Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1325 i The Week

What happened Lockdown eases England’s coronavirus restrictions were eased this week, in the first significant relaxation of rules for adults since the country went into lockdown 12 weeks ago. As of Monday, groups of up to six people from separate households could mix outside, and outdoor sports such as tennis and football were allowed to resume. In Wales, the stay-local order expired, meaning people can travel freely within the country; restrictions were also due to be eased in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The change in rules followed the Government’s announcement that 30 million people in the UK have now had their first dose of a vaccine, and 3.5 million have had a second dose. In a further boost to the vaccine roll-out, ministers said that the first of 17 million…

New Yorkers have been hiring “healers” to spiritually “clear” their homes after a year stuck inside. Sondra Shaye, who claims Wall Street bankers and celebrities as clients, will spray your possessions with water she has infused with “positive energy”, while others roam apartments ringing a bell or chanting. Shaye charges from $700 for a small flat. The pandemic has caused so many people to embrace the great outdoors, luxury fashion companies are now producing hiking gear: in February, Giorgio Armani sent a navy fleece down the runway, while Gucci recently teamed up with The North Face. Sportswear firm Adidas, meanwhile, has announced plans to become one of the four biggest outdoor brands by 2025.…

Beijing has imposed sanctions on nine UK citizens who’ve been at the forefront of a campaign calling for sanctions against China for its mistreatment of Uighur Muslims. They include former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith and four other Tory MPs; Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, and Dr Joanne Smith Finley, an academic. Beijing accuses them of spreading “lies and disinformation” about human rights abuses in Xinjiang and insists the camps in which Uighurs are confined are re-education centres for terrorists. The sanctions, largely symbolic, are seen as retaliation for joint action taken by the UK, EU, US and Canada against Chinese officials suspected of human rights violations against Uighurs in Xinjiang.…

“As long as you stick to your own age cohort and see them often enough you don’t notice the ravages of time: wrinkles, greys, they creep in imperceptibly. We are all on fast trains to mortality, but because we move at the same rate we don’t notice the speed. Well, lockdown has, shall we say, put a few leaves on the track. The friends and colleagues we once spent our days with will suddenly reappear after rusting in sidings. The re-socialisation programme will be like a national school reunion. ‘Is that really you, Brian?’ we will think as we struggle to see original features under the mask of their older faces. Practise hiding your shock.” Helen Rumbelow in The Times…

How easily we’ve let them take our liberty Camilla Cavendish Financial Times The thing about emergency laws, says Camilla Cavendish, is that they’re for emergencies. And the UK is no longer in one. The second wave is over; those most at risk have almost all had the jab; hospital admissions are down 90%. Yet ministers insist on extending curbs to our liberties; and Parliament, which has waved through emergency powers under the Coronavirus Act for another six months, lets them get away with it. Why? Some say it’s due to a fear that vaccines won’t cope with the South Africa variant, but if this were so, there wouldn’t be so many ludicrous legal loopholes – viz. the “Stanley Johnson clause”, named after the PM’s father, which allows you to travel…

The bird that “lost” its song An endangered Australian bird is losing its own “song culture”, because there are too few adults around for young males to learn songs from. Fledgling regent honeyeaters would normally learn their mating calls from adult mentors, just as human babies learn to speak from their parents and other grown-ups around them. But researchers have observed that in areas where the bird is most rare, the complexity of their song has declined over the past few decades – and some males are not singing their own songs at all: instead, they’re using the mating calls of other bird species. Birds that lose their own singing repertoire are less likely to find a mate – creating a vicious circle of species decline. “This lack of ability…

Megaships: a threat to world trade? Barbecues, trainers, iPads, TVs, fridges... how does all the stuff we buy get to us? Until last week, few of us were aware that 90% of the world’s traded goods are carried by sea, said Amanda Mull in The Atlantic. Then the Ever Given – one of the largest ships on Earth – drifted sideways in high wind as it made its way through the Suez Canal, en route from ports in China to Rotterdam, and blocked this vital trade route (see page 51). Stacked high with up to 18,000 containers holding goods worth an estimated $1bn, the 400-metre-long ship sat there, while scores of other vast boats, transporting everything from crude oil and car parts to livestock, backed up behind it. As…

Football: Kane breaks the deadlock in Tirana Since Gareth Southgate took over as England’s manager in 2016, his sides have “tended to beat the teams they’d expect to beat”, said David Hytner in The Guardian. And so it proved in Sunday’s World Cup qualifier against Albania, which is ranked 66th in the world. England followed up their 5-0 win over San Marino last Thursday with what turned out to be a straightforward 2-0 victory. For most of the first half it didn’t look that way, said Ian Ladyman in the Daily Mail. On a sluggish surface “not designed to be their friend”, England were far too slow and cautious, forgetting that against technically inferior sides, it’s often best to concentrate on the simple things – such as supplying “accurate crosses…

Grit in the Lords’ shoe To The Times You covered many column inches with an attack on the 85 hereditary peers who still sit in the House of Lords. As the peer who negotiated the compromise that reprieved them during the last reform, allow me to respond. Tony Blair had proposed that the Lords be reformed in two stages. Stage 1 was the departure of all hereditaries. Stage 2 would introduce further, unspecified reforms. It was plain to many of us that once stage 1 had been achieved, stage 2 would be kicked into the long grass: no one would be able to agree on how a reformed house would look. My objective in negotiating the retention of some hereditary peers was not to preserve their historic position; rather, it…

Shakespeare the butcher The critic John Dover Wilson once said that it resembled a “self-satisfied pork butcher”, says Dalya Alberge in The Guardian. But scholars have now concluded that the bust of William Shakespeare above his grave in the Holy Trinity church in Stratford-upon-Avon is actually the best likeness of the playwright that we have. The bust was long thought to have been a memorial created years after Shakespeare’s death in 1616, not an actual portrait. But according to new research, the work was, in fact, “modelled from life by a sculptor who knew him”. Professor Lena Cowen Orlin of Georgetown University argues that the evidence suggests it was created by a London sculptor named Nicholas Johnson, and that Shakespeare was alive at the time (the date of his death…

A nervous Susan gets a riding lesson from Shula in preparation for her role in The Mystery Plays; Shula advises her to work on her core strength. It’s all change at the Parish Council – Jim urges Neil to stay on as chair, but Neil’s adamant he’s stepping down. There’s apathy about finding a successor; Emma’s not keen, and there are groans as pushy Hilary Noakes puts herself forward. As Rex and Phoebe make plans for the campsite on the rewilding land, Rex gets a call to say he’s been turned down for the council farm. With no plan B, he’s worried. At the hospital, the doctor says Martha’s ready to go home. Chris is thrilled but Alice is hesitant. When Chris insists she’ll have support, she backtracks and says…

In praise of spring onions They are a vital ingredient in Chinese cuisine, but in the West we scandalously underrate spring onions, said Bee Wilson in the FT. Despite their name, they nestle all year round in the salad aisle, and are sometimes even called “salad onions” – as if that is all they are good for. In fact, they’re a remarkably versatile vegetable, which can delight in many ways. Served chopped and raw, they are “like an onion in soft focus” – but they really come into their own when cooked whole, and turn as “silky and sugary-sweet as leeks”. My favourite spring onion recipe is Edna Lewis’s “Skillet Scallions”, from her 1976 book The Taste of Country Cooking. For four people, take four bunches of spring onions, trim…

Blink Outdoor Smart Security Camera System While the quality of their footage is not as high as some here, Amazon’s Blink cameras are simple to set up and work alongside the Alexa assistant (£75; argos.co.uk). Hive View Indoor Security Camera This glossy cube-shaped indoor camera can be attached magnetically to its brushed metal stand, or detached for an hour of battery life. It has a clear picture, can send notifications, and can be scheduled to look out for faces or sounds (£160; johnlewis.com). Arlo Pro 3 The weatherproof Arlo Pro 3 offers excellent 2K HDR video, colour night vision, a siren and a 160° viewing angle. The hub comes with at least two cameras (from £350; currys.co.uk). Google Nest Cam IQ Indoor Security Camera This stylish camera has a facial…

Maj. Gen. Jeremy Phipps 1942-2021 On 30 April 1980, six armed men stormed the Iranian embassy in Kensington, and took 26 hostages – including embassy staff, two BBC journalists who’d gone there to apply for visas, and a police officer. Iranian Arabs fighting for the independence of the oil-rich southern region of Khuzestan, they demanded the release of Arab prisoners there – and threatened to blow up the embassy if their demands were not met. “Police surrounded the building, as did the world’s media,” said The Times. The PM, Margaret Thatcher, called a Cobra meeting; and the next day, Lt Col. Michael Rose – 22 SAS commander – was summoned from his base in Herefordshire. With him in the helicopter was Major Jeremy Phipps, who, over the next five days,…

Oil and commodity prices spiked sharply after a container ship got stuck in the Suez Canal (see page 51), leading to a pile-up of global cargo traffic. Brent crude rose more than 4% to $64.50/ barrel. Traders breathed a sigh of relief when the ship was freed – the blockage threatened to impact manufacturing supply chains as well as oil supplies. But uncertainty surrounding this week’s Opec oil cartel meeting kept the oil price high. The yield on benchmark ten-year US Treasuries hit its highest level since the early days of the Covid crisis, after a brutal quarter for government bonds. Shares in Credit Suisse and Nomura – the two banks worst hit by the implosion of the Wall Street investment fund Archegos Capital – plummeted on fears about their…

● Virtual-signalling Prices of digi-currencies have been soaring over the past year. So too have those of “virtual paintings and other rare digital collectibles”, said The Daily Telegraph. Highly prized artworks are growing in value “at an astonishing rate” thanks to a new technology that guarantees provenance and safeguards against forgery. “Non-fungible tokens”, or NFTs, hold images, videos and music on your computer and act as “a sort of virtual share certificate”. When bought or sold, transactions are listed on a blockchain-based digital register. They’re currently fuelling a real boom in the art world. In March, auctioneer Christie’s sold “a virtual collage” by the US digital art pioneer Mike Winkelmann, aka Beeple, for an unprecedented $69m. ● Beeple people Beeple’s digital collage Everydays: The First 5000 Days comprises 5,000 Instagram…

Roll up, roll up, who wants to own a “black leather cloth upholstered chromed steel swivel armchair” that “was once honoured (probably) by Sir Philip Green’s backside”, asked Nils Pratley in The Guardian. There was a grim fascination about the sale of fixtures and fittings from Arcadia’s boardroom last week. Sales were healthy, but creditors “shouldn’t hold their collective breath for a windfall”. Although the auctioneers described the collection as an example of “superyacht” styling, the pieces were “only averagely” garish. “In the market for memorabilia from high-profile corporate collapses, Lehman Brothers still wins.” Green has many enemies, said Jenny Johnston in the Daily Mail. And these, it seems, include his elder sister. In a “tell-all” memoir, Elizabeth Green has painted a damning portrait of “a spoilt mummy’s boy”. The…

What the commentators said In the end, after weeks of “threats, insults and half-truths from the European Commission”, they folded, said Tom Harwood in the Daily Mail. The drumbeat of “all-out vaccine war” has faded, at least for now, thanks to “sensible voices” from countries including Ireland and the Netherlands outweighing the “protectionist French and Italians”. The former countries had rightly realised that sparking a genuine trade war would have been a “monumental act of self-sabotage”. Of course, with Covid cases surging in many countries, and still only around a fifth of adults having had their first jab, EU nations are desperate to obtain more doses. But as Ireland’s Taoiseach Micheál Martin “forcefully pointed out”, while millions of vaccines being made in the EU are going abroad, they require imported…

The 1970s, the era once described as “the decade that style forgot”, which is coming into fashion. Various designers have included 1970s staples such as clogs and tank tops in their collections, and online shopping platform Lyst reports a 45% increase in searches for flared jeans, and also a growing number of people using “psychedelic” as a search term. Al fresco dining, which is set to boom when lockdown eases. With only two in five licensed premises having outdoor space of their own, local authorities in London, Manchester and Birmingham are preparing to temporarily pedestrianise roads, and widen pavements, to help restaurants, bars and pubs.…

56% of Britons think the Covid vaccine should be compulsory for anyone visiting a pub, while 17% oppose the idea. Some 75% think care home workers, NHS staff and public service employees should be required to get the jab. Redfield & Wilton Strategies/Telegraph 68% of Britons have not booked a summer holiday yet for 2021. 23% have booked holidays in the UK, and 14% abroad. Of those who have booked abroad, 63% think it is likely they will have to cancel or rearrange. Opinium/Observer In the by-election race in Hartlepool, Labour (39%) has a three-point lead against the Tories (36%), down from an 11-point lead at the 2019 election. Focaldata/Times…

A defector’s journey Jihyun Park is standing as a Tory candidate in next month’s local elections in Bury, Greater Manchester. But she is not from the area: she grew up in North Korea – and witnessed at close hand the horrors of that regime. She watched relatives starve, and her brother almost beaten to death by soldiers. Her diet consisted of nothing but corn, and she was taught not to smile, and never to laugh. “Nobody smiled in my village,” she told David Collins in The Sunday Times. “You couldn’t laugh, because if somebody heard you, the police would come to your apartment and want to know about the joke. People living in countries which enjoy freedom take little things like this for granted.” Yet their flat was covered with…

A personal trainer who is afraid of sweat has won a tribunal claim after refusing to pick up used towels at a gym. Ali Burton, 27, said she told her boss that she suffered from an anxiety disorder triggered by “hygiene issues” – but within weeks he was asking her to collect sweaty towels. Nuffield Health in Sussex likened her career choice to someone with a milk allergy working in a coffee shop, but nevertheless lost the case. A gang of around 20 giant rhea birds is on the loose in suburban Hertfordshire. The birds, which can grow to 5ft tall and reach speeds of 50mph, have been seen on housing estates near Maple Cross. Their origin is unknown. Police warned that they can be aggressive, attacking dogs and deer.…

INDIA Prime minister, get your hands off the internet Asia Times (Hong Kong) We’re used to autocratic regimes like Russia’s and China’s censoring the internet, says Joseph Dana. Yet surprisingly, some of the most egregious examples of the practice are in India, the world’s largest democracy. In recent years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been “steadily curbing basic internet freedoms for India’s more than one billion citizens”. Amid tensions with Beijing, his government last year banned the Chinese-owned video site TikTok, along with 58 other Chinese apps. In March, new digital media laws gave the government sweeping powers over online activity. In the pipeline now are plans to outlaw ownership of the cryptocurrency bitcoin, and a bill that forces foreign companies in India to share data with the government: this…

This summer, a bag of chalk dust will be sprayed into the stratosphere, 12 miles above the Arctic town of Kiruna, to test the viability of dimming the Sun. This trial is purely designed to gather data, but the idea is that if millions of tonnes of calcium carbonate were to be spewed out, it might reflect back enough of the Sun’s radiation to prevent runaway global warming. The Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx) is being carried out by scientists at Harvard University and has the backing of private donors including Bill Gates. But these kinds of “solar geo-engineering” projects are highly controversial, reports The Times. Scientists have warned that they could have catastrophic unforeseen consequences on weather patterns; there are also fears that governments will seize on them as…

Jennifer Arcuri has gone on the record about her affair with Boris Johnson for the first time, saying: “We were in an intimate relationship for four years.” Arcuri told the Sunday Mirror that he didn’t make a great first impression: when she met the then-married London Mayor for a “private drink” in 2012, “he showed up late, dishevelled and chaotic. He went to the bar and came back and said, ‘Jennifer, can I borrow £3.10?’” On their next date, Arcuri said she refused his plea to kiss him in the street, saying he was being incautious – to which he replied: “This is my city, I don’t care,” before cycling off “in a huff”. Several Tory MPs who rebelled against the extension of coronavirus laws made speeches in Parliament last…

In recent years, drones have become a familiar sight at many racecourses around Britain, said Greg Wood and Chris Cook in The Guardian. Operated mainly by professional companies, these send streams with little or no delay (or “latency”) to punters placing “in-running bets” (ones wagered during races). Those who pay for access to the feeds are given a considerable advantage to those watching mainstream broadcasts, which tend to operate with a delay of several seconds. The horse racing industry is hugely worried by this trend, said Charlotte Wace in The Times. Selling licences to broadcast its races is at the heart of what it does: if drone operators are making and selling their own broadcasts –which are of more value to racing punters – that threatens the industry’s viability. And…

To The Daily Telegraph Let me put into perspective the deep reverence that Muslims feel for the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him). Muslims hold on dearly to his example and take inspiration from him in nearly all aspects of their lives. It is no exaggeration to say that insulting him is deemed an act immeasurably more heart-wrenching than the vilest insult of their own mothers. Fareed Rehman, New Malden, Surrey To The Daily Telegraph I am grateful to Fareed Rehman for putting into perspective the reverence Muslims feel for their Prophet Mohammed. Likewise, the degree of “immeasurably heart-wrenching” hurt resulting from a perceived insult to their prophet. I should, however, like to put into perspective the deep and sincere love and respect for the freedoms the people of Britain…

György Ligeti – The 18 Études: Danny Driver Hyperion £13 György Ligeti’s cycle of 18 Études are among the very few collections of late 20th century piano music to bear comparison with the great studies of Chopin, Liszt and Debussy, said Richard Fairman in the FT. They are jaw-droppingly difficult to play, but having spent three years working on them, the British virtuoso Danny Driver does the pieces full justice on this album. He draws out the impressionistic beauty in the slower ones, and reminds us that Ligeti, who died in 2006, left “not just keyboard finger-twisters, but poetry in music”. The challenge, writes Driver in his sleeve notes, is “putting the emotional and evocative power of these pieces centre stage despite their intransigent virtuosity”. And he rises to it…

Jed Mercurio’s otherwise “masterful” police drama Line of Duty stumbled in its fifth series, particularly on “believability”, so fans have been nervous about its return, said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian. I’d say it has started well. There’s no shortage of the acronyms we’ve grown to love, and at least one “gasp-worthy” moment had been delivered by the end of episode one. The plot concerns the murder of a journalist, and a detective – played by guest star Kelly Macdonald – who seems to have deliberately let a suspect get away, triggering the involvement of our heroes at the AC-12 anti-corruption unit. It felt slightly flat to me, said Hugo Rifkind in The Times. A drama about police who investigate police, Line of Duty was always supposed to be a…

Best books… Philip Hoare The writer – who has written extensively about whales and made The Hunt for Moby-Dick, a feature-length documentary for the BBC – picks his favourite books. His new book, Albert and the Whale (4th Estate £16.99), is out now Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, 1851 (Penguin £7.99). A mad and maddening book, less a novel than the result of a 19th century Google search for “whales”. Fearful, violent, funny and sexy, it’s my alternative bible. Dip in anywhere and you will find your thought for the day. Just don’t act it out or you’ll find yourself in the belly of the whale. The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, 1924 (Vintage £10.99). In this 20th century riposte to Moby-Dick, the whitened Gothic of Mann’s consumptive sanatorium is stranded…

As they gear up to reopen in the summer, theatres continue to bring the stage experience into our living rooms. A new production of Romeo & Juliet stars Jessie Buckley and Josh O’Connor (who was recently awarded a Golden Globe for his role as Prince Charles in The Crown) in a hybrid of film and theatre. Shot over 17 days in an empty National Theatre, it’s “a remarkable experiment in storytelling” (Sunday Times), and will air at 9pm on 4 April on Sky Arts. The star-crossed lovers also take centre stage at this year’s Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park, London, now booking from 26 June to 24 July (openairtheatre.com).…

Jersey Royals are beautiful potatoes with a unique taste, says Rob Howell – and this dish, filled with the flavours of spring, is a joyous way to celebrate their arrival. Serves 4 1kg Jersey Royal potatoes 2 bay leaves 2 thyme sprigs 2 mint sprigs 2 garlic cloves, crushed 10g salt 2 tbsp cooking oil 2 shallots, diced 200g fresh peas 25g unsalted butter 2 tbsp chopped chives 2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley 2 handfuls of wild garlic 4 tbsp of crème fraîche for the pea purée: 50ml rapeseed oil 1 shallot, sliced 1 garlic clove, sliced 600ml vegetable stock 375g frozen peas salt and freshly ground black pepper • Place the potatoes in a large saucepan with enough cold water just to cover them. Add the bay, thyme and…

● Join a “hedgehog highway”. By linking your garden with others via 13cm gaps in fences, you can give hedgehogs easy access to a far larger area. ● Leave a patch of your garden wild and undisturbed to provide good nesting material and insects for prey. ● Leave out a dish of water. Some meaty cat or dog food can also supplement a hedgehog’s natural diet well. ● Hedgehogs can get trapped in steep-sided ponds, so make sure yours has shallow sides or an escape ramp. ● Make a safe home for them to nest in – a log pile or a more structured little house. ● Clear litter from your garden and any loose netting they could get trapped in. ● Go organic: chemicals in lawn treatments or slug…

Barbara Hosking 1926-2021 Aged 91, Barbara Hosking published a memoir in which she described her extraordinary journey from a small dairy farm with no electricity near Penzance to No. 10 Downing Street, via a copper mine in Tanganyika (now Tanzania). In the book – Exceeding My Brief: Memoirs of a Disobedient Civil Servant – she also came out as a lesbian. Having known her sexuality since the age of six, it was, she said, a relief finally to be open about it. Born in 1926, Barbara Hosking did not have a happy childhood. She suffered from Erb’s palsy in her right arm; and she was tyrannised by her disciplinarian father. Nevertheless, she won a scholarship to West Cornwall School for Girls, where she excelled. There was talk of Oxford, but…

Deliveroo scaled back its ambitions ahead of its highly anticipated London debut this week – following protracted belly-aching about the exorbitant price of shares. The loss-making restaurant delivery company slashed its hoped-for valuation from £8.8bn to between £7.6bn and £7.85bn – the bottom end of the original range. Deliveroo cited “the poor performance of other IPOs and broad stock market volatility” for its “conservative pricing decision”, said Bryce Elder in the FT. But the move followed a punishing revolt by institutional fund managers. Aviva, Aberdeen Standard, Legal & General and M&G all shunned the float over concerns about Deliveroo’s “business model, working practices and regulatory risk”. Even so, demand for shares still outstripped supply – a boost for those viewing Deliveroo’s float as a test of the City’s ability “to…

Shares in Britain’s largest house-builders have soared “past their pandemic lows” – buoyed by government incentives “to keep demand high”, said David Brenchley in The Sunday Times. Many analysts are predicting the growth will continue. Here are some factors to consider: ● The Treasury continues to throw cash at the property industry, yet builders in the FTSE 350 “built fewer houses last year than in any other since 2014”. This “slow supply” suggests that stocks of big players such as Barratt, Persimmon, Taylor Wimpey and Bellway “will continue to rise as the sector grows”. ● If working from home becomes more popular, it will benefit builders outside London, says Russ Mould of investment platform AJ Bell. He thinks St Modwen and Harworth could capitalise on this. ● Rosemary Banyard from…

The week’s best shares Admiral Group The Daily Telegraph The innovative insurer remains ahead of rivals – having diversified beyond low-cost car insurance into home and travel insurances, and personal loans. Now expanding into Europe. Yields 5% and “won’t stop growing”. Buy. £30.46. CMC Markets The Times Pandemic-induced volatility on financial markets and lockdown boredom have boosted the spread-betting and contracts-for-difference firm. Customer numbers and profits have jumped. Continues to beat forecasts. Buy. 457p. Kingfisher Investors Chronicle A surge in DIY has accelerated the Kingfisher recovery. Click-and-collect sales have doubled and e-commerce is up 150%, boosting flagging sales in France. Debt has halved and the dividend has been reinstated. Buy. 327p. Morgan Sindall Group The Times Thanks to its strong balance sheet and focus on cutting CO2 emissions, the contractor’s…

Westminster is an infectious place, writes Jessica Elgot. The windowless offices are cramped, MPs sit elbow-to-elbow in a Commons chamber that can only squeeze just over 400 MPs into its seats, two-thirds of the number in Parliament. High security means much business is conducted in person. This was the situation when Covid-19 arrived in the UK. A number of staffers and politicians who were there at the time, many of whom chose to remain anonymous, have revealed that the virus spread far more widely than has been reported, and that there was a sense of panic as Covid threatened to paralyse government. Famously, Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock and Dominic Cummings contracted the virus. So did England’s Chief Medical Officer, Prof Chris Whitty and the then Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill.…

When the Home Secretary Priti Patel unveiled Britain’s new asylum policy, she promised a “faster and fairer” system with “safe, legal routes” for asylum seekers, said Robert Wright and Victor Mallet in the Financial Times. Her plan – dubbed the biggest overhaul of the immigration system in decades – ushers in a two-tier system that discriminates for the first time against those who reach the UK by illegal means. One major aim is to reduce numbers crossing the English Channel in small boats: 8,420 people claimed asylum in this way last year. People traffickers will face maximum life sentences, and migrants arriving from a safe third country, such as France, will in theory immediately be returned. Patel also said she would “keep the option open” of sending asylum seekers abroad…

CNN, with reports that its ratings have crashed since Donald Trump left the White House. In the third week in March, the network’s primetime shows are estimated to have had 47% fewer viewers than in the same week last year. Maj Gen Nick Welch, who was jailed for 21 months for conning the Army out of £48,000 in private school fees. Reportedly the most senior officer to face court martial since 1815, Welch had claimed the allowance on the basis that when he was posted to London, his wife was with him. In fact, for long periods she’d lived at their home in Dorset, where their children were at school. The Ford Mondeo, which is to cease production. The family car was once so popular that the Labour Party named…

Paris Responsibility for genocide: France bears “grave and overwhelming responsibility” for its part in enabling the Rwandan genocide of 1994, but was not “complicit” in it. That is the verdict of the commission of inquiry set up by President Macron to settle the controversy over France’s role before, during and after the genocide, in which Hutus massacred 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates. The 15 eminent historians on the commission found that under President François Mitterrand, the French state “adopted a binary view” that favoured President Habyarimana, France’s Hutu ally, whose assassination triggered the genocide. France “remained blind to the preparation of a genocide” by its allies, failed to intervene, and effectively protected the “masterminds of the genocide” in a safe zone set up by French forces in the west of…

1 Think by Aretha Franklin & Teddy White, performed by Aretha Franklin 2 String Quartet No. 1 in E minor, I: Allegro vivo appassionato by Smetana, performed by The Dante Quartet 3 Soave sia il vento by Mozart, performed by Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Walter Berry, Christa Ludwig and Philharmonia Orchestra (Böhm) 4* How Long Has This Been Going On? by George and Ira Gershwin, performed by Dexter Gordon and Lonette McKee 5 The Room Where It Happens by Lin-Manuel Miranda, performed by Leslie Odom, Jr and the Original Broadway Cast of Hamilton 6 La Marseillaise by Claude Rouget de Lisle, performed by Ensemble du monde 7 Serenade No. 10 in B-flat major, K361, III: Adagio, composed by Mozart, performed by German Wind Soloists 8 Tuxedo Junction by Erskine Hawkins, Bill Johnson…

Boris Johnson has long had a passion for “novelty infrastructure”, said Douglas Murphy in The Guardian. As London Mayor, the PM came up with a string of big ideas for projects which never got off the ground, or lumbered taxpayers with huge bills – or both. The “Boris bus”, a redesign of London’s iconic Routemaster, cost £50,000 more than a normal double decker, had poor air conditioning, and was axed in 2017 to make savings in the city’s transport budget. The £60m cable car across the Thames from Greenwich to the Docklands was presented as a “vital transport link” – but was used by a total of just four regular commuters a year after it opened in 2012. Then there are the projects that were never built. Johnson’s mooted airport…

Washington is being treated like a colony E.J. Dionne Jr The Washington Post America is unique among democracies in denying the full rights of citizenship to the residents of its capital city, says E.J. Dionne Jr. Londoners, Parisians and Romans all play a vibrant role in national politics. Not so the 700,000 people who live in Washington DC. The District of Columbia isn’t a state, despite being more populous than both Wyoming and Vermont, so its mostly Democrat residents don’t get to vote for a member of the House of Representative and two US senators. This is clearly unfair, but Republicans, for partisan reasons, are determined to keep it that way. This requires some tortuous justifications. During a hearing last week, for instance, Rep. Jody Hice claimed that adding DC…

Scientists are calling for a full investigation into evidence that Covid-19 can cause diabetes in some patients. Professor Francesco Rubino, of King’s College London, first realised there might be a link during a Zoom tea party, when his colleagues started talking about cases they had seen. He and others have since started a register for such cases – and have so far heard from 350 clinicians who have diagnosed diabetes in one or more patients who were either suffering from Covid, or had recently had it. “We are now starting to think the link is probably true – there is an ability of the virus to cause a malfunctioning of the sugar metabolism,” he told The Guardian. Given the size of the pandemic, he added, that could be a “significant…

“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.” Cormac McCarthy, quoted on Inc.com “Religions love losing battles because adherents will be eternally obliged to keep fighting them.” Lionel Shriver in The Spectator “Men live by intervals of reason under the sovereignty of caprice and passion.” Thomas Browne, quoted in Forbes “A good life is one in which there is no need for miracles.” Nadezhda Mandelstam, quoted on The Browser “The unfamiliar is not the same as the improbable.” Journalist Nate Silver, quoted in The Independent “You just have to accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue.” David Brent from The Office, quoted in The Guardian “I believe in courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other…

Cricket Despite Sam Curran scoring 95 not out, England failed to chase down India’s score of 329 in the third One Day International, in Pune, and lost by seven runs. The win gave India a 2-1 victory in the series. Boxing British heavyweight Dillian Whyte recorded a fourth-round knockout against Alexander Povetkin to avenge his defeat to the Russian last August. The victory made the 32-year-old the WBC interim heavyweight champion. Women’s football Chelsea beat Aston Villa 2-0 to return to the top of the Women’s Super League.…

Films about characters who swap bodies or are physically transformed have a long history, but they proliferated in the 1980s with high-concept comedies such as Big. Here are some other good examples: Here Comes Mr. Jordan This entertaining 1941 comedy tells of a boxer taken to heaven prematurely by a bungling angel, then put back on Earth in the body of a recently deceased tycoon. Its source, the 1938 play Heaven Can Wait, was filmed again under that title in 1978. Freaky Friday Mary Rodgers’s 1972 novel about a mother and teenage daughter whose simultaneous wishes to switch places are granted has been filmed four times. The 2003 version, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, is the best – sharper, lighter and less oddly spooky than the first, in…

In March 1961, a young East German artist named Gerhard Richter returned from a visit to Russia, his mind made up “to defect to the West”, said Catherine Hickley on Artsy.net. In those days, five months before the Berlin Wall was built, it was still possible to cross over by train, so he and his wife Ema got a lift to East Berlin and simply took the local U-Bahn to the West. They both received 350 marks in “welcome money” from the government of the Federal Republic on arrival. Richter could not have known it then, but his defection would enable him to create one of the most extraordinary bodies of work in postwar art. Now 89, Richter is “one of the most important contemporary artists” alive today, agreed Deutsche…

What Car? This Suzuki Vitara is a sensible car – but “don’t glaze over just yet”. This is an “affordable, practical and easy to live with” compact SUV, and for those put off by the more bold designs of its competitors, it might make good sense. It’s only available as a mild hybrid right now, so running costs are quite low, too. There is no denying that some similarly priced rivals feel more upmarket, though. The Daily Telegraph In a world of “shapely” rivals such as the Nissan Juke, Vauxhall Mokka and Ford Puma, the Vitara is “pretty anonymous”. Inside, it feels a bit like “travelling back to the 1980s” – but at least that means everything is simple to use. There are traditional analogue dials, a small central screen…

Tour Scotland and Ireland on Riviera Travel’s Highlands and Islands trip from Leith to Greenock (5 July; seven nights from £1,999pp; rivieratravel.co.uk). On its Summer in the Isles tour, Noble Caledonia’s luxurious ship reaches remote seaside spots in the Channel Islands and the Isles of Scilly (30 June; seven nights from £3,595pp; noble-caledonia.co.uk). Hebridean Island Cruises’ hiking voyages include Footloose to the Outer Isles, which visits the Kyle of Lochalsh and Ullapool, with daily guided hikes (29 June; six nights from £5,310pp; hebridean.co.uk). On the Scottish Islands and Lochs Cruise you’ll sail down the Caledonian Canal and then out into the sea (13 October; six nights from £1,945pp; greatrail.com). For a grand tour, try the Scenic Islands of the British Isles: starting in Dover, it takes you to Guernsey, Cobh,…

Liberty Steel/GFG Alliance: scramble for cash The wife of the steel tycoon Sanjeev Gupta has reportedly embarked on “a makeover of her £42m London home”, said The Times. The timing isn’t great. Ministers have just turned down Gupta’s request for a £170m state bailout to save his sprawling conglomerate – owner of Britain’s third biggest steel group, Liberty Steel – from collapse. Now he’s working flat-out to raise new loans. Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng was reportedly rattled by the “opaque structure” of Gupta’s holding company, GFG Alliance, which is teetering on the brink following the collapse of its main financier, Greensill Capital. As well he might be, said Cynthia O’Murchu and Robert Smith in the FT. The so-called saviour of steel’s international empire of “struggling mills and smelters” relies…

The return of the retail investor Patrick Hosking The Times “Great food with a side of shares” is Deliveroo’s latest pitch to customers, and many of its five million users may well tuck in to this week’s float, says Patrick Hosking. After all, public interest in investment is probably “the highest since the dotcom boom (and bust) of 1998-2000”. Investor platforms and City bookmakers “have never known anything like it”. Neither have a newer generation of platforms such as eToro, Freetrade and Trading 212. After years in the wilderness, it seems, “the retail investor is back” and punters are getting younger. Lockdown explains much of this trend: people have saved money, and they’re bored. The “gamification” of trading has made markets more entertaining, even addictive. No wonder regulators are nervous:…