Innholdsfortegnelse for 1395 i The Week

What happened Liz Truss cemented her position as the favourite in the Tory leadership race this week, winning the endorsement of a series of high-profile MPs and ministers. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi, and former leadership rivals Penny Mordaunt and Tom Tugendhat were among those to endorse Truss, who was also boosted by a new YouGov poll suggesting she has a 34-point lead over her rival, Rishi Sunak. Some 60% of Tory members said they’d vote for her to be the next prime minister. Sunak sought to regain momentum by pledging to cut VAT on energy bills and slash income tax in the next parliament. The plans were a departure from his earlier pledges to resist tax cuts until public finances were healthier. Sunak’s campaign was helped when…

It’s “perverse” but true, said The Guardian: Britain’s summer of strikes is causing more problems for the Labour opposition than for the Conservative Government. A “telling example” came last week, when Keir Starmer sacked “an obscure junior shadow minister”, Sam Tarry, for joining strikers on a rail workers’ picket line, and giving media interviews there. The fallout generated considerable “heat and headlines”: far more than, say, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps’s draconian plans to “emasculate unions’ right to strike at all”. The Government, unfortunately, is not being held to account, while Labour’s overall aims remain unclear. “Starmer must do more to explain what Labour is for.” He really must, said Keir Mudie in The Mirror. Tarry, after all, was only supporting the workers, and arguing that their pay should rise in…

British Airways, which was forced to suspend the sale of shorthaul tickets from Heathrow until at least mid-August, to comply with a new cap on numbers. The suspension affects domestic and European routes, as well as flights going via Morocco and Cairo. Snorkellers, after a woman suffered a suspected shark bite while swimming off the coast of Penzance. The unnamed woman was on an organised trip to see blue sharks when she was bitten in the leg. She later issued a statement saying that she’d loved seeing these “majestic creatures in the wild”, and didn’t want this “freak event to tarnish the reputation of an already persecuted species”. Commuters, with news that staff on the London Underground and Overground have voted to go on strike on 19 August, in the…

Paris Prince in Paris: Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), held talks with President Macron in Paris last week, as he made his first trip to the EU since the murder of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. In the wake of Khashoggi’s assassination, the Crown Prince was declared persona non grata in large parts of the democratic world, but with oil prices rising since the invasion of Ukraine, Western governments are now trying to rebuild their relationships with Saudi Arabia. On a recent visit to Riyadh, President Biden urged MbS to ramp up Saudi oil production to bring down the price of crude. Hérault, France Firefighter arsonist: A volunteer French firefighter has admitted to deliberately starting fires in pursuit of an adrenaline rush, and to…

This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs featured the chef Clare Smyth 1 Sweet Child O’ Mine, written and performed by Guns N’ Roses 2 Zombie by Dolores O’Riordan, performed by The Cranberries 3 Don’t Look Back In Anger by Noel Gallagher, performed by Oasis 4 Common People by Jarvis Cocker, Russell Senior, Steve Mackey, Nick Banks and Candida Doyle, performed by Pulp 5 Set Fire To The Rain by Adele Adkins and Fraser T. Smith, performed by Adele 6 Maria by Jimmy Destri, performed by Blondie 7 Brass In Pocket by Chrissie Hynde and James Honeyman-Scott, performed by the Pretenders 8* Circle of Life from The Lion King by Elton John and Tim Rice, performed by Carmen Twillie and Lebo M. Book: The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien Luxury: a chef’s knife * Choice…

In 2018, the Nuffield Trust carried out a vast study, measuring the NHS against comparable healthcare systems. Its conclusion was that the NHS “performs neither as well as its supporters sometimes claim nor as badly as its critics often allege”. Its crucial weakness was in healthcare outcomes: the mortality rate in the UK among people treated for some of the biggest causes of death, including cancer, heart attacks and stroke, was higher than average among comparable nations. However, it had many strengths, such as managing long-term illness, and did it all on a budget “slightly lower” than the average. Many of the best-performing nations – France, Germany, the Netherlands – use compulsory social insurance, rather than, like the NHS, providing care from general taxation. In France everyone pays social insurance…

UKRAINE Fighting the Russians in the pages of Vogue The Washington Post “It’s hard to imagine a more foolish reason to reject support for Ukraine,” says Sonny Bunch, “than the fact that the nation’s desperate leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, was photographed by Annie Leibovitz for Vogue.” And yet, in some quarters, that is exactly what happened. According to a number of right-wing Republicans, the fact that Zelensky and his wife Olena took time for a portrait session in between combating Russian efforts to dismember his country is an argument for wrapping up US support for the Ukrainian war effort. How are we supposed to take this guy seriously, they sniff, when he’s doing photo shoots and appearing at the Grammys? Even some supporters see the Vogue shoot as a misstep. But…

“Jamie Vardy is one of English football’s most prolific strikers,” said Alexander Larman in The Spectator. But thanks to his wife, his surname will forever be associated with one of the great own goals. Last week, a judge ruled against Rebekah Vardy in her libel case against Coleen Rooney, leaving Vardy with an estimated £2m legal bill, and her reputation in shreds. The case dates back to 2019, when Rooney began to suspect that one of the people following her private Instagram account was leaking stories from it to The Sun. Having set a trap, by planting false stories that were visible to an ever-smaller group, Rooney honed in on a culprit. Then, she sensationally revealed her “Wagatha Christie” sleuthing in a post that ended: “It was… Rebekah Vardy’s account!”…

This summer, Britain has already recorded its highest-ever temperature – and now we may be heading into a drought, said Saphora Smith on The Independent. Last month was the driest July in 111 years, according to the Met Office. And it followed months of unusually dry weather: rainfall in England in the first six months of this year was 25% below the long-term average. Although no area is officially in drought yet, water companies are urging people to cut their usage – particularly in the south and southeast; and a hosepipe ban has come into force in large parts of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Inevitably, comparisons are being made to the “standpipe summer” of 1976, said Helen Rumbelow in The Times. That was one of the most prolonged…

To the Financial Times Pritam Singh raises the old canard that proportional representation (PR) is more democratic than first past the post. However, under FPTP, each party proposes its manifesto and the general election winner must deliver it. If it does not, the electorate will punish that party at the next election. PR would see effective majority government replaced by coalitions, within which all parties dump their manifestos and agree a new policy programme, which the electorate would not have approved. Politicians are thus free to do whatever they want. Since MPs would no longer be expected to deliver what they had promised, they could not be held to account for their failure to do so, debasing democracy. A cursory examination of politics in EU countries, Belgium for example, shows…

by Lillian Fishman Europa Editions 224pp £12.99 The Week Bookshop £9.99 Lillian Fishman’s debut is one of the most “searching and enthralling” novels about sex I’ve read in years, said Johanna Thomas-Corr in The New Statesman. “Eve is a 28-year-old barista from Brooklyn in a long-term relationship with Romi, a paediatrician.” Although Eve considers herself a lesbian, she has fantasies about sleeping with a “wild number of people”. When she posts nude pictures of herself online, they catch the attention of an artist called Olivia – who proves to be acting on behalf of a “tall, wealthy man in his 30s” named Nathan, who makes Eve his sexual “toy”. “Part erotic Bildungsroman, part melancholy comedy of manners”, Acts of Service is “startlingly accomplished”. Well, I found it thoroughly tedious, said…

At the Orangery, Freddie asks Chelsea to train a new recruit; she’s horrified to discover it’s Brad. Natasha’s mother, Caitlin, arrives to help with the twins, leaving Tom feeling surplus to requirements. Brian returns and Alice tells him that Chris has decided to settle for a cottage in the divorce; Brian thanks Chris for being decent. Following the pizza van debacle, Susan’s attempt to blackmail Jean Harvey with an anonymous letter spectacularly backfires; disaster is averted when the postbox mysteriously catches fire. Tony reassures Tom he’ll be a good father, while Natasha gets increasingly irritated by overbearing Caitlin. Clarrie finds lighter fluid in George’s hoodie, but he insists he had nothing to do with the fire. As Chris and Alice bond over an old photo, Eddie takes bets on them…

Tides Near Me allows you to find the tide times for your location. You can explore the world on the scrollable map and mark spots as favourites (free; Android, iOS). UVLens gives a UV forecast for the day, with a personalised burn risk based on your skin type, plus alerts for when you need to reapply suncream (free; Android, iOS). If you’re caught short at the beach, Flush will show you where the nearest public loo is and give you directions there on your chosen map app (free; Android, iOS). Poolsuite FM, formerly Poolside FM, is a retro app billed as a virtual pool party in your pocket, owing to its selections of holiday-friendly tunes (free; Android, iOS). You can use photos and Street View on Google Maps to check…

An amphibious rural outing Combining walking and wild swimming, “cross-country swimming” is growing in popularity in the UK. And on a half-day expedition in Cambridge, you can try a key innovation in the activity, says Phoebe Smith in The Guardian. Brothers Will and Tom Watt spent the first lockdown developing the RuckRaft, a horseshoe-shaped inflatable. With a central dry bag designed to carry up to 15kg of clothing, provisions and so on, it enables you to cross rivers and lakes on hiking routes, pulling your things behind you as you swim, while leaving you feeling “almost weightless” in the water. On the Cambridge trip, you walk along the River Cam from the railway station to the Orchard tea room, then don wetsuits in order to swim back with the current.…

Bernard Cribbins 1928-2022 One of Britain’s best-loved character actors, Bernard Cribbins, who has died aged 93, had a career that was very long, and unusually varied, said The Times. A talented light comedian, he was in scores of West End revues; he camped it up in Carry On films, and held his own against Peter Sellers in the film Two Way Stretch. But he played plenty of straight roles too, including the belligerent barman in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1972 horror film Frenzy, and the gruff but kindly station porter Albert Perks in The Railway Children (1970). He had two hit singles, Right Said Fred and The Hole in The Ground, which Noël Coward chose as one of his Desert Island Discs; he narrated all 60 episodes of The Wombles, and told…

“It’s a difficult time to be an investor” when the value of your portfolio is falling, said Laura Miller in The Mail on Sunday. You need to take control of your emotions. Here are some tips: Get comfortable with uncertainty Instead of focusing on the latest twists and turns, step back and look at the bigger picture. “In turbulent times, there is a big gap between the decision that feels emotionally comfortable for my short-term self – selling – and the decision that is right for my long-term needs – holding on,” says Greg Davies, head of behavioural finance at Oxford Risk. “Benign neglect – just leaving things alone – can be a very powerful investment strategy.” Boost your confidence Don’t beat yourself up if you’ve lost money. Remember why…

The week’s best shares AstraZeneca Investors’ Chronicle AZ has laid the groundwork for continued success. Several products exceeded first-half sales expectations, and the oncology franchise is predicted to grow by 13% this year. The focus on drug development justifies the premium valuation. Buy. £10.84. Beazley The Daily Telegraph The “non-life” insurer’s ugly first-half results were down to bond market losses, and hide a rosier picture – including a 26% increase in gross premiums written. Still undervalued. Buy. 537p. Lloyds Banking Group The Times Higher interest rates are driving profits, and better-than-expected loan default rates belie the lender’s discounted stock. If impairments remain benign and rates move higher, so will shares. Yields 5.3%. Buy. 45.38p. Morgan Advanced Materials Investors’ Chronicle The specialist manufacturer serves clients in energy, transportation, healthcare and defence.…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1323 An Ettinger shoe horn 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 15 August. Send it to The Week Crossword 1323, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid or listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) This week’s winner will receive an Ettinger (ettinger.co.uk) Bridle Hide travel shoehorn in black, which retails at £75, and two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 1 Forecaster involved with Sheila (6) 5 Fools in residence think again (8) 9 Stays a day in Nice overwhelmed by local sounds (8) 10 Benny and Oscar in dash? Only part of it (6) 11 Cricketer with members approaching London suburb (3-7)…

Greater Manchester Police is struggling to recruit enough detectives, because young officers are put off by the antisocial hours that go hand in hand with the work. Chief Constable Stephen Watson told The Guardian that he’d found that young people ascribe “higher value to the work-life balance” than in the past. A congressman in the Philippines has declared that being “ghosted” is so hurtful, it should be made an offence. Arnolfo Teves Jr says that the practice – which involves cutting off all communication with no explanation, often after a date – is a form of “emotional cruelty”, and should be punished. However, his bill is not likely to pass. One voter told The Times that it was the most “ridiculous bill ever written”.…

Proceedings from The Old Bailey have been televised for the first time in the court’s history. Last Thursday, footage of Judge Sarah Munro QC passing sentence on Ben Oliver for the manslaughter of his grandfather was broadcast on various news channels and online. The legislation to allow senior judges to be filmed during sentencing in Crown Court trials in England and Wales was enacted in 2020, but its implementation was delayed by the pandemic. News outlets must, in each case, have the permission of the judge, and can only film the judge. Justice Secretary Dominic Raab said allowing the public to see judges explain their sentencing decisions would “reinforce confidence” in the system.…

Appalachia, Kentucky Flash floods: At least 37 people were killed in flash flooding in eastern Kentucky last week, after up to eight inches of rain fell in less than 24 hours. Hundreds of homes and businesses were destroyed; roads and bridges were swept away; and with scores of people still missing this week, the death toll was expected to rise. “We are going to be finding bodies for weeks,” said the state’s governor, Andy Beshear. President Biden has provided federal aid to support efforts to find survivors and provide shelter for the local residents displaced by the floods, described as the worst in the region in decades. Siskiyou, California Wildfires worsen: A fire that broke out in forests just over the border in Oregon last Friday is now raging across…

“The latest trend among Generation Z – those born between 1997 and 2012 – is posting ‘throwback videos’. Having reached the ripe old age of, say, 11, Generation Z is digging through their archive to offer a wan critique of that embarrassing haircut they sported in the dim and distant past of, say, 18 months ago. Online, nothing is forgotten: every action you have taken is ineradicably chronicled somewhere in the cloud. The most you can do is remix the raw material. The ‘youthful indiscretion’ can no longer be quietly forgotten. The evidence will be there, somewhere, on some cursed TikTok video or Instagram archive for all time.” Sam Leith in The Spectator…

Washington’s Rasputin loses his magic cloak Charlie Sykes MSNBC.com Long after he resigned from his official White House position in 2017, Steve Bannon, cheerleader for Donald Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) project, flaunted his “cloak of impunity”, says Charlie Sykes. The ex-president’s “evil genius”, aka “Trump’s Rasputin”, he correctly assumed Trump would pardon him for bilking all the MAGA supporters who sent money to Bannon’s phoney build-the-wall scheme. It was Bannon who helped design the coup attempt after the 2020 election, and then spent months “giving Congress the middle finger” by refusing to testify before the House 6 Jan committee. But last week, his cloak fell off: after offering to testify to head off prosecution, he was convicted on two counts of contempt of congress. The swaggering bully may…

The NHS is facing “the greatest workforce crisis” in its history, and it is putting patients at serious risk, MPs have warned. A report by the cross-party Health and Social Care Select Committee found that NHS England is advertising for 38,972 nurses and 8,016 hospital doctors; but as many posts go unadvertised, the true number of vacancies could be as high as 50,000 and 12,000. In social care, 105,000 posts are unfilled. In April, it was revealed that the number of people waiting for hospital treatment in England reached a record high of almost 6.5 million; and demand for services is only set to grow: it is estimated that an extra 475,000 jobs will be needed in health by the early 2030s, along with 490,000 in social care. Poor pay…

“Is Europe now on the brink of a new age of energy austerity,” asked Thomas Fazi on UnHerd. Several European nations are considering dimming or switching off public lights, or even adopting “energy curfews”, which would force the early closure of businesses and public offices. The city of Hanover in Germany has cut off hot water in all its public buildings, swimming pools, sports halls and gyms. These measures were devised to meet an EU-wide gas reduction plan, Save Gas for a Safe Winter, to reduce consumption by 15% until next spring – a belated response to Russia’s reduction of gas exports, which are at about a third of last year’s levels. Germany, which before the war got over half of its gas from Russia, is on the front line:…

“In life as in dance, grace glides on blistered feet.” Alice Abrams, quoted in Forbes “To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.” Aldo Leopold, quoted in the Los Angeles Times “Middlebrow: the point at which the principles of art meet the imperatives of the mass market.” James Marriott in The Times “The great mistake made by intelligent people is to refuse to believe that the world is as stupid as it is.” Madame de Tencin, quoted in Forbes “Like the gleam of wintry sunshine on the brass handles of a coffin.” Daniel O’Connell’s description of Sir Robert Peel’s smile, quoted in The Times “When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.” Saul Bellow, quoted in The Browser “Blessed is the…

Cricket South Africa beat England 2-1 in their Twenty20 series, with Jos Buttler’s team slumping to a 90-run defeat in the deciding match at The Rose Bowl, Southampton. Football Liverpool won this season’s Community Shield, beating Manchester City 3-1. Trent Alexander-Arnold and Mohamed Salah scored for the Reds – as well as new signing Darwin Núñez. Formula 1 Max Verstappen extended his lead in the drivers’ championships to 80 points after winning the Hungarian Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton finished second.…

Running time: 2hrs 30mins The West End has a rich crop of great family shows this summer, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. Now, to add to them, is this terrific revival of Sally Cookson’s adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. First staged in 2017, it manages to be both profound and playful, and makes imaginative use of large-scale puppetry, grand illusions and evocative music to bring C.S. Lewis’s much-loved tale to life. This new incarnation, directed by Michael Fentiman, arrives in London following a national tour, and is crammed with yet more “visual flourishes” and illusions, with superb results. Fentiman’s “captivating” production “fits this enormous West End stage like a glove”, agreed Arifa Akbar in The Guardian. It is “still, in spirit, a children’s story”,…

The award-winning author of Empire of Pain chooses his favourite true crime books. His new book, Rogues (Picador £20), is out now, and he will appear at the Edinburgh Book Festival on 15 August (edbookfest.co.uk) Ghettoside by Jill Leovy, 2015 (Vintage £10.99). An extraordinary book about policing, detective work, and race and criminal justice in one American community. Leovy is a masterful reporter and storyteller, and her book, focusing on a murder in South Los Angeles, is fastpaced, often counter-intuitive, and deeply important. The Hard Sell by Evan Hughes, 2022 (Doubleday £23.59). Having written about the opioid crisis myself, I’ve read all the books on the subject and can safely say that this one is unique. It’s an immensely absorbing story about a bunch of colourful crooks who take the…

Programmes Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra at The Proms In what promises to be one of the most poignant concerts of the season, the newly formed orchestra will perform works by Chopin, Beethoven and Brahms. Sun 7 Aug, BBC2 18:25 (95mins). India 1947: Partition in Colour Newly colourised footage is used to tell the story of the dramatic and violent events surrounding the partition of India, and the end of British rule. Sun 7 Aug, C4 21:00 (60mins). Good Grief with Reverend Richard Coles The broadcaster and writer, whose husband died in 2019, explores different ways of tackling grief. Mon 8 Aug, C4 22:00 (65mins). Secrets of the Spies Three-part docuseries delving into the murky world of espionage. Part one asks what qualities a good spy must possess. Tue 9 Aug, ITV1…

Self-catering bolthole Spend 4 nights in Seagull Heights, an apartment for two within Tenby’s historic town walls, enjoying stunning views over the North Beach. From £272pp. 01873-776238, sugarandloaf.com. Arrive 27 August. Land of the Rising Sun Explore Japan on an 11-day tour with stops in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. From £1,999pp, including accommodation and excursions. 0845-528 0457, gadventures.com. Depart 17 September. Dominican Republic break Stay 7 nights at the 5-star, adult-only Meliá Punta Cana Beach Resort on Bávaro Beach from £1,218pp all-inclusive, including London flights. 0344-493 0787, britishairways.com. Depart 9 September. Five-star Las Palmas oasis Stay 3 nights in the heart of the Doramas Park at the Santa Catalina, a Royal Hideaway Hotel. From £470pp, including Newcastle flights. 0800-408 0778, jet2holidays.com. Depart 18 August. Covid-19: please check government websites for…

British Airways: flying backwards “Air travel is the only form of transport to have gone backwards over the past 20 years,” said Pilita Clark in the FT. Flying has become “a chaotic hellscape of cancelled flights, lost luggage and unspeakable queues”. Some industry bosses reckon the disruption could last “a couple of years”. In the latest blow to holidaymakers, British Airways has now suspended the sale of short-haul flights from Heathrow “for at least a week”, said Ben Clatworthy in The Times – citing the airport’s 100,000-a-day cap on passenger numbers. Given BA has already axed some 27,900 flights this summer, this “unprecedented move” at the peak of the season is bound to “push up already sky-high prices”. After an “existential crisis” during the pandemic, the airline’s parent, IAG, is…

Ultra-low rates have damaged Britain Charles Moore The Daily Telegraph It might be difficult for a Tory leadership candidate to admit, says Charles Moore, “but it’s a good thing that interest rates are going up”. The artificially ultra-low rates that have persisted for more than a decade are directly responsible for the country’s economic woes. They triggered an “explosion of asset values”, favouring “the old rather than the young”. Real wages have stagnated, while house prices have shot up. Productivity and investment have also suffered because low rates have cushioned debt-ridden “bad companies” from “the shake-outs that capitalism needs”. Perhaps a fifth of Britain’s businesses are now “zombie” companies. A nation’s fundamental economic arrangements can only be justified if “they bring greater prosperity to most people”. If, as now seems…

The team at the Oxford English Dictionary felt some nervousness about writing the definition for “Terf”, an acronym for transexclusionary radical feminist, which last month was added to its pages. “To a certain extent, it is like any other word,” says Fiona McPherson, a 50-year-old lexicographer from Stirlingshire, who has worked at the dictionary since 1997. “But it would be disingenuous to say that it is exactly the same. There seems more at stake. You want to be accurate, you want to be neutral. But it’s a lot easier to be neutral about a word that isn’t controversial.” The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has served as a record of the world’s most widely spoken language – and its culture – since it was founded in the mid-19th century. “Post-truth”, for…

An young botanist has found a rare fen orchid at a site in south Wales. Until 11-year-old Tristan Moss spotted the species, it had not been recorded in Carmarthenshire since 2003 – when his mother spotted one. The family live in Hertfordshire but take part in the recording week every year; the orchid was one of the species volunteers had been asked to look out for, but organisers feared it was gone forever. “So to find it was fabulous,” said Tristan’s mother. “People were in tears.” Three-year-old twins who were joined at the head have been separated in a 27-hour operation. Bernardo and Arthur Lima had the surgery in Rio de Janeiro, but Brazilian surgeons were led by Great Ormond Street’s Noor ul Owase Jeelani, who was “present” in a…

Booksellers, who were invited to apply for a job running a bookshop on a luxury desert island resort in the Maldives. As well as managing inventory and accounts, the successful candidate would recommend books to the high-net-worth guests on the island of Kunfunadhoo – where no shoes may be worn, newspapers are frowned upon, and staff have a private beach. Elizabeth Johnson Jr, who was cleared of being a witch, 329 years after her trial in Salem, Massachusetts. Johnson was sentenced to death in 1693, but later granted a reprieve. She was the last person convicted in the witch trials whose name had not been cleared. Her case had been taken up by children at a local school, who had lobbied for three years on her behalf.…

Two-thirds of people who voted Tory in 2019 agree that “academically able children should be given the opportunity to apply for a school that better suits their needs, even if children who do not get in do less well as a result”. However, under half support the building of more grammar schools, along with only 20% of Labour voters and 27% of Lib Dems. JL Partners for the Onward think tank/Daily Telegraph 84% of Tory Party members think that Kemi Badenoch should have a job in the new PM’s cabinet; only 8% think she should not. YouGov/Times 56% of voters think that whoever wins the Tory leadership race should call a snap general election. Savanta/Independent…

Frank Skinner’s regrets Frank Skinner is one of the UK’s best known comics – but he readily admits that he has made some terrible mistakes during his 30 years in the business, says Tim Jonze in The Guardian. Having made his name at the Edinburgh Festival, he became a key figure in 1990s “new lad” culture thanks to Fantasy Football League, the comedy chat show he fronted with David Baddiel. A number of players were ribbed on the show, but he admits that in the case of Jason Lee, a black Nottingham Forest striker, it descended into bullying. Thanks to their “taking the piss”, Lee came in for a torrent of abuse from fans, including a chant about his hair (“He’s got a pineapple on his head”). Once, Baddiel even…

Subsidies for childcare; paid sick leave: these are the kind of areas that need government funding in these hard times, said Robert Reich, former secretary of labour, on Substack.com. Yet as it prepares to close for the summer recess, what is congress gearing up to fund? In a rare moment of bipartisanship, the senate has agreed to fill the pockets not of ordinary Americans but corporate America. The Chips Act (or, Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors Act, to give it its full title), is a $52bn handout to US firms that make computer chips. Intel and other chipmakers claim they need this vast subsidy if they’re to build new chipmaking factories here and reduce reliance on imports from China, South Korea and Taiwan. “It’s pure extortion.” The impetus for…

Doubts cast on Alzheimer’s study For the past two decades, Alzheimer’s research has been dominated by the amyloid hypothesis, which holds that the disease is caused by clumps of amyloid beta proteins, or plaques, accumulating in the brain. But now an explosive report in Science has alleged that one of the studies most often cited in support of the hypothesis relied at least in part on falsified data. The author of the disputed study – published in 2006 in the journal Nature – claimed that rats injected with an amyloid protein had gone on to exhibit memory defects. Plaques had been identified in the brains of dementia patients as far back as 1906, but this appeared to be the first evidence of a direct causal link between them and dementia.…

A former aide to Boris Johnson has revealed that in the early days of the pandemic, she ended up serving as the PM’s “nanny”. Writing in Tatler, Cleo Watson says that she took her boss’s temperature at regular intervals, reminded him to wash his hands, and soothed his tantrums. He was not, she says, an easy charge. A couple of times, he was “pinged”, but he still insisted on working downstairs at No. 10. “Very soon,” says Watson, this required setting up a prime ministerial “puppy gate” – a barrier to stop the PM wandering out of his office to peer over people’s shoulders. “He’d kneel on the seats, his elbows propped over the top, like a great, unruly golden retriever, howling for attention,” she recalls. But Watson had been…

“The damage done is immeasurable,” said The Times. Last week, NHS England shut down the Tavistock clinic’s Gender Identity Development Service (Gids) in London, Britain’s only specialist unit for children with gender dysphoria, in the wake of a “devastating” report by the paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass. Published in March, it found that Gids had recklessly prescribed puberty blockers to many children, without analysing the long-term effects of this treatment. It seems the institution had been captured by a clique of trans activists, who accepted declarations by children that they were born in the wrong gender at face value, ignoring other possible explanations, and seeing any dissenting opinion as a form of bigotry. All this was being carried out “in plain sight”, said Suzanne Moore in The Daily Telegraph. The Keira…

When Sarina Wiegman took over as the Lionesses’ manager last September – succeeding Phil Neville – she became the “first non-British permanent coach of the women’s team”, said Matt Roper in the Daily Mirror. Her appointment was hardly controversial: the Dutchwoman was already one of the most highly respected managers in women’s football, having guided her country to a surprise victory at the 2017 Euros and the final of the 2019 World Cup. Nonetheless, in a sport where – in stark contrast to the men’s game – foreign coaches remain a rarity, it felt novel to have a non-Brit in charge. And there were those, including Wiegman herself, who wondered just how well her methods would translate to working with a group of non-Dutch players. All such doubts have now…

by Lucy Moore Atlantic 320pp £17.99 The Week Bookshop £13.99 The “Victorian grandfathers” of anthropology were notorious for keeping a “fastidious distance from their subjects”, said Fara Dabhoiwala in The Guardian. “Good God, no!” was Sir James Frazer’s response when asked if he’d ever met a “native”. But from the late 19th century, the discipline was “revolutionised” by a new generation of men and women who went out and studied “primitive” cultures. And in this “fastpaced book”, Lucy Moore tells the story of 12 such figures – from Franz Boas, who lived with the Inuit of Baffin Island in the 1880s (and revealed to the world their 50 words for snow), to Claude Lévi-Strauss, whose “great meditation” Tristes Tropiques was published in 1955. In between, we meet a cast of…

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David Trimble 1944-2022 David Trimble, who has died aged 77, was that rare thing in politics, said the FT: an “anti-populist”. Sometimes described as “prickly”, and even abrasive, he was the staunch unionist who resolved to lead his supporters down a “hard and unpopular path” towards a “better future”. There was little to suggest, when he’d taken over the leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) in 1995, that he’d be one of the architects of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that established a power-sharing system in Northern Ireland, and formally ended decades of strife. “Never a liberal”, he’d come to prominence a few months earlier by championing the right of the Orange Order to march in Catholic neighbourhoods – famously standing with Ian Paisley, arms aloft, at the head…

Joy Seppala Some 15 years after buying Coventry City FC in 2007, the Mayfair-based hedge fund Sisu is considering a sale, said James Hurley in The Times. It may come as a relief for one of football’s most unlikely owners, Joy Seppala. A Wharton-educated US financier, once dubbed “the Queen of Debt”, Seppala had “an often-fractious relationship” with both the Sky Blues’ fans and the local council, which owns the freehold of the stadium. Matters got still more complicated when the London rugby club Wasps relocated to Coventry in 2014 and “bought the lease of the stadium”, which the teams then shared. Wasps is now in financial trouble and may be forced to ditch the lease. Sisu thinks its “distress” could provide the perfect opportunity for “a third party” to…