The UK population is increasing at the fastest rate since the 1970s, yet deaths have outnumbered births for the first time in that same time frame (outside of the pandemic). The result is a significantly changed demographic. 

Migration has been the principal driving force behind the UK's rapid population expansion, according to a new report by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The country has seen a "not negligible" increase of two million in the last five years, said The Times, pushing the population to 68.3 million, and the total is forecast to reach 70 million within two years.

Why has there been such an increase?
The entirely new takeaway from the ONS statistics is that net migration "wasn't just part of the explanation" but rather the "entire explanation" for population growth, said Sky News. Net international migration to the UK hit a record high of 677,300 in 2023 and accounted for the almost 1% increase in population size in a year when 16,300 more people died than were born. The higher death rate was the first negative "natural change" since 1976, said the Daily Mail, and partially "offset" the increasing migration numbers. 

Where are people coming from?
Most of the migration is down to work-related arrivals from non-EU countries, with 85% originating from outside the continent. Only 10% were from the EU and 5% were British nationals returning. Most of the arrivals came from India and Nigeria, which accounted for almost half of the migrating people. China, Pakistan and Zimbabwe rounded out the top five. Those statistics represent a stark change in migration trends from the last decade, when "net migration to the UK from the EU exceeded non-EU national net migration", said The Times.

Will population growth slow down?
A fall in net migration and sharp slowdown in population growth is likely, Jonathan Portes, professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London, told the FT. But in the long term, latest data confirms that the UK will "be increasingly dependent on migration to mitigate long-term decline both in fertility and in the working age population".

"If he loses, I'm fucked." Those were the words of Elon Musk during a recent interview. The "he" in question, of course, is former president Donald Trump, whose re-election bid is being enthusiastically endorsed by the tech titan.

Although Musk has long mixed his personal brand (and professional brands) with his conservative ideology, such comments and his appearance at a recent Trump rally in Pennsylvania mark a new phase of his political activism. Yet while Musk's enormous wealth and cultural footprint, particularly online, is undeniable, his ability to move the electoral needle remains untested.

'Just be a pest'
As the world's richest man aligns himself with the MAGA movement, Trump has promised that as president, he would task Musk with leading an "efficiency commission" to audit the whole of the US federal government – a government with which Musk has numerous lucrative contracts.

Musk's ownership of X presents a lever for his partisan activism, and his power comes in the form of money. He has set up a pro-Trump political action committee, America PAC, encouraging people to vote in the November election, and is offering payments of $47 to those in swing states who sign a petition supporting freedom of speech and the right to bear arms. "Honestly, you want to just be a pest," Musk told the MAGA rally in Butler, after Trump returned to the Pennsylvania city where he survived an assassination attempt in June. "Just be a pest to everyone you know, people on the street, everywhere."

'Cringe-y spectacle'
Musk can "command attention", said MSNBC's Allan Smith, but it is often a "result of actions voters find cringeworthy — and the former president and his campaign may find unhelpful".

The X tycoon's much-memed appearance at the Butler rally may have been viewed as an "authentic display of the optimistic fervour" to existing Trump supporters, said The New York Times, but "detractors were harsher, interpreting Mr. Musk's bunny hops as a cringe-y spectacle from a tech savant with a history of awkward public appearances".

"Republicans love his money, no doubt," said Mother Jones. But Musk's plans to make more campaign visits to Pennsylvania on Trump's behalf represent "peak donor-brain", with the assumption that "swing-state voters want to hear anything more from a union-buster with the emotional maturity of a seventh-grade gamer".

Frieze London, the capital's most famous contemporary art fair, is back for its 21st edition. Running from 9 to 13 October, Frieze is seeing more than 160 galleries compete for the attention of the world's biggest art collectors inside a sprawling tent in Regent's Park. It's also become one of the hottest weeks in the art calendar, as every gallery in the capital opens major exhibitions to entice those who flock to London for the fair. Here are some of the best.

Tracey Emin: I Followed You To The End, White Cube
This is Emin's "rawest show yet", said Katy Hessel in Harper's Bazaar. Her powerful new paintings and sculptures explore life's most "intimate" moments from our "private worlds" – many are centred around beds and baths, and feature "vulnerable painterly lines amidst text and washes of reds, blues and pinks".

Yayoi Kusama: Every Day I Pray for Love, Victoria Miro
Kusama's "dizzying" Infinity Mirror Room transports visitors to "the land of her astonishing visions", said Harper's Bazaar. The exhibition (pictured above) also features a series of new paintings by the revered Japanese artist, and "towering soft sculptures" that return to her "everlasting interest in the polka dot".

Francis Bacon: Human Presence, National Portrait Gallery
This "truly biting" exhibition of Francis Bacon's portraits is "the best Bacon show I have ever seen", said Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. A "whirligig of horrors without a shred of connivance" it reveals both the "monstrous modernity and the timeless humanity" of the artist.

Why Labour can't handle powerful women
Zoë Grünewald on the i news site
The "honeymoon is over" for Labour, writes Zoe Grünewald, and "beneath" the "chaos", something "more insidious is taking place". A "disproportionate amount of criticism directed toward Labour has landed on the shoulders of its female figures". Witness the "unprecedented resignation of Sue Gray", Angela Rayner being treated as a "punching bag" and the "rumours of a boys' club" surrounding Starmer. It was "depressingly predictable" that the first casualty "would always be a woman".

The world of work is changing faster than ever before
Euan Blair in The Sun
"What would really make your job better?" asks Euan Blair, the founder of tech start-up Multiverse and son of Tony Blair. The question is "the right one" to be asking as the government plans to increase worker rights. "The world of work is changing faster than ever before", and it "would be wrong to assume" roles will stay the same as new technology "from robots and self-driving lorries to new types of artificial intelligence" becomes "a reality". We "lost a generation of workers in the 1980s as factories and coal mines closed" and "we cannot make the same mistake again".

This mindlessly woke cliché is killing British comedy
Michael Deacon in The Telegraph
A former BBC executive and producer of the classic 1990s sitcom "Absolutely Fabulous" said that "comedy should always punch up", writes Michael Deacon, but this is a "mindless progressive cliché" and "patently untrue". Many of our "greatest and most beloved comedies", including "Blackadder" and "Little Britain", are "full of 'punching down'" and viewers respond by "laughing their heads off". Comedy is not meant to "help make the world a kinder, fairer, more righteous place", but rather "simply to make people laugh".