Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1146 i The Week

What happened May’s fightback Theresa May sought to put her ill-fated conference speech behind her this week by reasserting her authority and offering more detail on the Government’s Brexit plans. In an interview with The Sunday Times, the Prime Minister hinted that she might demote Boris Johnson in a reshuffle, saying she wanted “the best people in my Cabinet”. Tory MPs have mostly rallied around May since she saw off last week’s backbench coup attempt, led by former party chairman Grant Shapps. In the Commons on Monday, May said Britain had made sufficient concessions for now in the Brexit negotiations, and set out plans for how the UK would keep trade flowing in the event of a no-deal scenario. The ball, she said, was now in the EU’s court –…

Detroit, Michigan Jailed for refusing vaccination: A mother from Michigan was jailed for seven days last week for refusing to have her son vaccinated, in defiance of a court order. Rebecca Bredow (pictured), 40, told the court “I am an educated vaccine-choice mother”, and said that immunisation “goes against my beliefs”. Bredow’s ex-husband, the boy’s father, had gone to court to try to get the nine-year-old vaccinated; he has now been granted temporary custody to enable the medical jabs to take place. Child immunisation rates in Michigan are among the worst in the US, ranking 43rd of the 50 states. Washington DC Trump “could cause world war”: The veteran Republican senator Bob Corker – a one-time Trump ally – has accused the president of derailing US diplomacy so recklessly that…

Social media lifts the veil on our opinions Chris Bullivant UnHerd The rise of social media has polarised society by herding us into self-reinforcing echo chambers. That’s the conventional wisdom these days, says Chris Bullivant. But it’s not true. The reality is that Britain has always been full of people with strong and diametrically-opposed opinions – we just weren’t so aware of it before. We voiced our political opinions largely behind closed doors and in like-minded circles. We read whichever newspaper accorded most closely with our world view. Vehement, polarised arguments only broke out in parliamentary debate or street demonstrations, or in letters exchanged in the press. Until the likes of Twitter came along, we seldom had to contend with our fellow citizens’ “awkward political views”. We might glimpse them…

Globe-trotting bed bugs That infestations of bed bugs have soared in recent years, fuelled by the growth of low-cost international travel, is well established. But something has long puzzled scientists: the creepy-crawlies, which are a problem in hotels in particular, prefer to keep a low profile, hiding in mattresses or in the crevices of sofas – so what possesses them to venture out into travellers’ suitcases? Now a team at the University of Sheffield has come up with an answer. Bed bugs are attracted to soiled clothes (presumably because it has the residual odour of the humans whose blood they feast on). For the study, researchers at Sheffield placed open bags of soiled and non-soiled laundry in two identical rooms that contained an equal number of bed bugs. After a…

Boris: too timid to seize the crown? There’s only one person who can save the Tories now, said Sarah Baxter in The Sunday Times. Theresa May is a “zombie” prime minister, incapable of leading her party, let alone rallying the nation at this crucial time in our history. She should hand the job over to Boris Johnson. “It was his all along.” If Michael Gove hadn’t “strapped on his suicide belt” at the crucial moment, Boris would have become PM straight after the EU referendum. “He had led the Leave campaign, taking the political risk of arguing for Brexit, and deserved the spoils of victory.” He still does – “and the electorate also has the right to get what it voted for in the referendum: a Brexit champion at the…

Football: England’s “deathly” World Cup qualification The England football team “must be doing something right”, said Daniel Taylor in The Guardian. By defeating Slovenia 1-0 last week, they qualified for next summer’s World Cup with a game to spare. Sunday’s 1-0 win over Lithuania ensured that they finished their campaign with eight wins and two draws from ten matches; they have now reached four successive major tournaments in a row without losing a single qualifier. Yet for all that, qualifying hardly felt like cause for celebration. In the “joyless” match against Slovenia, England were so stodgy that the spectators at Wembley had to resort to “creating their own entertainment”, by launching paper planes. You’d have to go back to the 2006 World Cup to find a tournament when the national…

Blade Runner 2049 ★★★★ A worthy sequel to Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic Dir: Denis Villeneuve 2hrs 43mins (15) “Such is my love” for 1982’s visionary masterpiece Blade Runner, I was consumed with “first-night fear immediately prior to seeing this sequel”, said Chris Hunneysett in the Daily Mirror. I needn’t have worried. Blade Runner 2049 is, quite simply, the “best sci-fi film of the decade”. Anchored by a compelling performance from Ryan Gosling, Denis Villeneuve’s 160-minute epic is a gripping, visually stunning and “deeply humane” thriller, which wrestles with complex “questions of memory, identity and the meaning of love and life”. Like Star Wars: The Force Awakens, this is a “reboot cloned from beloved DNA”, said Joshua Rothkopf in Time Out. The action takes place 30 years on from the original,…

Best books… Jeremy Vine Jeremy Vine, the Radio 2 presenter and host of BBC1’s Eggheads, picks his favourite books. His own book, What I Learnt: What My Listeners Say and Why We Should Take Notice, has recently been published by W&N at £18.99 The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Penguin £18.99). I wanted to give my oldest daughter, then aged nine, a taste of detective fiction. I was looking for the best story and I found The Red-headed League in this collection. Then we read loads more. A portrait of London in the age of the hansom cab. Jaws by Peter Benchley, 1974 (Pan £7). From the very first paragraph, you are drawn in and held by the author’s fabulous storytelling. The girl killed by the…

Tataki is a great way of cooking meat or fish, says Tim Anderson: it is seared, so you get the rich flavours, but still raw in the middle, giving the most tender, juicy texture. This recipe also works well with tuna, swordfish or salmon Beef tataki 60ml sake 15g caster (superfine) or granulated (raw) sugar 60ml soy sauce 2 tbsps oil 2 garlic cloves, finely sliced 300–350g steak, cut about 2.5cm-thick – lean cuts free of sinew work best, so go for fillet, bavette or rump ¼ bunch of chives, finely sliced pinch of toasted sesame seeds handful of peppery leaves, like rocket or watercress 1 shallot, finely sliced and soaked in cold water • Combine sake and sugar in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove from…

The week’s best buys De La Rue The Times De La Rue provides intellectual property and sophisticated security products for banknotes, including the forthcoming polymer £20 note. The order book is strong, with higher-margin activities. Yields 3.7%. Buy. 666.5p. easyJet The Mail on Sunday easyJet is well placed to profit from the turmoil in the budget airline sector. Q3 revenue was 16% ahead and customer numbers are increasing. The acquisition of Air Berlin (if the deal closes) could boost profits by 10%. Buy. £12.53 Ferguson The Times Heating and plumbing distributor Ferguson (formerly Wolseley) is growing strongly in the US, its biggest market. Strong cashflow, lower debt and the sale of the Nordic ops should allow the £500m share buyback to continue. Buy. £50.60. Hotel Chocolat Group Investors Chronicle This…

Controversy of the week Smearing the dead “David Icke started it,” said Dominic Lawson in The Sunday Times. The conspiracy theorist and self-styled “son of God” published a book in 1998 asserting that the former prime minister Edward Heath was “a practising Satanist, paedophile and child-killer”. Perhaps Heath should have sued, but given that Icke also claimed Heath had the ability to turn into a 12ft lizard, he probably thought it not worth the effort. “Who could possibly believe the ravings of a lunatic?” The answer, unfortunately for his reputation, was: Wiltshire Police. Last week, the force published its report on Operation Conifer, a two-year inquiry into whether Heath was indeed “a Satanist, paedophile and child-killer”. The report is a “pathetic” attempt to justify a deeply flawed operation that rode…

Dan Brown’s criminal record Before he became a bestselling author worth $170m, Dan Brown was a failure, says Lina Das in The Mail on Sunday. His first career choice was writing pop songs – an unlikely choice for a clean-cut, brogue-wearing young nerd. He even recorded a soft rock album, featuring a song, 976 Love, about phone sex. (Sample lyrics: “I take you to bed and push the phone to my head/You make me feel like a man.”) Brown looks back on it now with curled toes. “There was a lot of sexual content in songs around then – I was just trying to get published,” he says. “I wanted to write songs about princes and queens and reading ancient manuscripts, but no one was interested. The album sold about…

Five people were hospitalised and an entire school evacuated in Baltimore, thanks to a sickly-smelling air freshener. A hazardous materials response team was summoned to Cristo Rey Jesuit High School after a mysterious odour swept through the building. Two students and three adults were taken to hospital with stomach upsets, and several others reported breathing difficulties. Firefighters eventually tracked the source of the stench to a third-floor classroom, where someone had installed a pumpkin spice plug-in air freshener. A would-be mermaid who was banned from her local swimming pool has been offered safe harbour at a nearby leisure centre. Leia Trigger, who also goes by the name Mermaid Aries, constructed her own fishy tail out of spandex. But she was ordered out of the water at Bromsgrove swimming pool, in…

AUSTRIA We need to be above these dirty tricks Der Standard (Vienna) It seems unthinkable that a moderate European political party would engage in Russian-style dirty tricks, says Michael Völker: yet that’s what’s occurring in Austria. The ruling Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) had looked set for a hiding in this week’s election at the hands of their junior coalition partner, the centre-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), whose leader, Sebastian Kurz, is pushing for strict immigration controls. But he is being undermined by a virulent social media campaign accusing him of secretly planning to open Austria’s doors to Muslim immigrants. There have also been anti-Semitic slurs alleging he’s being covertly funded by Jewish American investor George Soros. It was assumed these slurs came from supporters of the far-right Freedom Party, which…

Sir James Dyson has emerged as the newest entrant to the crowded electric car market, reports The Guardian. The inventor is investing £2.5bn in a high end, battery-powered vehicle that he claims will be ready by 2020. Although little is known about the project – Dyson has really only said that the car will look “radically different” – experts have cast doubt on how realistic it is. Entering the car industry is notoriously tricky: not only do newcomers have to build their own infrastructure, but automative regulation is exceedingly onerous – just getting a vehicle through the crash testing procedures can take years. Another problem is finding secure – and ethical – sources of minerals for the car’s battery. Currently, electric car batteries are mainly powered using a mix of…

Files newly released by the Margaret Thatcher Foundation include her favourite recipe: a “mystery starter” of beef consommé, cream cheese and curry powder. The ingredients were blended together and left to set, before being topped with a layer of jellied soup and a black olive; shrimps or leftover chicken could be added. Mrs T may have had a strong stomach, says The Guardian, but she was prone to fainting. She passed out cold the first time she met the Queen ; and then, in 1987, she had to leave a royal reception after coming over all dizzy. “Oh look,” the Queen is said to have remarked: “She’s keeled over again.” They have enjoyed a longstanding “bromance”, and now Silvio Berlusconi has found the perfect gift for Vladimir Putin : a…

Plain English To The Daily Telegraph May I recommend Ofqual for the 2017 “Golden Bull” award for murdering the English language? Its response to teachers’ claims that the Sats reading test was “too middle class” (and therefore drove pupils “to tears”) was: “On the balance of evidence presented, it seems plausible that the combined impact from multiple ostensibly negligible challenges – stemming from both question and text factors – may have rendered the 2016 reading test unduly hard to access for at least some pupils.” Perhaps Ofqual’s response should be included in future exams, with instructions to explain what it means – or would that be too difficult? John Sutherland, Uxbridge, Middlesex Untested PMs To the Financial Times Jacob Rees-Mogg has clearly not read Tony Blair’s memoir, A Journey, when…

Theatre Labour of Love Playwright: James Graham Director: Jeremy Herrin Noël Coward Theatre, St Martin’s Lane, London WC2 (0844-482 5140) Until 2 December Running time: 2hrs 45mins (including interval) ★★★ James Graham has lately joined the ranks of playwrights “who are not simply prolific but virtually ubiquitous”, said Ian Shuttleworth in the FT. His breakthrough hit, This House, about 1970s Westminster whips’ offices, heads out on tour in the new year. His feted Fleet Street drama, Ink, is at the Duke of York’s. And he is already in rehearsals for his next play, about the coughing quiz cheat on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? In the meantime, said Michael Billington in The Guardian, Graham has yet another hit on his hands – this “brilliant new play” which charts the…

Exhibition of the week Dalí / Duchamp Royal Academy, Piccadilly, London W1 (020-7300 8000, www.royalacademy.org.uk ). Until 3 January 2018 Salvador Dalí and Marcel Duchamp make an unlikely pair, said Rachel Campbell-Johnston in The Times. While Duchamp is revered as the “intellectual” who more or less single-handedly invented conceptual art, and shaped the postwar art world, Dalí is dismissed as an attention-seeking “clown” – “as famous for his posturing and outlandish pontifications as he was for his paintings”. Yet as this new exhibition at the Royal Academy reveals, the two artists shared an “improbable” friendship, as well as an “obsession” with eroticism and a “mutual delight in games”. The show brings together “world-famous masterworks” by both artists, as well as many lesser-known pieces, and a wealth of…

If you love premier cru and grand cru red burgundy wine but baulk at paying the £100–£200 it costs, it’s high time you got to know pinot noir’s new home on California’s cool, foggy Sonoma Coast, says Jane MacQuitty in The Times. The region’s best pinots rival top burgundies, and are often around half the price. 2014 Kutch Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir, California (£42; Roberson Wine) is a silky, smoky, red berry and cherry Sonoma Coast pinot noir with elegance and length. Or try Littorai’s extraordinarily elegant, sensual, wild strawberry-scented 2014 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir (£49; Handford Wines). If you can, splash out on a single-vineyard edition. Kutch’s 2015 Bohan Vineyard is a lovely, long, silky herbaceous rosehip triumph (£50.15; Roberson Wine), and Hirsch’s rich, herby, blood orange-fruited 2014 East…

Lord Lucan’s troubled wife Veronica Duncan 1937–2017 Veronica, the Dowager Countess of Lucan, was a key player in one of the great mysteries of the 20th century: the fate of “Lucky” Lord Lucan. On the night of 7 November 1974, Lady Lucan ran into a pub near her house in Belgravia, covered in blood, screaming that her estranged husband had attacked her and killed her nanny. Back at the family home, 29-year-old Sandra Rivett was found bludgeoned to death. Lucan was presumed to have broken into the basement, and to have mistaken Rivett, who’d gone down to make a cup of tea, for his wife. Lady Lucan claimed that she’d met him on the stairs – and that he’d have killed her too had she not escaped. He drove to…

Copenhagen Body parts found: Danish police divers hunting for the remains of the Swedish journalist Kim Wall (pictured) have found and recovered her severed head and legs from the seabed. The body parts were located not far from where her torso was found floating, close to Copenhagen; they had been placed in bags and weighted with metal pipes. The divers also found her clothes and a knife. Peter Madsen, the inventor who is in custody on suspicion of killing her, claims Wall died after being hit on the head by a hatch on his submarine, and that in a panic he then threw the body overboard. Danish investigators confirmed that the head did not have the injuries described by Madsen. They believe he killed the journalist as part of a…

Liberals are wrong about abortion Jonathan S. Tobin National Review For years, liberals have denounced global warming sceptics as science “deniers”, says Jonathan S. Tobin, but they’re vulnerable to the same charge on the issue of late-term abortions. Their “hypocrisy” was on display last week when the House voted, not for the first time, to pass a bill banning abortion after 20 weeks of gestation. Liberals insisted the bill was unconstitutional because the landmark Roe v. Wade decision of 1973 guarantees the right to abortion until a foetus becomes viable on its own – a threshold the case placed at 24-28 weeks. That’s the position still championed by abortion provider Planned Parenthood, which “continues to throw money at Democratic candidates” at a rate that makes the National Rifle Association’s contributions…

Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, has revealed a new use for his flagship BFR spacecraft, said the Financial Times. The South Africa-born entrepreneur believes that the BFR, or “Big F****** Rocket” – whose primary function, when built, will be to transport passengers to Mars – could also have a sideline in earthbound travel. By rising above the Earth’s atmosphere, the craft would, Musk claims, be able to fly from, say, London to New York within 30 minutes; even a trip to the other side of the world would take no more than an hour. He also said, in a tweet, that the cost “should be about the same as full fare economy in an aircraft”. Although the plan may, as Musk acknowledged, “look ridiculous”, it is relatively modest compared…

“Time flies like an arrow; but fruit flies like a banana.” Groucho Marx, quoted in The Observer “I like to write when I feel spiteful. It is like having a good sneeze.” D.H. Lawrence, quoted in The Guardian “We have a finite environment – the planet. Anyone who thinks that you can have infinite growth in a finite environment is either a madman or an economist.” David Attenborough, quoted in The Observer “The only way to get 30 minutes’ uninterrupted rest in a hospital is to ring for a nurse.” Old Southern saying, quoted on Forbes.com “Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.” Voltaire, quoted in The Wall Street Journal “Luck is not something you…

To The Guardian June Purvis paints a very admirable picture of Emmeline Pankhurst as a colourful campaigner. But she was also an extremist who supported planting bombs and committing acts of arson. When anyone disagreed with her she simply tended to throw them out of the movement, including her own daughter, Sylvia Pankhurst, who believed working-class women should have the right to vote, but her middle-class mother wasn’t interested and they fell out over it. So much for diversity. Emmeline Pankhurst caused too much hoo-ha to possibly be forgotten, but as a radical society frowned upon, she made the issue of women’s votes frowned upon, and the only helpful thing she ever did was to put a stop to her militant “deeds not words” tactics after the outbreak of the…

English wine merchants have a long and illustrious history. The first one I dealt with was just off St James’s Square and I was recommended it by a British spy in Laos during the Indochina war. It certainly looked quite ancient, so I mentioned this to the manager, who said rather proudly: “Yes, we are the oldest wine merchant in London.” So how long have you been here then? He replied with a smile, “Since the Fire...” Haynes, Hanson & Clark (HHC) doesn’t quite go back that far in history, though Anthony Hanson was a co-founder of the business nearly 40 years ago and still remains a buying consultant. Anthony is a well-known expert on Burgundy and has written extensively on the subject. He is still best remembered for his…

This is good news for buyers and sellers, and suggests that the property market has shrugged off the uncertainty surrounding Brexit. And while the resurgence is across the whole country, it is particularly apparent in regional cities. ‘The most successful, often those with universities, attract highly qualified workers and offer a good quality of life, leading to increased demand,’ says Stephanie McMahon, Head of Research at Strutt & Parker. Bristol, which has the fastest-selling homes in the UK, epitomises why regional cities attract buyers. ‘It has a booming tech hub, a broad range of housing stock and it is also commutable to London,’ explains James Mackenzie, Head of Country Houses at Strutt & Parker. Affordability is, of course, key to a strong market as it increases demand and speeds up…

What the experts recommend Seoul Kimchi 275 Upper Brook Street, Manchester (0161-273 5556) The table I manage to bag just before 7pm on a Tuesday night at this rammed Korean corner shop turned restaurant is “by far the worst table for two I have ever had the pleasure of lunging for”, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. It’s so close to the door you have to lean in every time anyone enters or leaves; it’s cramped; and the view is of a “quasi-industrial cul de sac”. Yet for the “cheap, gutsy Korean soul food” on offer here, I could forgive anything. Highlights include jeon (a thick savoury pancake) with squid and prawn; fried chicken with a “sweet and salty, hot and fiery” gochujang sauce (a “culinary opioid”); galbi (soy-marinated…

New cars: what the critics say Evo These days, “you’re no one in the car world if you aren’t making an SUV”. A number of sports car brands – Porsche, Maserati and Aston Martin among them – have already got in on the action, and Alfa Romeo is now joining the club. These cars sell in “huge volumes” – and the Italian firm expects its offering, the Stelvio, to account for nearly two-thirds of its sales in the UK next year. Auto Express Aesthetically, the Stelvio has “plenty to shout about”: it’s “one of the prettiest SUVs” on the market, outdoing any of its German rivals. The interior is “similarly elegant”, with an “intuitive” dash and “pleasing” materials – even if the infotainment isn’t top notch. It’s not the roomiest…

Amazon: Brussels cracks whip The French president, Emmanuel Macron, “could not hide his jubilation” last week when the European Commission slapped a s250m tax bill on Amazon, said Simon Duke in The Sunday Times. “Bravo to Europe,” he tweeted. And, in fact, “this is one issue over which it is hard not to be on the side of Brussels”, said Alex Brummer in the Daily Mail. Thanks to an illegal “sweetheart” deal with Luxembourg in the early 2000s, most of Amazon’s European profits went untaxed. The s250m being clawed back by the Commission’s competition tsar, Margrethe Vestager, is less than the s13bn she is seeking from Apple for a comparable offence in Ireland, but is nonetheless significant. Vestager’s ruling will “add to the discomfort” of the Commission’s president, Jean-Claude Juncker,…

Despite Trump, Trumponomics is working Matthew Lynn The Daily Telegraph As he approaches the first anniversary of his election victory, Donald Trump is shaping up to be one of the most “oafish” US presidents yet, says Matthew Lynn. “But just because he runs a deranged White House,” it doesn’t mean his economic policies aren’t working. On the contrary, “Trumponomics” seems to be thriving, and “the results are starting to be seen in faster growth”. Success is down to two key policies. A bonfire of federal regulations is already under way. And Trump has come up with a “bold and pro-business” plan to reform the tax system, which will slash the headline rate of US corporation tax to 15% (one of the lowest in the world) while giving US companies “less…