Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1129 i The Week

Social media swung this election Peter Preston The Observer One of the biggest losers of this election, says Peter Preston, was the print media. The press was – with the exception of the Daily Mirror and the lukewarm Guardian – united in its loathing of Jeremy Corbyn. “Don’t chuck Britain in the Cor-bin!” implored The Sun. “Your country needs you,” boomed The Daily Telegraph, while the Daily Mail ran a 13-page special on the evils of the Labour leader. Corbyn’s supporters, understandably put out by this “overwhelming” bias, were already crying “fix” and preparing to use it as “a reason/excuse for defeat”. But in the end, none of it mattered. Social media proved far more important than the old-fashioned press. Over 56% of voters are now on Facebook – a…

Hope for prostate cancer patients A new combined drug treatment has been found to dramatically extend the lives of men with advanced prostate cancer. “These are the most powerful results I’ve seen from a prostate cancer trial,” said lead study author Prof Nick James, at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting. The trial investigated the effectiveness of combining the standard hormone treatment, androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), with abiraterone (or Zytiga), which is normally only given to men who are not responding to ADT. A total of 1,917 patients were involved: 957 were given ADT alone, the rest the combined therapy. In the first group, 262 of the patients died within three years; but among those given the combined treatment, there were only 184 deaths. More than 11,000 men…

 “Jeremy Corbyn advocates a gentler politics, but on election night his supporters were riotous,” said Gabriel Pogrund and Sanya Burgess in The Sunday Times. At one all-nighter at a bar in Islington, Corbynistas standing on tables jeered when Tory MPs appeared on TV. As for Nick Clegg’s shock defeat in Sheffield Hallam, that brought “mayhem”. This crowd hadn’t forgotten Clegg’s U-turn on tuition fees, and “his concession speech brought chanting, dancing”. Remember: this was not only Corbyn’s night, it was young Britain’s night, too. A record 1.05 million 18- to-24-yearolds had registered to vote during the campaign. Pundits had predicted that, as with the EU referendum, many wouldn’t turn out – but this time, they weren’t going to let their voices go unheard. The young are thought to have been…

“Until recently, we had great confidence in the abilities of Britain’s police and intelligence agencies,” said Will Heaven in The Spectator. “We were better at stopping terrorists, the evidence suggested, than our European neighbours.” Now that confidence has been “shattered”. The country has been hit by three terrorist attacks in three months – in each case, by men who were known to security services. Khuram Butt, the ringleader of the London Bridge attack, was filmed by Channel 4 kneeling reverently in front of a black Islamist flag – “not at some secret jihadi gathering, but in Regent’s Park”. His co-conspirator, Youssef Zaghba, a Moroccan-born Italian, was on a terror watch list before he even arrived in Britain. He had been stopped by Italian police en route to Syria, and had…

“Fifty-one years after their first triumph, England have finally won a second World Cup,” said James Gheerbrant in The Times. This time, victory came in the Under-20 tournament, with a “dauntless” 1-0 win over Venezuela. In a frenetic final in South Korea, Paul Simpson’s team showed off their “big-stage savvy” and “bravura” skills. A “rumbling menace”, Tottenham midfielder Joshua Onomah stole the show; Everton’s Dominic Calvert-Lewin “led the line superbly” to score the winner. These are “exciting times” for England, said Ben Fisher in The Guardian. It’s not just the Under-20s; last Saturday, a side composed mostly of teenagers won the prestigious Under-21 Toulon Tournament for the second year in a row. Those trophies bode well for the national side, said Jonathan Northcroft in The Sunday Times. Look at the…

Electoral myths To The Guardian This election has seen the death of two received wisdoms that have dominated political punditry for a generation. First, the reign of the tabloids is over. For weeks, the ancient bazookas controlled by Murdoch, Dacre and other press oligarchs were trained on Corbyn and McDonnell, portraying them as patrons of terror and fantasists forever shaking a magic money tree. The campaign failed because the British press is more distrusted than any other press in Europe (as revealed by the 2016 Eurobarometer survey), its circulation is in free fall, and young people in particular get their news and political information from the internet. The second myth is that parties prosper only if they stick to the middle ground (usually defined as the neoliberal political consensus).…

Theatre Barber Shop Chronicles Playwright: Inua Ellams Director: Bijan Sheibani At the Dorfman, National Theatre, London SE1 (020-7452 3000), until 8 July; then West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, (0113-213 7800), 12-29 July Running time: 1hr 45mins ★★★★ “This is an absolute cracker,” said Sarah Hemming in the FT. The playwright and poet Inua Ellams’s idea is “simple but ingenious”; to explore black masculinity through the prism of the humble barber’s shop. As “the clippers buzz and the towels flick”, we eavesdrop on fictional conversations in shops in six countries over the course of one day, starting at daybreak in Lagos and then taking in Harare, Accra, Kampala and Johannesburg before winding up in Peckham. The result is a piece of drama that is “thoughtful, serious and moving”, but also hugely enjoyable;…

Best books…Sam Leith The Spectator’s literary editor Sam Leith, the chair of this year’s judging panel for The Desmond Elliott Prize for first novels, picks five great debuts. His new book, Write to the Point, will be published by Profile in October The Secret History by Donna Tartt, 1992 (Penguin £8.99). I read this gothic-tinged story of a cabal of preppy students at an American college when I was a teenager, and was knocked sideways by it. I remember thinking that if all literary fiction could be this gripping, and if all popular fiction could be this well written, everything would be right with the world of books. Harmonium by Wallace Stevens, 1923 (Faber £12.99). I’m mostly focusing on first novels, but Stevens’ first book of poems deserves a mention.…

Poke (“poh-kay”) is traditionally served with limu kohu (seaweed) and Hawaiian salt, say Celia Farrar and Guy Jackson. Our version suggests variations on these classic (but hard-to-find) ingredients – we hope the taste will transport you to the Pacific! Serves 4 240g white sushi rice Rice seasoning (optional): 2 tbsps mirin 2 tbsps rice wine vinegar 1 tsp sugar ½ tsp salt For the poke: 400g fresh yellowfin tuna, cut into 1.5cm (½inch) cubes 2 tbsps sliced Maui onion or sweet white onion 4 tbsps spring onions, just the green tops, finely sliced ½ tsp toasted white sesame seeds ½ tsp toasted black sesame seeds 1 tsp alaea, or Hawaiian, sea salt (sea salt or Himalayan salt are good alternatives) For the marinade: 4 tsps toasted sesame oil 2 tbsps…

Billionaire arms trader who frittered away $250,000 a day Adnan Khashoggi 1935-2017 Adnan Khashoggi, who has died aged 81, was often described as the richest man in the world. He wasn’t quite that, but the Saudi fixer and arms trader spent as though he were. In the 1980s, his extravagance was legendary, said The New York Times – “beyond the limits of vulgarity”. At the height of his wealth, he was said to be worth $4bn, and to be spending $250,000 a day. He owned 12 estates, including a pleasure palace near Marbella that had the world’s biggest outdoor dance floor; an 180,000-acre ranch in Kenya; and a two-storey Fifth Avenue residence created from 16 existing apartments. He travelled between them in 100 limousines, three lavishly fitted commercial-size jets, and…

Why Europe needs London clearing Jim Armitage London Evening Standard “Loud voices in Europe” have been calling for London to be stripped of its dominant role in euro derivatives clearing, says Jim Armitage. “It’s our currency, we should control the risk, they say.” But common sense ought to prevail. The main job of the world’s two biggest clearing houses – London’s LCH.Clearnet and New York’s DTC – is to process electronic paperwork between buyers and sellers. The implosion of Lehman Brothers in 2008 brought home the vital stabilising role they play. Had they not stepped in “to untangle the mess” left by the unwinding of Lehman’s $500bn global derivatives trades, the situation would have been far worse. If Europe decides to carve out euro trades from the 20 other currencies…

Controversy of the week A blow to Brexit? “Sometimes there can be salvation in chaos,” said Philip Stephens in the FT. Theresa May called an election in order to seek “a clear mandate to negotiate her version of Brexit” – and has been rebuffed. The resulting “political paralysis”, however, has given us “a chance to derail the extreme Brexit promoted by Mrs May”, in favour of a closer and less economically damaging association. This will require patience from our European friends, but so far the signs are good (during May’s visit to Paris this week, President Macron even suggested that the UK could “reopen the door” to EU membership). It’s a tribute to “the unconscious political genius of the British people”, said Christopher Booker in The Sunday Telegraph, that they…

A true Muslim voice Nazir Afzal likes to speak his mind – and right now, he has a lot to say. The former chief crown prosecutor is a British Muslim who lives in Manchester and who was – until last month – head of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners. He resigned when the APCC ordered him not to speak in public about the Manchester atrocity. “I couldn’t think of any greater duty than the need to speak out,” he told Andrew Norfolk in The Times. Afzal has seen close-up how radicalisation works: he has prosecuted Muslim terrorists, and was closely involved in Prevent, the Government’s counterterrorism programme. “It’s done phenomenally good work. It’s stopped at least 150 people from going to Syria, 50 of them children.” Yet some…

Italian police have uncovered a high-class parking scam. The streets of the wealthy town of Como are so narrow that cars can be parked for only 45 minutes at a time. Drivers are required to fix a paper clock inside the windscreen, showing the time they arrived. But police noticed that some cars were staying put for days without getting ticketed. Further investigation revealed that their discs had been fitted with secret batteries. “The discs were slowly turning, like a clock, to ensure the cars were always ‘legal’,” said a police spokesman. The suspects were “all well-off and confessed immediately”. A professor of politics literally ate his own words after last week’s election result. Before the ballot. Matthew Goodwin, of the University of Kent, had said that he would “happily…

INDONESIA It’s time to kick our smoking habit Jakarta Globe If Indonesia is ever going to shed its status as a “developing country”, we will have to quit our national cigarette habit, says Beladenta Amalia. Nearly two-thirds of Indonesian men are regular smokers, and most of them puff on kretek, the local clove cigarettes, which deliver more nicotine, carbon monoxide and tar than regular cigarettes. While far fewer women smoke, the taboo is lifting, thanks to female role models such as chain-smoking Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti. This addiction is disastrous: the World Health Organisation says nearly one in nine Indonesian deaths each year are caused by tobacco-related illnesses. The economic toll, too, is heavy. Smokers push their families into poverty: a pack-a-day habit costs nearly 30% of the national median…

A hellish world, hotter than the surface of some stars, has been found 650 light years away in the constellation of Cygnus. Named Kelt-9b, the unfortunate planet lies so close to its own star, which is twice as hot as our Sun, that its orbit takes just 1.5 Earth days, and temperatures reach a blistering 4,330ºC – making it the hottest planet ever found. Owing to the heat, the gas giant has puffed up like a soufflé, to create a planet that is almost three times the size of Jupiter, but only half as dense. It is tidally locked (the same side of it always faces its star, Kelt-9), and it is literally evaporating in the ultraviolet radiation the star emits: molecules such as water and carbon dioxide cannot exist…

The rich and famous do things differently – including give birth. Pop’s most powerful couple, Beyoncé (pictured) and Jay Z , are expecting twins any day now. Rather than go to a hospital, they have installed a £1m maternity ward, including an entire neonatal wing, at their Hollywood mansion. According to the Daily Star, they have invited their five-year-old daughter, Blue Ivy, to attend the birth, so she can be part of the “magical family moment”. Blue Ivy will be wearing a mini nurse’s uniform designed by Givenchy, which costs £780. Vladimir Putin never has off-days because he is all man. Interviewed by Oliver Stone for a new documentary, the Russian president explained: “I am not a woman, so I don’t have bad days. I am not trying to insult…

“I believe some people in this business suffer from fame because they behave in a famous fashion.” Actor Stephen Rea, quoted in the Irish Times “There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.” Graham Greene, quoted in The Times “When it’s rained fishes and then frogs, it’s an unwise seer who tells you cats and dogs won’t follow.” Mark Mardell on whether Theresa May could win the next election, BBC News online “We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue.” George Orwell, quoted in The Guardian “We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.” Orson Welles, quoted in…

More questions for Hart Joe Hart’s “wretched year” just keeps getting worse, said Matt Dickinson in The Times. Following his humiliating errors at Euro 2016, the England goalkeeper was “banished” by Manchester City and spent last season at Torino on a loan. But his reputation took another blow last Saturday, in a 2-2 World Cup qualifier with Scotland: he conceded two free kicks in just three minutes, before the side were rescued by a Harry Kane goal. Still unwanted at City, Hart is looking for a new club, so he really did not need “more questions” about his ability. He was dropped for the friendly against France this week – and unless he can “change the downward trajectory of his career”, he will lose his England role for good. South…

To The Daily Telegraph My village near Canterbury had a Conservative MP for 100 years without a break, until Thursday. We now have a Labour MP, whom no one I have spoken to has ever heard of, although I am sure she is perfectly pleasant and competent. We have three universities in Canterbury, with many thousands of students, and more than 8,000 new people registering to vote. These students have the right to vote in our constituency, but at the end of term they go home. This leaves local people with an MP we would not have elected. The law allowing students to vote at their temporary address is totally unfair to the real locals, and must be changed. David Hodges, Ickham, Kent To The Daily Telegraph Mrs May’s choice…

The Mummy Dir: Alex Kurtzman 1hr 50mins (15) Shaky start to Universal’s Dark Universe franchise ★★ “Emerging waxily from the darkness, a disturbing, ageless figure, once worshipped as a god... I am, of course, talking about Tom Cruise, who’s back on our screens in The Mummy,” said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. In this confused reboot of that old horror chestnut, Cruise plays a “liberator” of precious antiquities who – while looting in war-torn Iraq – re-awakens an evil ancient Egyptian princess named Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), who alights upon him as her “chosen one”. In search of a magic dagger vital to her nefarious afterlife plans, she ends up in London, said Kate Muir in The Times, where she “staggers around in grey, odoriferous bandages” with an army of undead…

New car: “ferociously fast and surprisingly physical” Lamborghini has never been at the top of the supercar pecking order, said Dan Trent in The Daily Telegraph. Even its finest efforts have been “more about show than go”. But the Huracán Performante is different. Like the regular Huracán, but with a “clever” active aerodynamics system, and extra power, it boasts 631bhp (up from 602bhp) and can go from 0-62mph in just 2.9 seconds. With this car, you get “the traditional Lamborghini spectacle” plus “the poise and pace to back it up”. The Performante is “ferociously fast and surprisingly physical”, said Sean Carson in Auto Express. In place of the turbocharged engines found in many performance cars, there’s a “glorious”, naturally aspirated V10 motor. A “joy to rev out”, it’s smooth most…

Banco Popular: Spanish run Spain’s Banco Popular nearly failed last week, following a run on deposits, said Patrick Jenkins in the FT. Disaster was averted only by a “last-minute rescue” by local rival Santander, which paid a “princely” s1 to take over the bank. Now the repercussions have begun. The bank’s “root problem” – the poor quality of its property loans – preceded the tenure of Emilio Saracho, formerly of JP Morgan, as chief executive. But Popular investors are furious about Saracho’s failure to either come up with a solid plan to raise fresh capital or to organise an orderly sale. Santander boss Ana Botín (pictured) emerges from the debacle with the most kudos: she “sealed her dealmaking reputation” by “cooly spurning” Saracho for weeks, “before engaging when he was…

Bursting dam? Has the dam finally burst on the tech boom, asked James Dean in The Times. Since the heavy fall in US Nasdaq-listed stocks began last Friday, some $150bn has been wiped off the shares of America’s five largest technology companies, as “investors called time on a rally that has seen tech shares soar since the start of the year”. Yet even after this week’s “heavy selling”, Amazon and Facebook shares are still up by nearly 30% since January. “Investors are querying if there is anything left in the tank,” said Neil Wilson of ETX Capital. But given the continuing strong earnings growth of these companies, most give short shrift to the notion that the sell-off represents the bursting of a bubble. “At the moment, it looks like it’s…

Travis Kalanick In 2009, when Travis Kalanick and his friend Garrett Camp came up with the idea of “pushing a button to get a ride”, they hoped to use the profits to live like “ballers” – high-rolling sportsmen. Since then, Uber has evolved into a $68bn company, said John Gapper in the FT, but it has retained that “dubious fraternity boy” culture. In February, Susan Fowler, a former Uber engineer, wrote a blog revealing her experiences of repeated sexual harassment, and describing “an organisation in complete, unrelenting chaos”. Now Uber’s supine board has finally taken action. Following an internal investigation, 20 employees were fired last week – and Kalanick is taking “an extended leave of absence”. The ostensible reasons for Kalanick’s sabbatical are to mourn his mother, Bonnie, who recently…

Who’s tipping what The week’s best buys Auto Trader Group The Times Auto Trader’s used-car sales site – a “cash machine” on a “monopolistic scale” – has had “another excellent year”. The buyback programme should prop up shares even if the group is hit by the jittery economy. Buy. 418.5p. Diageo The Mail on Sunday The booze giant is a “well-established dividend player” that has a “large overseas presence”. Well-known brands including Smirnoff, Guinness and Johnnie Walker, should help it weather local storms. Buy. £23.26. JD Sports Investors Chronicle The sportswear retailer’s brands resonate with its target market, and it’s tackling inflation competently. International growth provides a good hedge against weak sterling, and the purchase of Go Outdoors is “exciting”. Buy. 453.5p. Segro The Times This real-estate investment trust (REIT)…

 In 2010, shortly after his release from prison, Shaun Greenhalgh walked into his parents’ house in Bromley Cross to find a fat package waiting for him on the dresser, containing an art book. Greenhalgh recognised the cover, a Renaissance-style painting of a girl, seen in profile. Snub-nosed, proud-eyed and with the hint of a double chin, she was not a handsome princess, as the book’s title, La Bella Principessa, suggested. Greenhalgh knew her as Sally, a girl with whom he’d worked in the late 1970s at the Co-op butchery. The book, by the respected art historian Martin Kemp, argued that the painting was a lost work by Leonardo da Vinci. But Greenhalgh believed it to be one of his own: painted when he was 18, on a piece of 16th…

Paris Macron dominant: President Emmanuel Macron’s newly founded centrist party is on course to win a crushing victory in France’s parliamentary elections, having topped the first round of voting, on Sunday, with 28% of the vote. The second round takes place this coming Sunday. The two-round system leaves bigger parties with a disproportionately large share of the seats: La République En Marche! (REM) is now projected to win at least 400 seats in the 577-seat parliament. This would give it one of the biggest majorities in postwar French history, making it far easier for Macron to push through his planned labour market and welfare reforms. However, commentators have warned that his mandate could be compromised by an unusually low turnout: in the first round, it was just 49%. Large numbers…

Like it or not, the US still leads the West Michael Brendan Dougherty National Review It’s all over for America. By pulling out of the Paris climate accord, the US has relinquished global leadership and abandoned science. Its citizens will “shortly be living in cave dwellings along Appalachia”. That’s the gist of a lot of commentary right now, says Michael Brendan Dougherty. There’s a “frantic, almost panicked desire to see dramatic declines in US power and prestige because its people elected Donald Trump. The people have to learn their lesson, after all.” But this alarmist picture is nonsense. Pundits have declared that German Chancellor Angela Merkel is now the leader of the free world. Really? Are the pacifist Germans now going to underwrite European security, with the massive military build-up…

Facebook wants to know whether you’re smiling – and if you’re not, it will show you an advert that might make you happy. That, at least, is the implication of a patent that was granted to the social media giant in 2015, but which has only now come to light. Called “techniques for emotion detection and content delivery”, the patent describes using “passive imaging data” – footage captured by built-in cameras that are not switched on – to determine a user’s facial expression. For example, it might detect that the user is looking away during a video of a kitten, and decide to exclude such videos from his or her feed in future. Equally, it might find that the user enjoys looking at adverts for Scotch, and thus show more…

In all the fuss about Theresa May’s “history-making humiliation”, said Stephen Daisley in The Spectator, it was easy to miss the other big story of last week’s election: the humbling of the SNP. Back in 2015, Nicola Sturgeon’s party “swept all before it”, winning 56 of Scotland’s 59 seats in Westminster. But it lost almost 40% of those same constituencies last week as a result of a dramatic fightback by the Scottish Tories, and stronger showings from Labour and Liberal Democrat candidates. Among the ousted SNP politicians were the party’s former leader, Alex Salmond, and its leader in the Commons, Angus Robertson. The SNP still secured a “respectable” 36.9% of the vote, said Dani Garavelli in The Scotsman, and 35 seats – “an achievement that would once have been unthinkable”.…

The scary thing about Rafael Nadal’s tenth French Open title was that “he has never made it look easier”, said Mike Dickson in the Daily Mail. The 31-year-old Spaniard lost just 35 games over the course of the fortnight; in Sunday’s final, he dispatched Stan Wawrinka in two hours. In the five decades since the Open era began, only Björn Borg has won the tournament “more comfortably”. It was Nadal’s first major title in almost three years; during that time “it has often looked like his body was going to give out”, and many wondered if another Grand Slam was beyond him. Yet he “romped” through to seal perhaps the greatest sporting achievement of his generation; no other player in the Open era, male or female, has won the same…

Rugby union In their fourth New Zealand tour match, the British and Irish Lions lost 23-22 to the Highlanders. England beat Argentina 38-34. Formula One Lewis Hamilton won the Canadian GP for the sixth time to narrow Sebastian Vettel’s championship lead to a mere 12 points. Football Everton signed Sunderland goalkeeper Jordan Pickford for £30m. In a World Cup qualifier, Wales drew 1-1 with Serbia. Basketball The Golden State Warriors beat the Cleveland Cavaliers to win the NBA Championship.…

Winteringham Fields 1 Silver Street, Winteringham, Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire (01724-733096) The atmosphere at Winteringham Fields, a few miles north of Scunthorpe, is a bit “stiff and shushy” fine dining, says Keith Miller in The Daily Telegraph. And the decor is rather self-consciously flashy, with “lashings of silver gilt, as if someone had ram-raided a Chelsea interior design showroom in about 1992”. The food, though, is a flavour-packed triumph. A six-day Dexter beef tartare is “chunky, and a little funky, served with a dollop of caviar and a squidge of citrus”, and held loosely together by a lovely beef jelly. Perfectly roasted discs of venison loin in a peanut crust come with “venison pie” – a “crispy sphere filled with a mouthful of dark, glossy supermince”. A “tart, fragrant” passion fruit…

The ancient ruins of Göbeklitepe in southern Turkey do not yield their secrets easily. When a team of Turkish and American surveyors first discovered the site – named after the Turkish word for “potbellied hill” - in 1963, they correctly identified it as Neolithic but failed to countenance just how incredibly old it was. The full significance of the site only came to light in 1996 after Klaus Schmidt, a German archaeologist at Heidelberg University, began excavating the ruins in collaboration with the nearby Şanlıurfa Museum. By using radiocarbon dating Dr. Schmidt and his team established that the ruins are at least 11,500 years old. This makes the Göbeklitepe ruins, which are believed to form a network of religious temples, 6,500 years older than Stonehenge and 7,000 years older than…

Hopes of seeing former RBS boss Fred Goodwin being grilled in court were finally dashed last week, when the bank reached a settlement with investors, said BBC News online. The RBS Shareholders Action Group, who claimed they were duped into coughing up £12bn during the financial crisis, voted to accept the bank’s raised 82p-a-share offer. The deal means that some 90,000 individual shareholders will share a hefty £200m payout – double the amount that RBS initially offered. The real significance of this case – the first large-scale group action involving retail shareholders against a UK bank – is that it’s likely to “pave the way” for similar group actions, said Emma Dunkley in the FT. The RBS shareholders were able to pursue their claim thanks to legal funding from the…