Innholdsfortegnelse for 1398 i The Week

What happened Rishi Sunak and his supporters kept up their attacks on Liz Truss this week in the face of polls suggesting she is almost certain to be announced as the new Tory leader on 5 September. She would have to “foul up” spectacularly to lose, according to the polling expert John Curtice. Michael Gove warned that Truss’s focus on tax cuts, and her reluctance to offer direct support over rising energy bills, marked a “holiday from reality”. It was vital, he said, that the new Government had a coherent economic plan. Truss insisted that she would press ahead with early tax cuts despite downgrading her pledge to hold an emergency budget. Her allies said she would hold a “fiscal event” rather than a full-blown budget, which would avoid the…

“Where there’s muck, there’s brass,” said Simon Jenkins in The Guardian. But “rarely was muck filthier or money more brass-necked” than in the case of the privatised English water industry. A summer of poor performance, of hosepipe bans and leaks, culminated during last week’s heavy rain in the largescale dumping of sewage into watercourses and the sea. Rapid “run-off” and overflowing storage tanks meant that dozens of beaches in England and Wales were contaminated, including resorts such as Bognor Regis and Newquay. Discharges from “combined sewer overflows”, which mix rainwater and wastewater, are allowed in rare circumstances, but they’re now routine: 373,000 were reported in 2021. This is why we have “brown effluent pouring into the Channel”, rivers like the Wye treated like open sewers, and blue-green algae polluting Lake…

Margaret Ferrier, the MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, who pleaded guilty to breaking Covid rules. On 26 September 2020, Ferrier, then an SNP MP, was told to self-isolate after experiencing Covid symptoms. Even so, she travelled around the Glasgow area, attended church, visited a bar, then went to London by train and spoke in the House of Commons. After receiving a positive test result, she returned to Glasgow by train. The dugong, which has been declared functionally extinct in China. Scientists found that there had been no verified sightings in Chinese waters of the large marine mammal, which is thought to have inspired tales of mermaids, since 2008. Swaledale Cheese, which has lost its protected status, after it was forced to shift production from Swaledale to neighbouring Wensleydale, owing…

Paris Advert ban: France has become the first country in Europe to place a ban on fossil fuel advertising. The law prohibits advertising for energy products related to fossil fuels such as petrol, and coal-derived energy, on pain of fines starting at s20,000. Sponsorship deals, however, are not included, and there are other exclusions; natural gas is not covered until next June. Greenpeace criticised the ban’s limited scope, accusing President Macron of “greenwashing”. Macron has put the environment at the heart of his second term in office, promising a 40% reduction in greenhouse emissions on 1990 levels by 2030. Gramsh, Albania Munitions break-in: Albanian authorities are on alert after break-ins at two military factories. Three suspected Russian spies broke into a facility in Gramsh, about 50 miles southeast of the…

“The lunacy of the cashless society is best summed up by a headline I came across online when trying to sort out parking in small-town Dorset: ‘UK’s top nine parking apps you need to have!’ Yes, we have exchanged the wondrous ease of slipping a couple of pound coins into a parking meter for nine apps that only function if your phone is charged and your self-possession is like a Buddhist monk’s. Cash is simple and generous; my sons have far less appreciation of handouts now they’re beamed between apps, without the ritual of crossing palms with a fiver. Digital transactions were supposed to enrich us, but we’ve lost something human and valuable in the process.” Rowan Pelling in The Daily Telegraph…

We must train doctors, not import them J. Meirion Thomas The Spectator Winning a place at medical school will be tough this year, says J. Meirion Thomas. Following a two-year pandemic-related hiatus in application limits, the number of places has once again been capped at 7,500 in England, spelling disappointment for about 85% of aspiring doctors. What a waste of talent. The Government was quoted last week as saying that “the cap is regularly reviewed to ensure it meets the needs of our NHS”, but that’s disingenuous nonsense. Officials know full well that we’re not training enough doctors. They just want to save money by pinching ready-trained doctors from other countries. In 2021, no less than 63% of the doctors registering with the General Medical Council for the first time…

Vegetarians at risk of hip fracture Vegetarian women are more likely to break their hips than those who often eat meat, a study has found. Researchers at the University of Leeds analysed the records of more than 26,000 women from the UK Women’s Cohort Study, who were aged between 35 and 69 when they agreed to take part. Over a 22-year period, 822 women, or 3% of the participants, broke their hips, of whom 28% were vegetarians. After adjusting for factors such as smoking and age, the researchers found that vegetarian women were a third more likely to break a hip than those who eat meat at least five times a week; there was no increased risk for occasional meat eaters and pescatarians. The reason for the increased risk to…

Liz Truss is still mocked for the line she delivered at Tory conference in 2014, when she highlighted the fact that the UK imported two-thirds of its cheese and thundered: “That. Is. A. Disgrace.” Now her former adviser, Kirsty Buchanan, has told the BBC that she had the temerity to use the line in front of Truss, when she was working for her at the Ministry of Justice, whose windows are notoriously grimy. “If you do that one more time,” Truss replied, “I’m going to put you on the window cleaner thing and leave you out there for the day.” Kate Moss wasn’t known for her clean living during her modelling heyday. But now, The Mail on Sunday reports, she is launching Cosmoss, a wellness brand that could soon be…

Boris Johnson “has, in effect, checked out” of 10 Downing Street, said Philip Collins in the London Evening Standard. And “the only minister who ever really does anything has just announced that he has had enough”. Michael Gove, who was sacked during Johnson’s doomed fight for survival, and is no fan of Liz Truss, has made it clear that he plans to quit front-bench politics. The country has lost a politician who, “for good or ill”, has made a difference everywhere he served. As education secretary, Gove insisted on higher standards and created new academies, transforming our schools, said The Times. At the environment department, he pushed through legislation on animal welfare, plastic, air pollution and pesticides. Without his advocacy as housing minister, the removal of dangerous cladding on high-rise…

Cricket England’s first Test against South Africa at Lord’s finished inside three days, with the tourists winning by an innings and 12 runs. Tennis France’s Caroline Garcia won the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati, beating Czech player Petra Kvitová 6-2, 6-4. In the men’s event, the Croatian Borna Ćorić, who began the week ranked No. 152, surprised Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece 7-6, 6-2. Football Arsenal continued their perfect start to the season, beating Bournemouth 3-0. Man United beat Liverpool 2-1.…

The Dutch architects MVRDV create what they call “figurative sculptural projects”, says Oliver Wainwright in The Guardian – essentially “supersized novelty objects”. In Britain, they are most famous for the “disastrous Marble Arch Mound in London, which arguably cost the Conservative council its leadership of the local borough”. Now they’re building something even stranger in Tirana, the capital of Albania: an 278ft-high block of apartments, offices and shops designed in the shape of the head of a 15th century national hero, Skanderbeg – a 7ft warrior king and slayer of Ottoman Turks, who was known as the Dragon of Albania. Digital renderings depict a tower ringed with balconies that form “a lumpy approximation” of his fierce features. “Wealthy future residents will be able to look out from the warrior’s eyes,…

At the festival, Joy is wooed by Mick, one of the stewards. Susan tries to talk sense into George, whom she suspects set the postbox fire, and Ed gets angry when he finds George vaping. Lynda recruits Stella for “Dunk the Vicar”, but Stella later confesses to Pip that she’s afraid of water. Tracy delivers Chelsea’s letter of apology to Gemma, but later receives a solicitor’s email threatening prosecution. Toby has been offered a job in Stratford but doesn’t want to leave Rosie; Pip helps him decide. At the factory, Tracy is called in to HR and is shocked that Gemma has accused her of bullying. HR manager Ray explains that the charges against Chelsea will be dropped, but Tracy can’t see how she’ll stay in the job; later she…

I made this originally as a snack, and it was so good that I thought it book-worthy, says Hasan Semay. Confit tomatoes last a good while and, if you don’t have any labneh, they’re just great on bread by themselves anyway. Serve as breakfast, lunch or a cheat’s dinner. It goes a long way. Serves 4 400g mixed cherry tomatoes on the vine 1 peeled garlic bulb 100ml good olive oil a bunch of basil, plus extra for serving a good amount of labneh or strained yoghurt (you can make your own by adding a pinch of salt to full-fat yoghurt and straining it in the fridge through a cheese-cloth or tea towel for around 24 hours) 4 slices bread of choice (I went with doughy flatbreads) 2 tbsp black…

Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature The V&A hosts this survey of the author and artist’s life as a conservationist and scientist, with works including the original Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, minus her apron (under-12s free, until 8 January; vam.ac.uk). Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts This clever and amusing exhibition combines 20th century American animation with the 18th century French art that inspired it (under-12s free, until 16 October; wallacecollection.org). Luke Jerram: Crossings Row out onto the lake at Compton Verney, Warwickshire, on brightly painted boats fitted with speakers that play oral histories of sea crossings (free with admission ticket, until 4 September; comptonverney.org.uk). Albert Potrony: Equal Play The artist has transformed the Baltic in Gateshead into a blue and yellow obstacle course, and jungle gym. A welcome change…

Tolkien in the East Riding Sent home from the Somme with trench foot in 1916, J.R.R. Tolkien spent the rest of the War on light duties in East Yorkshire. He and his wife Edith’s experiences there influenced his books – including The Lord of the Rings – and now the places they knew have been gathered into a trail called the Tolkien Triangle, says Liz Boulter in The Guardian. Stretching east from Hull along the Humber Estuary and for 25 miles up the North Sea coast, the area it traverses is remote and atmospheric. It includes the wild Spurn peninsula, the Victorian resorts of Hornsea and Withernsea, and the beguiling village of Roos, where Edith danced in the woods beside the 13th century church, apparently inspiring her husband’s tales of…

Tom Athron Fortnum & Mason boss Tom Athron is as “quintessentially English as scones and clotted cream”, said Sam Chambers in The Sunday Times. Educated at a boarding school for the sons of serving British soldiers, he studied at Newcastle before a career in banking, consultancy and retail that saw him rise to become finance director at Waitrose. At Fortnum since December 2020, the “relentlessly enthusiastic” CEO’s mission is to “shed the stuffiness” and embrace a more “informal and welcoming” kind of luxury. At a recent supper club evening, “the first course was a Korean chicken wing”, recalls Athron. “I looked around and realised we had 85 people sitting on the ground floor of Fortnum & Mason eating chicken with their fingers. I just suddenly thought, ‘This is it —…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1326 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 5 September. Send it to The Week Crossword 1326, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid/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 Composition from fellow worker on the continent (8) 6 Try to provoke learner with something prickly (6) 9 Little time for lead in Hollywood, Merry War her real hit (7,6) 10 Right put off accepting wrong (6) 11 Pap in this broadcast makes a…

What happened Criminal barristers in England and Wales voted overwhelmingly in favour of indefinite strike action, the latest in a series of industrial disputes to hit Britain. Nearly 80% of members of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) backed an all-out strike from 5 September, marking an escalation in a dispute with the Government over cuts to legal aid. The CBA wants a 25% rise in pay for legal aid work; members have rejected an offer of 15%. The strike will result in most Crown Court trials in England and Wales being delayed; others are at risk of collapsing entirely. On Sunday, 1,900 Unite members began an eight-day strike at Felixstowe (see page 35). The walkout, over pay, was the first to affect Britain’s biggest freight port since 1989. Last week,…

Publishers have identified “cli-fi” and “stealth-help” as two of the hottest literary trends. “Cli-fi” is fiction in which climate change is used as a major plot device, while “stealth-help” books try to show readers how to change their lives, without being as crudely didactic as self-help books. The trends have been driven by “BookTok”, the books part of the social media app TikTok. High-speed Wi-Fi has been installed on Mount Kilimanjaro, meaning that tourists keen to tweet and Instagram their ascent of Africa’s highest mountain will now be able to do so in real time. Tanzanian minister Nape Nnauye called it a “historic” moment. “Previously, it was a bit dangerous for visitors and porters who had to operate without internet,” he said.…

Hundreds of thousands of pupils across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the first cohort to sit A levels since the coronavirus outbreak, received their grades last week. Around 36.4% of exams were graded A* or A, which was lower than the record 44.8% achieved last year (when teacher assessments replaced exams), but higher than in 2019, when 25.4% of exams got an A* or A. The results revealed worsening regional disparities, with 39% of grades in London awarded A* or A compared with 30.8% in the Northeast. They also showed the gap between state and private schools had narrowed, but was still significant: 58% of private school candidates in England were awarded A*s and As, versus 30.7% of state school pupils.…

Alexandria, Virginia Isis fighter sentenced: An Islamic State militant raised in London has been sentenced to life in prison by a US court. Sudanese-born El Shafee Elsheikh, 34, a former British citizen, was convicted in April of hostage taking, conspiring to murder US citizens and supporting a terror organisation. He was part of the Syria-based terror cell known as “the Beatles”, owing to their British accents. The group beheaded 27 hostages, including the US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff. Elsheikh is the highest-profile Isis fighter to stand trial in the US. West Palm Beach, Florida Trump sues: Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against the US government, asking a judge to suspend the FBI’s investigation into documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago property. Reports suggest more than 300 classified documents…

Japan’s government has a novel plan to arrest a slide in tax revenues: encouraging young people to drink more alcohol. Its tax authority has launched a campaign dubbed “Sake Viva!”, a nationwide competition calling for “products and designs” to promote drinking. Alcohol made up 5% of Japan’s tax revenue in 1980, but that figure fell to 1.7% in 2020; on average, Japanese adults drink 75 litres of booze a year, down from 100 litres in 1995. The health ministry said it hoped the campaign would remind people to drink only the “appropriate amount”. A seal broke into a family house in New Zealand through the cat flap, harassed the cat, lounged on the sofa, and made itself at home for an hour. The young fur seal waddled up to the…

Our Armed Forces ought to be “the last place to succumb to the pernicious influence of identity politics”, said Ben Obese-Jecty in The Daily Telegraph. Yet the RAF now finds itself on “the frontline of the culture wars”. In “a PR disaster”, it emerged last week that the top brass had effectively frozen the enlistment of white men in order to meet diversity goals that require 40% of recruits to be women, and 20% to be from ethnic minorities, by 2030. An unnamed female group captain in charge of recruitment at RAF Cranwell resigned from her post, reportedly complaining that the targets were both impossible to meet and unlawful. But the RAF’s overall head of recruitment said she was “unashamed” of the policy: Air Vice-Marshal Maria Byford declared that greater…

The Premier League campaign is just three weekends old, and already there’s a contender for game of the season, said Jason Burt in The Daily Telegraph. Newcastle’s 3-3 draw at home against Manchester City instantly “felt like a classic”. It was a game of “great goals”, “passion and pressing”, and a moment of dramatic controversy, when Newcastle’s Kieran Trippier was red-carded for a “reckless lunge”, only for the decision to be reversed at the prompting of the VAR. But more than that, it was a rare example of a team taking it to the defending champions, said Ian Ladyman in the Daily Mail. We’ve grown used to seeing City’s opponents “sitting across the edge of their own penalty area”; how refreshing to see Pep Guardiola’s side being hit with the…

Restore our meadows To The Guardian George Monbiot and Henry Dimbleby find it inconceivable that meat production can be compatible with high biodiversity and carbon sequestration. The counterexample is one that was well known to our medieval ancestors: floodplain hay meadows. Because of their traditional management – haymaking and grazing the aftermath – these wildflower meadows are now hotspots of botanic diversity, and their deep-rooted perennial plants capture and store carbon in their soils more securely than forests, which are prone to disease and fire. The cattle and sheep reared on these meadows are effectively carbon neutral, because the meadows provide sufficient food – and without the fertiliser, pesticides or herbicides used in most arable farming. In addition, the meadow soils are highly porous and so they buffer floods, capture…

by Seth Alexander Thévoz Little, Brown 384pp £25 The Week Bookshop £19.99 Throughout their 400-year history, London’s private members’ clubs have had a rather “louche reputation”, said Anne de Courcy in The Daily Telegraph. In the 18th century, they functioned as gambling havens for aristocrats, who would play cards all night, “fuelled by port and laudanum”. They’ve often been symbols of sexual impropriety – most notoriously in 1895, when the Albemarle played a key role in the Oscar Wilde scandal. “Not much seems to have changed, if one thinks of Chris Pincher’s alleged behaviour at the Carlton”, which drove Boris Johnson from No. 10. In Behind Closed Doors, the Swiss-born academic Seth Alexander Thévoz serves up a history of these “enclaves of exclusivity”. The book is full of “riveting snippets”:…

In February 1952, 20 days after the death of George VI, the photographer Dorothy Wilding was tasked with taking the first official portrait shots of the new Queen, said Rebecca English in the Daily Mail. Wilding was no stranger to her subject: as royal photographer, she had first captured Elizabeth in 1937, when she was just 11 years old. Yet the results of that 1952 session would go on to become “some of the most enduring” images of our monarch, forming “the basis for the profiles and silhouettes we see on stamps and coins to this day”. Wilding would take several more portraits of Elizabeth, all 24 of which are now on display at Buckingham Palace as part of a special exhibition to mark this year’s jubilee. Displayed alongside these…

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, 1908 (Penguin £5.99). A classic that depicts an ordered universe – despite the threat of the weasels in the Wild Wood. Love, home and community are what matter most, and Mr. Toad learns that the pursuit of material things is a hollow ambition. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883 (Penguin £6.99). A young man begins a life of adventure in the world of adults on the sea, and is befriended by one of the most charismatic characters in all literature, Long John Silver – a villain drawn with humour and humanity by Stevenson. Jim Hawkins is the hero in all of us. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, 1615 (Penguin £9.99). My introduction to Spanish literature at university. It is full…

Programmes The Satanic Verses: 30 Years On A repeat of journalist Mobeen Azhar’s documentary about the original protests against Salman Rushdie’s controversial 1988 novel. Sun 28 Aug, BBC4 21:40 (60mins). University Challenge at 60 A look back at memorable moments in the history of the UK’s longest-running quiz show, with a special tribute to its original quiz master, Bamber Gascoigne. Mon 29 Aug, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). The Suspect New five-part thriller starring Poldark’s Aidan Turner as a clinical psychologist brought in to help solve a brutal murder that may not be what it seems. Mon 29 Aug, ITV1 21:00 (60mins). Animal Airlift: Escaping the Taliban Documentary looking at the controversial campaign to evacuate animals from Afghanistan in August 2021, and the man who spearheaded it. Mon 29 Aug, C4 22:00…

Cross-country skiing Stay seven nights in the resort of Yllås in the heart of Finnish Lapland, from £1,187pp b&b, with transfer and activities (excluding flights). 020-8004 8886, theadventurepeople.com. Arrive 4 December. Charming Antalya stay Spend seven nights in Turkey’s five-star Arnor De Luxe Hotel and Spa, with the beach nearby, from £273pp all-incl. (excluding flights). 020-3397 0085, chicretreats.com. Arrive 3 October. Venice to South Africa Take a 32-night cruise, including stops in Egypt, the Seychelles and Mauritius, from £1,699pp full-board, including London flights. 020-7183 0077, cruisekingdom.co.uk. Depart 15 November. Storybook staycation Two nights in the elegant Ees Wyke, overlooking Esthwaite Water and once the holiday home of Beatrix Potter, cost from £229pp b&b. 01539-436393, eeswyke.co.uk. Arrive 21 October. Covid-19: please check government websites for testing and quarantine requirements, and the…

Many income investors are too focused on achieving low volatility in the underlying value of their assets, and not focused enough on the income stream itself, says Robert Stephens in The Daily Telegraph. This steers them towards the perceived safety of bonds and property, when they could be earning a more impressive – and in fact more stable – income stream from equity-based investment trusts. Indeed, in the Income Portfolio run by the Telegraph’s Questor column, the four investment trusts are the best-performing holding, and currently yield about 5% on average. One of these, Murray International, has raised its dividend in each of the past 17 years. Another, Schroder Income Growth, has a similar record stretching back 25 years and has outpaced the rate of inflation, a central aim of…

The week’s best shares AB Dynamics The Sunday Times This niche engineer makes safety-testing robots for major global auto brands. Benefitting from EVs and self-driving features. Expanding into industrial equipment and defence. Peel Hunt has a £28 target. Buy. £13.10. Anglo American The Sunday Telegraph Rising costs and operational challenges have led to a 28% fall in the mining behemoth’s profits. But it’s financially sound with diverse operations aligned to global trends, including copper and nickel. Yields 7.53%. Buy. £28.43. Augmentum Fintech The Daily Telegraph This private equity trust invests in unlisted “disruptive” early-stage financial services outfits, including Tide, a bank for small businesses, and fraud prevention software firm Onfido. Share weakness looks unjustified. Buy. 109.3p. Balfour Beatty The Times The construction group’s timely diversification into long-term publicly funded development…

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Peregrine falcons have lived for years at London’s Battersea Power Station, but had to be coaxed into a temporary home during the building’s extensive redevelopment. Now the falcons are back, and they are said to be thriving in their new home: a bird “penthouse” built by the developers in the northeast tower, with river views and a floor of pea shingle, which falcons use to build their nests. “We can see them in flight warding off the pigeons,” one resident told The Times. An eight-year-old has become one of the first people in the world to trial a prosthetic arm designed specifically for surfing. Joanie Melady, from South Oxfordshire, was born with a congenital condition that means her left arm never fully developed. She tried out the prosthetic arm, which…

Amol Rajan, the ubiquitous BBC presenter, who was announced as the new host of University Challenge. Rajan will take over in autumn 2023; Jeremy Paxman, who has Parkinson’s disease, announced that the current series would be his last, after 28 years. Corny jokes, after Masai Graham won the Funniest Joke of the Fringe award at the Edinburgh festival, for his one-liner: “I tried to steal spaghetti from the shop, but the female guard saw me and I couldn’t get pasta.” Lloyd Rees, who set a new British record for sheep shearing. Starting at 5am last Friday, Rees sheared a total of 902 sheep over nine hours at Blaenbwch Farm in Powys, Wales.…

49% of those who voted Conservative in 2019 believe that Boris Johnson should remain prime minister, versus 20% who feel Rishi Sunak should be PM, and 18% who support Liz Truss. YouGov/The Times Labour has opened up an eight-point lead over the Conservatives, on 39% versus 31%, according to Opinium’s latest tracker. YouGov gives Labour a lead of 15 points, on 43% versus 28%. The Times/The Observer Geordies are the nation’s biggest “round-dodgers”, with 37% of adults in Newcastle admitting they’re likely to avoid buying their round in the pub. Leicester is next (34%), followed by London (33%). Capital One/The Mail on Sunday…

Haddon’s multiple choice It’s been a tough few years for Mark Haddon, says Ellen Peirson-Hagger in The New Statesman. The author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a keen runner and a vegetarian, but in 2019 a CT scan showed that his coronary arteries were dangerously narrowed. It presented him and his wife Sos Eltis, an academic, with a dilemma: how to tell their two sons, then aged 18 and 15, that he needed a triple heart bypass. They opted, unusually, for a multiple choice quiz. “I said: ‘I’ve got some possibly difficult news for you. Is it a) Sos and I are splitting up? Is it b) cancer? Is it c) I’ve lost a lot of money and we have to move out of…

For nearly 120 years, the El Mahrousa, ordered in the 1860s by the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt from a London shipbuilder, was the world’s largest private yacht. She was usurped by Prince Abdulaziz in 1984, built in Denmark for King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. Since then, oil sheikhs, Russian oligarchs and tech billionaires have tussled continuously. In the early Noughties, Microsoft’s Paul Allen initiated the vogue for rugged explorer vessels, with his submarine-equipped 414ft Octopus. Larry Ellison, who founded Oracle, extended his Rising Sun by 59ft during construction so she was larger than the Octopus. Today, the world’s largest is the Azzam, at 590ft, built by Lürssen in Germany for Abu Dhabi’s royal family. The Azzam deposed Abramovich’s Eclipse, but her reign will end in 2024 with the scheduled launch…

How the US fell out of love with college Jon Marcus The Hechinger Report Americans are falling out of love with higher education, says Jon Marcus. There are four million fewer students in US colleges today than there were ten years ago. The proportion of high school graduates enrolling in college straight after leaving school has fallen from a high of 70% in 2016 to 63% in 2020. It’s an unprecedented decline, partly due to the pandemic and a strong labour market that is “sucking young people straight into the workforce”. But, more worryingly, it also reflects a “widespread and fast-growing scepticism about the value of a degree”, a perception that costs are out of control. According to a recent survey, fewer than one in three US adults believe degrees…

Electric scooter riders who are injured at night are nearly always drunk at the time of the crash, a study has suggested. Researchers in Oslo analysed more than 3,000 accidents in the Norwegian capital involving bikes or e-scooters, and found that four in ten e-scooter injuries involved drunk riders, versus one in ten for cyclists. At night, more than nine in ten injured e-scooter riders were drunk, versus seven in ten cyclists. Study author Dr August Stray said preventative measures such as “awareness campaigns, regulating e-scooter availability, improving infrastructure and… stricter helmet and alcohol policies” could help to reduce injuries. In the UK, e-scooters can only be used on private land, unless they are part of an approved trial; and riders are subject to the same drink-driving rules as other…

“Listen up, slackers,” said Tom Calver in The Sunday Times: our likely next prime minister wants “a bit more graft” from us all. In a recording from a few years ago, dug up last week, Liz Truss complained that “British workers produce less per hour” than their foreign rivals; took issue with their “mindset and attitude”; and observed that things were “quite different” in China. “British working culture” must change for us to become a “more prosperous country”, she declared. Truss has form on bashing British workers: she coauthored a 2012 book, Britannia Unchained, which said they were among “the worst idlers in the world”. Are they? It’s hard to assess. The key measure here is “productivity”: the value of everything a country produces, or GDP, divided by the number…

“Anyone who says words hurt has never been punched in the face.” Chris Rock, quoted in Total Film “A man always has two reasons for doing anything. A good reason and the real reason.” J.P. Morgan, quoted in Nature “Life is like a sewer: what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.” Tom Lehrer, quoted in The Times “An error is always the more dangerous in proportion to the degree of truth which it contains.” Henri-Frédéric Amiel, quoted in Forbes “Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without belief in a devil.” Eric Hoffer, quoted in The New York Times “One thing I have learnt about attention is that certain forms of it are contagious.” Jenny Odell, ibid. “Life…

To The Economist Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, churned out the anticolonial rhetoric during his tour of Africa. But the fact is that Russia, in its various guises, has an older colonial history than most Western powers. Russian colonialism began in earnest by the mid-1500s, with Muscovy’s conquest of the Khanates. The list of peoples and places conquered and incorporated into Russia is long. Kalmyks, Chechens, Crimean Tatars, Georgians. Dagestan, Khiva, Kokand. It takes committed expansion over centuries to get as big as the Russian empire. It takes violence, too. Armed conquest, intimidation, forced settlements, deportation, ethnic cleansing, slaughter. Maybe a million Circassians were expelled, resettled or killed during and after their conquest in the 19th century. The Russian government talks as if Crimea is primordially Russian, but this is…

by Hernan Diaz Picador 416pp £16.99 The Week Bookshop £13.99 Hernan Diaz’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated first novel, In the Distance, centred on a “penniless young Swedish immigrant” in California, said Jonathan Lee in The Guardian. His second concerns a “character at the other end of the economic scale” – a “Gatsby-like tycoon in 1920s New York” named Andrew Bevel. Rather than tell Bevel’s story straight, Diaz embeds it in four “interconnected narratives”: a fictionalised novel based on Bevel’s life; Bevel’s unfinished autobiography; a memoir by his ghostwriter; and fragments from his wife’s “long-withheld diary”. It sounds tricksy, but it’s surprisingly readable – like a “brilliantly twisted mix” of Borges and J.M. Coetzee, with “a dash” of Italo Calvino. The “knotty ingenuity” of this novel makes it deserving of its place on…

Summer Exhibition at The Redfern Gallery The weeks of August are the doldrums of the exhibition calendar, when galleries either close entirely or present makeweight “summer shows” designed to unload mediocre stock. From its billing, you could be forgiven for imagining this display at Cork Street’s Redfern Gallery would fall into that category, but the quality of the pictures dashes that assumption entirely. Big names of 20th century art abound: Picasso, Allen Jones, Lucian Freud and Bridget Riley are all present and correct. The best pieces, though, come courtesy of more modestly celebrated artists. Among the highlights are a number of characteristically peculiar canvases by the British surrealist Eileen Agar; Danny Markey’s Richteresque suburban landscapes; and a pair of wonderful late 1960s portraits by Patrick Procktor, their subjects dwarfed by…

? Work out what kind of car would suit you best. Pure electric vehicles (EVs), which have no conventional motor, are best suited to regular commutes, and short-or medium-length journeys; although some now have a range of 250 miles or more. ? Plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) have a petrol engine with a small electric motor, which can be used for short distances. They are best suited to a mixture of short electricpowered commutes and longer journeys. ? Traditional hybrids have a petrol or diesel engine with an electric motor and small battery. They work without being plugged in and so suit those who can’t charge at home. ? Electric cars are more expensive than the alternative, though savings on fuel will usually offset that in the long run. ? Charging prices…

Cineworld: a predictable plot twist Confirmation that Cineworld is mulling Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US is a reminder that the cinema industry remains battered by the pandemic, said Dan Gallagher in The Wall Street Journal. The “smashing success” of Top Gun: Maverick, which has grossed nearly $1.4bn worldwide, has helped cinemas close some of the gap with their pre-Covid performance. Even so, the crucial US box office is running at just 52% of its 2015-2019 average in the current spring/summer season. UK-listed Cineworld, which owns 750 cinemas in ten countries, blames its ever-increasing woes on a dearth of further big releases. Either way, its share price has taken a battering: this week, it collapsed to less than 3p, down from more than 20p a month ago, and £3 in…

Trussonomics equals vacuous “cakeism” David Smith The Sunday Times An “economic meteorite” is heading our way this autumn in the form of further huge energy price hikes and inflation running at 15%, says David Smith. Rishi Sunak seems remarkably insouciant about this; but the prospect of Liz Truss, an “economically challenged” novice, in Downing Street, is far worse. Indeed, I refuse to join those already using the phrase “Trussonomics”, since I can’t detect “much, if any, economics in her approach”. She wants to return the tax burden to where it was in 2019, when the UK was a “weakly growing economy”. But an unfunded tax cut – while also promising increased public spending – is vacuous “cakeism”. It’s not a strategy for growth. Nor is bandying about the expression “supply…