Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1094 i The Week

What happened Setting course for Brexit Theresa May started the Brexit countdown this week when she pledged to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty – which launches the two-year withdrawal process – by the end of March. Addressing the Conservative Party conference for the first time as leader, the Prime Minister said Britain would insist on taking back control of its borders and withdrawing from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ). “We are not leaving the European Union only to give up control of immigration again,” she said. May also laid out plans for a “Great Repeal Bill”, under which all EU law will be incorporated into domestic legislation, where it can then be unpicked. The bill, said May, would begin the process of making Britain…

Alibaba could be a godsend for Britain Philip Aldrick The Times Is it all just pie in the sky, this talk of Britain looking beyond the EU to become a true global trader? Not at all, says Philip Aldrick. Ask Jack Ma. The founder of Alibaba, China’s version of eBay, and China’s second-richest man, he has a grand ambition: to create an online world trade platform offering small companies a ready-made shop window. At present, global trade is only for “the big guns”: Ma’s idea is that by pooling sales and shipping on his platform, small firms could benefit from the economies of scale currently only available to the big players. It’s an exciting plan with clear potential for Britain: small businesses employ 60% of all the country’s private sector…

Vladimir Putin is always happy to stir up mischief in the Balkans. So he’ll be delighted to see what’s now going on in Bosnia and Herzegovina, said Don Murray on CBC News (Toronto). Just seven months ago the country was applying to join the EU. Now, after two decades of fragile peace, it’s in danger of falling apart. Back in 1995, the Dayton Accords had kept it together by arranging for it to be politically divided into two largely autonomous entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, inhabited mainly by Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) and Bosnian Croats: and Republika Srpska – more than 80% of whose inhabitants are Bosnian Serbs. Doubtless, their leader Milorad Dodik hopes playing the nationalist card will help him get re-elected and pave the way for his…

Acne’s silver lining Teenagers plagued by spots shouldn’t despair: when they are older, their skin may be the envy of their peers. Dermatologists have long observed that those who have had acne tend to have more wrinkle-free, and less papery skin, in middle age than non-sufferers – and now researchers at King’s College London claim to have worked out why. The team studied the tiny cap-like structures on the ends of chromosomes known as telomeres. Much like the plastic tips that stop shoelaces from fraying, these protect DNA from damage, but by shrinking over time they are also linked with biological ageing: previous studies have found that people with long telomeres typically show fewer outward signs of ageing than those with short ones. Now, by analysing the white blood cells…

“Doctors must make agonising decisions about who to try to save – and who to leave to die” “A level of savagery no human should have to endure” In Aleppo, no one gets much sleep any more, said Catherine Philp in The Times. As darkness falls, families in the rebel-occupied east of the city huddle together in “the single, safest room” in their house – whether it’s a basement, a corridor or a bathroom – listening to the roar of Russian jets overhead, and waiting for their bombs to fall. They know that even if they are lucky enough to have a cellar to shelter in, they are not safe – but at least if they die, they will die together. There are believed to be 250,000 people trapped in…

The Ryder Cup: a well-deserved victory for America The problem with miracles, said Tom Fordyce on BBC Sport online, is that “they don’t tend to happen every time you want one”. Four years after the most astonishing Ryder Cup comeback of all time – the so-called “Miracle at Medinah” – Europe slumped to a humiliating 17-11 defeat in Minnesota last weekend. Backed by a particularly raucous home crowd at the Hazeltine National, the USA began with a “clean sweep” in Friday’s morning foursomes, held steady in the rest of the foursomes and the four-balls, before “polishing off” their opponents in Sunday’s singles. With six rookies in their 12-man team, Europe were always the underdogs – but this was an “evisceration”. The standard of golf was incredible, said Ewan Murray in…

“Go on, son… Foul him… Bribe them… Give him a bung…” Fund the front line To The Daily Telegraph Ninety per cent of patient interactions in the NHS are in general practice, yet GP services receive less than 8% of the budget. By neglecting to fund the rising number of consultations in primary care, successive governments have starved general practice of resources. The only hope of saving the NHS is to honour the demands of junior doctors, plough sufficient resources into general practice and community services, and stop relying on hospitals to care for frail elderly patients instead of providing services to support people in their own homes. The Government should give clinical commissioning groups an immediate financial boost to allow the focus of care to shift from hospital to…

Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen Simon & Schuster 528pp £20 The Week Bookshop £16 To his fans, Bruce Springsteen “has always been The Boss – rough, tough, democratic, straight-talking and full of confidence and joy”, said Craig Brown in The Mail on Sunday. Yet while his onstage persona is “no affectation” – during his four-hour concerts, he turns into a “master of the universe” – his life away from the spotlight could hardly have been more different. In this “unforgiving” autobiography, Springsteen depicts himself as “manically insecure”, an egoist, full of “distrust and misogyny”. A nervous child whose eyelids fluttered uncontrollably, earning him the nickname “Blinky”, Springsteen became cripplingly depressed in his 30s, just as his 1984 album, Born in the USA, was catapulting him to global fame. He…

Best books… Benjamin Zephaniah The poet Benjamin Zephaniah picks his favourite books. He has curated We Are All Human, a free exhibition of art by prisoners from the 2016 Koestler Awards, which is showing at London’s Southbank Centre until 13 November Prisonomics: Behind Bars in Britain’s Failing Prisons by Vicky Pryce, 2013 (Biteback £16.99). Economist Vicky Pryce used her time in jail to think about the cost of prison. From an ethical point of view, I sense a lot of people are locked up when they shouldn’t be. Pryce gives the economic reasons why they shouldn’t be put away. Angry White People: Coming Face-to-Face with the British Far Right by Hsiao-Hung Pai, 2016 (Zed Books £12.99). I wrote the foreword to this book which looks at the development of British…

Wild rice, kale & pomegranate salad Serves 4-6 350g mix of black, red, brown and white rice 150g kale a handful of finely chopped dill 2 handfuls of finely chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves a handful of finely chopped mint leaves 1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped 200g pomegranate seeds 55g walnuts, lightly crushed For the dressing: 4 tbsp olive oil 3 tbsp pomegranate molasses juice of 1 lemon 1 tsp caster sugar 1 tsp of sumac sea salt and freshly ground black pepper • Cook the rice in a large pan of boiling water starting with the variety that takes the longest and add the rest at appropriate times. Drain and rinse under cold water. • Meanwhile, boil the kale for 2-3 minutes. Drain and refresh under cold running…

Frankfurt, not London, is facing disaster Allister Heath The Daily Telegraph Listening to the Brexit debate, you’d think the City is “facing a catastrophe while Frankfurt is poised to boom”, says Allister Heath. True, City firms are fretting about post-Brexit protectionist moves by Brussels, but, paradoxically, it is Frankfurt “that faces the greatest, existential threat to its future”. Germany’s two largest lenders, Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, are in “severe difficulties”. Commerzbank is hoping to return to an “appallingly low” 6% return on equity by 2020, and has announced 9,600 job cuts. Deutsche’s shares are worth around a tenth what they were in 2007 – a “complete disaster” – and it is battling to reduce a crippling fine in the US. “So what, you may ask”: UK banks were in similar…

Controversy of the week The new socialism “Socialism for the 21st century.” That, said Martin Kettle in The Guardian, was Jeremy Corbyn’s pitch to the electorate in his conference speech last week. For decades it’s been an article of faith for Labour leaders that elections could only be won from the centre – where most of the voters are. But Corbyn has abandoned this entirely, producing a “wish list of policies” that fly in the face of conventional political wisdom. Seven out of ten Labour seats voted for Brexit, said the Daily Mail, “with most listing unrestricted migration at the top of their concerns”. Corbyn doesn’t care: he made it clear that he has no intention of lowering migrant numbers. Meanwhile, he promised to “dip into a bottomless bucket of…

Vaizey’s sanguine sacking Ed Vaizey was Britain’s longest-serving minister for the arts (and digital strategy) until he was sacked in Theresa May’s reshuffle. “I was driving in Oxfordshire when I took the call – I hasten to add on a hands-free phone,” he told Richard Morrison in The Times. “It was someone from Downing Street saying that the Prime Minister would call me in 15 minutes. As I carried on driving I realised that I’d lost my mobile signal. I thought that would be the final irony: the PM not being able to sack her telecoms minister because he can’t get a signal on his mobile.” Vaizey had been expecting the chop. “Well, although I love Michael Gove dearly and will love him for ever, his leadership campaign was an…

A Frenchman is suing his government for abuse of power, for denying him the right to smile in his passport photograph. Named as “Thierry”, he is believed to be a civil servant who was angered when his passport was rejected because it featured him with an expression that Le Parisien described as a “slightly ironic grimace that borders on a discreet smile”. In a letter to the AFP news agency, the man asks: “Is it responsible, in depressed France, for the authorities to penalise people if they smile?” A police officer who allegedly tasered an innocent woman later tried to atone by sending her a photograph of a cake, iced with the words: “I am sorry I tased you.” The woman was not impressed: she went ahead with her civil…

Nasa has produced the best evidence yet that plumes of water vapour spout from Jupiter’s moon Europa. Images captured by the Hubble space telescope appear to show jets shooting 120 miles into space from near the south pole of Europa, an ice-covered body roughly the size of our Moon. Astronomers have long suspected that Europa, whose warmest surface temperature is about -160°C, has a “hidden” ocean beneath its surface, containing twice as much water as Earth’s oceans; and there’s at least a theoretical possibility that it could support life. The trouble is, testing this ocean’s chemical composition would involve landing on the moon and digging miles into its icy crust. If the plumes really exist, a spacecraft could simply fly through them, collecting samples as it goes. However, the chances…

This weekend The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Paul McCartney and The Who will all appear at the Desert Trip concert in California, billed as the “greatest rock festival of all time”. The stars – who have an average age of 72 – are being paid up to $7m each. But with tickets costing up to £2,250, one old rocker (who hasn’t been invited) thinks it’s a rip-off. “All it really is is an empty field,” grumbled David Crosby, of Crosby, Stills and Nash. “The sound outdoors at that place is crap. The situation is crap. It’s a lousy concert.” Benedict Cumberbatch recently interviewed his great friend Tom Hiddleston for the glossy magazine Interview. The result, said the Daily Mail, “takes the concept of being a luvvie” and “multiplies…

“Poor Lewis Hamilton,” said Kate Walker on ESPN. The three-time world champion was enjoying a commanding lead in the Malaysia Grand Prix on Sunday, only to suffer an engine blowout with 15 laps to go. Red Bull duo Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen finished first and second respectively, while Hamilton’s title rival, Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg, came in third, opening up a 23-point championship lead with five races remaining. Hamilton was “understandably furious”, said Kevin Eason in The Times. He has now had three engine blowouts this season; Rosberg hasn’t had one. After the race, the British driver even suggested that he was “starting to believe those social media accusations that this Formula 1 season is being sabotaged”. The conspiracy theorists – who claim that Mercedes, a German team, are…

To The Guardian At last, a politician with principles who sticks by them. And those Labour MPs who accept the nasty immigration attitudes which the right-wing press has been fomenting for a decade or more should look to their consciences – and the facts – before jumping on the immigration-bashing platform. Of course immigration on a large scale causes problems, but it is not the main cause of poverty in the UK, or the anger of working people; that is down to a decade of wage stagnation and austerity, with no end in sight as Theresa May has already forgotten about the “left-behind”. This is the biggest crisis facing Europe, with millions of refugees fleeing wars and devastation which we have helped create in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya. So…

Conclave by Robert Harris Hutchinson 304pp £20 The Week Bookshop £16 Robert Harris’s new novel is about 118 cardinals, locked in the Sistine Chapel, electing a new pope. The situation seems unlikely to display Harris’s strengths, said David Grylls in The Sunday Times. Known for his fast-paced plots and far-flung locations (“from Paris to Pompeii, from Moscow to Martha’s Vineyard”), the author mostly confines himself “to a single room” and a cast of “elderly, celibate males”. Yet Conclave is in the “authentic Harris mould” – a novel tracing the “ruthless jockeying for power of an elite group of male professionals”. Its hero, Cardinal Lomeli, is a figure of “moral obstinancy” who uncovers a crime by putting truth before propriety. Clues and puzzles abound: a sliding box hidden in a bedpost;…

Satirising political figures is a risky business, said Elise Czajkowski in The Guardian. Take Alec Baldwin’s take-off of Donald Trump on last week’s Saturday Night Live, the satirical TV show. Baldwin got everything right – the hair, the belligerently jutting lower lip. Yet it all seemed a bit “lifeless”. And maybe that’s because some people are beyond parody. One felt that the writers of the skit were unable to create a caricature “more over-the-top” than Trump himself. It’s not just that satire may lack bite, said Tim Walker in The Independent: it may even have the opposite effect of inadvertently humanising him or her. Back in 2008, Tina Fey’s hilarious Saturday Night Live send-up of governor Sarah Palin is thought to have done just that for Palin. The same goes…

Italy: Medieval Castle, Todi, Perugia, Umbria. Ref: IIT050750. A completely renovated medieval castle in a panoramic position overlooking Todi and the surrounding countryside. 5 beds (3 of which are in the ancient watchtower), 6 baths (4 en suite), kitchen, large double recep with fireplace, 2 further receps, inner courtyard, study/library, balcony, lift, swimming pool, gardens, outbuildings, garage. £2.405m; John D. Wood & Co (020-3151 5638). Italy: Apartment, Cannaregio Sestiere, Venice, Veneto. Ref: IIT050591. A second-floor apartment with a private garden and 1-bed guest flat in the centre of Venice on the Grand Canal. Main apartment: master suite, 2 further beds, family bath, kitchen with pantry, 2 receps, study, laundry room. Available as a whole or in two lots; whole £1.825m; John D. Wood & Co (020-3151 5638). Italy: Historic Tuscan…

Although there are still some duds out there, the quality of organic wines has improved dramatically over the past decade, says Jane MacQuitty in The Times. These are top-notch. Vintner Martin Nittnaus, of Burgenland in Austria, claims that his organic methods are “more natural”, producing vines that are more resistant to disease and wines with “richer, more floral aromas”. Taste his gorgeous, silky, spiced black cherry of a 2013 Blaufränkisch, Kalk und Schiefer (£17.50; Lea & Sandeman, 020-7244 0522) and you will be forced to agree. Alternatively, you could spend less on an organic-inspired but not certificated Vin de France duo – the fine, nutty, appley 2015 La Vieille Ferme Blanc, or the delicious herb and bramble-stashed 2015 La Vieille Ferme Rouge (£6.99; Co-op, or £7.99 and £8.49 respectively at…

“He told his son: ‘If you want to achieve great things, you must cross deserts’” The giant of Israeli politics who never won an election Shimon Peres 1923-2016 Shimon Peres, who has died aged 93, was a giant of Israeli politics, and the last of Israel’s founding generation. During his seven-decade career, he was involved in almost all the defining events of Israel’s history, said Tzipi Livni in The New York Times. Peres played a leading role in building Israel’s military strength, yet he was also one of the three architects of the Oslo Accords – the first peace treaties made between the Israeli and Palestinian leadership. Negotiated in secret, and signed in 1993 and 1995, these laid the groundwork for realising Peres’s dream of a two-state solution: two separate…

Andy Street John Lewis boss and “proud Brummie” Andy Street is stepping down after being chosen as the Tories’ candidate to fight the inaugural West Midlands mayoral election, says the BBC. Street has spent his entire career at the company, having joined as a shop-floor worker immediately after leaving King Edward’s School in Edgbaston more than 30 years ago, says the Birmingham Mail. Since taking the helm at the flagship John Lewis department store business in 2007, sales have surged 67% to £3.7bn last year. He faces a tough fight in his first political contest, attempting to win over a largely Labour-voting area and going up against seasoned Labour MEP Siôn Simon. “This election needs to go beyond traditional political loyalties,” said Street. Rupert Soames Sir Winston Churchill said that…

Paris Star robbed: The US television star Kim Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint in the early hours of Monday morning, in the luxury apartment she had been renting in Paris. Five armed men disguised as police officers handcuffed the concierge at the Hôtel de Pourtalès, and forced him at gunpoint to take them to Kardashian’s flat, where they tied her up and locked her in the bathroom. They left with a jewellery box containing items worth s5m, and a ring worth s4m. The reality TV star (pictured) – who routinely displays her jewellery on social media – was “badly shaken but physically unharmed”. It’s unclear why Kardashian, who was in Paris for Fashion Week, had no security detail with her in the flat. Madrid Socialist leader ousted: Spain’s opposition Socialist…

ROMANIA The unsung success story of Europe Transitions Online (Prague) The European Union has been reeling from one crisis to another – Brexit in the west, a resurgence of nationalism in the east. But there’s one country, “a devoted EU member”, that stands out as a reminder of why membership matters, says Martin Ehl. Ignored by the media, Romania is often dismissed as the impoverished home of Dracula and the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. And true enough, it’s still the second-poorest country in the EU. Yet in the second quarter of this year it enjoyed the strongest growth among all 28 member states; its companies are acquiring a reputation for quality products; its public institutions are becoming increasingly robust. It has made “a huge effort to tackle corruption”: a special agency,…

Is this the end of the “special relationship” between America and Saudi Arabia? For more than 70 years, this valuable alliance has endured, despite repeated attempts by outsiders to sabotage it, said Abdulrahman Al-Rashed in Asharq Al-Awsat (London). But it now faces a “difficult test”. Last week Congress overrode Barack Obama’s veto of a bill that will allow the families of American victims of 9/11 to sue Saudi Arabia for alleged complicity in the attacks: it will enable courts to waive claims to foreign sovereign immunity in cases involving terrorist acts on US soil. The vote was a personal humiliation for Obama, who has never had a law enacted over his veto. More importantly, however, it was a blow to the world order. The law will “damage the concept of…

Toxic waste left under the Greenland ice cap by a top-secret Cold War US military project is likely to become exposed by rising temperatures within decades, reports The Guardian. Camp Century, a two-mile network of tunnels, was officially built in 1959 – when Greenland was part of Denmark – to test “Arctic construction methods”. In reality, this was a cover for the camp’s real purpose (kept secret even from the Danish government) – which was to test the feasibility of building a 2,000-mile-long network of nuclear launch sites under the Greenland ice sheet, housing 600 ballistic missiles trained on Moscow and its satellite states – a project known as Iceworm. But the project was never completed. The constantly moving ice created too unstable an environment, and, in 1967, the tunnels…

“Unlike Peter Mandelson, the Bible is not intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich.” Giles Fraser in The Guardian “A lecture is a process by which the notes of the lecturer are passed into the notebook of the student without passing through the brains of either.” Adage, quoted in a letter to The Times “Every journalist has a novel inside him, which is an excellent place for it.” Art historian Russell Lynes, quoted in The Observer “The happiest part of a man’s life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.” Samuel Johnson, quoted on The Browser “Television has made dictatorship impossible but democracy unbearable.” Shimon Peres, quoted in The Jewish Chronicle “Concentration comes out of a combination of confidence and hunger.” Arnold Palmer, quoted in USA…

Tennis Maria Sharapova’s two-year doping ban was reduced on appeal to 15 months. Football Swansea sacked manager Francesco Guidolin and replaced him with former USA boss Bob Bradley; Aston Villa axed Roberto Di Matteo. Boxing Tyson Fury reportedly tested positive for cocaine the day before he pulled out of his world heavyweight title fight with Wladimir Klitschko. Cricket Durham were relegated to Division Two of the County Championship and given a 48-point deduction for next season, after receiving a £3.8m bailout from the ECB.…

The Bestseller Code by Jodie Archer & Matthew L. Jockers Allen Lane 256pp £20 The Week Bookshop £16 If you’re someone who dreams of penning a bestseller, read this book, said David Bond in the Financial Times. Ex-publisher Jodie Archer and Stanford academic Matthew L. Jockers have built a computer algorithm to “unpick the ingredients” a novel needs to top The New York Times bestseller list; they claim it can predict a hit 80% of the time. “Violence and fear” are, unsurprisingly, the most reliable attributes. Sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, on the other hand, are a turn-off, much less appealing than such “seemingly boring” themes as home, work and emotional “closeness”. Even E.L. James’s Fifty Shades of Grey succeeded “in spite of” its erotic content; what made it popular, the…

Theatre The Libertine Playwright: Stephen Jeffreys Director: Terry Johnson Theatre Royal Haymarket, 18 Suffolk Street, London SW1 (020-7930 8800) Until 3 December 2016 Running time: 2hrs 45mins (including interval) It’s often said that a play needs at least some sympathetic characters to emotionally engage its audience. Terry Johnson’s production of Stephen Jeffreys’s The Libertine (1994) gives the lie to that, said Ian Shuttleworth in the FT. In the prologue to this Restoration-era drama, the protagonist – the “notorious rakehell” John Wilmot, the Second Earl of Rochester – announces in as many words, “You will not like me now and you will like me a good deal less as we go on”. And so it proves. The libidinous Wilmot – a “classically influenced but principally obscene poet and playwright” – was…

What the experts recommend: vegetarian food Farmacy 74 Westbourne Grove, London W2 (www.farmacylondon.com ) There ought to be ample “comedy mileage” to be derived from a review of Farmacy, says Grace Dent in the London Evening Standard. This is a “veggan” – with eggs – restaurant in Notting Hill that sells “novelty syringes of life-enhancing potions” and “earth bowls” of buckwheat with baba ganoush. It’s owned by Mohamed Al-Fayed’s daughter, Camilla, and “caters to people so removed” from earthly folk with nine-to-five jobs “that it may as well be the Mos Eisley cantina in Star Wars”. And yet for all its “wellness-focused” flummery, I liked it. Farmacy is an attractive space, “capacious, spotless, airy and noisy” with the hum of happy eaters. It serves espresso martinis…

New cars: what the critics say The Daily Telegraph Korean car maker Ssang-Yong has been building cars since 1954, but in the past its 4x4s and cheap, durable people carriers fell far short of European standards. That changed earlier this year with the launch of the Tivoli, a small SUV: a “decent little car” for those on a small budget. Now comes the XLV, which offers “the high driving position of the Nissan Juke, but with a lot more space”. Auto Express The XLV only costs £1,000 more than the original Tivoli, but it has an extra 245mm of bodywork – which means three adults can sit in the back, and the boot has a capacity of 720 litres. The result is “one of the most practical cars in its…

Capita: Brexit delays bite The outsourcing behemoth Capita became the latest support services stalwart to pay the price for what its chief executive called a “significant downturn in expectations”, said The Guardian. The company announced that full-year profits would be between £60m and £80m below the £614m it guided the market to anticipate as recently as July. Revenue growth will come in at just a quarter of the 4% rate predicted. Shares plunged 28% in a single day – a near-identical drop to that suffered by Mitie a week earlier after it also warned of below-par profits. Capita echoed its rival in warning that Brexit jitters are causing “delays” to clients signing off new business contracts; in addition, it had to pay a charge of up to £25m related to…