Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1174 i The Week

What happened A Home Office reshuffle Sajid Javid promised this week to “do right” by the people affected by the Windrush scandal as he started his new job as Home Secretary, replacing Amber Rudd. He said that as a second-generation immigrant himself, he was angry that people who had lawfully settled in the UK decades ago had been harassed by the authorities. Whereas Theresa May had talked – when she was home secretary – about creating a “hostile environment” for illegal immigrants, Javid said that he would seek only to ensure a “compliant environment”. The former phrase, he declared, was “unhelpful” and did not reflect British values. The son of a Pakistani bus driver who came to the UK in 1961 with £1 in his pocket, Javid is the first…

Norristown, Pennsylvania Cosby guilty: Bill Cosby was found guilty of three charges of aggravated indecent assault last Thursday, for drugging and molesting the former basketball player Andrea Constand at his Philadelphia mansion in 2004. An earlier trial, last June, had ended in a hung jury; this time, against a backdrop of the #MeToo movement, the verdict was unanimous. More than 60 women, five of whom also gave evidence, had accused Cosby (pictured) of sex crimes, dating back as far as the 1960s, but time limits on prosecuting such cases meant that Constand’s was the only one that could be brought to court. In court, the defence’s argument, that the relationship was consensual, was undermined by the revelation that Cosby had paid his victim $3.4m in 2006 to settle a civil…

Take a cold, hard look at a jobless future John Harris The Guardian For a glimpse of the future, look to Greater Manchester, where the retail firm Shop Direct runs three big “distribution and returns” centres. It won’t for much longer, says John Harris. It plans to shift the operation to a new, fully automated site. And that would entail the loss of 1,177 full-time posts and 815 roles performed by agency workers. However, it’s just a tiny fraction of the job losses set to follow. Jobs in wholesale and retail account for 15% of UK workers, and the trade is rapidly migrating from the high street to vast automated “fulfilment” centres like the new John Lewis “campus” near Milton Keynes. A “deserted hall of clacks and hums”, it already…

What illness are you most scared of? The one that terrifies me is sepsis, said Dr Mark Porter in The Times. It kills 40,000 people a year in the UK, yet remarkably few people know about it. Sepsis, or blood poisoning, occurs when the immune system responds to an infection by attacking the body’s own organs. Rapid diagnosis and treatment are vital – but sepsis is often missed, because people are focusing on the infection that triggered it. So, learn what to look out for. Think SEPSIS: Slurred speech or confusion; Extreme shivering or muscle aches; Passing no urine in a day; Severe breathlessness; “I feel like I might die”; Skin that’s mottled or discoloured, or a non-blanching rash. In children, add to that list rapid breathing and abnormally cold…

Shortly before a rented van ploughed into a crowd of pedestrians in Toronto last Monday, killing ten and wounding 16 others, “a short and cryptic message was posted on the Facebook account of Alek Minassian, the man accused of carrying out the attack”, said Jason Wilson in The Guardian. The post declared: “The Incel Rebellion has already begun! We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys! All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!” The post seemed to link Minassian with the “incel” movement, “which has made collective sexual frustration the basis for a deeply misogynistic online subculture”. Incel is short for “involuntarily celibate”. In incel terms, sexually successful men are known as “Chads”, and attractive women – the kind who pass over incel men in favour of the Chads –…

Asked to name the manager of the year, most people would opt for Pep Guardiola, said Gregor Robertson in The Times. But look beyond the Premier League and you’ll see there’s a good case for picking John Askey (right), the manager of Macclesfield Town. His extraordinary success with the National League side “rivals that of any manager in English football this season”. He has no more than £350,000 at his disposal – by far the lowest budget in the league, and a third of that of some other sides. And his best-paid player earns just £500 a week. Yet, in “a managerial feat akin to alchemy”, his team has finished top of the table and will be promoted to League Two. This for a team that had been tipped for…

What the public wants To The Guardian So another piece of political theatre comes to its denouement with Amber Rudd’s resignation. Conservative Home Office scandals are as predictable as pantomimes and come with their own time-honoured tropes, including cruel, heartless and usually racist Tories, and their selfless Labour opponents championing the underdog. Behind the scenes the reality is rather different. The underlying driver of the Home Office’s enduring difficulties is that the views of our political, media and judicial establishments on crime and immigration are fundamentally at odds with those of the majority of the British people. The public want firm but fair control of immigration. In the case of the Windrush scandal, we expect a speedy and fair resolution for people who have long integrated into British life, whether…

Theatre Absolute Hell Playwright: Rodney Ackland Director: Joe Hill-Gibbins Lyttelton, National Theatre, South Bank, London SE1 (020-7452 3000). Until 16 June Running time: 3hrs (including interval) ★★★ When first produced in 1952, under the title The Pink Room, Rodney Ackland’s play – about the denizens of an anything-goes Soho drinking club in the summer of 1945 – received such a critical mauling it more or less killed his career dead, said Ian Shuttleworth in the FT. (“A libel on the British people” was one verdict.) So Ackland all but quit writing until the late 1980s, when he rewrote the play as Absolute Hell and – just before he died – saw it greeted with acclaim. Now revived in a lavish production, the piece remains rather shocking – not so much…

Best books… Jacqueline Wilson Jacqueline Wilson, the bestselling children’s author, picks her six favourite books. She will be talking about her new book, Rose Rivers, on 28 May at the Hay Festival, Wales (24 May-3 June; www.hayfestival.com) Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading by Lucy Mangan, 2018 (Square Peg £14.99). I love books about books – and this is a treat. It’s an endearing account of Mangan’s favourite children’s books – and some of the so-called classics that didn’t work for her at all. It’s a gloriously biased compilation, like a heated but enjoyable discussion with a best friend bookworm. Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf, 2015 (Picador £7.99). I was browsing in Waterstones when a bookseller suggested I try this novel. I’m so glad she did. It’s the…

Live fire barbecue-cooking can produce stunning vegetable dishes as well as meat ones, says DJ BBQ. These sweet and tasty charred carrots are one of the easiest recipes to try when learning to barbecue “dirty” style – where the food is cooked on the hot charcoals to give it a lovely smoky char flavour. “Dirty” barbecued carrots with maple syrup and cumin Serves 3-4 as a side dish Barbecue set-up: dirty technique (see below for guidance) 12 large carrots, washed, not peeled 4 tbsps maple syrup 2 tbsps balsamic vinegar 1 tbsp cumin seeds sea salt and black pepper • For “dirty” barbecue cooking, you need a nice solid bed of charcoals packed together in a tight slab so they don’t burn away too fast. • Get a nice charcoal…

● For keen gardeners, moving house can be heartbreaking. You can take plants with you, but decide which ones before you sell so that you can give any buyers due notice. ● If a plant is simply too big to move, take cuttings or divisions with you. ● Plan ahead. October to March is the best time to dig up shrubs or trees, while spring and autumn are best for perennials. ● Rather than digging your plants up last minute and putting the root balls in bin liners, transfer them into plastic containers filled with compost well in advance. ● Before you pot them up, root around in the soil for weeds or pests’ larvae to avoid introducing them into your new garden. ● Try to tie labels to stems…

Ynyshir, Powys With views across rhododendrons towards Snowdonia National Park, this Victorian manor house – a restaurant with rooms – in mid-Wales has a feel of the Himalayas. But what really marks it out is the food, says Condé Nast Traveller – sensational Japanese-influenced multi-course (or kaiseki) cuisine from chef Gareth Ward, for which it has a Michelin star. After four years in charge of the kitchen, Ward, together with partner Amelia Eiríksson, took over the place in 2017, stripping back the decor. Many ingredients are grown or foraged on-site and used in dishes such as Welsh Wagyu beef slow-cooked for three days with shiitake ketchup and seaweed. Doubles from £195 per person, incl. dinner.01654-781209, www.ynyshir.co.uk.…

WPP: life after Sorrell “What a relief,” said Alistair Osborne in The Times. Sir Martin Sorrell is gone and, so far, WPP hasn’t “totally collapsed”. Far from it. When the ad and communications giant published its Q1 results on Monday, they were better than expected (underlying revenue was down just 0.1%, rather than the 1% predicted). Was that enough to explain the surge of 9% in the share price, to £12.48? Probably not. But there’s encouragingly little sign of clients jumping ship (other than perhaps Ford). Joint COOs Mark Read and Andrew Scott made positive noises about getting debt down. And investors clearly expect a lift from some nifty disposals. WPP is mulling the sale of stakes worth billions that it holds in a wide range of companies as part…

Shahid Khan The Pakistani-American car-parts billionaire bidding to buy Wembley Stadium for £600m was once described as the “face of the American dream” by Forbes – and justifiably so, says Joshua Chaffin in the FT. Shahid Khan, 67 – dubbed the Tache with the Cash when he bought Fulham FC in 2013 – arrived in the US from Pakistan aged 16. It was 1967 and Khan’s plane landed in a Chicago blizzard, the first time he’d seen snow. “I’ll never forget that feeling where the sole comes off your shoe, snow seeps in, your socks get full of that cold, wet moisture,” he says. He worked washing dishes, then studied engineering and ultimately built a multibilliondollar business in a “ferociously competitive” sector. English football take note: the Tache is tenacious,…

Controversy of the week A transatlantic romance During Emmanuel Macron’s trip to Washington last week, the world’s media was transfixed by the “effusive displays of manly affection” between the French and US presidents, said Jon Henley in The Guardian – the “hugs and kisses, grins and thumbs-ups”, the back-clapping and hand-clasping. But one episode in particular stood out. Staring intently at Macron’s immaculate suit, Donald Trump brushed something invisible off his guest’s collar. “I’ll get that little piece of dandruff off,” he said. “We have to make him perfect. He is perfect.” Taken aback, Macron “could do little but grin”. Paris’s Le Point called it a “humiliation”. Some saw it as a display of primate dominance. At any rate, “the paternalistic dusting down neatly symbolised the risk inherent in Macron’s…

A historic race to equality To marathon runners, Kathrine Switzer is royalty, says Jamie Doward in The Observer. Half a century ago, she blazed a trail for female athletes by becoming the first official female entrant in the all-male Boston Marathon. At that time, women were largely barred from races over 1,500 metres. But Switzer (below) had trained for marathons and was determined to take part. She was able to register by calling herself K.V. Switzer, and at the starting line, in April 1967, the organisers didn’t notice her. But four miles into the race, in an incident caught on camera, a furious official lunged at her and tried to drag her off. Aided by her boyfriend, who was running beside her, she got away and powered on. She finished…

The Brazilian photographer Marcio Cabral was stripped of his prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year title last week, after it was judged that the anteater in his striking shot of a glowing termite mound at night was in fact a stuffed specimen. Cabral denies the charge, but three Natural History Museum experts found that the animal was identical to a taxidermy anteater kept at the entrance to the Emas National Park in Brazil. A Chinese university has livened up its sports day by introducing a new event: the “500g grenade toss”. At the North University of China in Taiyuan, students had been previously reluctant to take part in the annual javelin and discus contests. But since they were replaced by the grenade toss, students have “rushed to sign up”, said…

A suicide-bombing ant A species of ant that blows itself up when threatened – coating its predators with yellow goo – has been discovered in the Borneo jungle. The existence of ants that explode themselves to save their colonies was known to science, but Colobopsis explodens, as the treetop-dwelling ant has been named, is the first new species in the group to be identified since 1935. Small workers of the species have glandular sacs in their abdomen, which are filled with a sticky liquid. When threatened, the ant will latch onto a predator, curl itself around it and flex its abdomen so hard it tears its own body apart, releasing the toxic substance to kill or hold off the enemy. Alice Laciny, of the Natural History Museum in Vienna, who…

It was the bitterest of battles, said Cristina Odone in The Sunday Telegraph. On one side, the medical establishment, convinced that there was nothing more that could be done for their young patient; ranged against them, the child’s devoted parents, who refused to give up on their son, and believed that if the NHS could not help him, they should be allowed to fly him to a hospital abroad. For months, the case generated sound and fury. Last week, however, the plight of Alfie Evans, a 23-month-old boy suffering from an unidentified, progressive neurodegenerative disorder, reached its “tragic conclusion”. On Monday, 16 months after Alfie was admitted to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool, suffering from seizures, the doctors’ advice – backed by the High Court – prevailed, and the…

“It takes some doing to sell a piece of London property for less than it cost you ten years ago”, given that house prices in the capital have roughly doubled over the past decade, said Richard Williams in The Guardian. But the Football Association (FA) may be about to pull off this trick. It’s on the brink of selling Wembley Stadium, which cost £757m to build and opened in 2007, for £600m. The buyer is the luxuriantly moustachioed Pakistani-American billionaire Shahid Khan. Nicknamed the Tache with the Cash, he wants to turn the venue into a UK base for his American football team. “It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the FA has gone collectively insane,” said the Daily Express. Wembley isn’t just any stadium; it’s the home of…

The exciting thing about this Formula One season is that it’s not the “two-horse race” it was expected to be, said Mark Hughes in The Sunday Times. True, Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel still lead the standings, with Hamilton four points ahead. But the Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo has already won one race, while Hamilton’s teammate Valtteri Bottas has finished second on two occasions. In fact, it was only in the fourth race of the season, last Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, that Hamilton chalked up his first win, said Jonathan McEvoy in the Daily Mail. And it was by some distance the luckiest victory of his career. With the end in sight, Bottas led the race, ahead of Vettel. But when Vettel “dived down the inside of…

To The Daily Telegraph Simon Stevens, the head of the NHS, proposes that older people should sell their homes to fund social care. Why? This is a generation that worked hard to get their own homes. We were not allowed to sit on our backsides and hold our hands out for benefits. At the labour exchange, you were offered three jobs and if one was not taken then your allowances were stopped. It’s always those who have worked who pay for those who haven’t. Mary Boyles, New Rossington, South Yorkshire To The Daily Telegraph It is difficult to disagree that house equity should be used to cover an owner’s social care costs. This not least because the bulk of that value is likely to have been a mostly speculative (or…

“To all intents and purposes, this is Audi’s first ever rear-wheel-drive car,” said Ollie Marriage in Top Gear. To find the last one, you would have to delve too far back for any meaningful comparison. And its rear-wheel series (RWS) label indicates it won’t be the only one. What Audi is trying to tell us is that it wants to be taken seriously as a maker of “purist” sports cars – that “the days of dull Audis are over”. It may lack rear-wheel experience, but it has clearly worked hard to create this better, simpler R8. Externally, there’s really nothing to set it apart from its quattro all-wheel-drive sibling, and even inside all you get is a little plaque above the glovebox telling you you’re in “1 of 999” limited…

Pacifica helps to manage anxiety or stress with daily goals and experiments, and guided meditation. The methods are based on mindfulness and cognitive behavioural therapy techniques (free; Android, iOS). Todoist is for those who feel anxious owing to a lack of control. It aims to put you in charge of your day by helping you prioritise and build good habits (free; Android, iOS). Headspace is a popular mindfulness app that offers meditation programmes tailored to issues such as lack of sleep. After a free basic course, it costs £9.99 a month – less if you pay annually (Android, iOS). SuperBetter – for those who find therapy too formal and daunting – turns daily tasks into a game focused on increasing mental resilience, complete with quests and power packs (free; Android,…

Brighton seafront stay The Old Ship Hotel offers a picturesque retreat from the busy town centre. Three nights costs from £192pp b&b (based on two sharing). 01904-717362, www.superbreak.com.Arrive 7 June. 4-star Valencia getaway Situated near the City of Arts and Sciences, the Eurostars Rey Don Jaime has 3 nights’ b&b from £290pp, including flights from Bristol. 020-3368 6221, www.broadwaytravel.com.Depart 22 June. “Mysterious Nepal” A 15-day adventure, including a four-day trek, staying in teahouses and lodges and city sightseeing. From £1,195pp, including London flights 020-3006 2722, www.lumle.com.Depart 6 September. Six nights in the Maldives Stay in a garden bungalow at the luxurious Kuredu Island Resort on an all-inclusive basis from £1,374pp, including Newcastle flights. 020-8705 0071, www.southalltravel.co.uk. Depart 9 July.…

TSB bosses were summoned by MPs to be grilled about the ongoing IT chaos affecting customer accounts. The bank warned that fraudsters were trying to exploit the chaos. Royal Bank of Scotland (which owns NatWest) announced it is closing 162 RBS-branded branches across England and Wales, with the loss of 792 jobs. Barclays’ Jes Staley was boosted by 99.45% of shareholders voting for him to remain a director; it came before an expected six-figure fine over Staley’s involvement in attempts to unmask a whistle-blower. UK consumer credit collapsed in March to just £300m (from £1.7bn the previous month): the latest sign of a rapidly slowing economy. Sterling fell to its lowest level against the dollar since January on the back of those figures, a drop in manufacturing output and low…

TSB shambles Fellow bank bosses have resisted sticking the knife into TSB and its contrite boss, Paul Pester, over its disastrous “migration” of 1.3 billion account records onto a new computer system, said Rosamund Urwin in The Sunday Times. They know the scale of the technical challenges involved and are grateful that the chaos afflicting TSB’s online banking, which continued this week, didn’t happen to them. It may yet. If, though, you wish to move accounts as a result of the shambles, it’s never been easier to do so, said James Connington in The Daily Telegraph. The Current Account Switch Service has largely automated the process. It covers 99% of UK current accounts, and lets you switch while keeping all direct debits and regular payments – incoming and outgoing –…

The week’s best buys AB Dynamics Shares This automotive testing specialist is trading strongly and set to benefit from the electric vehicle revolution. With a healthy net cash position, there’s headroom for product development, organic expansion and acquisitions. Buy. £10.19. Barclays The Times Barclays has suffered the impact of regulatory and accounting change, and shares have fallen. But its focus on investment banking is positive; returns could be “well on the up”. Buy. 210p. Boohoo The Times The online fashion retailer has 6.4 million active customers, and 3 million more from its PrettyLittleThing and Nasty Gal acquisitions. Margins are healthy and a new distribution centre will support further growth. Buy. 179.8p. Countryside Properties Investors Chronicle The housebuilder is shrinking exposure to the high-end market to focus on partnership agreements for…

Brussels Syrian aid summit: A joint EU-UN conference on aid for Syrian refugees last week raised only half the money thought to be needed for this year. Most of the £2.9bn pledged came from Germany, the EU and Britain; hopes that the Gulf states would make a substantial contribution were not realised, despite warnings from Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan that more money was urgently needed to prevent tensions between their citizens and the refugees reaching a critical level. Jordan’s foreign minister said that “a new army of Islamic State” would emerge within the next ten to 15 years if these problems were not addressed. Britain promised £250m over two years, some of it earmarked for training medics in trauma care, taking its total aid to the region in 2018 to…

The Bajau people – the world’s last sea nomads – are able to freedive to depths of 230 feet, holding their breath for up to 13 minutes, partly because they have abnormally large spleens, a new study has found. The spleen is like a biological scuba tank, storing oxygen-rich red blood cells that it can release into the bloodstream when oxygen levels are depleted. Mammals, such as seals, that spend long periods underwater have large spleens, and researchers theorised that the Bajau – who have traditionally lived on boats, hunting for fish in the seas around the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia – may be similarly adapted. To test this, a team used ultrasound to measure the spleen sizes of 59 Bajau people and 34 people from the Saluan population, who…

Dominic Raab’s diary secretary has been suspended after being caught selling herself on a “sugar daddy” website and discussing her boss with an undercover tabloid journalist. The 20-year-old civil servant told a reporter for The Mirror – who was posing as a client – that the Housing Minister is “uptight”, “dismissive” of women, “thinks he is PM”, and is “weird” because he asks for the same lunch every day: a Pret a Manger baguette, smoothie and fruit pot. “It’s the Dom Raab Special,” she said. Boy George has revealed that he was once embroiled in an international art theft, says The Mail on Sunday. In 1982, he bought a large religious icon from an art dealer and put it up in his sitting room. A few years later, he did…

“When you slip on a banana peel, people laugh at you. But when you tell people you slipped on a banana peel, it’s your laugh.” Nora Ephron, quoted in the Daily Mail “Not everything that can be counted counts; not everything that counts can be counted.” Quote attributed to Albert Einstein in The Observer “Loyalty is a fine quality, but in excess it fills political graveyards.” Neil Kinnock, quoted in Forbes “Freud is the father of psychoanalysis. It has no mother.” Germaine Greer, quoted on The Browser “Economic forecasting is there to make weather forecasting look good.” Economist Ruth Lea, quoted in The Times “If you don’t like your job, you don’t strike! You just go in every day, and do it really half-assed. That’s the American way.” The Simpsons’…

In years to come, last Sunday will be remembered as the moment women’s club rugby took a “great leap forward”, said Robert Kitson in The Guardian. In the thrilling final of the inaugural Premier 15s season, Saracens beat Harlequins 24-20. It was a heart-in-mouth finish: at one point, Harlequins had been 17-3 down, yet in a finale “as taut as any neutral could wish to experience”, it seemed as if they might just manage to snatch victory. For years, women’s rugby has been dominated by the seven-a-side game, said Kate Rowan in The Daily Telegraph. There were some 15-a-side clubs, but they received little attention. Now, however, the format is receiving a boost from the Rugby Football Union (RFU), English rugby’s governing body, which is spending £2.4m on women’s club…

Exhibition of the week Rodin and the art of ancient Greece British Museum, London WC1 (020-7323 8181, www.britishmuseum.org ). Until 29 July In 1881, Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) visited the British Museum and made a discovery that would change his life, said Rachel Campbell-Johnston in The Times. For the first time, “the most famous sculptor of a dawning modernist era” came face to face with the Parthenon Marbles – a set of sculptures that spoke to him with “a fierce and direct emotional force”. The encounter would bring about a radical transformation in his own art, introducing a vitality that came to characterise his best work. Now, more than a century on from Rodin’s first visit, the British Museum is staging an exhibition that explores the French sculptor’s…

La Cave Lower Ground Floor, 29 High Street, Falmouth, Cornwall (01326-617510) This newish place on an “ope” – or alley – off Falmouth’s old high street is a “full-blown specimen of the Retro-Romantic French Bistro”, says Keith Miller in The Daily Telegraph. Lit by paraffin lamps, it has low, vaulted ceilings, a tinkling piano and a menu that offers “Retro Reassurance rather than Reckless Romanticism”. Still, the food is “cooked with precision, confidence and minimal fuss, and served with warmth and charm”. A soufflé deux fois was gooey but light, and came with a keen-edged apple and endive salad. A “bouillabaisse Cornique” was made with cockles, mussels, samphire and white fish. I did wonder if it might have been more exciting with red mullet or gurnard, but the principle…

Microsoft Sculpt keyboard The Sculpt has a split-keyboard design, with the keys on each half shaped to the natural curve of yourr fingertips. It also tilts away from you for wrist support (www.pcworldbusiness.co.uk; £78). Anker 2.4G Wireless Vertical Mouse This mouse has a “handshake” grip to make your hand position as natural as possible. It has a thumb rest and grip, and five easy-access buttons (www.amazon.co.uk; £13). Herman Miller Sayl Chair Inspired by the plans for suspension bridges and used by the British School of Osteopathy, the Sayl has a frameless back and no hard edges (www.designofficesolutions.com; £396). Kensington SoleMate Footrest Made from memory foam, the SoleMate should relax your feet and improve your posture. Its height and angle can be adjusted with a pedal (www.amazon.co.uk; £44). Lavolta Folding Laptop…

Troubled banking heir who married Britain’s “shoe queen” Matthew Mellon 1964-2018 The scion of two American banking dynasties, Matthew Mellon, who has died aged 54, was a Manhattan socialite and entrepreneur, best known in this country for his turbulent marriage to Tamara Mellon, the Jimmy Choo “shoe queen”. They were regarded as a golden couple in London, said The Times, but they had met at Narcotics Anonymous, and Tamara acknowledged that her “utterly beautiful, utterly goofy” husband was also “damaged goods”, with a serious drug problem. “I was in the office every day, working hard, and Matthew had nothing but free time on his hands – and I’d come home and find him freebasing cocaine in the kitchen,” she said. Their divorce was acrimonious and Mellon ended up in court…

“We’re in the money, the sky is sunny.” That’s what Sainsbury’s boss Mike Coupe quietly sang to himself as he waited for a TV interview about his plan to merge the UK’s second biggest grocer with the third-biggest, Asda. The deal would give the new company a 32% share of the food market, pipping Tesco to the top slot, said Juliet Samuel in The Daily Telegraph. Sainsbury’s shareholders were certainly in the money when the news broke, with shares leaping 14.5%. Clearly the market thinks a) that the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will allow the mega-merger through without forcing too many store disposals; and b) that the synergies will be better than Sainsbury’s is letting on. (It is promising to keep both brands, no store closures and lower prices…

Leaving the customs union is bonkers Paul Johnson The Times The debate around whether the UK should leave the customs union is remarkably ill informed, says Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The ability to do trade deals and cut tariffs may appear “terribly enticing”. But to anyone who knows even a “minuscule” amount about “our economy, about trade, and about what we actually spend our money on”, it’s “obvious” that leaving the customs union would be an act of self-harm. Global tariffs these days are mostly low already. And where they’re high – 20% on food, for instance – cutting them to zero wouldn’t lead to equivalent savings for UK customers, since the retail prices we pay also incorporate transport costs, retailers’ profits, advertising and…