Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1337 i The Week

What happened Cracks in the blue wall The Conservative Party suffered a major blow last week when it lost Chesham and Amersham – a seat it had held since its creation in 1974 – in a by-election. Sarah Green, the Liberal Democrat candidate, won a majority of 8,028, overturning what had been a 16,000-strong Conservative majority, a swing of 25%. The Lib Dems’ leader Ed Davey said it showed that the so-called blue wall of Tory seats in southern England was “beginning to crumble”. He rejected calls for opposition parties to form a “progressive alliance”, saying a “stitch-up” of that type wasn’t necessary to beat the Conservatives. The by-election – triggered by the death of Dame Cheryl Gillan, who had represented the Buckinghamshire constituency for 29 years –prompted some Tory…

Summer weddings, with news that from 1 July, couples in England and Wales will be allowed to get married outside for the first time. A statutory instrument to change existing law – which restricts civil weddings and partnerships to approved rooms or other structures – will be laid before Parliament on 30 June. Staff at Bumble, the dating app, who were all given a week off, to combat workplace stress. A senior executive at the company said that its American founder, Whitney Wolfe Herd, had “correctly intuited our collective burnout”. Jess de Wahls, the German-born textile artist, after the Royal Academy apologised for the way it had treated her. Last month, the RA announced that it would no longer be selling her work in its shop in light of a…

Slightly over half of Leave voters think that the deal Boris Johnson struck with the EU last year was a “good” deal. Among all British adults, the proportion is just 20%. However, four in five of those who voted in the 2016 Brexit referendum of 2016 say they would vote the same way again. NatCen Social Research/ Financial Times Only 17% of adults think the Government is doing enough to help children recover from school closures during the pandemic. 47% think not enough is being done. 60% would like to see the school day extended by half an hour; 48% would like to see it extended by up to an hour, and 25% by up to two hours. YouGov/The Times Education Commission…

1 Symphony No. 6 in D minor (4th movement) by Jean Sibelius, performed by the Berlin Philharmonic 2 Farewell to Stromness, written and performed by Peter Maxwell Davies 3* Im Abendrot from Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss, performed by Renée Fleming and the Houston Symphony Orchestra 4 The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky, performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra 5 Cucurrucucú Paloma by Tomás Méndez, performed by Caetano Veloso 6 The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face by Ewan MacColl, performed by Roberta Flack 7 Hammond Song by Margaret Roche, performed by The Roches 8 Cello Concerto in E minor (1st movement) by Edward Elgar, performed by Sheku Kanneh-Mason Book: The Poetry of Robert Burns Luxury: The Guardian newspaper * Choice if allowed only one…

For a pattern of behaviour that seems to have been tragically present throughout all of human history, the word genocide is surprisingly modern. It was coined by the Jewish Polish lawyer Raphaël Lemkin in 1943, and popularised by his book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. Lemkin formed the term from the Greek word for people and the Latin word for killing, and defined it as “a criminal intent to destroy or to cripple permanently a human group”. After every member of his family except his brother was killed in the Holocaust, Lemkin campaigned to have genocide recognised as a crime under international law. The term appeared in the indictment of Nazi leaders at the Nuremberg trials, but did not become a crime formally in international law until the UN Genocide…

A cure for Alzheimer’s? Not really Michael Specter The New Yorker In what should have been “truly exciting news”, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved the first new Alzheimer’s drug in nearly 20 years. It was less than thrilling, says Michael Specter, because of the lack of evidence that the new drug, aducanumab, actually works. The FDA approved it because the drug reduces the build-up of the amyloid plaques in the brain suspected of causing Alzheimer’s symptoms. However, an 11-member FDA advisory panel had opposed the approval, because its members found insufficient evidence that this actually slowed cognitive decline; three members resigned in protest. The FDA does sometimes grant early clearance to drugs on the basis of surrogate markers, rather than patient improvement, but usually in the case…

In the future, offices, care homes and other indoor public spaces could be fitted with “Covid alarms” that can detect if someone in the room has the coronavirus in as little as 15 minutes, reports Ben Spencer in The Times. The devices are still in development, but early trials by a team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Durham University gave them an accuracy rate of 98% to 100%, making them as reliable as the lab-based PCR tests, and as quick as lateral flow tests. The devices are designed to sense volatile organic compounds that are emitted in the breath and by the skin of people infected with the virus, and they are modelled on machines developed by a Cambridgeshire-based firm called RoboScientific, to detect infections…

“As government mea culpas go”, it was “extraordinary”, said Alexandra Topping and Caelainn Barr in The Guardian. The long-awaited review into the handling of rape cases in England and Wales was published last week. In the foreword, ministers including Justice Secretary Robert Buckland and Home Secretary Priti Patel said they were “deeply ashamed” to have failed thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of rape victims. Rape prosecutions, the review showed, have plummeted to the lowest levels on record, falling by 60% between 2016/17 and 2019/20, even as the cases reported to police increased. It’s now five months on average before a suspect is charged, and up to four years before cases reach court. It’s no wonder that more rape victims than ever – 43% in 2020 – are simply dropping…

“There is no more volatile compound known to man than that of decorum and despair.” Critic Anthony Lane in The New Yorker “A good dad is like being a cricket umpire. If you’re not being discussed, you’re probably doing a decent job. And all the big decisions get referred anyway.” Geoff Norcott, quoted in The Times “The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights.” J. Paul Getty, quoted in Forbes “He has taken to new heights the art of being forgivable.” Matthew Parris on Boris Johnson, in The Times “There is no happiness in life, there is only a mirage on the horizon, so we’ll cherish that.” Vladimir Putin, quoted on Politico “Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread;…

Golf Jon Rahm captured his first major tournament with a victory at the US Open. The Spaniard’s preparations had been hampered by having to self-isolate following a positive coronavirus test earlier this month. Tennis Cameron Norrie, the British No. 2, reached the final of the Cinch Championships at Queen’s Club, where he lost in three sets to Matteo Berrettini of Italy. Rugby union Harlequins sealed their place in the Premiership final with a 43-36 victory over Bristol. At one point, the London club were 28-0 down.…

Freud’s Hockney David Hockney finally has a chance to buy a landmark portrait of himself painted by Lucian Freud, says David Sanderson in The Times. Painted in 2002, over a period of four months, the work has been in “private hands since its creation”, and Hockney has reportedly been “frustrated” that he has not been able to acquire it. Now, however, it is coming up for sale at Sotheby’s, with a high estimate of £12m. Of the sitting, Hockney – who had by then known Freud for 40 years – recalled that the other man, unusually, wanted him to talk during the sessions, “so he could watch how your face moved”. “We talked a lot”, the artist told the biographer William Feaver – “about our lives, people we knew in…

Joy offers to babysit as Lee and Helen go to the movies. Helen panics when she hears the boys played with Lee’s prized collection of superheroes – she’ll try to replace them. Brian is scouring the farm accounts looking for money for Alice’s rehab. Noticing a discrepancy of £5,000, he suspects Alice until Adam confesses that he took the money. Lynda interviews Joy for the church fête committee. Adam complains to Lee about his showdown with Brian – he thinks Brian treated him harshly; Lee suggests paying back the money and moving on. Helen comes clean about the action figures, but all is well. As Peggy and Lilian talk about Alice’s rehab, Peggy shares painful memories of Jack’s death at a sanatorium. Lilian assures her things are better these days,…

What the experts recommend Tesla’s charging-station restaurants In 1900, the tyre-manufacturing Michelin brothers “brought motoring and restaurants together” when they created their famous guide, said Tom Knowles in The Times. Now Elon Musk appears to be following in their footsteps: Tesla, his electric car company, has filed an application for a patent in the US that would enable it to open a chain of branded restaurants. A Tesla car typically takes 40 minutes to recharge, and it seems that Musk wants to capitalise on this “window of opportunity” by installing restaurants at the firm’s car-charging stations. Musk isn’t known as a foodie, said William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph. He once told a journalist that “if there was a way that I could not eat so I could work more,…

Kenneth Kaunda 1924-2021 Kenneth Kaunda, who has died aged 97, was the founding president of Zambia, and the last of a generation of African independence leaders. A charming man and a gifted orator, he led his country through a tumultuous period in southern African history. His great achievement was to preserve stability in Zambia in a “comparatively benign manner”, while also being on the “front line” of opposition to white rule in neighbouring Rhodesia and South Africa, said The Times. He called for international boycotts of racist regimes, and allowed black nationalist movements from nearby nations to set up guerrilla bases in Zambia. As a result, Zambia was subject to bombing raids by South African and Rhodesian forces. Yet he promoted conciliation as well as confrontation; and in the Cold…

So many companies have come to market in London this year that big City investors complain of suffering “IPO indigestion”. That, at any rate, was one of the reasons advanced for Made.com’s flop when it made its debut last week, said Jim Armitage in the London Evening Standard. The furniture designer backed by lastminute.com founder Brent Hoberman was priced seductively at 200p – “the very lowest end” of its price range. But even then, shares fell by 8% initially before clawing back to just above 200p this week. By contrast, “there’s much to like about the upcoming float of Wise” – the innovative money transfer firm currently challenging the stranglehold of big banks in the sector, said Alex Brummer in the Daily Mail. Wise was founded in 2011 by Estonian…

Tax-efficient individual savings accounts (Isas) have suffered “a gradual downward trend in use” since the 2008 financial crisis, said Ali Hussain in The Times. The good news is they’re back in fashion. Here’s the lowdown: ● More than 13 million people opened a new account in the year ending April 2020, according to HMRC, up from 11.1 million the year before. That count, taken before Covid hit, seems likely to rise given that households have stashed away an extra £180bn during the pandemic – and because taxes are expected to rise. You pay no income tax on Isa returns, and profits are free from Capital Gains Tax. You can save or invest a maximum of £20,000 annually in cash, shares, or a mix of both. ● The most striking increase…

The week’s best shares Alphawave IP Group The Times Alphawave had a disappointing float. But its tech is used in AI chips and 5G infrastructure – and clients include a “hyperscale” cloud provider. A tiddler set for growth as demand for fast data transmission rises. Buy. 316.5p. Bellway The Times The housebuilder has benefited from strong demand, boosted by low mortgage rates and the stamp duty holiday. But Covid variants bring uncertainty, and the cost of labour and materials is rising. One for the brave. Buy. £34. 85. Hill & Smith Investors Chronicle This road safety products and galvanising services provider is set to capitalise on rising global infrastructure spending. Product innovation, acquisitions and divestments should drive growth and margins. Buy. £14.86. RWS The Daily Telegraph The market-leading intellectual property…

“Riding high in May, shot down in June.” That was the fate of Edwin Poots, short-lived leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, said Stephen Bush in the New Statesman. Poots himself played a major role in the internal coup that ousted Arlene Foster, the previous DUP leader and first minister. But his own rule is now history, after only 21 days, following a revolt by the party’s Assembly members and MPs. The reason? They opposed his nomination of Paul Givan for first minister, and were enraged by the concessions Poots gave to their arch-rival Sinn Féin to get its support for Givan’s candidacy – including an agreement to pass laws promoting the Irish language. “‘Crisis’ is a term that’s never far away in Northern Ireland,” said Sean O’Grady in The…

Pacifically, which – said instead of the word “specifically” – was found to be the most annoying mispronunciation in a survey of 2,000 Britons. Next came probly for probably and expresso for espresso. “Nucular”, “excetera” and “assessory” also featured. Billie Eilish, the 19-year-old pop star, who apologised after a video emerged of her mouthing an anti-Asian slur. The word was contained in a song that she was miming along to, aged 13 or 14. In an Instagram post, Eilish said she was “appalled” by her earlier behaviour, and that she would continue “listening and learning”.…

Manchester Travel ban: Greater Manchester’s Mayor Andy Burnham reacted furiously this week to the Scottish government banning nonessential travel to and from Manchester and Salford. Burnham said he had not been forewarned about the extension to the ban (already in place for Bolton and Blackburn with Darwen), which came into force on Monday. In an open letter to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, he condemned the move as “disproportionate”, and asked her to explain her reasoning, noting that Dundee has a higher rate of infection than Bolton, yet no ban is in place there. In response, Sturgeon said that she had a “duty” to keep Scotland “as safe as possible”, and accused the mayor of “generating a spat” with her to enhance his Labour leadership credentials. Her government has rejected Burnham’s…

“I am horrified by the fact that in some parts of the world people eat dogs, but I don’t see how it’s intellectually any different [to eating pigs or chickens]. If you’re not going to eat something because it’s adorable, don’t eat animals, full stop. I gave up eating octopus years ago because I discovered how clever they are. Cows, by comparison, aren’t clever, but they love their calves and have friendship groups (see Rosamund Young’s book The Secret Life of Cows). But by not eating clever animals, am I saying that it’s OK to eat stupid ones? That doesn’t seem quite right either, and anyway, as Young writes, ‘if a cow’s intelligence is sufficient to make her a success as a cow, what more could be desired?’” India Knight…

Confront the grey army, but not right now Matthew Lynn The Daily Telegraph After all the sacrifices younger people have made over the past 15 months to protect the elderly, is this really the time to hand a vast pay rise to pensioners? Of course not, says Matthew Lynn. Yet the Government is set to do just that by raising the state pension by a record 8.4%. It’s not a new plan, it’s a result of the long-standing “triple lock” policy, which holds that pensions must rise each year by whichever is higher: consumer price inflation, average wage growth, or 2.5%. And as Brexit and the rebound from lockdown have pushed up wages by a freak 8.4%, pensions must rise by the same amount. Unjust? Undoubtedly: “it takes generational unfairness…

The furry threat to Britain’s fauna A furry omnivore that is well known in Japan could become the UK’s next major invasive pest, researchers have warned. Raccoon dogs – the only mammal on a new list of 20 harmful invasive species at risk of becoming established in Britain – are native to east Asia, but were imported to the Baltic states in the mid-20th century, for use in fur farming. The creatures, which are not raccoons, but more closely related to foxes, are renowned escapologists, and they have since spread to parts of Finland, Sweden and Denmark, reports The Guardian. It is now illegal to sell or buy them in Britain, but they have been kept as pets – and some have escaped into the wild. One was captured and…

John Bercow is so keen to be nominated for a peerage he wrote his own reference, leaked emails reveal. The ex-Speaker had a meeting with Jeremy Corbyn in 2019 to discuss the then-Labour leader nominating him, after he was snubbed by the Tories. He followed it up with a 556-word reference, in which he boasted of having held “no fewer than five shadow ministerial positions”, and having won “no fewer than 11 awards for his parliamentary work”. His endorsement of himself went on: “He is a qualified lawn tennis coach and a devoted... supporter of Arsenal football club.” As Hollywood’s go-to actor for Middle Eastern roles, Omid Djalili (pictured) has worked with everyone from Russell Crowe to Brad Pitt. The Anglo-Iranian actor says he often breaks the ice by pretending…

Boris Johnson has promised that 19 July is the date on which life in England will go back to normal. But even if all restrictions are lifted that day, for many office workers, it is not at all clear what that “normal” will look like, said The Guardian. Millions have been working from home for well over a year now, and though some are longing to resume their commutes, surveys suggest a large majority have enjoyed remote working – and hope never to go back, full time, to the office. In the coming months, local councils – contemplating the impact, on everything from business rates to transport infrastructure, of an exodus from commercial centres – will be watching anxiously to see how employers respond. The Prime Minister is keen to…

Football: better from England, but still not good enough England began their final group game against the Czech Republic on Tuesday with a place in the last 16 of the Euros already guaranteed, said David Hytner in The Guardian. But the match was far from meaningless: after their insipid 0-0 draw against Scotland, Gareth Southgate’s men urgently needed to “generate a bit of excitement, to fire the feeling that they might be able to cut through teams”. And for a while they succeeded brilliantly. Playing with a “pace and fluidity” not previously seen in the tournament, England created several chances in the first half, and could easily have gone into the interval with a bigger advantage than Raheem Sterling’s headed 12th-minute goal. Yet in the second half, England “lost their…

Don’t bully NHS staff To The Times You report that the requirement for many frontline NHS staff to be vaccinated against hepatitis B as a condition of employment has been cited by Matt Hancock as a precedent for compelling NHS staff to have the coronavirus jab. The hepatitis B vaccine is an established licensed medicine. The coronavirus vaccines, for which there is as yet no longterm safety data, are not yet licensed medicines; they are being used under emergency authorisation. The fact that almost 90% of NHS staff, who are more informed than most about the difference between a licensed and unlicensed treatment, have accepted vaccination demonstrates an extremely strong commitment to their patients’ well-being. To compel the remaining staff to take the vaccine before it has passed the safety…

Directed by Stephen Daldry, BBC2’s feature-length drama takes an “unflinching” look at a middle-class couple, identified only as “She” (Sharon Horgan) and “He” (James McAvoy), who must confront issues they have hitherto ignored as they sit out the pandemic in suburbia, said Ed Cumming in The Independent. Alternating between dialogues and monologues in which both characters break the fourth wall, it’s claustrophobic but compelling – and sometimes very funny. Together is “an absolute wonder”, said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian. Dennis Kelly’s script perfectly captures not only the stresses of lockdown, but the “emotional dilapidations” of a dying relationship, and Horgan and McAvoy give it “their understated all”. Their chemistry is superb, agreed Sarah Carson in The i Paper – she wickedly sharp, he cheeky and gleefully arrogant. The script…

Best books… Karin Slaughter The bestselling author chooses her favourite books on plagues and lawyers (“not the same thing”). Her 2018 thriller Pieces of Her is being adapted by Netflix, and her latest novel, False Witness (HarperCollins £20), is out now Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter, 1939 (Penguin £9.99). The title story in this collection was my introduction to the visceral horror of the 1918 flu pandemic. The memory lingered so much that I felt compelled to incorporate Covid into my current novel. Fiction captures history in a way that textbooks cannot. Polio: An American Story by David M. Oshinsky, 2006 (OUP £19.99). Until recently, the distribution of the polio vaccine was the largest public health project in American history. This book delves into the rush to…

Programmes Glastonbury in the 21st Century A look back at the headliners – from Coldplay to Stormzy – who have rocked audiences at Worthy Farm over the past two decades. Sat 26 Jun, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). Hemingway Six-part documentary exploring the life of the writer, with readings of his work by Jeff Daniels, Meryl Streep and others. Part one sees the young Ernest volunteer for the Red Cross and head to Paris. Tue 29 Jun, BBC4 21:00 (50mins). Back to Jail: Crime and Punishment Following three offenders in Hampshire, this programme explores one of the biggest challenges faced by the criminal justice system: reoffending rates. Wed 30 Jun, C4 22:00 (65mins). Bad Influencer: The Great Insta Con The rise and dramatic fall of Belle Gibson, an Australian “wellness guru” who…

Cavolo nero, or Tuscan kale, makes for a healthy, fresh pasta sauce full of vitamins and iron, says Mateo Zielonka. The addition of creamy burrata complements the grassy flavour of the kale and turns the dish into something really special. Serves 4 400g egg pappardelle 1 whole small garlic bulb 150g cavolo nero (about 10 whole leaves) juice of ½ a small lemon 100ml olive oil, plus extra for drizzling 20g parmesan or pecorino, grated 2 balls of burrata, halved • Preheat the oven to 180°C fan/400°F/gas mark 6. • Cut 1cm off the top of the garlic bulb so the cloves are exposed. Wrap the whole garlic in foil and twist the top closed, then roast for 25 minutes until it’s soft. • Remove and discard the stalks from…

GlaxoSmithKline: Independence day GSK held an “investor day” on Wednesday, said Sabah Meddings in The Sunday Times. Perhaps a better description would be a fight for “independence”. Ever since April, when the activist US hedge fund Elliott Management took a multibillion-pound stake in the FTSE 100 drugmaker to push for change, CEO Dame Emma Walmsley has been battling “to prove she is the right person to lead Glaxo” after it splits in two next year. The investor day offered GSK a chance to outline its plans as “a standalone” £50bn pharma and vaccines business once her plan to spin off the consumer division (whose brands include Sensodyne, Advil and Panadol) is activated next year. Walmsley, who has led the company since 2017, outlined that GSK has 20 new vaccines…

A change of tone at the US Fed Editorial The Economist Ever since Pfizer and BioNTech published the results of their Covid vaccine trials last November, “investors have been singing the same uplifting song” of “a roaring rebound in the global economy”, says The Economist. This “reflation” trade has lifted the prices of everything from commodities and global stocks to emerging market currencies. But that changed last week when the Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell signalled a change in its “nonchalant” attitude to “signs of overheating”: he said the Fed might consider raising rates “somewhat sooner than previously anticipated”. Cue juddering markets globally. The question now is whether Powell’s signal “warranted such strong reactions”. On the one hand, “the full reopening of the US economy is still in its early…

Students at Oxford University have voted to establish a group of “sensitivity readers” who will read articles submitted to student newspapers, and vet them for “problematic” content. The motion, put to the student union, suggested that there was a need for “better editing” to prevent the publication of material that is “implicitly racist or sexist, or just generally inaccurate and insensitive”. In a statement, the independent newspaper Cherwell said it welcomed the plan, as a “resource”. The pandemic seems to have accelerated a trend for “supersize” paddling pools. Online garden retailer ManoMano says its bestselling model last month was a 10ft-diameter pool which requires 4,678 litres of water to fill.…

Ministers are working on plans to make it possible for double-vaccinated holidaymakers to visit amber-listed countries without having to quarantine on their return, Matt Hancock revealed this week. The announcement coincided with a plea from the travel industry to open up as soon as possible. But the Health Secretary refused to be drawn on whether the plan would come into force in time for the August season. This week, Boris Johnson said the chances of England’s last lockdown restrictions being lifted on 19 July were “looking good”. In Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon said that owing to a rise in cases, she was delaying the national move to Level 0 to the same date, with a view to going “beyond zero” on 9 August.…

Kevin Hart’s cancellation Kevin Hart is the world’s highest earning stand-up; but he isn’t uncontroversial. When he was announced as the host of the 2019 Oscars, a string of homophobic tweets he’d sent a decade earlier resurfaced. He apologised, somewhat grudgingly, and stepped down from the ceremony. Today, he says he “cringes” at his past remarks – but he still thinks cancel culture is being taken too far. “If somebody has done something truly damaging then, absolutely, a consequence should be attached,” he told Jonathan Dean in The Sunday Times. “But when you just talk about... nonsense?” He flicks his hand dismissively. “When did we get to a point where life was supposed to be perfect? I don’t understand. I don’t expect perfection from my kids. I don’t expect it…

A Ukrainian couple who spent a record-breaking 123 days handcuffed together have admitted that the experiment was not a success, and have decided to go their separate ways. Alexandr Kudlay and Viktoria Pustovitova donned the handcuffs on Valentine’s Day in a doomed effort to save their on-off relationship. Pustovitova said her boyfriend hadn’t paid her enough attention during the stunt. “He did not tell me: ’I miss you,’” she lamented. She added: “I think it will be a good lesson for us, for other Ukrainian couples and couples abroad not to repeat what we have done.” At her home in Thailand’s Kaeng Krachan National Park, Ratchadawan Puengprasoppon was recently woken in the middle of the night by banging and crashing. Going to investigate, she was greeted by the sight of…

SYRIA Don’t let Assad have a seat at the table The National (Abu Dhabi) Syria, of all the nations in the world, has just been voted onto the executive board of the World Health Organisation, says Kareem Shaheen. In its long civil war, the Assad regime and its Russian allies have bombed hospitals in rebel-held territory with impunity, killing doctors and nurses, and targeting first responders with follow-up strikes. The NGO Physicians for Human Rights has documented 540 attacks on medical facilities in Syria carried out by the government and its allies since 2011. The evidence is abundant in “countless” videos, survivor accounts and UN and media reports. Most regimes try to hide such atrocities, but the regime seems confident that “the world will do nothing”. The reason for this…

A new type of biodegradable film, made from plants and inspired by spider webs, could replace single-use plastics in many consumer products, Cambridge University researchers have claimed. Their research, into the unusual patterns that proteins form when they “misbehave”, was designed to shed light on human diseases such as Alzheimer’s. But they then realised that some of their findings could have a separate application, in helping to tackle the global plastic waste crisis. In a paper in the journal Nature Communications, Professor Tuomas Knowles and his team explain how they made their new material by breaking the bonds between the molecules in plant protein, and then reorganising them so that they mimic the structure of a spider’s web – one of the strongest substances in the natural world. “The molecules…

The backers of GB News – the new television channel launched last week – insist it’s not a British version of Fox News, said Helen Lewis in The Atlantic. And in some ways that’s true. While the US channel is “a slick product with fancy studios and whizzy graphics”, GB News looks like it’s filmed in “an abandoned strip club – all dark walls and neon lights” – and its first days have been plagued by technical glitches. The tone of GB News, however, is clearly influenced by Fox’s unashamedly opinionated, right-wing style. In his opening monologue, the channel’s lead presenter and chairman Andrew Neil declared that GB News would cover the issues people cared about and not be “an echo chamber for the metropolitan mindset”. It would aim to…

You might have thought Dominic Cummings had “exhausted his supply of damaging claims over the Government’s handling of the pandemic”, after spending seven hours giving evidence to MPs in May, said Henry Zeffman and Oliver Wright in The Times. But no: last week he fired off his latest salvo, a 7,200-word blog post which revealed that, at the height of the pandemic, Boris Johnson had described his Health Secretary Matt Hancock as “totally f***ing hopeless” in a WhatsApp exchange about testing failures; and had considered giving Michael Gove Hancock’s job. Cummings also reiterated that the Government had clung to its herd immunity strategy, despite its public denials – and added in a few choice criticisms of the PM’s leadership. He said that Johnson wastes meetings “telling rambling stories and jokes”,…

For the past few seasons, there have been two certainties in Formula 1, said Jonathan McEvoy in the Daily Mail: Lewis Hamilton will be the best driver, and Mercedes will have the best car. But this season, all that has changed: for the first time since 2014, Mercedes and Hamilton are “being squeezed” hard by a combination of Red Bull’s dramatically improved car and the dazzling talents of Max Verstappen. That was abundantly clear in this Sunday’s thrilling French Grand Prix, in which Verstappen and Hamilton were locked in a titanic struggle for most of the race, said Giles Richards in The Guardian. Verstappen finally won it when he overtook his rival on the penultimate lap. It was a massive result for both Verstappen and the Red Bull engineers: the…

To The Guardian Your report that HSBC is planning to cut its global office footprint by 40%, as a result of requiring its staff to work from home, is somewhat misleading (“Morgan Stanley boss tells US staff to be back in office in September”). In reality, what HSBC and a host of other companies are planning to do is cut the cost of their office footprint by transferring the square footage they pay for in town and city centres to the homes of their staff. So the total office space such companies use is not reduced, it is simply transferred, along with the cost, to the staff who are required to work from home. The implication, of course, is that HSBC et al will enjoy enormous cost savings in terms…

Cars not only lend instant excitement to a film, but act as a prism for human relationships – and can even have personalities of their own. Here are five vintage movies that celebrate them: Genevieve A beautiful but unreliable 1905 Spyker is the focus of this classic 1953 comedy. Kenneth More and John Gregson play friends-turned-rivals on the London to Brighton rally; Dinah Sheridan and Kay Kendall are the girlfriends who accompany them, while Joyce Grenfell is in her element as the owner of a terrible hotel. The Great Race Blake Edwards’ 1965 slapstick extravaganza pits the squeaky-clean Great Leslie (Tony Curtis) against the evil Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon) as they race from New York to Paris, via the Bering Strait, in custom-made vintage cars. A precursor of Wacky Races,…

The painter Nina Hamnett was a “famously flamboyant figure”, said Rachel Campbell-Johnston in The Times. A fixture of the Paris and London avant-garde whose beauty and total lack of inhibition earned her the unofficial title of “queen of bohemia”, she modelled for Walter Sickert; ate caviar with Stravinsky; entranced James Joyce (who described her as “one of the few vital women that he had ever met”); and counted Roger Fry, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Amedeo Modigliani among her lovers. Hamnett was a “magnet for scandal”. She “boasted of having the best breasts in all of Europe”; she took lovers of both sexes, but particularly liked boxers and sailors who would “go away” afterwards. Yet as this new exhibition at Charleston, the “rural Sussex outpost of the Bloomsbury Group”, argues, she was…

New cars: what the critics say The Daily Telegraph The new Hyundai Tucson is quite a departure from its predecessor. The old model SUV had “anonymous styling” and was “bland” to drive. Now, it has dramatic creases and a wrap-around grille that give it an almost “other-worldly” look. It also comes in a new range of mild, full and plug-in hybrids. With Hyundai’s five-year warranty too, it makes for a much more appealing purchase. Auto Express Inside, the Tucson feels “truly premium”, with materials hitting the standards of Audi rivals. The 10.25in digital dashboard in front of the driver is “clean and simple”, and its main screen’s graphics are just as good. The standard equipment is “generous”, and passenger room is especially impressive. Maximum boot space is a solid 620…

Stock and bond markets see-sawed as traders attempted to gauge the threat of inflation and the likely reaction of central banks. Traders observed the narrative was changing daily. Wall Street’s S&P 500 fell sharply last week when the US Fed appeared to take a more hawkish stance, before putting in its biggest rally in over a month at the start of this week. The FTSE 100 suffered its worst week since February. Business surveys indicated that companies are struggling with inflation. Lloyds Bank reported that businesses are raising their prices at the fastest rate in 22 years as every sector of the economy grapples with higher costs. The UK started negotiations to join the 11-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership bloc, described by Trade Secretary Liz Truss as “a glittering post-Brexit prize”. Britain…

● Chinese burn “When crypto prices fall, the lurches lower can be rapid,” said Adam Samson and Katie Martin in the FT. We saw as much when the price of bitcoin plunged by 12% in a day on Tuesday, taking the price below $30,000 for the first time since January and dragging down many other “alt-coins”, including ethereum and dogecoin, with it. The “dominant driver”, according to Michael J. Saylor of MicroStrategy, was further regulatory pressures from China – once the centre of bitcoin production – which has banned the “mining” of bitcoins in major provinces. The country’s central bank has also warned several of the largest state-owned banks and Jack Ma’s Alipay to “identify” and “block” bitcoin transactions. ● Death crosses and hash rates Bitcoin recovered some ground midweek,…

Sean Doyle Even before it began losing “£20m a day” during lockdown, BA’s fortunes had nosedived, said John Arlidge in The Sunday Times. Cost-cutting and shoddy service turned “the world’s favourite airline” into “Broken Airways”. Can the new captain fix it? Sean Doyle, 50, is revving the engines, but he faces a steep ascent. BA only avoided bankruptcy last year because it laid off 10,000 staff, and its parent, IAG, took on £10bn of debt. A native of Cork, Doyle worked at BA for 22 years and became CEO of Aer Lingus in 2019, returning to BA as boss last October. He is “a natural showman – an important quality for an airline boss”, and he wants to rediscover the airline’s “generosity”, with perks for customers. Let’s hope he can…