Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1255 i The Week

What happened Corbyn’s campaign Jeremy Corbyn launched Labour’s 2019 general election manifesto last Thursday under the title “It’s Time for Real Change”. Embedded in its 105 pages were a plethora of radical pledges – including a second referendum on Brexit; a 4.3% increase in annual spending on the NHS; a rise in the minimum wage to £10; and the freezing of the state pension age at 66. Labour also promised to nationalise key industries (including energy, water, Royal Mail, railways and broadband); to abolish private schools’ charitable status; to scrap Universal Credit; to give free personal care at home for the over-65s, and free bus travel for the under-25s; and to build 100,000 new council houses each year. On Monday, however, the manifesto was overshadowed when Ephraim Mirvis, Britain’s chief…

David Walliams, with news that the actor-turned-children’swriter has joined the select band of authors who have sold more than £100m-worth of books. He has published more than 20 books since making his debut with The Boy in the Dress in 2008. Climate activists, after Britain’s biggest petrolhead admitted he was a convert to the cause. Jeremy Clarkson, a long-standing critic of “eco-mentalists”, said he became convinced of global warming when he found, while filming in Cambodia, that the water level in a lake fed by the once mighty Mekong river system was so low, he had to get out of aspeedboat and wade across it.…

Several orphaned British children found in a part of northeastern Syria formerly under Islamic State control have been brought back to Britain. The children – who have not been identified, but are all members of the same family – are the first to be repatriated to Britain in such a case. They were brought to the UK at the request of relatives, after being placed under the protection of the High Court, which asked the Foreign Office to facilitate the return. Campaigners for Save the Children welcomed the news, but said up to 60 British children are still stranded in Syria. The PM said it was unlikely all of them could be repatriated.…

Washington DC President is “not a king”: A federal judge has ruled that White House staff summoned to testify before Congress must do so, even if the president orders them not to. “Presidents are not kings,” said Ketanji Brown Jackson (pictured). The ruling relates to former White House counsel Don McGahn – who had argued that as a senior presidential adviser, he had “absolute immunity” from Congressional subpoenas – but it could lead to renewed Democrat efforts to get the likes of Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, and John Bolton, the former national security adviser, to the stand. Among those testifying last week was Fiona Hill, Trump’s British-born former top adviser on Russia and Europe. She described the pressure put on Ukraine as a“political errand” that did not serve…

“Most of the ills relating to our housing start with the morally reprehensible idea that it’s OK in a time of shortage to treat dwellings as mere investments. Yet when Labour reasonably suggests holiday homes should pay double council tax, affluent owners whimper. Any suggestion of stiffer capital gains gets pearls clutched. And no party has the guts to do as the Danes and forbid non-resident foreigners from owning property in cities. So Manchester and London are pimped out as cosy nest-eggs for Russian and Asian money. Houses aren’t bank vaults, flats aren’t wallets. Landlords have had the law on their side for 30 years and homeowners too ritzy a ride. It must stop.” Libby Purves in The Times…

A sinister visitation from Mr Plod Douglas Murray The Daily Telegraph If you thought “the thought police” existed only in Orwellian fiction, then you haven’t been following the case of Harry Miller versus the Humberside police heard in the High Court last week, says Douglas Murray. Miller, a former constable, had posted a few ribald tweets on the subject of transgender self-identification. (Sample: “I was assigned mammal at birth, but my orientation is fish. Don’t mis-species me”.) Not long after, he got a visit from a Humberside police officer warning him that his tweets had been recorded as “a hate incident” and that his social media account would now be monitored. “I’m here to check your thinking,” was how the officer put it, Miller told the court. Miller rightly claims…

Creating “meat” from thin air A technology for making “meat” from air could revolutionise food production, says The Times. In the late 1960s, Nasa researchers discovered a class of naturally occurring microbes that can convert CO2 into energy (much as plants do during photosynthesis). The space agency spent time trying to use these microbes to create food from the CO2 breathed out by astronauts – but eventually abandoned the project. Recently, however, it has been revived by Californian start-up Air Protein, which is now cultivating the microbes – known as hydrogenotrophs – in fermentation tanks, and mixing them with CO2 and a blend of“mineral nutrients”. The result is a flour-like powder that is around 80% protein, and which can be mixed with other ingredients to create a meat-like substance, the…

Joe Biden’s reputation for misspeaking has been cemented by recent public performances. During a TV debate last week, the Democrat candidate claimed to have the support of the “only” black woman elected to the Senate – although the second black female senator was standing only two podiums away. “Nope. That’s not true. The other one is here,” said Kamala Harris to laughter. He drew more laughter in a speech about domestic violence. “No man has the right to raise a hand to a woman in anger,” Biden intoned. “So, we have to change the culture, period. And keep punching at it, and punching at it, and punching at it.” Robbie Williams decided to call off his boxing match with old foe Liam Gallagher, after his wife said the idea was…

On the night of 9 November 1938, hundreds of Jewish cemeteries and synagogues in Nazi Germany were attacked and destroyed, along with countless Jewish-owned businesses. It was “the starting gun for the genocide” that ended in Auschwitz, Sobibor and Treblinka, said Fred Hiatt in The Washington Post. Eighty years on, in northwestern China, it is Kristallnacht every day. As part of Beijing’s repression of its Uighur Muslim minority, mosques, cemeteries and shrines are being bulldozed (up to 15,000 have been lost so far); and a million people have been detained in brutal “re-education” camps, where they are made to renounce their faith and traditions, and speak Mandarin Chinese. Beijing has worked hard to stifle reporting of its crimes in Xinjiang, but it’s becoming clear that what’s being perpetrated in China…

Football: Tottenham turn to Mourinho The Premier League is addicted to José Mourinho, said Rory Smith in The New York Times. Its love affair with the Portuguese manager has survived the “unhappy denouements of his last three jobs” – at Real Madrid, a second spell at Chelsea and a stint at Manchester United – as well as “an ever-decreasing trophy return”. So it was inevitable that he would eventually be given another chance. And he got one last week, when Tottenham, who had taken a mere 14points from their first 12 games of the season, sacked Mauricio Pochettino and hired Mourinho as his replacement. When Pochettino joined Spurs, in2014, the club had never, since the birth ofthe Premier League in 1992, been serious title contenders, said Henry Winter in The…

To The Times In criticising the Church of England’s report on anti-Semitism, Clare Foges does not comprehend what the Christian Church is for: it is not a glorified social services agency, but a conversation with God that started more than 2,000 years ago. Christians, Anglicans included, have to be alert to the times in the past when they misunderstood the conversation; this report is a necessary reassessment of the history that created the misunderstanding. Christianity started as a heretical movement within Judaism; its four gospels contain unmistakable elements of hostility to what was then the Jewish establishment, including shifting blame for Jesus’s death from the Romans to Jewish authorities. By an accident of history, Christians then gained established status in the Roman Empire. Powerful Christianity could now use earlier rhetoric…

Frozen 2 Dirs: Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck 1hr 43mins (U) Let it go... again The question everyone is asking about Frozen 2 is this, said Robbie Collin in The Daily Telegraph: “has Disney come up with a song to match the huge success of Let It Go from the 2013 original”? And the answer is a resounding yes – I’m actually singing the barnstorming Into The Unknown as I type this. It’s the tune that the magically gifted Elsa (powerfully voiced once again by Idina Menzel) belts out after hearing a mystical voice calling her, along with her loyal sister Anna (Kristen Bell) and Olaf the snowman (Josh Gad), to embark on a quest to faraway lands. Their mission? To answer questions it had occurred to no one, frankly,…

Many would consider it a privilege to eat beneath a painting by a Flemish master, says Jonathan Paige in The Times. However, The Fowl Market, from the studio of the 17th century artist Frans Snyders, has been removed from the dining room of Hughes Hall at Cambridge University, after complaints that it was putting vegetarians off their food. The painting, which features an array of dead game, had been on loan to the college from the city’s Fitzwilliam Museum; but a spokeswoman said that “people who don’t eat meat found it slightly revolting”. It was removed late last year, but has gone on display as part of a new exhibition at the museum. Feast & Fast: The art of food in Europe, 1500-1800 runs until 26 April.…

Leonard admits to David he thinks Jill wants him to propose. Lily reluctantly tells Johnny about Bella kissing someone else at the party, but he lashes out at her. Phoebe wants Brian to help her get the land needed for the rewilding funding; he refuses, but Lilian steps in. As Joy drops in a gift for Tony, she and Pat unexpectedly bond. Eddie and Alf sell off Joe’s scrap metal. Later, after giving Eddie his share of the profits, Alf finally leaves. David and Elizabeth discuss Leonard’s plan to propose. Elizabeth meets with Jim about the Ghost Stories performance, but when she mentions publicity, he clams up. Ed and Will hatch a Christmas money-making plan, but Eddie’s having none of it. Lily visits Pat to ask after Johnny; later she…

Normah’s Unit 23-25 Queensway Market, London W2 (07340-294660) It takes some time to locate Normah, tucked away as it is in the “labyrinthine bowels of Queensway Market” in Bayswater, says Tom Parker Bowles in The Mail on Sunday. But it’s well worth seeking it out, since you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better Malaysian restaurant in London. From her “tiny kitchen” off to the side of a “spartan” dining room, Normah – the “eponymous owner” – turns out a series of classic Malay dishes. Her curry laksa with whole prawns is soothing, generous and “knowingly spiced”. Roti canai (flatbreads) are “wonderfully light and flaky”, and come with a beef rendang that has “whispers” of lemongrass, galangal and ginger: this is a dish that “doesn’t feel the need to shout”.…

New cars: what the critics say Autocar On the face of it, the Porsche Cayenne Coupé might look like “the answer to a question that nobody was asking”. But there is demand for these cars (the BMW X6, and Mercedes GLE Coupé), which aim to combine the dynamism of a sports car with the practicality of an SUV. Porsche has done it better than most, but as the Coupé is so similar to a regular Cayenne, it’s hard to see the point of it. The Daily Telegraph Outside, it’s a bit of an awkward mash-up, but the Cayenne Coupé’s design works better than that of its “awkwardly hunched-over rivals”. Inside, as with the Cayenne, it’s a very “pleasing place” to be. The infotainment display blends into the glossy black dashboard,…

Cruising the fjords on a tugboat A blue-and-white tugboat with shiny brass and five “cosy” cabins, HMS Gåssten looks like “the plucky little star of some cartoon adventure”. One of the last wooden warships ever built, she was commissioned as a minesweeper by the Swedish navy in 1973; but this year, following a “bold and beautiful” refit in a Scottish shipyard, she began a new life as a pleasure cruiser plying the Norwegian fjords, says Tim Moore in the FT. Captain Sven Stewart is an “accomplished” skier; in winter, guests have access to “extravagant off-piste possibilities”; in summer months, there’s guided hiking, kayaking and cycling to do. On board, there is a panoramic saloon, deckchairs with reindeer rugs on the wheelhouse deck, and a fine chef on hand. Red Savannah…

LVMH/Tiffany & Co: breakfast with Trump The world’s largest luxury goods company has got a little larger, said The New York Times. Bernard Arnault’s LVMH has acquired Tiffany for $16.2bn, ending the US jeweller’s 182-year history as an independent brand. The all-cash deal, the biggest ever in a rapidly consolidating sector, follows “weeks of tense discussions” that resulted in LVMH raising its offer for this “American icon” to a generous $135 per share. Tiffany joins a roster of lustrous brands (including Louis Vuitton, Dom Pérignon, Givenchy, Fendi and Bulgari) acquired by the French tycoon – who founded an empire now worth $200bn when he snapped up Dior for a symbolic one franc in 1984. Arnault now enjoys such global sway that he gets head-of-state treatment when visiting China. He’s…

The dangers of an AI arms race Patrick Hosking The Times Google’s boss Sundar Pichai once memorably suggested that artificial intelligence could have “more profound” implications for humanity than electricity or fire. AI is already sparking a revolution in finance, says Patrick Hosking. But “there’s an awful lot of hype here” – and quite a few risks. In theory, computers capable of spotting “patterns and correlations too complex for the human eye” will make better insurance, loan and capital allocation decisions – thereby boosting investment returns and frustrating fraud. But there’s a risk that banks could get sucked into an AI “arms race” in the scrabble for advantage; and one can see how the “opacity and complexity of algorithms” might “amplify bubbles on the way up and crashes on the…

Houses Tory plans to “punish foreign property buyers” with a 3% “foreigner tax” could “play well on the doorsteps”, but they’ll make the housing crisis worse, said Jim Armitage in the London Evening Standard. Killing off overseas demand will simply cut off the amount of building work going on – and, with that, “the number of affordable homes that companies have to build”. Perhaps it’s time we acknowledged that “decades of trying to get the private sector to build cheaper homes at scale has failed”. It’s time to bite the bullet and “adopt the one Labour manifesto pledge that makes sense”: start building more state-funded council houses again. Companies The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, said only last week that BT Openreach would be the last of Labour’s planned nationalisations, said…

The week’s best shares Breedon Group The Daily Telegraph Although this construction materials specialist’s shares have been weak, sales and profits are rising solidly with margins consistently above 10% as acquisitions are efficiently integrated. Shares could reward. Buy. 59.8p. HomeServe The Daily Telegraph The emergency repairs company’s stake in US firm eLocal – plus a “slew of acquisitions” in heating and ventilation – should drive profits forward, boosted by cross-selling in the UK. Buy. £12.55. Future Investors Chronicle The publisher’s media business (e-commerce, events and digital advertising) is thriving: sales have climbed by a third, mitigating the contraction in its magazine arm. US and UK acquisitions should enhance earnings. Buy. £14.90. QinetiQ Investors Chronicle Deteriorating geopolitical relations have helped Qinetiq’s order-book surge, in line with rising global defence spending. The…

Controversy of the week A modest proposal? Historians will not write about the Tory manifesto of 2019, said The Times. Unveiled on Sunday, the slim prospectus contains “few big ideas and, in truth, not many big policies either”. There are some modest tax cuts, a few boosts for public services, particularly the NHS, and other goodies such as a cut to hospital parking charges and a new fund to fix potholes. But it’s a deliberately cautious document: in all, the Tories are proposing an extra £2.9bn in day-to-day spending by the end of the next parliament, equivalent to just £1 for every £28 pledged by Labour. The Conservatives are desperate to avoid Theresa May’s mistake in the 2017 campaign, said The Economist, when she unveiled an ambitious plan for social…

Wine buffs, after food scientists from Oxford University discovered that aficionados detected little difference between a cabernet sauvignon rosé and a white wine – made from the grenache blanc grape – that had been dyed pink. Jo Swinson, who was forced to deny murdering woodland creatures, after a spoof story went viral. It began with a mocked up Mirror front page claiming to have distressing footage of the Lib Dem leader using a slingshot to kill squirrels – or “pleb bunnies” as she supposedly calls them – in her garden. Asked about it on LBC radio, she described the spread of fake news as “worrying”, and insisted: “I like squirrels.” Elon Musk, after the unveiling of Tesla’s new “cybertruck” went awry (see page 49). The vehicle is supposed to be…

45% of Britons are in favour of Labour’s policy to nationalise the gas and electric companies; 29% are opposed. Support for nationalising the rail network is higher still at 56%, with 22% opposed. 54% of Britons are also in favour of putting employees in a third of corporate board seats, while 21% are opposed. Yet the party is still trailing 11 points behind the Tories: Labour is on 32%; the Tories’ are on 43%; the Lib Dems are on 13%, and the Brexit Party 4%. YouGov/The Times 68% of Democrats and 73% of Republicans say that nothing could happen during the Congressional inquiry into Donald Trump that would change their view of the president’s impeachment. Marist Poll/ The Independent…

Alan Alda’s happy marriage At 83, Alan Alda is still in demand. His latest film is Marriage Story – arguably “the most wrenching film about divorcing parents since Kramer vs. Kramer”, says David Smith in The Guardian. Alda’s own parents’ marriage was full of strife and ended in divorce after his mother, who had paranoid schizophrenia, tried to stab his father. By contrast, the actor and his wife Arlene have been together for 62 years. She says the secret of a happy marriage is a short memory. He has another approach: “When you’re inthe middle of arguing, which you will at some point, remember that you’re talking to the person you love more than anybody in the world, and it might change the tone of the conversation.” In 2003, Alda…

Buyers of apartments in a new development in China were outraged to discover the “park views” they had been promised in the brochure consisted of a large “lake” made of blue plastic sheeting laid on paving stones, surrounded by poorly sewn turf. However, the 2D “lake” does have a real wooden bridge over it. And as social media users pointed out, if they just painted the walls of their blocks green, they’d have a forest too. A church in Mexico has unveiled what it claims is the largest baby Jesus statue in the world – and as social media users were quick to observe, it’s the spitting image of singer Phil Collins. The Rev. Humberto Rodriguez said he had just wanted a statue that would “fit” the church. “There is…

THE NETHERLANDS Sounding the alarm over corruption De Volkskrant (Amsterdam) The Dutch like to think of themselves as models of probity, but corruption is growing and “it’s time to sound the alarm”, say Paul Vlaanderen and Serv Wiemers. True, no Dutch driver has to “insert a banknote in their licence” when stopped by police. But corruption flourishes in other ways. Luxury goods retailers flock to Amsterdam because of the huge numbers of cash buyers attracted by the authorities’ failure to enforce money-laundering rules. Our aggressive tax planning – avoidance – facilities have made Amsterdam a magnet for international corporations on the lookout for loopholes. Political sleaze is also rife: grafting councillors forced to resign; a senator abusing office to promote her own interests; political parties helping donors bypass funding rules.…

Humans have been placed in “suspended animation” for the first time, as part of a trial in the US aimed at giving surgeons vital extra time in which to treat traumatic injuries. According to the New Scientist, the extremely risky technique –emergency preservation and resuscitation (EPR) – is being tested on patients who arrive at The University of Maryland Medical Centre in Baltimore with injuries, such as gunshot wounds, that have caused cardiac arrest. They will have lost half their blood, and have a lower than 5% chance of survival. The EPR involves rapidly cooling their bodies to around 10°C -15°C, by replacing all their blood with ice-cold saline until their brain activity almost stops, and they are effectively dead. Surgeons then have two hours to fix their injuries, before…

Things were looking so hopeful for the Liberal Democrats at the start of this election campaign, said Rosa Prince in The Daily Telegraph. Recent defections to their party from the Tories, Labour and Change UK had swelled their number of MPs to 21. And having won over those disenchanted MPs, the Lib Dems had every reason to hope they’d be similarly embraced by many centrist voters who felt abandoned by the two main parties. In a further boost to their prospects, they had an “ostensibly appealing” new leader in the form of 39-year-old Jo Swinson. The stage was set for the party to ace the election, “perhaps even eclipsing the ‘Cleggmania’ of 2010”. Alas, things aren’t panning out that way, so far at least. If recent polls are to be…

There has been a distinct lack of interest, during this election, in a “genuine scandal”, said Dominic Lawson inThe Sunday Times. An interim report detailing failings in maternity care at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust was leaked last week. It revealed that, thanks to a “toxic” culture prevailing at the trust for decades, more than 40 babies and three mothers had died unnecessarily. Another 50 babies had been brain-damaged (and hundreds of other cases are under review). Families seeking the truth about their children’s deaths had been treated with a “distinct lack of kindness and respect”, wrote the report’s author, the maternity expert Donna Ockenden. The news was a reminder that though we are all meant to love the NHS, it is sometimes dangerously dysfunctional. A recent study…

Bright future for British tennis At some stage next year, it is “quite conceivable” that Britain will have four tennis players in the men’s top 50, said Mike Dickson in the Daily Mail. So it was no great surprise that the national team were “extremely competitive” at the Davis Cup. Andy Murray clearly wasn’t at his sharpest, but Kyle Edmund (pictured), who reached the semi-finals of the 2018 Australian Open, was back to his best. They may have lost to Spain in a tight semi-final, but this run bodes well for next year. The Spanish went on to beat Canada comfortably in the final, said Stuart Fraser in The Times. And despite his end-of-season exhaustion, Rafael Nadal managed to go all week without dropping a single service game. Having won…

Small Island by Andrea Levy, 2004 (Tinder £8.99). I hadn’t read this until I started writing about the Windrush scandal. I like her description of the disappointment felt by those who left the Caribbean for Britain full of hope – only to discover that the Mother Country is a “stinking, cantankerous hag” who “looks down at you through lordly eyes and says, ‘Who the bloody hell are you?’” We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, 1962 (Penguin £8.99). “I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf,” announces Mary Katherine Blackwood, as she begins her account of her very peculiar existence. Most of her family is dead, killed by poisoned sugar. A brilliantly disturbing novel. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi,…

Programmes Seamus Heaney and the Music of What Happens An intimate look at the life and work of the late Irish poet, featuring interviews with his family and archive footage. Sat 30 Nov, BBC2 21:45 (90mins). Gauguin – A Dangerous Life A candid reassessment of the painter’s complicated legacy, weighing his artistic genius against his problematic relationships. Filmed in France, Tahiti and beyond, with readings by Dominic West. Sun 1 Dec, BBC4 21:00 (60mins). Facing Franco’s Crimes Shot over six years, this documentary follows victims of Spain’s fascist regime as they seek justice in the courts and from the government. Mon 2 Dec, BBC4 22:00 (90mins). The Prime Ministerial Debate Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn go head to head for a second time, this time in Southampton, ahead of the…

Baingan bharta (roasted smoky aubergine) Serves 3 2medium-sized aubergines 6 tsp rapeseed oil 1 tsp cumin seeds 3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced 3 medium onions, finely chopped 3 green chillies, seeds in, finely chopped 2 tomatoes, finely chopped 20g coriander leaves, finely chopped 1 tsp ground cumin 1 tsp ground coriander 1 tsp ground turmeric 1 tsp salt roti, to serve • Roast the aubergines over a gas burner on a medium heat using a pair of tongs, or under a preheated hot grill. Either way, turn the veg regularly for even roasting. Allow to cool, then peel off the skin. Mash the flesh in a large bowl. • Heat the oil in a pan, add the cumin seeds, then the garlic and stir for 1 minute. Add the onions…

Charming boutique hotel Two nights at the Didsbury House Hotel, a converted Victorian villa in south Manchester, cost from £137pp (two sharing) room-only. 020-3397 0085 chicretreats.com. Arrive 10 January. B&B in St Petersburg Conveniently located on the famous Nevsky Prospect, a four-night stay at the Park Inn Nevsky Hotel costs from £341pp, including flights. 020-3797 1998, travelbag.co.uk. Depart 31 January. 5-star New Zealand stay Spend five nights in Wellington in a studio apartment at the 5-star Boulcott Suites from £1,216pp room-only, including London flights. 0871-277 1070, lastminute.com. Depart 5 February. Idyllic Malaysian retreat Stay at the four-star Berjaya Langkawi Resort, close to Seven Wells Waterfall, from £1,002pp half-board, including Edinburgh flights. 0800-408 6498, awayholidays.co.uk. Depart 3 February.…

Britain’s domestically-focused FTSE 250 index hit a 15-month high due to investor confidence that the Conservatives will win the general election, after polls showed the party maintaining its lead over Labour. But the pound fell against the dollar – reflecting jitters in currency markets that Labour may be closing the gap. It was also a good week for the more international FTSE 100, which rose above the 7,400 mark for the first time since early November, buoyed by confidence that China and America are pushing to get a trade deal over the line. The spate of mega-deals continued, with takeovers topping $70bn announced on Monday alone. Charles Schwab agreed to pay $26bn to acquire its discount rival TD Ameritrade, in a deal that will combine two of the largest online…

Maurice Lévy “To be extremely honest, I rejected the idea at first,” said Publicis chairman Maurice Lévy, who has taken on the daunting task of stemming “the flow of bad news” at WeWork as “interim chief marketing officer”. A younger person might have suited the role better, the French advertising grandee told the FT, “but there is an emergency situation”. Lévy, 77, expects to be in the role for no more than “a few weeks or months”, and is talking up the turnaround of the property company, which has lost nearly $40bn in value this year, as “an interesting and fun challenge”. Tell that to the 2,400 people who are losing their jobs, or the 1,000 more earmarked to be outsourced. Lévy’s appointment was one of the most astonishing of…

Only 11% of British adults cook the majority of their meals from scratch, says the remaining 89% mainly rely on takeaways or ready meals. In the past 12 months, one in ten Britons admit to not having cooked at all, and to having relied entirely on takeaways or pre-prepared food. Men are less likely to cook than women: 16% haven’t cooked at all, compared with 5% of women. Lovers of designer clothes can now buy them in digital form: the client chooses a garment online, which is then digitally edited onto their own image – so that they can post photos of themselves on social media in clothes they’d not be able to afford in real life. Dutch digital-fashion house Fabricant is among the pioneers of “digital fashion”.…

Launching the SNP manifesto on Wednesday, Nicola Sturgeon said a vote for her party was a vote to “escape Brexit” and put Scotland’s future in Scotland’s hands. Warning that Boris Johnson’s proposed Brexit deal would be a “nightmare” for Scotland, Sturgeon called for a second Brexit referendum with Remain on the ballot paper, as well as a second independence referendum next year. The SNP also wants to scrap Trident, drastically increase NHS spending, and gain devolved powers over drugs policy.…

Paris March against “femicide”: Thousands of women marched through Paris last Saturday to draw attention to the rising number of women who are killed by their current or former partners. There is a “femicide” every three days on average in France, and this has become a major political issue since September, when President Macron visited a domestic violence hotline centre, and listened to a call in which a policeman refused to help a woman whose husband was threatening to kill her. The president later referred to domestic violence as “France’s shame”. According to a justice ministry report published earlier this month, police missed opportunities to save the lives of 41% of the women murdered inFrance by current or former partners in 2015-16. The women had told police they were in…

This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs featured the conservationist and award-winning writer Isabella Tree 1 The Whole of the Moon by Mike Scott, performed by The Waterboys 2* These Foolish Things by Eric Maschwitz and Jack Strachey, performed by Billie Holiday 3 Life’s a Gas by Marc Bolan, performed by T. Rex 4 What’s a Telephone Bill? by William Collins, George Clinton and Gary Cooper, performed by Bootsy’s Rubber Band 5 Three Little Birds by Bob Marley, performed by Bob Marley & The Wailers 6 Clarinet Quintet in A, K.581 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, performed by Nicholas Carpenter and The Brindisi String Quartet 7 Dancing in the Moonlight by Sherman Kelly, performed by Toploader 8 Recording of nightingales made during the Second World War, origin unknown Book:…

An impact from an asteroid that’s more than about half a mile wide would be a global catastrophe. Even on the lower end of the scale, an asteroid of that size would destroy everything within hundreds of miles of ground zero, triggering massive earthquakes and fires. The dust and smoke sent into the atmosphere would darken the skies for months, plunging the Earth into a mini ice age, causing worldwide crop failures. Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory modelled the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs on one of the world’s most powerful computers, and found that it gouged a crater 18 miles deep, and released the energy of a billion Hiroshima bombs. A gigantic mass of molten material was produced, setting fire to everything within a thousand miles. Debris…

The Pandora’s box of drone executions Jennifer Gibson Los Angeles Times “For more than a decade now, the US and its European allies have pioneered the use of drones to target and kill suspected terrorists far from traditional battlefields,” says Jennifer Gibson. These strikes have killed many alleged “bad” guys, who are reportedly on a “kill list” featuring hundreds of names. Nobody outside the US government knows how you get on or off this list, and nobody on it is ever charged with acrime or tried in a court before they’re summarily executed. An investigation a few years ago found that, on average, these malefactors “die” three times. That is to say, many of these supposedly targeted attacks are based on faulty intelligence and thus kill others instead. Leaving aside…

The number of people in England who are obese – with a body mass index of 30 or more – has almost doubled in the past 20 years. According to analysis by the charity Diabetes UK, around 13 million people aged 16 and above are now classified as obese, up from 6.96 million in 1997. Over the same period, the proportion of people living with obesity has risen in line with that, from 18% to 29%. Separately, NHS Digital figures showed that the number of people admitted to English hospitals last year with an obesity diagnosis exceeded a million for the first time. There were 1.1 million such patients in total. Two-thirds were women. More than 9,000 were under 18, and 600 were under the age of six. Simon Stevens,…

There would be “all hell to pay” if a Tory mayor announced, in the middle of a general election campaign, that he was sacking 45,000 low-paid, predominantly immigrant workers and scrapping a popular transport service used regularly by 3.5 million people, said Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail. But that’s “precisely” what Labour mayor Sadiq Khan’s Transport for London (TfL) did this week by revoking Uber’s licence to operate in the capital. TfL said it had uncovered a “pattern of failures” at the ride-hailing firm – including a weakness in its app that allowed more than 14,000 trips to be carried out fraudulently by unauthorised drivers who uploaded their photos to another driver’s account. Uber replied that TfL’s decision was “extraordinary and wrong”. It had closed the photo loophole, it…

“Work is much more fun than fun.” Noël Coward, quoted in the FT “The progress of society rests upon the opposition between successive generations.” Sigmund Freud, quoted in The Daily Telegraph “My ancestors wandered in the wilderness for 40 years because even in biblical times, men would not stop to ask directions.” Comedian Elayne Boosler, quoted in Forbes “Faith is what someone knows to be true, whether they believe it or not.” Flannery O’Connor, quoted in the LA Times “The easiest reading is damned hard writing.” Thomas Hood, quoted in The Times “Politics consists of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.” J.K. Galbraith, quoted in Forbes “Polarising people is a good way to win an election and a good way to wreck acountry.” Columnist Molly Ivins, quoted in The…

Think before you build To The Guardian There is much to be welcomed in the Labour Party’s manifesto, particularly the idea of the Sovereign Land Trust to buy land and lease it back to communities, the commitment to zero-carbon new homes and an end to right-to-buy. But – as an architect active at the height of the postwar expansion of council house building – I have some misgivings about the commitment to build at a rate of 150,000 units a year. The maximum achieved during the 1950s and 1960s was an average of about 200,000, following a build-up of about three years. When there was a major push to increase throughput by industrialised building and package-dealing, with little or no design input from planners and architects, standards fell, social and…

Musical: Dear Evan Hansen Noël Coward Theatre, London WC2 (0844-482 5151). Until 2 May Running time: 2hrs 30mins This musical, the latest Broadway show to make the leap across the Atlantic, arrives laden with honours, including six Tony awards, said Michael Billington in The Guardian. And you can see why. The “book” for Dear Evan Hansen (the talky bits between songs), written by TV scriptwriter Steven Levenson, is so multilayered and compelling it could “stand up as a play in its own right”. The main themes are adolescent trauma and social anxiety, said Clive Davis in The Times. Evan is an anxiety-plagued teen who writes a daily letter to himself to boost his morale. But when another lonely outsider, Connor, takes his own life, the dead boy’s parents mistakenly assume…

The Map House at Matches at Matches Fashion A high-end fashion boutique might seem a rather improbable venue for an exhibition of vintage maps, scientific illustrations and botanical studies. Yet unlikely as it sounds, this curious show is a visual riot. The display consists of around two dozen items from the collection of venerable Knightsbridge antiquarian specialist The Map House, none of which are less than fascinating. Among the more astonishing exhibits are a highly detailed map of London from 1792, when Earl’s Court and Bethnal Green were no more than tiny hamlets; some extraordinary 17th century Dutch charts and celestial maps, rendered in impossibly vivid colour; and an enormous 1970 map of the Moon’s surface. Most remarkable of all is a series of intricate illustrated educational charts published…

Sometimes we all need a change from the “utterly ubiquitous” sauvignon blanc, which has become almost the default accompaniment to non-red meat dishes, says Susy Atkins in The Daily Telegraph. My alternative is a grape you may not know: pecorino. It grows mainly in Italy’s central-eastern regions, and like the famous cheese (with which it goes rather well), its name derives from the Italian word for sheep, pecora. That’s because its grapes hang in triangular clusters, which are reckoned to look like the shape of a sheep’s head. Pecorino typically delivers a refreshing citrus and pear flavour that can veer towards peachiness, or be “more herbaceous”. For an example of the former, try Wm Morrison Terre di Chieti Pecorino 2018 (£6.75) – a “serious bargain” and a “good party wine”.…

Aman Kyoto Japan Located a 30-minute drive from the centre of Kyoto – but within easy walking distance of some of the ancient city’s most important temples – this new Aman group hotel is an exquisite haven of calm, says Lauren Ho in Wallpaper*. Occupying a series of “low-key” pavilions with black-timber-latticed facades, it is set in a “secret” garden surrounded by “lush” woodland. The “calm, minimal” interiors echo those of a traditional Japanese inn, or ryokan, but have floor-to-ceiling windows. The spa has hot-spring (“onsen”) baths, and the two restaurants offer elaborate kaiseki-style meals and Kyoto home-cooking, respectively. Doubles from £910 b&b, aman.com.…

Quick-witted Labour politician of the “sane Left” Frank Dobson 1940-2019 Frank Dobson, who has died aged 79, was a stalwart of the Old Left (or the “sane Left”, as he put it), who served as Tony Blair’s original health secretary, said The Guardian. He took great pride in being put in charge of an institution that “he regarded as truly emblematic of a caring society”, and immediately fought to secure £300m in extra funding for the NHS. He oversaw a major hospital-building programme, and the establishment of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice), to help stop the “postcode lottery” for treatments. He reversed internal market reforms, and played a key role (with Tessa Jowell) in the launch of the Sure Start scheme, to provide families with health and educational…

At last, “a return to form for Elon Musk”, said Alistair Osborne in The Times – after a uncharacteristic period of calm, free of incendiary tweets and televised spliff-smoking. Shares in his electronic carmaker, Tesla, fell 6% last week, following “the comedy launch” of the company’s “cybertruck” – a futuristic $39,900 pick-up truck hailed by the maestro as a “Blade Runner” vehicle. When Tesla’s top designer lobbed a ball at the truck’s side window “to prove its bullet-proof credentials”, the glass instantly shattered. Undeterred, “he then took out a second window”. How reassuring to note that the company’s “fully driverless car is only weeks away”.…