Innholdsfortegnelse for 1370 i The Week

What happened Boris Johnson sought to reset his beleaguered premiership this week by reshuffling his team. Jacob Rees-Mogg was awarded the new role of Minister for Brexit opportunities; his previous role, as Leader of the House of Commons, was given to the chief whip Mark Spencer. The PM also appointed some fresh advisers: Steve Barclay is his new chief of staff; Guto Harri is his new communications chief. The rearrangement of No. 10 staff was made necessary by a series of resignations last week. The most significant was that of Johnson’s policy chief Munira Mirza, who quit over the PM’s refusal to apologise for suggesting that Keir Starmer, in his former role as director of public prosecutions, had been to blame for the failure to prosecute Jimmy Savile. In her…

Almost a third of 25-34-year-olds in the UK think Salman Rushdie is a fish dish, not an award-winning author, a survey has found. One in five young Britons are under the impression that a prawn cocktail contains alcohol, and about 30% of adults of all ages think sushi is a type of fish. Almost half are not aware that a mullet is a fish, as well as a hairstyle. Retailers including Next and M&S are trying to boost sales in February by promoting Valentine’s Day as a time for gift giving – and not just between couples. Valentine’s themed gifts for children include balloons celebrating “My first Valentine’s Day”, and tops for teenagers bearing slogans such as “Mum and Dad’s little Valentine”. “What new hell is this,” asked one Mumsnet…

Ottawa State of emergency: The mayor of Ottawa declared a state of emergency this week as truckers continued their blockade of the capital. Jim Watson described the situation as “out of control”, and said his emergency declaration reflected the “serious danger and threat” to residents posed by the “aggressive and hateful occupation”, and “the need for support from other jurisdictions and levels of government”. On Monday, a judge ordered the truckers to stop honking their horns, but outside parliament the din continued regardless. Later that day, the protest – which had already expanded to Québec City and Toronto – escalated further when truckers blockaded the Ambassador Bridge, the busiest crossing point into the US. The so-called Freedom Convoy arrived in Ottawa almost two weeks ago, to protest against a rule…

The schools caught cheating at exams Alastair McCall The Times Have the IQs of fee-paying pupils shot up in the pandemic? You’d think so looking at the A-level results, says Alastair McCall. The proportion of A* grades has gone through the roof at dozens of private schools (and a few state ones, too). In 2019, the last year children sat public exams, 16.1% of A-level results at independent schools were A*, a grade that signals exceptional achievement. But last year, when marks were awarded on the basis of teacher assessment, that proportion more than doubled to 39.5%. At North London Collegiate School, it soared from 33.8% in 2019 to 90.2%. At Winchester College it rose from 42.3% to 80.2%. Looking at this “rampant grade inflation”, one can only conclude that…

Researchers at University College London are developing tiny magnetic seeds that can be guided around the body and used to destroy tumours that would otherwise be hard to reach. Minima – or minimally invasive image-guided ablation – works by using an MRI scanner’s magnetic field to guide the 2mm seeds through the body. When they reach a tumour, they’re heated up by radio waves to a temperature that destroys cancer cells. So far, the seeds have been tested only on dead pigs and live mice, but the researchers hope they might eventually be used to treat human patients with glioblastoma, the most common form of brain cancer. “By having precise remote control of the seed using the MRI scanner, we can destroy only the cancer cells,” said senior author Prof…

The costs of Brexit are most “keenly felt” in Northern Ireland, said The Times, and sadly the resulting “political instability” is about to get much worse. Last week Edwin Poots, the Democratic Unionist Agriculture Minister, ordered an end to all customs checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea from Great Britain – in defiance of the Brexit deal. The next day, his DUP colleague Paul Givan resigned as first minister, compelling Sinn Féin’s deputy first minister, Michelle O’Neill, to do the same as the two roles are inextricably linked. Although the rest of the executive and the assembly remain sitting, “no significant decisions” can now be made; this year’s budget cannot be agreed. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has failed to censure the DUP. His “reticence” is “not good enough”, when…

“Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity.”Sigmund Freud, quoted in The Toronto Star “Throughout the world, the more wrong a man does, the more indignant is he at wrong done to him.” Anthony Trollope, quoted in The Sunday Times “The Pope! How many divisions has he got?”Joseph Stalin, quoted in the Financial Times “Being offended is a natural consequence of leaving one’s home.”Fran Lebowitz on BBC Newsnight “To live in a country in which politics is a second-order preoccupation is one of the luxuries of a wealthy democracy.”Philip Collins in the New Statesman “It is a wonderful and necessary fact of political biology that we never know when our time is up.”Boris Johnson, quoted in The Times “Don’t make the mistake of treating your dogs like humans, or they’ll treat…

Six minutes into the Africa Cup of Nations final, Sadio Mané, the Senegalese striker, missed a golden opportunity to give his side an early advantage when he struck a penalty straight at Egypt’s goalkeeper, said Isabel Baldwin in the Daily Mail. More than two hours later, the Liverpool player atoned for that error by scoring the winner in the penalty shoot-out, after the match had failed to produce a single goal. The west African team were seeking their first ever victory in the tournament, having lost in the 2019 final to Algeria. And overall, they deserved their win, for in “energy-sapping” conditions at Cameroon’s Olembé stadium, they created more chances, and played with more ambition, than seven-time champions Egypt. In truth, this was a pretty “dreadful” game, said Jonathan Wilson…

Old Vic, London SE1 (0344-871 7628). Until 19 March Running time: 1hr 5mins Caryl Churchill’s two-hander A Number is “one of the essential plays” of the century to date, said Susannah Clapp in The Observer. When it premiered in 2002, starring Michael Gambon and Daniel Craig as three iterations of his son, it tapped thrillingly into the debates then raging about cloning. But “long after Dolly the sheep has ceased to bleat” its themes still resonate. What makes us individual? What’s more important: inheritance or upbringing? The piece is often revived, and each production “glints with different alarms, jokes and sorrows”. At the Old Vic, Lyndsey Turner’s staging is “beautifully rounded” yet “spiky” – and “ignited by magnificent performances” from Lennie James and Paapa Essiedu. The play seems to have…

The leaking of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s sex tape was “one of the defining celebrity scandals of the 90s”, said Ed Power in The Daily Telegraph. “It had everything: bare flesh, rock ‘n’ roll and naked voyeurism”. So it should make for a fine TV dramatisation. But while the Baywatch star and her Mötley Crüe drummer husband are brought “rollickingly to life” by Lily James and Sebastian Stan in this eight-part series, on Disney+, the human drama is rather “overwhelmed by the story’s sheer salaciousness”. The series is really “three narratives plaited together”, said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian. One is a heist caper, about the contractor (Seth Rogen) who stole and then leaked the tape. The second strand delves into what Anderson and Lee found in each other…

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, 1905 (Penguin £8.99). This had a profound effect on me in my early 20s. A grim but sympathetic portrait of immigrant workers in the Chicago meat-packing industry, it influenced my desire to depict ordinary people’s lives. Journey to the End of the Night by Céline, 1932 (Alma Classics £9.99). Céline’s crackpot quasi-autobiography. Despite the nihilistic cynicism of which he is often justifiably accused, his characters bristle with life and hope. The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien, 1967 (Harper Perennial £8.99). My favourite of O’Brien’s novels – profound, mysterious and hilarious. The narrative is accompanied in the footnotes by a bizarre parallel saga about the De Selby Codex, a red herring that gradually grows until it all but obscures the main story. White Teeth by Zadie…

Programmes The Promise French crime drama. Twenty years after the disappearance of a young girl, a police chief tries to link the case to a recent disappearance. Sat 12 Feb, BBC4 21:00 and 21:55 (55mins each). Louis Theroux’s Forbidden America: Extreme and Online In a new trilogy, Theroux explores how online platforms are creating and fuelling extremist movements in the US, and meets some of the people involved. Sun 13 Feb, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). The Most Beautiful Boy in the World Documentary telling the unhappy story of Björn Andrésen, the young star of Visconti’s 1971 Death in Venice, and the film’s effect on his life. Sun 13 Feb, BBC4 21:00 (95mins). Imagine… Alan Yentob profiles the life and work of Labi Siffre, the award-winning British musician and poet who wrote…

New cars: what the critics say Auto Express The Cupra Born is the first electric car from Seat’s sporty spin-off brand. It is almost identical to the VW ID.3 – a five-door, five-seat electric hatchback, and has three different battery size options promising impressive pure-electric ranges. Like the ID.3, the bigger battery supports rapid charging: it can charge to 80% in 35 minutes, and allows 62 miles of range from just seven minutes. The Sunday Times The Cupra is sportier and more stylish than its VW counterpart. All models are rear-wheel drive with a single-speed automatic gearbox. With its largest 77kWh battery, it can cover up to 335 miles on a charge, while the 58kWh version can accelerate from 0-62mph in 6.6 seconds. Light and manoeuvrable, yet responsive and agile,…

A meet cute in KwaZulu-Natal They are among the “superstars” of the wildlife world – small, armoured mammals whose “waddling gait” makes them “irresistibly cute”. But pangolins are also prized as a traditional ingredient in Chinese medicine, and are endangered as a result. For a guaranteed sighting, head to Phinda Private Game Reserve in South Africa, says Sarah Marshall in The Daily Telegraph, where a pioneering conservation project is releasing animals confiscated from poachers into the wild. Encompassing a diverse range of habitats – savannah, mountains and rare sand forest – Phinda is an ideal site, and the project has an 80% success rate in rehabilitating the creatures. Visitors help monitor and weigh them, and sometimes get to witness a release. But places are limited, so you might need to…

Sir Crispin Tickell 1930-2022 Crispin Tickell was a respected career diplomat and environmentalist whose many achievements included the “greening” of Margaret Thatcher. He had first heard about climate change at a conference in 1972, said The Daily Telegraph, and became convinced that it was a matter of “pressing global concern” while on sabbatical at Harvard in 1975. Finally, in 1984, he found himself washing dishes alongside the PM after a meeting at the House of Commons – and seized the opportunity to brief her on the topic. “I took her through the whole story of climate change, how it worked, the importance of greenhouse gases, and what the temperature of the planet would be without them. Thatcher, passing a plate, said: ‘All right, let’s have a look into this.’” Four…

After a protracted bout of arm-wrestling with regulators globally, the Japanese tech investor SoftBank has abandoned its blockbuster deal to sell the British chip designer Arm Holdings to the US semiconductor giant Nvidia. Instead, it has announced plans to float the company. Bang goes “the chip industry’s biggest deal ever”, said Robert Wall in The Wall Street Journal. Nvidia agreed to buy Arm for $40bn in 2020, but the notional value of the cash and shares deal had since risen to $66bn, reflecting both the current famine of computer chips and Arm’s value as “a kind of Switzerland to the chip industry – offering its designs to everyone without favouring any one company”. Since Cambridge-based Arm’s technology is at “the heart of most smartphones and smart devices”, the industry will…

Blundering Bailey “Unhappy times are here again,” said Martin Wolf in the FT. Thanks to soaring inflation, “the Bank of England is forecasting the weakest growth of real post-tax labour incomes in more than 70 years” – with a fall of 2% this year and a further 0.5% in 2023. Yet up pops governor Andrew Bailey to urge pay restraint. “We do need to see a moderation of wage rises… to get through this problem more quickly,” he said. This immediately earned a slap down from the Government, which stressed “Boris Johnson’s desire for a high-wage, high-growth economy”. Bailey’s remark was certainly unpopular. “But analytically he was right.” The more wage earners “seek to restore their purchasing power” in an economy hit by “externally imposed losses”, such as energy prices,…

Jennie Daly Taylor Wimpey has become the first big housebuilder to appoint a female chief executive, naming insider Jennie Daly, 51, for the top job, said George Hammond in the FT. The Ulster-born group operations director will become the company’s “first new CEO in 15 years” when she takes over from Pete Redfern in April. Her appointment is a milestone in a traditionally male-dominated industry, and “a rebuff” for Elliott Advisors – the activist New York hedge fund which took a stake in the builder in December, and had agitated for an external candidate to boost its stagnating shares. Daly, a “Derry girl” who crossed the Irish Sea to study town planning at the University of Manchester, is well thought of within her own industry, said Tom Howard in The…

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What happened Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has warned the British public that it faces the worst hit to living standards in 30 years. Much will come in the form of soaring energy bills: the raising of the price cap by energy regulator Ofgem in April will result in an average yearly price hike of 54% (£693). Household spending will be further squeezed by rising inflation and interest rates. In a bid to curb inflation, for which he was much criticised, Bailey urged people not to ask for pay rises (see page 40). His warning came after the Bank raised interest rates from 0.25% to 0.5%, the second hike in three months. In an attempt to provide some relief, Chancellor Rishi Sunak unveiled a £9bn support package last week.…

Two-thirds of Conservative voters in the UK want newbuild developments to include more affordable homes; 68% want higher taxes on second homes and empty properties; and 39% support giving private renters indefinite tenancies. The Guardian/YouGov 23% of UK adults who work from home say they’ve joined Zoom calls on an indoor exercise bike to look disciplined and dynamic. Half admit to sometimes leaving a Zoom meeting to make it look as though they’re busier than they are. Daily Mail/XLMedia plc Ben Wallace has ended Liz Truss’s year-long reign as Tory members’ favourite Cabinet minister. He now has a net satisfaction rating of 79.7; hers is 66.7. Conservative Home…

Ben Whishaw’s nightmare Ben Whishaw is one of the best actors we have, says Tom Lamont in The Guardian. He’s played Q in Bond, and voiced Paddington Bear to acclaim. But off stage, he’s extremely shy. “I find it hard meeting people for the first time,” he says. “I get a shaky, unsettled feeling in my belly.” He is so worried about “waffling” in interviews, he clams up. Doesn’t being an actor help? “Yeah, no,” he chuckles. “I don’t find acting helps.” His nightmare, he says, would be having to make an impromptu speech at someone’s wedding. “Whenever I feel like someone I know might be about to ask me to do it, I say: ‘Nope!’” He mimics an irritable old man. “‘Nope! Nope! Nope! Go away!’… Even the thought…

A group of South London postal workers were left too high to carry out their duties, after sharing an uncollected box of hash brownies that had been sent to an empty house. “Today almost all the posties in Clapham accidentally ate hash brownies and I had to pick them up one by one because they were so high,” wrote an Instagram user, who posted videos of dazed postmen staggering around and needing help on their rounds, after they had eaten the “Pablo Chocobar” edibles. Royal Mail didn’t see the funny side, and has launched an official investigation. A firm of undertakers in Russia has been criticised for a “tasteless” promotional video, in which models in high heels and lingerie posed with coffins. Moscow-based Horonim published a clip promoting its services…

Successful women “fake it” Women who earn more than their male partners are more likely to fake orgasms, a study has found – possibly because they feel the need to boost the man’s damaged ego. Researchers at the University of South Florida recruited 157 women who were in heterosexual relationships, about a third of whom earned more than their partners, and quizzed them about their sex lives. They found that 27% of women who earned more than their partners admitted to faking orgasms, compared with just 13% for those who did not. And the more a woman out-earned her partner, the more likely she was to fake it. “Women are prioritising what they think their partners need over their own sexual needs and satisfaction,” said psychologist Jessica Jordan, who led…

Boris Johnson’s new PR chief, Guto Harri, has revealed that his new boss welcomed him to No. 10 with a song. Speaking to the Welsh-language news site Golwg360, Harri explained that he’d asked the PM: “‘Are you going to survive, Boris?’ And he said it in his deep voice, slowly and purposefully – and started singing a little while finishing the sentence and saying ‘I Will Survive’. Inevitably he invited me to say ‘You’ve got all your life to live’, and he replied, ‘I’ve got all my love to give’, so we had a little blast of Gloria Gaynor! No one expects that, but that is how it was.” Victoria Beckham doesn’t just eat healthily. According to her husband, she eats the same healthy meal every single day – and…

“The 2022 Winter Olympics will be remembered for geopolitics, not sports,” said Walter Russell Mead in The Wall Street Journal. They will go down in history as the place where Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin “declared war on the post-Cold War world order and the American primacy that sustained it”. As the Games began in Beijing last week, the world’s two most powerful autocrats issued a remarkable joint statement criticising Western democracy and hailing a “new era” of relations between their countries. In it, Russia declared its opposition to “any forms of independence of Taiwan”; China, in turn, backed Russia by opposing further enlargement of Nato. The communiqué set out new bilateral trade deals and pledged collaboration on space, the internet and artificial intelligence. The birth of…

In 2008, when China hosted the summer Olympics, it was a “flawless, military operation”, said Owen Slot in The Times. The contrast with this year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing couldn’t be starker. The inadequacy of provisions has been evident in everything from the treatment of those who’ve tested positive for Covid-19 to the facilities on the slopes and the ice rinks. At the Alpine skiing venue, the lack of hot meals has forced the US team to take their “own dried pasta up the mountain”. And horror stories emanating from the quarantine hotels where hundreds of athletes have been lodged – about the inedible food; the lack of Wi-Fi; the capricious treatment by the authorities – are legion, said Sean Ingle in The Guardian. “My stomach hurts, I’m very pale…

The nuclear cycle To The Daily Telegraph Nick Timothy is wrong to blame Tony Blair and Gordon Brown for not building nuclear power stations. When I joined the Central Electricity Generating Board in 1988, we were going to build four: two at Sizewell, one at Wylfa and one at Hinkley Point. As privatisation advanced, this became a twin reactor at Sizewell (cancelled) and a single reactor at Hinkley (cancelled in 1997). My MP in those days was John MacGregor, who was also the transport minister. He told me that politicians could only think in electoral cycles, not the timescales of major projects. In addition, there were no votes to be gained for supporting nuclear energy. The arguments we used in the 1980s and 1990s to support new nuclear projects were…

Brahms: Late Piano Works, Paul Lewis Harmonia Mundi £12.99 The last sets of solo pieces that Brahms composed during his “long Indian summer in the 1890s” are “sculpted with the gestural economy and depth of thought only possible if you’ve been in the game for a long time”, said Geoff Brown in The Times. These “haunting” pieces – intermezzos, capriccios, ballades and romances – are “modestly lyrical on the surface, complex and radical within”. And the English pianist Paul Lewis does them full justice on this terrific disc: he evinces “total fidelity to the music’s structure and inner spirit, and an emotional response that never suffocates or distorts”. “Everything here feels natural,” agreed Richard Fairman in the FT; the “sunset of sound so familiar from Brahms’s late music [glows] with unforced…

Vincent van Gogh’s face is one of the most recognisable in the entire art historical canon, said Rachel Campbell-Johnston in The Times. Only a single photograph of him is known to exist, depicting the artist as “a formally-suited 19-year-old” rather than the casually dressed bohemian who might more readily spring to mind. Instead, it is through his paintings that van Gogh (1853-1890) cemented his own image into our collective memory: in the last years of his tragically short life, “too strapped for cash to pay for a model”, the artist turned to painting himself. Between his arrival in Paris in 1886 and his suicide at Auvers-sur-Oise four years later, he realised some 35 “vibrant” self-portraits, a body of works now acknowledged to be among “the most vividly evocative” studies of…

In defence of “factory” foods Back in 2008, Raymond Blanc claimed that Delia Smith had lost “credibility” by including frozen and tinned foods in a book of recipes. But since then, he has had a change of heart. In an interview last month, he said that Smith had been “absolutely right” and highlighted the wonders of the frozen pea. It was about time, said Melanie McDonagh in The Spectator. Frozen peas are a “genuine addition to the quality of life” – and even if not as delicious as perfectly fresh peas, they are certainly preferable to the “not very fresh” ones often found at farmers’ markets. Many fruits are also “brilliant frozen”, and tinned veg and fruit have their place. One convenience food Blanc did draw the line at was…

Perthshire Highland safari Spend five days exploring the Scottish wilderness from your city-centre base in Edinburgh. From £477pp b&b, including 4 excursions. 0333-060 8768, newmarketholidays.co.uk. Depart 24 April. Three nights in Lübeck Enjoy the charming little castle Lübecker Krönchen, with a garden and sauna on site, from £351pp room-only (including Birmingham flights). 0871-277 1070, lastminute.com. Depart 17 March. Cruise to France and Spain Stay 14 nights on-board the Sky Princess, with stops in La Rochelle, Bilbao, Málaga and Cartagena, from £740pp cruise-only. 0343-249 6428, cruise.co.uk. Depart 9 April, from Southampton. Costa Rica in 12 days Discover the abundant nature of Costa Rica, from the Arenal volcano to the rainforests of Monteverde. From £1,499 b&b (including Manchester flights). 020-3925 1304, exoticca.com. Depart 1 June. Covid-19: please check government websites for testing…

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The Bank of England raised interest rates from 0.25% to 0.5%, and said it would begin winding down its pandemic bond-buying programme. Minutes of the meeting showed a split in the Monetary Policy Committee: four of the nine members voted to raise the rate to 0.75% to tackle inflation, which is expected to peak at 7.25% in April. The Bank’s revised UK growth forecasts reflected the ongoing cost-of-living squeeze. The new forecast of 3.75% this year is below the IMF’s forecast for most G7 countries. Dismal predictions for 2023 (1.25%) and 2024 (1%) have unsettled many economists. MPs on the cross-party Commons Public Accounts Committee concluded that “the only detectable impact” of Brexit for businesses so far is “increased costs, paperwork and border delays”, and that the split with the…

“The Great Fall of China” was one of the big market stories of 2021, said David Brenchley in The Times. But it’s worth revisiting the investment case. Here are some of the pros and cons: The bearish case China’s zero-Covid policy could yet leave it “at the mercy of continued economic crackdowns”. Beijing’s crackdown on the tech sector remains worrying, while the property sector remains in crisis, with a string of heavily indebted companies, led by Evergrande. “Last, but by no means least, there is the moral objection” to investing in an anti-democratic country with an appalling human rights record. The bullish case “The economics look promising.” While growth has been “erratic” since 2020 (hitting just 3.6% in Q4 2021), the Chinese Central Bank looks set to be “much more…

Controversy of the week Only days after he first entered No. 10, in July 2019, Boris Johnson travelled 180 miles north, to make his pitch amid the Victorian grandeur of Manchester’s Science and Industry Museum, said Jennifer Williams in The Manchester Evening News. The PM gave “precious hope” to “communities that had watched their industries and civic pride erode, their power diminish and their children’s prospects dwindle”: he would, he said, “level them up”. It was a powerful slogan that won him votes across the North. Yet what did it mean? No one really knew. Now, at last, comes the official explanation, in the form of Michael Gove’s 332-page Levelling Up White Paper. The good news is that most agree its analysis is “broadly right”: Gove’s “12 missions” – things…

Spiss, Austria Deadly avalanches: A combination of heavy snowfall followed by an unusually warm spell triggered an “unprecedented” number of avalanches in Austria last weekend with correspondingly fatal outcomes. Nine people were killed in just three days; over the past few years, the average figure for avalanche deaths in Austria over an entire year has been about 20. Most of the recent avalanches and fatalities were in the western Tyrol region. According to the Tyrol regional authorities, the “unprecedented situation” over the past three days has seen “some 100 avalanche-type incidents requiring 70 interventions”. Those killed included a group of four Swedish tourists, all men in their 40s, who were completely buried by an avalanche near the town of Spiss on the Swiss border. This week, the forecast was for…

What’s happening now? Ulysses, the pre-eminent modernist novel in English and one of the great monuments of Irish culture, was first published in full on 2 February 1922, James Joyce’s 40th birthday. It was published in Paris, where Joyce was then living, to avoid prosecution for obscenity in Dublin, London or New York. At the time, it was praised by the cognoscenti, but greeted with revulsion by many, and for decades it was treated with suspicion by the young Irish state. Now, though, the centenary year is being celebrated with anniversary editions, exhibitions, essay collections, academic conferences, Twitter flurries, newspaper features, TV and radio broadcasts, and events at Irish embassies round the world. What is the novel about? It details the events of a single day in Dublin, Thursday 16…

African clawed frogs are not among the handful of animals that have a natural ability to regenerate lost limbs. But US scientists have now found that if they are treated with a gel containing a cocktail of chemicals, the frogs can grow new legs. For the study, the researchers amputated the hind legs of several females, and covered their wounds with a silicone “cap”, called a BioDome, which had been loaded up with a gel made from five regenerative chemicals. The wounds were then left to soak in BioDome, which was described as an “amniotic-like environment”, for 24 hours. Over the next 18 months, the frogs regrew a functioning leg-like structure, complete with tissue, nerves, bones and toelike projections. By contrast the frogs in a control group, whose wounds had…

On the day Wayne Couzens pleaded guilty to the rape and murder of Sarah Everard, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick offered the “tin-eared defence” that in a force the size of the Met, there would always be “an occasional bad ’un”, said the Daily Mail. But since then, it has become clear that Dick isn’t just presiding over a few rotten apples: she has a barrel full of them. In December, two officers were jailed for taking photos of the bodies of the murdered sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, and sharing them. Now, an investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has exposed a bullying and “profoundly sick” culture at Charing Cross police station. Triggered by reports that an officer had had sex with a vulnerable woman…

“Character assassination” doesn’t quite cover it, said Judith Woods in The Daily Telegraph. Lord Ashcroft’s new book about Carrie Johnson, First Lady, is “the very definition of an old-fashioned hatchet job”. Ashcroft’s largely anonymous sources accuse her of a whole range of crimes and flaws: of “impersonating” her husband by sending texts on his behalf, and persuading him to change his mind on important decisions. She reportedly demanded that her friends, such as Henry Newman and Allegra Stratton, were installed in key Downing Street posts, while her enemies were briefed against and sacked. The Prime Minister has been destabilised by his tempestuous relationship with his wife and by her demands, Ashcroft argues. Her behaviour, he says, is preventing Boris Johnson “from leading Britain as effectively as the voters deserve”. Honestly,…

Scotland went into this year’s Calcutta Cup – their annual Six Nations encounter with England – having won the fixture on three of the last four occasions. And on a “damp, cold Edinburgh evening”, Gregor Townsend’s team extended that record with a dramatic 20-17 victory, said Robert Kitson in The Observer. It was a fantastic contest, full of twists and turns, said Gavin Mairs in The Sunday Telegraph. With 15 minutes to go, and England leading 17-10, the whole match was turned “utterly on its head” by the “sublime kicking” of Scottish fly-half Finn Russell. First, with a raking cross-kick to the right corner, he forced hooker Luke Cowan-Dixie into a knock-on that resulted in Scotland being awarded a penalty try. That levelled the scores 17-17. Minutes later, the hosts…

Book of the week Love Marriage by Monica Ali Virago 512pp £18.99 The Week Bookshop £14.99 Monica Ali’s new novel – her first in 11 years – is a “sprawling, atmospheric tale of an Indian family in contemporary Britain”, said Melissa Katsoulis in The Times. Anisah and Shaokat Ghorami, originally from Calcutta, live an outwardly contented life on a “quiet suburban street” in south London. Their daughter, Yasmin, is a junior doctor (and very much the apple of her GP father’s eye), while her younger brother Arif, to his parents’ exasperation, “dreams of working in the media”. The plot is driven by Yasmin’s engagement to Joe, a fellow doctor who lives in Primrose Hill and has a strangely intimate relationship with his mother Harriet, a “controversial, sex-obsessed, famous feminist of…

The Eyes of Tammy Faye 2hrs 6mins (12A) A biopic about the “Barbie and Ken” of televangelism “Ours is not a country – and thank heavens for it – in which a company called Praise The Lord Television could ever grow into a mighty broadcasting network,” said Brian Viner in the Daily Mail. Yet in the US, PTL was once the fourth-biggest TV network behind NBC, ABC and CBS. This “unexpectedly moving” biopic tells the story of the couple behind PTL, Tammy Faye Bakker (Jessica Chastain) and her preacher husband Jim (Andrew Garfield). “An evangelical Barbie and Ken,” they started from the bottom with a puppet show, and gradually gained a cult TV following, convincing viewers that “the more they gave, the more God would love them”. But their “gaudy…

The statue returned after 50 years In 1973, thieves broke into the museum of Châtillon-sur-Seine in Burgundy, making off with a first century bronze statuette of the god Bacchus (pictured), says Charles Bremner in The Times. It had been the institution’s “most prized possession” since 1894, when it had been discovered in an archaeological dig at the site of a Gallo-Roman village nearby. Now, 50 years later, the statue has finally made its way back home, thanks to the efforts of Arthur Brand, a Dutch art detective dubbed “the Indiana Jones of the art world”. The statuette resurfaced when a collector who had acquired it legally contacted Brand to research its provenance: it was clearly an important work, but there was little documentation explaining its past. Brand eventually discovered a…

Phoebe prepares for a Zoom interview and Kate gets the wrong idea: she thinks she has a new man, in spite of Phoebe’s protests. Susan’s thrown by Adam turning up to help her at the Dairy, but they’re soon chatting, and Adam invites her over the next evening. Alice announces that she’s moving back into The Nest – Jennifer and Brian are anxious, but it’s a step she must take. As Amy visits the next day, Alice notices spots on Martha and panics. She calls Chris but when he arrives, Amy guesses that he has shingles – Alice must look after Martha until he’s better. Ian, Adam and Susan have fun at dinner, and come up with an idea for the Bull’s Valentine event. Meanwhile, Alice struggles to care for…

Palácio Príncipe Real Lisbon, Portugal Recently restored by British owners Gail and Miles Curley, this beautiful pink palacio in the heart of the Portuguese capital is “a home from home”, says Tatler. There are Nespresso machines, complimentary minibars (try the ginger health shots) and fresh flowers in the 28 bedrooms, some of which have balconies, and all of which have views over the hotel’s leafy gardens and heated swimming pool. Bathrooms have heated floors, large tubs, rain showers and Byredo products. Dinner, served inside or under the stars, is “simple and seasonal”, and the extensive wine list is excellent. Doubles from £250 b&b; palacioprincipereal.com.…

Monica Vitti 1931-2022 One of the “shining stars of postwar Italian cinema”, Monica Vitti, who has died aged 90, was known for her personal and professional association with the modernist director Michelangelo Antonioni, said Alexander Larman in The Daily Telegraph. They made a trio of films together in the early 1960s – L’Avventura (The Adventure), La Notte (The Night) and L’Eclisse (The Eclipse) – which dealt with the themes of alienation and abstraction, and which are now regarded as classics of radical Italian cinema. It was not surprising, therefore, that for her English-language debut, Vitti chose to work with Joseph Losey – an American director who had moved to England in the 1950s after being blacklisted, and who had since won acclaim for his chilling thriller The Servant. The film…

BP/Shell: spewing profits The price of Brent crude hit a seven-year high of $94/barrel on Monday. Some analysts think it will soon top $100. If so, Britain’s two big oil majors, BP and Shell – which have both just filed bumper figures for 2021 – could be “on course to make a combined profit of £40bn this year”, said Phillip Inman in The Observer. No wonder there are renewed calls for a windfall tax to divert some of this “obscene” surplus cash to ease the cost-of-living crisis. Why should shareholders benefit from the misery? Shell and BP won’t take that lying down, said Rachel Millard and James Warrington in The Daily Telegraph. Announcing annual profits of £9.5bn this week, BP CEO Bernard Looney “warned that a raid on energy businesses…

A worrying message from Argentina Gillian Tett Financial Times The IMF has finally agreed to restructure a $57bn loan to Argentina, averting an imminent default. But for global investors, “the deal should be a wake-up call” because of the far bigger question it poses, says Gillian Tett: “what will happen to the rest of the world’s troubled sovereign debt?” The World Bank has warned that low-income countries – whacked by the pandemic – are heading for a swathe of “disorderly defaults”. Yet “the financial processes to resolve and restructure these debts are fraying”. The old system was based on the “Paris Club”, a group of mostly Western creditor nations. But today, China’s lending has grown so “frenetically” that it now owns the bulk of the estimated $200bn emerging market debt.…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1298 An Ettinger travel pass case and two Connell Guides will be given to the sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday 21 February. Email the answers as a scan of a completed grid or a list, with the subject line The Week crossword 1298, to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) This week’s winner will receive an Ettinger (ettinger.co.uk) travel pass case (assorted colours), which retails at £105, and two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 7 Teaching provided by mountain coaches? (6,9) 9 Zoomed, sounding like a complaint (4) 10 New ad must come designed to order (6-4) 11 Became hot and cold about one type of fiction (6) 13 One month’s increase allowed for part of a…