Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1355 i The Week

What happened The Government insisted that it would be sticking to its strategy for tackling Covid-19, despite multiple calls for it to switch to its “Plan B” for England, in light of high rates of transmission. Trade union leaders had warned that ministers risked “another winter of chaos” by not introducing the measures, which include the return of mandatory face masks, working from home, and vaccine passes for high-risk venues. The NHS Confederation and the British Medical Association had also urged ministers to make the change, which would bring England into line with those in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, conceded that the recent rise in Covid cases (the UK is registering over 40,000 new ones a day, and averaging more than 100 daily deaths)…

It’s said the NHS is the nearest thing Britain has to a national religion, said Oliver Wright in The Times. If so, its god is demanding increasingly “hefty sacrifices” of taxpayers’ cash. In the hope of clearing the backlog of 5.6 million people stuck on hospital waiting lists, Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced £5.9bn in funding for NHS diagnostic tests and operations. That’s on top of the £12bn a year, over three years, that’s meant to come from increased National Insurance payments. True, the pandemic has put additional strain on the system, but well before that the “health god” was constantly asking for more. Twenty years ago, the NHS accounted for 27% of all day-to-day public service spending. Today, that figure is closer to 40%. Some of that is down…

Two in three voters believe tax rises would be “acceptable” if the revenue was used to reduce the impact of climate change. 22% say it would be unacceptable. Savanta ComRes/The Independent 82% of motorists say they would struggle without access to a car, the largest proportion since 2006. 45% say they expect to travel less on public transport as a result of the pandemic. RAC/The Daily Telegraph Nine out of ten Leave and Remain voters say they’d vote the same way again. 64% of adults believe that “ordinary working people do not get their fair share of the nation’s wealth”, the highest level since 1998. National Centre for Social Research/The Guardian…

Gurnah’s surprise call Until this month, Abdulrazak Gurnah was not well known: his novels had enjoyed critical acclaim, but sold modestly. So when he got a phone call out of the blue, telling him he’d won the world’s biggest literary award, he was completely taken aback. “I thought it was one of those cold calls. So I was just waiting to see – is this a real thing? And this very polite, gentle voice said, ‘Am I talking to Mr Gurnah? You have just won the Nobel Prize for literature.’ And I said, ‘Get off! What are you talking about?’” But it was true – and it has made Gurnah, who arrived in Britain as a refugee in the 1960s, the most famous person to leave Zanzibar since Freddie Mercury.…

A contestant’s response to a question on the TV quiz show Tipping Point has been hailed as “the greatest wrong answer ever”. In an episode this week, host Ben Shephard asked: “In his epic poems, Homer often refers to nectar as the drink of the gods and which other substance as their food?” To which Dom, a teacher from Manchester, confidently replied: “I know he likes doughnuts. I think I’ll go with doughnuts please.” Although Shephard was now struggling to contain his laughter, Dom’s teammate told Shephard she’d have given the same answer. It was then that the truth dawned on Dom. “We’ve got the wrong Homer,” he said, “It’s not Homer Simpson, it’s the author Homer.” Builder David Knight was bemused when he got a fine for driving down…

Scientists may have found another use for the “super material” graphene. Discovered in 2004, graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb pattern. Very strong and also conductive, it is used in practically every industry, from paint to electronics; and now it seems it could benefit the art world too. Graphene is transparent, yet blocks UV light, and sticks easily to surfaces – all of which could make it a perfect protective coating for paintings. Inspired by the fate of works such as van Gogh’s Sunflowers, the colours of which have faded significantly over the years, engineers tested graphene’s capabilities on three paintings made on paper in Indian ink. Some areas were sprayed with graphene, others were left exposed. The paintings were then placed under bright…

Why on earth are we still debating the right to die with dignity? That’s what I thought as yet another bill on assisted dying went through the House of Lords last week, said Simon Jenkins in The Guardian. Baroness Meacher’s bill – which would allow doctors to assist in the deaths of terminally ill patients – has relevance for “millions of Britons”. It has popular support, too: a recent YouGov poll showed that threequarters of Britons favour a change to the law. Yet previous attempts by the Lords to reform it have all got stuck in the Commons. Why are MPs “too cowardly” to legislate for what most people want? Partly, it’s because such laws raise real moral dilemmas, said Eleni Courea in The Times. However, direct experience of the…

“I have been thinking of all the things we have to teach our daughters to be wary of,” said Karren Brady in The Sun. To the age-old warning “Don’t talk to strangers” we must now add: don’t get into a car with a lone policeman; don’t let boyfriends who watch too much porn tell you it’s normal to strangle women during sex; don’t lose sight of your drink, in case someone spikes it. And as of last week, watch out in case someone tries to inject you with a date-rape drug. Nottingham University student Sarah Buckle was among the first to raise the alert about “needle spiking”: in September, she woke up in hospital after a night out, with no memory of how she got there, and what looked like…

The US Grand Prix, held on the speedy track at Austin, Texas, has always been to Lewis Hamilton’s liking, said Rebecca Clancy in The Times: he’s won there five times since 2014. But on Sunday, the seven-time F1 champion missed a valuable chance to make up ground on Max Verstappen. A thrilling race ended in a 1.333-second victory for the 24-year-old, who extended his lead in the drivers’ standings from six to 12 points. With five races to go, he looks increasingly likely to end the season as F1 champion. Yet Hamilton couldn’t have got off to a better start, said Tom Dart in The Guardian. From second on the grid, he overtook Verstappen by diving for the inside on the approach to the first corner, forcing his rival’s Red…

How to get more doctors To The Times I agree with the attack on the “poaching” of doctors from low and middle-income countries and would add that if we wish to improve our doctor numbers by increasing recruitment to medical training by 50%, as suggested by the Medical Schools Council, we should start by reviewing the ridiculous and pointlessly stringent entrance requirements for UK medical schools. Medicine is not a conceptually difficult subject and simply requires, after a base level of knowledge, application and industry. What are also important attributes are good sense, empathy, stamina and humility. The present generation of entrants, all armed with a welter of A* grades at A level and numerous extracurricular activities available only to applicants from prosperous areas and schools, contains a significant proportion…

Weidenfeld 384pp £20 The Week Bookshop £15.99 In 1989, the year these superbly catty diaries begin, Joan Collins was cruelly forced “back to the greasepaint grindstone”, said Sarah Ditum in The Times. Dynasty, the Atlanta-set “oil and opulence soap opera” which had made her a TV icon, was wrapping up its final season. Suddenly, the 45-year-old actress was unemployed, without obvious means to “fund her appetite for caviar and world-class shopping trips”. And so begins a frenetic whirl of socialising and self-promotion, said Camilla Long in The Sunday Times. “I have read many memoirs by celebs about parties, but in terms of sheer ability to scrape back the jowls and snap on the wig, Collins takes the trophy.” It all gets a bit confusing at times, especially as Collins spends…

Walter Sickert (1860-1942) detested the “effete” and decorous style of his late Victorian and Edwardian contemporaries, said Rachel Campbell-Johnston in The Times. The German-born British painter was determined to tackle the seedier aspects of urban life: drinkers, debtors, prostitutes. His “most controversial contribution” to British art is the series of “sordid psychological studies” known as the Camden Town nudes. Inspired by the notorious “Camden Town murder” of 1907 – a young woman was found dead with her throat cut – he painted “women lying slumped or spreadeagled on squalid iron beds in dimly lit London rooms”. These macabre works even gave rise to the “improbable” rumour, first circulated by a man claiming to be his son, that Sickert had committed the Jack-the-Ripper murders. But as this fascinating chronological tour of…

Ringolevio by Emmett Grogan, 1972 (NYRB Classics £8.99). Grogan was the leader of the San Francisco anarchist group the Diggers in the 1960s. He was a working-class New Yorker and a hero of the counterculture. This is his memoir and it’s very imaginative. When I wrote my book Tenement Kid, I took this as the model. Heroes by Franco “Bifo” Berardi, 2015 (Verso £9.99). Bifo is a post-Marxist thinker and writes critical theory, but his books also have dark irony and humour, which is a way in for guys like me. The gist of this one is that neo-liberal capitalism makes the majority of people feel useless, inadequate and humiliated; drives them to depression; and, at the extreme, leads to mass murder and suicide. It’s a very interesting, inspiring book.…

Programmes Bismarck: 24 Hours to Doom Documentary shedding new light on one of WWII’s most famous sea battles, and recounting the final 24 hours of the great Nazi battleship Bismarck. Sat 30 Oct, C4 18:55 (60mins). Showtrial New legal drama from the makers of Line of Duty following the trial of a privileged young woman who is arrested when a fellow student goes missing. Sun 31 Oct, BBC1 21:00 (60mins). Painted with my Hair: Arena Powerful film about Donny Johnson, a “lifer” in a supermax jail in the US, who paints using brushes made from his own hair, to survive his solitary confinement. His story is told through letters – read by Stanley Tucci – and interviews with family. Sun 31 Oct, BBC4 23:00 (75mins). Dalgliesh Bertie Carvel stars as…

Sky’s long-rumoured move to a dishless service is here – but “it’s not what many people expected”, said TechRadar. Rather than launching an internet-powered settop box, Sky has unveiled Sky Glass, a “capable and powerful” television set with its “class-leading” entertainment interface built-in, and accessible via Wi-Fi. You can pay for it in instalments, as part of a Sky TV package, or outright: it comes in three sizes, the smallest of which, the 43in, costs £649, while the largest (65in) is £1,049. With no need for a box or a satellite, the Sky Glass will “simplify” the way many of us “watch our favourite shows and films”, said The Independent. And the TV offers a great viewing experience with a 4K HDR display, voice control and Dolby speakers. Sky has…

Norway package holiday Spend 2 nights in Oslo at the Park Inn by Radisson and 2 nights in Bergen at the Thon Hotel Orion, from £369pp room-only. London flights incl. 020-3993 4405, viva-holidays.co.uk. Depart 8 December. Five-star Mexico resort A 7-night stay in a junior suite with a terrace at the Akumal Bay Beach and Wellness Resort, from £1,183pp all-inclusive. Glasgow flights incl. 020-3451 2688, firstchoice.co.uk. Depart 22 May 2022. Malta winter break A week-long stay at the Solana Hotel and Spa, with its breathtaking sea views, from £213pp half-board. Liverpool flights incl. 020-8492 6868, olympicholidays.com. Depart 9 December. The Titanic exhibition Experience the story of the world’s most famous liner while also exploring Belfast. 3-nights’ b&b from £434pp. Newcastle flights incl. 0330-8183659, newmarketholidays.co.uk. Depart 14 November. Covid-19: please check…

In his first post-Covid Budget, Chancellor Rishi Sunak outlined a “moral” mission to limit state spending and cut taxes – but not yet. He pledged to lower taxes for working families “before the next election”, while taking advantage of better-than-expected economic growth to boost spending on public services. Nonetheless, the headline tax move was an unexpectedly generous cut in the universal credit taper rate from 63% to 55% – a boost to poorer Britons. Other moves included a one-year holiday from full business rates for pubs, hotels and leisure venues; a slashing of the “bank surcharge” on profits; a freeze on alcohol duty increases, and lower domestic aviation passenger duty. “Bankers on short-haul flights sipping champagne will be cheering this Budget,” said Labour’s Rachel Reeves. UK Gilts (government bonds) staged…

Shorting stocks is no longer “the exclusive pursuit” of institutional investors and hedge funds, says Will Rhind of GraniteShares. His platform’s short, single-stock, exchange-traded products attract “sophisticated individual investors”, with “particular interest in big US tech names” like Tesla, Uber and Apple. But who are investors targeting in the UK, asks Amy O’Brien on City AM? Cineworld Britain’s “most-shorted” company is currently Cineworld, “which had a rough ride during the pandemic” when its 9,518 screens closed. Investors continue to be leery: 9.2% of Cineworld’s stock is currently shorted – up from 7.5% in July. Petropavlovsk The embattled gold mining company is the second-most shorted UK stock – less a reflection of the gold mining sector as a whole, but rather of its history of turmoil and shareholder feuds. Co-founder Pavel…

Flowers wrapped in cellophane still give Hannah Pick-Goslar a profound sense of dread. The aversion dates from nearly 80 years ago, when Pick-Goslar – now 92 and living in a book-lined apartment in West Jerusalem – was Hannah Goslar, a teenager enslaved in Bergen-Belsen, the Nazi concentration camp in northern Germany. Between caring for her four-year-old sister, Gabi, and occasional visits to her father, Hans, who was seriously ill in the camp’s inadequate sick bay, Hannah worked long shifts plaiting lengths of cellophane to make the handles for carrier bags. “It was 12 hours a day standing up,” she recalls. The work itself was trivial, she says, its toll on her negligible compared with the misery of being surrounded by death. Besides, she laughs, it was certainly preferable to “cleaning…

What happened The UK was this week making the final preparations to welcome 120 world leaders and some 20,000 delegates for the crucial Cop26 climate summit, which starts on Sunday. The 13-day UN event will be held at Glasgow’s Scottish Event Campus, which houses a 14,300-capacity arena and 3,000-seat auditorium. Delegates are set to dine on a largely plant-based menu of Scottish food – that is, if they can find a place to stay: on Airbnb, flats in Glasgow were being let for up to £36,000 for the two weeks. The Queen, who recently spent a night in hospital and has been advised to rest, withdrew her attendance. A new UN report raised the stakes, by warning that current plans to cut CO2 emissions fall far short of the level…

Nearly half of all first-time buyers this year will draw on funds from the “Bank of Mum and Dad”, according to analysis by the estate agent Savills. Parents are expected to contribute a total of £9.8bn to their children’s deposits – far more than last year’s £6.1bn, and equivalent to £58,000 per child. A traditional “yard of ale” drinking contest that has raised thousands of pounds for the RNLI over the past decade has been cancelled, owing to fears that it encourages binge drinking. The RNLI, which also cited safety fears about crowds gathering in the road outside a pub, said that the event, held each year in the Dorset town of Lyme Regis, no longer seemed “appropriate” for a lifesaving charity.…

Luxembourg City Cannabis reform: Luxembourg is to become the first country in Europe to legalise the production and consumption of cannabis. Under the new law, likely to come into force next year, adults will be allowed to grow up to four cannabis plants, for personal use, per household. The trade in cannabis seeds will also be permitted: the government has suggested they could be bought online or in shops. Consuming and transporting the drug in a public place will remain an offence and the sale of cannabis will still be banned. But in the longer term the government plans to introduce a system of state-regulated production and distribution. The revenue raised would then be poured back into addiction-related services. “We want to do everything we can to get more and…

1 Feeling Good by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, performed by Nina Simone2 Only a Pawn in Their Game, written and performed by Bob Dylan3 Battle Hymn of the Republic by Julia Ward Howe and William Steffe, performed by Odetta4 Strange Fruit by Abel Meeropol, performed by Billie Holiday5 Alexander Hamilton from Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda, performed by the original Broadway cast6 Anthem, written and performed by Leonard Cohen7* The Stars Will Sing To You, written by Kiku Adatto8 America the Beautiful by Samuel A. Ward and Katharine Lee Bates, performed by Ray Charles Book: The Collected Dialogues of Plato Luxury: binoculars * Choice if allowed only one record…

A Chinese invasion remains very much a worst-case scenario, and it’s hard to be certain about much amid all the hypotheticals. But some points are clear. First, as Taiwan’s President Tsai recently put it, Taiwan “will do whatever it takes to defend itself”. It has 300,000 active military personnel, a large defence budget, state of the art US equipment, and good natural defences. Even so, that wouldn’t be nearly enough against the People’s Liberation Army. Just ten years ago, a Chinese invasion would have had an uncertain outcome. Now, given China’s growing military prowess, most experts think that Taiwan wouldn’t be able to defend itself without massive US support. President Biden has come as close as he can to promising to defend Taiwan, without disavowing “strategic ambiguity” altogether. But even…

RUSSIA Putin steps up his campaign to destroy Nato Deutsche Welle (Bonn) President Putin’s decision to cut diplomatic ties with Nato is a dangerous escalation in the “new cold war he is waging against the West”, says Konstantin Eggert. In October, Nato expelled eight members of the Russian delegation to its Brussels headquarters for alleged spying. Usually, Russia would respond with tit-for-tat expulsions. But this time it went further, axing its Brussels mission and ordering Nato’s Moscow office to shut. Relations have been in “deep freeze” since Crimea was annexed in 2014; but this is a new low. The fear is that the Kremlin will now have even less reason to avoid further escalating tensions with unfriendly neighbours such as Poland and Ukraine – for instance by blocking Ukrainian ports…

The Covid-19 vaccine developed by the French company Valneva triggers higher levels of neutralising antibodies than the AstraZeneca jab, phase three trial results have suggested. It also seems to produce fewer side effects. Like the AstraZeneca jab, the Valneva vaccine requires two doses and can be stored in a fridge, but it is not an mRNA vaccine. Instead, it delivers a whole inactivated virus in order to prompt an immune response. The trial’s chief investigator, Prof Adam Finn of the University of Bristol, said the results suggested the jab was “on track to play an important role in overcoming the pandemic”. They will lead also to renewed focus on the UK’s recent decision to cancel a s1.4bn contract for the Valneva jab, although it had invested in the firm’s Scottish…

“We can build back greener, without so much as a hair shirt in sight.” So said the Prime Minister, in his typically ebullient introduction to the Government’s strategy for reaching net-zero greenhouse emissions. On the one hand, we should be glad that the Government has finally published the plan, said Andrew Grice in The Independent. The bad news is that it is light on detail, and heavily reliant on Boris Johnson’s trademark “it will be all right on the night” approach. He promises that the target can be achieved by promoting the development of wind power, hydrogen power, electric vehicles, and carbon capture and storage. These initiatives will transform the economy, he says, and help create 440,000 jobs by 2030; and by 2050, “in every part of our United Kingdom,…

“It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” George Eliot, quoted in Investor’s Business Daily “Those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”C.S. Lewis, quoted on SpectatorWorld.com “Common sense and a sense of humour are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humour is just common sense, dancing.”Critic Clive James, quoted in The Guardian “Perhaps the principal objection to a quarrel is that it interrupts an argument.”G.K. Chesterton, quoted in the Hickory Daily Record “It seems to me that I will always be happy in the place where I am not.”Charles Baudelaire, quoted on TheSmartSet.com “Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive.”Writer Josephine Hart, quoted on…

Pakistan entered this year’s T20 World Cup having never once beaten India in 12 attempts in World Cup matches, said Anand Vasu in The Guardian. But at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Sunday, they broke these shackles “in the most emphatic fashion possible”, with a crushing ten-wicket victory. Virat Kohli’s side didn’t play badly, said Tim Wigmore in The Daily Telegraph. It’s just that their opponents played as if “powered by an elemental force”. In their towering, young quick bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi, Pakistan seem to have uncovered a “worthy successor” to such greats as Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis. His “mesmerising opening spell” – accounting for both India’s openers – laid the groundwork for his side’s victory. And when it was Pakistan’s turn to bat, Babar Azam and…

Dignity in death and the risks involved in securing it To The Daily Telegraph The letter from nearly 1,700 doctors to the Health Secretary opposing a change in the law on assisted dying is full of misleading statements. The bill aims to legalise physician-assisted dying. It is confined to mentally competent individuals who, when faced with a terminal diagnosis and are not expected to live for more than six months, may seek the option of a physician-assisted death. It specifically excludes assisted suicide, which is legal in some countries, but includes disabled people who may have many years to live. It is here that abuse could occur, and perhaps it is why the doctors opposing the bill continue to refer erroneously to “assisted suicide”. In reality, their role would be…

Case Study Saraband 288pp £14.99 The Week Bookshop £11.99 “Graeme Macrae Burnet is a master of the false but apparently authentic document,” said Allan Massie in The Scotsman. Such records featured heavily in His Bloody Project (2015), his Booker-shortlisted novel about a fictional 19th century murder. And they do so again in his “uncommonly interesting” new work. Case Study opens with Burnet informing us that he is writing a biography of the radical psychiatrist Collins Braithwaite, who “became a celebrity in the 1960s”, said Jake Kerridge in The Daily Telegraph. Extracts from this biography follow, alternating with passages from notebooks supposedly sent to Burnet by a woman who believes that Braithwaite drove her sister to suicide. It’s a novel full of “tricksy contrivances”, but Burnet also brilliantly captures his characters’…

Dune 2hrs 35mins (12A) New adaptation of the classic sci-fi novel The body is 60% water, said Robbie Collin in The Daily Telegraph, but by the time the credits rolled on Dune at the screening I attended, I reckon the audience was “90% goosebump”. This new adaptation of Frank Herbert’s cult 1965 novel, by the director Denis Villeneuve, is “science-fiction at its most majestic, unsettling and enveloping”. The film is set in the year 10191, and an unseen emperor has set his underlings the task of mining the rare but strategically vital commodity of “spice” on a hostile, sand-covered planet. Until recently, the extraction was entrusted to the house of Harkonnen, led by the monstrous levitating Baron Vladimir (Stellan Skarsgård). Now, it has been handed to the rival house of…

Leon Kossoff (1926-2019) was one of the greatest British painters of the postwar era, an artist with an uncanny knack for translating the feel and weight of the subjects he depicted onto canvas. This partial retrospective is a neat career summary, bringing together a fabulous selection of his portraits and landscapes. Looking at his portrayals of the London edgelands from the 1950s to his death, you are immediately immersed in brick, mortar and dirt: a postwar construction site, rendered in characteristically heavy impasto, communicates not only the heft of the steel supports it shows being plugged into the earth, but the fog of cement, dust and grime that billows from the ground as they rise; while Kossoff’s railway scenes – King’s Cross and Willesden Junction, and the tracks viewed from…

According to TaskRabbit, ceiling painting requests have grown by 109% in 2021. Here are a few tips to consider if you’re DIYing: • Look for discolouration. Stains from previous leaks must be primed with a stain-blocking primer, otherwise they will almost certainly seep through. • Do be sure to fill in the cracks. If you don’t, the original paint colour will show up later as a crack grows. • Clean the ceiling. Even a little dust should be brushed away (using a clean broom), as it inhibits the bond between the paint and the surface area. • Watch for spray and drips. To prevent paint drops, don’t oversaturate your roller, and try rotating it slightly from the handle as you reach the ceiling. • Roll more slowly than you would…

The Pig in the South Downs, Madehurst, Sussex The opening of this new hotel in Sussex means the “shabby-chic, sustainably sourced” Pig hotel group now has a “trotter-hold” in every county on England’s south coast, says Neville Hawcock in the FT. Set in a peaceful vale in the South Downs National Park, four miles from Arundel, it occupies an 18th century house with eclectic, boldly coloured furnishings. Most of the 28 rooms are in converted outbuildings (some free-standing “garden wagons”), with timber floors and “huge” standalone baths. There’s a vineyard and a large kitchen garden, and the modern British food is excellent, with all ingredients locally sourced. Doubles from £165; 01243-974500, thepighotel.com.…

Colin Powell 1937-2021 Colin Powell was a four-star general who became America’s first black (and youngest ever) chair of the joint chiefs of staff, and its first black secretary of state. He used to reflect that things might have been different if – instead of emigrating to the “land of opportunity” – his Jamaican-born parents had got on a boat to England. One of his cousins had moved to London, and become a bus conductor. But although Powell came to embody the American dream, “transcending race in a country still beset by racial tension”, he finally left public office in the mid-2000s with his reputation somewhat tarnished, said The Times. As George W. Bush’s secretary of state, he had failed to stop the neocons taking the US into a war…

Facebook: what the Papers say Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen arrived in London this week to give evidence to a parliamentary committee scrutinising the Online Safety Bill, said The Independent. She gave MPs “plenty to think about”. Reinforcing the suspicion that the tech giant puts “profit before people”, she explained that “anger and hate is the easiest way to grow on Facebook”. CEO Mark Zuckerberg claims Haugen’s account is partial. If so, it’s time he gave his side of the story. The pressure is certainly mounting, said Eleanor Olcott in the FT. Haugen’s trip coincided with a slew of damning additions to the “Facebook Papers” (leaked internal documents now running to thousands of pages) showing that senior executives repeatedly ignored “internal warnings” that the platform “enabled the spread of misinformation, and…

The dilemma posed by rising oil prices Larry Elliott The Guardian The price of a barrel of Brent crude is heading towards $90 and the cost of driving is rocketing, says Larry Elliott. A motorist with a 55-litre tank will have to pay £15 more now to fill it than a year ago – and there’s worse to come. “Ouch!” Despite the “unfortunate timing”, days before the start of the Cop26 summit, you didn’t have to be a genius to work out how the Treasury would respond in the Budget. Governments have consistently frozen or cut fuel duties for a decade. “If duties didn’t rise when the price of crude was $15 a barrel,” they weren’t going to rise now. But the Bank of England’s position is much less clear-cut.…

An independent winemaker based in Somerset has seen such a boom in demand that she has launched a crowdfunding campaign to help her expand. Ingrid Bates planted her award-winning Dunleavy Vineyards 13 years ago, when she was 28, on a leased field. Now she wants to buy a new plot on the outskirts of Bristol. The site will enable her to grow more grapes, but she says it will also be a wildlife habitat that will showcase “sustainable viticulture”. The businesswoman behind Fisherman’s Friend has left £41m to a trust to revitalise her hometown of Fleetwood, in Lancashire. Doreen Lofthouse, who died in March aged 91, did not invent the cough sweets: the recipe was devised in 1865 by a local pharmacist from whom her husband was descended. For decades…

Announcing his Budget this week, Chancellor Rishi Sunak declared that the UK economy was entering “a new age of optimism”. Forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility have predicted that the economy will grow by 6.5% this year – more than was forecast in March. This, he said, will enable him to increase departmental spending in this Parliament by £150bn, the “largest increase this century” (see page 53). There will be more funding for schools, worth £1,500 per pupil, and funds will be poured into public transport, to give every town London-style services. The duty paid on a pint of beer will be cut by three pence, but duties will be increased on higher strength alcoholic drinks. With living costs rising, an increase in fuel duty is being cancelled, and…

Santa Fe, New Mexico Film tragedy: Prosecutors have not ruled out bringing criminal charges in relation to last week’s fatal accident on a film set in New Mexico. In circumstances that have yet to be formally established, Alec Baldwin, the star of Rust, discharged a gun while practising a cross draw during a rehearsal for the western. Although he had been told that the gun was “cold”, or safe, it was loaded with live rounds. The film’s Ukraine-born cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins (left), was struck by a bullet and killed, and its director, Joel Souza, was injured. This week, it emerged that Dave Halls, the assistant director who’d handed Baldwin the weapon and assured him it was safe, had been sacked from a production in 2019, after a gun was “unexpectedly…

“I downloaded the NHS app for my vaccine passport, and wow, I was not expecting this Pandora’s box. There on the next tab was the last decade of my history with the GP: the rashes I’d forgotten, that embarrassing digestive difficulty and, oh no, that thing I can’t mention even now. The social media apps on my phone encourage me to show off a fake, idealised self, but here, alongside them, was the un-pretty self-portrait in my online attic. Facebook and Instagram have been accused of operating in ways that deliberately cause sadness: how different would the world feel if we could see everyone’s NHS app history, warts and all?” Helen Rumbelow in The Times…

The Tories will pay for this great injustice Liam Halligan The Daily Telegraph The trouble with this Government, says Liam Halligan, is it’s long on rhetoric but short on strategic thinking – and nowhere more so than on housing policy. We all know the basic problem: the house-building industry is dominated by a few giant firms, which make higher profits by building fewer homes. Result? Millions of young adults unable to buy a house, and denied social housing. And we all know the solution: radical planning reforms to spur builders to build. Residential housing covers just 2% of England: yet “greenbelt” acreage, a vast amount of which is urban scrub, has doubled in the past four decades and now covers 13% of it. It’s a major social injustice. In the…

The dangers of doomscrolling Just under half of adults in the UK use social media to keep up with the news, but research suggests that even a couple of minutes of “doomscrolling” a day can be harmful to our well-being. Psychologists from the University of Essex asked volunteers to spend a few minutes on YouTube or Twitter every day, reading or watching news related to Covid-19, and to report their mood. They then compared them to a control group that had not absorbed such news. The results showed that as little as two minutes’ exposure to bad news about the pandemic was linked to significant reductions in mental well-being and optimism; but that “kindness-scrolling” – exposure to heart-warming stories related to the pandemic – had no negative effect. Although the…

Rishi Sunak is a teetotaller – but he has a weakness for Coca-Cola. ”I’m a total Coke addict,” the Chancellor recently admitted. He insists on proper Coke (no Diet or Zero for him) – and has seven fillings as a result – but he says his favourite drink of all is Mexican Coke, which is “special”, he says, because it’s made from cane sugar, not corn syrup. So would Coke be part of his pre-budget ritual this week? “I tend to have a Twix and a can of Sprite. I save [Coke] for afterwards,” he said. Gwyneth Paltrow has revealed her secrets for a good night’s sleep. Apart from $800 worth of Goop products, they include having a “very early” dinner, to give herself time to digest, and a long…

Anyone hoping for a swim in the Essex town of Southend last weekend will have been disappointed, said Susannah Butter in the London Evening Standard. A sewage spill had forced the closure of the beach, and the cancellation of a seafront firework display that had been planned in honour of David Amess, the MP killed earlier this month. Alas, this was “no one-off event”. The dumping of raw sewage into our coastal waters, rivers and lakes is a huge problem. It’s supposed to occur only in exceptional circumstances – after heavy rain, for example, said Elliot Chappell on LabourList.org. Yet there were more than 400,000 of these discharges into England’s waterways last year. Partly as a result, the country has the worst river quality in Europe: only 14% of English…

At times it seemed less an “elite-level football match”, more an exercise in “ritual humiliation”, said Barney Ronay in The Guardian. At Old Trafford on Sunday, Liverpool ran riot against Manchester United, putting five goals past their rivals. Jürgen Klopp’s men were impressive, but the most noticeable aspect of this one-sided contest was the shockingly inept performance of Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s side – one that left all who witnessed it wondering how a club that has four of the top five best-paid players in the Premier League (Cristiano Ronaldo, David De Gea, Jadon Sancho and Raphaël Varane) could appear so utterly devoid of “basic competence”. Liverpool didn’t even have to exert themselves. Seemingly able at will to “slice open the centre of this United team”, they scored four times in…

Cricket Ben Stokes has been added to England’s Ashes squad for the winter. The allrounder was declared fit following surgery on his index finger. Tennis Emma Raducanu beat Polona Hercog of Slovenia 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 in the first round of the Transylvanian Open. Rugby union Saracens beat Wasps 56-15 in the Gallagher Premiership; four of the London side’s eight tries were scored by winger Max Malins. Football Barcelona suffered their fourth straight defeat in clásicos, losing 2-1 to Real Madrid.…

Bristol Old Vic, and touring until May 2022 (wisechildrendigital.com) Running time: 3hrs Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights – that tale of “turbulent passions and terrible cruelties” set high on the Yorkshire moors – is “commonly read in adolescence, when one’s sensibilities may be particularly susceptible to its intoxicating highs and lows”, said Donald Hutera in The Times. Theatre director Emma Rice fell for the book as a teenager – and her lifelong passion for it is clear in every scene of this “emotionally epic” adaptation. Lasting nearly three hours, the play (which is due to arrive at the National Theatre in February as part of its long tour) is a real “corker”: inventive, absorbing and brilliantly acted. Rice’s staging is packed with her “trademark troubadour quirkiness”, said Quentin Letts in The…

The storming of the Capitol in Washington by Donald Trump’s supporters seemed surreal enough when it happened in January, said Carol Midgley in The Times. But as this “excellent” new BBC documentary makes clear, what we saw on TV “barely scratched the surface”. Watching the 90-minute film is like being dropped into the throng, and immersed with an unhinged mob “high on mutiny and self-righteousness”. You see their “gurning, malevolent faces”; you feel the “terrible crush” as the crowd is pushed and heaved into the building. You witness the horror and fear of the police officers; one is rammed, unable to breathe, against a door, another is reeling after being Tasered in the head. Yet despite the bleakness of it all, there are moments of levity in the film. One…

Last week, “a 3.5-metre-tall puppet called Little Amal landed at Folkestone”, said The Guardian. The puppet of a nineyear-old Syrian girl had begun her 8,000km journey on Turkey’s Syrian border in July. She and her 25-strong entourage have since walked across Europe, following the route that a Syrian child refugee might have taken – passing through Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and France – giving performances along the way. Her presence prompted “a kind of re-enactment of the attitudes displayed to real refugees”: she was greeted with joy in many places, and received a papal blessing in Rome; in Greece the team was pelted with stones by far-right protesters. Little Amal, whose name means “hope” in Arabic, was created by Handspring, who made the puppets for War Horse; it takes…

Lilian and Shula do a lacklustre pitch of their investment idea to Justin, who instantly dismisses it. Later, he reconsiders but Shula is wary. David and Kenton bicker over who will be compère at the Harvest Supper and agree to a double act. Tom is worried about the lack of pickers for Bridge Farm crops. Adam confesses to Ian that he has quit his job; Ian is supportive but they’ll need money to get by. Later, when Tony shares Tom’s labour woes, Adam offers to help out. Jazzer shows Blake around Berrow and, hearing harrowing stories of his past, assures him he’ll be safe. Martyn Gibson forces Blake into an interview with the Echo, which upsets him. Angry Jazzer sends the reporter packing but it’s too late – he’s lost…

A kadhi is a simple dish of yogurt thickened with gram flour. It is full of flavour and very healthy, says Vina Patel. In Gujarat, it is often served as a lunch dish with rice and chapatis, or the puffed, deep-fried bread known as poori. This recipe calls for an Indian bay leaf (tamal patra), and it is better with one, but a regular bay leaf can be used instead. Serves 3 160g plain full-fat yogurt 1 tbsp gram flour 700ml water 2 tbsp grated jaggery or sugar 1 tbsp Ginger Paste (see below) 1 tbsp, plus 1 tsp, of Green Chilli Paste (see below) ¾ tsp salt, or to taste 1½ tbsp ghee ¾ tsp cumin seeds 2 dried red chillies 10-12 fresh curry leaves ¼ tsp asafoetida 1…

The Brussels to Vienna Nightjet is a swift and satisfying way of moving east across the Continent: while you snore you’ll join the path of the River Danube as it heads towards the Austrian capital (from £120; nightjet.com). Waking up on a sleeper train is the best part of the experience, and nowhere is the reveal better than on the southbound sleeper from Rome to Palermo: you discover that you have become an unwitting sailor, whisked by ferry over the Strait of Messina (from about £35; trenitalia.com). The overnight train from Stockholm to Narvik takes you into the Arctic Circle, then through the mountains into Norway (from £80; acprail.com). The Belgrade to Bar railway is a rollercoaster ride through the Balkans: it goes through more than 400 tunnels and over…

Walks with a donkey in the Alps If you’re thinking of taking young children hiking in France, consider expanding your party, says Tom Whipple in The Times – to include a donkey. Demand for the big-eared beasts on French walking holidays has soared since the release of Antoinette dans les Cévennes, a film about a woman who hikes with one through the Massif Central – and now you can take them on week-long rambles in the gloriously unspoiled Maritime Alps, north of Nice, thanks to the local outfit Itinerance Trekking, which also arranges accommodation in hamlets along the way. Donkeys are so “stubborn” as hardly to be worth the bother as pack animals – but their “morale-boosting” effects on children are magical, inspiring a love of mountaineering in even the…

Leslie Bricusse 1931-2021 The songwriter Leslie Bricusse scored his first No. 1 in 1960, when Lonnie Donegan went to the top of the charts with My Old Man’s a Dustman. Bricusse, who has died aged 90, was not proud of the song’s lyrics (“he wears cor blimey trousers, and he lives in a council flat”) so he “concealed” his involvement behind a pseudonym. But his subsequent credits required no such anonymity, said The Times. Three years later, he won a Grammy for What Kind of Fool Am I?, sung by Sammy Davis Jr. And in 1967, he won an Academy Award for Talk to the Animals, from the soundtrack to the film Doctor Dolittle. Having written the song as his audition piece, he liked to say that he was the…

Tesla has become the first carmaker to break through the $1trn valuation barrier – joining Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook and Microsoft in an elite club of tech titans, said Jasper Jolly in The Guardian. The catalyst for the share surge that took Tesla over the line was an order for 100,000 electric vehicles, worth $4bn, from the rental company Hertz. But it follows “a record quarter” for the carmaker, in which its Model 3 became “the best-selling car across Europe in September” – and the first battery electric vehicle ever to top the region’s monthly sales charts. Tesla is now worth more than the next nine carmakers combined, said The Wall Street Journal. Founder Elon Musk, meanwhile, has overtaken Jeff Bezos to reclaim his title as the world’s richest individual.…

• Market weathervanes Reading the runes of UK monetary policy is notoriously difficult, said Stefan Wagstyl in the Financial Times. But there’s “a clear sense” that the era of ultra-low interest rates is on the way out. Even though the top mortgage offers of high-street lenders like Halifax, Nationwide and Santander “have barely risen since the summer” (all are offering five-year, fixed-rate loans at 0.99% for up to 60% of the property value), it can’t last much longer. Indeed, lenders have already raised rates on equity release mortgages, “which are something of a market weathervane as they often involve very long-term loans”. The lowest rates on these products have jumped from 2.4% a few weeks ago to 2.8%. “There’s no need to panic” – rates were much higher pre-Covid, at…

Guy Hands The private equity investor, famed for his disastrous £4.2bn purchase of the EMI record company in 2007, admits to a strange physical quirk, said Charlotte Edwardes in The Times – “virtually no fingerprints”. Maybe if he hadn’t become a financier, he would have made “a great criminal”. He certainly wasn’t a great record company boss, conceding that the famously business-savvy Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger “would have made a better CEO than me”. After a period of turmoil, EMI was sold to Universal in 2011. Hands then spent years fruitlessly pursuing Citigroup – which underwrote the initial deal and subsequently pulled the rug on it – through the courts. “He beat himself up about EMI until at least 2019”, but now acknowledges “he behaved like a megalomaniac”. Now,…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1284 An Ettinger travel pass case and two Connell Guides will be given to the sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday 8 November. Email the answers as a scan of a completed grid or a list, with the subject line The Week crossword 1284, to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) This week’s winner will receive an Ettinger (ettinger.co.uk) travel pass case (assorted colours), which retails at £105, and two Connell Guides connellguides.com). ACROSS 8 WWII Field Marshal, a victor in spring (6) 9 No other person present just before 13.00 hours (3-2-3) 10 Have dram, say after victory in North American capital (8) 11 Party’s a hit (6) 12 Part of wisecrack got laughter in African…

Broaden your worldview with The Week magazine and enjoy a balanced, unbiased and refreshing take on current affairs. Join over 300,000 readers who rely on The Week to cut through the noise of the media and see the bigger picture. Subscribe today and your first 6 issues are completely free. Why subscribe? Money-back guarantee If for any reason you’re not satisfied with your subscription, you can cancel anytime and we’ll refund on any issues not received. Great savings As a subscriber you’ll benefit from great savings off the RRP and from special offers and discounts. Free delivery A subscription includes free delivery so you can receive the magazine directly to your door every week. Visit theweek.co.uk/offer Or call 0330 333 9494 Offer code P1355 For binders to hold 26 copies…