The UK is expanding its visa scheme for Hong Kongers after British citizen and democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai was jailed for 20 years. Lai’s sentence has “criminalised dissent” in the Chinese-administered territory, the Home Office said. The expansion of the visa scheme “honours the UK’s historic commitment to the people of Hong Kong and comes amid the continuing deterioration of rights and freedoms”.

How did the scheme start?
British National (Overseas) status was established in 1987 as a new form of British nationality that enabled Hong Kong citizens to register their connection with the UK ahead of the 1997 handover to China. Those with BN(O) status could obtain a special type of British passport, although they did not gain the right to live or work in the UK and were still subject to UK visa requirements.

That changed in 2021, following the imposition of a national security law in Hong Kong that allowed Chinese authorities to crack down on pro-democracy dissent. The UK government set up a new visa pathway to allow people with BN(O) status and their dependent family members to live in the UK for up to five years, after which they could apply for permanent settlement and British citizenship. Since then, more than 230,000 people have been granted a visa, and almost 170,000 have moved to the UK.

Who will now be eligible?
The expanded visa scheme addresses the issue of young people who may have missed out on full eligibility because of their age. Those who were under 18 when their parent or parents qualified for BN(O) status were only able to apply to come to the UK with their mother or father. Now, they will be eligible to come independently, and bring their partners and dependants with them.

Applicants must still “meet other suitability and eligibility requirements for the route, pay application fees and the immigration health surcharge”, said Reuters. Around 26,000 people are expected to arrive in the UK over the next five years under this expanded route.

A warts-and-all documentary about “The X Factor” is to air on Sky later this year. Produced by the makers of “Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story”, it promises to tell the “definitive” story of the reality show, which drew audiences of close to 20 million during its late-2000s peak.

Another new documentary landing on Netflix next week promises to tell the inside story of “America’s Next Top Model”, amid the continuing backlash against the treatment of contestants on the series, which was cancelled in 2015 after 22 seasons.

The two upcoming releases follow similar exposés on weight-loss contest “The Biggest Loser” and “There’s Something About Miriam”, a 2004 Sky dating show revolving around the hidden identity of trans woman Miriam Rivera, who took her own life in 2019.

Humiliation and manipulation
The value of such reality shows “lay in humiliation”, said The i Paper’s culture editor Sarah Carson. Viewers are now wise to the producer manipulation and “welfare risks to every hopeful nobody launched through the fame machine” – cast into stark relief by the “tragic death” of One Direction singer Liam Payne in 2024.

When clips from “America’s Next Top Model” began circulating on social media in recent years, “it wasn’t quite the nostalgic escape many remembered”, said Grazia. “From assigning models different ethnicities for photoshoots to having them pose as victims of violent crimes”, the featured flashbacks triggered intense criticism of the show.

Theatre of cruelty
The mid-2000s were a “peculiar time in television”, said The Guardian. It became clear that using the “travails of so-called ordinary people as fuel for small-screen entertainment was an idea with legs”, leading to a “mini goldrush”. Programme creators realised that “conflict, extremity and dysfunction would always sell”.

Yet “even contemporary critics baulked” at the “ugliness” of shows like “There’s Something About Miriam”, said The Independent. And now, thanks to social media, “horrified and bemused Gen Z-ers” can recoil at “soundbites of ‘Fat Families’ host Steve Miller branding obese people disgusting losers”. TV in the early 2000s was “ruled by cruelty” and “punching down”. It’s hard not to be appalled by the “bear-baiting that Noughties audiences were taught to expect in their prime-time offerings”.

Hundreds of thousands of starlings flock together in the shape of a giant bird in the skies above Ham Wall nature reserve in Somerset. Such murmurations peak between November and February, when many more winged migrants arrive from Scandinavia.

Natasha Quarmby / Alamy Live News

Mackenzie Crook’s new comedy is “eccentric, funny, sweet, and sad – often all at once”, said Anita Singh in The Telegraph. If you enjoyed “Detectorists”, his “gentle” comedy series about metal-detecting enthusiasts, you’ll find “much to love” in his latest show.

Our “hero” is Michael (Pearce Quigley), who has led a “lonely existence” since his partner, Clea, vanished seven years ago. His days are filled working at the local DIY superstore and visiting his father Brian (Michael Palin), who is in the early stages of dementia and lives in a nearby care home. But the show takes an “unexpected swerve into magical realism” when Michael sets out, by “dabbling in alchemy”, to grow six homunculi in his garden shed. His quest to conjure these “titular ‘small prophets’” is “driven by the one question to which he desperately seeks an answer: where is Clea?”

This plot twist may “come as a surprise to those who have spent the first 25 minutes expecting a downbeat workplace comedy about drills and buckets”, said Rebecca Nicholson in the Financial Times. But it’s “all part of the show’s charm”. Crook has once again crafted an “idiosyncratic British comedy”, and it’s “undoubtedly a treasure”.

So “don’t be put off” when “Crook pulls the rug” and the show shifts from “kitchen-sink comedy into folklore and the supernatural”, said Patrick Smith in The Independent. If you stay the course, you will be “rewarded with something funny, strange and surprisingly accessible”.

Is this the way the world ends?
Sarah O’Connor in the Financial Times
“Young men and women seem to be increasingly fed up with one another,” writes Sarah O’Connor. And now “enter stage right: AI boyfriends and girlfriends”. Chatbots “won’t hurt or reject you, and can be designed to embody your desires and endorse your values”. Why would “anyone settle for a flawed human” when they can have an “always-attentive bot” that “never leaves its socks lying around”? Maybe our world ends “not with a bang, but a whisper from your AI lover”.

Peter Mandelson Sold Off Britain to the Super-Rich. He’s Not the Only One
James Schneider on Novara Media
Every British political scandal, writes Momentum co-founder James Schneider, “leaves the same impression”: that the “real” decision-making happens not in Parliament but “in private rooms where wealth and power recognise one another”. Peter Mandelson is the “perfect expression” of this system and its members, who glide “from Davos to Washington to Whitehall”, turning “public authority into private advantage”. A country “run this way can’t be sovereign”, because “its wealth flows outward” and “its politics are for sale”.

The debate about kids in restaurants has taken a worrying turn
Punam Krishnan in The i Paper
People feel strongly about whether to allow children in restaurants, but I worry about “the direction this conversation keeps taking us in”, writes TV doctor Punam Krishnan. Sitting “near a restless toddler” can be frustrating, but it “doesn’t necessarily ruin an entire experience”. Children “learn how to behave in public” by “being in it”. Sure, “let’s talk about respect in shared spaces”, but let’s also have tolerance. “If we lose that, we lose far more than a quiet meal.”