Innholdsfortegnelse for 1467 i The Week

What happened Israel faced growing calls from European allies this week to temper its military onslaught in Gaza. In a joint article with his German counterpart, Foreign Secretary David Cameron warned that “too many civilians have been killed”. The pair called for a “sustainable ceasefire” that could lead to a “sustainable peace”. The French foreign minister also called for a “new humanitarian truce”, saying her country was “highly concerned” by the situation. It follows comments last week by President Joe Biden, who said Israel was losing international support because of its “indiscriminate bombing”. Israel’s premier, Benjamin Netanyahu, also faced anger at home from demonstrators demanding he prioritise negotiations to secure the release of the 130 or so mostly Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza. On Saturday, the Israel Defence…

A Question of Sport, the TV quiz show, which was shelved by the BBC after more than 50 years on air. Authors, who have emerged as among the victims of a massive cyberattack on the British Library in October. The attack paralysed the library’s IT systems, causing ongoing chaos. As a result, its officials say they may not be able to make payments under the public lending rights scheme – which entitles authors to an annual sum related to how often their books are borrowed from libraries. Grayson Perry, after EDF tried to raise his monthly energy bill to £39,000. The firm blamed an incorrect meter reading.…

80% of British Jews feel less safe than they did before the Hamas attack of 7 October. Around a fifth have experienced antisemitic abuse since then. Survation/Jewish News 33% of millennials support the immediate closure of nightclubs, as Covid cases rise. So do 31% of Gen Z-ers, 27% of Gen X-ers and baby boomers, and 23% of over-75s. Nearly half of all adults back the return of mandatory face masks; about 20% want restaurants and pubs to be closed. More in Common 50% of adults in Denmark think Ukraine should be allowed to join the EU, along with 47% in Poland, 37% in Germany, 32% in Romania, 29% in France and 28% in Austria. ECFR/The Guardian…

Don’t look at boats, look at universities Alice Thomson The Times “Stop the boats” makes a snappy slogan, says Alice Thomson, but why all the fuss? Only 29,437 people made it to the UK on small boats this year, down from nearly 46,000 in 2022. The real issue is legal net migration: post-Brexit, it has risen from 200,000 a year to a crazy 672,000, of whom nearly 40% are non-EU students and their families – a tenfold increase since 2019. Why? Because universities are “actively recruiting” students from abroad, the fees they pay being far higher (up to £38,000 a year) than those paid by locals (£9,250). Around 60% of current Imperial College students are from abroad; more than 44% of Edinburgh students are international. Of course, some enrich campuses,…

The power of food labelling If you want people to eat less meat, and more plant-based food, don’t use the word “vegan”. A study in the US has found that consumers (and especially meat eaters) are far more likely to eat such food if it is labelled “healthy”. For the research at the University of Southern California, 7,341 people were asked to choose between two gift baskets of food. One contained meat and dairy products; the other contained only plant-based food. When the non-meat basket was labelled “vegan”, only 20% of the participants plumped for it, rising to 27% when it was labelled “plant-based”. But when the label was “healthy”, “sustainable” or “healthy and sustainable”, the figure jumped to over 40%. The effect was consistent across socioeconomic groups, but was…

Speaking up for Scrooge To The Guardian Touched and flattered though I was to be cited in your leader concerning A Christmas Carol, I must, on Dickens’ behalf, protest against the notion that Scrooge simply indulges in “a Christmas morning giveaway”. True, he offers the charity gentleman a sum of money that makes that good man gasp with disbelief, but he goes on to promise Bob Cratchit a rise in salary, offering to look after his struggling family. He becomes, we’re told, “a second father [to Tiny Tim]… as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world”. In other words, he becomes a contributing member of…

A GP surgery in Doncaster apologised for sending thousands of patients a text message informing them that they had “aggressive lung cancer”. The text, sent out just before Christmas last year, went to patients registered with the Askern Medical Practice. Twenty-two minutes later, they were sent a follow-up text, offering “sincere apologies” for the error. “Our message to you should have read ‘We wish you a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.’” Scantily clad cabaret dancers performed at an unusual parent-and-baby event in London earlier this year. The “Caba Baba Rave” show, advertised as a “little slice of afternoon delight”, featured drag artists and dancers wearing thongs and bondage gear doing acrobatic manoeuvres – along with “sensory moments” for the babies. The organisers explained that the event was for…

Originally created in 2007, Christopher Hampson’s “lively and inventive” version of Prokofiev’s Cinderella “has become a celebrated part of the Scottish Ballet repertoire”, said Mark Brown in The Daily Telegraph. However, this “delight of a revival” – titled Cinders! – has a “radical, gender-flipped twist”. At each performance, the audience will not find out until curtain-up whether Cinders is a woman who’ll be sought out by her prince, or a man who’ll be whisked off by his princess. Ballet has been slow to embrace gender-swapped casting, said Fergus Morgan in The Stage – partly for reasons of practicality. “Female ballerinas are trained to perform en pointe, and they cannot hoik hefty blokes over their heads.” With this work, however, Hampson has amply demonstrated that “reimagining classic ballets does not require…

Chefs, food critics and restaurateurs share their tips for getting value when eating out: ● Stay local. You’ll spend less on transport; the bill will probably be less (cheaper rents), and if you visit the same ones regularly, they’ll get to know you and treat you better. ● Look at the menu online in advance and compare prices with other restaurants. ● If you opt for Thai food, you’ll spend less on alcohol, says critic Giles Coren. French and Italian food is designed for wine, but Asian goes well with a soft drink or a beer. ● The waiter will offer “still or sparkling”, but you have a right to ask for free tap water. ● Food blogger Kar-Shing Tong suggests keeping the bill down by ordering just a starter…

Baroness Mone of Mayfair Michelle Mone’s elevation to the House of Lords in 2015 was her “crowning moment”, says Tom Witherow in The Times. Hers was a rags to riches story of a “humble bra designer” who had grown up in a working-class family in the East End of Glasgow, left school at 15, and went on to build a fortune. Her business career started in the 1990s, when she set up her first company with redundancy money from a marketing job at Labatt (which she had got, she admitted, by lying about her qualifications “to get my foot in the door”). Mone founded MJM International at the age of 25, and four years later launched Ultimo, a “cleavage-enhancing bra brand”. After that came weight-loss pills and fake tan. But…

”Individual incentives favour collective instability.” When there’s a serious market correction, pundits always ask: “Has no one learnt the lessons of the past?” Why would they? Any crash is tolerable “if you have transmuted several years of asset price inflation into cash bonuses”. ”You do not hear the whistle of the bullet that hits you.” The late Queen asked economists during the financial crisis of 2007-08: “Why didn’t anyone see this coming?” They were too busy worrying about other “nagging fears” to see the US subprime threat. ”Chief executives sometimes matter.” But mature businesses “carry on imperturbably during interregnums”. The main utility of CEOs is protecting or creating value during “turmoil”. In calmer times, “bad CEOs destroy value with grandiose takeovers”. ”Debt matters more than equity, unfortunately.” Even with US…

What happened The agreement struck at the Cop28 climate summit last week continued to divide opinion, as scientists and activists pored over its finer points. Agreed by almost 200 countries after 14 days of negotiations in the United Arab Emirates, the deal won praise in some quarters for its commitment to a “transition away” from fossil fuels: it was the first time a UN climate summit text had called on all nations to reduce their use. But it was fiercely criticised by small-island states and eco-activists, who said that firmer commitments are required if the world is to hit the 1.5°C (2°C at most) temperature rise target. The deal encourages all countries to set “ambitious” emissions targets within two years. It contains targets to triple global renewable energy capacity by…

Staff at the Treasury have been urged to attach a voice recording of themselves saying their own names to their emails, to prevent mispronunciations that might make them feel “unseen”. An advisory note encouraged anyone who “felt comfortable” to add such a recording to their email signature, just after their pronouns. The sender, identified only as Sam, included his own clip explaining that his name rhymes with “ham”. Marks & Spencer and John Lewis are sewing pockets into pyjamas to meet demand from consumers, who need somewhere to put their mobile phones while they work from home in their jimjams, The Daily Telegraph reports. Other manufacturers are putting pockets into boxer shorts.…

Mark Drakeford, the First Minister of Wales, announced his resignation last week, after five years in the job. Drakeford, who had always said that he’d not serve another term, explained that he’d decided to go now, to ensure that a new leader was in place before the next general election. His successor is expected to be appointed by Easter. Rishi Sunak thanked Drakeford, who steered Wales through the pandemic, for his “years of public service”, while Keir Starmer hailed him as a “true titan” of Welsh and Labour politics.…

Rosscahill, Ireland Hotel blaze: A disused hotel in County Galway that was set to accommodate 70 male asylum seekers has been burned almost to the ground in an apparent arson attack. The blaze, in the Georgian house in the village of Rosscahill, broke out at 11:35pm, hours after protesters had demonstrated against the plan. Nobody was inside the building at the time. Senior politicians condemned the attack, but two councillors from the ruling Fianna Fáil party said the government had not done enough to address people’s concerns about the rising numbers of refugees arriving in Ireland, driving them to take drastic action. Vatican City Cardinal convicted: A former top adviser to Pope Francis was jailed for five-and-a-half years last week – the culmination of a landmark corruption case dubbed the…

An Australian spreadsheet whizz, Andrew “The Annihilator” Ngai, has won the Microsoft Excel World Championship for the third year in a row. Ngai, an actuary from Sydney, beat 15 other finalists at the televised contest in Las Vegas, which required players to process large tranches of data by creating formulas and subsets, against the clock. Microsoft hailed Ngai as a “new legend”, telling him: “You didn’t just succeed – you Exceled.” He described the experience as “intense”. A teaching assistant from Norwich was shocked to find the face of Margaret Thatcher seared onto her ironing board. Karen Schmit, 63, explained that she hadn’t noticed the burn’s resemblance to the Iron Lady until she tried to sell the board for £5 on Facebook, and fellow users of the social media platform…

CHINA Beijing doesn’t need to act the bully boy South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) Does China’s aggressive “wolf warrior” style of diplomacy actually work? The Chinese certainly seem to enjoy the sight of their representatives aggressively taking their foreign counterparts to task, says Maria Siow. But I’m not sure any of this does Beijing any favours. The latest brouhaha has occurred in the South Pacific, where Chinese ships have been jostling Filipino vessels to enforce territorial claims. Instead of trying to calm things down, China’s ambassador in Manila, Huang Xilian, wagged his finger at Filipino army chief General Romeo Brawner Jr and told him “don’t provoke us”. Such incidents have multiplied of late. In May, diplomat Zhao Wei was expelled from Canada after being accused of intimidating an MP…

To The Times I agree that the whole concept of homeopathy is bizarre, and fully understand the scepticism that surrounds it, but I would like to speak up on behalf of those who advocate its use. When my children were young I was keen to avoid the use of antibiotics. I was lucky that our GP offered a homeopathic alternative; in most cases it seemed to work well. They were both healthy and did not have antibiotics until their 30s. I’m aware that there was probably a big placebo effect at work – but that is of no consequence if you feel better. I will always be grateful that we were given an alternative option. Judy Shipstone, Maidstone To The Times The danger of homeopathy arises when complementary becomes alternative:…

That Jude Bellingham is extravagantly talented has long been obvious, said Tim Thornton and Harry Ward on Sky Sports. The police officer’s son from Stourbridge made his professional debut for Birmingham City a month after turning 16, joined Borussia Dortmund a year later, and soon thereafter became England’s third-youngest full international. Last year, at the World Cup in Qatar, he was a key member of Gareth Southgate’s England side. Yet despite his abundant gifts, Bellingham’s achievements in recent months have still exceeded expectations, said Craig Hope in the Daily Mail. Since signing for Real Madrid in June, the 20-year-old has scored 17 goals in 21 games – despite not being a striker. Very few English players have made such a dramatic impact abroad. It is rapidly becoming clear that Bellingham…

Colin from Accounts BBC iPlayer “On the surface, Colin from Accounts is an unassuming Australian romcom,” said The Independent. Dig down, and it’s still “an unassuming Australian romcom”. And that’s no bad thing. The story is more fun than “boy meets girl”: it’s “boy almost runs over girl, girl flashes boy, boy hits dog, boy and girl co-parent that dog and call it Colin”. This is a very charming series, with an “infectious dry wit”, said The Guardian. The show gives you “ordinary life with all the good lines jammed closer together”. Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland BBC iPlayer One of the finest pieces of television this year was “a little-heralded documentary about the Troubles”, said The Guardian. Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland is a five-episode…

Gift a membership to Friends of Friendless Churches, a charity that restores forlorn, neglected churches in England and Wales (£30; friendsoffriendlesschurches.org.uk). Jekka’s Seed Club Subscription sends out packs of herb seeds from Jekka McVicar’s nursery at regular intervals, when they are ready to sow (from £10; jekkas.com). City Lit courses are excellent for would-be writers, and include a “Write a short story in a weekend” course (from £99; citylit.ac.uk). One for foodies, Pasta Evangelists sends out regular parcels of delicious fresh pasta dishes (from £20; pastaevangelists.com). Gift beautiful bouquets every month for three, six or 12 months with a Bloom & Wild subscription (from £70; bloomandwild.com). Film buffs will love membership to Mubi, which curates and streams films by visionary filmmakers (£39.99; mubi.com). Cheesegeek offers a wide selection of cheeses…

Festive breaks should be about rest and recuperation, said Lex in the FT. But for many, the “desperate sprint to complete work projects before mass catering for fractious extended families” means that holidays can actually exacerbate burnout. Where possible, companies should let everyone off till the new year. No such option for M&S boss Stuart Machin, said Laura Onita in the same paper. He spends Christmas Eve visiting stores, takes a break for midnight Mass, and is up at 5am on Christmas Day to walk his dog “while checking the final sales numbers”. There’s a brief respite on Boxing Day when the shops are shut, but by evening Machin is “itching to get back into stores”.…

Prince Harry, who was awarded £140,600 in damages after a court ruled that the Mirror Group had obtained stories about him using unlawful methods. The judge found that 15 of the 33 stories the prince had complained about had been gathered unlawfully, probably by voicemail hacking. Rebecca Welch, who is due to become the first female referee to take charge of a Premier League match. She has been selected to referee Fulham vs. Burnley on 23 December. Three days later, Sam Allison will become the first black ref in the League since 2008, when he officiates at Sheffield United vs. Luton Town. David Davis, the Tory MP, who won plaudits for intervening to stop an attack on a rough sleeper. The former SAS reservist, 75, was going home after a…

The House of Commons Standards Committee has recommended that the former Conservative MP Scott Benton be suspended without pay for 35 days. In April, Scott was filmed by reporters from The Times offering to table parliamentary questions and provide “behind the scenes” information for a fictional gambling business. The committee found that he’d given the impression that he was “for sale”. If its ruling is upheld, a recall petition will be triggered in Blackpool South, where he has a majority of 3,690 – raising the possibility of the Tories facing another bruising by-election in the New Year.…

Washington DC Biden’s worries: Joe Biden’s aides are growing increasingly concerned that he is being “consumed” by the corruption allegations surrounding his son, Hunter, according to a report in Politico. Last week, Republicans launched an impeachment inquiry into Biden, 81, to examine whether he benefitted from his son’s business dealings (see page 12). Hunter, meanwhile, is facing tax and firearms charges that could leave him facing up to 17 years in prison. Biden Snr is said to be seriously concerned about his welfare, and worried about the impact on Hunter, 53, if he goes to jail. Reportedly, he “barks” at anyone who suggests that Hunter could be an electoral liability, and checks in on him daily. “You can see it in his eyes, and you can see his shoulders slump,”…

Democrats must cut a deal on Ukraine Jonathan V. Last The Bulwark “You’re not supposed to negotiate with hostage-takers,” says Jonathan V. Last. But President Biden should make an exception in the case of the Republican leaders who are refusing to approve $61bn in military aid to Ukraine, unless they get major concessions on the policing of America’s southern border with Mexico. Yes, it’s “obscene” that the GOP is blocking assistance to a US ally that is fighting for its very survival. “This is not normal and it is not the behaviour of a healthy political party”: the Republicans have “sacrificed every foreign policy principle they claimed to uphold for the past half century to keep a racist game show host happy”. Nevertheless, it makes sense to cave in to…

Mosquitoes that spread tropical diseases such as dengue fever could be common in the UK within 20 years, a new report from the UK Health Security Agency has warned. The Asian tiger mosquito – so named because of its striped body and legs – can transmit the Zika and chikungunya viruses, as well as the one that causes dengue. It is already established in much of southern Europe (dengue has been recorded in France), and as temperatures rise, the agency says it could start to become common in most of England by the 2040s; in a “plausible worst-case scenario”, London could be regularly seeing cases of dengue by 2060. Dengue can cause fever, headache, aching joints, nausea and a rash; severe cases are rare but they can be fatal. Prof…

When the heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson ruptured her Achilles in 2020, it plunged her into an “injury hell” that seemed to presage the end of her career, said Riath Al-Samarrai in the Daily Mail. So severe was the injury that the Liverpudlian – who had been renowned for her jumping ability – was for a long time unable to push off from her preferred left leg. She likened the process of regaining the ability to do so to learning to walk again. Another injury, this time to her calf, forced her out of the Tokyo Olympics the following year, and she seemed a shadow of her former self when she finally returned to competition. At the World Championships in 2022, she only finished eighth – a result that made her consider…

Unless you’ve avoided mainstream entertainment since 2016, you’ll have heard of Stranger Things, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. Netflix’s smash hit TV series is a sci-fi horror saga set in the 1980s in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, where a group of plucky kids take on hostile incursions from an alternate dimension known as the Upside Down. This origin story, set in the 1950s, is Netflix’s first theatre venture – and it’s a triumph. Directed by Stephen Daldry (who conceived the project) and produced by Sonia Friedman, it is, judged purely as drama, “high-class hokum”. But as a theatrical experience, it’s a “game-changing”, jaw-dropping bombardment of one theatrical coup after another, kicking off with the “engulfing” of a US warship. It is surely the “theatrical event of…

Work a little Christmas magic, give The Week all year. THE WEEK Gift subscriptions start from just £45.99 £40.99. Visit: theweek.co.uk/offer or call: 0330 333 9494 quoting offer code: P23XM Gift subscriptions start with the first issue in the new year. Calls charged at your standard network rate. Direct debit offer. Additional terms and payment options available with a £5 discount. Prices quoted are UK only, overseas offers also available.…

Sold Gustav Klimt’s final portrait was sold at auction in London in June. Dame mit Fächer (Lady with a Fan) (pictured) was still sitting on the artist’s easel when Klimt died, aged 55, from pneumonia in Vienna in February 1918, after contracting the Spanish flu. A month before that, he had suffered a stroke that had left him paralysed. Different in tone from his better-known masterpieces of a decade earlier, such as The Kiss, Lady with a Fan incorporates a series of Chinese motifs. The identity of the woman depicted is unknown. Having last been sold in 1994, for $11.6m (£9m), it was sold at Sotheby’s for £85.3m to a collector from Hong Kong, making it the most expensive painting ever auctioned in Europe. It was not, however, the most…

The own-label supermarket champagne that most regularly impresses the experts is Co-op’s Les Pionniers NV (£21.75), said Sean Poulter in the Daily Mail. This year it earned the highest score in a Which? blind-tasting, which included grand marque champagnes costing double the price. Made for Co-op by Piper-Heidsieck, it was praised for its “smooth creaminess” and “pleasing freshness”. Also “superb” is the 2013 vintage of the same wine (£37; Co-op), said Victoria Moore in The Daily Telegraph. A 60/40 blend of pinot noir and chardonnay, it has a “toasty, honeyed nose and firm structure”. Another “top” example of supermarket fizz is Waitrose Blanc de Noirs Champagne Brut NV (£26.99, down to £23.99 until 1 Jan). Made from 100% pinot noir, it’s a “stylish and impressive” wine that has overtones of…

It wasn’t such a bad old year, financially Roger Bootle The Daily Telegraph Cast your mind back to the beginning of the year and recall how things seemed, says Roger Bootle. “The mood was very bleak.” UK inflation had just reached 11.1%, interest rates were rising and “most people regarded recession as inevitable”. In the event, both the British and world economies “turned out to be more resilient” than many feared. The US never went into recession. Perhaps the best bit of news for the UK came in September, when upward revisions showed that GDP had finally surpassed its pre-Covid peak – and that our relative performance against other developed countries was “not awful, but about average”. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the year, given “the extent and speed of…

● Fat feast I’ve had my fair share of investment turkeys this year, said Ian Cowie in The Sunday Times, but one bet that came spectacularly good was a punt on the Danish pharma Novo Nordisk, on “rumours of a weight-loss drug”. Shares have gained more than 45% thanks to its weight jab, Wegovy, and its sister diabetes treatment, Ozempic. The US pharma Eli Lilly – which makes Mounjaro, a rival treatment – has done even better, gaining nearly 60%. “Rather than merely a cosmetic indulgence”, healthcare providers now see weight-loss drugs “as a way to cut the cost of a wide range of other ailments”. “Insatiable demand” saw Novo unseat the French luxury behemoth LVMH as Europe’s “most valuable listed company”, said Reuters. ● CEOs and sex This was…

Politicians & Thinkers Alan Budd, economist, died 13 January, aged 85. Pervez Musharraf, former president of Pakistan, died 5 February, aged 79. Betty Boothroyd, Labour politician, died 26 February, aged 93. Nigel Lawson, Conservative politician, died 3 April, aged 91. Peter Brooke, Conservative politician, died 13 May, aged 89. Silvio Berlusconi, former Italian premier, died 12 June, aged 86. Winifred Ewing, SNP politician, died 21 June, aged 93. Mangosuthu Buthelezi, South African politician, died 9 September, aged 95. Henry Kissinger, US academic and diplomat, died 29 November, aged 100. Alistair Darling, Labour politician, died 30 November, aged 70. Glenys Kinnock, Labour politician, died 3 December, aged 79. Writers & Artists Fay Weldon, author, died 4 January, aged 91. Paul Johnson, journalist and author, died 12 January, aged 94. Ronald Blythe,…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1394 Two Connell Guides and three Week-branded items will be given to the sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday 8 January. Send it to The Week Crossword 1394, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid/listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) This week’s winner will receive Week-branded items including a notebook, coffee mug and tote bag, as well as two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). Theme & Variations: An unclued theme word is defined directly and is alluded to indirectly in Variations ACROSS 1 Girl I caught in California making a sort of music (9) 6 Main tempo modified for Xmas show (9) 11 Peacekeepers requested? Not necessary (8-3) 12 Drug at uni? Put…