Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1093 i The Week

What happened Corbyn’s triumph Jeremy Corbyn promised last weekend to reach out to his critics, after winning a decisive victory over his challenger, Owen Smith, in Labour’s leadership election. Corbyn secured almost 62% of the vote – a larger share than he won in his original election a year ago. The result was announced in the main hall at the Labour conference, in Liverpool. Hailing it as a personal “vindication”, Corbyn said he would “wipe the slate clean”, but refused to call on hard-left allies to drop their threats to deselect the rebel MPs who had tried to depose him. Of the 65 Labour frontbenchers who stood down over the summer, around a dozen are reportedly ready to rejoin the fold, but several said they would only do so if…

Oak Harbor, Washington Killer arrested: A 20-year-old Turkish-born US resident has been arrested on suspicion of shooting dead five people, aged 16 to 95, in a Macy’s department store in Burlington last week. Arcan Cetin (pictured) was said to be unarmed and in a “zombie-like” state when captured in the nearby town of Oak Harbor: his getaway car had been spotted on CCTV. His former classmates described him as a socially awkward, troubled youth; police have not ruled out terrorism as a motive, but say they have yet to find evidence of terrorist links. San Francisco, California Record data theft: The internet giant Yahoo is bracing itself for a slew of class-action lawsuits for failing to inform the public that the data of at least 500 million users of its…

Brexit won’t do the City any harm Ed Conway The Times There are many reasons why Brexit may be “foolhardy”, says Ed Conway. But “because it will cripple the City of London” isn’t one of them. The scaremongers go on about how the UK, if it quits the single market, would lose access to the passporting scheme that enables firms to sell financial services in other EU nations without having to be separately authorised in those states. But this just isn’t the big deal it’s made out to be. True, such passports (you need separate ones for each product and each country you sell to) make life a bit easier, but they’ve “hardly eradicated compliance costs”. If you want to sell something in France, you still have to appoint a…

Monitoring prostate cancer Thousands of men with prostate cancer may be enduring chemotherapy unnecessarily, a new study suggests. Every year, some 47,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer in the UK; in more than half of these cases, the cancer is still in its early stages, and has not metastasised. Although these early-stage patients are not at risk in the short term, the majority still have surgery or radiotherapy. But when a team at the University of Oxford compared the outcomes for three groups of patients who had either had surgery or radiotherapy, or merely had the progress of their disease closely monitored, they found that in all three groups, the survival rate after ten years was the same: 99%. Among the men who were only monitored, the cancer was…

Zuckerberg’s gift: an end to all disease? When Andrew Carnegie set up an endowment in the early 20th century, its target was to “hasten the abolition of international war” – and just in case that proved too easy, he stipulated that any money left over should be used to banish “the next most degrading remaining evil”. A century on, said Tom Whipple in The Times, Mark Zuckerberg – the billionaire founder of Facebook – and his paediatrician wife, Priscilla Chan, have started a foundation with similarly lofty ideals. Taking to the stage in front of a whooping audience in San Francisco last week, the couple said they would be giving $3bn to medical research over the next ten years, to “cure, prevent or manage all diseases” in their children’s lifetime.…

Strictly for fun To The Guardian Owing to the success of Strictly Come Dancing and the BBC’s desperate search for a replacement for The Great British Bake Off, we propose that it commission a series called Strictly Morris Dancing to be shown next year. Contestants will be put through their paces and laughed at in town squares all over the West Country, by folk. They’ll have to construct their own ridiculous costumes, learn routines and make up songs about milkmaids they met while a-walkin’ one day. The loser is burned in a wicker man each week, or – worse still – has to undergo a year’s worth of dance lessons from Ed Balls. Lord Toby Jug, leader, The Eccentric Party of Great Britain Hounding heroes To The Daily Telegraph The…

New cars: what the critics say Top Gear Launched in 2012 and “facelifted” in 2015, the Mazda6 has been given yet another update. With the exception of a new steering wheel, the family saloon hasn’t changed visually. Instead, the tweaks have come “underneath the skin”, with the addition of G-Vectoring Control (GVC) – an electronic chassis system that’s intended to improve cornering and make the car more stable at speed. Auto Express Mazda was right to leave the 6’s exterior alone: it is “one of the sharpest-looking offerings in the class” and didn’t need tweaking. The cabin has been subtly updated, with smarter graphics on the displays, and the dash is still attractive. All in all, it’s “a fine place to spend time” – the driving position is comfortable and…

Merlin Entertainments: safety shambles Merlin Entertainments has “nothing to complain about”, said Alistair Osborne in The Times. It pleaded guilty to breaching health and safety rules over the Smiler rollercoaster crash last June at its Alton Towers theme park. So there’s “no point in arguing” about a crown court’s finding that it was caused not by human error – as claimed by Merlin – but by “the absence of a structured and considered system” of safety. The fine imposed, £5m, represents “loose change” for Merlin, said Nils Pratley in The Guardian – which is one reason why there is no “clamour in the City for senior resignations” over the crash, which injured 16 people, including two women who suffered leg amputations. But can the chairman, Sir John Sunderland, and long-time…

Controversy of the week Did Clinton win? This week’s US presidential debate will have “left much of the world quaking at the notion that the one with the bouffant hair might reach the White House”, said Max Hastings in the Daily Mail. Hillary Clinton may be unlovable and untrustworthy, but she is “rational, informed, experienced”. Donald Trump, by contrast, showed on Monday night that he is utterly unfit to be president. He lied in denying his support for the 2003 Iraq war; he insisted that the US should seize Middle Eastern oil; he blamed President Obama for America’s gun violence. And when Clinton pushed him to publish his tax returns, suggesting that he had paid no federal income tax, he replied: “That makes me smart.” Clinton delivered “a poised, fighting…

Jamie’s hunger to help Jamie Oliver may be a multimillionaire celebrity chef, says Bryony Gordon in The Daily Telegraph, but he hasn’t lost touch with his roots. As the dyslexic son of an Essex pub landlord, his sympathies are with the underdog – hence his campaigning on issues such as obesity and school meals, which most affect the poor. Alas, this has not always gone down well with the people he wants to help. “My middle-class audience,” he says, gesturing at his latest recipe book, about superfoods, “they like me, well, great. But the ones I truly care about probably think I’m a bit of a w*****. And I think that will always be the case.” Nevertheless, he won’t give up the fight. “I’ve been looking into ‘holiday hunger’, the…

An Egyptian academic has won a posthumous Ig Nobel award for his work on the impact on rats of wearing trousers. Dr Ahmed Shafik dressed the rodents in a variety of tiny trousers to examine the effect on their sex drive, and found that the rats who wore polyester slacks displayed less sexual activity than those who wore cotton or wool ones. This, he theorised, was not because females were put off by polyester as a style choice, but because of the electrostatic charges the material created. Residents of a town in Poland successfully slowed down speeding motorists by erecting a life-size papier mâché doll dressed in a high-vis jacket. The alarmingly unrealistic-looking “traffic cop” had a wonky face, an outsize moustache and, instead of a radar gun, an old…

ITALY It’s a mistake to say no to the Olympics FIRSTonline (Rome) There goes our hope of hosting the 2024 Olympic Games, says Franco Locatelli. Rome’s new mayor, Virginia Raggi – the first major political appointee of the Five Star Movement – says it would cost too much and be an invitation to bribery and corruption. How craven. The costs are indeed great, but they’d be shared by the state. In any case, if a country such as Brazil, experiencing extreme economic and political turmoil, can stage the Games successfully, why can’t we? Granted, our former PM Mario Monti also blocked a bid for the Olympics – in 2020 – on the grounds of economic certainty, but at that point Italy was “on the brink of bankruptcy”. It no longer…

A technique for “virtually unwrapping” ancient scrolls has enabled scholars to decipher a Hebrew manuscript that was all but destroyed in a fire 1,400 years ago. Found on the site of a ruined synagogue in Israel in 1970, the carbonised animal-skin parchment was so fragile that it could not be opened. So it was stored away, and its contents remained an enigma – until now. Using an advanced X-ray technique called microcomputed tomography, scientists at the University of Kentucky first managed to create a 3D picture of the En-Gedi scroll’s interior. Further scans were then used to detect the metal-based ink on the parchment. Finally, the team used computer software to “flatten” segments into a 2D document. The researchers sent their results to academics in Israel, who were not only…

“Tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner, and tout pardonner makes dull copy.” Journalist Nicholas Tomalin, quoted in the New Statesman “A soul that is unbound is as mad as one with cemented borders.” Philosopher Gillian Rose, quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle “Events which cannot be prevented must be directed.” Count Metternich, quoted in The Guardian “Anger is the prelude to courage.” Eric Hoffer, quoted on Forbes.com “If only I had a little humility, I’d be perfect.” Ted Turner, quoted on Aeon.com “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” Winston Churchill, quoted in The Jerusalem Post “Life’s disappointments are harder to take if you don’t know any swear…

To The Guardian It’s remarkable that opponents of Jeremy Corbyn still do not seem to understand the sources of his appeal. Let me suggest two reasons. The first is that many voting for him have experienced, through employment in the public sector, the gradual creep of privatisation, and the imposition of forms of management illiterate in the understanding of contexts such as education or healthcare. Second, considerable sections of the workforce (the “left behind”) have seen their jobs stripped of benefits and security, and – through an overemphasis on academic credentialism – stripped of any respect. The fantasy of social mobility through competition and selective forms of education consistently marginalises this group. All these changes have been legitimated as modernisation, while challenges to them are written off as Old Labour.…

Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer Hamish Hamilton 592pp £20 The Week Bookshop £15 At first, Jonathan Safran Foer’s new novel – his first for 11 years – looks like it will be a modest tragicomedy about a family in crisis, said Jason Cowley in the Financial Times. Jacob Bloch, a television scriptwriter in his early 40s, is married to Julia, an architect. When she discovers that he has been sending obscene text messages to a colleague, their marriage begins to unravel. Foer “excels at dialogue”, and his portrayal of the Blochs’ travails are convincing. Midway through, however, he lurches into quite different territory, imagining Israel devastated by a huge earthquake that “unleashes war in the Middle East”. These “woefully under-imagined” scenes turn the novel into an “extravagant mess”.…

What the experts recommend Hantverk and Found 18 King Street, Margate (01843-280454) If the gentrification of (parts of) Margate means the arrival of more places like Hantverk and Found, count me in, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. This “tiny cupboard” of a fish restaurant, half of it tiled in the “sea green of a Victorian public convenience”, is an intimate affair: there are only ten seats up front, plus a few in the garden, and in the kitchen, a “couple of people knocking out idiosyncratic fish dishes” – most of which are great. Rock oysters come dressed with the crunch and kick of jalapeños and pickled cucumber, or with yuzu and wakame, which “makes them taste even more of themselves”. A generous serving of queenie scallops come deep-fried…

Fat and lazy Britain is in for a shock Jeremy Warner The Sunday Telegraph Liam Fox caused great offence recently by claiming that UK business was “too fat and too lazy”. Clumsy and tactless he may have been, but on reflection the International Trade Secretary was “spot on”, says Jeremy Warner. Sure, compared with 50 years ago, the UK economy is in great shape; “lean, fit, hard-working and flexible”. But on key measures – productivity, investment and R&D spending – we trail competitor economies by “shamefully” big margins. To my mind, there’s a simple explanation for this, which “goes to the heart” of what Fox was trying to articulate. For decades, UK governments and businesses have routinely prioritised domestic demand over international competitiveness. Growth hasn’t been spectacular, but it has…

Reykjavík “Cold War”: The government of Iceland is considering legal action against the British supermarket Iceland, over who has the right to trade under the name abroad. The frozen food retailer has operated as “Iceland” since it launched in 1969. It took over rival Bejam in 1989, and now has some 900 stores. However, the Icelandic government argues that the chain’s recent registration of the name as a trademark in Europe is unfair, and prevents Icelandic businesses from promoting themselves under the tag. It said its aim wasn’t to force the retailer to surrender its brand, but to secure a “live and let live” outcome. The retailer responded last week by saying it was unaware of any confusion caused by its use of the name – then tweeted officials in…

Obamacare has fuelled Trump’s rise Michael Gerson The Washington Post If, God forbid, Donald Trump wins the election, says Michael Gerson, there will be a post-mortem to work out how it came to pass. In private, Democrats would rue their selection of “one of the most joyless, least-visionary presidential candidates in recent memory”. In public, they would blame the Republicans for incubating a nasty strain of nativism. And they would be right on both counts. But there’s another culprit that bears a lot of responsibility for a Trump victory: Obamacare. While immigration has riled up conservative voters in this campaign, it’s the president’s healthcare reforms, passed six-and-a-half years ago without a single Republican vote, that created the “general atmosphere of contempt” for the political class. Things got off to a…

One of the unexpected stars of this week’s Labour conference was a £10 paperback entitled Poems for Jeremy Corbyn. Part of a range of merchandise sold by Momentum, the book contains 50 odes to the Labour leader. One, entitled Tell Me Lies About the Austerity Plan, appears to be based on The Hokey Cokey: “You put your ballot paper in / You take your new membership right out / You take an honest leader, and try to shake him all about.” Another, in free verse, reads: “Someone crept in / and lit a candle in our hearts / that someone happened / to be him.” Laurence Fox may be an Old Harrovian and the scion of an acting dynasty – but he regards himself as working class. The actor (son…

Golf: the “king” who changed his sport “They called Arnold Palmer ‘The King’,” said James Corrigan in The Daily Telegraph, but in many respects that nickname was “wholly inappropriate”. The son of a greenkeeper-cum-club professional, Palmer “was never handed anything because of his bloodline”. But through charm, grit and canny business sense, he became one of the richest and most popular golfers in history. He won seven majors and 62 PGA tournaments. The first golfer to earn $1m in career prize money, he pioneered the now-ubiquitous practice of building a lucrative personal “brand”. Perhaps most importantly, he played with a verve and devil-may-care attitude that helped popularise the sport in the nascent TV era. “Trouble is bad to get into but fun to get out of,” he explained. “I suppose…

Beryl Bainbridge by Brendan King Bloomsbury 496pp £25 The Week Bookshop £22 (incl. p&p) Eccentric but ladylike, and with a “winning” tendency to get sloshed, Beryl Bainbridge developed into a national treasure in old age, said John Carey in The Sunday Times. Yet the woman revealed by Brendan King’s “illuminating” biography – rebellious, resentful, recklessly promiscuous – starkly contrasts with this “cosy image”. Born near Liverpool in 1932, Bainbridge left school without qualifications and, as a young woman, “scraped a living as an actress”, first in Liverpool and then in London. She was raped at the age of 19, which gave her feelings of “worthlessness”. A brief marriage in 1954, to the artist Austin Davies, produced two children; later, she had a third child, with the novelist Alan Sharp. “Bedmates…

Theatre No Man’s Land Playwright: Harold Pinter Director: Sean Mathias Wyndham’s, London WC2 (0844-482 5120) Until 17 December Running time: 2hrs (including interval) The original 1975 production of Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land, with Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, is still raved about by those who were lucky enough to see it, said Ian Shuttleworth in the FT. And although I cannot count myself among their number, I was fortunate enough to see Harold Pinter himself starring opposite Paul Eddington in the 1992 version of the play. That production, too, was a No Man’s Land “to tell your grandchildren about”. And this masterly revival starring another very grand pairing – Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart – is “virtually its equal”. It certainly feels like a theatrical “landmark”, agreed Ann Treneman…

Best books… Ethan Hawke Actor and writer Ethan Hawke picks his six favourite books. His graphic novel, Indeh: A Story of the Apache Wars, has just been published by Grand Central, and his new film, The Magnificent Seven, is in cinemas Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden, 2005 (W&N £8.99). Boyden’s powerful tale of two Cree Indians who serve as snipers during WWI. I read the book in one sitting; literally could not put it down. It is a punch to the gut – an absolutely brilliant novel, but not for the faint of heart. Collected Essex County by Jeff Lemire, 2009 (out of print). This is my favourite graphic novel. The Essex County stories, which follow three generations of an Ontario farming family, helped me understand that the possibilities…

Rocket and pumpkin seed Serves: 6 Preparation time: 10 minutes 125g rocket 60g grated Parmesan cheese 60g pumpkin seeds 200ml olive oil sea salt and freshly ground black pepper • Put the rocket, Parmesan and pumpkin seeds in a blender or food processor and pulse-blend to roughly chop. Add the oil and continue to pulse-blend until you have a chunky paste. Season and serve. Tomato and rosemary Serves: 4 Preparation time: 20 minutes, plus cooling Cooking time: 2 hours 10 ripe plum tomatoes, or 100g semi-dried tomatoes 150ml olive oil, plus extra for drizzling 2 garlic cloves, finely sliced 2 tbsp finely chopped rosemary 50g toasted pine nuts 50g grated Parmesan cheese sea salt and freshly ground black pepper • Preheat the oven to 120°C. Cut the tomatoes into quarters,…

The writer of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Edward Albee 1928-2016 Edward Albee, who has died aged 88, was described as the last of the great American playwrights – after Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller – and the first modern playwright. Neither of those statements are quite true, said Lyn Gardner in The Guardian, but he was “undoubtedly a substantial talent, who burst onto a stagnant American theatrical scene with The Zoo Story in 1959”, before producing, three years later, that “masterpiece of marital disharmony, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” His output after that was patchy, until the early 1990s, when he had a late creative flowering, and another hit with Three Tall Women (1991). Like many of his plays, it drew on his own life…

Lynn Fordham The last time Lynn Fordham found out that the company she was working for was the subject of a hostile takeover bid, she was at Budapest Airport when she got the unwelcome phone call. “I thought: ‘I don’t believe it… I haven’t even finished my induction.’” That was ten years ago, says Christopher Williams in The Sunday Telegraph, when Fordham had just been brought into BAA as deputy CFO, and was immediately embroiled in the Ferrovial takeover. Now the 53-year-old is chief executive of SVG Capital, the listed private equity firm which the US giant HarbourVest wants to snap up for £1.1bn. This time round she might be masking her indignation more effectively, but she is clearly gearing up for a battle. Laura Wasser The “Disso Queen” of…