Table of contents for 1543 in The Week

Controversy of the week Farage vs. Starmer “Starmer keeps obsessing about me, the poor bloke – he’ll have to go see a psychiatrist before too long.” So claimed Nigel Farage this week, and he certainly has the PM in “a flap”, said Harry Cole in The Sun. Days before, Farage had not so much parked his tanks on Labour’s lawn as napalmed “the entire village”, by announcing that Reform UK would restore the winter fuel allowance and lift the two-child benefit cap. Reform is now the real “party of the workers”, he declared. In response, the PM canned a foreign trip to deliver a speech devoted almost entirely to tearing down Farage’s new policies. Reform’s “declaration of intent” really should “frighten the wits out of Labour”, said Melanie McDonagh in…

Attention spans, with research showing that children’s books are getting shorter. A Sunday Times analysis of GoodReads’ top-rated books for six- to 12-year-olds indicates that they are now 61 pages long, on average, down from 194 pages in the 1930s. French smokers, who will not be able to light up on the beach this summer. From next month, it will be illegal to smoke in any public place outdoors where children are likely to gather, including parks, sports venues, bus stops and near schools.…

60% of people who voted Conservative last year think Boris Johnson would make a better leader than Kemi Badenoch. 45% said a new leader would make them more likely to vote Tory again; 8% said a change would put them off. Survation/The Telegraph 38% of Britons agree that Israel was right to send troops into Gaza after 7 October but has since “gone too far and caused too many civilian casualties”. 12% think that Israel has responded proportionately; 15% think it shouldn’t have entered Gaza at all; 27% don’t know. YouGov 38% of Britons consider it vulgar or tacky to talk about money. Among Gen Z, that figure is 17%; among boomers, it stands at 50%. YouGov…

Becoming an adult It’s three decades since Pulp’s Britpop heyday, and at 61, Jarvis Cocker has concluded that “being old is all right”, says Miranda Sawyer in The Observer. Sure, you have to make an effort to stay curious and remain outward looking, he says. But there are advantages: not least, comfort in your own skin. “I was in a taxi a few months ago and went past lots of young kids queuing up to go into somewhere like a roller disco,” he says. “And they were like, mid-teens, and you could sense all that unsureness, because they were wondering how you act when you’re on the threshold of being an adult. I would not want to go back to that.” Cocker pauses. “I used to think that one day…

A former criminology lecturer who describes herself as the “UK’s poshest thief” has been convicted of stealing more than £1,000-worth of Le Creuset cookware, 33 steaks, wine and gin. Pauline Al Said, 35, and her husband Mark Wheatcroft, 56, carried out the thefts at a garden centre in Horsham, West Sussex, and a branch of M&S in Winchester last year. At a sentencing hearing last week, the pair were fined £2,500. A new cartoon portraying world leaders as children has been created by Russian propagandists to “instil patriotism” in pre-school children. The Sandpit depicts Vladimir Putin in a judo gown, Kim Jong Un playing with a toy rocket, and a baby-faced Donald Trump. In one clip, Kim says that Emmanuel Macron shouldn’t be allowed to attend a summit because “you are…

POLAND You don’t win elections by scaring people Rzeczpospolita (Warsaw) Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, has just been dealt a yellow card by Poland’s voters, says Artur Bartkiewicz. On Sunday, his preferred candidate in the presidential election, Warsaw’s liberal mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, was beaten by an erstwhile football hooligan who admits having participated in 70-a-side brawls, and who has been accused of pimping and other links with the criminal underworld. The historian Karol Nawrocki, who is backed by the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, will now do everything in his power to block Tusk’s pro-EU, progressive agenda. Yet Tusk has only himself to blame. After just 18 months in power, the governing coalition is almost as “worn out” as PiS was after eight years in government. Tusk’s reform pledges,…

In the summer of 2022, archaeologists excavating a Neanderthal shelter in central Spain came across an unusual granite stone. Oblong in shape, it featured three natural indentations which rather resembled the eyes and mouth of a human face – and a red mark in the middle, where the nose would be. Could this ochre spot have been deliberately applied to create the earliest-known representation of a human face? The team investigated, and gathered significant evidence to support the theory: the quartz-rich stone, which was bigger than others on the 43,000-year-old site, appeared to have been carried to the San Lázaro rock shelter from a nearby river; it showed no signs of having been used as a tool; the red pigment also seemed to have been sourced elsewhere, and scans of…

Not long ago he was bouncing around on a stage, wielding a chainsaw, seemingly drunk on the power afforded by his leadership of the cost-slashing Doge agency, said Freddy Gray in the Daily Mail. Now, Elon Musk has left the building: last week, he confirmed that his “scheduled time” at Doge was over. He then appeared at a farewell press conference in the Oval Office, sporting a black eye which he said he’d got while horsing around with one of his sons (though some speculated that it was more likely related to his alleged drug abuse). Presenting the billionaire with a gold key to the White House, Donald Trump insisted that Musk was not leaving for good. But while he may well have aimed to keep the world’s richest man…

Before this season, PSG had qualified for the knockout stage of the Champions League 12 times in a row, and had suffered “12 assorted sets of heartbreak”, said David Hytner in The Guardian. The club, owned by Qatar Sports Investments since 2011, were at risk of becoming the nearly men of Europe. Yet on Saturday at the Allianz Arena in Munich, the French champions “broke through”, crushing Inter Milan 5-0 to achieve their first-ever victory in the competition. Although Inter were worthy finalists, they were utterly outplayed by Luis Enrique’s “remarkable” team, said Jason Burt in The Sunday Telegraph. It was a match full of “astonishing personal performances” – notably from 19-year-old Désiré Doué, who scored twice, and midfielder Vitinha, who “ran the show with an obsessive attention to detail”.…

Since 2011, when it left its original home following the death of its founder Leonard Ingrams, Garsington Opera has been based on the Getty estate at Wormsley in Buckinghamshire, said Richard Fairman in the FT. “Nestled in the Chiltern Hills, with formal gardens and a full-scale cricket pitch, it has proved the ideal venue for an upmarket summer opera festival.” And the festival now has the feeling of a serious operation, firing on all cylinders. Garsington Studios, its new cultural hub, is up and running (a winter season of concerts is soon to be announced). Productions of Handel’s Rodelinda and Beethoven’s Fidelio are in rehearsal. And the festival has opened with two similarly impressive but very different productions – the one brooding and darkly heightened; the other charming and sunny.…

Fallon and Joy check out the impressive new shop in the EV charging station. Lilian tells Alice she’s thinking about leaving Ambridge; Alice implores her not to make any quick decisions. When Lilian reveals her plan to Justin, he’s appalled at the idea of retiring. Worried about competition, Susan visits the EV shop and is shocked to find Clarrie working there. Alice is unsettled when Chris tells her that Martha’s nursery manager wants to see them. Helen and Dane hit it off on their first date. Susan’s customer survey at the village shop reveals unfriendliness as a concern; Joy suggests being more upbeat, but Susan and Jim are sceptical. After confusion over an unsent text and some snooping by Ian, Dane agrees to a second date with Helen. The nursery…

Town 26-29 Drury Lane, London WC2 (town-restaurant; 020-3500 7515) I went to Town, a new restaurant in Covent Garden, having heard and read many good things about it, says Giles Coren in The Times. And I’m pleased to report that it did not disappoint. For a start, it looks “brilliant”, thanks to its distinctive interior – a “kind of modern mid-century Space Age funky”. And then there’s the food, cooked by Stevie Parle, a chef “with a truly sophisticated palate”. Our meal started with a showstopping appetiser: a small, warm loaf of potato sourdough, served with “Town house gravy” – a bowl of “beautifully seasoned” roasting juices intermingled with hot beef dripping. What followed was no less impressive: spears of East Kent asparagus “wrapped in a diaphanous sheath of mangalitsa…

● If possible, ask a neighbour to water your plants while you’re away (or get a watering system). Keep it simple for them, by grouping pots together and leaving watering cans and hoses to hand. Encourage them to harvest any fruit or veg. ● If you can’t arrange watering, move pots, grow bags and hanging baskets into the shade. They may miss the Sun, but they will survive that better than getting dried out. ● Water everything thoroughly before you go, and sit pots in saucers to create a reservoir. Top-dress with bark or gravel or drape an old net curtain or horticultural fleece over large pots to reduce evaporation. ● Mow the lawn on a slightly higher setting as shorter grass dries out quicker. Dig up the worst weeds…

The British luxury fashion brand Burberry is having a chequered time – it recently announced plans to axe 1,700 of the workforce after plunging to a full-year loss, said Aoife Morgan in Retail Gazette. But there’s still enough change in the old trenchcoat pocket to fund a £2.6m golden hello for the new CEO, Joshua Schulman, after just nine months in the job, plus generous housing and relocation allowances to speed his move from New York. Burberry said most shareholders were “supportive” of the largesse. It’s questionable whether “the entire nightshift of 170 people at its Yorkshire raincoat factory”, now facing the chop, feel quite the same way.…

If, like me, you’re shocked by the hours frittered away on WhatsApp, Instagram et al – and are “a repeat offender at circumventing … self-imposed app restrictions” – your willpower may need a boost, says Sophie de Rosée in the FT. Paradoxically, tech can help: Dumb phone The new Light Phone III ($699) is “the last word in simple smartphones” – with “minimal tools” designed to be used as little as possible and only one at a time. “Intentionality is our North Star,” say its creators. Still, “going light” is hard in our world. A possible compromise is adopting the “hybrid practice” of “iPhone in the week and Light Phone at the weekend”. The Brick This app blocker (£45) is a little silicone square – you tap it with your…

The week’s best shares C&C Group Investors’ Chronicle After being plagued by problems, the Tennent’s lager and Magners cider owner has returned to profit, thanks to a turnaround in its distribution arm. Further progress expected. Buy. 160p. Entain The Times The betting firm has shrugged off management uncertainties and is refining its product. UK gaming revenues are beating expectations, and despite stiff competition the US joint venture, BetMGM, is a catalyst for growth. Buy. 751p. Hikma Pharmaceuticals The Daily Telegraph The pharma is boosting R&D: developing generic products in oncology, immunology, neurology, vaccines and obesity – where there’s huge potential. It has US manufacturing sites, so tariffs shouldn’t be an issue. Buy. £20.76. JPMorgan UK Small Cap Growth & Income The Daily Telegraph This trust (holdings include Premier Foods and…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1468 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 16 June. Send it to The Week Crossword 1468, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid/listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. By Paul McKenna This week’s winner will receive Week-branded items, as well as two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 8 Serviceman putting uniform into box (6) 9 Dressing duck, as it happens, with effort − time’s wasted (5,3) 10 Belief about chaps finding living place (8) 11 Surprised by elaborate system in promo (6) 12 Hat is not available to be held by two parents (6) 13 Cool-headed gravity is reappraised by Tories (8) 14…

The residents of the pretty Cotswolds village of Castle Combe have resorted to erecting “no drone zone” signs, after being repeatedly buzzed by tourists seeking aerial shots for Instagram. The village has been a magnet for visitors since the 19th century, and locals have already had to put up signs asking them not to pick the flowers outside their houses or picnic on their lawns. Now they say they are also contending with camera-drones hovering over their back gardens and flying up and down the high street. As the population grows older, so does the age of its bad drivers: in the past three years, 42 centenarian drivers have been stopped by the police. Three had run red lights, the rest had been speeding. The oldest of those prosecuted was…

Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust is being investigated by police on suspicion of corporate manslaughter, following failings that are thought to have led to hundreds of babies dying or being injured at maternity units. Nottinghamshire Police said that 200 cases had already been referred to it. The trust is also at the centre of the largest maternity inquiry in NHS history, into about 2,500 cases of neonatal deaths, stillbirths and harm to mothers and babies, dating back to 2012. Donna Ockenden, who is chairing the inquiry, aims to report in June 2026.…

Dublin Adams’s victory: Gerry Adams, the former leader of Sinn Féin, has won a defamation lawsuit against the BBC over a film making the claim – backed up by several sources – that in 2006 he had sanctioned the murder of Denis Donaldson, an MI5 informant. The BBC maintained the claim, made in its 2016 Spotlight documentary, was no more than an allegation, and could not damage the reputation of a man people took for granted was an IRA commander during the Troubles. But in a verdict likely to have a chilling effect on BBC reporting, a jury at Dublin’s High Court held that the claim had been presented as fact, and awarded Adams €100,000 in damages. Vannes, France Paedophile sentenced: “You were the devil and sometimes the devil is…

This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs featured the comedian and broadcaster Romesh Ranganathan 1 Lose Yourself by Marshall Mathers, Jeff Bass and Luis Resto, performed by Eminem 2 Let’s Hear It for the Boy by Tom Snow and Dean Pitchford, performed by Deniece Williams 3 The Power of Love by Huey Lewis, Chris Hayes and Johnny Colla, performed by Huey Lewis and the News 4 Through the Wire by Kanye West, Tom Keane, Cynthia Weil, David Foster and Jensen Wright, performed by Kanye West 5 Broken Clocks by Solána Rowe, Thomas Paxton-Beesley, Ashton Simmonds, Adam Feeney and Cody Fayne, performed by SZA 6* Back at One, written and performed by Brian McKnight 7 I Wish, written and performed by Stevie Wonder 8 Bring the Noise by Carl Ridenhour, Hank Shocklee, Eric “Vietnam” Sadler, James Brown…

Dynamic pricing, or surge pricing, means the adjustment of prices in real time, based on demand. It’s standard practice in many industries – airlines, taxis, hotels – but it has proved controversial in the music industry. It is used in the sale of music tickets, though more commonly in the US than the UK. It appeared to be being used when the Oasis tickets went on sale last year. Fans reported prices more than doubling in the course of a single online queue. Standard standing tickets advertised at £135 plus fees were relabelled “in demand” and changed on Ticketmaster to £355 plus fees. Ticketmaster later denied using dynamic pricing to manipulate prices. It said, instead, that very high demand and long queues meant that cheaper batches of tickets sold out…

Finding God deep down in the Valley Tara Isabella Burton Air Mail Almost 30% of Americans now call themselves “religiously unaffiliated”, says Tara Isabella Burton, which makes it all the more strange that a new spiritual awakening is now occurring in that “bastion of rationalism”, Silicon Valley. One tech bro who unambiguously embraces the idea of a new religion is the venture capitalist Bryan Johnson, the man who famously experimented with harvesting his son’s blood in order to extend his own longevity. He is now set on forming a new transhumanist religion called “Don’t Die”, which holds out the promise of “an existence more spectacular than we can imagine”. His can be seen as an offshoot of a larger “rationalist” movement that has sprung up in the Valley, dedicated to…

Specialist mental health A&E units are to be opened across England to relieve pressure on hospitals and emergency services, and ensure patients get appropriate care, the NHS has confirmed. Last year, about 250,000 people went to A&E because they were experiencing a mental health crisis. One in three waited more than 12 hours to be seen, and one in ten waited more than 24 hours. At the new units, specialist staff will provide round-the-clock support in a “calm and welcoming” environment to those who are feeling suicidal or suffering from symptoms such as psychosis or mania, reports The Times. Ten trusts have already set up units as part of a trial scheme, which will be expanded over the next ten years. The units, some of which will be attached to…

“Who in their right mind would want to be Rachel Reeves right now,” asked Polly Toynbee in The Guardian. Next week, the Chancellor will unveil the Spending Review, which will set the budgets of government departments to 2029. Economic growth remains sluggish; there’s a “black hole” in the UK’s finances; and Keir Starmer has already committed to a “huge” increase in defence spending. So Reeves faces “tough choices”. The scrapping of the winter fuel allowance is being reversed, and Labour MPs are pushing hard to end the two-child benefit cap. Doctors and nurses want more money. Demands on the public purse are near-infinite. “How do you weigh up hungry children, inadequate home insulation, councils bankrupted by social care and special educational needs, meagre social housing, and stretched policing and courts?”…

“A melancholy lesson of advancing years is the realisation that you can’t make any more old friends.”Christopher Hitchens, quoted in The Observer “Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.”Aldous Huxley, quoted in The i Paper “We’d all like to be taken for what we’d like to be.”Malcolm Forbes, quoted in Forbes “It has been said that a pretty face is a passport. But it’s not, it’s a visa, and it runs out fast.”Julie Burchill, quoted in The Belfast Telegraph “You don’t want to own a boat. You want to be friends with someone who owns a boat.”Attrib. Bill Burr, quoted in Country Living “The roulette table pays nobody except him that keeps it. Nevertheless, a passion for gaming is common, though a passion for…

To The Times The economic arguments are secondary to the real reason that Reform UK is outflanking the Labour Party. At root, this is about identity and belonging. The “red wall” voters want immigration to stop. They are nostalgic for the days when homogeneous communities provided meaning, cohesion and security. Just as Brexit wasn’t about Brexit but stopping immigration, so Reform isn’t about the cost of living, but culture and belonging. Reform knows this and is successfully playing the culture card. Nigel Farage has learnt from Enoch Powell’s failure and is acutely aware of keeping just inside the line of the sayable. But in the clubs and bars up and down the country everyone knows what he really means. Reform has a winning appeal that social democratic parties simply can’t…

The Face of War by Martha Gellhorn, 1959 (Granta £10.99). A record of multiple conflicts – from the Spanish Civil War to Vietnam and beyond – over several decades, with characteristic unflinching attention and sympathy. As she put it: “I gave up trying to think or judge, and turned myself into a walking tape recorder with eyes.” Brave Men by Ernie Pyle, 1944 (Penguin £17.99). Hard to appreciate now and from the perspective of the UK just how widely read and loved Pyle was as America’s voice from the front lines of Europe. He shared the dangers of the soldiers he was writing about. He also shared their exhaustion but forced himself to go on, to cover the Pacific War, where he was killed by a Japanese sniper. Dispatches by…

Programmes The Gold Return of the crime drama about the Brink’s-Mat robbery. The investigation into the stolen gold leads the police overseas. Sun 8 and Tue 10 Jun, BBC1 21:00 (60mins each). Shardlake New series based on C.J. Sansom’s bestselling murder mysteries set in Tudor England. Lawyer Matthew Shardlake is dispatched by Thomas Cromwell to solve a killing in a monastery. Mon 9 Jun, ITV1 21:00 (60mins). Surviving Syria’s Prisons A powerful film about the disappearance of more than 100,000 Syrians to prisons and mass graves – as told by regime officials who enforced it, and two brothers who survived it. Tue 10 Jun, BBC2 21:00 (75mins). Storyville: Wedding Night Ultra-Orthodox Jewish couples talk about their experiences of matchmaking, weddings and their first night together. Tue 10 Jun, BBC4 22:00 (70mins). Films…

Villages Nature is ten minutes from Disneyland Paris and has an indoor/outdoor tropical pool complex with slides, an on-site farm and pony riding. There’s an adventure playground in the luxury eco village (from £1,748 for seven nights; centerparcs.eu). Der Kempervennen in the Netherlands has all the usual Center Parcs activities, as well as water skiing and wakeboarding on the lake, and an indoor ski slope. It’s also just 45 minutes from Efteling, one of the best theme parks in Europe (from £1,441). There are two lakes at De Vossemeren in Belgium, with a floating obstacle course and flyboarding. There’s also a snorkelling pool with coral and tropical fish, plus an indoor high-ropes course (from £1,557). The renovated Park Eifel in Germany is a nine-hour drive from London, but you could stop in…

Le Mas Candille Mougins, France This recently refurbished hillside hotel lies only a short drive inland from glitzy Cannes, but – with its yellow walls and dark-green shutters – it has a distinctly “rustic”, Provençal air, says House & Garden. It is set amid pine trees and palms a short walk from the town of Mougins, where Picasso spent his final years, and has two pools (one heated), a Clarins spa, and a kids’ club that operates over the summer. The 46 rooms, decorated with a mix of custom-made furniture and vintage finds, have “old-world glamour”, and the two restaurants serve healthy but tasty dishes featuring lots of fish, seafood and vegetables. Doubles from €490 b&b; mascandille.com.…

“Revenge taxes”: worse than tariffs Mehreen Khan The Times The court decision against Donald Trump’s tariffs, although temporarily suspended, has “thrown a huge spanner” into the Trumpian trade strategy, says Mehreen Khan – of using tariffs to extract concessions from trading partners, and thus rebalancing the world economy. If tariffs are no longer the most powerful weapon in Trump’s “macroeconomic armoury”, what might replace them? Focus is shifting to financial flows and, specifically, “revenge taxes” – targeting “foreign owners of American assets if their countries are deemed to discriminate against US firms”. The administration has taken its first steps in Trump’s “big, beautiful budget” bill now wending through Congress. Equity investors and bondholders are “fixated” with section 899, which gives the White House powers to take up to 20% of…

The news report, published on 17 October 2018, is perfunctory. “Emergency services were called to Westfield Shopping Centre in Stratford at about 16:00 BST after reports a man had fallen and a woman was injured.” There is a quote from an eyewitness, who describes seeing “a man mid-air”, and an assurance from the police that neither of the two people are in a “life-threatening” condition. You only have to glance at the grainy photo illustrating the story, ripped from the Twitter feed of an onlooker, to know that can’t possibly be the whole story. Grace Spence Green woke up on the floor. She wondered how that could be, given she hadn’t fallen asleep. She had just said goodbye to her friend and begun walking through the shopping centre in the…

What happened Ukraine launched a series of drone strikes on airfields deep inside Russia on Sunday, in what was described as its most audacious operation of the war so far. Kyiv claimed 41 Russian aircraft had been damaged or destroyed at four of five bases targeted, the most remote of which, Belaya, lies about 3,400 miles east of the Ukrainian border, in Siberia. Ukrainian officials said the strikes had hit 34% of Russia’s strategic cruise missile carriers, causing an estimated $7bn worth of damage. “Operation Spiderweb”, as it was code-named, was overseen by Ukraine’s President Zelensky directly, and took 18 months to plan. It involved 117 battery-powered drones, which were hidden in wooden containers with remotely retractable lids. The containers were loaded onto lorries, which were driven to locations inside…

Taylor Swift, who acquired the rights to her first six albums, ending a years-long fight for control of her music. The saga began in 2019, when her record label, and with it the rights to her music, was bought by an executive she accused of having bullied her – prompting her to re-record all the albums. He later sold the rights to Shamrock Capital for $300m. Now the investment firm has sold the masters back to her, for a reported nine-figure sum. Alfred Dreyfus, the French-Jewish army captain wrongly convicted of treason in the late 19th century, who was promoted to brigadier general. The bill to promote Dreyfus, who died aged 75 in 1935, was brought by the former French PM Gabriel Attal. It was, he said, an “act of…

Dame Vera Baird, a former Labour minister, has been appointed the new chair of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC). She will serve as an interim head and will lead a review into the agency, which examines miscarriages of justice. Her predecessor, Helen Pitcher, quit after the wrongful conviction of Andrew Malkinson was overturned. The CCRC had repeatedly failed to help him clear his name – the latest in a series of such cases. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said the CCRC had “lost the trust of the public” and “must now win it back”.…

Washington DC Loyalty test: The entrepreneur and commercial astronaut poised to become the new head of Nasa has had his White House nomination withdrawn, for being insufficiently committed to the Maga agenda. Jared Isaacman, who has close ties with Elon Musk, had been approved by a Senate committee, but Trump had second thoughts after learning that he’d donated to Democrats and Republicans. Isaacman described himself as “relatively apolitical”, as Nasa chiefs, who will often work across administrations, tend to do. Trump said that he’d soon announce a new nominee “who will be mission aligned”. Washington DC Tariffs can stay: Donald Trump lashed out at a former ally who advised him on his picks for the Supreme Court during his first term in office. Leonard Leo helped Trump create the conservative…

“With resigned sadness I learn that only one in five new cars in the UK has a manual gearbox. A generation is opting for an automatic-only driving test. Soon we will be like clutch-phobic Americans, unable to ‘drive stick’. I suppose it was always coming as EVs increase, but it feels like a step backwards for humanity. There is something masterful and deliberate about changing gear yourself. It was one of the last necessary physical skills for the overeducated majority without a craft. It focuses you, the smooth growl of change reminding you, in this age of button-pushing, that you are not playing videogames, but in control of a big, heavy, dangerous machine.” Libby Purves in The Times…

If Trump is Mr Kettle, then we are Mr Pot Sam Kiley The Independent Could Donald Trump put more pressure on Vladimir Putin to halt his war in Ukraine? Absolutely, says Sam Kiley. But Europe can hardly lecture the US, given its own role in financing Putin’s war aims: it is still spending vast amounts on Russian oil and gas. The EU is the fourth-largest importer of it, after China, India and Turkey. Russia makes around €585m a day from these fossil fuel exports. In fact, since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it’s thought to have raked in some $939bn, a sum far exceeding the $309bn in foreign aid allocated to Ukraine over the same period. Yes, the EU has taken steps to reduce its reliance on…

A better scan for breast cancer Mammograms are a vital tool for early breast cancer detection, but for the 10% of women who have dense breast tissue, the scans throw up an unusually high rate of false negatives, because the tissue and the tumours both show up white on the X-ray image, making the cancer easy to miss. Now, however, researchers have found that by adding an extra step to the process, this risk can be significantly reduced. For the study at the University of Cambridge, they recruited 9,361 women aged 50 to 70 with dense breasts, whose mammograms had come back clear. The women were split into three groups and given one of three additional scans: an MRI, a contrast-enhanced mammography or an ultrasound. Between them, these picked up…

Until their falling-out over Brexit, the Goves and the Camerons were practically inseparable. The couples met for supper parties in Notting Hill and spent family holidays together in Ibiza. In her new memoir, Sarah Vine (then married to Gove) recalls that she did the bulk of the legwork for these events. She also helped the Camerons out with childcare and other domestic matters. And she got the feeling that they expected her to support Cameron through her journalism, too. Eventually, she started to wonder how close they really were. “The worm of doubt began to creep in,” she writes. “Was I a friend or just a fixer? Even worse, was I… staff?” During the War, Isaiah Berlin worked at the British Embassy in Washington – and his weekly dispatches on…

All the experts agree, said Owen Slot in The Times: what the cyclist Simon Yates produced in the Giro d’Italia on Saturday was “one of the all-time greatest stages” at a grand tour and will almost certainly go down as one of the finest achievements by a British athlete this year. Yet come December, will people be talking about it in the same way they’ll be talking about Rory McIlroy’s victory at the Masters? I doubt it. Why? Because Britain’s cycling boom – typified by the heroics of Chris Froome, Bradley Wiggins and Laura Kenny – is already over and popular enthusiasm for the sport has waned. Sadly, this means that when “genuinely spectacular” performances occur, as was the case on Saturday, they don’t these days receive the recognition they…

Formula 1 McLaren’s Oscar Piastri won the Spanish Grand Prix. His teammate Lando Norris came second. Tennis British No. 1 Jack Draper is out of the French Open after losing to Kazakhstan’s Alexander Bublik in the fourth round. Cameron Norrie, the British No. 3, lost to Novak Djokovic at the same stage. Football Oldham returned to the English Football League with a 3-2 victory over Southend in the National League play-off final. In international football, England’s women beat Portugal 6-0.…

Alan Yentob 1947-2025 Alan Yentob, who has died aged 78, was arguably the most significant figure in British broadcasting of the past 50 years, said Stephen Bates in The Guardian. Having joined the BBC as a graduate trainee, he went on to present, commission or produce a huge range of programmes, from period dramas and the influential and long-running Arena arts strand, to Have I Got News for You, Absolutely Fabulous, Ballykissangel and The Great British Bake Off. However, as one of the BBC’s most high-profile figures, appointed to a series of senior executive roles, he became a lightning rod for internal criticism – and a hate figure for sections of the media. Yentob was, admittedly, “easy to mock”, with seemingly grand airs and a penchant for cultivating famous and…

Scattered Spider The group thought to be behind the cyberattack that has crippled M&S has an “eye-catching” profile, said Joe Tidy in The Times. Its members are young – some just teenagers – and are “native English speakers”, which is somewhat rare in the cybercriminal world. Indeed, “unlike other crews, Scattered Spider is not a slick, branded group with a logo and website” – its name was actually coined by the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. It’s a “loose collective of young hackers” meeting “ad hoc” on chat sites like Telegram and Discord to plot ransomware heists – for fun as much as money. The connection usually starts with gaming. Scattered Spider’s “signature move” – as demonstrated in a stinging 2023 attack on Las Vegas casino giant MGM – is skewering their…