Penguin £8.99). The devil, in the form of a Scottish charmer called Dougal Douglas, comes to Peckham Rye, where he wreaks havoc on the love lives of the locals. All of Muriel Spark’s novels operate like small bombs, but this is her wittiest, most off-beat, and utterly startling. Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence, 1913 (OUP £8.99).…

Programmes The Anti-Vax Conspiracy Documentary investigating key figures in the international anti-vax movement, which claims that Covid is a myth and vaccines are part of a government plot. Tue 1 Jun, C4 21:00 (90mins). Anne Boleyn Three-part psychological drama exploring the final months of Anne Boleyn’s life as she falls from favour in the Court. With Jodie Turner-Smith (star of Queen & Slim) in the title role. Tue 1, Wed 2 and Thur 3 Jun, C5 21:00 (60mins each). Piers Morgan’s Life Stories: Sir Keir Starmer Morgan meets the Labour leader, who opens up about his childhood and family life, his career in law and move into politics. Tue 1 Jun, 21:30 ITV1 (55mins). Once We Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band Documentary about the Canadian musician and the…

The Bridge Arms 53 High Street, Bridge, Kent (01227-286534) This “beauty” of a restaurant in a village outside Canterbury is run by Daniel and Natasha Smith, “who wowed everyone – critics, diners, Michelin – with their Fordwich Arms a few miles away”, says Marina O’Loughlin in The Sunday Times. Its atmosphere is that of a traditional country inn: “vast inglenooks and leather chesterfields” dominate the interior; outside, there’s a sprawling, flower-filled garden. But make no mistake, this is a serious place to eat, with “properly grown-up” food. Our meal begins with surprisingly intricate “snacks”: buttermilk-fried chicken with “wild garlic emulsion for dunking”; whipped cod’s roe that is “baby’s fingernail pink”. A main course of guinea fowl breast, accompanied by a “kind of pressed cake of its legs”, exemplifies the…

● Shield your garden from neighbouring ones by making borders from allergen-friendly plants. The right kinds act as a “green sink” and soak up problem pollen. ● Pergolas and arbours can also protect you from pollen in the air. ● Opt for gravel or decking over paving, as they have more gaps for trapping pollen. ● Plants that are pollinated by wind rather than insects cause the most problems, and lawns and trees are the biggest culprits, particularly sycamores, birches and planes. ● Pollen designed to stick to an insect is much heavier. Insect-pollinated trees (e.g. fruit trees) can act as a barrier against nearby problem trees, as can taller shrubs such as dogwood and hydrangeas. ● For hedges, pick those with small, insect-pollinated flowers, or that are self-fertilising. ●…

“Coiners” are no match for central banks Katie Martin Financial Times Some people jumped into cryptocurrencies “just for fun”; others saw them as “a moonshot to make some money”. But for the true believers, says Katie Martin, “crypto is a way of life”. Internecine squabbling within the community is common. “But the real divide is Us vs. Them. Coiners vs. No-coiners.” Digital tokens such as bitcoin are revered by those seeking to isolate themselves “from big government, big banking and big monetary policy”. The 2008 financial crisis left many feeling that “the system does not work for them”, and that regulators exist mainly “to trap ordinary people inside the existing financial hierarchy”. Recent moves by central banks to tighten this largely unregulated market have only reinforced this suspicion. Several central…

What should “global Britain” look like? That question lies at the heart of Cabinet tensions over the planned trade deal with Australia, said Sean O’Grady in The Independent. In one corner is Liz Truss, secretary of state for international trade, who backs tariff-free access to the UK for Australian goods, including beef, lamb and wheat. In the other is the agriculture secretary George Eustice and his predecessor, Michael Gove, who fear its effects on British farms. Would a flood of cheap Australian meat drive down prices? Would we have to accept its lower animal-welfare standards, such as battery chickens and hormone-fed beef? In theory, ministers are committed to maintaining food standards, but Australia will fight hard on the issue. For now, the “free-traders” have won, said George Parker in the…

James Newman, Britain’s Eurovision contender, after he was awarded “nul points” at this year’s contest. The Italian glamrock band Måneskin won, with 524 points. Some blamed Brexit resentment for the UK’s humiliation; others suggested its entry just wasn’t good enough. As one of the founders of the contest, the UK is automatically awarded a place in the final. DIY enthusiasts, who may find their projects thwarted by shortages of building materials, and a consequent rise in prices. It has been rumoured that the HS2 project is gobbling up resources, but experts say the shortages are down to a range of factors, from post-Brexit trade frictions to pressure on shipping containers.…

59% of Britons say they do not know what the term “woke” means; half of them say they’ve never heard the term used. 29% of those who do know what it means consider themselves woke, while 56% do not. 78% of Britons think it is important to teach schoolchildren about the country’s colonial history and its role in the slave trade. YouGov/Financial Times One in four consumers in the UK plan to buy an electric vehicle or a plug-in-hybrid in the next five years. 38% say they won’t due to price, availability of charging points and battery range. Ofgem/The Daily Telegraph 60% of parents oppose plans to extend school hours after the pandemic. 30% support them. YouGov/The Times…

“I had a fantasy that my children would never give me the ‘ridiculous fuddyduddy’ sigh, as I had sighed at my parents. Then came pronouns. To be a teenager today may involve discovering ‘your pronouns’, as I once experimented with my signature. Any class seems to have one or two whose gender sways from ‘pan’ to ‘demi-girl’. So we come to ‘neo-pronouns’: ‘bun’, for instance, rather than ‘he’ or ‘she’. Instead of ‘she got herself a snack’, you can say ‘bun got bunself a snack’. If we’re going to do neo-pronouns, can I put in a plea for ‘ze’, as in ‘ze is going to get ridiculed by zir children’? It’s much easier than the others: you just talk like a French resistance fighter in a war movie.”…

The secret woman in the PM’s life Peter Franklin UnHerd Don’t tell anyone, says Peter Franklin, but there’s a special woman in Boris Johnson’s life who he keeps very quiet about. “Step forward... Theresa May.” Many credit Johnson with rescuing the Tories from her hapless premiership: but in reality, he owes his success to her. Had she not stepped in to lead the party in the wake of the referendum and collapse of his leadership campaign, the Tories might now be toast. Her “dutiful, dependable and reassuringly dull” style steadied the ship at a perilous time. Without it, there’d have been a run on the pound, Brexit might have been lost – and Johnson’s name would now be mud. It was May, not her successor, who realised the key to…

We need maggots on the menu If the world is to feed itself in an uncertain future, farmers need to focus on foods such as maggots, seaweed and protein-rich algae, says a Cambridge University team. The researchers point to recent emergencies such as the swarms of locusts that descended on East Africa, and the swine fever that has swept parts of Asia, Africa and Europe, to highlight the fragility of conventional agriculture; and they suggest that with climate change only likely to bring more crises – wrought by everything from wildfires to new pathogens – we need to create more “risk resilient” systems. Having analysed 500 existing papers on the subject, they have produced a list of foods that are nutritious and efficient, and which can be grown in closed,…

Jared Harris recalls that his stepfather, the actor Rex Harrison, would always put on a three-piece suit just to go down the road to post a letter. “Then he would come back and take it all off again.” His real father, Richard Harris, was rather different: once, he popped out for a drink; four days later, Jared’s mother, Elizabeth, got a telephone call from a pub landlady in Leeds. “I’ve got your husband,” she said. “Keep him,” Elizabeth replied. Bob Dylan, who turned 80 on Monday, has long been known for his casual relationship with the truth. In 1964, he said he’d been “travelling with a carnival” across the US when he was 13. Some 41 years later, he clarified the statement: he meant he’d “seen” carnivals. He’s notoriously acid-tongued…

“For a country that prides itself on bringing railways to the world, Britain has made a fine mess of its own network,” said Louise Lucas in the Financial Times. Back when the trains were nationalised, they seldom ran on time. But privatisation has proved “expensive and messy”. The rail service has cost taxpayers £150bn in the 25 years since it was privatised, but it has been beset with problems: failing franchises on many lines, chaotic timetable changes. Last year, one in three trains “trundled in late”. Now a review by Keith Williams, a former boss of British Airways, and the Transport Secretary Grant Shapps proposes a “third way”. A new public body, Great British Railways, will own the network, collect fare revenues, and set most fares and timetables. The “benighted…

Golf: Mickelson proves age is “just a number” In recent years, the career of American golfer Phil Mickelson had “looked to be dwindling towards obscurity”, said Ewan Murray in The Guardian. The 50-year-old, who suffers from psoriatic arthritis, went into the US PGA Championship ranked 115 in the world: he had last won a major (his fifth) eight years ago at the Open, and few believed he could increase his tally. But on a “brutally tough” course at Kiawah Island, South Carolina, Mickelson “strode into the record books” this week by becoming the oldest winner of a major in the sport’s history – eclipsing the previous record holder, Julius Boros, who won the PGA in 1968 at the age of 48. A final day of “epic drama” culminated with Mickelson…

Pecked at by the SNP To The Independent Nicola Sturgeon has said that she has promised not to “bludgeon” Scotland into supporting independence. However, every election since 2014 has been about independence, until a week before voting day when the First Minister will say it isn’t – until she does her acceptance speech, where she will say it is again. Her MPs in Westminster behave as if they are in the citadel of a despised foreign capital, while tweeting, posting and blogging about Scottish secession and how bad the Union is for Scotland, but yet not providing tangible ideas to replace it. Her MSPs are much the same, except they are on home territory. All this while repeatedly getting less than half the popular vote in Scotland. I might not…

The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz Pushkin Press 256pp £14.99 The Week bookshop £11.99 The “origin tale” of this novel is “quite something”, said Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian. Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, a 23-year-old German Jew who had fled Nazi Germany for Sweden, wrote it in 1938, immediately after Kristallnacht. An English version was published the next year (as The Man Who Took Trains), but “few noticed”. More than 70 years later, an editor in Germany rediscovered the original manuscript, along with revisions Boschwitz had suggested before his death in 1942 (on a ship torpedoed by a German submarine en route to England). The revised version has now been translated into English by Philip Boehm – and “lovingly published” by Pushkin Press. “Compelling though this real-life tale is, it’s surpassed…

The 1950s saw the birth of the Hollywood teen movie, with films such as The Wild One (1953) and Rebel Without a Cause (1955), but it wasn’t until the 1980s that the high school movie came into its own. Here are five of the best examples: The Breakfast Club John Hughes decisively shaped the genre with Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and this, the quintessential 1980s teen movie. Thrown together in detention, five students (played by “Brat pack” actors such as Emilio Estevez) from different cliques learn to overcome their differences. Heathers This pitch-dark cult hit from 1989 was written as a riposte to the decade’s optimistic teen films (notably those of John Hughes). Winona Ryder and Christian Slater star as outsiders who turn to violent means to expose…

“If you thought medieval religious art was all clasped hands and uplifted eyes”, this gory, “brilliant” show will put you right, said Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. On 29 December 1170, four knights entered Canterbury Cathedral and slaughtered its archbishop, Thomas Becket – “a flamboyant, charismatic politician” who had once been King Henry II’s closest ally, but had become a “thorn in his side” as archbishop because he consistently championed the authority of the Church over that of the English Crown. When Becket excommunicated several bishops loyal to the king, it enraged Henry. “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?”, he supposedly thundered. Whether or not the king had meant to order it, the murder shocked the rest of Catholic Europe. Henry’s name went down in infamy, while Becket…

Good news for sparkling wine fans who “hate sticky prosecco, but don’t always want to splash out on champagne”, says Jane MacQuitty in The Times. After decades of being stuck in a “cheap wine rut”, cava – Spain’s méthode champenoise fizz – has finally upped its game. This is the result of a “handful of producers” improving their wines ahead of new zoning and quality tiers coming into force and affecting cava’s northeastern heartland of Penedès. The “most majestic” of these producers is Gramona: their outstanding 2016 La Cuvee (£27.50; greatwine.co.uk) has notes of “elegant apple blossom and lemon twist”. Almost as good, but a lot less pricey, is 2017’s L’Atzar Brut Reserva (£11.99; Waitrose), with its zingy green apple and lemon sherbet. Also at Waitrose is Pere Ventura Reserva…

Get to know Bristol with a self-guided audio walk. The three-mile walk, A Piece of Banksy, focuses on the artist in his home town (£10; wherethewall.com) or try the Bristol Open Doors app for a history tour. The Royal Horticultural Society opened its first new site in 17 years this week at RHS Garden Bridgewater in Salford, with one of the UK’s biggest walled gardens. This year’s Film & Food Fest is coming to 15 cities starting with Cardiff (17-20 June). Enjoy films such as Grease and Joker in Bute Park, while trucks sell treats from crêpes to cocktails (filmandfoodfest.com). The Liverpool Biennial 2021 got under way this week with nine free indoor displays of contemporary art; from 24 July the city’s Tate Gallery will have a show of Lucian…

Headline consumer price inflation in the US hit 4.2% in April, the biggest jump in 12 years and more than double the Fed’s 2% target – prompting renewed debate about the trajectory of inflation. Iron ore futures fell by 9.5% on the Dalian Commodity Exchange in China, and copper and aluminium futures slipped, after Beijing vowed to crackdown on record metal prices – saying it would punish speculation, hoarders and peddlers of false price information. The price of bitcoin recovered to around $40,000/coin after last week’s plunge, as prominent supporters came out in force. Stock markets were largely unaffected by the drama. The Stoxx Europe 600 index of Europe’s biggest companies reached a new record high. Official figures showed that China has overtaken Germany to become the UK’s biggest single…

● Cornish goldrush At the start of May, a local estate agent told Sky News that the housing market in Cornwall had gone “completely crazy” – and that even renting a property had become increasingly difficult, with diminishing numbers of properties on the market and ever more people looking. There’s no sign of any let up, said Cornwall Live. Official figures show that house prices across the UK are rising at their fastest pace since the lead up to the financial crisis in August 2007 – up 10.2% in the year to March. But in Cornwall they’ve been rocketing. The average price increase in the county “is more than 50% higher than the national upturn and nearly five times that of parts of the UK”. ● Structural shift The hard…

Elizabeth Holmes The sensational fraud trial of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes isn’t scheduled to begin until late August, but the legal arguments “over what evidence could be presented at trial” have already been ferocious, said Sara Randazzo in The Wall Street Journal. Holmes, 37, faces multiple counts of criminal fraud “for allegedly deceiving investors, patients and doctors about Theranos’s blood-testing technology, which purported to test for a range of health conditions from a few drops of blood extracted from a finger prick”. If convicted, she faces up to 20 years in prison. The trial, in San Jose, California, has been delayed repeatedly – in part due to the pandemic, but also because of news that Holmes “is due to give birth in July”. Holmes, who founded Theranos in 2003 while…

One of the first videos to go viral – Charlie Bit My Finger – has been sold to an anonymous bidder for $760,999, and will now be taken off YouTube. The 2007 clip of a baby, Charlie, gnawing on his brother Harry’s finger was put up for sale by the boys’ parents as an NFT (non-fungible token) – a certificate to say you own something digital. The video has been watched more than 880 million times. The Beano has decided that Bash Street Kid Fatty Brown – motto “everything’s delicious!” – will, from now on, be referred to by his real name, Freddy. The comic’s editors said they’d received several letters querying the nickname, though it is always used affectionately, and that they wanted to celebrate kids of “all shapes…

Dominic Cummings accused the Government of failing the public when it “needed us most” during his highly anticipated appearance before two MPs’ committees this week. Boris Johnson’s former aide pointed to numerous shortcomings – from a rule that prohibited scientists from bringing their laptops into Cobra meetings, to the PM’s alleged view, at the start of the pandemic, that Covid was “just a scare story”. Cummings said that by October 2020, he regarded Johnson as “unfit” for the job of PM. He also stated that Health Secretary Matt Hancock should have been sacked for “15 to 20 things”, including “lying” to people “on multiple occasions”.…

Bolton Guidance confusion: The Government hastily changed its contentious new guidance for Bolton and seven other areas with relatively high rates of the Indian variant of the coronavirus, after being accused of imposing local lockdowns by stealth. Earlier this month, the Government had quietly published advice urging the residents of Bolton, Blackburn with Darwen, Bedford, Burnley, Kirklees, Leicester, North Tyneside and the London Borough of Hounslow to avoid meeting indoors, as well as non-essential travel in or out of their local areas. Local officials and MPs said they’d not even been informed about the guidance, which many residents assumed was legally enforceable. This week, ministers confirmed that it was merely advisory, and adjusted the wording so that the recommendation was to “minimise” travel, and avoid meeting indoors “where possible”. Belfast…

Jackie Weaver’s moment Since footage of Jackie Weaver calmly presiding over a chaotic meeting of Handforth Parish Council went viral in February, she has become a household name. And it has led to some unexpected opportunities: she appeared in a skit with the cast of Line of Duty to open the 2021 Brit Awards; she has launched a podcast, Jackie Weaver has the Authority; and has landed a “secret” part in The Archers. On the downside, she has been a target for online abuse, and it’s possible that people will still be shouting “Read the standing orders!” at her in the street when she is 90, says Etan Smallman in The Sunday Telegraph. But Weaver isn’t too concerned. She has enjoyed her moment in the limelight, and she says she…

An Indian couple chartered a plane and held a mid-air wedding complete with 160 guests in an audacious effort to dodge Covid restrictions. They married at a modest ceremony in Madurai in Tamil Nadu, where weddings are currently limited to 50 guests; they then boarded a SpiceJet Boeing 737 with 160 others to Bangalore. Footage showed maskless guests bedecked with flowers as a second ceremony was held while the plane passed over Madurai’s Meenakshi Amman temple. An official investigation is under way. Angela Holloway, who moved to Charente, France from Sheffield with her mum and stepfather, was left confused when the elderly couple recently thanked her for the “gorgeous pâté and baked bread” she’d bought at the supermarket. It seems the couple, who don’t speak French, mistook Carrefour’s Mousse Gourmande…

A cynical effort to gloss over the Capitol riot Matt Ford The New Republic Pearl Harbour; the assassination of JFK; the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster; 9/11 – the US government has assembled commissions to look into these and a host of lesser crises over the years, says Matt Ford. But it seems there won’t be a commission into the 6 January riot on Capitol Hill. Never mind that the event led to five deaths, endangered the lives of congressional leaders, and has been described as “the worst attack on American democracy since the Civil War”. The Republican Party has decided that it was no big deal (one conservative lawmaker likened it to a “normal tourist visit”) and that it’s time to move on. Having initially agreed to a commission and…

The UK is the world’s third-biggest generator of single-use plastic, getting through 44kg of the material per person, per year, a new study has found. Australia and the US top the list, on 59kg and 53kg respectively; Italy comes tenth, on 23kg, Researchers behind the report, produced by Australia’s Minderoo Foundation, have also found that 98% of the 130 million metric tons of single-use plastic thrown away in 2019 was made from virgin (fossil fuel based) polymer – and that 55% of this polymer was produced by just 20 petrochemical companies. They include the US-based corporations ExxonMobil and Dow, and China’s Sinopec. The researchers note that the focus of government attention has been the vast number of companies that make or sell plastic-wrapped products, and that relatively little attention has…

Of all the charges levelled against the disgraced BBC journalist Martin Bashir, the most serious is that he was partly responsible for Princess Diana’s untimely death. Diana’s brother Charles Spencer has claimed as much, said Andrew Neil in the Daily Mail – “and he’s right”. Much has been made of the fake bank statements that Bashir used to trick Spencer into arranging an introductory meeting with Diana. But far more important than any forged documents was the string of outlandish lies Bashir told her at that meeting – that her phone was being tapped, that senior palace officials were intent on doing her down, that even her bodyguards were plotting against her. Spencer dismissed Bashir as a fantasist and had no more to do with him, but “Diana was taken…

The Spanish PM extended a gracious invitation last week: “From 24 May,” said Pedro Sánchez, “Spain will be more than delighted to receive British tourists without health controls.” His message was “timely”, said Simon Calder in The Independent: the UK had just lifted its 19-week-long ban on leisure travel, while in Spain, new Covid cases had fallen to their lowest levels since last August. Travellers will have reasonably inferred that they could now venture to Spain or any other country that would have them – as long as they abided by the testing and quarantine rules in the UK’s “traffic light” system. But, “unbelievably”, the message then changed. The PM said that tourists should not visit the countries on the amber list – while Lord Bethell, a health minister, said…

For several seasons, motor racing has been a rather predictable affair due to Mercedes’ and Lewis Hamilton’s “impregnable grip” on Formula 1, said Giles Richards in The Guardian. That’s why Max Verstappen’s victory in the Monaco GP on Sunday was the “tonic the title fight required”. The 23-year-old Red Bull driver started in pole position, and drove flawlessly throughout, “threading the needle on the streets of Monte Carlo for 78 laps with no hint of error”. Hamilton, by contrast, endured one of his worst-ever afternoons: he started in seventh, after suffering from a “lack of grip” in qualifying, and ended in the same position. Verstappen began the race trailing Hamilton by 14 points in the driver’s championship, said Rebecca Clancy in The Times. This win – together with his rival’s…

To the Financial Times Your leader, “The strange malaise of Europe’s centre-left”, omitted one of the most intriguing events in the recent history of the social democratic parties: the unusually strong swing to the UK Labour Party in the 2017 general election. This is, surely, the exception which undermines the rule of the decline. It included two important features. One, that the gains occurred in almost every part of England (if not of the UK), and among almost every part of the electorate. That suggests that the “culture war” explanation for this decline was not in operation. Two, this was an election in which Labour’s manifesto excited great interest. A large number of people voted Labour in 2017, not having done so in 2010 or 2015, because of the party’s…

Exhausted from helping with Martha, Susan makes an error at the shop and worries what people will think. At Berrow, Neil and Brian have an awkward conversation, but agree that Martha comes first. Later, Neil tells Emma to stop attacking Alice. Seeing how stressed she is, Helen instructs Susan to take compassionate leave from the dairy. Alice visits Martha and talks to Chris, but when he says nothing has changed, Alice accuses him of wanting to be rid of her. As Kirsty and Helen chat about the move to Beechwood, Kirsty offers to help out at the dairy to cover for Susan. Drunk Alice tries to buy a bottle of vodka at the shop and threatens to drive elsewhere if Jim won’t serve her. Susan arrives and, as things escalate,…

Elderflower, cucumber and gin granita This is a very English granita, if such a thing is not contradictory, says Jacob Kenedy. You could serve it with finger sandwiches. Makes about 1 litre, serves 5-8 4 large cucumbers 100ml gin 75ml elderflower cordial 180g caster sugar possibly a little water • Juice the cucumbers (with their skins): if you have a juicer, so much the better. If not, grate them finely or puree them in a food processor, then strain through a sieve or muslin into a measuring jug, twisting and squeezing hard to extract all the juice. • Stir together the cucumber juice with the gin, elderflower cordial and sugar until the sugar has dissolved. Check the volume is a litre – if short, make it up with water. •…

Revered educationalist who won the World Children’s Prize Asfaw Yemiru 1942-2021 Asfaw Yemiru, who has died aged around 79, was a former street urchin who founded one of Ethiopia’s best and most famous schools, the Asra Hawariat School for the poor. Its name means “Footsteps of the Apostle”, said The Economist, and by 2020, some 120,000 children had passed through it. They learnt core academic subjects, but also how to make pots, farm and weave. In short, they learnt how to make a living. In 2001, Asfaw was awarded the World Children’s Prize. “People talk about basic needs, food and shelter,” he said. “But for me, education is the key.” Asfaw Yemiru was born in the remote Bulga region of Ethiopia in the early 1940s, the son of a Coptic…

Who can blame Zhang Yiming for needing a break, asked Lex in the FT. The Chinese entrepreneur has resigned from his “uniquely nerve-shredding” role as the boss of ByteDance – the Chinese company “stranded in a free-fire zone in the US-China tech war, thanks to its popular live-streaming service, TikTok”. Zhang is credited with helping design the core algorithm that powers both TikTok and its Chinese equivalent Douyin. He can also now take credit for inventing “a new euphemism for a forced departure from the executive suite”, said Simon Duke in The Times, explaining, amid China’s crackdown on tech billionaires, that he needed more time for “daydreaming”.…

● There are currently a record 171 UK billionaires – 24 more than in 2020, marking the biggest jump in the list’s 33-year history. Their combined fortunes of the billionaires grew by nearly 22% to £597.269bn. ● Leading the pack this year is Sir Leonard Blavatnik, the Ukrainian-born “Midas”, whose £23bn fortune grew by more than £7bn on the back of his investment, music and media interests. In 2015 he was worth a mere £15bn. ● Another big riser, at No. 5, is Lakshmi Mittal and family, of steelmaker ArcelorMittal, whose fortune rose by £7.9bn to £14.68bn – reflecting a massive bounce-back this year. ● Retail fortunes have closely reflected events on the high street. The wealth of Boohoo founder, Mahmud Kamani, and his family, who snapped up much of…

The week’s best shares Card Factory The Sunday Times The well-run greetings card retailer mass-produces cards at a fraction of the cost of its peers. Hit hard by store closures, but margins are strong. Refinanced and expanding into Aldi and Matalan stores. Buy. 73p. Cranswick Investors Chronicle This pork and poultry specialist aims to be the world’s most sustainable meat business by 2040, with leading animal welfare standards and net-zero emissions. Rising profits, boosted by exports to China. Buy. £39.12. lllumina The Daily Telegraph Illumina’s gene-sequencers enabled Covid vaccines and are now hunting down mutations. But its true potential lies in diagnosing cancers early by spotting DNA mutations and methylation patterns in blood. Buy. $386.36. Marks & Spencer Group The Sunday Telegraph The pandemic has accelerated the transformation of M&S,…