Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1080 i The Week

Brexit: the vote that shook the world David Cameron and fellow EU leaders held tense talks this week in an effort to contain the fallout from last Thursday’s historic Brexit vote. The referendum result – a 52% to 48% victory for the Leave side – caught almost everyone by surprise, unleashing political and economic chaos. It led Cameron to announce that he would resign as prime minister in the autumn, and prompted a concerted move by Labour MPs to unseat their own leader, Jeremy Corbyn (see opposite). The financial markets swung wildly – with sterling at one point plunging to a 31-year low against the dollar, and some share trading having to be temporarily halted. Three credit-rating agencies downgraded the UK’s debt. As Remainers vented their fury and disappointment, anti-EU…

Boris Johnson woke up last Friday morning “having won the war”, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. Against all the odds, he had achieved a great victory, and emerged as the “heir presumptive” to the Tory leadership and No. 10. “It’s just that somehow, as he fought his way through booing crowds on his Islington doorstep before holding an uncharacteristically subdued press conference, it didn’t really look that way.” He seemed “as shocked as anyone else by the enormity of what is happening”. Now he stands to inherit “a nation febrile and divided, teetering on the brink of economic and constitutional crisis”. Johnson certainly doesn’t look like a man with a plan, said Janan Ganesh in the FT. In his Telegraph column on Monday, he sketched out a model of…

Baltimore, Maryland Freddie Gray cop acquitted: A second police officer has been acquitted of all criminal charges relating to the case of Freddie Gray – a suspect whose death from injuries sustained in a police van last April triggered major riots in Baltimore. Caesar Goodson Jr. was driving the van carrying Gray, 25, after he was forcibly arrested for possessing a switchblade. Gray wasn’t given a seat belt, and prosecutors accused Goodson of deliberately subjecting him to what is known as a “rough ride”, causing him to sustain a fatal spinal-cord injury as he was thrown around in the back of the vehicle. But the court decided there was no evidence that the defendant had driven erratically on purpose, and acquitted him of second-degree “depraved-heart” murder – equating to gross…

How does one withdraw from the EU? The process is straightforward on the face of it. It’s set out in Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. First, the leader of a departing member state has to notify the European Council – that is to say, the assembled EU leaders; then a withdrawal agreement is negotiated; a qualified majority of the Council (usually 20 of 27 states) must approve it; and it must then be ratified by the European Parliament. All those steps must be completed within two years of invoking Article 50: until then, the UK is still an EU member and most things stay the same. But as no state has ever left before, the process is in practice entirely untested. No one even knows how soon Article 50…

A Swedish football team, Järna SK Reserves, was reduced to ten men in a key match against local rivals last week, after its left-back was sent off for farting. “I had a bad stomach, so I simply let go,” explained 25-year-old Adam Lindin Ljungkvist, whowas already on a yellow card when he did so. “I asked the referee, ’Am I not allowed to break wind a little?’” Unconvinced, the referee redcarded him for “unsportsmanlike behaviour”. An amateur musician who took to practising all night in her flat, in Folkestone, made such a ghastly noise that her violin has been confiscated by the local council. “When she played,” said a neighbour, “it sounded like a cat being strangled. The guitar-playing wasn’t much better.” Shepway District Council has now given Tsige-Jahna Simmons…

RUSSIA Let’s strike a deal with the Kremlin Die Zeit (Hamburg) When German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier last week denounced Nato’s show of force in Eastern Europe as provocative “sabre-rattling”, he was condemned for being disloyal. Yet he has a point, says Theo Sommer. Yes, Poland and the three Baltic states need assurances that the West will defend them should Russia invade. But the threat of Russia actually doing so has been wildly exaggerated by Nato generals. However unnerving Putin’s warlike rhetoric may sound, the Baltic states – as independent defence analysts in Moscow make clear – lie outside the sphere he seeks to control; he has no wish to provoke a nuclear showdown. So enough of the “icy” speeches from both sides: Europe must rethink its relationship with Russia…

The boundaries of Roman Britain may have to be redrawn. For years, the consensus among historians was that, owing to the fierce resistance of local tribes in Devon and Cornwall, Roman influence stretched no further west than Exeter. Then in 2009, two amateur metal detectives found some Roman coins in a field near the village of Ipplepen, 20 miles southwest of Exeter – a find described as one of the most significant in decades. This led to a major archaeological dig, which has since unearthed a hoard of other Roman objects, including hundreds more coins and bits of pottery, jewellery and even a road. Archaeologists are now confident that some 2,000 years ago, the field was the site of a Romano-British settlement, populated by native Britons who, far from living…

David Cameron “has just become one of those leaders who will always be remembered for a single enormous mistake”, said Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. It doesn’t matter what else he achieved during his six years in office. Like Neville Chamberlain or Anthony Eden, he will be defined in history by one “towering disaster” – namely, the referendum gamble that has severed Britain from Europe, and may yet “unravel the United Kingdom”. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, said Alex Massie on ForeignPolicy.com. Cameron came to power as “a different kind of Tory, one comfortable with the face and reality of modern Britain”. He hugged huskies and hoodies; he promised – and delivered – gay marriage and more aid for the world’s poorest countries. “Above all, he insisted, the…

Euro 2016: a new low for England... “A recurring nightmare.” That’s what it feels like to watch England lose, said Paul Myerscough on the NYRB blog. It’s a nightmare “so habitual one is aware, even inside the dream, that it is happening again.” But never, in England’s 144-year football history, has the nightmare been as bad as this, said Henry Winter in The Times. Losing 2-1 to Iceland, in the last 16 of Euro 2016, is “the nadir”, the benchmark for all future humiliations. On one side, you had a country that’s home to 55 million people and the world’s richest league; on the other, a nation of 330,000, managed by a parttime dentist. Yet England’s Lions were “lambs to the slaughter”: they lacked any semblance of tactics or commitment.…

To The Guardian We have just endured an appallingly unedifying EU referendum campaign. Neither “side” has distinguished itself. The elitist Remain has deployed fear and an arrogant contempt for the mostly poorer, older and less metropolitan voters who appeared to be inclined towards Brexit (“insane”, “ignorant” and “hysterical” are all epithets that Remainers have flung about). Meanwhile, Leave has also gone for fear, plus an opportunist and poisonous racism. Yet talk to Leave voters and you discover their concerns are concrete and crucial: depressed wages, lack of homes, a collapsing NHS, an uncertain and shifting national culture. Let’s get really down to earth and examine a common Leave complaint: rural schools, struggling, untrained and unequipped to cope with the arrival of Eastern European migrant farmworkers’ children. In a Norfolk country…

Faber 272pp £12.99 The Week bookshop £10.99 In this “barnstorming polemic”, Kat Banyard attacks the idea that sex work can be empowering, said Eleanor Mills in The Sunday Times. Prostitution, she argues, is never “just another labour-market choice, like serving drinks”; it is a form of abuse, “dependent on repeated and despicable assaults on women”. Banyard is a “passionate advocate” for the “Nordic model” of policing prostitution, which criminalises punters but not those selling sex. This policy, introduced in several Scandinavian countries, has significantly reduced prostitution. By contrast, in Germany (where both selling and buying sex have been legal since 2002), the trade has “exploded”. Mega-brothels have sprung up and trafficking is rife. Pimp State is “punchy” and makes some “arresting” points, said Emma Jacobs in the Financial Times. But…

Independence Day: Resurgence Dir: Roland Emmerich 2hrs (12A) Proof that bigger isn’t always better “That is definitely bigger than the last one,” murmurs the wry scientist played by Jeff Goldblum, as a vast alien spacecraft looms into view. A similar remark could be made about this lumbering sequel to Roland Emmerich’s 1996 blockbuster Independence Day, said David Sexton in the London Evening Standard. The budget is bigger but the plot, pitting a tentacular extraterrestrial army against a handful of humans, is essentially the same. Bill Pullman returns as doughty ex-president Whitmore; Maika Monroe is his feisty daughter; Liam Hemsworth plays her fighter pilot boyfriend, who signals his rebellious nature by urinating on the alien mothership. “2001: A Space Odyssey, it ain’t,” said Christopher Hooton in The Independent. Yet Emmerich’s destructive…

William Dalrymple at Grosvenor Gallery William Dalrymple is best known for his books on the Indian subcontinent and Afghanistan. Yet before he settled on writing as a career, his principal interest was photography. His first book, In Xanadu, is filled with black and white shots of his journey tracing the footsteps of Marco Polo. This show, titled The Writer’s Eye, gathers together a selection of the monochrome images he has captured over the last 18 months on his travels across Europe and Asia, taking us from a windswept view of the Bass Rock off the East Lothian coast, to dust-blown views of Iran, to the ruins of Afghanistan. The show marks the return of a gifted visual artist. Dalrymple’s best images are quietly dramatic things. The Indian photographs are much…

If you’re looking for a good value, decent white wine in case the weather perks up, here are three I would recommend, says David Williams in The Observer. Truly Irresistible Fiano di Benevento, Italy 2014 (£6.99; The Co-op). Made with one of my favourite white grapes, this wine combines leafy herb flavours with citrus freshness. The depth of flavour here is impressive at the price. Sainsbury’s offers a nice line in aromatic, seafood-friendly whites from northwest Spain. Taste the Difference Albariño 2015 (£8) is pleasantly breezy and gently peachy, but it is pipped by Taste the Difference Godello, Bierzo, Spain 2015 (£7), with its extra charge of lemony tang behind the stone fruit and fresh acidity. Colinas del Itata Old Vine Field Blend Muscat Corinto, Itata, Chile 2014 (£10; M&S).…

A Caribbean island’s glorious past In the 18th century, it was the world’s busiest seaport, a “phenomenally wealthy” Dutch trading post that supplied fighters in the American Revolution with arms. Today, it is a sleepy backwater, home to just 3,000 people and little visited by tourists. But the tiny Caribbean island of Sint Eustatius is rich in history and in natural beauty, says Amy Dean in The Independent. Its main town, Oranjestad, has a picturesque fort, the New World’s second-oldest synagogue, and backstreets littered with 18th century artefacts, from Chinese porcelain shards to broken pipes. Its beaches are unremarkable, but the diving on its reefs and shipwrecks is good. Although the parched slopes of the Quill – the island’s dormant volcano – are “uninspiring”, its jungled crater is wonderful, lit…

Unparalleled chronicler of the Vietnam war Michael Herr 1940-2016 “No one had a greater effect on how the Vietnam war has been processed in our popular consciousness than Michael Herr,” said Elliot Ackerman on The Daily Beast. As the author of Dispatches – one of the most visceral books ever written about the experience of front-line war – and the co-writer of Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket, he didn’t just describe warfare: he shaped our “modern conception of it”. Young soldiers marching off to subsequent conflicts in Iraq or Afghanistan had his imagery “flickering in their heads, snatches of his dialogue trigger-ready on their tongues”. When I was serving in Iraq myself, said Ackerman, I often heard my fellow soldiers quote Apocalypse Now – “I love the smell of…

Compared to the battering taken by the major European stock indices, the FTSE-100 proved relatively resilient to the Brexit shock – with the exception of housebuilders, travel companies and banks. Indeed, banks’ share prices “are pointing to serious discomfort, if not outright distress”, said Patrick Hosking in The Times. Once the smoke cleared, Barclays was down 31%, RBS by 30%, and “tiddlers” Virgin Money and Aldermore by 44% and 45% respectively. “The size of those moves is not dissimilar to those in the depths of the crisis in 2008.” Banks have been pummelled mainly “because their sterling earnings are worth less”, said Roger Blitz in the FT. They might have compensated in the past by making money out of the pound’s fall, “but regulations have curbed their ability to profit…

Dark clouds loom over open skies Gulliver The Economist “Open skies” have “truly democratised” European travel since deregulation in the 1990s, says Gulliver. “No one who books a one-way fare from London to Budapest for the cost of a takeaway meal can help but marvel at the efficiency of the continent’s aviation market.” The fear now, reflected in crashing airline shares, is that “the spoils have been thrown away by Brexiters”. Much depends on our new relationship with the EU. If Britain stays within the Single Aviation Market, which gives unfettered access to EU airports, aviation would be effectively “immune” to Brexit. Yet the most likely path – joining the European Common Aviation Area (ECAA) – has parallels with membership of the European Economic Area (EEA). “In both cases, signing…

A businessman with terminal cancer was so impressed by the treatment he received from the doctors and nurses at Poole Hospital that he left them £10m in his will. Before his death last year, Robert White arranged to sell his £6.5m collection of cars and motorcycles to pay for a state-of-the-art cancer wing at the hospital; a further £3.5m will come from the sale of other assets. The money will also help fund new radiotherapy facilities at Dorset County Hospital. A multi-talented pet rabbit with an artistic bent has become an internet star. When presented with a blank canvas, the Los Angeles-based bunny, a four-year-old Holland Lop named Bini, will grab a brush in its mouth, and daub on paint to create abstract designs in a variety of colours. Bini…

Infrastructure projects Some of Britain’s biggest infrastructure projects have been thrown into doubt by the EU referendum result. The £18bn project to build a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point, in Somerset, could be cancelled, a government adviser on nuclear matters has warned. Paul Dorfman told The Times that the devaluation of the pound, and the political uncertainty generated by Brexit, would be anathema to EDF, the French statecontrolled energy company, which was already struggling to find the funds for the project. However, EDF insists that it’s still committed to building the new station. There has also been speculation that plans to build a new runway at Heathrow or Gatwick will be scuppered; a decision had been expected this month, but has now been delayed. The High Speed 2…

Sir Cliff on being cleared In August 2014, while on holiday in Portugal with friends, Sir Cliff Richard got a phone call telling him that his apartment in Berkshire was being raided by police, and that a BBC helicopter was hovering overhead, filming it all. Baffled, he turned on the television – to discover he had been accused of historic sex crimes. “I didn’t vomit, but the greatest knot in my stomach arrived,” he told David Wigg in the Daily Mail. “It was like a boulder. You know, you just have that, ‘God, what is happening to me?’” Since then, the singer has been living in a state of constant dread. “I always knew I was innocent, but I always worried I would end up in prison. Or at least…

Undoing the supremacy of EU law over UK law would be relatively easy: the European Communities Act 1972 would be repealed. But that would only be the start. The EU has sole legal responsibility for many vital areas of law such as competition, international trade, agriculture and fisheries, and the rules governing free movement and the single market. It also has an important role in many areas of national law, such as employment, sexual equality, and the environment. Over the 70 years of its existence, it has produced a vast body of legislation said to cover 80,000 pages of the statute book: treaties, court decisions, regulations issued directly by Brussels, and directives, which all have to be incorporated into national law. If the 1972 law were repealed, regulations would cease…

Fatuous sit-in won’t affect gun laws Ross K. Baker USA Today “Legislation by tantrum.” That’s what the Democrats were up to last week, says Ross K. Baker, with their childish sit-in protest in the House of Representatives over gun control. For two days, more than 200 of them occupied the chamber, chanting and preventing legislators from getting any business done. When the cameras were turned off, they used their phones to live-stream their protest. I support these politicians’ demands for new restrictions on access to firearms, but their righteous cause does not justify this “unprecedented” form of protest. “Democracy, if it means anything at all, implies a process.” True, it’s hardly unheard of for members of Congress to resort to wrecking tactics, or petulant, self-defeating gestures: “witness the fatuous, repetitive…

An archduke falls, a wall comes down, a plane flies into a building. Just occasionally, said Dominic Sandbrook in the Daily Mail, we feel history being made, the ground shifting beneath our feet. Early on Friday morning came one such moment. Even now, I can barely believe it. “Britain has voted to leave the EU.” And for once, all the clichés are justified. What happened last week was not just a political earthquake, it was a “popular revolt” against the political, financial and cultural elite. The Establishment is in shock; they wheeled out their biggest guns to make the case for Remain – and were defied. Yet they can hardly say they weren’t warned. A dangerous chasm between the metropolitan ruling classes and ordinary people has been widening for years.…

“Oh England, what have you done,” asked Alex Massie in The Times. When you voted “to heave Britain out of the EU”, you gave no thought at all to the effect it would have on the United Kingdom. “This referendum result is a calamity for unionism.” The SNP has long stated that any “significant and material change” in Scotland’s position would open the way for another independence vote. But the English didn’t listen, or didn’t care. Now they have chosen Brexit, while the Scots have voted to stay in by 62% to 38%, with Remain winning all 32 council areas. Nicola Sturgeon has duly announced that a new Scottish referendum is “highly likely”. The Union gained “a provisional reprieve in 2014” when independence was rejected by 55% to 45% –…

Football fans can take comfort from the fate of England’s rugby team, said Robert Kitson in The Observer. When they stumbled out of last year’s World Cup in the group stage, “no one imagined the same players would fly home from Australia unbeaten in ten games and trailing historic achievements in their wake”. Yet last Sunday they beat the Wallabies 44-40 to complete a 3-0 series whitewash and claim their first series win in the southern hemisphere. It was, quite simply, the second-greatest achievement in English rugby history, said Chris Foy in The Mail on Sunday. Only the World Cup victory in 2003 trumps it. If ever there was a moment to “bask in England’s glory”, this was it, said Owen Slot in The Times. But that’s not Eddie Jones’s…

For a better standard of life I want a stable nation where people from all counties across the UK are heard and not fed scraps from the South. I don’t want to fear that when my daughter has children, there’s no room in schools due to overcrowding. We should feel safe in our jobs and not feel as though if we’re not willing to work seven days a week, ten hours a day, someone can quite easily be drafted in from abroad, and subsequently thrown on the unemployment pile, further straining the local economy. We, the little people, or even the big boys that apparently run the country, haven’t got full control over what happens, and if suffering a downturn in wages due to a weaker economy over trading deals…

Well, at least Game of Thrones is safe, said James Hibberd on Entertainment Weekly. HBO’s immensely popular post-apocalyptic sci-fi show is filmed in Northern Ireland and thus attracts EU funding. The worry – shared by thousands of fans – was that if Britain voted for Brexit, the show might lose its subsidy and come to a premature end. However, after the referendum result was announced, HBO was swift to allay concerns, declaring that Britain’s exit from the EU would have no “material effect” on the show. But the British film industry as a whole will be hit hard, said Andrew Pulver in The Guardian. In each of the past two years, British film exports have received s40m in assistance from the EU Media Programme to support their distribution in Europe.…

During the War and shortly after it, the “monuments men” attached to the Allied armies recovered thousands of works of art looted by the Nazis, says The Daily Telegraph. But it seems that a number of these works, which were handed over to the Bavarian state government for safekeeping, were not returned to their rightful owners. Instead, recent research suggests that the Bavarian authorities kept some, and sold others at auction. Picture of a Dutch Square, a 300-year-old copy of a work by Jan van der Heyden, was not returned to the Jewish Viennese family from whom it was stolen; instead it was sold to Henriette Hoffmann, the former wife of Baldur von Schirach (Vienna’s Nazi governor, who was convicted at Nuremberg). Hoffman sold the painting months later, at a…

Pat is emotional when she meets her grandson, Jack, for the first time. She and Tony take Jack to a park near the mother and baby unit. Rob and Henry celebrate Father’s Day with a ride on the Blackberry line. Rob reminds Henry that it’s the train mummy promised to take him on but then let him down. Anna moves in with Carol after hearing from Jill that she’s broken her wrist. Carol is cross with Jill for interfering. Helen holds it together during her phone call with Cafcass. When asked about Rob, she says he could be very strict with Henry; he banned him from their bed for bed-wetting and began planning to send Henry to boarding school without telling her. Rex is furious with Toby when he finds…

The Ox The Basement, 43 Corn Street, Bristol (0117-922 1001) I’ve never been much of a steak man, says Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph. “Nothing against it – it’s just such a dully generic bloke choice.” But I think The Ox “may have turned me”. The 10.5oz ribeye, medium rare, I was served in this “hobbit hole” of a basement restaurant in Bristol was fat, it was juicy – and “my God, it was manly”. I could feel my muscles swelling and neck thickening with every mouthful. More serious advice: order the garlic butter to go with it. Gorgeously salty, it sets off the meat perfectly – “every drooling hunk of it”. In earlier reviews, the chips have come in for some criticism: hard and tasteless, apparently. Clearly, the…

Sydney self-drive The 8-night Sydney, Blue Mountains and Beyond trip includes 3 nights at the Vibe Hotel Sydney. From £1,095pp with car hire and flights. 0800-988 4834, www.austravel.com. Travel in November. Families in Gran Canaria A 7-night stay at the familyfriendly Barceló Margaritas, situated in the popular Playa del Inglés, costs from £481pp half board, including flights. 020-3451 2688, www.thomson.co.uk. Depart 7 July. A historic hall in Derbyshire A week’s stay in one of two cottages, sleeping 8 apiece, in the refurbished Hopton Hall, costs from £1,530, for arrival on select dates in August. 01629-540458, www.premiercottages.co.uk. Northeast Sri Lanka Book by 30 July for a 12-day tour of the country’s cultural triangle. From £1,016pp b&b with transfers and trips (excl. flights). 020-7371 1113, www.onthegotours.com. Depart 8 November or 6 December.…

London Stock Exchange/Deutsche Börse: Out is out? “You’d think the Germans might be getting a bit twitchy about having their stock exchange headquartered in London, the nominal capital of Brexit Britain,” said Alistair Osborne in The Times. “So it’s nice to hear that everything is going swimmingly” – at least according to the London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Börse, which reassured us this week that their £21bn merger was still on. Really? In Germany, things don’t look so rosy, said Daniel Dunkley in The Sunday Times. Politicians in Hesse, Frankfurt’s home state, “rounded on the planned merger” after the Leave vote, arguing that it is simply “not possible” to have the merged entity based outside the EU – not least because Britain’s trading rules and regulations may now evolve differently.…

A week has passed since “a puffy-eyed” David Cameron announced his resignation, said The Economist. In that time, the pound has tumbled, investment decisions have been postponed, and firms have talked of moving operations overseas. Britain has been stripped of its triple-A credit rating; and there is still no sign of a post-Brexit “plan”. The Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, defused the initial panic by announcing that he stood ready to release £250bn of emergency loans, should the financial system seize up. Yet Carney’s efforts to shore up confidence were sabotaged by continued attacks from Brexiters calling for his replacement, said Chris Giles in the Financial Times. Given that the BoE is currently the only “fully functional part of the British economic establishment”, they would be wise to lay…

George Soros “It wouldn’t be a proper EU-related economic ballsup without George Soros making a few quid,” says Sean Farrell in The Observer. “And so it came to pass.” The financier, who “broke” the Bank of England by betting against the pound in 1992, has cleaned up again from Brexit – this time by betting on gold. The gold price, already up strongly as the referendum approached, jumped 22% in sterling terms when the result was announced, as did shares in gold and silver miners – including Soros’s favoured picks, Barrick Gold and Silver Wheaton. Four days before the vote, Soros, 85, warned that Brexit would lead to a “Black Friday”, and make some people “very rich” but most voters “considerably poorer”. It’s clear which camp he’s in. Crispin Odey…

This week’s crossword winner will receive an Ettinger (www.ettinger.co.uk) Brogue Collection nut coin purse, which retails at £150, and two Connell Guides (www.connellguides.com). ACROSS 1 Gamble about less disciplined chaps leads to confusion (12) 9 Containers in brass unexpectedly returned (9) 10 This girl is cooking daily (5) 11 Work in financial area mostly and get into trouble (3,2) 12 Pubs to restrict units for an aristocrat (8) 14 Acting in a John Wayne western? (2,3,5) 15 Image of ‘99 scheduled? (4) 17 Poles rise first to last (4) 18 Never odd or even, for example (10) 21 Chum in a short dress for the country (3,5) 23 US city hospital gets backing for one section of ENT? (5) 25 House in Ireland one recalled for a long story (5)…

Just over 72% of voters participated in the referendum – 33.6 million people; that compares to a turnout in the last general election of 66.1%. By region, turnout was lowest in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and highest in the southeast and southwest of England. The vote was divided 52% Leave, 48% Remain. Overall, 17,410,742 people voted to Leave; 16,141,241 to Remain. In Scotland 62% voted to Remain, on a turnout of 67%. (In 2014’s Scottish independence referendum, turnout was 84.6%.) In Northern Ireland, 56% voted Remain, on a turnout of 63%. In Wales, 52.5% voted to Leave, a turnout of 71.7%. In England, 53.4% voted to Leave, on a turnout of 73%. The most Out region was the West Midlands (59.3%), followed by the East Midlands, the Northeast, Yorkshire and…

Brussels Unwelcome guest: UKIP’s Nigel Farage was booed in the European Parliament on Tuesday at an emergency session to discuss the UK’s vote to leave the EU. Things started amicably enough with an embrace between Farage and the Commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker (pictured) – but the mood changed when Farage told MEPs that they were “in denial” about the failure of the European ideal, and accused them of never having had a proper job. Several turned their backs on the UKIP leader, and Juncker asked him: “Why are you here?” However, Marine Le Pen, of France’s National Front, praised Farage, and hailed Brexit as the start of a “People’s Spring”. Rome Hospital honoured: Between September 1943 and June 1944, Rome was struck by an epidemic of the mysterious and deadly…

1 You Keep Me Hangin’ On by Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland and Eddie Holland, performed by Diana Ross and the Supremes 2 Yeh Dosti Hum Nahin by Anand Bakshi and R.D. Burman, performed by Kishore Kumar and Manna Dey 3 Lacrimosa dies illa from Requiem in D minor by Mozart, performed by the London Philharmonic Choir 4 Sweet Child O’ Mine, written and performed by Guns N’ Roses 5* A Change is Gonna Come, written and performed by Sam Cooke 6 Summertime Sadness by Lana Del Rey and Rick Nowels, performed by Lana Del Rey 7 Fighter by Christina Aguilera and Scott Storch, performed by Christina Aguilera 8 Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber, performed by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Bernstein Book: The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam…

Brexit is a threat to Irish peace Fintan O’Toole The Guardian One thing you can say for sure about Brexit, says Fintan O’Toole. It has “planted a bomb” under Ireland’s peace settlement. Until now, “all but a few diehards” had learnt to live with partition, not least because the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic “had become so soft as to be barely noticeable”. But this customs barrier will now have to become a full-scale immigration border in order to stop EU migrants who’ve legally entered the Republic from crossing into the UK. “Meanwhile, the cornerstone of the peace settlement, the Belfast Agreement of 1998, is being undermined.” One of its key provisions is that anyone born in Northern Ireland has the right to be a citizen of the…

Would-be prime minister Boris Johnson faces some formidable enemies – and not just within the Tory party. Jamie Oliver claimed this week that he would leave the country if the former London mayor becomes the nation’s next leader. In a post on Instagram, the celebrity chef said that although the referendum hadn’t gone the way he’d hoped, “in my own way I will now roll up my sleeves and work harder than ever to make this work. But I beg you one thing Great Britain. Give me Boris f***ing Johnson as our prime minister and I’m done.” Nigel Farage was always marked out as a man of destiny, says The Times. When the UKIP leader left Dulwich College, one of his teachers told him: “I feel you will go far,…

“Europe was set up by clever, Catholic, leftwing, French bureaucrats. Most Brits have got problems with at least three of those five.” Historian Peter Hennessy, quoted in The Times “There are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen.” Lenin, quoted in The Times “Political promises are like babies: easy to make, but hell to deliver.” An aphorism, quoted in The Guardian “A secret is something that is only repeated to one person at a time.” Robert McCrum, quoted on The Browser “Sometimes your best investments are the ones you don’t make.” Donald Trump, quoted on Forbes.com “Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking.” Clement Attlee, quoted in The Times “David Cameron announced he will be stepping down…

Upsetting the dream To The Sunday Times If it takes just one country wanting to leave the EU to cause an upset all over Europe and encourage many other member states to want their own referendums, then there is obviously something fundamentally wrong with the EU system. Is it because the EU movers and shakers have been so far removed from their citizens and not listened to them? If so, it doesn’t say much for the European dream of such empire builders. Dennis Marsh, Camberley, Surrey An unsettling issue To The Guardian Thursday’s vote does not mean that the British people, or even 52% of them, have rejected the idea of living in a reformed EU. It means that they are not satisfied with the reforms on offer. In order…

Theatre Henry V Playwright: William Shakespeare Director: Robert Hastie Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park, London NW1 (0844-826 4242) Until 9 July Running time: 2hrs 35mins (including interval) Who will bear the crown? That is the question posed during the “teasing” opening of Robert Hastie’s “revelatory” revival of Henry V, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. Charlotte Cornwell, as the “director-like” Chorus, wanders around a nervous company of actors, dressed in their rehearsal clothes, trying to assess which one is best suited to play the king. Some of the men preen with entitlement as she nears, but in the event Chorus picks an actress, Michelle Terry. This diminutive player might “almost be the pageboy, with her curly mop of hair, baggy shorts, waistcoat and sneakers”. Sure, this play’s opening lines…

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, 1962 (Penguin £9.99). A powerful exposé of the terrible effects of pesticides, this book shaped the burgeoning environmental movement. Carson is a phenomenally important writer, and this book is more relevant than ever. Yet we seem to have forgotten the lessons she taught. A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, 1949 (OUP £8.99). Wise and lyrical meditations on environmental ethics and human and natural history. The Peregrine by J.A. Baker, 1967 (William Collins £9.99). A darkly poetic and episodic work about a man obsessively watching peregrine falcons in the British countryside. Written at a time when the peregrine’s extinction and a nuclear apocalypse both seemed imminent, this is a book about the poetry of death and loss as much as it is about hawks. Journals…

Programmes China’s Forgotten Emperor Wu Zetian was a concubine who became China’s only female emperor. Since her death in AD705, she’s been known as a tyrant who brought chaos to China. But recent discoveries suggest that view might need revision. Sun 3 July, C4 8pm (60mins). Serena An intimate look into the life of the tennis champion and businesswoman Serena Williams and the pressure that comes with being the world No. 1. Sun 3 July, BBC2 11.35pm (80mins). The Secret Life of Children’s Books: Five Children and It Actress and Edith Nesbit fan Samantha Bond explores the author’s difficult childhood, which inspired her classic book Five Children and It. Mon 4 July, BBC4 8.30pm (30mins). Forces of Nature with Brian Cox First episode of a new four-part series in which…

Classic zabaglione Serves 4, takes 20 minutes to prepare 5 large egg yolks seeds from 1 vanilla pod 100g golden caster (superfine) sugar pinch of ground cinnamon 75ml or 4½ tbsp Marsala or Madeira wine 4 amaretti biscuits, roughly crushed • Put the egg yolks, vanilla seeds and sugar into a large heatproof bowl. Using an electric handheld beater, whisk for 4 minutes, or until the mixture is pale, thick and creamy. Mix in the cinnamon. • Place the bowl over a pan of barely simmering water (the bowl should not touch the water). Slowly add the fortified wine, whisking all the time. Continue to whisk for 6 minutes or so, until the mixture thickens and swells enough to leave a trail when the beaters are lifted. • Remove from…

Panacea, Koh Samui This is the “latest and greatest” hotel on the Thai island of Koh Samui, says Condé Nast Traveller. Perched on the hill above sweeping Bophut beach, its five “enormous” villas have vaulted cedar-shingle ceilings, sliding glass doors, and interiors featuring travertine stone, teak furniture, and textiles from northern hill tribes. The four smaller ones have their own 20-metre infinity pools and a shared gym and spa. But it’s the main villa that “delivers the knockout blow”. It contains a cinema seating ten people (in reclining leather chairs), a nightclub, a wine cellar for up to 30 bottles of wine, a Muay Thai boxing ring, and a gambling den. Villas from £899pn. +66 7743 0074, www.panaceasamui.com.…

New cars: what the critics say Autocar Fiat is one of the great Italian brands. But surprisingly, its latest convertible is based on a Japanese car, Mazda’s “celebrated” MX-5. The 124 Spider, which marks the manufacturer’s return to the roadster market after a decade-long absence, shares the Mazda’s wheelbase and cabin. But it has its own turbocharged Fiat engine, and a “substantially” different exterior. The Daily Telegraph Despite its binational origins, the car still looks distinctly Italian: with “bug-eyed headlamps, a power-bulged bonnet and flowing hips”, it’s more handsome and “curvaceous” than the MX-5. And though the changes to the trim are minor, they give the “copycat Mazda” interior a Fiat feel. The manual roof can be folded quickly, with just one hand, and is “brilliantly simple to use”. Auto…

Global markets regained a measure of poise following the turmoil triggered by the Brexit vote. The pound steadied and European and US equity markets looked on firmer ground. The FTSE 100 gained 2% midweek: after wild swings it was up by 8% from last Friday. The Chancellor surfaced to reassure the nation that the economy is “strong”. The “emergency Budget” announced before the vote has been postponed till the autumn. Britain’s EU Commissioner Lord Hill, who was in charge of financial services across the bloc, resigned. S&P stripped the UK of its AAA credit rating, following similar downgrades from Moody’s and Fitch. The US urged European governments to “ease off on austerity” in order to boost economic growth and contain the populist backlash that contributed to the Brexit vote. Analysts…

Lehman redux? Stay calm, urged the Chancellor on Monday morning. Fat chance of that, said Nils Pratley in The Guardian. “Markets paused for half an hour and then resumed their falls”, heaping ridicule on Boris Johnson’s earlier pronouncement that “the pound is stable, the markets are stable”. This wasn’t “a Lehman moment”, Martin Lewis of MoneySavingExpert told The Observer. But there were times when it felt like it. “Very few investors were positioned for the vote we got,” observed Nicholas Colas of Convergex in the FT. Hence, there was a vicious unwinding of positions as traders attempted to gauge the potential fallout. Overall, global stock markets lost a record $3trn in two trading days. Sterling, lower still? The pound’s immediate 10% plunge against the dollar was described by one currency…

Who’s tipping what The week’s best buys Abcam Investors Chronicle The largest antibody supplier in the world is evolving and expanding rapidly in a growing market, rolling out more higher-margin antibodies developed in-house. Cashgenerative and worth the lofty valuation. Buy. 650.5p. Character Group Shares Toys are resilient in times of economic uncertainty, and Character’s Teletubbies range, launched in January, is “going down a storm”. Revenues are up by 12% and profits are forecast to rise by over 7%. Buy. 522.5p. Chemring Group The Times The defence technology firm suffered (now-resolved) health and safety issues in Australia, and contract delays. The share price fall looks like an overreaction; there are good long-term prospects in the US. Buy. 115.25p. DS Smith The Times Boosted by structural drivers, the packager has hardly put…