Innholdsfortegnelse for 1536 i The Week

What happened British Steel in the balance The Government seized control of the day-to-day running of British Steel last weekend following a breakdown in talks with the Chinese owner, Jingye, over the future of its Scunthorpe steelworks. Ministers suggested Jingye had been negotiating in bad faith and running down supplies of raw materials to force the closure of the loss-making plant. Worried that Britain’s last two blast furnaces were at imminent risk of shutting down, the Government passed emergency legislation on Saturday to give it the power to direct British Steel. It was the first time Parliament had been recalled for a weekend sitting since the 1982 invasion of the Falklands. Officials then scrambled to acquire the necessary raw materials to keep the blast furnaces going, securing a key delivery…

Controversy of the week The Trump-Xi face-off “Know the enemy and know yourself.” So wrote the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, said William Hague in The Times, and perhaps Donald Trump should have listened to that advice before launching his trade war with Beijing. It was a “strategic blunder”: Trump thought he could shock China’s leader, Xi Jinping, into submission by imposing a 145% tariff on Chinese goods; but he didn’t “understand the mindset” of his opponent, who is prepared for a “long struggle”, and knows that American consumers reliant on cheap Chinese goods “will scream long before the Chinese factory worker who has less work to do”. Beijing has retaliated with a 125% tariff against the US, said Gideon Rachman in the FT, and if Xi wants to get “nasty”,…

Mickey Rourke, the Hollywood actor, who was kicked off Celebrity Big Brother for making “sexually inappropriate” comments and using language that was deemed threatening. Rourke, 72, had been offered a rumoured £500,000 to appear on the show, but is now expected to have to forfeit some of that fee. Mackerel, after the Marine Conservation Society warned that the previously abundant fish are being caught unsustainably, causing populations to plummet. It is estimated that the population of mackerel in the northeastern Atlantic has fallen from 7.3 million tonnes in 2015 to 2.8 million last year.…

Brussels AI gigafactories: In the hope of taking the lead in developing the next generation of AI models, the EU has announced a €20bn plan – using public-private partnerships – to create up to five AI gigafactories equipped with vast supercomputers. The plan is the centrepiece of a new strategy to turn Europe into an “AI continent” and reduce the widening lead that China and the US enjoy in this critical field. Plans to build 13 AI factories with up to 25,000 advanced AI processors each are already in progress, but the new gigafactories will be at least four times bigger, and will target significant innovations in healthcare, biotech, robotics and other key areas. The European Commission also revealed that it is considering possible revisions to the bloc’s AI Act…

“What does Trump really intend? What is bluff, braggadocio and bargaining and what is not? Because he does not have a philosophy or strategy, observers are often confounded. The key, having worked with him: his one immutable focus is himself. What matters are his friends and enemies, not America’s. He listens primarily to himself, not to others. He creates his own world, a Ukraine peace deal, an imaginary trade world, and then lives in it. Trump isn’t lying so much as he is ruling a parallel universe, like a boy’s treehouse, where numbers mean what he says they mean. He doesn’t react well when the real world’s numbers don’t match: after all, who’s in charge here?” John Bolton in The Daily Telegraph…

The shingles vaccine appears to cut the risk of dementia by a fifth, a study of the health records of almost 300,000 people in the UK has found. While the link has been made before, the new evidence is the strongest yet. The study, in Nature, took advantage of the way the vaccine was introduced in Wales in 2013: elderly people aged 79 or younger were offered the jab, but those who were older – even by just a few days – missed out. Thus researchers could compare two similar groups of people, only one of which had been vaccinated. The study was “about as close to a randomised controlled trial as you can get without conducting one,” said senior author Dr Pascal Geldsetzer, of Stanford University – who added…

As if our economy didn’t have enough problems, said Matthew Lynn in The Sunday Telegraph, MPs now want to make things even worse by introducing “yet another fiddly tax”. The Commons’ Culture, Media and Sport Committee has proposed that streaming services such as Netflix should be made to pay 5% of their UK revenue into a fund to help finance home-grown dramas. The committee warned that British stories might otherwise disappear from the small screen as public broadcasters struggle to compete. But the levy is a “ridiculous idea”. Our country already has a TV tax. “It is called the licence fee, and it is used to fund the BBC, which is supposed to make ‘distinctively British’ output.” Must we pay more for our streaming services as well? And did it…

“You should never say bad things about the dead, only good. Joan Crawford is dead. Good.”Bette Davis, quoted in The Observer “I have a chronic deficit with my barber, who doesn’t buy a darned thing from me.”Robert Solow, quoted in The Independent “You can not watch the news. It doesn’t mean it’s not happening.”Fran Lebowitz, quoted in Harper’s Bazaar “Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children. Life is the other way around.”David Lodge, quoted in The Critic “To err is human, but it feels divine.”Mae West, quoted in The Knowledge “When two elephants fight, only the grass suffers.”African proverb, Ibid. “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade and hang out with someone whose life gave them vodka.”Ana Huang, quoted on X/Twitter “The urge to save…

“They will miss him when he’s gone,” said Richard Jolly in The Independent. A week after announcing that he will leave Manchester City when his contract expires in June, Kevin De Bruyne produced a virtuoso performance on Saturday to inspire his side to a 5-2 home win over Crystal Palace. City had been two goals down after 21 minutes and facing another “wretched” defeat; but by sheer “force of personality”, De Bruyne “transformed a shambolic showing” into a morale-boosting win. In the end, the goal and assist he finished the game with felt “slight return” for his “majestic” contribution: he had a hand in four of City’s five goals, and also hit the woodwork. But nobody at the Etihad was in any doubt as to who was responsible for the…

To The Times The Prime Minister’s pledge on voting by 16-year-olds smacks of political desperation. Anyone who, like me, has taught this age group will know that they are great fun, but not fully formed as adults and hardly to be entrusted with voting rights. John Davie, Thurlestone, Devon To The Times The Prime Minister is right to say that if you pay taxes you should have a say in how those taxes are spent. But 16- to 18-year-olds must remain in at least part-time education or training, so are unlikely to earn enough to pay taxes. The truth is that the younger the voter, the more likely they are to be a Labour supporter – come clean, Sir Keir. Catherine Craig, Evesham, Worcestershire To The Times Catherine Craig claims…

The Years by Annie Ernaux, 2018 (Fitzcarraldo £10.99). As co-producer of The Years in the West End, I’ve spent a lot of time re-reading Ernaux’s work. This beautiful piece of autobiographical writing gives such an insight into female psychology and the development of women’s roles over the past 80 years. Henry V by Dan Jones, 2024 (Apollo £25). I think Jones has really broken ground in understanding Henry V, opening up his formative years and scotching the myths of the Shakespeare plays. What is particularly important to me is that Henry V was the first king to officially adopt English as his language of record, which he did in 1417. And from that point we’ve never looked back. Letters from a Lost Generation by Vera Brittain, 2008 (Virago £12.99). I…

Programmes Paul Simon: Under African Skies Film following the singer’s return to South Africa decades after the release of his Graceland album, which caused controversy at the time by breaking an Apartheid boycott. Sat 19 Apr, BBC2 23:55 (110mins). The Cancellation of Kenny Everett Documentary about the life of the outrageous and outspoken comedian, charting career highs and lows and his own identity struggle. Sun 20 Apr, C5 21:00 (90mins). Race Across the World Return of the popular reality show, in which celebrity duos race 14,000 miles across Asia without smartphones or cards, on a budget of just £1,000 per person. Wed 23 Apr, BBC1 21:00 (60mins). Trump Revolution: 100 Days That Changed the World Commentators assess the first 100 days of Trump’s second term and ask if the chaos he has unleashed is…

This is one of those meals you can leave to simmer in the oven while getting on with other things, says Yotam Ottolenghi. The Queen Black Chickpeas absorb the warmth of baharat as they cook, with olives adding a briny saltiness and orange slices melting into the sauce. One-pan black chickpeas with baharat and orange Serves 41 jar Bold Bean Co Queen Black Chickpeas, drained but with bean stock reserved250g cherry tomatoes 12 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed½ an orange (halved lengthways); halved lengthways again and thinly sliced50g green olives (we like Nocellara) 1 tbsp tomato paste 1 tbsp baharat¼ tsp turmeric 120ml olive oil 5g tarragon leaves Greek yoghurt, to serve salt • Preheat the oven to 160°C/320°F. • Add everything, except for the tarragon and yoghurt, to a…

● Kefir is a powerful probiotic with live microbes, which are vital for maintaining gut health. Check the label for added sugars, emulsifiers or thickeners, which counteract the benefits of the kefir grains. ● Traditional kimchi is full of prebiotics – which feed the good bacteria in your gut – and fibre. Watch out for excess salt content, though. Kimchi is better than sauerkraut, which is made from fermented cabbage, as it contains more nutrients and probiotics. ● Kombucha, a soft drink made from fermented tea leaves, is rich in organic acids and antioxidant polyphenols. Look out for commercial versions, which can add vinegar or ultra-processed sweeteners. ● Oily fish – salmon, sardines or mackerel – contain omega-3 fatty acids, which are linked to a more diverse gut microbiome. ●…

Betty Webb 1923-2025 Betty Webb, who has died aged 101, was 18 years old and midway through a domestic science course near Shrewsbury when she and some of the other young women decided that they should be helping in the war effort – “rather than just making sausage rolls”. So it was that in the summer of 1941, she volunteered for the Auxiliary Territorial Service, said The Daily Telegraph, and after basic training she was ordered to report to Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire. At first, her job was to catalogue the thousands of enemy messages that arrived every day. Then, in 1943, she was tasked with paraphrasing decoded Japanese signals concerning Japanese troop movements in Burma (now Myanmar), so that if they were intercepted en route to Allied commanders, the…

The bursting of “the bling bubble” in 2024 hurt both the art market and luxury sales, said Andrea Felsted on Bloomberg. Still, there are lessons from art’s “miserable year”. State of play Global art market sales fell 12% to an estimated $57.5bn, according to Clare McAndrew’s latest report for Art Basel and UBS Group. It seems “uncertainty about demand” made many collectors reluctant to put works into public auctions. The number of works achieving over $10m fell by 39% compared with 2023. Outliers Ed Ruscha’s Standard Station, Ten-Cent Western Being Torn in Half made $68.3m, a record price for the artist; and Basquiat’s Untitled (ELMAR) sold for $46.5m. Magritte’s L’Empire des Lumières, which achieved $121m, was the only work to break the $100m mark. Fallen youth Kaws and Banksy saw…

The week’s best shares 4imprint Group The Mail on Sunday Shares in the US-based promotional goods firm have halved since Trump took office. Yet brokers predict resilience as it mitigates “the curveballs lobbed from Capitol Hill”. Well-run and “woefully” undervalued. Buy. £31.45. Hilton Food Group Investors’ Chronicle The meat and fish processor’s flat top line, owing to lower prices, disguises decent results as rising volumes boost profits – with the UK and Ireland division the “star performer”. A re-rating is deserved. Buy. 867p. National Grid The Mail on Sunday As well as its bread and butter UK electricity distribution assets, National Grid supplies power to 20 million homes in New York and Massachusetts. Focus and expansion should drive dividend growth. Yields 4.5%. Buy. £10.12. PureTech Health The Times This US-based…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1461 Two Connell Guides and three Week-branded items will be given to the sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday 28 April. Send it to The Week Crossword 1461, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid/listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. By Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) ACROSS 1 Spirit shown by champion in break ends with Trump success (8) 5 Acts of deference in branches reported (6) 9 Ready to grab a short period in Californian town (8) 10 Range of new airfares Florida rejected (6) 12 Drink in basic French truck mentioned (3,9) 15 Letter showing first from Oxford? Excellent! (5) 16 Fiction from tower block one’s heard (4,5) 18 Rhino seen in front of…

What happened US stock markets rose on Monday, following the news that electronics such as smartphones and computers could be exempt from Donald Trump’s tariffs – including the 145% levy on goods from China. The prospect of the exemptions, which also covered components such as semiconductors, alleviated fears that the price of iPhones in the US (80% of which are made in China) and other electronic gadgets were about to skyrocket. On Sunday, however, Trump said the exemptions were temporary, and warned that new levies on electronics could be announced within days. This apparent about-turn came just days after Trump had abruptly suspended most of his reciprocal tariffs for 90 days, following the steepest fall in US government bond prices in 40 years. Most countries are facing a blanket 10%…

The number of dogs taking “puppy Prozac” has risen 20-fold in a decade. About one in 500 dogs in the UK are on fluoxetine (sold under the brand name Reconcile), to treat anxiety and aggression, up from one in 10,000 in 2013. Partly, this is due to “lockdown puppies” struggling with separation issues; but vets also say owners are projecting human emotions on their dogs, and have unrealistic expectations of dog behaviour. Royal Mail is moving with the times, and trialling new postboxes that have solar-powered barcode readers and hatches large enough to take parcels. Customers can also use an app to request “proof of posting”. Five are being piloted, to add to the around 115,500 conventional postboxes in the UK.…

Birmingham’s striking bin workers have voted to reject the city council’s latest pay offer and carry on with their industrial action. Their union, Unite, said the “partial” offer was “totally inadequate”, and that its members could not afford to accept it. The dispute was triggered by the Labour-run council planning to cut the post of waste recycling officer. Unite claims that this will lead to 150 of its members losing up to £8,000 a year; the council says that only 17 workers would be affected. Since the all-out strike began on 11 March, an estimated 17,000 tonnes of waste have accumulated in the streets. This week, Angela Rayner said she had summoned Army logistics experts to help in the effort to clear the rubbish.…

As the markets opened last Wednesday, President Trump offered some advice to those rattled by his introduction of steep trade tariffs. “BE COOL!” he wrote on his social media platform. “Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!” A few minutes later, he added: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT”. Trump was certainly right on that last point, said Zolan Kanno-Youngs in The New York Times, for less than four hours later, he sent the markets soaring by announcing a 90-day pause on nearly all his tariffs. Stocks instantly rallied, closing up 9.5% by the end of trading. The sequence of events has sparked accusations of market manipulation and insider trading. Democratic senators have called for an investigation into…

A pet is as good as a spouse Owning a pet makes you as happy as being married – or earning an extra £70,000 a year, a new study has found. Researchers from the University of Kent drew on data from a nationally representative survey in which members of 2,500 British households were asked how satisfied they were with their lives. It turned out that having a cat or dog was associated with an increase of three to four points, on a scale of one (completely dissatisfied) to seven (satisfied beyond measure). The team then used a technique devised by economists to translate intangible assets, such as living near a park, into monetary worth. The £70,000-a-year uplift might seem high, but with other studies assigning a similar value to catching…

Sue Perkins was 28 when she finally plucked up the courage to tell her parents that she was gay. Deciding that this news would be better delivered face to face, the comedian rang her mother to tell her she would be coming to visit – only to be given the third degree. “Why?” her mother demanded. “I just think I want to come down,” she told her, but her mother wasn’t satisfied. “I just want a chat,” Perkins explained. “Is this about telling us you’re gay?” her mother replied. “We’re quite busy this Sunday. Maybe you can come next Sunday?” It was quite the anti-climax, Perkins told the Rosebud podcast. “I was so annoyed.” Being on hold is tedious at the best of times, but rock musician Tim Burgess was…

Even for someone with a habit of “doing it the hard way”, Rory McIlroy “pushed the parameters of nerve-jangling entertainment” this week as he dramatically “crossed the threshold into the pantheon of greats”, said Rick Broadbent in The Times. “The bare fact is he won a sudden-death play-off with Justin Rose.” But the simplicity of that statement belittles the “mesmerising” nature of the final day of “one of the greatest Masters”. Until Sunday, this championship had eluded McIlroy, preventing him from becoming the first European golfer – and only the sixth of all time – to seal the career grand slam he’d been on track for since 2015. So when he made a putt from four feet to seal his fifth major, he “sank to his knees, crying his eyes…

Football Liverpool sealed a 2-1 victory over West Ham to close in on the Premier League title. Arsenal drew 1-1 with Brentford; Newcastle beat Manchester United 4-1. Formula 1 McLaren’s Oscar Piastri won the Bahrain Grand Prix; his teammate, Britain’s Lando Norris, finished third. Tennis Katie Boulter and Jodie Burrage steered Great Britain to a 2-1 doubles win over the Netherlands to seal their place in the Billie Jean King Cup Finals in September. Rugby union England beat Ireland 49-5, to stay on track to win a fourth Women’s Six Nations Grand Slam in a row.…

The Week reviews an exhibition in a private gallery David Salle at Thaddaeus Ropac Some Versions of Pastoral is an interesting show, if sometimes less for its contents than for the question that prompted it: what is an artist to do with artificial intelligence? The painter David Salle (b.1952), a hero of the 1980s art boom, has decided to roll with the punches, co-opting the technology as just one more tool in the box. He trained an AI program on the work of his favourite painters, then asked it to come up with a series of compositions based on his own oeuvre. He printed these onto canvas before on them himself. The results meld the visual language of 1950s magazine advertisements – cartoonish female figures, Rockwellesque depictions of consumer products –…

“Now that spring has sprung”, says Susy Atkins in The Daily Telegraph, the thoughts of many wine lovers will be turning to “fresh, zesty, dry whites” that go well with lighter food. Sauvignon blanc falls into this category, but my preferred white this spring is albariño. In its native home of coastal Galicia in northwest Spain, this grape produces “deeply refreshing” wines with a “distinctively salty finish that seems to come straight from the Atlantic”. A good example is the “mineral-laced” Mar de Frades Albariño 2024, Rías Baixas, Spain (£17.50; Tesco). Across the border in northern Portugal’s Vinho Verde region, the grape is known as alvarinho. A “bright, vivacious” and “easy-drinking” example is Azul Marinho Alvarinho 2023, Vinho Verde (£8.42; Asda). Albariño is also “making progress” elsewhere. New Zealand has…

Beth Chatto’s Plants & Gardens, in Essex, sells quality plants (online too), propagated onsite and organised by conditions – dry, shade, damp or scree. Visit Chatto’s gardens to see her work (bethchatto.co.uk). The family-run Daleside Nurseries, in North Yorkshire, has been growing and selling plants, including climbers, perennials, trees and shrubs, since 1958. There’s a shop and restaurant too (dalesidenurseries.co.uk). David Austin, in Shropshire, has one of the biggest collections of potted roses, plus perennials and climbers. With expert advice and seasonal workshops, a shop and restaurant (davidaustinroses.co.uk). Overlooking the South Downs, Architectural Plants specialises in sculptural and exotic plants, and offers a design and planting service too (architecturalplants.com). Old Court Nurseries, in the Malvern Hills, Herefordshire, is family-run and home to a national collection of Michaelmas daisies (oldcourtnurseries.co.uk).…

Louma Dorset Opened to guests last year, Louma is set in 100 acres of farmland on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast. There are 17 elegant bedrooms spread across the farmhouse, converted stables, and shepherds’ huts. The restaurant draws heavily on ingredients from the farm, and there’s a “wellness barn” with pools, yoga and spa treatments. Children’s activities include pony treks, “bee safaris”, and the chance to feed newborn calves and lambs. Loumafarmandretreat.co.uk Guardswell Farm Perthshire A family farm set amid the rolling hills of Perthshire, Guardswell rears animals, grows vegetables and makes cider. Accommodation includes three cabins and three selfcatering houses, ranging from a cottage with views over the River Tay to a big farmhouse with an Aga. The farm hosts “pop-up” dinners and other events (May will bring a Scottish cider…

BP: oily waters The collapse of oil prices is never good for an energy major, but the impact of Trump’s tariff blitz has been pretty terrible for BP, said Zaven Boyrazian on The Motley Fool, whose management recently made the controversial decision to pivot back to fossil fuels from renewables. In a “rough” April, shareholders have seen “close to 25% of their investment wiped out”. The rout is worse even than the one that followed the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, noted Jillian Ambrose in The Observer. Hardly the ideal backdrop to this week’s AGM – the first since the company “bowed to investor pressure to abandon its green energy ambitions”. That process was stepped up in February when the feared New York hedge fund Elliott Asset Management took a substantial…

Britain’s balmier outlook Philip Aldrick Bloomberg The latest “surprisingly robust” growth figures – showing that GDP rose 0.5% in February – will have been a welcome boost for the embattled Chancellor: a sign that the economy is in better nick than her critics suggest. And for that, Rachel Reeves must thank the resilience of the British consumer, says Philip Aldrick. “After more than a year of above-inflation pay rises”, UK households are feeling in a more “solid financial position”; even the gloomy British Retail Consortium is reporting signs of “green shoots” for retail sales. The pick-up in consumer spending has raised hopes that the economy is finally moving in the right direction, having barely grown at all in the final six months of last year, when Labour hit employers with…

An American man with terminal cancer has set himself the challenge of performing acts of community service in all 50 US states before he dies. Doug Ruch, 55, started his “dying to serve tour” after being given 12-18 months to live. Reflecting on things he could “have done differently”, he realised he had a choice: “I can sit at home and wait to die, or I can go out and live.” So far he has visited ten states and volunteered at food banks, soup kitchens and other projects. A nine-year-old kerry blue terrier has become the first dog to climb all the mountains in Scotland’s six major categories, including 282 Munros, 227 Munro Tops and 222 Corbetts. Betty climbed them with owner Shona Marshall, of Kinross – one of fewer…

Space tourism, after pop star Katy Perry and Lauren Sánchez, the former journalist who is engaged to Jeff Bezos, flew to the edge of outer space in one of Bezos’s Blue Origin rockets. The all-female crew spent four minutes at the Kármán Line (which is about 60 miles above sea level) before returning safely to Earth, in a mission that lasted less than 11 minutes. A Minecraft Movie, which has made more than half-a-billion dollars at the global box office, despite being slammed by most critics. The action adventure, starring Jack Black, is based on the popular videogame, and is replete with in-jokes that have become TikTok memes. Audience members have responded so raucously to a scene in which Black shouts, “Chicken jockey!” that police have been called to some…

A Liberal Democrat MP was refused entry to Hong Kong last week, after flying there to visit her son and her baby grandson. Wera Hobhouse, MP for Bath, said that she was stopped at the airport, interrogated and then put on a flight home. She was given no reason for this, but said she assumed that it was because she’s raised concerns about China’s human rights record, as a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China. She suggested that China has a “blacklist” of UK politicians.…

A copper’s mixed feelings Until he quit the Met in 2022, Neil Basu, an assistant commissioner, was the most senior Asian police officer in Britain; and it’s fair to say that he has mixed feelings about his 30-year career. When he first joined, in 1992, the mantra was “Fifo”, he told Steve Rose in The Guardian: “Fit in or f**k off.” He and other officers from minorities had to quietly tolerate the “banter” and bias. Much has improved since, but it’s heartbreaking to him that, 30-plus years after the murder of Stephen Lawrence, the force is still institutionally racist and misogynistic, as last year’s Casey Review made so clear. “I love policing,” he says. “I love what it does for society. I love that, when it’s done well, police officers…

Britain became the third nuclear power in 1952. Since 1969, it has had a continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent that could be launched from a submarine in the event of a strike on Britain – first in the form of Polaris and, since 1994, of Trident, a US missile system made by Lockheed Martin, though the nuclear warheads are manufactured by the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire. The UK’s deterrent is entrusted to four nuclear-powered Vanguard-class Royal Navy submarines, each capable of carrying 16 missiles with a range of up to 7,000 miles, which operate out of Faslane base near Glasgow. Trident’s cost has long been a cause for concern: it soaks up around 6% of the defence budget, without giving much practical war-fighting capacity. Today, its infrastructure is…

SUDAN The UAE is fuelling genocide World Crunch (Paris) Several countries are complicit in Sudan’s “devastating civil war”, says Al Amir Othman, but one “stands out”. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has now officially been accused of complicity in genocide at the International Court of Justice, for its systematic support of the “notorious” paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who in its two years of fighting the Sudanese military has been accused of atrocities including mass killings, rape and trying to wipe out Darfur’s non-Arab Massalit population. Intent on controlling the global trade routes that run through the region, the UAE provides a steady stream of arms to the RSF, defying an international ban. It is alleged that wounded RSF soldiers are treated in UAE hospitals, while gold is smuggled out…

The number of starlings recorded by participants in the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch fell this year to its lowest level since the snapshot survey began, in 1979. Just 2.3 starlings were spotted per garden, on average, during the one-hour period in the last weekend in January, when 600,000 people across the country recorded the birds they saw in local green spaces. That is down from 2.44 last year, and puts starlings in fourth place for the first time, behind sparrows, blue tits and wood pigeons. Overall, the numbers of sightings of starlings – which are red listed in the UK owing to their declining populations – have fallen by 85% since 1979. Sparrows, though they remain in top place, are also in decline; by contrast, sightings of wood pigeons have…

What a “tedious, expensive and miserable way to live”, said Joanna Williams in The Times. Last week, Prince Harry was back in the UK, fighting yet another legal battle – this time at the Court of Appeal, where he is challenging the Home Office’s decision to strip him and his wife Meghan of their roundthe-clock, taxpayer-funded security when they stepped back from royal duties in 2020. Ravec, the body responsible for the protection of royals and VIPs, decreed that, instead, the level of security offered to the couple would be decided on a case-by-case basis. Ever the victim, Harry claims he has been singled out for “unjustified and inferior treatment”. Is there no limit to his sense of entitlement, asked Sarah Vine in the Daily Mail. Why should we “keep…

The build-up to this year’s Boat Race was “more toxic than the sewage-ridden river” on which the near 200-year-old event now takes place, said Ben Rumsby in The Sunday Telegraph. Until this year, Oxford and Cambridge had managed to “keep a lid on age-old tensions” over eligibility issues, mainly concerning the recruitment of Olympic rowers. But relations hit rock bottom this year after Cambridge included three trainee teachers (dubbed the “PGCE three”) in their squad, only for Oxford to successfully argue that they should be barred from competing because they were studying for diplomas, not degrees. Cue a “public slanging match” and claims that an Oxford victory in either the men’s or women’s race would be “hollow”. “Hollow” or not, the start of the 79th women’s race “could hardly have…

Three years after it was attacked by a man with hammer and a chisel, Eric Gill’s controversial statue has been returned to the front of Broadcasting House, the BBC’s London HQ – behind a protective panel. The statue, depicting Ariel and Prospero from The Tempest, was carved on site in 1931, a few years before Gill died. Decades later, his diaries revealed that he was a paedophile who had abused his sister, his daughters and even the family dog. Since then, there have been frequent calls for the statue to be removed. Instead, the BBC has spent £500,000 restoring it. It insists that it does not condone Gill’s abuses, which visitors can learn about by scanning a QR code, but says that the piece is an integral part of the…

Ed is offered a tree surgery job on the same day as he planned to visit George; he’s about to turn it down, but George urges him to take it, saying Eddie can visit instead. At the prison, George has a new business idea for Eddie. On her induction tour of the abattoir, a keen Rochelle asks Freddie about the various jobs, but is later sick in the toilets. Brian is at Martyn’s for a bridge lesson when they discover a hosepipe in the letterbox, gushing water – a furious Martyn is sure it’s one of the protesters. Brian says he’ll investigate and later gruffly asks Pat if she has any ideas. There’s an emotional leaving party for Clarrie at the Dairy, but on her first day off, she feels…

Kitchen cheats I’ve learnt to love As the main chef in my household, “I’ve always prided myself on cooking everything from scratch”, says Tony Turnbull in The Times. “No pasta sauces in jars or shop-bought pastry for me.” But recently, I’ve become a lazier cook – and have discovered that there are many cheats and shortcuts that I “should have embraced years ago”. Curry sauces are one: since being seduced by the ones made by two-starred Mayfair restaurant Gymkhana (stocked at Waitrose and Ocado), I’ve given up cooking curries from scratch. Rice pouches are another: they’re perfect for egg fried rice. Frozen vegetables would once have been a no-no, but Strong Roots stir fry greens with a hint of garlic and chilli (available at Ocado, Tesco and Sainsbury’s) are great…

Audi A5 Avant Price: from £43,850 Car Magazine “Chic, premium estate cars” like this one “never really go out of style”. The A5 is the new version of the A4 Avant, which was recently retired, and is built on a brand-new platform. There are two petrol options (148bhp or 201bhp), two 201bhp diesels (a front-wheel drive, and a Quattro all-wheel drive) and a sporty 362bhp S5 Avant (with plug-in hybrids to follow). All have seven-speed automatic gearboxes. What Car? “A smooth and quiet cruiser”, the A5 Avant is Audi’s smallest estate. The entry-level 2.0-litre petrol does 0-62mph in 9.8secs, while the TDI and S5 models, which use a new mild-hybrid system, offer a punchier performance. The standard adaptive dampers cushion most bumps, and with sharpened steering, the A5 handles far…

Gil Won-ok 1928-2025 Gil Won-ok, who died in February aged 96, was one of the tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of women from Korea, China and elsewhere who were seized to provide sex to Japanese troops during the Second World War. She was 13 and living in poverty in Pyongyang – which was then colonised by the Japanese – when she and other girls were lured onto a train to Manchuria, with the promise of a job in a factory, said The Times. Instead, they were forced on arrival into a military brothel (or “comfort station”). These had been set up in an effort to reduce the rapes of local women and limit the spread of venereal disease; but the system institutionalised sexual violence. In harrowing testimony, she recalled…

● Glistening rally Gold has enjoyed “its best week in five years”, as investors hunt down “one of the few havens left in global markets” in the wake of the tariff blitz, said Leslie Hook in the FT. The price of bullion surged by more than 6.3% to a new high of $3,237 per troy ounce last week, building on a historic rally “propelled by strong demand from investors”, and physical buying from central banks seeking to diversify away from the US dollar. Since gold thrives on uncertainty, the consensus is that there will be more to come. UBS has raised its gold price forecast for the second time this year, to $3,500 by December. Goldman Sachs is bidding even higher, predicting a rally to $3,700 by the end of…

Miuccia Prada “Will the devil wear Versace?” That was the big question in Milan’s fashion district last week after Prada bought Versace for €1.25bn, said John Arlidge in The Sunday Times. The two brands could hardly be more different. Miuccia Prada is an intellectual whose eponymous label is a byword for the restrained avant-garde; Versace is “all golden glitz”. Prada has been on an extraordinary roll, defying a global downturn in the luxury business – and it bought the languishing Versace from its US owner, Capri Holdings, for a song: negotiating a last-minute $200m off the price to compensate for the impact of the trade war. Even so, this is a bold move, said Vanessa Friedman in The New York Times – “a big bet” in tumultuous times “on the…