Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1244 i The Week

Where does Johnson go from here? Boris Johnson must have breathed a sigh of relief this week as Parliament was suspended, said Robert Shrimsley in the FT. It brought an end to days of punishing defeats in Westminster. On Monday, MPs rejected for a second time the Prime Minister’s call for an early general election on 15 October. With the House of Commons not due to sit again until 14 October, and a minimum 25-day campaigning period required for any new poll, this means that an election now can’t happen until at least mid-November. In a further blow, MPs also voted to force the Government to publish its no-deal contingency plans, and its internal correspondence on Johnson’s decision to prorogue Parliament (which was declared illegal this week by Scotland’s highest…

Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, the so-called “terrible twins” blamed for Theresa May’s disastrous 2017 election campaign, who were made CBEs in her resignation honours. May handed gongs to a host of former advisers and donors, though she had criticised David Cameron for rewarding his cronies. Even more controversially, she gave a knighthood to Geoffrey Boycott, the former cricketer, despite his 1988 conviction for domestic abuse. French rural traditions, after a cockerel won the right to crow. In a case that has gripped France, a couple who’d bought a second home on the island of Oléron, off Rochefort, complained that the bird, Maurice, was waking them up too early. In court, they argued that his crowing amounted to “noise pollution”, but a judge threw the case out, and ordered the…

British health experts have sought to allay fears about the dangers of vaping, following five deaths due to a mysterious respiratory illness in the US. More than 450 possible cases among otherwise healthy people are being investigated in the US, but Martin Dockrell, head of tobacco control at Public Health England, has said vaping in the UK is very different. In the US, he said, most cases appear to be linked to illicit vaping fluid, bought on the streets or homemade, often containing cannabis products. He also maintained that e-cigarette products in the UK are much more carefully checked by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.…

New York Alcohol trap: New York has long been plagued by rats, but the infestation has exploded in recent years, partly, it’s thought, because of a gentrification-related building bloom. As new developments have shot up, construction firms have dug into rat burrows, forcing the rodents into the open. But city officials have now unveiled a weapon to tackle the problem: a “humane” trap called an Ekomille. When rats climb up to grab the bait on top, a trap door opens and they plunge into a tank filled with alcohol, in which they drown. Each vat can hold up to 80 carcasses, and in trials, it has proved very effective. The idea is that the rats die painlessly, and the bodies are preserved in alcohol, preventing odours, but after attending an…

“When the immediate repercussions of last week’s events are over, there will be an image that hangs around Tory necks for years to come: Jacob Rees-Mogg lying horizontal on the Commons front bench as he listened to the debate, lounging insouciantly like a rebel child defying nanny, showing all the grace of Kevin the Etonian teenager. That one picture sums up every prejudice – fair or unfair – about Rees-Mogg and the Tories: that they are out of touch; that they don’t care about the ‘little people’; that they don’t take their job seriously. If you ever got bored of seeing Ed Miliband eat a bacon sandwich, just wait until you see the mileage people get out of this one.” Emma Burnell in The Independent…

When a press regulator turns into a censor Will Heaven The Daily Telegraph Should journalists steer clear of stories that might increase tensions between communities? The Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso), which regulates most British newspapers, appears to think so, says Will Heaven. Leaked documents reveal that a secret internal committee has drafted guidance on what should and should not be said about Islam and Muslims. “Insensitivities” and “unbalanced coverage”, it warns, could make “harassment more likely”. But what would following such guidance mean in practice. Investigating grooming gangs undoubtedly causes tensions – should journalists desist from doing so? No one has been publicly told who sits on Ipso’s committee, however one of its members is said to be Miqdaad Versi, a prominent member of the Muslim Council of Britain…

HRT and breast cancer All forms of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) make breast cancer more likely, and can do so for 15 years after treatment ends, a major study has concluded. The links between HRT and breast cancer have long been known, but there was some evidence that only combined oestrogen and progesterone forms of HRT (rather than oestrogen-only) caused cancer, and it was widely assumed that the risk only lasted as long as the treatment. For the University of Oxford-led study, researchers analysed 58 previous studies involving more than 500,000 post-menopausal women. Among those who never took HRT, 63 in 1,000 developed breast cancer between the ages of 50 and 69. Among those on the most common combined HRT treatment for five years, 83 in 1,000 developed the disease,…

“Never kissed a Tory” has become a slogan among left-wingers, but Ruth Davidson has an answer to it. Spotting it on a lapel sticker worn by a Labour activist, the MSP marched over to him and fastened her lips onto his. “You have now,” she declared, then promptly peeled the sticker off. Lucian Freud (pictured) was famously promiscuous: on his honeymoon, he spotted an attractive woman, hurried after her and wasn’t seen for two days. William Feaver, the author of a new book about the artist, once asked him how he could have so many children of almost exactly the same age “Don’t you realise I had a bicycle?” he replied. “Sometimes,” said one of his ex-girlfriends, “instead of counting sheep, I count Lucian’s children.” Jacob Rees-Mogg has unusual eating…

Pastor Joey Saunders was at home with his 25-year-old son Jeremi when a huge wall of water swept the roof off his home on Grand Bahama, and took him with it. “Somehow I got hold of a pine tree and just held on,” he told The Daily Telegraph. In fierce winds and rain, he clung on for two days, waiting for the water to recede, terrified that sharks might be swimming below him. Finally, Hurricane Dorian moved on. Pastor Saunders called out for his son. To his amazement, from a tree a few yards away, Jeremi called back. Their home was gone, yet they count their blessings. Surveying the aftermath of Dorian, the most powerful hurricane to strike the Bahamas on record, health minister Duane Sands warned that although the…

Cricket: Australia retain the Ashes First came the ecstasy, then the agony, said Mike Atherton in The Times. Just two weeks after England’s extraordinary victory in the third Test, they lost the fourth by 185 runs – giving Australia a 2-1 series lead and ensuring that, whatever happens in the fifth Test, the visitors will leave the UK with the Ashes urn for the first time since 2001. (In the event that the series is tied, the holders retain the trophy.) Once Australia had scored 497 runs in the first innings – 211 of them from Steve Smith – before declaring, this match always felt like “a futile operation”. And while England fought “almost to the bitter end” – they were bowled out with just 81 balls remaining – they…

The scourge of Airbnb To The Times I don’t feel that anyone understands the inconvenience and nastiness of the Airbnb invasion. I live in a lovely building in New Town, Edinburgh. There is an Airbnb directly over my head and one in the basement. My quality of life has been destroyed by the one above me. It is rented every night; there is no respite. Many of the guests arrive late, crashing their cases up the stairs as they yell to each other, in spite of the polite notice asking for quiet. Several times a week someone tries to come into my flat because they do not know what second floor means in the UK. They never apologise. Last week, one actually kicked the door when he couldn’t get in.…

“One day, they’ll make a film about the first public screening of The Painted Bird,” said Xan Brooks in The Guardian. The Czech director Václav Marhoul’s acclaimed Holocaust drama is so unrelentingly brutal that when it premiered last week at the Venice Film Festival, it provoked a stampede from critics trying to flee the auditorium. The first walkout started when a jealous miller gouges out a man’s eyes and feeds them to his cats. As the action became more gruesome still, one man fell down the stairs in his desire to escape; one woman became “so frantic” to get out that she hit the stranger in the next seat. Later, 12 viewers broke for the doors only to discover that the exit was locked. It’s not surprising that there was…

It was a call that the Los Angeles Police Department had “been awaiting for 25 years”, said Rozina Sabur in The Sunday Telegraph. This summer, an auctioneer in California called detectives to say he could tell them where to find a number of artworks stolen during a string of break-ins at Hollywood homes in 1993. They were currently in his gallery awaiting sale; he recognised them from a police website. Twenty-five years ago, burglars had gone on a spree across the Los Angeles area, stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of art and antiques from wealthy homeowners. Although two men were arrested at the time, the objects had never been found. The recent tip-off, however, led police to search four addresses, where they recovered more than 100 stolen pieces,…

Jakob picks up Kate for a date. While Kate’s getting ready, Peggy asks Jakob what attracted him to her. He says it was her caring nature – looking after Peggy and so on. As the penny drops, Peggy asks Kate to take her to the bathroom. Will breaks down to Clarrie, saying he wishes he could have Nic back. Phoebe, Pip and Rex learn that Rewilding Ambridge is the winning bid. Lexi arrives to stay with Adam and Ian for the final weeks of her pregnancy. Ruth’s not happy about covering Pip’s milking shift after Pip’s night out celebrating. Ruth’s mood doesn’t improve on hearing Brookfield’s bid was a close second. Ed asks Emma not to tell anyone about Will’s meltdown. Emma thinks Ed’s being easy on Will, but Ed…

What the experts recommend The Yan at Broadrayne Farm , Grasmere, Cumbria (01539-435055) This family-run place in the Lake District is thoroughly marvellous – and yet so unassuming and friendly that you kind of want to keep it to yourself, says Grace Dent in The Guardian. “Are you going to ruin this place for us by talking about it?” asked my brother, as he demolished one of their sharing boards of home-smoked thyme and garlic beef brisket. I replied sorrowfully that, indeed, I would have to risk that. “It’s my duty,” I said – as if I spied for my country, rather than writing for a newspaper about tarte tatin with cinnamon whipped cream, which is available here. We also loved the pea-and-mint “hummus” with warm flatbreads; a very good…

Robert Mugabe 1924-2019 Revered by some, reviled by many, Robert Mugabe, who has died aged 95, was among the most consequential of Africa’s post-colonial leaders, said James Reinl on Al Jazeera. In the 1970s, he led the armed struggle that liberated what was then Southern Rhodesia from minority white rule, and in 1980 he become the first prime minister of the newly independent Zimbabwe. But having gained power, the teacher-turned-Marxist rebel developed a terrifying lust for it. He suppressed dissent, “butchered opponents” and “gobbled up cake at lavish birthday parties while his people went hungry”. Owing to his years of misrule and economic mismanagement, the once prosperous country he’d helped bring into existence had become one of the world’s poorest. A highly intelligent and ruthless political operator, Mugabe was open…

WeWork – the trendy office-space company bent on conquering the world – had ambitions of staging an outsized float in New York this year. That dream may now be on the rocks, said James Warrington in City AM. WeWork’s largest shareholder – the giant Japanese tech incubator Softbank – is said to be “urging” the outfit “to shelve its IPO” because of the “frosty reception from potential investors”. Last week, WeWork sweetened the deal by slashing its proposed valuation to around $20bn – “less than half the $47bn price tag” achieved at its last private fundraising. It also bowed to criticism by hiring its first female board director and stating that CEO Adam Neumann will return a controversial $5.9m payment made “for use of the trademarked word ‘we’”. A stalled…

Big Tobacco should study British banks Brooke Masters Financial Times The £50bn bill for Britain’s PPI racket makes it “one of the worst consumer mis-selling scandals of all time”, says Brooke Masters. Complaints first surfaced as early as 1998, “but the products were so profitable... that banks kept right on selling”. And that holds a vital lesson for the tobacco industry as it contemplates another “potentially massive” consumer scandal – the sudden spike in cases of unexplained lung illness linked to vaping. Given a lack of data, the “blunt message” from America’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention is that people should shun e-cigarettes until more is known. “The tobacco industry does not have a good record when it comes to heeding early warning signs” – and sector giants have…

Controversy of the week The political anarchist In the past fortnight, Dominic Cummings has emerged out of the shadows and burned himself into the nation’s consciousness, said Lebby Eyres in The Daily Telegraph. It now seems as though there’s hardly anyone who doesn’t have an opinon about the Prime Minister’s chief special adviser. For Remainers, Cummings is the “dark master” pulling the strings at No. 10. For Leavers, he’s their last hope of exiting the EU. “Internet nerds” burnish his legend: the cunning with which he masterminded the Vote Leave campaign; the time he spent living in a bunker on his father’s farm, brushing up on Sun Tzu and game theory. Even his dress sense comes under scrutiny. He has been described as looking like “a man who’d wear flip-flops…

Marie Claire, which is to cease publication in the UK after 31 years, though a version will continue online. The glossy monthly launched in Britain in 1988 as “the thinking woman’s magazine”. Police Scotland, who were accused of scaremongering for urging people to prepare a “grab-and-go bag” ready for use in an emergency. In a tweet, it advised that the rucksack should contain a torch, batteries, a radio, a first aid kit, toiletries, seasonal clothing, water, food and a whistle. India’s Moon landing, which appears to have ended in failure. The country’s space agency had hoped to land a rover on the Moon’s unvisited south pole this month, but the probe went missing before it was due to touch down.…

If a general election were held before the UK’s scheduled departure from the EU on 31 October, the Tories would be on 30% and Labour on 27%, a poll taken last week found. However, if Boris Johnson failed to deliver on his “do or die” promise to take the UK out of the EU by that date, his party would drop to 26%, while Labour would take the lead on 28%. The Brexit Party would gain three points to 17%, and the Lib Dems would be on 20%. ComRes/The Times 52% of Britons see Labour as an extreme party, including 24% who say it is very extreme. 46% think the Tories are extreme, and 16% very extreme. The Brexit Party is seen as extreme by 63%, while only 17% say…

Tartus, Syria Oil “sold”: The Iranian government drew fierce international criticism this week after a tanker that was impounded for several weeks in Gibraltar earlier this summer was spotted on Syria’s Mediterranean coast – suggesting that Tehran had sold the ship’s oil to President Assad in defiance of EU sanctions. British Marines intercepted the Adrian Darya 1 tanker in July, suspecting its 2.1 million barrels were headed for Syria – a move that prompted Tehran to seize a British-flagged tanker in the Gulf. On 15 August, Adrian Darya 1 was released, after Tehran gave assurances that its oil wouldn’t go to Syria, but US satellite images released last Friday showed it just two nautical miles from the Syrian port of Tartus. Tehran confirmed the tanker had “unloaded its cargo”, but…

A maid of honour invited to choose any outfit she wanted for her sister’s wedding in Nebraska decided to come dressed as a Tyrannosaurus rex. “I was trying to think of something that I’d be willing to wear more than once,” said 38-year-old Christina Meador, “and thought to myself, ‘Well, she did say anything – and if I’m spending more than $50 I want it to be a dinosaur costume, because I’ve always wanted one.’” The bride defended the dinosaur garb, saying she didn’t care what her sister wore – and there was no point buying an expensive dress “just to please a bunch of people who, in the end, only want free food and drinks.” Diners at a restaurant near Cape Town were surprised to be joined by a…

GREECE Will Boris give back the Elgin marbles? Protagon (Athens) Few British prime ministers have shown such love for ancient Greece as Boris Johnson, says Eleni Dimitrakaki. He can recite from Homer and has a bust of Pericles on his desk. What better time, our own PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis must be thinking, to try to get back the sculptures purloined from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin two centuries ago. Mitsotakis plans to propose that the UK loans 18 pieces of sculpture to Greece in exchange for the opportunity to display other ancient Greek treasures. At least Johnson understands the issues: there’s a 1986 photo of him posing at the Oxford Union with Greek actress and politician Melina Mercouri, who was campaigning for the marbles’ return. Alas, that doesn’t mean he’ll…

Scientists have used a 3.8-million-year-old skull recently unearthed in Ethiopia to reconstruct the face of our oldest known ancestor. The cranium is that of a shadowy hominid, A. anamensis, which lived between 4.2 million and 3.8 million years ago. It is thought to be the ancestor of the A. afarensis species most famously represented by “Lucy”, a partial skeleton found in 1974. A. anamensis was identified in 1995, but until now, only its bones and teeth had been found. “It is good to finally be able to put a face to the name,” said Dr Stephanie Melillo of the Max Planck Institute For Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany. But while the discovery has given scientists new insights into this particular hominid, it complicates the picture of human evolution. In the light…

It’s one of the world’s busiest transport hubs, but this week, Heathrow’s Terminal 5 looked like a ghost town, said the Daily Mail. On Monday and Tuesday, an eerie silence descended over the huge building, as 90% of British Airways’ 4,300 pilots started a long-threatened strike. Almost all of BA’s 1,700 flights had to be cancelled and around 200,000 people had their travel plans “ruined”. The first pilots’ strike in BA’s 45-year history has arisen over a dispute about pay: BA had offered its pilots an increase of 11.5% over three years – but their union Balpa is holding out for a slice of company profits. Although BA pilots are already paid up to £167,000 a year (plus allowances), they reckon their remuneration is “out of kilter” with other big…

When Ed Miliband beat his older brother David to the Labour leadership, Boris Johnson declared that his family would never be so divided by politics. The Johnsons were far too close, he said, and besides, “only a socialist could do that to his own brother”. Yet it seems he was wrong, said Robert Mendick in The Daily Telegraph. Last Thursday, as the PM was reeling from successive Commons defeats, he received perhaps the most bitter blow of all – a call from his younger brother Jo, a business minister, informing him that he could no longer serve in his Government, and was quitting as an MP. Johnson Jr could have gone quietly at the next election. Instead, he went public on Twitter, where he said he’d been “torn between family…

It’s one of the “great scenes in sport”, said Jonathan McEvoy in the Daily Mail: the tifosi, as Ferrari’s fans are known, “hurrahing” one of their own drivers winning the Italian Grand Prix. And on Sunday, they got to experience that pleasure for the first time since 2010, when Charles Leclerc won the race. Still only 21, the Monaco-born driver has “seemingly iced veins and a streak of steel”. If his maiden victory, in Belgium a week earlier, was marred by the death of his childhood friend Anthoine Hubert, who had crashed in a Formula Two race the previous day, this was a win he could relish. It might just have marked the start of the “Leclerc era”. Let’s not get carried away, said Rebecca Clancy in The Times. Lewis…

To The Guardian Finally, a senior Labour member has explained the party’s position on Brexit. After a lot of pushing by Fiona Bruce on last Thursday’s Question Time, Emily Thornberry said Labour’s position is as follows: When Labour wins the general election they will go to Brussels and negotiate a better deal than the one currently on the table. When that negotiation is completed, they will come back to Westminster and campaign against that deal. They then hope to hold another referendum, giving a choice of the deal they negotiated or Remain. The outcome they would like is Remain. Now I know why Jeremy Corbyn has had nothing coherent to say on the matter in years. Jerry Hodgkinson, London To The Guardian While Jerry Hodgkinson uses Labour’s position on Brexit…

Best books… Ann Cleeves Ann Cleeves, whose books inspired the BBC crime drama Shetland, picks six of her favourite crime novels. She is talking about her new book, The Long Call, at London’s Capital Crime festival on 28 September (capitalcrime.org) Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers, 1935 (Hodder £9.99). I’m a crime writer because of the Golden Age mysteries written between the Wars, and Sayers is one of my favourites. Gaudy Night isn’t a brilliant detective story, but it is great on the romance between independent Harriet Vane and respectful Peter Wimsey. The Girl in the Green Dress by Cath Staincliffe, 2017 (Constable £8.99). Staincliffe deserves to be better known. Her books make her readers question how they would respond in a challenging situation. In this police procedural, when a…

Programmes Inside Cadbury: Chocolate Secrets Unwrapped This look inside Cadbury’s chocolate factory follows its scientists as they test new recipes and struggle to take some of the sugar out of the Dairy Milk bar. Sun 15 Sept, C4 20:00 (60mins). Defending the Guilty Six-part courtroom comedy starring Will Sharpe as an idealistic pupil barrister and Katherine Parkinson as the hardened lawyer who thinks he’s a gutless snowflake. Tue 17 Sept, BBC2 22:00 (30mins). The Cameron Years David Cameron, and his leading allies and critics, are interviewed for this two-part series that charts the former PM’s career and controversial legacy. Thur 19 Sept, BBC1 21:00 (60mins). Inside The Vatican The makers of this two-part documentary were given unprecedented access to the Vatican, as they followed Pope Francis and others who live…

Broad bean, mint and ricotta brushcetta The Soho restaurant Polpo, acclaimed for its cichèti (traditional Venetian bar snacks), celebrates its tenth anniversary this month with a “cichèti feast” and a range of dishes from guest chefs. The recipe below is a favourite of Polpo’s co-founder, Russell Norman When restaurateur and chef Russell Norman found a site in Soho’s Beak Street for his long-dreamt-of Venetian restaurant, it turned out, as luck would have it, to be a building where the great Venetian painter Canaletto once lived. When it opened in 2009, it would have been easy to dismiss Polpo as just another “boho” Soho eaterie, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. Easy – but dead wrong. Yes it has a lot of “knowing cool” – the inked staff, the beaten copper…

Taking in fishing towns, beaches, lakes and forests, the Coastal Route offers a fascinating introduction to Finland’s landscape and history, says Kate Simon in The Daily Telegraph. The 125-mile trail begins and ends in Salo and, in between, loops around the islands of the Finnish Archipelago Sea. It operates via a bike-hire scheme, and there are pick-up and drop-off points all along the route. The village of Mathildedal, on the shores of the Baltic, was once known for its ironwork; now you will find thriving “artisanal businesses” producing breads, sweets and “gluggable craft beers”, while the traditional clapboard cottages where the ironworkers lived are now “covetable homes”. Nearby is the Teijo National Park, where you can walk through spruce and birch forests until it opens up on the shores of…

AT&T/Elliott Management: media mugging Everything’s hotting up in the media world as the giants of the sector prepare for battle in the video-streaming wars. But one contender, AT&T, has an unwelcome new distraction, said Drew FitzGerald in The Wall Street Journal. The US telecoms giant is being challenged by “one of Wall Street’s most powerful activist investors”: hedge fund Elliott Management. The fund, run by Paul Singer, is highly critical of CEO Randall Stephenson’s plan “to remake AT&T into a media and advertising powerhouse”. Starry-eyed Stephenson has used big takeovers to add studios and production companies, including HBO, CNN, Warner Bros and DirecTV, to AT&T’s portfolio. It’s certainly more glamorous than phone-wiring, but his deals have lumbered the company with $160bn of debt. Elliott has now muscled in, buying…

António Horta-Osório It was the “right thing to do” – that was how the Lloyds bank boss summed up his decision “to break ranks with the rest of the industry” and stump up for PPI mis-selling in 2011, said Alistair Osborne in The Times. He reckoned then that the insurance scandal would cost the entire sector £4.5bn. “Well, who could expect a bank chief to have any handle on the numbers?” Thanks to a late stampede ahead of last month’s deadline, Lloyds’ bill has mushroomed to £22bn (£1.2bn-£1.8bn of that being set aside after a deluge of last-minute claims). Meanwhile the total UK bank bill for Horta-Osório’s gift of “people’s QE” now tops a jaw-dropping £50bn. How his rivals, forced to make new provisions this week, must love the “do-gooding”…

Police were called to a school in East Sussex last week after about 150 people gathered outside to protest against its gender-neutral uniform policy. Around 50 girls had been turned away from Priory School in Lewes for arriving in skirts – in defiance of rules that they can only wear trousers. Parents and children argue that the policy discriminates against girls; they’re also angry about the cost of buying new items and the waste involved. A Swedish restaurant chain where customers must do everything on an app, from booking a table to paying for their meal, is making plans to expand into the UK. Pinchos, a tapas chain, describes itself as “an app company with restaurants, rather than a restaurant company with an app”.…

International students will be allowed to live and work in the UK for two years after graduating, under proposals put forward by the Home Office. Since 2012, when Theresa May was Home Secretary, students have had a grace period of just four months. PM Boris Johnson said he wanted students to be able to “unlock their potential” in Britain. Around 450,000 international students were studying at UK universities last year. The new rules will apply to those who start their courses next year at “trusted” institutions.…

Vatican City Pope not scared: Pope Francis has warned his critics that he is “not afraid of schisms” – though he prays there is not one. Francis has often been accused of being too liberal, especially by ultra-conservative Catholics in the US; others have accused him of heresy. Speaking on his return from a tour of Mozambique, Madagascar and Mauritius, where he preached about corruption, poverty and the environment, he acknowledged that he has critics all over the world – and even in the Curia. Insisting his views on social issues are the same as John Paul II’s, he said he welcomes “honest” critics, but not those who “smile and then try to stab you in the back”. Paris Newspaper takeover: The staff at the French daily Le Monde are…

Harris’s bleak prediction We may think we’ll be here forever – but Robert Harris reckons our civilisation is probably doomed. “The Roman Republic, Cicero, those people were just as clever,” says the novelist, 62. “The things that their society produced – its oratory, its philosophy, its painting – were as sophisticated as anything we do. But still the system collapsed… Mayan civilisation collapsed in about nine years, and nobody knows why. The same could happen to us.” Our problem today, he told Tim Shipman in The Sunday Times, is that we have been overtaken by technology. “My father could strip down a car engine and put it back together again. He wasn’t an engineer, he was a printer, but he could do that… There are huge areas of the modern…

In Britain, battery-powered electric scooters are classified as Personal Light Electric Vehicles – which means they need to be licensed and “roadworthy”, i.e. they should be taxed and have an MOT, along with visible rear lights, the ability to signal, number plates and so on. E-scooters have none of these, so they are not deemed roadworthy: they are only allowed on private land, and are also banned from pavements. In theory, riders face a £300 fixed penalty notice and six points on their driving licence, though in practice the police are more likely to give a warning. However, the Department for Transport is currently conducting a review into the “future of mobility”, and noted after a consultation that “many respondents” had said that regulation was preventing the use of e-scooters…

They’re just giving away cash in Alaska Robyn Sundlee Vox “What if we just give people money?” That’s the question policymakers have been asking as they ponder the merits of giving citizens a universal basic income (UBI), says Robyn Sundlee. They’d do well to consider the experience of a place that’s been running a large-scale UBI experiment for almost 40 years. Since 1982, Alaska has given every single resident an annual handout of between $1,000 and $2,000, a dividend from the permanent fund that Alaska has built up from oil revenues. (Now worth $66.3bn, the state deposits at least 25% of its mineral royalties into it each year.) As regards poverty reduction, the system has been a big success. But it has also “warped the state’s politics”. This became all…

Archaeologists in Peru have discovered the remains of 227 children at what is believed to be the world’s largest child sacrifice site. Aged between four and 14, the children would have been sacrificed by the Chimú people, whose culture arose around 900AD and lasted until about 1470, when it was vanquished by the Incas. The skeletons were found at Huanchaco, a beach town in northern Peru not far from several other recently unearthed sacrificial sites. They were buried in what would have been thick, wet mud, facing the sea. All of this supports the theory that the Chimús embarked on a wave of sacrifices, probably to appease their gods at a time when that coastline was being battered by El Niño-associated storms. Footprints suggest the children were marched there from…

The days of swingeing budget cuts are over; it’s an end to austerity; a “page has been turned”. So declared Chancellor Sajid Javid last week as he unveiled his first spending review, said Philip Aldrick in The Times. Next year, for the first time in 15 years, no Whitehall department will see its budget reduced, he said, and day-to-day government spending will rise by an inflation-busting 4.1%, or £13.8bn. The biggest winners will be health, education, policing and local government. But Javid also promised extra funds to pay for an “infrastructure revolution” – leading to better trains, buses and broadband services. What’s more, Javid insisted that thanks to Tory prudence, this can be achieved without breaching the fiscal limits set by his predecessor Philip Hammond. In the Chancellor’s words, we…

“My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters.” Boris Johnson, quoted in The Daily Telegraph “Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom.” Edmund Burke, quoted in The Times “Only intuition can protect you from the most dangerous individual of all, the articulate incompetent.” American publisher Robert L. Bernstein, quoted in Forbes “At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.” Frida Kahlo, quoted in the I newspaper “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” Baseball star Yogi Berra, quoted in the Plainview Daily Herald “Trust arrives on foot but leaves on horseback.” Saying quoted in The Times “Any good marriage is secret territory, a…

Football In qualifiers for Euro 2020, England beat Kosovo 5-3, leaving them top of Group A. Scotland lost 0-4 to Belgium. Germany beat Northern Ireland 2-0. On the opening weekend of the Women’s Super League season, Chelsea beat Tottenham 1-0. Man City beat Man United 1-0. Tennis Jamie Murray’s triumph in the mixed doubles with Bethanie Mattek-Sands gave him a US Open title for the fourth successive year. Elise Mertens and Aryna Sabalenka beat Ashleigh Barty and Victoria Azarenka to win the women’s doubles.…

It: Chapter Two Dir: Andy Muschietti 2hrs 49mins (15) Pennywise is back The first film in the two-part adaptation of Stephen King’s cult novel It, which was released in 2017, became the highest grossing horror movie of all time. This “obscenely entertaining” follow-up is “deeper, scarier, funnier”, said Alex Godfrey in Empire. The children who were terrorised by Bill Skarsgård’s demonic clown, Pennywise, have grown up – but now he’s back, targeting the deepest, darkest fears of each of his victims. So once again, they join together in an effort to put an end to him for good. The gifted cast includes James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain and Bill Hader, who gives a terrific turn as a self-loathing comedian, said Joshua Rothkopf in Time Out. And Skarsgård is unforgettably disturbing as…

Peter Doig at Michael Werner By any standard, the Scottish-born, Trinidad-based painter Peter Doig (b.1959) is one of the most respected artists working today. Fusing a masterful technique that borrows from disparate influences – Cézanne, L.S. Lowry, the unjustly overlooked Haitian surrealists of the 1940s – with hallucinatory imagery that owes much to the culture of his adopted Caribbean homeland, his paintings collectively hint at some kind of obscure homespun mythology. This exhibition of new works sees Doig repeating and refining motifs from earlier series: a beefcake hunk posing on a beach, his blurred face framed by a silvery halo; two figures in colourful outdoor wear rowing across dark waters in a boat; a huge, impassive lion stretching its limbs outside the entrance to a Trinidadian prison. Looking at these…

Showing now The Man in the White Suit at the Theatre Royal Bath (maninthewhitesuit.co.uk). Stephen Mangan stars in Sean Foley’s adaptation of the classic Ealing Comedy about a man who invents a fabric that never gets dirty. Until 21 September; then 26 September-11 January 2020, Wyndham’s Theatre, London WC2. Book now London’s annual Open House weekend is back offering everyone a chance to snoop around the capital’s architectural gems for free. There are more than 800 buildings to be explored – from Balfron Tower to Spencer House, St James’s. 21-22 September (openhouselondon.org.uk). The Cheltenham Literature Festival has attracted a bevy of big names, including David Cameron, Sebastian Faulks, Ian McEwan, Ali Smith, Colm Tóibín and all this year’s Booker Prize-shortlisted authors. 4-13 October, venues in Cheltenham (cheltenhamfestivals.com). The first ever…

New cars: what the critics say Autocar This is a bold move from Audi. Despite all the bad press diesels have had lately, it is releasing the S6 in Europe with only a 3.0-litre diesel engine. The maker’s reasoning is that diesel still makes more sense for the kind of driving people buy large, powerful estate cars to do. And indeed, if you are one of those long-distance drivers, the S6, with its “premium-class poise”, could be a good option. The Daily Telegraph Inside, the S6 is “predictably delightful”. As in most modern Audis, there are plenty of glossy surfaces and a “slick” infotainment system. The over-reliance on screens, though, is “irksome” – swiping to adjust the temperature just isn’t as easy as using a button. There’s a 565-litre boot,…

Fans of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s TV series have long been able to take classes in “foraging, cooking and feasting” at River Cottage, says Karyn Noble in The Times. Now they can also stay overnight in one of three bedrooms in the 17th century farmhouse, which has undergone a “sensitive restoration”. The decor is “subtly contemporary”, with low beams and “gently sloping” floors that are just crooked enough to have you “questioning your sobriety”. The day begins with a huge breakfast, and a tour of the 100-acre farm aboard a tractor, followed by foraging in the kitchen garden. Then it’s a class with the head chef, making flatbreads, curing pork belly and frying lambs’ hearts over a pit fire for lunch. In the afternoon you might have a snack of scallops “scoffed…

Having plunged to a 34-year low against the dollar, the pound steadied above $1.23 after MPs voted to stop a no-deal Brexit – clawing back more than 3% of its value. The Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, warned that sterling had “decoupled” from its peers in other advanced economies and was now trading more like an emerging market currency. He predicted further wild swings, arguing that financial markets would “move substantially in one way or another”, depending on the Brexit outcome. Stock markets globally were more upbeat – lifted by signs of new stimulus measures in major economies, led by the European Central Bank. In Britain, the threat of imminent recession receded when it was revealed that the economy grew more than expected in July: expanding by 0.3% after…

Market watchers cannot afford to ignore the US president’s views on such crucial topics as China, trade and the US Federal Reserve, said Katie Martin in the FT. So we should welcome news that analysts at JPMorgan have created an index to measure the impact of Trump’s tweets on bond markets. The neatly named Volfefe Index (pronounced vol-fey-fey) shows appealing dry wit. It’s named after the president’s baffling “covfefe” tweet of 2017, which went viral (the mystery word turned out to be a misspelling of “coverage”). According to JPMorgan, “volatility”, translated into Trumpish, is “volfefe”. But what of the results? JPM’s researchers looked at 14,000 tweets since Trump’s election and found there is indeed “strong evidence” that they move markets – and also that the “frequency of market-moving tweets” has…

The week’s best shares Anglo Pacific Group Investors Chronicle The miner looks set to benefit from its non-operating interests – notably, a £41m investment in a Chilean copper mine – amid hopes that supply constraints and rising demand could see copper “spark up again”. Buy. 192p. FDM Group The Times FDM recruits and trains IT consultants for clients in financial and public services, energy, media and entertainment. Shares have fallen on Brexit fears, but the outfit is expanding outside the UK and yields 4.5%. Buy. 767p. The Gym Group Investors Chronicle The low-cost gym group is improving margins and increasing its network of sites. The cash generated should soon allow for self-funded organic growth and a progressive dividend. Buy. 245p. Johnson Matthey Investors Chronicle The automotive chemicals specialist is tackling…