The Week Evening Review
Iran's nuclear ambitions, Labour's welfare woes, and a royal ruckus

 
TODAY'S BIG QUESTION

What state is Iran's nuclear programme in now?

While the uneasy truce between Israel and Iran appears to be holding, for now, concerns remain about the future of the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme amid uncertainty about the location of its enriched uranium.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has lost track of Iran’s 409kg of near-weapons-grade uranium — "enough for 10 nuclear warheads should Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei opt to pursue weaponisation", said Bloomberg. Even if Israel and the US have managed to destroy Iran’s enrichment infrastructure, "and the evidence to date is far from clear", the risk is that the uranium "could be hidden away indefinitely".

What did the commentators say?
There is "little doubt that the sites Tehran has been using to produce highly enriched uranium" have "suffered severe damage" from US bombing, said the Financial Times. But the "critical question will be whether Iran's programme has been destroyed, or simply pushed into smaller, secret facilities". 

Sima Shine, an expert on Iran’s nuclear programme who has worked within the Israeli military establishment for more than 30 years, said she had no doubt that Iran had more such sites. Iran "cannot do anything now", Shine told The Telegraph, "but in the future, they have all the capabilities" to build a bomb.

Iran "can likely reconstitute its programme rapidly — perhaps in a year or so", wrote James M. Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, on Politico. The worry is that following the Israeli and US air strikes, Tehran will now "go further than enriching and amassing uranium". Ahead of Saturday's US attack, the intelligence community reportedly assessed that a strike would likely "induce Tehran to make the political decision to build the bomb".

What next?
A large portion of Iran's cache of enriched uranium had reportedly been stored at the sites that were bombed. Whether this supply was moved ahead of the attacks has yet to be determined. 

An Iranian "regime insider" told the Financial Times that it would have been "very naive to keep our enriched uranium in those sites", adding: "The enriched uranium is untouched now."

 
 
THE EXPLAINER

Labour's brewing welfare rebellion

Keir Starmer may be facing the first serious challenge to his authority, as more than 100 of his own MPs signal support for an amendment that would effectively sink his government's welfare-reform bill.

So far, 108 Labour MPs – enough to overturn Starmer's majority – have signed the amendment, calling for a pause in reforms that would make welfare savings of £5 billion a year by tightening the rules around disability benefits.

Why are so many Labour MPs rebelling?
The MPs are concerned about the proposed eligibility restrictions to personal independence payments (PIPs) for people with disabilities, and the effect they could have on their constituents – and their party's election prospects.

The issue "came to a head" on Monday evening at a "fiery meeting" between the Parliamentary Labour Party and Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall, according to The Independent, which said several MPs were "privately claiming it could end up with Sir Keir being forced out as leader".

What do the rebels want?
Rebels have "coalesced around two points", said PoliticsHome: "a full impact assessment" of the PIP cuts, and "movement" on the tightening up of the scoring system used to evaluate whether claimants qualify for PIP support.

The proposed £5 billion cut to welfare benefits is "deep enough to upset a base which sees any reduction in disability benefit as a sin", said The Economist, but "nowhere near enough to placate bearish investors who see welfare spending going up for ever".

What will happen?
Starmer appears to be preparing to "clamp down on the rebels by forcing them to show up" to next week's vote, said The Telegraph. Backbenchers opposed to the bill will not be allowed to sit out the showdown by arranging to be absent from Parliament.

It's a "complete nightmare for Starmer, who is facing quite a remarkable challenge to his authority after just 12 months in power", said Politico's London Playbook. "If the government can't get these cuts through with a 156-seat majority, particularly with loads of young MPs hungry for a ministerial career, then what hope does it have for future fiscal consolidation efforts?"

 
 
QUOTE OF THE DAY

"Listen, I want to protect the people I love. But it goes beyond that. Bullies make me fucking sick."

Pedro Pascal explains why he posted about J.K. Rowling's "heinous LOSER behaviour" after she celebrated the UK's anti-trans rights ruling. The actor, whose younger sister is trans, told Vanity Fair that he "agonised" about his comment amid the ensuing fallout.

 
 

Poll watch

Fewer than one in three Brits (30%) now view the US as a friend and ally of the UK and Europe, according to a YouGov poll of 1,788 British adults. In December, 42% did.

 
 
Talking Point

Sex, drugs and a royal ruckus

Prince George was a "dignified figure" at last week's Trooping the Colour ceremony, said The Telegraph. But across the Atlantic, "a very different picture" of the future king is being painted in a controversial new off-Broadway hit with a "gasp-inducing" title: "Prince Faggot".

Canadian writer Jordan Tannahill's "highly speculative royal romp" is set in 2032 and imagines 18-year-old Oxford student Prince George (played by John McCrea) bringing home his Indian boyfriend Dev (Mihir Kumar) to meet the Prince and Princess of Wales (K. Todd Freeman and Rachel Crowl).

The characters "experiment with poppers, acid and S&M fetish: this fictional Prince George appears in bondage and shares a kinky fantasy of being walked like a puppy".

'Thrilling' and 'inflammatory'
While the play is likely to "stir outrage" among royal insiders, who condemned "The Crown" for being "unfair" and "untrue," it has earned "rave reviews" in New York, said The Times.

While I "resist the dragooning of a preadolescent boy into a dramatic argument about sexuality and monarchy" and "cringe" at the use of the F-slur in its title, said The New York Times' theatre critic Jesse Green, the play is "thrilling". This is "inflammatory, nose-thumbing, explicit" theatre that, despite beginning in "pain and provocation", ultimately "finds its way to splendour".

Americans 'still can't get enough' of royals
The real George, who turns 12 in July, "will probably Google himself in the next few years and find out about this play", said Slant.

Its depiction of the fictional prince's "addictive behaviours, his privileged petulance, and his self-destructive self-absorption" offers "limited sympathy" for his "suffering", while abdicating "any responsibility of sympathy or care toward the real one".

This play is also "the latest example of a peculiarly pervasive trend: Americans turning our royal family into an explicitly gay soap opera", said The Telegraph.

Yet the  "navel-gazing" and "fluffy" depictions in shows such as HBO's "The Prince" and Amazon's "Red, White & Royal Blue" are hardly a "grave insult to the institution". Instead, they're "an odd compliment"; proof that Americans "still can't get enough of our royals, even if they have to view them through a fictionalised, flamboyantly queer modern lens to justify their enduring obsession".

 
 

Good day 🐻

… for two hungry brown bears, which escaped from their enclosure and made a beeline for a honey store at Wildwood Devon, near Exeter. The pair consumed a week's worth in less than an hour before being lured back to their fenced-in home.

 
 

Bad day ⚽

… for soccer lovers, amid growing complaints over the quality of the pitches in the US, which is co-hosting next year's World Cup and the ongoing Club World Cup. Following his side's victory over the Seattle Sounders yesterday, PSG's manager Luis Enrique told reporters that the bumpy pitch had the ball bouncing "almost like if it were jumping around like a rabbit".

 
 
picture of the day

Hot stepper

A reveller walks on burning embers during the night of San Juan in San Pedro Manrique, northern Spain. The "Paso del Fuego" (Passage of Fire) ritual is central to the annual celebration of the beginning of summer.

Cesar Manso / AFP via Getty Images

 
 
Puzzles

Test your general knowledge with The Week's daily crossword, part of our puzzles section, which also includes sudoku and codewords

 
 
THE WEEK RECOMMENDS

An insider's guide to Glasgow

Most tourists think of Edinburgh as the place to see north of the border but Glasgow has all the nightlife, food, culture and heart that anyone could demand of a city break. And as an added bonus, Glasgow is marking the 850th anniversary of its founding as a small settlement next to the River Clyde, with a year-long programme of events to highlight this rich heritage and the city's creative spirit. 

A tour is always a good place to start, and you can enjoy an afternoon tea at the same time as taking in the city's top sights aboard the vintage double-decker Red Bus Bistro.

Glasgow is also a feast of galleries and museums and most are free, including Kelvingrove, which is perfect for kids; the Riverside Museum, designed by Zaha Hadid; the Burrell Collection, which has won awards for its innovative, interactive displays; and the Gallery of Modern Art.

One of the city's most exciting new restaurant arrivals is Margo, which was honoured by Michelin with a Bib Gourmand just months after opening last autumn. The skate wing with kumquat is the standout dish, but don't miss the cocktail menu either.

For beer, West Brewery has a wonderful beer garden, while Heraghty's and the Laurieston are proper neighbourhood pubs. The Ben Nevis in Finnieston holds fantastic trad music nights, or if you want to experience a ceilidh then head to Sloans on a Friday. Late-night fun can also be found in clubs across Glasgow, with blues from 11pm on most nights at The Howlin' Wolf Juke Joint, while Slouch is a raucous dive bar.

 
 

Statistic of the day

11,362: The number of wills that were challenged last year, up from 10,410 in 2023, according to official data reported by The Telegraph. Inheritance disputes have increased by 56% since before the pandemic, as rising property values and larger estates mean that there's "more at stake", experts said.

 
 
instant opinion

Today's best commentary

Long term, this makes an Iran bomb likelier
William Hague in The Times
We can't pretend Donald Trump's attacks on Iran were part of a "strategy for the Middle East or for preventing the spread of nuclear weapons", writes former Tory leader William Hague. Iran will "hunker down and focus on self-preservation" but it will also conclude that its "case for a nuclear bomb has now been demonstrated beyond all doubt". The US needs a "long-term, coherent approach" to "ensure there are not many more such crises in the future".

Palestine Action Is Being Banned Because It's Effective
Rivkah Brown on Novara Media
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced "her intention to make Palestine Action a proscribed terrorist group" after the activists spray-painted RAF planes last week, writes Rivkah Brown. She is "posturing to the far right" to "contain" people whose actions are "harmless" compared with "Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza". But the "severity of disruption" they've caused is a "major embarrassment" to the government. They have "struck real fear into the heart of the establishment".

The thing Jeff Bezos needs? More limitations
Rebecca Reid in The i Paper
The protests that greeted Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez as they arrived in Venice for their "mega luxe wedding" don't "feel like the perfect starting point for nuptial bliss", writes Rebecca Reid. Destination weddings are often "the least fun" and, "when you're that rich", it must be "easy to lose sight of good sense" and "good taste". A ceremony in a place "where they have some connection" would have "avoided becoming a shorthand for a tourism crisis in a sinking city".

 
 
word of the day

RiPPs

Pronounced "rips", this class of peptides can be modified to attack cancer.  This week scientists discovered RiPPs in the toxic crop fungus linked to the deaths of the archaeologists who opened the tomb of Tutankhamun in the 1920s. Now, researchers have bioengineered these peptides from the fungus and report that they worked at attacking cancer as well as "two drugs that have been used for decades to treat leukaemia", said The Times.

 
 

In the morning

Arion will be back in the morning with all of tomorrow's top stories including a look at why vet bills in the UK are on the rise, again.

Thanks for reading,
Jamie

 
 

Evening Review was written and edited by Jamie Timson, Sorcha Bradley, Elliott Goat, Chas Newkey-Burden, Jaymi McCann, Irenie Forshaw, David Edwards, Helen Brown and Kari Wilkin with illustrations by Stephen Kelly.

Image credits, from top: Illustration by Stephen Kelly / Shutterstock / Getty Images; Wiktor Szymanowicz / Future Publishing via Getty Images; Marc J Franklin / Soho Rep; Cesar Manso / AFP via Getty Images; Ivan Vdovin / Alamy