Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1251 i The Week

What happened A Christmas election Britain will head to the polls for its first December general election since 1923, after MPs this week voted to go to the country. Boris Johnson’s plan to hold Britain’s third election in four years was approved by 438 to 20 on Tuesday; the vote will be held on 12 December. Johnson had tried and failed three times to get Parliament’s backing for an early election: a two-thirds majority was needed under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. But Labour leader Jeremy Corybn finally agreed to drop his opposition, after confirmation from Brussels of a Brexit extension until 31 January meant there was no longer any prospect of a no-deal exit. The Liberal Democrats and the SNP had already promised to give their support, arguing that an…

Keith Vaz, the Labour MP, who faces being suspended from the Commons for allegedly meeting two male sex workers in his flat and offering to buy cocaine for them in 2016. The suspension was recommended by the Commons standards committee, which noted that the MP’s defence, that the men were there to discuss redecorating his flat, was “not believable and, indeed, ludicrous”. Smart motorways, after the chief executive of Highways England admitted the roads – which have a hard shoulder that can be used as a fourth lane during peak traffic periods – were too confusing, and that the scheme would not be rolled out further. Rory Stewart, who was accused of racism for describing three young black men he met in London on one of his walking tours as…

Paris Lost painting fetches millions: A long-lost proto-Renaissance masterpiece, found hanging in the kitchen of a house in northern France, has gone under the hammer in Paris for s24m, making it the most expensive medieval painting ever sold at auction – and its nonagenarian owner a multimillionaire. Christ Mocked, by the 13th century Florentine painter Cimabue, was spotted by an auctioneer who had been brought in to assess the contents of the woman’s house in Compiègne, in Picardy. She had assumed it was a religious icon with no significant value, and had hung it above her oven’s hot plate. Barcelona Rival marches: Supporters and opponents of Catalan independence held major rallies in Barcelona last weekend, as tensions caused by the jailing of nine separatist leaders on 14 October continued to…

Miranda’s toughest critic Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of the theatrical phenomenon Hamilton, often meets people who tell him that they don’t usually like musicals, but do like his work, says Sathnam Sanghera in The Times. “I attribute this to a very simple thing,” says the writer and composer, 39: “my wife, who doesn’t like musicals. She didn’t grow up going to see them, or doing theatre. She’s a lawyer; when we met, she was a scientist. I have a higher bar to clear than most composers, because myfirst audience is my wife, and it can’t just be a pretty tune.” Hamilton has won endless awards and is said to earn him over $100,000 a week inroyalties, but he sees his first musical, In The Heights – inspired by the Washington…

A man who used a drone to fly a mobile phone into Perth Prison told police that he was just searching for his chihuahua, after it was stolen by members of a Romanian circus troupe. Asked what he was doing lurking in bushes near HMP Perth, he explained that he had brought a litre of vodka to sustain him during his search, and had fallen over. In court, the sheriff described it as “one of the most remarkable lines of defence I have ever heard”, before jailing him for nine months. A man in Tennessee has created a “haunted house” experience so terrifying that no one has yet managed to get around it, despite a rumoured $20,000 prize for anyone who does. Visitors to McKamey Manor must sign a 40-page…

BRAZIL When disaster strikes, blame it on the people El País (Madrid) President Bolsonaro attracted near universal scorn for failing to tackle the Amazon forest fires, says Juan Arias. In recent weeks, he has compounded this negligence by failing to act over Brazil’s worst-ever oil spill. In September, huge quantities of oil started washing ashore in the northeast, contaminating “crystalline” beaches and destroying marine life. The source hasn’t been established – though Bolsonaro, without a shred of evidence, has variously blamed Venezuela, foreign-owned tankers and criminals bent on sabotage. He still hasn’t visited the region (the country’s poorest) and only now, in the face of furious criticism, has he dispatched 5,000 troops to tackle the spill. In the meantime, the clean-up effort had largely been left to local volunteers, many…

A desert-dwelling ant has been confirmed as one of the fastest animals on the planet, proportionate to its size. Saharan silver ants emerge from their nests for only a few minutes around midday – when the creatures that predate on them are sheltering from the Sun – to scavenge on the corpses of animals that have succumbed to the heat. They have two defences against the blistering conditions: silvery hairs that reflect the Sun’s rays, and – scientists have discovered – a remarkably efficient running technique. Not only do they cover 85.5cm per minute, a record for any ant, there are moments when they fly through the air, with all six of their legs off the ground at once: in other words, they gallop. This technique, observed by a team…

Sandi Toksvig (pictured) and the late humorist Alan Coren spent many hours together in hotel rooms when they were opposing captains on Call My Bluff in the 1990s. They often sat in front of the TV eating burgers, and on one occasion, according to Toksvig’s new memoir, she even tidied his room for him. “Dear God, Alan,” she said, “we’re almost like an old married couple, only we don’t have sex.” Coren paused, then replied, “No, Sandi, we’re exactly like an old married couple.” Theresa May had a terrible relationship with her chancellor Philip Hammond, according to Anthony Seldon’s new book about her premiership. In particular, the PM – who was not strong on economics – was driven mad by the way Hammond would explain the economic realities to her.…

“The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Palaeolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology.” Biologist E.O. Wilson, quoted in The Sunday Times “Progress is not created by contented people.” Columnist Frank Tyger, quoted on Forbes “Practice doesn’t make you perfect. It makes you a little bit better.” Harrison Birtwistle, quoted in The Sunday Times “One reason that cats are happier than people is that they have no newspapers.” Gwendolyn Brooks, quoted on Medium.com “No persons are more frequently wrong than those who will not admit they are wrong.” François de La Rochefoucauld, quoted on the Associated Press “The bourgeois are other people.” Jules Renard, quoted in The Times “The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.”…

Football Liverpool beat Tottenham 2-1. Chelsea beat Burnley 4-2. Manchester United beat Norwich 3-1 at Carrow Road to record their first away win in the Premier League since February. Golf Tiger Woods won the Zozo Championship, equalling the PGA Tour record of 82 tournament wins. Boxing Scottish boxer Josh Taylor beat Regis Prograis on points to win the World Super Series and become the unified IBF and WBA super-lightweight champion. Formula One Lewis Hamilton won the Mexican Grand Prix.…

The release of Cellophane, the “extraordinary, raw” first single from FKA twigs’s new collection, suggested we were in for a “break-up album to equal the greatest in the genre”, said Dan Cairns in The Sunday Times. “Well, Magdalene is emphatically that.” A series of bold, beautiful songs capture the stages of loss with “visceral, almost operatic power”. This is the art-pop equivalent of chamber music: “moments of infinite subtlety and sonority” suddenly give way to “explosions of colour”. “It’s overwhelming – and a masterpiece.” Tahliah Barnett (twigs’s real name) is a gifted dancer – and director of music videos and short films – as well as a musician, said Mark Richardson in The Wall Street Journal. She’s a hard act to classify, but there’s a strong “classical undercurrent” that brings…

Lucian Freud (1922-2011) was notoriously hard on his models, said Nancy Durrant in The Times. His wretched sitters would be obliged to hold their (often nude) poses “for hours, over months, often in excruciating positions”, in fear of inflaming the artist’s infamously vicious temper. Yet he also subjected himself to the same “piercingly frank gaze”, frequently looking in the mirror to create harsh and unforgiving self-portraits. This thrilling new exhibition at the Royal Academy is the first ever to focus on Freud’s self-portraiture, bringing together more than 50 paintings, prints and drawings to chart his remarkable seven-decade career. Taking a “broadly chronological” approach, the show traces Freud’s development from his first, hesitant teenage sketches in the 1940s through to the anguished, masterful oil paintings he created in his final decades.…

The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, 1958 (Vintage £9.99). Historical fiction at its best, a tender evocation of the author’s princely ancestors adapting to the changes brought about by Garibaldi’s army of the Risorgimento in 1860s Sicily. No translation does full justice to the subtle wit and wordplay of the original, but Visconti’s film is a wonderful rendition of its playful character. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, 1856 (Penguin £8.99). I adore Flaubert, and this is his great novel – for me the finest in all literature. The story of adultery scandalised society. Flaubert was tried for obscenity but perhaps his real offence was to illuminate in perfect prose the banality of French provincial life. Hope Against Hope by Nadezhda Mandelstam, 1970 (Harvill £16.99). The widow of the poet…

Programmes His Dark Materials James McAvoy, Ruth Wilson and Lin-Manuel Miranda star in the much-anticipated adaptation of Philip Pullman’s epic trilogy of fantasy novels about an orphaned girl. Sun 3 Nov, BBC1 20:00 (60mins). Puppet Masters: The Men Who Really Run Britain Dispatches investigates the two controversial political advisers at the epicentre of Brexit: No. 10’s Dominic Cummings and Labour’s Seumas Milne. Mon 4 Nov, C4 20:00 (30mins). A British Guide to the End of the World An intriguing account of how Britain prepared itself for nuclear attack during the Cold War, using unseen archive footage and personal testimonies. Mon 4 Nov, BBC4 21:00 (75mins). Inside the Supermarket A new six-part series goes behind the scenes at Sainsbury’s over the course of a year, from the boardroom to the shop…

Serves 4 200g granulated sugar 450ml water 6-8 basil leaves 45ml freshly squeezed lemon juice 4 firm pears, such as Conference, Doyenne du Comice or Bartlett • Put the sugar, water, basil and lemon juice into a 32.5cm stainless-steel sauté pan and stir over a gentle heat to dissolve the sugar. Bring to a simmer. • Meanwhile, start on the pears. Peel, halve and core the pears, and as you finish each one pop it into the simmering syrup, cut-side uppermost. • Cover the surface of the pan with a paper lid and then the lid of the pan, and cook gently for 20-30 minutes, spooning the syrup over the pears every now and then. • Plate the pears, then pour the syrup over them and set aside to cool.…

● You’ll need a packet of chewing gum (preferably strips), a battery and a pair of scissors – though neat tearing might work. ● Chewing gum usually comes wrapped in a paper-backed foil, which is what you need. You’ll most likely want a few pieces to test the technique several times. ● Carefully cut or tear the foil wrapper into a shape with two fat ends and a thin strip in the middle – like an elongated sand timer. ● The electricity in a battery is enough to set just the narrow part of the paper on fire. ● Assemble something flammable, like a shred of tissue paper, newspaper or a small piece of firelighter, to set alight with the quick burst of flame you should get. ● Attach one…

Low Wood Bay Resort & Spa Windermere This former 18th century inn on the shores of Windermere has morphed into a “sprawling resort”, says Emily Sargent in The Times. It had been looking “a little tired” until the new Winander Club opened in March, adding more bedrooms, a roof terrace and a bit of contemporary sparkle. The spa has a heated infinity pool and sauna tubs overlooking the water, plus a range of treatments such as the Mud Room, “where you can throw mud at your friends for 45 minutes”. Rooms all have comfy superking-size beds and large bathtubs; some have lake-view balconies or terraces. The food is great and staff are “wonderful”. Doubles from £158 b&b.englishlakes.co.uk…

Much-admired journalist known for her honesty and wit Deborah Orr 1962-2019 Deborah Orr, who has died aged 57, was a journalist whose trenchant, insightful writing became “necessary reading even forthose who did not share the ideology of the papers in which it appeared”, said The Times. Formidable in person, and forthright in print, “she would ask questions others would rather not ask, orpoint out truths that they would rather not hear”. Writing for The Guardian and The Independent, she “shone a light into some of the bleakest corners of society”, and campaigned fiercely about the failures of the welfare system, the rising levels of homelessness, and the increased demand for food banks. But taking care to keep off any passing bandwagons, she was never preachy, said The Independent; and her…

At last, some “welcome relief” for Wall Street “after a turbulent period for flotations”, said James Sillars on Sky News. And a case of mission accomplished for Britain’s leading space cadet, Sir Richard Branson. Shares in his space tourism company, Virgin Galactic, rocketed 10% on their market debut in New York, valuing the outfit at around $2.4bn. The daredevil Sir Richard, who “attended the launch in a space suit”, beat rival space tycoons Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin) and Elon Musk (SpaceX) to the market, via a timely merger with an existing cash shell backed by former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya. But he still faces “stiff competition” to win the race to complete a commercial space flight. Galactic hopes to be in the air by the middle of 2020. “Despite the…

The week’s best shares ContourGlobal The Times Contour owns 108 power plants in18 countries, with 45% of half-year earnings coming from its renewable energy portfolio. Acquisitive, with substantial debt, but highly cash-generative. Shares yield around 6% and “look a bargain”. Buy. 207p. Fidelity Japan Trust The Mail on Sunday Shares are lagging, but the trust is making good progress. A varied slate of investments includes Yamaha, funeral services provider Kamakura Shinsho, bicycle parts makers and tech stocks. Buy. 155p. Northgate The Times This van rental group is “in recovery”, and potential sales haven’t yet been built into the shares. Margin improvement moves and auctioning off its Spanish assets could lead to a “significant windfall”. Yields 5.38%. Buy. 337p. Pennon Group Investors Chronicle The owner of South West Water faces tougher…

Controversy of the week The age of protest The world is in a rage. Across the globe, angry people are taking to the streets in vast numbers. Sometimes the proximate cause is a price hike: in India, it was of onions; in Chile, of the fares on the metro. In Lebanon, it was a new tax on using WhatsApp; in France, higher fuel duties sparked the gilets jaunes protests. But the protests elsewhere – in Hong Kong, Moscow, Barcelona, Algiers –are more overtly a response to political repression and corruption. A new age of revolution is upon us, and though the causes are various, they have a common thread, said Joshua Keating on Slate: austerity and the worsening inequality it brings. Globalised capitalism has increased prosperity for some, but many…

The official report into the Grenfell Tower fire has condemned the London Fire Brigade (LFB) for “serious shortcomings” in its response to the blaze on 14 June 2017, in which 72 people died. In his 1,000-page report published on Wednesday, Sir Martin Moore-Bick praised the courage of individual firefighters, but said the LFB’s preparations for such a fire were “gravely inadequate”. It should not, he said, have stuck to its advice that residents “stay put”, and should have had an evacuation plan in place. Had it evacuated the block earlier, the death toll may have been lower. He also said staff had not been trained in how to recognise the need for an evacuation, or organise one, and that a failure to share information had left officers without a clear…

Washington DC “Revenge porn” claim: A rising star of the Democratic party resigned as a congresswoman this week over claims that she had a three-way relationship with her husband and a female campaign staffer, and an affair with a male aide. Katie Hill, 32, who is openly bisexual, denied the latter claim, which would have been a breach of House rules. But she admitted having a relationship with a subordinate during the “final years of my abusive marriage”, after a right-wing website published intimate pictures ofher with the 24-year-old woman in question. She has described the publication of the photos as a violation ofher privacy, and vowed to fight “revenge porn”. Los Angeles, California Wildfire chaos: A state of emergency was declared in California this week, following days of wildfires,…

1 Bein’ Green by Joe Raposo, performed by Jim Henson 2 Green Chimneys by Thelonious Monk, performed by Wynton Marsalis 3 One Nation Under A Groove (Part 1) by Garry Shider, George Clinton and Walter Morrison, performed by Funkadelic 4* Take My Hand, Precious Lord by Rev. Thomas A. Dorsey, performed by Mahalia Jackson 5 Both Sides Now, written and performed by Joni Mitchell 6 Don’t Give Up On Me by Carson Whitsett, Dan Penn and Hoy Lindsey, performed by Solomon Burke 7 Appalachian Spring Doppio movimento by Aaron Copland, conducted by Leonard Bernstein and performed by the New York Philharmonic 8 A Love Supreme – Part I: Acknowledgement, written and performed by John Coltrane Book: The Omni-Americans: Black Experience and American Culture by Albert Murray Luxury: a grill *…

Even if this deal passes, we are nowhere near getting Brexit “done”, as the Government slogan has it. The plan is that, if it goes ahead, the UK and the EU will work towards another agreement, on our future trading arrangements. A meeting to report on progress is pencilled in for June 2020. The withdrawal agreement doesn’t prejudge the eventual result, unlike Theresa May’s, which was designed to push a “close economic partnership” and “frictionless” trade based on close regulatory alignment. Instead, it makes possible a more distant relationship based on free trade, similar to, say, Canada’s. The basic calculus is the same as it has ever been. The political declaration states that the new deal “must ensure open and fair competition, encompassing robust commitments to ensure a level playing…

Digital choice is the death of creativity Catherine Rampell The Washington Post Two decades ago, the advent of the internet “created a seismic shift in artistic industries”, says Catherine Rampell, as piracy, file-sharing and other freely available content disrupted the big players in music, film and other creative trades. We’re now experiencing a “second digital disruption”, but this one – as Professors Kal Raustiala and Christopher Sprigman argue in alaw journal article – promises to “entrench the position of today’s big corporate incumbents”. Today, large firms with access to vast troves of data on customer preferences are using that data to become ever better at giving people exactly what they want. The porn industry is at the forefront of this trend. Big producers have data-mined millions of views in order…

An American pharmaceutical company is to seek regulatory approval for a drug that it claims can slow the progress of Alzheimer’s – provided the patient is prescribed it soon enough. Aducanumab is one of many drugs that have been developed to target amyloid beta, a protein which accumulates in the brains of those living with Alzheimer’s, and which has long been seen as a likely cause of the disease. Several of these have shown promise in early tests, only to fail late stage trials – and at first, aducanumab seemed likely to go the same way. Earlier this years, its maker, Biogen, announced it was halting two large studies because initial data looked so unpromising. But now the company has revised that judgement: it says new data from those trials…

Simon Stevens didn’t sugar the pill, said Nick McDermott in The Sun. The head of the NHS this week launched an outspoken attack on the homeopathy industry, slamming practitioners as “chancers” who push “bogus” treatments onto the British public. He also blamed homeopaths for spreading “misinformation about vaccines” – a subject of great concern, when the level of vaccination among pre-school children has been insharp decline. The NHS stopped funding homeopathic remedies in 2017, but the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (PSA) still lists homeopaths on its official register. Stevens has written tothe watchdog to demand that it strip the Society of Homeopaths of accreditation. Failing todo so, heargues, risks giving a “veneer of credibility” to those who seek to “con more people into parting with their…

Rugby World Cup: England pull off their greatest victory... When the All Blacks perform the haka before matches, their opponents usually line up shoulder to shoulder, said Nik Simon in The Mail on Sunday. Not England. On Saturday, moments before the start of the World Cup semi-final, the players formed a “V” shape. And when Owen Farrell “stepped in front of the haka and broke into a twisted smile”, it was clear that something was brewing. What followed was England’s “greatest 80-minute performance in history”. They beat the three-time world champions, a team who had not lost a World Cup game for 4,403 days, by 19-7 – and if anything, the scoreline flattered New Zealand. In his three years as England’s head coach, Eddie Jones has spoken of wanting his…

Sympathy for the DUP To The Times In the midst of all the knee-jerk excoriation and mockery of the DUP, I was glad John Brehcist’s letter reminded us of the horrors the unionist community lived through. They are required to share power with Sinn Féin, which is led bypeople who extol the terrorists who murdered and mutilated; who still have their strategy secretly dictated by unelected IRA veterans; who use the law to try to eradicate the symbols of Britishness; and who have cynically rebranded themselves as pro-EU progressives to win support from those with short memories. They are also right to think British governments are unreliable allies who have serially appeased the violent. The betrayal of the centre ground was reportedly justified by Tony Blair, regarded as a visionary…

The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman Penguin 704pp £20 The Week Bookshop £15.99 “Two years ago, Philip Pullman met the challenge of returning to the world of His Dark Materials by going back in time,” said John Mullan in The Guardian. La Belle Sauvage, the first volume in The Book of Dust, a second trilogy focusing on the life of Lyra Belacqua, was a prequel about her near-escape from death as a baby. Now, in The Secret Commonwealth, he jumps forward 20 years –a decade on from where His Dark Materials concluded – to “give us the story of Lyra as a young adult”. This is a “darker and much bigger beast” than its predecessor, said Catherine Taylor in the FT. Its “multiple” plotlines include scenes of murder and attempted…

Monos Dir: Alejandro Landes 1hr 42mins (15) Bizarre but bewitching warfare allegory ★★★★ This “overpoweringly tense and deeply mad thriller” from Colombian filmmaker Alejandro Landes is like a cross between Apocalypse Now and Lord of the Flies, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. The “monos” of the title are teenage soldiers, eking out an existence in the mountains of an unnamed South American country. Apart from keeping guard over an American hostage and her child, the young men are left to their own devices, which in practice means engaging in such pastimes asblindfolded football and hallucinogenic sex, and the shifting power dynamics and ready availability of guns mean the situation is always teetering on the brink of mayhem. Although there’s precious little plot to speak of, this “gorgeously atmospheric” Spanish-language…

Eduardo Paolozzi at Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert To the modern viewer, the proto-pop art collages and bulky sculptures of Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005) can seem like quaint relics of the postwar era. Yet while it’s true that his art may not have aged as well as that of some contemporaries, it would be a mistake to write him out of art history altogether. Hollow Gods brings together a representative selection of his early works on paper and sculptures (roughly dating from 1946-60), mixing in works for sale with some choice loans to demonstrate quite how unusual Paolozzi’s work must have seemed in the drab British art world of the late 1940s. The sculptures are towering, messy feats of metalwork, more reminiscent of Giacometti than the kitschy robot figures the artist would come to…

Autocar The first Nissan Juke, launched nine years ago, was a problematic car. Its distinctive design gained it as many enemies as it did fans, the sloping roofline made it cramped, and the ride was stiff. However, its quirky looks meant it sold well, particularly in the UK. Now, though, with a new engine, smoother ride and a better interior, it may really be competitive in what is a crowded class of small crossovers. What Car? The Juke’s naturally aspirated 1.6-litre engine has been replaced by a 1.0-litre turbo petrol one with 115bhp. It’s the only option on offer so far, but a plug-in hybrid version is likely to come later. It’s not the most powerful engine in this class, but it’ll do, and the handling is truly impressive. The…

One of the biggest new openings in France’s Three Valleys ski area, Le Coucou in Méribel is designed as a modern, stylish alpine chalet, and has a stunning in-and-outdoor pool and spa (b&b doubles from £630 a night; lecoucoumeribel.com). The W hotel brand, which has an outpost in Verbier, is opening a second mountain base in “glitzy” Aspen, Colorado. It has a heated rooftop pool and is styled to celebrate the “louche decadence” of the 1970s (doubles from £360 a night; marriott.co.uk). With The Design Hotel Levi, Finland’s largest ski resort is going “upmarket”. The five-star hotel is styled with grey pinewood, natural stone and chic copper finishes (doubles from £240; designhotellevi.fi). Le Refuge de Solaise in Val d’Isère, France, is one of the highest hotels in the Alps at…

Visiting van Gogh’s province The city of ‘s-Hertogenbosch is “so unpronounceable, even the locals shorten it to Den Bosch”, says Martin Dunford in the London Evening Standard. It is “typically Dutch: sliced by canals, diced with gables”, and with its collection of excellent museums, it offers an enticing alternative to overcrowded Amsterdam, less than an hour away by train. Located in the Catholic province of Brabant, Den Bosch has a “reputation” for being “a fun sort of place” where people “live life to the full”. From the top of its towering Gothic cathedral of St John, you get a “fabulous view of the city”, but the most popular activity is touring the “slightly spooky” canals – dark, unseen waterways that run beneath the narrow medieval streets. This year the Noordbrabants…

Tiffany/LVMH: huckleberry friends? Shares in Tiffany jumped by almost 30% after the US jeweller, famed for its diamond engagement rings, confirmed that it is “reviewing” a $14.5bn all-cash takeover bid from LVMH, the world’s largest luxury goods group. A deal would give the latter “critical mass” in the global jewellery market, adding to brands including Bulgari and Hublot, said The New York Times. Still, Bernard Arnault – the French billionaire attempting to slip a ring on Tiffany’s finger – could be in for a “bruising fight”. Tiffany wants more money than LVMH’s $120-per-share offer. Supporters, who argue shares were priced at $136 a year ago, are hoping this bid will flush out a higher offer from one of LVMH’s rivals, said Adam Sage in The Times. Kering (the French…

It’s time to shrink the rotten City Nicholas Shaxson The Guardian “Britain is, on some measures, the biggest player in the global tax haven game,” says Nicholas Shaxson. “A spider’s web of satellite havens … captures wealth from around the world, polishes it and feeds it to the City of London.” A new report from Transparency International shows “how widely and deeply the rot has spread”. Much of the £325bn siphoned off by financial criminals from more than 100 countries has “a UK nexus”. Indeed, the world’s crooks “find accomplices” in our estate agents, the “Big Four” accounting firms, our “globe-striding” banks, and “across our political establishment”. Every nation needs banking and finance, but once the sector expands beyond its “ideal size” and role providing “useful” services, “it turns nasty”…

● Desert Davos The White House “seems to be over” the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October last year, said Quartz. President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and the US Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin both travelled to Riyadh this week, to attend Saudi Arabia’s Future Investment Initiative – aka “Davos in the Desert” – an event widely boycotted last year. They weren’t alone, said The New York Times. “Big banks” were also “back in force” at the conference, which is meant “to highlight the kingdom’s work with the biggest companies in the world”. Bosses from Citi, Goldman Sachs and HSBC all turned up – as did the billionaire Japanese tech investor Masayoshi Son of SoftBank. But other top figures in tech and entertainment were absent – perhaps still “wary…

Unilever is saving hundreds of thousands of pounds a year by using an artificial intelligence system to assess candidates in job interviews. In the one-way video interviews now used by many large companies, candidates are sent questions and must record themselves answering them. Normally, a human recruiter then analyses the footage, but Unilever has invested in software that checks candidates’ facial expressions, body language and word choice, to look for traits deemed to be predictive of job success. Netflix has outraged many film directors by trialling a feature that will enable time-poor viewers to speed up films and TV shows. Using the “speed watch” facility, an hour-long show could be seen in 40 minutes.…

In 1989, 40% of Britons said homosexual relationships were immoral. Now, 13% do. The proportion of people who disapprove of drug use and full-frontal male nudity on TV has also fallen. However, the proportion of British adults who think having an affair with a married person is immoral has risen, from 52% to 55%. The Policy Institute/ The Times 57% of UK adults say it would have been better not to have had a Brexit referendum; 29% disagree. 87% of Remain voters say there shouldn’t have been a vote, and 7% say there should. The figures for Leavers are 32% and 57%. Opinium/The Observer 50% of Britons want a general election; 23% don’t. YouGov…

Beirut PM quits: Lebanon’s PM, Saad Hariri, stood down on Tuesday, following two weeks of protests calling for political change. As many asa million people are thought to have taken to the streets to demand not just Hariri’s resignation, but also that of the governor of the central bank and Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, the Shia political party that is a member of the coalition government and is widely seen as a proxy of Iran. “I have reached a dead end,” said Hariri: Lebanon needs the “positive shock” of fresh leadership to cope with the crisis. The protests were sparked by a tax on WhatsApp, among other revenue-raising measures which have now been dumped. Hours before Hariri quit, aHezbollah mob attacked the protesters in Beirut with pipes and…

“Emblazoned on the side of a sewer-clearing truck on our street is the motto ‘Flushing wet wipes clogs your pipes’. It may not scan, but the message is clear – and futile: people will always do this. The solution is to make those who produce wet wipes pay for sewer-cleaning. We’re going about environmental protection in too piecemeal a manner. We legislate for plastic bags. We discuss legislating for straws. We agonise over wet wipes. Instead we need a short Act of Parliament establishing a general power to create a list of products liable to a levy, payable by businesses that cost us. Noisy moralising should give way to quiet revenue-raising.”…

Why school is a place that’s no good for work Paul Johnson The Times On the face of it, our education system is a huge success story, says Paul Johnson: GCSE results are way better than in the 1990s; far more people go to university; the workforce has never been “more educated”. But more educated for what? Not for the demands of our economy: as anew report from the Government’s Industrial Strategy Council shows, a growing skills shortage is holding back growth and threatening our competitiveness. And that’s because British schools are obsessed with Alevels and getting pupils to university. Fine for some, of course, but it slams the door on all who fail to make the requisite GCSE grades at 16. Even for those who do, the system is…

The world’s noisiest bird A bird that lives in a remote region of the northeast Amazon has been found to be the loudest in the world, with a song that isroughly as earsplitting as a pneumatic drill, reports The Guardian. During a research expedition last year, biologists from Brazil and the US used precision audio equipment to record white bellbirds singing from distances of around 40 metres. They discovered that males typically have two songs – one longer and more ornate, the other shorter and more intense. While both are loud, the latter is particularly so: it peaked at 125 decibels – three times louder than the song of the screaming piha (previously the noisiest bird known to science). The song is part of abizarre mating ritual that involves amale…

Trapped inside a lorry, struggling for air, a desperate young woman sent a final message to her mother, 6,000 miles away: “So sorry Mum, myjourney abroad has not succeeded. Mum, Ilove you so much. I amdying because I cannot breathe. I’m sosorry.” Pham Thi Tra My – who had left her home in Vietnam at the beginning of October – is believed to have been one of the 39 men and women found dead in a sealed container last week, shortly after it had been shipped from the port of Zeebrugge in Belgium to Purfleet, in Essex. The identities of the dead have not been confirmed. But it seems that several of them came from Vietnam’s Hà Tinh province, a desperately poor coastal area that was devastated in 2016, when…

The situation in al-Hol is desperate, said Letta Tayler in The Washington Post. The camp in northeastern Syria holds 70,000 women and children from 50 countries who were detained by Kurdish forces when Islamic State was defeated. Things were “dire” even before Turkey’s recent invasion of northern Syria. Over the past year, more than 340 of the children who make up two-thirds of al-Hol’s occupants have died of malnutrition and disease. And now, with the region in chaos, latrines are overflowing, food and water supplies are dwindling, and the inmates are terrified – of invading forces and each other. It’s time for the countries the mother came from – many of them in western Europe – to take them and their children back. It’s easy to call for action, said…

If any team has “cause to dream big”, it’s Leicester City, said Rick Broadbent in The Times. And now, four seasons after they won the Premier League title, the Foxes are “dreaming of miracles again”. Their 9-0 victory over Southampton last Friday – the biggest away win in the 131-year history of the English top-flight – took them to third in the Premier League, behind only Liverpool and Manchester City. Since Brendan Rodgers took over as manager in February, they have played with “pace, control and belief”. This team is “riding a wave”. Jamie Vardy is at the heart of this resurgence, said Rob Tanner on The Athletic. The striker’s hat-trick against Southampton took his total under Rodgers to 18 goals in 20 matches – five more than any other…

To The Guardian George Reynolds’s article may have overlooked the main reason that vegans upset people. Preparing and sharing food is so central to human culture that it has ritual significance. Strict veganism undermines the fundamental social rite of eating together. When vegans cook for omnivores, the interaction is generally successful. The guests eat what they are given and compliment the cooking. The etiquette of food-sharing has been preserved. But when strict vegans are fed by omnivores, there is tension. The hosts face a daunting list of exclusion and must try new recipes. For practical reasons, the vegan menu may be imposed on the whole gathering. This offends our deep-rooted belief that guests should adapt to the host’s culture, gratefully accepting whatever food they are given. The alternative option of…

A previously unknown Lucian Freud sketch of a horse is to be sold by a nun who struck up an unlikely friendship with the painter, says Dalya Alberge in The Observer. For years, the drawing has been in the possession of Sister Mary Joy Langdon, who runs the Wormwood Scrubs Pony Centre in west London, which Freud used to visit to sketch horses. When he first turned up in 2002, he was one of the world’s most famous artists, but the nun mistook him for an enthusiastic amateur: she handed him a beginner’s book on how to paint horses, which he soon returned, in a “gentlemanly fashion”, saying, “It’s very good.” To raise funds for her charity, which teaches riding to those with special needs, Sister Mary Joy has now…

Jim worries about what to play at Joe’s wake. Making himself at home at Eddie and Clarrie’s, Alf is already ruffling feathers, borrowing money and making insensitive remarks. At The Bull, Alf chats to Toby and stirs up gossip about Oliver and Tracy. Joy goes to Bridge Farm on the search for missing Hilda, with a barmy plan. David and Adam meet in The Bull to prepare for their meeting with Vince Casey, but Casey turns up, ambushing them with questions. Elizabeth talks to Russ about her recovery and plans for the Christmas show. As rumours spread about Tracy and Oliver, Tracy’s motives are called into question. David tells Oliver about Casey taking Hassett Hills’ lamb. Elizabeth reveals to an embarrassed Oliver that people are starting to talk. Alice and…

Voujon 1-3 Church Street, Long Buckby, Northamptonshire (01327-843571) I can no longer enter my favourite local Indian restaurant on account of the obscenely garish new decor, says William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph. They’ve installed a hideous light feature – covering almost all the wall space –in which bubbles of various luminescent colours flow down like a psychedelic waterfall of colour. “Even collecting a takeaway there renders me aesthetically injured, so until they come to their senses”, I’ve been casting around for a new curry house – and already I’ve found a cracker. Voujon will win no awards for its “airport-lounge-chic” styling, but the food is fab. Save for an underwhelming chicken chaat starter, we enjoyed a “glorious array” of dishes, each “bursting with colour and flavour and distinction”. I…

Mighty Mug Go Billed as “the mug that won’t fall over”, this 470ml mug delivers impressively on its promise thanks to its suction base. It doesn’t keep drinks hot for as long as some rivals, but is great for car or train journeys, so perfect for commuters (from £12.50; amazon.co.uk). S’well Traveller This triple-walled mug is available in various sizes, but the 340ml version is especially compact and convenient for travelling. It holds heat for four or five hours – cold for longer – and has a mouth wide enough for ice cubes (£30; amazon.co.uk). Thermos Stainless King On sale with or without a handle, the 470ml Stainless King is a particularly sturdy and durable thermos, with a great leak-proof lid. It also has a hook inside for holding teabags…

Berlin Christmas market Delve into the festive atmosphere with a three-night stay at the Amano Grand Central hotel, from £229pp room-only, including London flights. 020-3474 5456, www.holidaydew. co.uk. Depart 17 December. Central Copenhagen hotel Stay four nights at the First Hotel Mayfair, located near the meatpacking district. From £416pp room-only, including Liverpool flights. 020-3897 1146, loveholidays.com. Depart 6 January. Downtown Bangkok Spend six nights at the Baiyoke Sky Hotel in Bangkok, with its spectacular views of the city, from £847pp b&b, including Dublin flights. 020-8974 7200, travelrepublic.co.uk. Depart 2 December. Seven nights in Bali Stay at the boutique villa hotel The Elysian, with Seminyak beach ashort walk away, from £1,659pp b&b, including Birmingham flights. 0800-540 4837, kuoni.co.uk. Depart 6 December.…

Sterling jumped after the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn agreed to back a snap election. Traders expect the poll to cut the risk of a hard Brexit. The political limbo continues to take its toll: a YouGov/CEBR survey found that UK consumer confidence hit its lowest level in six years in October, the third consecutive month of decline. Britons, it found, are increasingly anxious about job security and the value of their homes. The US S&P 500 hit a new record high, buoyed by more positive trade discussions with China and a likely cut in US interest rates – the third time this year. Mario Draghi handed the reins of the European Central Bank to former IMF chief, Christine Lagarde. Boeing boss Dennis Muilenburg testified in front of Congress for the…

The Barclay brothers After months of speculation about future ownership, the Telegraph newspaper group has been “put up for sale” – as part of a broader winnowing of the multi-billion-pound empire built by the octogenarian Barclay brothers, said Richard Fletcher in The Times. Another notable family asset up for grabs is the Ritz Hotel in Piccadilly. This isn’t an emergency fire sale: twins Sir David and Sir Frederick (below, left and right) – who celebrated their 85th birthday last Sunday – are estimated to be worth £8bn. The disposals have instead been driven by what one insider called “a generational shift” within the sprawling Barclay clan. Slimming down the portfolio will generate capital to allow the “buyout” of some family members. The twins, who divide their time between Monaco and…

“Who are the big winners in the bank switching war,” asks Katharine Gemmell in the Financial Times. The free-to-use Current Account Switching Service (Cass) has completed close to a million switches for Britons in the past year. So “who is cashing out, and where are they cashing in?” Winners Detailed data from the second quarter of 2019 shows Nationwide Building Society came out on top, with a net gain of 26,466 new customers. It wooed them with savings deals, a pledge to keep high street branches open, and a £100 “refer a friend” incentive. Another big winner was Monzo, the digital challenger bank, which poached 13,453 new customers; switchers rated its easy-to-use digital tools and fee-free overseas card transactions. Starling Bank, another digital challenger, also made gains, thanks to its…