Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1363/1364 i The Week

What happened Boris Johnson suffered a further blow to his authority last weekend when one of his closest allies, Lord Frost, resigned from the Cabinet, citing concerns about the Government’s “current direction of travel”. The Brexit minister was unhappy about tax increases and the reimposition of Covid restrictions, a move that last week prompted the biggest Commons rebellion of Johnson’s premiership. Frost’s departure came in the wake of the Tories’ humiliating by-election defeat in the formerly safe seat of North Shropshire (see page 8). A string of controversies over alleged rule-breaking parties in government offices last year has added to the sense of crisis engulfing No. 10. The latest was prompted by the publication of a photograph of Johnson and more than a dozen other people drinking wine in his…

The Liberal Democrats themselves were shocked by the scale of their “stunning victory” in last week’s North Shropshire by-election, said Toby Helm and Michael Savage in The Observer. Their candidate Helen Morgan, a local accountant, was “trounced” at the last general election, scraping in in third place. But after the sitting Tory MP Owen Paterson – mired in a lobbying scandal – triggered a by-election by resigning in early November, Morgan told her party’s HQ that they should “throw everything” at the campaign: this time they had a real chance. At first, Lib Dem officials were sceptical: the Tories had held this rural, pro-Brexit seat for nearly 200 years, and in 2019 Paterson had won 62.7% of the vote. Yet local activists detected “disillusion and anger” with Boris Johnson’s Government…

Amsterdam Back to lockdown: The Netherlands was returned to a strict lockdown this week in an effort to prevent a fifth wave of Covid infections. Caretaker PM Mark Rutte said the measures were “unavoidable”, owing to the threat posed by the Omicron variant. All non-essential shops will be closed until at least 14 January, along with bars and restaurants; schools and colleges will not reopen before 9 January; and people are allowed no more than two visitors in their homes at a time (except over Christmas and New Year, when they can have four). More than 85% of adults have been vaccinated in the Netherlands, but by early this week, only 9% had had a booster. In Denmark, theatres, museums and other indoor venues were closed; and in Ireland, an…

A four-year-old boy from Sydney ordered $1,139 (£613) worth of ice cream and cakes, after his father lent him his mobile phone to keep him distracted. Kris King said his son Christian warned him he had “something on the way”, but he didn’t believe him until an UberEats driver called him about an order that included a large number of tubs of gelato and scores of cakes, from Gelato Messina. “First of all I thought it was $139,” said King. “And then I really looked at it and it was $1,139 and we almost had a bloody heart attack.” A school in West Sussex has apologised for serving pupils a “bleak” Christmas lunch consisting of a dry bread roll, a slice of turkey, one pig-in-blanket, a tiny square of stuffing…

An Austrian man who died last year aged 90 bequeathed his €2m fortune to the French village whose residents risked their lives to hide him during the Second World War. Eric Schwam was one of around 2,500 Jews who were sheltered by the mountain community of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. He and his family arrived in 1943 and stayed until 1950. He said the gift was an expression of his gratitude, and that he hoped it would be spent on youth services. Conservation groups acquired a 236,000-acre area of tropical rainforest in Belize this spring, to protect it from deforestation. The Belize Maya Forest is a biodiversity hotspot home to 200 species of tree and five of wild cat, including jaguar and puma, as well as howler and spider monkeys. Combined with…

An unusually packed year As the New Year dawned, the pandemic was still raging across much of the globe, and its impact upon sport was starkly apparent – stadiums remained empty, athletes were subjected to an array of health restrictions. Yet there was one marked difference from the previous year, said The Times: the return of elite-level sport, albeit minus the fans. In fact, owing to the myriad disruptions of 2020, the year’s calendar was far more packed than usual, said Adam Shergold in the Daily Mail. The Euros, the Olympics, the Ryder Cup and a “multitude of rearranged events from 2020” had to be fitted in alongside all the returning “annual favourites”. With so much action in the offing, some commentators even predicted that 2021 would prove the “greatest…

What an “inexhaustible riddle” is the heavyweight Tyson Fury, said Riath Al-Samarrai in the Daily Mail. A “flabby giant who moves like a dancer”, he has alienated many with his bigoted attacks on homosexuals and “Zionist Jewish people”. Yet his talents as a boxer are undeniable. The “6ft 9in fighter who has never lost” is increasingly looking like one of the all-time greats. And in October, this most controversial of British athletes returned to the ring to take on Deontay Wilder for the third time, said Bryan Armen Graham in The Guardian. It proved to be an all-time classic of the sport, an epic, bruising, see-sawing encounter that ended in round 11, when Fury knocked out his opponent. The “Gypsy King” had to work for his victory, said Donald McRae…

Spider-Man: No Way Home 2hrs 28mins (12A) Villains and heroes of past Spider-Man films reunite The latest big-screen outing for Marvel’s “web-slinging superhero” is “a dynamite blast of smarty-pants postmodernism”, said Kevin Maher in The Times. Tom Holland returns as the mild-mannered science nerd Peter Parker, now in his final year of high school. Parker’s identity as Spider-Man was dramatically disclosed in the previous instalment, and now we find him grappling with the “hectic helter-skelter” of life as a celebrity. Helicopters hover over his apartment, vloggers spew bile about him, and school corridors are a “sea of snapping cameraphones”. Help seems at hand when Parker asks Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to cast “a global memory-wiping spell” to erase his fame – but it goes awry, fracturing the universe and ushering…

András Schiff has been exploring the possibilities of period instruments for years, said Richard Fairman in the FT, but his latest recording, Johannes Brahms: Piano Concertos is “his most ambitious project yet”. Schiff plays a Blüthner piano dating from 1859, the year of Brahms’ First Concerto, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, whose musicians use gut strings and natural horns from the same period. The result: two performances that are much “lighter on their feet” than we are used to. They offer “poetry and a strong sense of drive and purpose”. The Australian composer Liza Lim’s “deeply impressive” collection Singing in Tongues features the five operas she’s written to date, said Andrew Clements in The Guardian. The set is a “superb demonstration” of her originality, making “one want…

What the BoE’s “awful timing” tells us David Smith The Sunday Times The Bank of England’s decision to raise interest rates this month reminded me of that Beyond the Fringe sketch, says David Smith – the one in which a senior RAF officer tells his junior to “pop over to Bremen” on a suicide mission, because the War isn’t going well “and we need a futile gesture at this point”. The timing of the move, just as the country is reeling under Omicron, was awful. “Many businesses will see this as a kick in the teeth on top of the other pressures they face.” Growth was already stagnating before the latest wave struck; and the Bank admits that raising rates from 0.1% to 0.25% “won’t prevent inflation averaging 5% over…

What happened The Government this week declined to impose new Covid restrictions immediately, but warned it could yet take action to tackle surging cases. After a fractious two-hour Cabinet meeting on Monday, Boris Johnson said the arguments over whether tighter measures are needed were “finely balanced”, adding that the data was being reviewed “hour by hour”. His remarks coincided with mounting concern over the rapid spread of the Omicron variant in the UK, where Covid case numbers reached a seven-day average of 91,743 this week. The Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) warned daily deaths could exceed 600 by February and hospital admissions could exceed 3,000 a day, unless ministers bring in stricter measures “very soon”. In London, where hospital admissions have doubled in three weeks, Mayor Sadiq Khan…

Spotty, the pimpled Bash Street Kid who has appeared in The Beano for 70 years, has been renamed Scotty in the latest issue. Michael Stirling, head of Beano Studios, said that Scotty’s new name made it clear there was “more to him than his physical characteristics”. In May, The Beano changed the name of another Bash Street Kid, Fatty, to Freddy. The proportion of Christians in England and Wales is close to falling below half of the population for the first time, according to data from the Office for National Statistics. The figures, from 2019, suggest that 51% are Christian, a decline of over 8% since the 2011 census. People who have no stated religious affiliation now account for more than a third of the population.…

JANUARY Days after Boris Johnson puts England into a third national lockdown, Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty warns that the UK is entering the “most dangerous” phase of the pandemic. But there is reassurance of a sort when Brian Pinker, 82, becomes the first person in the world (outside a clinical trial) to have the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, at Oxford’s Churchill Hospital. A mob of Donald Trump’s supporters storm the US Capitol in a failed attempt to stop Congress certifying Joe Biden’s election victory; the violence leads to the deaths of five people. Trump, who took several hours to call off his supporters, is charged by Congress with incitement to insurrection, but his Republican colleagues later acquit him. Hundreds of the rioters are later identified and arrested, including Jacob Chansley,…

During a trip to Georgia, Joe Biden and his wife Jill popped in to visit an earlier Democrat president and first lady: Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter. Their picture of the visit caused confusion, however. In it, the Bidens appeared to be giants, towering over the Carters like Gandalf visiting the hobbits. It then became a meme, with captions such as: “Honey, I Shrunk the Carters!” Photographers suggested it was an illusion caused by the use of a wide-angle lens and a strong flash. A Belgian couple have given their 11 children names that are all made up of the same four letters. Gwenny Blanckaert and Marino Vaneeno named their first child Alex and their second Axel. “We realised that they were the same letters, so we decided to continue like…

Some of the biggest sporting headlines of 2021 were generated by athletes denied the victories that had seemed there for the taking, said Joe Drape in The New York Times. Perhaps the most notable loss of all was that suffered by US gymnast Simone Biles (pictured), who’d been expected to be the star performer of the Tokyo Olympics. The 24-year-old had won four golds at Rio in 2016 and had dominated the sport ever since. But while attempting an ambitious vault in the women’s team final, she lost her way mid-air, and mangled the move. She then withdrew from all remaining events except one – the balance beam final, where she earned a bronze medal. She’d been suffering, she said, from “the twisties”(a mental block that causes gymnasts to lose…

Golf Phil Mickelson became the oldest golfer to win one of the sport’s four major tournaments when he won the PGA Championship aged 50. Women’s football England beat Latvia 20-0 in a World Cup qualifying match – the team’s biggest-ever victory margin. Skateboarding Sky Brown won bronze in the women’s park skateboarding at the Tokyo Olympics at the age of 13 and 28 days – making her Britain’s youngest-ever Olympic medallist. Football Liverpool became the first English club to win all six of their matches in the Champions League group stage. Bayern Munich and Ajax also achieved the feat.…

“The television battlefield has become overrun with huffing, puffing fantasy sagas vying to be crowned the next Game of Thrones,” said Ed Power in The Daily Telegraph. The most over-the-top of these is Netflix’s The Witcher, in which ex-Superman Henry Cavill plays “an incredible hulk with an even more incredible man bun”. After a 24-month gap prolonged by Covid, the second season is upon us – and it’s “chock-full of silliness”. Cavill plays Geralt of Rivia, a monster-slaying “Witcher” whose nemeses include a “homicidal tree” and elves with “wibbly-wobbly” ears. He puts in a spirited performance “as an anti-hero waddling around in an absurd wig, his yellow eyes giving him the look of a ‘90s raver who’s been up four straight nights”. In the last season, Geralt took on Princess…

Natasha tells an overjoyed Tom that she is pregnant. Later, they ask Tony and Pat if they can move into Bridge Farm in the new year, and end up sharing the news. Tony and Pat agree to the move, but later share their reservations. Getting ready to leave Ambridge, Blake stops by to say goodbye to Chelsea and ends up having lunch with the Horrobins. Kirsty has lined up Tony and Pat as extras for The Mystery Plays, but Lynda says she’ll have to tell them they’re not needed as they now have too many people. Mia stages a protest at the shoot. An angry Martyn Gibson tells Will he must move her on; Will tries and fails, but Stella succeeds in gently convincing Mia. Later, Mia tries to matchmake…

The tear-jerking mega-hit Drivers License put 18-year-old Olivia Rodrigo “on the fast track to pop superstardom”, said Neil McCormick in The Daily Telegraph. Sour, the debut album that followed, is a “pop opera of broken teen dreams” spiked with alt-rock attitude and “passive-aggressive wit”. It is an “almost-masterpiece” that’s “exhilaratingly real”, said Rhian Daly on NME. Sour shows the singer-songwriter is “no flash-in-the-pan artist, but one who’ll be around for years to come”. “The world may recently have lurched from one unimaginable crisis to another”, but at least there’s one constant, said Alexis Petridis in The Guardian: “Adele Adkins is still heartbroken and belting it out over a gentle piano and tasteful orchestration.” “Romantic despair” is Adele’s brand, and with 30 – whose theme, she told fans, is “divorce, babe,…

The four-piece London band Wolf Alice (above) specialise in “ethereal grunge”, said James Hall in The Daily Telegraph: distorted guitars, shouty choruses and floaty pop melodies. Blue Weekend refines this sound and takes it in “dizzying new directions”. The result is “undeniably Wolf Alice”, with “earworm melodies and dense atmospherics”. “A triumph.” Michelle Zauner (aka Japanese Breakfast) made her name with songs about grief and trauma. Now she has finally “located the sun”, said Sheldon Pearce in The New Yorker. Her voice “sparkles” in her lush third album, Jubilee. The songs on this “joyful”, Bjork-esque record are wonderfully open – “to discovery, to feeling, and the possibility of a brighter tomorrow”.…

• Canopy Plants mails out a new plant each month, plus information on how to keep it alive. Choose from classic or pet-friendly plants, with or without a pot. From £20.99/month; canopyplants.co.uk. • BakesterBox supplies everything you need for home baking from perfectly weighed ingredients to useful equipment. From £55 for 3 months; bakesterbox.com. • The monthly Iggy Box contains a seasonal scented candle (choose from 30 or 45 hours burn time), created by a British candlemaker, as well as a surprise gift. From £14.95/month; iggybox.co.uk. • Provision’s Cheese Canteen is a monthly selection of five seasonal farmhouse cheeses from organic producers in Europe. From £28/month; provisionslondon.co.uk. • The Grow Club from Seed Pantry sends a monthly selection of flower and vegetable seeds sourced from the UK, and bulbs and…

The Good Larry Fink, head of the $8trn BlackRock fund, observed in January that “climate transition presents a historic investment opportunity”. Investors seem to agree, said Bloomberg. The Global Sustainable Investment Alliance has found that ESG assets grew to $35.3trn in 2020. That translates to about “$1 in every $3 managed globally”. You can bet the figure has risen considerably in 2021 as inflows into funds continue apace. Some complain that not enough attention is given to the “S” in the environmental, social and governance agenda. This year has seen some progress. The Big Four accountant KPMG made an attempt to tackle the problem of social mobility by insisting that 29% of its partners and directors hail from “working class” backgrounds by 2030, said Chris Blackhurst in The Independent. It’s…

Elon Musk Not content with being named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, Elon Musk made a startling claim this week, said the Daily Mail. Following a war of words on Twitter with the Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren, who dubbed him “the world’s richest freeloader”, Musk announced he would pay “more than $11bn in taxes this year” – more, he says, “than any American in history”. About time, say opponents, who claim the Tesla boss “paid nothing” in federal income taxes in 2018, and less than $70,000 in 2015 and 2017. In recent weeks, he has sold nearly $14bn worth of Tesla shares. And Musk didn’t exactly cede to Warren gracefully. He mocked her by calling her “Senator Karen” (pejorative slang for a bossy, entitled, middle-aged white woman) and comparing…

The Assault on Truth Peter Oborne A short and powerful new polemic, which argues that Boris Johnson lied again and again in order to secure victory so he could force through Brexit in the face of parliamentary opposition, and to win the general election in December 2019. £12.99 £9.99 Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell John Preston The dramatic and gripping story of the notorious business tycoon Robert Maxwell. John Preston, the acclaimed author of A Very English Scandal, delivers the definitive account of Maxwell’s extraordinary rise and scandalous fall. £18.99 £14.99 Frostquake Juliet Nicolson On Boxing Day 1962, when Juliet Nicolson was eight years old, the snow began to fall. It did not stop for ten weeks. The drifts in East Sussex reached 23 feet; in London, milkmen made deliveries on…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1292 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 Tuesday 4 January. Email the answers as a scan of a completed grid or a list, with the subject line The Week crossword 1292, 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). Thirty answers (half across & half down) clued without definitions are of a kind to be established. All other clues are normal cryptics ACROSS 1 Small tack unnecessary (7,3) 6 Cup with Italian sauces brought back (5,3) 11 Second Conservative lie (5) 12 Utopian…

Christmas trees that grow too big to fit inside homes are being repurposed to reduce the risk of flooding in Yorkshire. Rooted, a company in Calderdale, rents its Christmas trees to customers for the duration of the festive period, so that trees can then be returned to the soil in January and continue thriving all year. Trees that get too large are planted on moorland to cut flooding: they help slow the passage of water to the bottom of the Calder Valley, which was badly flooded in 2015. A Cambridgeshire couple have made the finishing touches to their latest Lego masterpiece – a 21ft-long replica of Old London Bridge, using 400,000 bricks. Mike Addis, 63, and Catherine Weightman, 58, build a Lego model every Christmas, and this year’s recreates the…

Only 49% of Conservative voters now think the Government is competent. A third believe it is incompetent, and the rest say they don’t know. The Daily Telegraph/FindOutNow and Electoral Calculus 39% of British adults see the EU as a key partner for the UK in future, versus 22% who say the same of the US. And people are evenly split on who’s to blame for poor relations between the UK and the EU, with 39% blaming the former and 38% the latter. European Council on Foreign Relations/YouGov Only 10% of 18- 29-year-olds in the US believe their country is better than others, versus 38% of US adults over 65. Pew Research Centre…

Is Britain becoming as bad as Belarus? Nick Cohen The Observer It couldn’t happen here. That’s what we tell ourselves when we read about election-rigging abroad. But it could, says Nick Cohen – indeed, it already is. How else to characterise the election bill now being forced through Parliament? It will introduce a new requirement for voters to produce photo ID in polling stations, thus suppressing the turnout of poorer – mainly non-Tory – voters who don’t have passports or driving licences. People over 60 – disproportionately Tory voters – will, however, be able to use their travel cards as photo ID. Young people won’t. The pretext for all this is that voter fraud is rampant, but in the words of the Commons committee on public administration, that’s “simply not…

Highlands: A thousand beavers are now living in the wild across Scotland’s southern Highlands, more than double the number three years ago. According to NatureScot, the creatures are inhabiting more stretches of river, too: surveyors on canoes found one northern population close to the edge of the Cairngorms National Park, and signs beavers not far from Loch Lomond. NatureScot was criticised by some conservationists for allowing 115 beavers to be culled last year; but the managed reintroduction has won over the support of the National Farmers Union Scotland. Brecon Beacons: Around 250 volunteers from around the country answered the call in November when an experienced caver suffered multiple injuries while exploring the labyrinthine tunnels of Ogof Ffynnon Ddu – the UK’s deepest cave system. The rescuers, who included cavers and…

Looking back on 2021 1 The day before Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on 6 January, which right-wing pundit warned his podcast listeners to “strap in” for “game day”? 2 The son of which former world leader was revealed in September to have made a paper fortune of £160m? 3 What is the name of the Russian-developed Covid vaccine? 4 A giant container ship blocked the Suez Canal this summer. What was its name? 5 Who was appointed Labour’s shadow chancellor in May? 6 Which gruesome TV show became Netflix’s biggest-ever launch, with 111 million viewers worldwide? 7 Planning permission was granted this year for the first skyscraper in central Paris since 1973. What is the name of that earlier skyscraper? 8 Who became, aged 13, Britain’s youngest-ever Olympic medallist?…

Bumper Olympics for Team GB Hard on the heels of the Euros came the delayed Tokyo Olympics, said Ben Bloom in The Daily Telegraph. This was certainly one of the oddest Olympics ever: it was played out in front of empty stadiums, as Japan battled a fourth wave of Covid infections. Yet it was a bumper one for Team GB, whose haul of 65 medals – equalling the tally at London 2012 and just two short of the 67 won in Rio in 2016 – far exceeded expectations. In cycling, Jason Kenny’s gold and silver took him ahead of Bradley Wiggins as Britain’s most decorated Olympian. Diver Tom Daley – competing, at 27, in his fourth Olympics – won his first ever gold, in the synchronised 10m platform. And swimmer…

Fall by John Preston Penguin 352pp £9.99 (£7.99) When Robert Maxwell drowned in 1991, Margaret Thatcher and President George H.W. Bush offered condolences. Weeks later, it emerged that Maxwell had been an epic swindler who’d stolen millions from his company’s pension funds. In this biography, John Preston charts the press baron’s life – from his impoverished origins in Czechoslovakia to his massively overindulgent later years. It “slips down as easily as a tablespoon of Beluga caviar”, says The Sunday Times. Agent Sonya by Ben Macintyre Penguin 400pp £8.99 (£6.99) Ben Macintyre’s name on the cover guarantees a “thrilling ride”, said the London Evening Standard. Here, he offers his first portrait of a female spy, the “extraordinary” Ursula Kuczynski, who in the 1940s posed as a respectable housewife in the Cotswolds…

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll, 1865 (Macmillan £8.99) and Mazo de la Roche’s Jalna series were my first memorable books. As a child, I imagined myself as Alice and was fascinated by the characters that surrounded her. From a young age, I loved being transported into the world of imagination by the power of books. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, 1838 (Penguin £6.99). Nancy’s murder was one of the most terrifying and realistic passages I have ever read. As a child, I couldn’t sleep for several nights. Almost anything that Dickens wrote – David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities – is a cornucopia of descriptive riches. He must be the most influential writer of all time. Perfume by Patrick Süskind, 1985 (Penguin £8.99). This novel, set in 18th…

MARIAFIX MSFNURSE, AFGHANISTAN “At the moment, we are the only major hospital in the region that is functioning. There are around 1.5 million people living in Helmand province and the health system across the region has essentially collapsed. Our hospital is super-congested and we’re incredibly busy. We have 300 beds, but at times recently we’ve had between 330 and 350 patients. That means a lot of juggling and making do, with children sharing beds. It’s not ideal, but otherwise we wouldn’t be able to treat all the patients coming to us. Our paediatric department is overwhelmed. We’re treating a lot of malnourished children and their number is increasing. Even before the change of government, around half of the population relied for food support on aid organisations, but now a lot of…

Friday Night Lights Set in the football-mad town of Dillon in west Texas, the series follows the life of a high school coach. You don’t have to care or even understand anything about American football to enjoy this excellent and engrossing show. Streaming on All 4 The Bureau A spy thriller set in France’s equivalent of MI6, now on its fifth season, The Bureau has not taken off like Call My Agent! in the UK. But it’s very good: subtle, clever and gripping too. Streaming on Amazon Prime The Night Of Written by the great crime novelist Richard Price, this one-off series follows a young Pakistani-American (Riz Ahmed), who is accused of murder, as he is hauled through New York City’s terrifying criminal justice system. Available to buy on Amazon…

Brighton’s pop-up ice rink at the Royal Pavilion is powered entirely by green energy. There are penguin skate aids available for small children, and a rinkside bar and café. Until 9 January. From £10 for 45mins; royalpavilionicerink.co.uk. Set against the backdrop of Cardiff castle, the rink is part of the city’s Winter Wonderland. Until 3 January. From £10 for 1hr; cardiffswinterwonderland.com. For the first time in three years, visitors can glide along George Street on Edinburgh‘s alpine rink. Until 4 January. From £6 for 45mins; edinburghschristmas.com. Cambridge has a rink with a clear roof so you can skate whatever the weather. It also has the UK’s longest ice slide and an ice bar. Until 3 January. From £11.50 for 45mins; thenorthpolecambridge.co.uk. Bath’s atmospheric rink has skate aids and sleds for…

“Well, that was another intensely strange year for real estate investors,” said Alex Newman in Investors’ Chronicle. Against the odds, listed commercial property has performed strongly, “tracking the broader risk-on sentiment across equity markets”: apart from “a few blow-ups in smaller sub-sectors”, investors “would have been hard pressed to lose money” from any real estate investment trust over the past 12 months. Even housebuilders, a “jittery property weathervane” exposd to inflation, consumer sentiment and politics, are “in the green”. In residential property, meanwhile, it’s a case of “to the homeowners the spoils”. Prices have continued to rise, undeterred by the end of the stamp-duty holiday. The average UK house price rose 8.2% to a record £272,992 in the 12 months to November, according to Halifax. The “pandemic-driven search for space”…

Politics & law Dame Margaret Booth, judge of the High Court, died 1 January, aged 87. Sir William Macpherson of Cluny, judge of the High Court, died 14 February, aged 94. Carlos Menem, former president of Argentina, died 14 February, aged 90. Baroness (Shirley) Williams of Crosby, co-founder of the SDP, died 12 April, aged 90. Lord (Frank) Judd, Labour politician, died 17 April, aged 86. Walter Mondale, former US vice-president, died 19 April, aged 93. Kenneth Kaunda, founding president of Zambia, died 17 June, aged 97. Donald Rumsfeld, former US defence secretary, died 29 June, aged 88. Austin Mitchell, Labour politician, died 18 August, aged 86. Lord (Grey) Gowrie, Conservative politician, died 24 September, aged 81. James Brokenshire, Conservative politician, died 7 October, aged 53. Sir David Amess, Conservative…

The work of Mary’s Meals is beautifully simple: the charity provides nutritious school meals for hungry children, attracting them into the classroom and giving them the energy to learn. From feeding 200 children in two schools in 2002, Mary’s Meals now reaches more than two million children every school day in 19 of the world’s poorest countries, including Malawi, Ethiopia and Haiti. It costs just £15.90 to feed a child with Mary’s Meals every school day for an entire year. Donations made to the charity’s Double The Love campaign before 31 January 2022 will be matched by a group of generous supporters – with up to £1.6m available – meaning we can reach even more hungry children with life-changing school meals. Please visit marysmeals.org.uk.…