Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1118 i The Week

What happened Brexit begins On Tuesday afternoon, Theresa May signed a letter officially declaring Britain’s intention to leave the European Union. The following day the six-page document was delivered by Sir Tim Barrow, Britain’s ambassador to the EU, to Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council – triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, and beginning two years of talks on the terms of withdrawal. A sombre-looking Tusk held up the letter, saying: “We already miss you. Thank you and goodbye.” In the Commons, May told MPs that the triggering of Article 50 marked a “historic moment from which there can be no turning back”. “It is my fierce determination to get the right deal for every single person in this country,” she said – including EU nationals living…

Washington DC Republicans fail to scrap Obamacare: Donald Trump’s first attempt to pass major legislation – the long-promised repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act – ended in an embarrassing failure last Friday, when a revolt by a group of Republicans forced him to pull it from a vote at the last moment. The so-called Freedom Caucus, made up of about 30 right-wing Republicans in the House of Representatives, refused to vote for the bill on the grounds that it left some elements of “Obamacare” in place – leading Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan (pictured) to withdraw the bill rather than suffer a defeat. The debacle raises questions about the Trump administration’s grip on the Republican Party, and its ability to push through other promised complex reforms, such…

A Brexit-bonus for our economy Philip Aldrick The Times Politicians have talked for years about the need to rebalance our economy, says Philip Aldrick – about how we must make it less reliant on services and more internationally competitive. Yet they have never done much about it. The good news, though, is that events, in the shape of Brexit, are doing the job for them. The collapse in the pound since the referendum has, at a stroke, made our goods more affordable abroad – giving the kind of boost to the manufacturing sector and to exports which we so badly need to close our “gaping trade deficit”. Just as crucially, now that the cost of materials is rising steeply and employers can no longer rely on an endless supply of…

A drug to “silence” cholesterol A new “gene-silencing” drug has been found to reduce cholesterol levels by more than 50% in a clinical trial. Based on a technique known as RNA interference, the drug effectively “switches off” the gene responsible for elevating cholesterol levels. Delivered as an injection, the treatment, inclisiran, could be given twice yearly, with or without statins, depending on the patient’s need, to reduce their risk of heart attack or stroke. For the phase 2 trial, at Imperial College London, researchers gave 497 patients with high cholesterol either inclisiran, at varying doses, or a placebo. Most of the patients were already taking statins. A month after receiving a single treatment of inclisiran, patients’ levels of the harmful low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol were down by up to 51%.…

“His background chimes with others who have turned to jihad – long spells of delinquency, and jail time” Last Tuesday, Khalid Masood checked into the £59-a-night Preston Park Hotel in Brighton. Staff found him to be friendly, jovial and chatty, said The Daily Telegraph; he had a kebab for dinner, and the next morning he told them that he was “off to London today”, as though he were going sightseeing. Hours later, he drove his rented Hyundai 4x4 across Westminster Bridge at speeds of up to 76mph, and – mounting the pavement – ploughed into dozens of pedestrians. Three were killed: Aysha Frade, 43, who worked at a local sixth-form college, US tourist Kurt Cochran, 54, and retired window cleaner Leslie Rhodes, 75. Many more sustained horrific injuries. Seconds later,…

How is it possible, asked Rachel Johnson in The Mail on Sunday, that in a supposedly civilised country in the 21st century, a woman can be forced to remain in a loveless marriage. Last week, the Court of Appeal upheld an earlier ruling that Tini Owens, 66, had no grounds for divorcing her 78-year-old husband Hugh, who had contested the petition, insisting they still have a “few years” to enjoy together. It didn’t matter that she felt miserable and isolated; that she and her husband of almost 40 years frequently rowed; nor that he belittled her in front of family and friends. That didn’t amount to “unreasonable” behaviour. Mrs Owens will simply have to remain a self-described “locked-in wife” until 2020, at which point she will qualify for automatic divorce…

The strange thing about the Six Nations, said Daniel Schofield in The Daily Telegraph, is that it severely handicaps the Premiership clubs that have the best English players, who are lost to their clubs while on international duty. And because no side has better English players than Saracens, no side suffers more. So it proved this year. Deprived of Owen Farrell, Jamie George and Maro Itoje for almost two months, Sarries’ results duly suffered: they lost three of their five matches while the Six Nations was on, and dropped to third in the table. But on Sunday, with those players restored to the side, they “comprehensively reasserted their credentials as champions” by thrashing Bath 53-10. Superior “in every department”, they scored eight tries. Saracens’ England stars made an instant impact,…

To The Guardian While it is accepted that the regular output of research into drinking can add to our understanding of the problem, the credibility of using GP records must be questioned. In my experience, and from talking to others over a number of years, very few of those who admit to drinking alcohol provide accurate information to their GP regarding consumption. I am 63 years old and have drunk alcohol most of my adult life. I drink 30 to 40 units per week and have done for years. I don’t smoke, and exercise and eat sensibly. My heart function is fine and my liver function is normal, but if I told my GP how much I drank, it would be received with incredulity and a good telling off. So…

The Lost City of Z Dir: James Gray 2hrs 21mins (15) An epic tale of good old-fashioned British obsession ★★★ If you’re a fan of old-school adventure yarns, you’ll not want to miss James Gray’s compelling new movie, The Lost City of Z, said Joshua Rothkopf in Time Out. Based on David Grann’s bestselling biography, it tells the true story of Percy Fawcett, a British Army officer who devoted his life to searching for a fabled ancient city in the Amazon jungle, braving rapids, piranhas and hostile natives before disappearing – on his third expedition – in 1925. Charlie Hunnam plays Fawcett as a man desperate to redeem his family name, which his father’s gambling and alcohol addiction had disgraced, said Geoffrey Macnab in The Independent. It’s an “intriguing” performance,…

Recent vintages from Burgundy and Bordeaux have been rather expensive; for better value, it’s worth looking to the Rhône, says Jane MacQuitty in The Times. The “delightful” 2015 vintage might fall just short of the “premier league” (such as the 2010), but “my oh my, there are some delicious, velvety, red berry and cherry reds – and jolly, floral, easy-sipping whites – to be had”. Sainsbury’s elegant, smoky, stone fruit-stashed 2015 Taste the Difference Côtes du Rhône White is a bargain at £7. Or try Tesco’s black pepper-spiced 2015 Côtes du Rhône Villages red – practically being “given away” at a fiver. More than twice the price – but worth it – with lots of dark, inky, liquorice spice is the 2015 Syrah, Collines Rhôdaniennes (Oddbins, £11.50). From down in…

The crossword champion who created Inspector Morse Colin Dexter 1930-2017 Colin Dexter thought of himself primarily as a school teacher, said Dennis Barker in The Guardian, but he will be remembered as the creator of Inspector Morse – the cantankerous but sensitive detective who, in 13 novels and many more TV dramas, drove a vintage Jaguar around Oxford, solving fiendish murders. This often involved thinking deeply about “chance remarks” made by his likeable and ever-patient sidekick, Sergeant Lewis – a working-class family man, wearily resigned to the fact that whenever Morse wanted to stop at a pub for a pint of ale, he’d be the one footing the bill. Dexter had much in common with Morse: both loved poetry, the classics, classical music and crosswords – but where Morse was…

Sir Richard Branson Virgin Atlantic marked its new service between Heathrow and Seattle with a “ceremonial flight”, featuring a special “on-the-ground welcome” from Sir Richard Branson, said USA Today. Virgin views Seattle as a “young, entrepreneurial, innovative, outdoorsy, risk-taking city”, and thus “a great fit” with its brand. Sir Richard is less enamoured, though, of President Trump, said NewsHub.co.nz. On his recent trip to New Zealand, he laid into his “fellow magnate”. The “only saving grace” of the presidency, said Branson, is that “the first days in office have been so disastrous” that “the chances of him lasting more than one term are extremely unlikely”. In other business, Branson urged Kiwi farmers to swap dairy farming for cannabis cultivation. “You should legalise it, grow it, tax it, regulate it,” he…

Controversy of the week Mourning McGuinness Most men kill “on the spur of a heated moment”, said Fergal Keane in The Irish Independent. Very few “can keep killing for decades”. But Martin McGuinness could. Every day for 30 years, right up to the time the IRA declared an end to its war in the 1998 peace agreement, the Sinn Féin politician and senior IRA leader, who died last week, made a deliberate choice to go on doing so. He didn’t have to. “Unless you’re a maniac driven by compulsion, killing other people always involves a choice.” He could have adopted the non-violent path of political engagement pursued by the great SDLP politician John Hume. At any point from 1969, he could have opted for a ceasefire. He didn’t. Yet because…

A prisoner of politics Édouard Louis grew up in a house where politics mattered; not because his parents were MPs or the like, or debated current affairs over dinner, but because politics had the power to make or break them. Today, Louis is a bestselling writer and member of the Paris beau monde, says Kim Willsher in The Observer, but he was born into the underclass, in France’s gritty post-industrial north. His father was out of work and often drunk, and with five children to feed, his mother would lament the days of better governments. “When the Left was in power, we had steak on our plates,” she would tell her son. For the poor, he says, politics is “a matter of life and death”, and it hung over his…

A Canadian man’s surname has been deemed too offensive to appear on his personalised number plate. Lorne Grabher says that although he has had the licence plate for years, when he recently went to have it renewed, officials refused, on the grounds that it could be seen to promote “violence against women”. Grabher believes he is a victim of the fallout over Donald Trump’s claim, which emerged during the US presidential campaign, that he liked to “grab” women “by the pussy”. Russian travellers have been advised to try to ignore French lesbians in a new guide to how to behave abroad. Issued by the foreign ministry, the guide also notes that Canadians don’t care for “obscene male” anecdotes; that Uzbeks don’t like their mothers to be insulted; and that Kenyans…

For decades, campaigners have been convinced that a pregnancy test used in the 1960s and 1970s was responsible for hundreds of children being born with serious defects. Now, the UK regulator has agreed to look at new evidence found in a state archive in Berlin: the cache of files shows that in 1975, the UK regulator warned the test’s German manufacturer, Schering, that women who used the Primodos test had a greater risk of giving birth to a child with deformities; yet the test was not withdrawn until 1978. Letters in the file also suggest that by 1978, Schering knew that in Germany the drug was being used to induce abortions. Introduced before the simple “stick” tests used today, the test involved giving women massive doses of progesterone: if it…

The rest of the nation may be outraged, but Theresa May is unruffled by #legsit. The PM was pictured alongside Nicola Sturgeon on the front of the Daily Mail this week, with the headline: “Never mind Brexit, who won Legs-it!” Social media lit up with accusations of sexism, and Amelia Womack , deputy leader of the Green Party, reported the paper to the press regulator Ipso. But May shrugged it BLUEPRINT off, saying: “You will notice that I am wearing trousers today… But if people want to have a bit of fun about how we dress, then so be it.” Bob Dylan and Frank Sinatra only met once – but they recognised each other as soul mates. In an interview posted on his website, the rocker recalls visiting Sinatra at…

“Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level. It’s cheaper.” Quentin Crisp, quoted in The Times “You never lose a dream; it just incubates as a hobby.” Entrepreneur Larry Page, quoted on Forbes.com “All writing is a campaign against cliché.” Martin Amis, quoted in The TLS “By hating vices too much, they come to love men too little.” Edmund Burke on fanatics, quoted in The Times “God separated Britain from mainland Europe, and it was for a purpose.” Margaret Thatcher, quoted in Prospect “The secret of a happy life is to know when to stop, and then go that little bit further.” Colin Dexter, quoted on The Browser “If a lie be believed only for an hour, it hath done its work.”…

Football In qualifiers for the World Cup, Scotland beat Slovenia 1-0. Wales drew 0-0 with Ireland. Northern Ireland beat Norway 2-0. Golf Dustin Johnson beat Jon Rahm in the World Match Play final to become the first player to win all four World Golf Championships. It was the world No. 1’s third successive tournament win. Rugby union In the Premiership, Leicester beat Northampton 36-31. Wasps beat Worcester 40-33. Cricket India won the fourth Test against Australia by eight wickets to win the series 2-1.…

Farmer, Butcher, Chef The Goodwood Hotel, Chichester (01243-755070) It has an awkward name, says Tom Parker Bowles in The Mail on Sunday – but everything else about this Goodwood restaurant is “glorious”. The room is “long and elegantly spacious, with the feel of an old stables or tack room given the most refined of facelifts”. From the walls hang old ox yokes and other ephemera. The service is “charming and whip-smart”. And the food is sublime. Three oysters, clad in the lightest of panko coats, came expertly fried and topped with tissue-thin slices of cured ox-heart, while shards of beetroot add vegetable crunch. Venison tartare was “luscious and deeply alluring”. Beer-braised lamb belly, sticky and crunchy, sat on a bed of soft barley spiked with prunes and baby turnips…

New cars: what the critics say Evo The two-door E-class coupé has long been a “staple” of the Mercedes range. Part of a product line that dates all the way back to the W114 coupé in the late 1960s, it is also “something of a standard-bearer” for the carmaker’s “design direction”. The car – which is available in both diesel and petrol models – has little in common with the E-class saloon, or anything else: it “almost has the market to itself”. The Daily Telegraph The car is “lovely to look at”, with a handsome exterior – even if the rearmost side window “jars”. The interior may strike you as a bit naff at first glance, “but after half an hour, it feels simply charming”. The seats are comfortable, offering…

Stagecoach/FirstGroup/MTR: Chinese efficiency In a “shock” shake-up of one of Britain’s most established rail franchises, Stagecoach is to end its operation of South West Trains – the network based in London’s Waterloo, said the London Evening Standard. Transport Secretary Chris Grayling is instead putting his faith in a joint venture between FirstGroup and Hong Kong’s MTR, which will run the franchise for seven years starting in August. Grayling waxed lyrical about MTR’s great record for efficiency: it currently runs “one of the world’s busiest metro services”, in Hong Kong. RMT union leader Mick Cash countered that another “foreign state operator” is “set to make a killing at the British taxpayer’s expense”. The deal is “quite a blow” for Stagecoach, which has been running the service since privatisation 20 years ago,…

“The phoney war is over” – Brexit has become “real”, said David Smith in The Times. As if to ram home the point, EU regulators blocked the London Stock Exchange’s mooted £21bn merger with its German peer, Deutsche Börse, on Wednesday – even as Theresa May’s letter triggering Article 50 was winging its way to Brussels – claiming it would have created a “de facto monopoly” for certain financial services. LSE expressed its “regret”. “This was an opportunity to create a world-leading market infrastructure group anchored in Europe, which would have supported Europe’s 23 million SMEs and the development of a deeper Capital Markets Union.” Still, investors saw no point in crying over spilt milk, said William Turvill in City AM: LSE’s shares jumped 2% on the news. The two…

Who’s tipping what: the week’s best buys… Bellway The Times Bellway is back on track after the EU referendum. The housebuilder is diversified across the UK, and is focused on increasing its land bank. It has growth potential, healthy 22% margins and yields 4%. Buy. £28.37. Forterra Shares The UK’s second-biggest brick-maker looks undervalued, given that strong cash generation has reduced debt. Demand for bricks remains robust, and Forterra has the firepower for bolt-on acquisitions. Buy. 209p. Halma The Daily Telegraph Halma provides safety equipment to help companies meet regulatory requirements. Pricing power, high margins, strong cash flow and a growing dividend make this “unexciting” firm a “good long-term bet”. Buy. £9.91. Hurricane Energy Daily Mail Shares have surged on news of an oil discovery off the Shetland Islands that…

Paris Third life sentence for Jackal: Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, the Venezuelan-born terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal, has been found guilty of killing two people in a grenade attack on the Left Bank in 1974, and handed a third life sentence by a special court in Paris. He is already serving life terms for murders and terrorist attacks committed in 1975, 1982 and 1983. For years, Sánchez (above) was one of the world’s most wanted criminals, but in 1994, French special forces tracked him down to Khartoum and kidnapped him. Sánchez, 67, told the court he had been a “professional revolutionary” since his teenage years, and denounced his trial for a 42-year-old crime as “absurd”. Saarbrücken, Germany Setback for Schulz: Angela Merkel’s hopes of being re-elected in national elections in…

An epidemic more lethal than Aids Andrew Sullivan New York Magazine Those of us who witnessed at first-hand the Aids epidemic of the 1980s and early 1990s will remember the sense of “cultural isolation” it caused, says Andrew Sullivan. We gay men were living in a “medieval landscape of constant disease and death” largely invisible to wider society. Yet that’s how people in working-class communities across rural and small-town America must feel today, as they suffer a terrifying but largely ignored epidemic of opioid addiction. The carnage wrought in these places by prescription painkillers, and by the heroin to which many people then graduate, is “jaw-dropping”. Some 52,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2015 – “more deaths than the peak year for Aids, which was 51,000 in 1995”. But…

“We are not slaves.” Those were the signs being held up by the “parasites” as they marched in their thousands through the streets of Minsk, the capital city. Public protest is rare in Belarus, said Peter Bologov on Gazeta.ru (Moscow) . There has been the odd organised demo by city-dwelling liberals; but this is different. Today’s protests are a spontaneous expression of anger by the conservative supporters of the dictator Alexander Lukashenko: they’re even calling for his resignation. But that’s what you get if you’re rash enough, as Lukashenko has been, to pass a decree declaring that all those who have been out of work for at least six months are “parasites”, who must pay a $245 fine. Given that the average monthly income is $380 and that almost half…

Nasa has got its closest look yet at Saturn’s moon Pan – and it is a pretty odd sight. Astronomers have long known that the moon was not round. Based on images taken from a distance, they reckoned it was shaped like an alien spacecraft. Now, having examined the remarkably detailed new images, taken by Nasa’s Cassini craft, they realise that the tiny moon (it is just 22 miles in diameter) actually looks more like a piece of tortellini, or a dumpling, orbiting in a gap between Saturn’s rings. Saturn has hundreds of rings, some as little as 10 metres thick, and the entire ring system measures about 175,000 miles across. The rings are believed to be made up of particles of ice, or ice-covered rocks, some too small to…

“Douglas Carswell was once the golden boy of UKIP,” said Tim Stanley in The Sunday Telegraph: “its first elected MP, its brightest intellect, its shot at respectability.” In 2014, he defected from the Conservatives – triggering, and easily winning, a by-election in his Essex seat of Clacton. But last week, he left UKIP to sit as an independent MP (he said that he would not call a by-election, since he is not joining another party). “In hindsight, his resignation was inevitable from the very beginning.” Carswell was certainly a “passionate” Eurosceptic, but he wasn’t anti-immigration: he fought against UKIP’s more xenophobic tendencies. And his relations with Nigel Farage were strained from the start, when they fell out over Carswell’s refusal to claim a £650,000 parliamentary subsidy for UKIP. More recently,…

Football: Southgate’s reign begins For all England’s “traumas and intermittent crises”, they have now gone more than seven years without losing a qualifying match for an international tournament, said Daniel Taylor in The Guardian. That 34-game unbeaten streak goes back to 2009, when Fabio Capello’s team lost to Ukraine. Last Sunday, England recorded another “win of drowsy inevitability against moderate opponents” when they beat Lithuania 2-0 in a World Cup qualifier. It was Gareth Southgate’s second match as manager, following last week’s 1-0 loss to Germany in a friendly, and his first competitive game. England can take pride in their clean sheet, which left them the only team in the current round of World Cup qualifiers that have yet to concede a goal. To really get their measure, though, we…

Terrorism and the media To the Financial Times When I read that Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate was illuminated in the colours of the British flag following the Westminster attack, I was moved by this honourable gesture of solidarity. Yet I am concerned that displays like this inadvertently cement the dread of terrorism in public consciousness. The threat of terrorism lies not merely with the casualties it inflicts but also with the anxiety it causes. This anxiety is unintentionally amplified by the relentless media coverage and evocative responses across the globe. We should express support to those who have lost loved ones, and we should mourn with them. But we should not run the errands of madmen by spreading reminders of their terror to an extent they could never manage by themselves.…

Musical An American in Paris Music and lyrics: George and Ira Gershwin Book: Craig Lucas Director/choreographer: Christopher Wheeldon Dominion Theatre, Tottenham Court Road, London W1 (020-7927 0900) Until 30 October Running time: 2hrs 35mins (including interval) ★★★★ “A powerful, mind-altering substance is being peddled at the Dominion Theatre,” said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. No matter how careworn you might be, you will leave this glorious show “with barely a worry in your head, a spring in your step, and an ache for Paris pumping feverishly through every vein”. An American in Paris, which has already been a Tony-winning hit on Broadway, marks the musical theatre debut for the classical choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, said Ann Treneman in The Times. And what an enchanting production it is: inspired by the…

Best books… Gary Younge Writer Gary Younge, editor-at-large for The Guardian, picks his favourite books. He will be talking about his new book, Another Day in the Death of America, at the Stratford-upon-Avon Literary Festival on 27 April (www.stratlitfest.co.uk) Shah of Shahs and The Emperor by Ryszard Kapuscinski, 1982 and 1978 (Penguin £8.99 each). Two accounts of revolutions, in Iran and Ethiopia, from one of the world’s finest journalists. He conveys both the personal fragility of the dictator and the political fragility of the societies they misgoverned – and the human cost of their brutality. For a budding foreign correspondent, his books were a real inspiration. What is History? by E.H. Carr, 1961 (Penguin £9.99). This series of essays by the veteran historian gives a sharp framework for understanding how…

Trout & lemon strata Serves 8 250g chunky trout or salmon fillets, skinned finely grated zest of 1 lemon 200g spinach about 175g of French baguette, cut into 2-3cm cubes 8 large eggs 150ml double cream 300ml full-fat milk sea salt crystals and freshly ground black pepper • Cut the fish fillets into 2cm cubes and put into an ovenproof china dish about 18cm x 32cm. Scatter with the lemon zest and add a sprinkling of sea salt. • Put the spinach in a bowl, pour boiling water over it and leave for 2 minutes to wilt, then drain well. Squeeze as much liquid out of the spinach as you can then roughly chop and scatter over the trout. Add the bread cubes to the mixture. • Crack the eggs…

In just eight years, Uber’s “unrelentingly ambitious” founder, Travis Kalanick, has built the taxi-app company into “America’s largest privately owned technology firm”, worth an estimated $70bn, said The Economist. But Uber is now “going through the biggest crisis in its short history”. Several key executives have quit, citing worries about the firm’s macho culture. Worse, the steady drip of negative stories is having an impact on Uber’s market share, which has fallen from an estimated 80% of the US ride-hailing market in January, to 74% – partly due to the #DeleteUber campaign mounted in protest at its apparent support of Trump policies. Investors worry that Uber is looking so “bruised” that a “knockout blow” could permanently damage its “momentum”. Uber has hired former US attorney general Eric Holder to investigate…

A pivotal moment for global finance Ed Conway The Times How ironic that two votes that were “both intended as a body blow to the Establishment” have given the big banks “the greatest opportunity in the history of lobbying”, says Ed Conway. In both the US and Europe, they have rarely had a better chance to lose their “regulatory chains”. While Trump’s administration, “stuffed” with Goldman Sachs alumni, is promising to repeal Obama-era rules, Europe’s financial regulators are vying “to lure London’s bankers” – prompting the IMF to warn of a “race to the bottom” on regulation. With Brexit, Britain’s regulators are at a crossroads. “Do they leave financial rules aligned with EU standards to ensure continued access to the single market, or loosen them to turn the City into…

 The tsars had their Winter Palace in St Petersburg, while Louis XIV had Versailles. Donald Trump has Mar-a-Lago. Valued at $200m (£160m) and set in 20 acres on the billionaires’ playground of Palm Beach in Florida, it has a 20,000 sq ft ballroom, the walls inlaid with $7m (£5.6m) worth of gold leaf. There are gold-plated basins in the Ladies, and a library panelled with ancient English oak, its rare books as untouched as the day they were put there. “Workers used up America’s entire stock of gold leaf to gild the main living room, with its 42ft-high ceiling” The Jazz Age château was built by an heiress who left it to the nation as a winter getaway for US presidents. Instead, they opted for the far more basic Camp…