The Week 1533

What happened Reeves’s repair job Rachel Reeves announced a £14bn squeeze on public spending in her much-anticipated Spring Statement this week. The cuts were necessary, she said, to repair damage to the public finances caused by global economic volatility. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the fiscal watchdog, has halved the UK’s expected growth rate for 2025 from 2% to 1%. The less favourable economic outlook, combined with higher than expected borrowing costs, meant that Reeves had been on track to miss her self-imposed pledge to bring day-to-day spending into balance with tax receipts by the end of the decade. In her Budget in October, the Chancellor had set aside a contingency fund of just £10bn to ensure that she met that rule. Last week, ministers unveiled about £5bn worth…

England’s first new national forest in 30 years – the Western Forest – is to be created across a 6,178-acre swath of the West Country, the Government has announced. Some 20 million trees will be planted around farmland and urban areas in Bristol, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Somerset by 2050, starting in areas where current tree cover is as low as 10%. This will create habitats for wildlife including dormice and pine martens, and make woodland accessible to 2.5 million people. An 89-year-old man has won his “David and Goliath” battle to prevent BT from closing the last remaining phone box in his Norfolk village. Derek Harris learnt of the planned removal of the K6 model kiosk in January, when he saw it on the agenda of a parish council meeting…

“Most of us know that awful feeling,” said Anne McElvoy in The i Paper, when we accidentally shoot off a message to the wrong address. None of us, though, in all of our “klutziness”, has ever managed to send “secret military plans for an attack on a terror group” to a prominent journalist. Unbelievably, the same can’t be said of Donald Trump’s national security team: The Atlantic magazine’s Jeffrey Goldberg revealed this week that he was mistakenly added to a group chat on the Signal messaging app where Vice-President J.D. Vance, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth discussed the imminent bombing of Yemen’s Houthi rebels. “If you think we should do it let’s go,” said Vance in one message; Hegseth then shared operational details, including targets,…

The already wide range of unconventional hot cross buns on offer has expanded in the run-up to Easter this year, says The Times. Asda has Tiramisu Hot Cross Buns; for fans of classic English biscuits, Sainsbury’s is peddling custard creams with hot cross bun-flavoured filling; Waitrose, riffing on a Christmas staple, has Hot Cross Bunettone; M&S is catering to sweet tooths with Millionaire’s Hot Cross Buns, studded with bits of salted caramel fudge; and in Australia, McDonald’s has launched a Hot Cross Bun Flavoured McFlurry. According to a new poll of 2,000 adults, 22% of Britons are not able to identify a robin; 21% say they might struggle to identify a badger; and a quarter are not clear what dragonflies look like.…

Nicola Sturgeon, who was cleared of any wrongdoing by police investigating the SNP’s finances. The former first minister, who was arrested in 2023 and released pending the probe, said that there had not been “a scrap of evidence” against her. Her estranged husband, former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, has been charged with embezzlement. He has yet to enter a plea. Noughties dramas, which are topping the charts on streaming platforms. Grey’s Anatomy, Prison Break, Lost and Suits are among the “legacy” shows eclipsing newer hits. Analysts say part of their appeal is that they are so bingeable: Grey’s Anatomy is in its 21st season. Several of the shows are now being rebooted.…

Blue Peter, which was transmitted live for the last time. The children’s show launched in 1958, and in its heyday it was broadcast three times a week on BBC1, attracting audiences of up to eight million and making household names of its presenters, who included Valerie Singleton, John Noakes and Lesley Judd. The Duke of Sussex, who stepped down as a patron of Sentebale, the charity he founded in Lesotho 19 years ago, as a result of a dispute between its trustees and its chair. His co-founder, Lesotho’s Prince Seeiso, has also stepped down. The Tate Galleries, with new figures showing that they are receiving 30% fewer visitors than in 2019; other leading art museums that have not bounced back since the pandemic include the Royal Academy (where visitors are…