AstraZeneca's decision to cancel a planned expansion of its vaccine factory near Liverpool has left Chancellor Rachel Reeves feeling less than chipper herself.

"Recriminations flew" after the pharmaceutical giant pulled the plug on the project, said the Financial Times, but "how did it all go so wrong?"

What was the deal for?
In November 2023, AstraZeneca proposed a major expansion of its vaccine plant in Speke, a move that would "bolster" Britain's claim to be a leading centre for life sciences.

Soon afterwards, the company laid out the details of its request for support from the then Tory government: it wanted £100 million in grants to help develop the site.

What went wrong?
Things started to go awry when news of the proposed deal leaked, causing "deep frustration" for chief executive Pascal Soriot. But "the matter was smoothed over" and the chancellor at the time, Jeremy Hunt, got a final government offer of £90 million "over the line".

The relationship "frayed" again when the AstraZeneca board became "angered" by the government's "aggressive negotiations" on drug pricing.
After the election, the new Labour government claimed there had been no due diligence done on the deal and it offered a revised subsidy of just £40 million. Within months, the company announced it was scrapping the plan. It told the FT this was partly because of "the timing and reduction of the final offer compared to the previous government's proposal".

The announcement was particularly embarrassing for Reeves because it came just hours after she'd named AstraZeneca as one of Britain's "great companies" in a speech about growth.

What does this all mean?
In "substance and timing", AstraZeneca's decision is "a blow to the government's recent zeal for growth", said Sky News. It's the "second multinational to blame the new government for a withdrawal of investment". In November, Vauxhall owner Stellantis said it would close its Luton van plant, blaming net zero targets.

Mike Storey, a Liberal Democrat peer and former leader of Liverpool City Council, told the BBC it was "absolutely shocking" that the AstraZeneca deal had collapsed at a time when "billions" were being spent on the life sciences sector in the Southeast.

Kanye West and his wife Bianca Censori's appearance on the Grammys' red carpet was unexpected by all accounts. They had gatecrashed, said The Times' Caitlin Moran. His former glittering music career is not so glittering now, hence the no-invite status. But it was his wife, an architect and former model from Australia, that everyone was looking at.

Lowering a long fur coat and turning to face the photographers, Censori revealed she was naked except for a "fully transparent mini dress, and no underwear", said The Guardian's Moira Donegan. She appeared completely nude.

'Nowhere to hide'
But this isn't about how much of her body a young woman revealed, said Moran. After all, the Grammys is often "a very titty, bummy event". The concern is that we can't be sure if Censori is really OK with it.

Since marrying West in 2023, she has rarely been seen without him, said Donegan. She has shown form for fewer rather than more clothes too. And the effect is "heightened by the proximity" of West, who is often clad in "too much clothing beside Censori's too little".

At the Grammys, Censori had "nowhere to hide", though. The practically non-existent dress gave her "no comfort or shelter". "'Make a scene,' West seems to be saying to her," said Moran. But the scene she makes is a depressing one and one, according to Page Six, that had them escorted from the building soon after.

'Sometimes things are what they look like'
At first glance, this is a woman "apparently brimming with body confidence", said Vogue's Raven Smith, but "there are concerns about this particular woman's silence: we've heard very little from Bianca during her Kanye tenure".

Indeed, said Donegan. "The exposure of Censori's body is contrasted with the enigma of her mind." Let's not jump to conclusions, though, said Smith. A woman can make "a zillion choices we wouldn't personally make ourselves and still not have that mean she's being coerced".

It would certainly play more easily on our mind to imagine Censori and West "partaking, together, in a critique of gender and celebrity", said Donegan. Seeing her as an artist allows us to view Censori as "something more hopeful and complicated than a victim of brutality", though, she cautions, "sometimes things are what they look like".

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Staffordshire: Barlaston Hall, Stoke-on-Trent
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Cambridgeshire: Chesterton Road, Cambridge
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Dorset: Southcliffe Road, Swanage
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Where is the next Bob Dylan? Gen Z just isn't brave enough
Simon Kelner in The i Paper
"Spellbound by the magnificent sweep" of "A Complete Unknown", the Bob Dylan film, "I suddenly dissolved into uncontrollable sobbing", writes Simon Kelner. With America "on the cusp of traumatic change" under Donald Trump, "where are the writers and artists who are capable and brave enough to take the risks that Dylan, and others like him, once took?" We now live in a world "driven by materialism not idealism" and where TikTok is "the most powerful tool of influence".

After 50 years, can't we shut down this cult of Margaret Thatcher? Just look at the mess she made of Britain
Polly Toynbee in The Guardian
"This week marks the 50th anniversary of Thatcher's election as Tory leader," writes Polly Toynbee, and heralds a flood of dramas in which "one Thatcher tribute act trips over the next". But "good writers and good actors will produce a human drama of depth, subtlety and intelligence in a character" that audiences "must feel for". Her worst policies "inevitably slide away from plays and films" and "there's a risk they will slip from national memory" too. "Lest we forget, the things she did are doing us immeasurable harm right now."

Sorry Nigel, but Rayner is right to delay local elections
Ross Clark in The Spectator
Nigel Farage "would love the opportunity to embarrass Labour and the Tories as much as he can in May's local elections", writes Ross Clark, but Angela Rayner is right to delay some of them. It's not "cowardice" as Farage claims. It's "simply a case of trying to save money and free the taxpayer from having to prop up a multiplicity of unnecessary councils". So "for now", Reform should "enthusiastically side" with those who are "fed up with propping up a swollen class of local government bureaucrats".