Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1228 i The Week

What happened May’s final gamble As the Tories braced themselves for a predicted trouncing in the European elections, Theresa May urged MPs to back her “bold new” Brexit deal. They had “one last chance” to deliver Brexit, she said, by backing the withdrawal agreement bill – which would enshrine her thrice-defeated deal into UK law – when it comes before Parliament in early June. May said if MPs supported the deal they would get a vote on whether to hold another referendum, as well as the chance to push for a full customs union with the EU until the next election. She also offered concessions to Labour on workers’ rights and the environment, and sought to placate Brexiters with further assurances about the backstop. But her last-ditch effort to win…

The Government has proposed that military personnel should be effectively granted immunity from prosecution for alleged crimes committed during the course of duty, once ten years have elapsed. Under the plan unveiled by the new Defence Secretary, Penny Mordaunt, there would be a “statutory presumption” against prosecution, except in cases where new and compelling evidence had come to light. The amnesty would cover the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but not Northern Ireland. The proposal was condemned by human rights groups, and Mordaunt later sparked further controversy by saying she would like the exemption to be extended to cover the period of the Troubles.…

Washington DC Trump lawyer refuses to testify: Donald Trump’s former legal adviser, Donald McGahn, has defied a subpoena to appear before Congress to testify about his role in the controversial Mueller investigation. McGahn, who served as White House counsel from January 2017 to October 2018, had been surprisingly forthcoming in his testimony to special counsel Robert Mueller, whose inquiry examined the possibility that Trump had conspired with Moscow to sway the 2016 election. Mueller’s report shows McGahn often blocked Trump’s attempts to impede the inquiry: he refused, for example, to order the deputy attorney general to fire Mueller, as Trump instructed. But this week, McGahn acceded to Trump’s demand that he skip the hearing. Jerry Nadler, the chair of the Democrat-led House judiciary committee, has vowed to take legal action.…

1 The Boss by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, performed by Diana Ross 2 Life on Mars?, written and performed by David Bowie 3 The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly) by Don Bryant, Melissa Elliott, Bernard “Bernie” Miller, Timothy Mosley and Ann Peebles, performed by Missy Elliott 4 Fade to Grey by Billy Currie, Chris Payne and Midge Ure, performed by Visage 5 Madame Butterfly, written by Stephen Hague, Malcolm McLaren and Walter Turbitt, performed by Malcolm McLaren, based on Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly 6 Prelude and Rooftop by Bernard Herrmann, featured in Vertigo 7 All is Full of Love, written and performed by Björk 8* La Vie en rose by Édith Piaf, Louiguy and Marguerite Monnot, performed by Grace Jones Book: Polaroids by Andy Warhol Luxury: eye palette and lipsticks…

The five-day working week has been the norm in the West for less than a century. Sunday was cemented as a holy day by the Reformation, and during the early Industrial Revolution the working week generally meant six working days, of ten hours or more. The eight-hour day was first proposed during the early 19th century by the Welsh socialist Robert Owen, with the slogan: “Eight hours’ labour, eight hours’ recreation, eight hours’ rest.” As the century proceeded, some British factory owners let workers out at midday on Saturday, on the condition they turned up sober on Monday: the term “weekend” was first noted in 1879. A shorter working week was a major demand of trade unions during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The eight-hour day and the…

San Francisco clamps down on Big Brother Shirin Ghaffary Vox “Big Brother may be watching you,” says Shirin Ghaffary, “but not in San Francisco.” Last week the city became the first in the US to ban the use of facial recognition technology by the police, transport authorities and other local agencies. The city’s board of supervisors feels the ban is necessary to check a drift towards a surveillance state. It’s entirely right to be concerned. The Orwellian possibilities of this technology are all too evident in China, where it’s being used to keep tabs on the Uighur Muslim ethnic minority – a practice dubbed “automated racism”. But they’re also evident in the US, where police departments are increasingly adopting the same technology to help them identify and arrest suspects. As…

The British get drunk more often than the people of any other nation. That is one striking finding of a new Global Drug Survey – which asked adults in 36 countries about their use of intoxicating substances. Where drinking to excess is concerned, English-speaking countries were the worst offenders: in Britain, people admitted to getting drunk last year 51 times on average; in the US, 50 times; in Canada, 48; and in Australia, 47; all way above the overall average of 33. Too many British people regard getting drunk as the point of a night out, said the survey’s founder, addiction psychiatrist Dr Adam Winstock. In terms of cocaine use, people in England were most likely to have tried it: 74% said they had at least once, compared with 43%…

Boris Johnson: a second bite of the apple It’s a measure of the “demented state” of the Tory party, said Polly Toynbee in The Guardian, that so many of its MPs are jostling to take over from Theresa May. You’d have thought the prospect of having to lead this dysfunctional government would put people off, but candidates are queuing up. If the bookies are to be believed, said Matthew Norman in The Independent, “this race is over before it has officially begun”. Polls indicate that Boris Johnson would win any run-off vote among Tory members “by a landslide”. He would, of course, first need to become one of the final two candidates chosen by Tory MPs, who are less enamoured of him. But with Johnson’s media backers warning that…

After two years in the wilderness, Johanna Konta is “back as a world-class performer”, said Nick Pitt in The Sunday Times. She may not have won the Italian Open – she lost the final, on Sunday, to Karolína Plíšková. But just getting that far was a remarkable achievement. No British woman had reached the final since 1971. Until now, Konta was something of a “clay-court dunce”, having failed to win a single proper match at the French Open. Yet she “carved her way through the draw”, defeating Venus Williams and Sloane Stephens in the same day and then dispatching Kiki Bertens – “the form player of the season on clay” – in the semi-finals. It was enough to lift her 16 places in the world rankings, to No. 26, ensuring…

Book of the week The Professor and the Parson by Adam Sisman Profile 240pp £12.99 The Week Bookshop £10.99 In March 1983, a clergyman named Dr Robert Peters appeared – in a dog collar – on Mastermind. He was introduced as the director of religious studies at Lancaster University, and his special subject was the former archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple. There were just two problems, said Rosamund Irwin in The Sunday Times: he wasn’t connected to Lancaster University and he wasn’t an actual clergyman, having “been defrocked and imprisoned for bigamy”. Peters was, in fact, a serial con man who moved through life spinning elaborate lies about himself while leaving a “trail of unpaid bills” and “maltreated ex-fiancées and ex-wives”. His deceptions weren’t committed in the pursuit of wealth,…

Best books… David McKee The children’s writer who created Elmer and Mr Benn picks his favourite books. The 30th anniversary edition of Elmer is out now (Andersen Press) and there are events across the UK to mark Elmer Day on 25 May (elmer.co.uk) The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne, 1928 (Egmont £14.99). This is the perfect feel-good book. An escape into a gentle world full of wisdom, love and innocence. It was first read to me at school in about 1943 and it’s been my favourite ever since. These days, my preferred version is the CD with Alan Bennett reading it. Pure magic for all ages. Treasure Island by R.L. Stevenson, 1883 (Puffin £6.99). The ultimate adventure, with characters so rich you can smell them. We were asked…

I admit that oenophiles will never love wine in cans, says Jane MacQuitty in The Times. But cans are handy, light, recyclable, easy to chill and 25cl is “the perfect (large) glass-pour” for a picnic, say. And with supermarkets now getting in on the act, canned wine is set to be “the drink of the summer”. Nice Sauvignon Blanc (£2.80, 25cl; Sainsbury’s) is a zesty, crisp, elderflower-redolent white. Or Barefoot Pinot Grigio (£2.50, 25cl; Tesco) makes a sweet, simple, fruity quaff for those who hate bone-dry wines. Canned rosé rarely thrills, but the smoky Maris Organic Rosé (£3.49, 25cl; Waitrose) works nicely. Or Nice’s Pale Rosé (£2.80, 25cl; Sainsbury’s), a dry pink from the Montpellier area, is an “easy-slurping – yet punchy – floral, shout”. Maris Organic Shiraz (£3.49, 25cl;…

The Granary Lodge Castle of Mey, Scotland Not everyone enjoyed staying at the Queen Mother’s beloved retreat near John O’Groats. The Castle of Mey was so draughty, some called it “the fridge”; Princess Margaret thought it “horrible”, says Paul Bracchi in the Daily Mail. Now the public can decide for themselves with the launch by Prince Charles of a ten-bedroom guest house in the granary (dubbed “Heir b&b”) that has been designed to feel like part of the castle. It has peat fires, chintz furnishings and bedrooms draped in “coroneted canopies”. In the dining room, there are six grandfather clocks and an entire cabinet full of Staffordshire dog figurines. Doubles from £160 a night. castleofmey.org.uk.…

Outrageous comedian with a taste for trouble Freddie Starr 1943-2019 Whether they loved his brand of comedy, or hated it, everyone knew two things about Freddie Starr, said The Times: that “Freddie Starr ate my hamster”, and that, in fact, he hadn’t. The attention-grabbing headline was splashed across the front page of The Sun in 1986. The story was that Starr had arrived late after a gig, and asked a friend to make him supper. When she refused, he put her pet hamster between two pieces of bread and ate it. He later admitted it had been concocted by his publicist Max Clifford; yet it stuck. Over the years, he claimed he was asked if it was true so often he’d started charging journalists £1 just to hear him say…

The trouble brewing at British Steel became an existential crisis this week, said The Times. The UK’s second largest steelmaker entered insolvency on Wednesday, after failing to secure an emergency £30m state loan. Around 5,000 jobs are directly at risk in the UK, including those at the steelworks in Scunthorpe, with a further 20,000 jobs in the supply chain in jeopardy. There had been hopes that the company, which is controlled by the private equity group Greybull Capital, would reach an eleventh-hour agreement with ministers – there were even rumours of possible nationalisation. But control of the company will pass to the official receiver, and EY has been lined up to assist with the liquidation. The Business Secretary, Greg Clark, had to decide “whether to nationalise British Steel, let it…

Controversy of the week Defining Islamophobia The minute I divulge my name, I know I’m at a disadvantage, said Basit Mahmood in Metro. I’m less likely to be accepted for a flat rental, less likely to be called for a job interview, more likely to be searched at an airport. “This is my lived experience of Islamophobia”, and this is why I was strongly in favour of the “working definition” of Islamophobia proposed by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims (APPG), chaired by Anna Soubry MP. Islamophobia, the definition says, “is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness”. Precisely so. Muslims are routinely “othered” on the basis of “how they dress, their names and their perceived cultural values”. In…

In a referendum on Britain’s membership of the Eurovision Song Contest, 52% of Britons would vote Leave and 48% Remain (with the “don’t knows” removed). YouGov/The Times Most Europeans believe the EU could collapse in the next 20 years, though support for it remains very high. Only in three of the 14 countries polled – Sweden, Spain and Denmark – do fewer than 50% of people think there is a “realistic possibility” of a collapse by 2040. YouGov/The Guardian 39% of Tory party members say Boris Johnson is their first choice to replace Theresa May. Next in line are Dominic Raab, on 13%, and Michael Gove and Sajid Javid, both on 9%. YouGov/The Times…

Tripoli Rebels cut off water: More than 500 people have been killed in fighting on the outskirts of Tripoli in the past six weeks – violence that the UN envoy to Libya has warned is “just the start of a long and bloody civil war on the southern shores of the Mediterranean” that could destabilise the entire region. Ghassan Salamé was speaking after gunmen stormed a water-distribution plant outside the city, and ordered the pipes supplying the capital to be turned off, leaving the city’s two million residents without water for two days. The gunmen are believed to have been supporters of General Khalifa Haftar – whose forces control large swathes of eastern Libya, and who last month launched an offensive to take over the capital, where the internationally recognised…

“Housing Secretary James Brokenshire can keep his four ovens. You have to clean them. (Or not, in my case.) What excited me more were his two dishwashers. My kitchen’s design flaw is that the dishwasher is a traipse across the room from the crockery shelves. But two dishwashers would mean never having to unload. Although it would require strict kitchen discipline, perhaps removable fridge magnets saying CLEAN and DIRTY, which you swap as required. And a tough punishment regime for those who mis-load.” Janice Turner in The Times…

A comedian for president? You must be joking Jenny Lee Financial Times Jesters and satirists have always been valued for speaking truth to power, says Jenny Lee. But now they’re winning office themselves. When comedian Beppe Grillo joked his way into Italian politics a decade ago, he seemed a one-off. Turns out, he was a “harbinger of things to come”. Since then, Tiririca – an actual clown – has become a congressman in Brazil (“It can’t get any worse”, was his campaign slogan); the comic actor Jimmy Morales is president of Guatemala; and comedian Volodymyr Zelensky, who played a president in a TV comedy, has just become Ukraine’s president. What’s going on? The rise of the comedian-politician is partly due to the fall – in the online era – of…

Endlessly recyclable plastic Many plastics can be recycled – but because their quality degrades during that process, even the stuff that makes it as far as a recycling plant (which is a small fraction of the total) can only be reused once or twice in progressively inferior products before ending up in landfill or incinerators. Now, though, scientists in the US say they’ve found the “recycling holy grail”: a plastic that can be recycled over and over again, with no loss of quality. Like all plastics, polydiketoenamine (PDK) is composed of polymers: stringy molecules made up of repeating, carbon-containing compounds called monomers. For a plastic to be recycled, it must be broken down into its component monomers. But normally, there are problems: the bonds are too strong to separate the…

“The problem with doing nothing is not knowing when you are finished.” American author Nelson DeMille, quoted in the I newspaper “The greatest happiness is to transform one’s feelings into action.” Madame de Staël, quoted in The Times “I used to be bored by politics. Those were the days.” Daniel in the BBC’s Years and Years, quoted in The Guardian “How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there’s no help in the truth.” Sophocles, quoted on The Browser “Nothing gives a fearful man more courage than another’s fear.” Umberto Eco, quoted in The Independent “To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” Poet Mary Oliver, quoted in The Atlantic “Virtue by calculation is the virtue of vice.” Essayist Joseph Joubert, quoted in Forbes “Even I don’t…

School isn’t just exams To The Guardian Ofsted chief Amanda Spielman may be warning the wrong people about exam anxiety. My ten-year-old is not worried because I have told him Sats are irrelevant to his life. I did ask him to do his best in sympathy with the people who are sweating it out this week: his excellent teachers, whose lives – and the rating of the school – depend on how he does at rote nonsense. Meanwhile, the true quality of his education is illustrated by the year six leavers’ scrapbook year after year, which always tells the same story: the stellar moments each child remembers are extracurricular experiences such as acting in plays, spending a week together on Exmoor or learning about Mary Anning in Lyme Regis. We…

John Walker at Messums Wiltshire Nearly fifty years ago, the painter John Walker (b.1939) was a star of British art, representing the UK at the Venice Biennale and enjoying retrospectives at major institutional galleries, including both the Tate and the Hayward. Yet as with so many artists of that era, his legacy was eclipsed by the shock tactics of the 1990s YBA generation – and though he remains highly respected in the US, it has been a while since his compatriots paid much attention to his work. This show provides an opportunity for us to see what we’ve been missing. It brings together a selection of images created over the past 15 years – from tiny, intricate seascapes painted on the back of bingo cards to large abstract paintings that…

Freddie’s excited about his Hidden Lower Loxley tour, but doesn’t get a single booking. Clarrie has a birthday tea at Lower Loxley. She sidesteps Elizabeth’s offer of a free tour with Freddie. She doesn’t want George and Keira near him. Jazzer’s cross that Ed’s cancelled their shearing job because he’s working for Tim. Jazzer wants to work with Tim too, but Ed says no. Nic’s mum, Bev, collects Mia’s things from Will and breaks it to him that Mia’s not coming home. Bev warns Will that if Poppy starts to suffer, she’ll be back. Jim gets Jazzer £4,000 in severance pay from Tom. Jazzer hands in his notice at the tea room. Elizabeth visits Will and they bond over their shared grief. She gives Will some leaflets, but he tears…

Coriander, garlic and chilli potato wedges This killer combination of crispy fried potatoes in a garlicky coriander- and chilli-spiked dressing is a Lebanese classic, says John Gregory-Smith Serves 4 as part of a meze 450g baking potatoes, skin on, cut into wedges 4 tbsps olive oil ¼ tsp allspice 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped a handful of finely chopped coriander leaves and stalks 1 red chilli, finely chopped sea salt • Preheat the oven to 220°C. Put the potatoes into a bowl, and add 2 tbsps of the olive oil, the allspice and a good pinch of salt. Toss together and tip onto a roasting tray. Roast for 35-40 minutes until gloriously golden and tender. • Heat the remaining oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Add…

New cars: what the critics say Autocar Toyota dropped its Camry in the UK 15 years ago, as European buyers fell out of love with large, petrol-powered saloons. But with the demise of diesel, the carmaker is seizing the opportunity to relaunch the car here as a hybrid-only model. While it is well-equipped and should be cheap to run, this is still a car “designed to cruise rather than excite” – it simply lacks the “outright polish” of European rivals. The Daily Telegraph The car is a bit of a “masterclass in unremarkableness”. Bar the odd bit of buzzing, and some “spectacularly retro materials” inside, the car feels quite well made and is very roomy. The graphics and interface on the central screen, though, are disappointing, and there’s limited smartphone…

Slovenia’s wild-flower meadows High up in Slovenia’s Julian Alps are “acres of flower-strewn meadows”, where grasses and wild flowers proliferate in spring “as if in a land the world forgot”, says Allan Jenkins in The Guardian. On a wild-flower hunt in an abandoned ski resort, delicate orchids pop up everywhere amid the rusty towers – in shades of pink and white, in clusters or scattered through the fields, visited by a variety of “astonishing butterflies”. There are bright blue gentians, foxgloves and cascading clematis. “It is near heaven here.” Elsewhere in these mountains you’ll find waterfalls reminiscent of scenes described by Tolkien, and glacial lakes, wild boars, wolves and brown bears. Yet ticking off orchid varieties is in itself a “curiously satisfying” pastime – like a hippy version of trainspotting.…

Thomas Cook: crisis averted? Great news for any City analysts fearing their efforts go unnoticed. All it took was a negative report from a Citigroup scribbler last week to ignite fears that Britain’s oldest travel operator, Thomas Cook, was on a one-way ticket up the Swanee. Shares in the group, which shocked investors with a massive £1.5bn loss and news of a £300m emergency loan, plunged 40% on Friday after Citi branded the stock “worthless”, noted Oliver Gill in The Sunday Telegraph. Thomas Cook insiders, paddling frantically, said fears of a collapse “were overplayed” – the great hope is that selling the group’s airline will right the ship. But short-sellers have upped the pressure by buying Thomas Cook’s bank debt and distressed bonds – hoping to benefit from a…

Why the dollar still reigns supreme Gillian Tett Financial Times Last week, “a frisson passed through markets when it emerged that China has been selling US government bonds”, says Gillian Tett. The sales weren’t huge (a mere $20.5bn in March), but “in the current protectionist climate” they left investors pondering two “unnerving” questions. Could the ongoing trade war turn into a capital and currency war? And might that undermine the dominance of the US dollar? The answer to the first is, “one hopes not”. And to the second, “almost certainly no”. Every dominant currency fades eventually. But there are still “powerful arguments” for why dollar supremacy is “sticky”. Its status as the global currency for trade invoices and debt issuance creates “an overwhelming dollar tilt that is difficult to shift”,…

Is it worth investing in football clubs, asks Sam Meadows in The Daily Telegraph. Here are some key pointers: The choice has shrunk In the late 1990s, there was a boom in football clubs choosing to list – at one point, there were about 20 clubs on the UK stock market. Following Arsenal’s retreat last summer, there are now only two: Manchester United and Celtic. Other listed clubs overseas include Juventus, Ajax, Lyon and Roma. Football clubs are not for the fainthearted “They were never for widows and orphans,” says Richard Hunter of Interactive Investor. “The vast majority” are quite simply “hostage to fortunes on the pitch”. When Tottenham Hotspur recently defeated Ajax in the Champions League, the Dutch team’s loss led to a 17% fall in its share price.…

An Icelandic canyon where Justin Bieber filmed a music video has been so inundated with visitors as a result, it has had to be closed off. Fjaðrárgljúfur, where the singer shot the video for his 2015 single I’ll Show You, has received a million tourists since the song’s release. The local ranger Hanna Johannsdottir says tourists are so desperate to get to the site, they try to bribe her to let them in. One foreign visitor even offered a free trip to Dubai. Liposuction procedures in the UK rose by 12% between 2017 and 2018 – a trend that has been linked to “athleisure” wear. Rajiv Grover of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons said the fashion for tight, gym-style clothes was making people more body-conscious.…

Brussels Ex-king fined: King Albert II of Belgium has been ordered to pay s5,000 for every day he refuses to take a paternity test to establish whether he fathered a child out of wedlock. Delphine Boël, a 51-year-old artist, has been trying to prove that Albert is her biological father since his abdication on health grounds in 2013. She claims he and her mother had an affair lasting nearly two decades, and tests have shown that her mother’s husband isn’t her father. Albert has been ordered by a court to take a DNA test, but has so far refused to do so. If his paternity in the case were to be established, Boël could be entitled to inherit part of his estate. Paris Sarkozy loses appeal: Nicolas Sarkozy now looks…

Majors and Fawcett’s split In his TV heyday, Lee Majors was so busy filming, he didn’t have time for a social life, says Jim White in The Mail on Sunday. Indeed, when – in 1968 – he was told that it would be a good idea for him to be seen with a date at a premiere, he had to ask his publicist for help. “He showed me a bunch of pictures [of his clients] and told me to pick the best-looking girl – so I did.” She turned out to be an aspiring actress called Farrah Fawcett, who was still at college. “First moment, we were together. She never went back to finish her senior year.” By the 1970s, owing to his role in The Six Million Dollar Man,…

Residents of the Yorkshire town of Maltby were baffled to find that a gleaming new bus shelter had been erected on a street that no buses go down. The council had spent £6,000 replacing a rusty pole that was a relic of a twice-a-day service that had been cancelled two months earlier. Officials are hoping to be able to relocate the shelter to a road where there are buses. A British tourist who’d booked an Airbnb in Amsterdam turned up to find that his £100-a-night “clean home with a private bathroom” was a roadside shipping container. Located near Amstel station, it had three mattresses on the floor and a Portaloo. Ben Speller said he had driven past the container three times in a taxi while looking for his lodging, before…

GERMANY How Bayer must regret its toxic purchase Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich) After last week’s “spectacular” judgment against Monsanto, the German multinational Bayer must be wondering whatever possessed it to buy up the disgraced agrochemical company, says Elisabeth Dostert. Monsanto’s weedkiller Roundup has long been suspected of having lethal effects on humans: now a Californian jury has awarded $2bn in damages to a couple who’d both developed cancer after using it in their garden for 30 years. That’s only the start – another 13,400 claims are in the pipeline. The trial also exposed how Monsanto compiled secret lists of politicians, scientists and journalists (noting down minute personal details), and developed “personalised strategies” to persuade critics of its genetic engineering products to change their minds. Evidently Bayer’s bosses shelled out $63bn for…

Victoria Beckham has revealed her latest beauty secret: water that has been “charged with the energies of the Moon”, by being bottled at source, during a full moon. According to its maker, this changes its “biophysical qualities”, so that it delivers “61 positive frequencies”. Beckham posted a picture of herself enjoying the water during a stay at the Lanserhof Tegernsee spa hotel in Germany. Katy Perry fans who admired the hamburger dress she wore to the Met Ball can emulate her, by buying a pair of burger sneakers from her new collection. Many of the shoes are based on food, but their inspiration is bigger than that, she explained in an interview. “The universe is vast. It’s really about storytelling. You can pull inspiration from many places. You can do…

Cricket: can England win the World Cup? This is just getting silly now, said Jonathan Liew in The Independent. In their five one-day internationals (ODIs) against Pakistan over the past three weeks, the England cricket team “continued to warp and blur the boundaries of their own expectations”. After rain brought the first match to an end, they won all four remaining matches, scoring at least 340 runs each time – the first time a team has done so in four successive ODIs. The third ODI, in particular, was staggering: England conceded 358 runs, only to “polish off the fifth-highest run chase in ODI history with the same casual, measured insouciance with which you or I might make a sandwich”. England could “scarcely have wished for a better build-up” to the…

To The Daily Telegraph Brexit is blamed for splitting the country in two. Other than by people making mischief, I don’t understand why this creates a problem. In a healthy suffrage the nation is always divided, but what’s bad about division? Isn’t that what the two sides of Parliament are about? (It even has a division bell.) A governing party and an effective opposition each represent a large chunk of the electorate. Isn’t our democracy protected and enhanced by an adversarial environment? The current threat to our democracy is that Parliament has forgotten the rules – especially that, after a vote, the majority decision is implemented. This throws into question whether we have even had an adversarial Parliament for some time, or whether it has just been a carefully orchestrated…

Whether it’s “kitschy” portraits of his porn actress ex-wife or a sculpture of a giant lump of Play-Doh, Jeff Koons’ work divides opinion like that of no other contemporary artist, says Tom Leonard in the Daily Mail. But last week the “world’s most expensive balloon clown”, as he’s been dubbed, notched up another victory over his detractors. At Christie’s in New York, one of four versions of Rabbit – his stainless-steel sculpture inspired by a child’s inflatable toy – sold for $91.1m, making it officially the world’s most expensive work by a living artist. The astronomical price tag for the three-foot-high 1986 sculpture surpassed the $90.3m paid last November for David Hockney’s Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) – a record that had itself been set at Koons’…

Programmes Hannibal Mads Mikkelsen is the psychopathic Hannibal Lecter, and Hugh Dancy the FBI profiler working with him, in this stylish, gory and rather serious 13-part adaptation of Thomas Harris’s thriller. Sat 25 May, 5USA 22:00 (60mins). Last Breath Repeat of the riveting docudrama about an oil company diver who became trapped at the bottom of the North Sea. Mon 27 May, BBC4 21:00 (90mins). The Blitz: Britain on Fire Using eyewitness accounts, Michael Buerk tells the story of a week in May 1941 when Britain was subjected to an unprecedented aerial bombardment. Mon 27-Wed 29 May, C5 21:00 (60mins). The Final Mission: Foxy’s War Jason Fox, a former elite Special Forces soldier, returns to Afghanistan. After multiple tours of duty, he suffered acutely from PTSD. Here he meets old…

The Spärrows Unit 3, Mirabel Street, Manchester (07711-300116) This “glorious carb-fest” of a restaurant takes its name from the English for spätzle, those “endlessly comforting rugged noodles” found across Bavaria, Austria and a few points east, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. In fact, the cosy Spärrows is a joyous purveyor of all kinds of dough-based foods, including “dumplings many and various”. If you think gluten is the enemy or disapprove of cheese, don’t come here. “The rest of you, get in” – though if you are coming for lunch, you might want to skip breakfast. For £6 you can get a generous plateful of spätzle with long-braised onions under “armed assault from gruyère and emmental”. Pierogi come “heartily stuffed” with minced wild mushrooms and crisp, bright sauerkraut. I am…

B&b and nature in Austria 4 nights at Hotel Harfenwirt Guesthouses, in the quiet resort of Niederau in the unspoilt Wildschönau Valley, from £514pp. Manchester flights incl. 01483-676800, inghams.co.uk. Depart 6 July. French Riviera trip for 2 Stay 5 nights half-board in an apartment with sea views, at the Holiday Village Cap Esterel in St. Raphael. From £214pp, flights excl. 0870-026 7145, pierreetvacances.com. Depart 21 June. All-inclusive boutique stay Overlooking one of Mauritius’ most beautiful beaches, 6 nights at the Emeraude Beach Attitude hotel cost from £1,588pp, Edinburgh flights incl. 0344-739 4541, virgin holidays.co.uk. Depart 15 July. 7 nights in Hong Kong Stay at the 4.5-star Harbour Grand Hong Kong (room-only), with the Coliseum near by, from £1,046pp. Bristol flights incl. 0800-044 8323, awayholidays.co.uk. Depart 27 June.…

There was unease in global markets as concerns about the US-China trade dispute morphed into fears about a tech cold war. The uncertain mood led investors to seek the safety of bonds: yields on ten-year US Treasuries had the biggest weekly drop since March. In Britain, the pound suffered its worse week in a year after cross-party Brexit talks failed, sinking to below $1.26. Investors, fearing another cliff edge, piled into sovereign debt across Europe. Shares in the US chipmaker Qualcomm tumbled 5% after the company said it would cut off supply to Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, following orders from the Trump administration. Intel followed suit. The UK chip designer ARM moved to suspend business with Huawei – a plan described by one analyst as an “insurmountable” blow to the…

Julian Richer At 60, the founder of Richer Sounds “has reached the age when he thinks of posterity”, said the FT. Since he hasn’t any children to take on the business – now Britain’s largest audio chain – Julian Richer is transferring a majority 60% stake (worth £9.2m) to his 500-plus staff via an employee trust. As part of the deal, they’ll also get a windfall of £1,000 for every year of service. After starting the business in 1978 from a single shop in London Bridge, “Richer was 23 when he bought his first Rolls-Royce, adding a private jet not long after”. But his business ethics are “driven by a strong Christian faith. Each week, he hosts a Bible study group at his Georgian mansion in the Yorkshire countryside.” The…

The week’s best shares Games Workshop Group Investors Chronicle The fantasy soldier and mythical beast model-maker operates through 507 global stores, trade and online. It’s not cheap, but margins are strengthening and it’s investing in infrastructure. Yields 3.5%. Buy. £44.56. Paragon Banking Group The Sunday Times Paragon provides mortgages for professional buy-to-let investors. Strong lending growth, “cheap(ish)” shares, a spate of acquisitions and a growing dividend puts the group “at the front of the pack”. Buy. 463p. Uber Technologies The Times A “genuinely novel” company that has upended the global taxi industry and remains the market leader. Not yet profitable, but a punt on potential rewards as shares trade at a discount to the flotation price. Buy. $41.29. On The Beach Group Investors Chronicle Despite ongoing Brexit uncertainty, this online…