The UK, Gibraltar and the EU are set to end “almost a decade of uncertainty for the British overseas territory since the Brexit referendum”, said London’s The Standard.

A draft treaty drawn up by the three governments aims to “protect British sovereignty, UK military autonomy and secure Gibraltar’s economic future”. Madrid will hope, however, that this deal drags the territory further towards Spanish control.

What is in the treaty?

Though not fully ratified, the draft treaty claims to tackle the “last major unresolved issue from Brexit”.

Under the new rules, the UK will allow Spanish border guards to check passports for those entering territory by air or sea. This means that these arrivals will present their passports to both British and Spanish authorities – in “dual border control checks” similar to those seen at Eurostar terminals at London’s St Pancras.

In effect, this “shifts the EU’s external border from the between Spain and Gibraltar to the Rock’s points of arrival”, said The Times. Gibraltar will not become part of the EU, but residents will be able to pass into Spain freely, and vice versa. The “barbed-wire fence” separating Gibraltar from Spain is “expected to be dismantled” after more than a century to create a “fluid border” for people and goods.

As a result, “the Rock effectively becomes part of the EU’s Schengen zone of passport-free movement”, said The Telegraph. By removing the land border, the “deal protects Gibraltar residents and Spaniards from post-Brexit rules”, meaning they are no longer subject to the visa-free travel limit of 90 days every 180 days.

In terms of customs, Gibraltar must now “align with EU single market rules” and be “subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice”. This means that “cigarettes and alcohol will no longer be as cheap on the Rock”. Gibraltar will keep its zero-VAT regime but a new “transaction tax” starting at 15% will apply to goods imported to the territory for sale.

Crucially, the draft agreement does not affect sovereignty of the territory. According to the treaty, the UK will “never enter into arrangements” where sovereignty would pass to another state against the “freely and democratically expressed wishes” of the Gibraltarian people.

Why now?

Gibraltar was ceded by Spain to the UK in 1713, under the Treaty of Utrecht, and the resident population is “heavily in favour of remaining a British overseas territory”, said The Independent. The last time Gibraltar voted on the issue of sharing sovereignty with Spain, in 2002, “almost 99% of Gibraltarians rejected the move”.

Spain had been due to apply the EU’s new automated “Entry/Exit” border system from April, which would include biometric checks on the border with Gibraltar, said the BBC. If no agreement had been reached, there would have been “mandatory passport checks” at air, land and sea borders, which would “devastate Gibraltar’s economy”, lead to “endless” entry queues and cost “hundreds of millions a year” to UK taxpayers, according to the proposed treaty.

Who will it affect?

Around 15,000 people – just under half of the territory’s 35,000 population – cross the border each day, mainly for work purposes. They will not need to have their passports checked and can pass through freely.

What has the reaction been?

The “safe and secure” proposals allow Gibraltar to “look to the future with confidence”, while “protecting our British way of life” and exploring “new opportunities for growth and prosperity”, said Fabian Picardo, the chief minister of Gibraltar.

British and Spanish diplomats hope “the treaty will improve bilateral relations”, said The Standard. However, Spain wants to “strengthen” its “legal claim on the Rock, leading the way for Madrid to wield greater influence over the territory”. Some in the UK, meanwhile, may see the deal as an “erosion of sovereignty”.

Any agreement that “hands Spain new powers over entry, residency, infrastructure or enforcement must be examined line by line by Parliament before it takes effect”, said shadow Foreign Office minister Wendy Morton.

What will happen next?

The treaty has been published in draft, so still needs to be reviewed by legal teams from all parties. Then it will have to be ratified by both the UK, Gibraltarian and European parliaments.

“Gibraltar’s government says it is hoping to provisionally apply the deal from 10 April,” said the BBC.

From Antony and Cleopatra to Burton and Taylor, history is filled with volatile relationships.

One might expect some circumspection from politicians about their personal ups and downs playing out in the public arena. But in an era of geopolitical instability and terminal online-ness, the rest of us can barely keep up.

Break-ups

Elon Musk and Donald Trump

It was “perhaps the most widely predicted break-up in American political history”, said Fortune. The “bromance” between Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and Donald Trump, one of the most powerful, ended in very public acrimony.

The Tesla and X boss was initially known as the US president’s “first buddy” for his seemingly unparalleled access. Musk helped bankroll Trump’s return to the White House, and claimed after his election victory that he loved Trump “as much as a straight man can love another man”. But after taking a chainsaw to the federal government with his “cost-cutting” initiative, DOGE, Musk left the administration in May. Just days later, he urged Republicans to reject Trump’s “massive, courageous, pork-filled” tax bill, which he called a “disgusting abomination”.

After that, the “speed of the fallout was breathtaking”, said The New York Times, and “every bit as lowdown, vindictive, personal, petty, operatic, childish, consequential, messy and public as many had always expected it would be”.

Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana

After leaving the Labour Party in high dudgeon in July, Zarah Sultana attempted to set up a new left-wing grassroots party with now-independent MP Jeremy Corbyn. But the duo couldn’t even decide on the name, much less anything else.

Corbyn claimed Sultana had set up a paid membership system that collected money and data without proper approval and authorisation. Sultana claimed she had been frozen out by a “sexist boys’ club” of Corbyn and four pro-Gaza independent MPs. The pair had a bitter falling out that saw Sultana claiming she had consulted libel lawyers. She later rescinded the threat, and told Sky News that they were like Liam and Noel Gallagher, the famously feuding Oasis brothers who patched things up for their reunion tour.

However, she neglected to invite Corbyn to a rally due to take place on the eve of the (what is now known as) Your Party conference. Don’t look back in anger, indeed.

Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner

Angela Rayner was once seen as the future of the Labour Party – and possibly its future leader. But this summer she became embroiled in controversy after admitting that she had mistakenly underpaid stamp duty on a flat in Hove. Keir Starmer initially stood by his deputy, but the noise grew louder and she was nicknamed “three pads” Rayner.

Rayner referred herself to the independent ethics adviser, and after being found to have breached the ministerial code, she handed in her resignation, plunging Labour into a chaotic deputy leadership race and cabinet reshuffle. Starmer’s response to her resignation letter was ostensibly warm: “You have been a trusted colleague and a true friend for many years.”

But now the rumour mill is once again stirring that Rayner might be gunning for his job. She declined to rule out running for the party leadership if Starmer finds himself defenestrated, telling the Daily Mirror in her first big post-resignation interview that she had “not gone away”. (Neither has her bill: she has reportedly not yet paid her £40,000 stamp duty as HMRC has not sent the bill out.)

Make-ups

UK and EU

One of the most acrimonious break-ups in recent history must surely be Brexit. But this year, there’s been something of a warming in relations between the EU and its erstwhile member, the UK. (The UK, after all, still benefits from EU funds.)

In May, the government and the bloc held their first joint summit since the UK left the EU, and the word on everyone’s lips was “reset”. The former foes agreed on a new deal; Starmer hailed it a “new era”. Not everyone was on board with this make-up: Tory leader Kemi Badenoch called the deal a “total sell-out”.

This month, Labour announced that a new agreement with Brussels to allows UK students to participate in the EU-wide university scheme Erasmus from 2027.

Emmanuel Macron and Sébastien Lecornu

Speaking of rapprochement, French President Emmanuel Macron asked Sébastien Lecornu to return as prime minister just four days after he stood down.

The Élysée Palace said the president had tasked Lecornu with “forming a government” – no easy task in France, given its grande debt problem – and Macron’s entourage “indicated he had been given ‘carte blanche’ to act”, said the BBC.

Lecornu is now aiming his ire elsewhere, blaming “partisan cynicism and presidential ambitions” for his struggle to get next year’s budget plans approved, said Politico. “Everyone wants to push their own agenda and fly their ideological flag,” he said, in remarks that “bore a distinct similarity to those after his surprise resignation”.

Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping

When Xi Jinping met Narendra Modi in September, the Chinese leader used “his favourite catchphrase for China-India relations”, said the BBC: “The dragon and the elephant should come together.”

The relationship between the two most populous countries has been strained for decades, but the Asian giants have taken huge steps to normalise relations. This year, that thawing was “turbocharged by decisions taken thousands of miles away in Washington DC”, when the Trump administration imposed 50% tariffs on Indian imports: a “stunning onslaught from a trusted ally”.

After the September meeting – Modi’s first trip to China in seven years – direct flights between the “dragon and the elephant” resumed, and the visa process was simplified. Their thousands of miles of shared borders are still tense, bristling with troops from both countries. But what relationship doesn’t have boundary issues?

‘Can Jollibee beat American fast food at its own game?’

Yasmin Tayag at The Atlantic

Jollibee is “often described as the McDonald’s of the Philippines, but that doesn’t do the chain justice,” says Yasmin Tayag. It “now has about 80 locations across the United States,” and the “warm reception from the ‘mainstream’ — company parlance for non-Filipino Americans — has emboldened Jollibee to ramp up its expansion.” But Jollibee “doesn’t have to topple the fast-food giants, or re-create an era when fast food was a little more fun, to play a part in reshaping the American palate.”

Read more

‘Never be honest in Hollywood — even if you’re Quentin Tarantino’

Dave Schilling at The Guardian

When “someone is brutally forthcoming with their true feelings about something or someone in Hollywood, it’s absolutely jarring,” says Dave Schilling. Quentin Tarantino has been “piercing the veil of Hollywood decorum for decades now, but it seems that he finally picked the wrong target” in Paul Dano. What “all of this makes clear is that no one is successful enough to be honest, and that you can be an acclaimed filmmaker and still be completely wrong about art.”

Read more

‘In Trump’s regime, Catholics are among the most powerful — and deported’

Gustavo Arellano at the Los Angeles Times

This year “will go down as one of the best and worst years ever to be a Catholic in the United States,” says Gustavo Arellano. Catholics are in “positions of power in this country like never before.” But “people with a special devotion to Guadalupe, the overwhelming majority of whom are Latino — can’t even venerate her in peace this year because of Trump.” That’s the “sad irony of seeing Catholicism have such a prominent role in Trump’s second term.”

Read more

‘The Brits can’t seem to move on from Brexit’

Iain Macwhirter at The American Conservative

It “will soon be 10 years since the referendum on British membership of the European Union,” but “Brits just can’t seem to let Brexit go,” says Iain Macwhirter. Why is the “British government apparently seeking to revive the intense culture war that followed the original Brexit vote?” The “division over Europe became part of the wider culture war between the pro-immigration liberal U.K. elites in academia, the media and big corporations, and the so-called ‘left-behinds.’”

Read more

A Reform government would turn Britain into “Trump’s America”, Ed Davey has said, as he tried to tie the policies of Nigel Farage and Donald Trump together in voters’ minds.

“Imagine living in the Trump-inspired country Farage wants us to become,” said the Lib Dem leader in his keynote speech at his party’s conference in Bournemouth. Davey painted “a nightmarish vision”, said the BBC, of the end of the NHS, a countryside destroyed by fracking, lax gun laws, racism, misogyny and “a constant state of chaos”.

Farage duly rubbished those claims but Davey’s warning about the Trumpification of British politics should be taken seriously, said Peter Geoghegan in Prospect: the American president is a “lodestar, the harbinger of a populist revolution that could be emulated on this side of the pond”.

What did the commentators say?

The year is 2029, and Donald Trump “holds two titles”, said Politico’s Paul Dallison: “US President-for-Life and UK prime minister”.

That sentence “would have been firmly in the realm of science fiction even a couple of years ago. But now, it doesn’t sound quite so far-fetched.” After all, the US president, with his British mother, would be eligible for the UK premiership, as former Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg pointed out on GB News during Trump’s state visit.

For the past decade, “some of Trump’s biggest donors have been secretly funding a clutch of the most influential groups on the right of British politics”, said Prospect’s Geoghegan.

Former Conservative bigwigs Robert Jenrick, Priti Patel and Liz Truss have “all traipsed to Washington” and spoken at the Heritage Foundation, the “hugely influential” think tank behind Project 2025, the “blueprint for a state-eviscerating” second Trump administration.

But few UK politicians are “as close to Trump as Nigel Farage”. He is “plugged into the very top” of the Republican party and has recently claimed Trump “knows” that he will be Britain’s next prime minister. He told the Harry Cole Saves the West YouTube show that Trump’s team saw “similarities in what they’ve done and what we’ve done, and you know what, we speak the same language”.

Farage has “enjoyed a friendship with Trump for almost a decade”, said Dominic Penna in The Telegraph. He joined him on the US presidential campaign trail in 2016 and told his supporters that a Republican victory would be “Brexit plus, plus, plus”.

What next?

Regardless of Trump’s next political endeavour, it’s clear that the tech billionaires who have supported him are already having their own impact on politics abroad.

Palantir founder Peter Thiel and his fellow Silicon Valley “political kingmakers” are heavily influenced by far-right blogger Curtis Yarvin’s “dark enlightenment” ideas, said The Guardian’s Arwa Mahdawi. They believe “super-rich elites should have dictatorial powers” while the “hoi polloi should suck it all up”.

Elon Musk, Tesla boss and Trump’s former “first buddy” is “increasingly taking his political meddling worldwide”, from Canada and Germany to the UK. He “spent January posting about grooming gangs”, then, at the “Unite the Kingdom” rally, called for a “change of government”. Over a video link, he told the crowd, “Violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die.”

It feels as if Musk is increasingly trying to “destabilise democracies worldwide so he can accumulate more power”, said Mahdawi. It is “not inconceivable” that a tech mogul “could effect regime change in Britain”.

Emmanuel Macron has arrived in Britain for the first state visit by an EU leader since Brexit as the UK seeks to reset its ties with the bloc it left in 2020.

The French president and his wife Brigitte were welcomed by the Prince and Princess of Wales at RAF Northolt today, before meeting the King and Queen in Windsor.

A state banquet this evening is expected to be the "highlight of the trip", said the BBC, with a host of glamorous guests, a "showcase menu", and a message from the King about the "shared history and culture between our two peoples". He will urge the UK and France to stand together against a "multitude of complex threats" and warn of dangers in defence, technology and climate change. King Charles will also highlight risks "emanating from multiple directions" and challenges "that know no borders" from which "no fortress can protect us".

"Our two nations share not only values, but also the tireless determination to act on them in the world," the King is expected to say at the banquet, which will be held at Windsor Castle.

What did the commentators say?

"Few scenes convey British pomp and soft power more than the King and Queen in a carriage procession through the picturesque streets of Windsor," said the BBC.

With the Prince and Princess of Wales in attendance, a royal salute planned, and Macron set to inspect a guard of honour, there will be much pomp and ceremony. But at a time of "jeopardy" in Europe, this visit promises "much more than ceremony"; it brings "genuine hope" that it will strengthen both nations.

The UK and EU agreed less than two months ago to "reset" relations, and ties with France have warmed "considerably" since. The two countries have much in common: both are nuclear powers, permanent members of the UN Security Council, and keen to update the 15-year-old Lancaster House treaties, which established a 10,000-strong Combined Joint Expeditionary Force, which they now hope to expand with other Nato and European allies. It was not so long ago that Boris Johnson "accused France of wanting to punish the UK for Brexit". That "difficult chapter" now "appears to be over".

Defence cooperation "is the most significant aspect of this rapprochement", said Le Monde. Since Brexit, Europe has "shifted into a new era: that of large-scale war waged by Russia against Ukraine". It is Britain and France who are leading a "coalition of the willing" in Europe, "seen as capable of guaranteeing Ukraine's security in the still distant event of a peace agreement". And as the only two nation states with nuclear weapons and the two European permanent members of the UN Security Council, Keir Starmer and Macron have "a particular responsibility" – that of "taking a leading role in strengthening Europe in the face of an increasingly aggressive Russia and a decreasingly supportive US".

But while Starmer will play a role, the three-day visit is "very much the Charles and Macron show", said Politico. The King, a known Francophile with a "long-standing and close relationship" with Macron, shares the French president's passion for "climate diplomacy".

The full royal household is now being deployed to celebrate "how much Britain and France have in common", and the King's banquet speech will be "watched for hints about where he thinks the two allies have further to go".

Only a few years ago Boris Johnson sent Royal Navy frigates to Jersey during a dispute with France over fishing rights, and Liz Truss "declined to say whether she considered the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to be a friend or foe to Britain", said The Guardian. Now, at a time of "acute geopolitical instability" it is "overwhelmingly in the interests of both countries", as well as Europe, "that a fully functioning entente cordiale is restored".

What next?

Before tonight's state banquet Macron will address MPs in the Palace of Westminster's Royal Gallery, before taking part in a UK-France summit with Starmer on Thursday.

Defence, growth, security, migration and French tactics on tackling small boats are likely to be discussed, with the two leaders also expected to dial in to speak with other allied leaders looking to support any future peace deal in Ukraine.

Keir Starmer hailed a "new era" in relations with Europe this week after the UK and Brussels agreed a post-Brexit "reset". Under the deal, announced at a summit in London with EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, the EU will lift checks on food produce crossing the Channel in return for the UK committing to abide by EU food standards.

As part of a new security pact, British defence firms will be able to participate in joint EU procurement programmes. Britons will be able to use border e-gates at more EU airports. The two sides also agreed, in principle, to establish a new youth exchange scheme and work towards a joint electricity market.

The PM said the deal was a "win-win" that would deliver cheaper food and electricity bills and boost the economy by £9 billion a year by 2040. But he faced claims that he had "surrendered" to Brussels by agreeing to let EU fleets enjoy their current level of access to British waters until 2038. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch called the deal a "total sell-out".

What a "stitch-up", said The Sun. Starmer has betrayed our fishing industry, brought part of our economy back under EU jurisdiction, and opened our borders to millions of workers, while agreeing to pay for the privilege. And all for what? The lifting of "vindictive checks" on our food exports, some possible contracts for our arms industry and the promise of shorter passport queues. The fisheries deal is particularly egregious, said The Daily Telegraph. The UK was due to regain full control of its waters in 2026. But it has now agreed to give EU boats access for 12 more years, more than double its original offer.

Ignore the talk of Brexit betrayal, said The Economist. This deal doesn't take us back into the single market or customs union. It just removes some of the trade frictions created by Brexit while sensibly opening the way to more defence cooperation. Starmer may have conceded more than he wished on fisheries, but given that we export around 70% of our catch to the EU, the deal will also bring benefits to our fishing industry. "As for being a rule-taker, that is merely the price that countries wishing to sell into the EU market must pay."

As he unveiled his much-touted "reset" deal with the EU, Keir Starmer said it is time to move on from "political fights" and "stale old debates" about Brexit.

Nearly 10 years on from the Brexit referendum, and more than five since the UK formally left the EU, the new agreement strengthens ties over areas including fishing, trade, defence and energy.

Starmer's appeal to "common sense" and "practical solutions" may strike a chord with the public, but his "big bet" is that "nobody really cares" about Brexit any more, said the BBC's chief political correspondent Henry Zeffman.

What did the commentators say?

"This was the day the Brexit dream died," said the Daily Mail in an editorial, while The Express called it "a betrayal dressed up as a policy".

Staunch Brexiteers will "blast" Starmer "on fisheries, rule taking and youth migration", while diehard Remainers "will argue it's a meek deal that hasn't gone far enough to repair the economic scars of Brexit", said Politico. But "this fight down the middle is one the prime minister's quite happy to pick", while the Conservatives and Reform UK, both of whom have described the deal as a "surrender", "risk sounding like broken records on Brexit".

With this deal – coming in the same month that trade agreements were announced with the US and India – Starmer has managed the "impossible", said The Independent: "to have his cake and eat it".

When Labour under Starmer "pivoted" in 2020, from campaigning for a second referendum to a policy of "make Brexit work", "nobody really took it seriously". But he has "succeeded where others failed and managed to break the Brexit conundrum".

Despite the "upbeat rhetoric", some of the "most difficult issues to resolve have been pushed back into future negotiations" – including the shape of a youth mobility scheme, said The Times. The deal also "leaves a number of difficult questions unanswered", such as how much Britain will have to pay to access the new EU defence fund and to align with the EU food standards and energy trading system.

But the government hopes that voters will warm to the tangible effects of a "reset" in relations with the EU, including cheaper food and energy, and a reduction of red tape for small businesses.

What next?

What will "prove revealing over the coming days, weeks, and months" is how much Reform and the Conservatives decide to campaign around the idea of a Brexit "betrayal", said the BBC's Zeffman.

If opposition to the deal becomes a "significant part of these parties' platforms, it will tell us that they believe there is in fact plenty of controversy yet in the decades-long debate over the UK's relationship with the EU".

If that's right, it could thrust questions about Brexit "right back to the centre of political life.

"But if Sir Keir is right that the bulk of the public simply wants as little friction with the EU as possible, then he could prove to be our first truly post-Brexit prime minister."

British voters have heard many politicians over the past two decades vow to "take back control of our borders". Unveiling the government's long-awaited white paper on immigration on Monday, Keir Starmer became the latest PM to promise the UK's "broken system" will be fixed, enforcement will be "tougher than ever", and net migration numbers will tumble.

"It's a sign of the times," said Anne McElvoy in The i Paper, that a party led by human rights lawyers and confirmed centrists is "about to undertake a U-turn which is going to make it sound like it has adopted the Fortress Britain vision it once disdained as parochial or even subliminally racist".

What did the commentators say?

There's "just one problem" with the government's new approach, said Jonathan Walker in the Daily Express. "Labour and their lefty friends" have spent years branding opposition politicians who raised concerns about immigration as "horrible, xenophobic and racist". Starmer and his colleagues are "massive hypocrites".

British voters will be "sceptical" of Starmer's new-found hardline stance on immigration, said Martin Ivens on Bloomberg. "They've heard it all before when it comes to pledges to make the borders less porous." For two decades, "politicians of all stripes" have pledged to reduce net migration, only to produce "half-hearted, ineffective or muddled" measures, even when "promises to curb the influx played a large part in the pledges that got them elected in the first place".

Many proposals – training Britons rather than importing unskilled foreign workers, and raising education levels and standards of English for those applying for skilled work visas – sound "pretty familiar", said The Independent in an editorial. But a proposed change giving clearer guidance to judges on the application of human rights provisions "could have a quantifiable effect, as well as helping to reassure that doubting public".

Starmer's warning that "we risk becoming an island of strangers" has already resulted in the PM being accused of "pandering to the populist right", said The Guardian. Some MPs on the left claimed that his words echo Enoch Powell's notorious 1968 "rivers of blood" speech, which imagined a future multicultural Britain where the white population "found themselves made strangers in their own country". But while this rhetoric may put off some progressives, Labour HQ will be more than happy if this message cuts through to up-for-grabs voters in red wall constituencies.

What next?

With Reform UK surging ahead in the polls and surveys showing immigration emerging as the number one issue for voters, it is clear why Labour feels the need to talk tough. "Whether voters will believe Sir Keir really means what he's saying remains to be seen", said Walker in the Express.

"Fury with the failure of successive governments to honour their effusive promises to 'take control' will mean that nothing short of Trump-style mass deportations will be enough" to mollify some voters, said The Independent. But a "first impression" of the government's proposals is that "their bark may be worse than their bite, and deliberately so".

Starmer has avoided setting any targets, other than bringing about a "substantial reduction" in net migration. But successive governments' failure to tackle the issue has "turned the voters against the political class", said Ivens on Bloomberg. "Now Starmer needs to own the change – not just mouth the slogans."

"It was the day Britain finally put Brexit behind it and assumed its new role in Europe," said The Telegraph's Europe editor James Crisp.

On Sunday Keir Starmer hosted European leaders in London – with "nothing less than the security of the continent at stake". The prime minister proposed a "coalition of the willing", led by France and the UK, Europe's two nuclear and major military powers, and Germany, to protect Ukraine after a peace deal.

In the painful aftermath of Brexit, Britain "went missing from the world stage". Now in Europe a "new world order is being built before our eyes", and Britain is "leading the pack".

'Back in the international diplomacy game'

Starmer's first months in Downing Street have been "unsteady to say the least", said Politico's Esther Webber. Domestically, he has taken a "hammering in the polls". But internationally, Starmer has played an "increasingly visible and assured role in transatlantic diplomacy". One of his "supposed weaknesses" – a "lack of ideological conviction" – might make him "a suitable broker between players with wildly different outlooks".

Starmer's first meeting with Donald Trump actually "contained some wins" – "even if the biggest prize, American security guarantees for a Ukraine peace deal, remained elusive". Labour insiders and European allies are "asking if his moment has arrived".

Analysts agree that Starmer has "put the UK firmly back in the international diplomacy game", said Agence France-Presse. "Post-Brexit we've really struggled to find our identity," said Evie Aspinall, director of the British Foreign Policy Group think-tank. Starmer hasn't had much foreign policy experience – but he has shown that he can "really step up on the world stage", she told AFP.

"We are never going to be the big world power that we once were," she added. But this is a "sign of us finding our feet and finding where we potentially could lead".

'The purest wishful thinking'

Starmer deserves praise for "taking a leading role in Europe" after Trump's "betrayal", said The Independent's John Rentoul. Some Labour figures thought this could be his "Falklands moment": as when Margaret Thatcher reversed her unpopularity by being "resolute in an international crisis". But that was the "purest wishful thinking". Trump and J.D. Vance's "ambush" of Zelenskyy – a "televised punishment beating" the Brits didn't see coming – "wiped out" any "gains" from Starmer's meeting with Trump. If Starmer thought he was a "bridge between Trump and European leaders", Trump has "blown it up".

Let's not forget William Gladstone's dictum, said The Times: the first principle of foreign policy is "good government at home". Starmer should remember that voters have "more prosaic matters" on their minds than "international plaudits". He will be judged on his domestic agenda: growing the economy and improving public services. His pledge to "ramp up defence spending" leaves an already cash-strapped government facing "unpalatable choices".

International affairs are rightly consuming much of Starmer's attention, but the "risk remains that a prime minister ­distracted by Ukraine will fail to drive forward the change this country needs".

Donald Trump has said the UK is "way out of line" in its trading relationship with the US but could still avoid the crippling tariffs expected to be imposed on the EU.

Having announced 25% levies on goods coming from Canada and Mexico, as well as 10% on those from China, the US president has now turned his attention to Europe.

"Whitehall is watching anxiously," said The Telegraph, even though UK ministers are hoping that "a good dose of charm and sweet talk can keep British companies out of the firing line".

What did the commentators say?

Trump has described the US's $213 billion (£173 billion) trade deficit with the EU last year as "an atrocity", but "when it comes to the UK, things are slightly different", said the BBC. "The US doesn't run as high a trade deficit with Britain – in fact at one point last year it ran a surplus – and government ministers hope that this will persuade the president to spare the UK from tariffs."

It may be true that "the UK does not appear to be directly in Trump's sights", said The Guardian's economics editor, Heather Stewart, "but even if the UK can avoid being slapped with tariffs directly", our "open economy" means we are vulnerable to the knock-on effects of any "significant slowdown in international trade flows".

A 2022 risk analysis by the Office for Budget Responsibility estimated an all-out global trade war would depress UK GDP by 5% over a decade. Under 10% tariffs on all US imports, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research predicted the pound could lose 10-15% of its value against a resurgent dollar, leading to higher import costs and higher inflation. The subsequent rise in UK government bonds would push up borrowing costs for the Treasury – leaving less money to spend on public services.

The "risks for the UK's growth-starved and debt-bloated economy are significant – and they may be unavoidable, even if it is not a direct target", said The Telegraph.

What next?

With US tariffs on the EU looking increasingly likely, "Britain may face tough diplomatic choices", said Business Matters.

Keir Starmer, who today becomes the first UK prime minister since Brexit to attend an EU summit in Brussels, has vowed to "reset" relations with the bloc, including closer economic cooperation.

At the same time, senior figures in his cabinet have also been trying to mend bridges with the new US administration. Chancellor Rachel Reeves recently praised Trump's "optimism", "but locking in a stronger UK-EU agreement while placating Washington could become more difficult".

If the UK is forced to choose, the EU "remains our biggest trade partner and offers more trade policy certainty", said Adam Butlin on the London School of Economics blog. "But such polarisation of picking sides with one or another trade partner is not an ideal situation."

Downing Street has left the door open to the UK joining an EU trading scheme as part of its plans to "reset" ties with Europe and boost economic growth.

The EU's new trade chief Maros Sefcovic, who led post-Brexit negotiations for the bloc, said last week he would consider letting Britain join the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean Convention (PEM), which allows for tariff-free trade of goods across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

While the Labour government has ruled out rejoining the EU single market or customs union, it wants to improve what it has called Boris Johnson's "botched Brexit deal", and that the PEM could offer a straightforward way to do this without crossing so-called red lines.

What did the commentators say?

"It's easy to see why a self-professed growth-obsessed government might seek to be closer to the EU," said Anand Menon and Joël Reland from Changing Europe in The Observer. "It's less clear why it's seeking what it is, or whether achieving any of it will be easy."

Boxed in by pre-election commitments aimed at winning over Eurosceptic voters in Red Wall constituencies in the north and Midlands, "all that's left is tinkering around the margins of the existing deal". And with the EU "far happier than the UK with the status quo", the bloc holds the upper hand in negotiations.

The problem is that a lot has changed since that deal was agreed. Five years on, it is "clear" that Brexit has "imposed costs, particularly on goods exports, without any large offsetting benefits", said The Economist. At the same time the "geopolitical situation has deteriorated", with Russia's war in Ukraine, the rising influence of China and the return of Donald Trump as president all making "striking out alone in Europe less appealing".

Given all this there is "bafflement" in Brussels, "that the UK is not being more ambitious on trade", said The i Paper. However, the offer to join the PEM is "very much under consideration in Whitehall, where officials see no downside to entering the scheme".

What next?

Sefcovic has told the BBC that the "ball is in the UK's court". But the UK's post-Brexit relationship "comprises many strands", said The Observer, "any or all of which might interact with and derail reset negotiations – were these ever to formally begin".

A new deal with Europe will probably be an "amalgam", said The Independent, consisting of "some modest improvements on veterinary checks and phytosanitary rules; give and take on fisheries; some limited youth mobility schemes; plus an embryonic 'defence union', still secondary to Nato".

Starmer "will get 'Brexit 2.0' done, with the suggestion of more to follow in the 2028-29 manifesto." But this much-vaunted "reset" will end up being "messy and fail to satisfy anyone – disappointing to the rejoiners and infuriating the Brexiteers".

It is nearly a decade since the UK voted to leave the EU but Brexit is once again back on the political agenda, as Keir Starmer seeks a "reset" in relations and new terms for Britain's trading relationship with the bloc.

"We've been really clear from the get-go that this is not about re-entry to the EU," the PM told The Sun. But it's clear he does want a softening of trade barriers. "I want to make sure that we get a better deal for people," he said, so that "they feel better off, they get better public services".

Pushed on the possibility that he might agree, in return, to an EU demand for a free-travel agreement for under-30s, Starmer said that "freedom of movement is a red line for us, and [we have] no plans in relation to free movement on any level, but we're entering into discussions".

What did the commentators say?

The EU's negotiation "blueprint", leaked to The Times last week, included a plan "to make the UK accepting the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ)" a prerequisite "for a better trading relationship". Among other key concessions that EU leaders will demand are a new fishing deal and a youth mobility scheme, said the paper.

The quest for a reset is going to require Starmer "to do some politically difficult things, which will undoubtedly anger the Conservatives and Reform," Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, told The Times. But "if it can be negotiated", it could set up the stage for "much closer co-operation across a range of other areas, such as energy, that would be mutually beneficial".

The leaked EU documents reveal Brussels is preparing to "drive a hard bargain" and "name a high price", in exchange for granting the British PM improved terms on defence, security and trade, said Arj Singh, deputy political editor of the i news site.

According to the Financial Times, the EU's "tough red lines" include "an early deal on fishing rights" and sticking firmly to a "'no cherry-picking' mantra".

The UK government has repeatedly said it would not rejoin the EU's customs union or single market, or accept free movement, but a Number 10 spokesperson on Monday refused to rule out a role for the ECJ.

Politico citied a "senior EU official" back in May as saying oversight by the Luxembourg-based court would be a "prerequisite" to any new deal.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, The Sun has labelled the proposals a "fresh Brussels plot to have Britain surrender our sovereignty once again", and has launched its Don't Betray Brexit campaign to stop a "stealth attempt" to "bring Britain back into the EU fold forever".

Leavers may declare the Brexit debate forever closed, said Polly Toynbee in The Guardian, but the new set of EU trade regulations that came into effect this month are "hammering Britain's smaller exporters" and "proof that it isn't over, but forever adding to our economic woes".

Labour has made the right noises about wanting to move towards greater EU alignment on trade "but sticking points stay stuck". Fishing rights will be an "early issue, emotive on both sides of the Channel".

What next?

The EU negotiating proposals are due to be presented to a council of European ministers this week, ahead of the formal negotiations with the UK, which are set to begin next year. The proposals are essentially "a wish list" before EU national governments agree to "give Brussels a mandate to actually start formal talks with London", reported Politico. Brussels certainly seems "unwilling to start talks with Starmer before these ground rules are agreed upon".

And the road ahead does not look easy for the UK. Starmer's recent attempts at "courting European leaders" suffered a "blow" this week, said The Independent, when the European Commission decided to take Britain to court over its alleged failure to comply with EU law on freedom of movement after Brexit.

This could be a sign of the mood in Brussels. While there may be some willingness to favour attempts to bring the UK closer to the EU on trade and security, most of the EU is content with the current status quo, according to the i news site.

"Many key countries are quite happy with how Brexit is going," one diplomat told the site. "So it is on the UK to tell us: what's the incentive?"

As Keir Starmer attempts a "reset" of post-Brexit relations with the EU, Donald Trump's re-election – and the trade war he risks with the tariffs he's threatened – looms over negotiations.

The prime minister has promised to improve Britain's relationship with Brussels. He is pursuing deals on security and defence, while still working with the US president-elect on improving trade with the US (the UK's biggest trade partner) – despite Labour's staunch support of the Democrats.

Trump could also spare Britain from a global trade war by offering the UK a preferential trade agreement, according to Peggy Grande, a political appointee in his last administration. Trump would target the EU with tariffs more than Britain because he wants to see a "successful Brexit", Grande told The Independent.

But any such deal could undermine Starmer's pursuit of closer ties with the EU. It "may be seen by the EU as a signal that the UK is limiting its reset ambitions", John Alty, a former government trade official, told the i news site.

Trump once called himself "Mr. Brexit", said Politico. "But eight years later, could he be about to wreck it?"

What did the commentators say?

"Once upon a time", the UK was "Washington's best friend in Brussels and Europe's hotline to the White House", said The Guardian's Rafael Behr. Now, Starmer is in an "invidious position". Decoupling from the US is "not a serious option", but to maintain that special relationship Trump will "demand vassalage, which will complicate Starmer's ambition for closer European ties".

"Britain could carry on pursuing a new security deal with the EU, while grovelling for special exemption from US tariffs." But, said Behr, "just the hint of alignment with Trump will sour any conversation about easing UK access to the single market." Trump's victory "reinfects the wound" of Brexit; effectively, Labour's foreign policy "blew up on 5 November".

But for many in Brussels, Trump's re-election actually means a desire for "stronger ties" between the EU and the UK, said Politico. The EU response to Trump's victory is to forge new security agreements with third countries; the UK is "top of the list", said an anonymous official.

Even Brexiteers in the UK are worried that Trump might "end up pushing Britain into Brussels' arms". But the scope of Britain's negotiations for a reset will be greatly influenced by Trump. His America First isolationist trade policies make Britain's attempted pivot away from Europe and towards global trade "that bit trickier".

Starmer needs to "review" his big red lines with the EU – keeping the UK out of the single market and customs union, and not reinstating freedom of movement – and "come up with a new plan", the anonymous diplomat said. "When circumstances change, one needs to rethink one's course of action."

Peter Mandelson, the frontrunner to be the UK's next ambassador to the US, has "hinted the UK can use Brexit to dodge" the tariffs Trump has threatened, said Mail Online. The Labour peer and leading Remainer suggested that Britain could "find a path between the US and the EU" if Trump does impose the severe import taxes he has threatened.

It is "wrong" to think that, in the event of a global trade war, the UK would have to choose between close collaboration with the EU's trade policy or a free-trade agreement with the US, Mandelson said on The Times's "How to win an election" podcast. The UK must "find a way to have our cake and eat it".

A recent ambassador to Washington thinks otherwise, however. "I don't see any special deal coming for the UK," Kim Darroch told The Times's political editor Steven Swinford. Trump will indeed "go big" on tariffs. And if the EU retaliates with tariffs on the US, said Swinford, the UK may have to choose a side.

What next?

When asked whether a free-trade agreement with the US could curb the attempted reset with the EU, the prime minister's spokesperson said: "No, the prime minister is clear that he wants to improve trade and investment relations with the EU, with the US and indeed with other partners around the world."

More talks are scheduled with EU leaders later this year and in the first half of next year, but Starmer is currently sticking to his three red lines. He also said he has no plans for a youth mobility scheme with the EU. However, the bloc views this policy as "an indispensable element" of negotiations, according to a leaked internal paper seen by Politico. The idea is "essential for our future relationship".

The UK government, devolved administrations and the civil service "failed" citizens during the pandemic, according to the damning first report from the Covid inquiry.

There were "several significant flaws" in the pandemic response, found retired judge Baroness Heather Hallett, chair of the public inquiry. The 83,000-word document, based on witness statements including from former health secretaries Matt Hancock and Jeremy Hunt, also highlighted the brutal effect of austerity. Cuts to public spending and resulting health inequalities, including high rates of disease and obesity, had overstretched the health system and made the UK "more vulnerable".

Some of the 235,000 deaths involving Covid-19 (one of Europe's highest death tolls), as well as "grief, untold misery and economic turmoil", could have been prevented, she concluded. But the human, societal and economic cost suffered "will have been in vain" if "radical reform" is not carried out before the next pandemic.

1. Brexit distraction

Resources were taken away from pandemic preparedness because of Brexit, said the report. This was especially so in 2018 and 2019, when officials "scrambled to draw up a contingency plan for medicine, food and fuel shortages" in the event of a "no-deal" Brexit, known as Operation Yellowhammer, said The New York Times.

Brexit was prioritised over implementing recommendations from Exercise Cygnus, the government's 2016 pandemic readiness exercises. The programme, which by 2019 was already running two years behind schedule, was further delayed by the demands of Operation Yellowhammer. Health officials in the devolved nations who should have been focused on pandemic preparedness were also "diverted" to deal with Yellowhammer, said the i news site. 

2. Wrong pandemic, outdated strategy

The UK "prepared for the wrong pandemic", said the report. The country had long assumed that an outbreak would involve influenza, preparing its plan in 2011 when Andrew Lansley was health secretary. But both subsequent health secretaries, Jeremy Hunt and then Matt Hancock, failed to update it. 

This led to "an over-reliance on vaccines and antivirals that would have no impact on the Covid virus", said the BBC.

Although there are similarities between Covid and flu viruses, there are differences in terms of infection periods, which "affects the feasibility of border screening, quarantining and contact tracing", said The Times. 

The strategy was "outdated and lacked adaptability", said the report. Even Hancock described it as "woefully inadequate".

In March 2020, when the government realised how lethal Covid was, it had to abandon the strategy. Ministers then took a "new, untested approach" and sent the country into lockdown, with "no idea how vast the economic and social damage would be", said The Times.

3. Not a 'black swan' event

The report rejected claims that the pandemic was unprecedented: an unforeseeable "black swan event". The scientific community had considered it a "reasonable bet" before 2020, "given there were four large coronavirus outbreaks that nearly became pandemics earlier in the 21st century", said The Guardian.

Asian countries, which had experienced outbreaks of Sars in 2003 and Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers) in 2016, suppressed initial waves with testing, tracing and quarantining, as well as border controls, while limiting the use of lockdowns.

After both outbreaks, pandemic planning exercises in the UK stressed the importance of PPE and testing. "Lessons that could and should have been learned were not learned," said Hallett.

4. Groupthink and spaghetti bureaucracy

In 2019, there was widespread hubris, partly resulting from government "groupthink", that the UK was "one of the best-prepared countries in the world to respond to a pandemic", said Hallett. 

But the "number of organisations across the UK with responsibility for pandemic preparedness had multiplied over time and become unnecessarily numerous", she wrote. It was a "labyrinthine" civil emergency system based on complex "spaghetti diagrams" of institutions that had "ultimately grown to become too complex and disjointed".

There was "constant reorganisation and rebranding" of the departments responsible – and it was not even apparent who was in charge. There was a "lack of adequate leadership" in rectifying contingency planning, including from the then prime minister Boris Johnson. 

5. Next pandemic: 'not if but when'

"The evidence is overwhelmingly to the effect that another pandemic – potentially one that is even more transmissible and lethal – is likely to occur in the near to medium future," Hallett said. "It is not a question of 'if' another pandemic will strike but 'when'."

She urged a "fundamental reform" of preparation for civil emergencies, adding that the changes made since the Covid pandemic had "fail[ed] on a number of grounds".

The report made 10 recommendations, including planning for a wider range of scenarios and creating a more coordinated response, as well as taking responsibility away from the Department of Health and Social Care. "Never again can a disease be allowed to lead to so many deaths and so much suffering," she said.

Since the Second World War, they have been "serving as the largely unmentioned glue holding middle-class families together", but now the au pair industry has "collapsed", according to a report.

A double blow of Brexit and a minimum wage ruling have "ruined the tradition of exchanging bed and board for help with the kids", said The Sunday Times, and a leading trade body has waved the white flag and shut its doors.

'Fatal setback'

The "mutually beneficial arrangement" has "existed in Europe since the end of the Second World War", said the paper, recalling when domestic servants had "all but disappeared" and a "newly liberated cohort of young women, keen to expand their cultural boundaries, rose to meet the demand".

Au pairs would work short stays of between three and 12 months, often attending a language school, with their board and lodgings covered by the host family, said the BBC. There were between 60,000 and 90,000 au pairs in Britain before it left the European Union, but that number had halved by 2022, said The Telegraph.

The arrangement was "dealt a crushing blow by Brexit and the barriers that came with it", said The Sunday Times. With the end of free movement of labour from the European Union, the UK government did not provide an entry route specifically for au pairs.

Then, earlier this month, there was another, "possibly fatal", setback, when the government announced that even live-in workers would "henceforth" be entitled to earn the minimum wage, it added.

Previously, the guidance from the Home Office suggested that au pairs should earn "pocket money" of about £90 a week in exchange for being treated as a member of the family and helping out around the house.

But now, anyone employing an au pair under 21 for the basic 25 weekly hours, even with a live-in allowance applied, will have to pay £145.07 a week, rising to £330.47 for an au pair aged over 21 working 35 hours a week.

The consequences could be wide ranging, because rising costs are "driving intelligent women out of the workplace and back into their homes", Jo Twumasi-Ankra, a fundraiser at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and mother to three girls, who has used au pairs, told the paper.

'New slavery'

In the wake of these developments, the British Au Pair Agencies Association (BAPAA) announced its closure on Facebook and there are fears that the longstanding arrangement has had its day.

Back in 2020, chairwoman Jamie Shackell told the BBC that "families have said they might have to give up work and claim benefits because they cannot afford to have a nanny". She said the group was "flummoxed by it all" because au pairs are "not a financial strain on the UK state".

A petition calling for a "new youth visa" has gathered 60,000 signatures and it's possible that the Treasury will look into a "fix" for au pairs, because the situation is "so dire", with Britain's childcare costs among the highest in the world, said The Sunday Times.

But not everyone sees such a halo above the head of the au pair arrangement. In 2002, it was described by The Guardian as the "dirty secret of Britain's middle classes".

Asking if au pairing was "the new slavery", it said "horror stories" are commonplace. Maggie Dyer, director of the London Au Pair and Nanny Agency, said au pairs are "so vulnerable" as "if they lose their job they have nowhere to live, so they often will be far too frightened to complain if they are being maltreated".

Jokes about husbands having affairs with au pairs and nannies have been around almost as long as au pairs themselves, and one scorned wife told the Daily Mail about the "heart shredding betrayal" of the experience.

Ukraine's colourful war slogan "Russian warship, go f**k yourself" is at the centre of a trademark spat between Ukraine's State Border Guard and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO).

The "expression of defiance" has become a symbol of "resistance" since it was "first uttered" in a "brave" response from a Ukrainian soldier to a Moscow warship as it prepared to attack Snake Island in the opening hours of the invasion, recalled Politico.

But the ruling from EU intellectual property enforcers that it does not meet the requirement to become a trademark has left Ukraine's border guards "baffled".

'Priggish and pompous'

The soldier who coined the phrase was captured by Russia and later freed in a prisoner swap, and two Brussels-based lawyers originally filed the trademark application in March 2022, under his name, with the approval of his family.

The duo argued that it was a "unique opportunity to do something bigger", to prevent someone else claiming the trademark and to avoid anyone else profiting from the phrase. A "variety of commercial products" featuring variations of the words are being sold on "multiple shopping platforms", said Politico.

The saying "quickly became hot merchandising property", said Andrew Tettenborn, professor of law at Swansea Law School, in The Spectator, and Andriy Demchenko, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Border Guard Service, warned in Politico that people with "insincere intentions" were seeking to cash in on the slogan's popularity.

After the initial filing, it "didn't take long" for the EU office to "dump cold water on Ukraine's case", said Politico. The EUIPO said the slogan would be perceived as "contrary to accepted principles of morality" as it sought financial gain from what is "universally accepted to be a tragic event".

When a second application was made in December 2022, this time in the name of the Ukrainian Border Guard, Europe rejected it again. It argued that the motto uses "vulgar language with an insulting sexual connotation" and "banalises the Russian invasion and uses the sign as merely a tool to sell merchandising goods such as jewels, toys, clothing, wallets, etc".

Andrej Bukovnik, one of the lawyers behind the claim, insisted that the slogan is a "freedom of expression", uttered in a "special moment" and that "you cannot censor people in situations like that". But an appeal filed in February 2023 was also dismissed, with examiners ruling that the phrase lacks "distinctive character".

The "priggish" and "pompous" arguments from "the cream of Europe's intellectual property lawyers" certainly "haven't lacked variety", said Tettenborn. The lawyers are determined to win the case and have filed a fresh appeal.

Supporters of their bid have noted that, in March 2022, the Ukrainian government chose an image commemorating the slogan for an official postage stamp as the "besieged country" tried to "keep morale high and win the PR battle against invading Russian forces", reported The Guardian.

'Eye-catching and exclusive'

Eleonora Rosati, professor of intellectual property law at Stockholm University, told Politico that the lawyers have little hope of winning as cases like this "rarely have happy endings". She cited several examples of failed trademark applications – from “Je suis Charlie” to “Black Lives Matter” – which faced similar obstacles.

But if the European lawyers have "taken to heart" the dangers of allowing commonplace political slogans to become anyone's exclusive property, it "seems odd", said Tettenborn, because this is not a "commonplace political phrase on everyone's lips", like "Black Lives Matter". It's "more like something eye-catching and exclusive", such as the 'England's Glory' motif that used to appear on Bryant & May matchboxes.

He suggested that this could be "an opportunity for London to score a post-Brexit trick", if the UK invited Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to apply to register the trademark here. After all, he argued, the slogan is "hardly more scabrous" than the French Connection UK trademark FCUK, which was registered in the UK nearly 20 years ago.

It would be a "nice showing of solidarity with the underdog", and sometimes, "even in the dry-as-dust area of trademark law", it's "the thought that counts".

Today marks four years since the UK formally left the European Union. Back then, Boris Johnson, who had just won an 80-seat majority promising to "get Brexit done", hailed the date as the start of a new golden era for Britain.

Turning rhetoric into reality has proved much harder, however. Johnson is gone, as is his successor Liz Truss. Rishi Sunak has adopted a more pragmatic approach and sought to mend ties with Europe, but several issues remain as "divisive as ever", said The Times, "including the UK's ability to control its own borders, British economic interests, the Northern Ireland protocol and freedom of movement in Europe".

The impact of leaving the EU has "not perfectly matched initial perceptions", agreed Sanjay Vallabh, managing director of Vallabh Associates, on Insider Media. While some pro-Brexit supporters looked forward to a "smoother transition to new trade relationships, the reality has been marked by complexities and disruptions". At the same time, "some of the dire predictions of economic collapse did not materialise".

Economy

The economic impact of Brexit has been a "subject of much debate", said Vallabh.  But the Office for Budget Responsibility's own forecasts suggest the post-Brexit trading relationship between the UK and EU, as set out in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) that came into effect on 1 January 2021, "will reduce long-run productivity by 4% relative to remaining in the EU".

Brexit contributed to Britain's "particularly high inflation" by "introducing friction into the country's most important trading relationship, and hitting the value of the pound, which has made imports more expensive", said CNN. A study by the London School of Economics found that Brexit was responsible for about a third of UK food price inflation since 2019, adding nearly £7 billion to Britain's grocery bill.

In August, the government announced that it was delaying health and safety checks on food imports from the EU for the fifth time in three years. The latest "foot-dragging demonstrates that Britain is still struggling to come to terms with the painful consequences" of leaving the EU, which has "piled costs on UK businesses and weighed on trade, investment and, ultimately, economic growth", CNN added.

Taken together, said John Springford of the Centre for European Reform think tank, the missed growth in goods and services trade account for "about a £23 billion quarterly hit" to UK exports,  which is consistent with a GDP reduction of 4%-5% compared to a Britain that had remained.

But because the EU is still by far the UK's largest trading partner, "we must keep on making piecemeal repairs to the EU-UK relationship, while accepting that Brexit is a fact of life", said historian David Reynolds in The New Statesman. 

New trade deals

The UK has also struggled to secure much-vaunted free trade agreements with some of the world's biggest and fastest-growing economies – what Boris Johnson famously described as the "sunlit uplands" for Britain outside EU "bondage".

A deal with India, which Johnson vowed to conclude by October 2022, is still pending, while negotiations with the US have been shelved until after the presidential election in November.

The UK has now "signed trade deals and agreements in principle with about 70 countries and one with the EU", said the BBC, but "the majority of these are simply 'rollovers'". That means the terms are the same as they were before Brexit. "And some of them are with countries with which the UK does very little trade."

Immigration

Immigration was a key factor for many who voted to leave the EU, but since coronavirus restrictions lifted, Britain has recorded huge hikes in net legal migration – the number of people who arrived, minus those who left. The population was boosted by nearly 750,000 in 2022, more than double the number in the year before the Brexit referendum.

"Immigration is replenishing Britain's labour force and deepening the diversity of its cities – a deliberate, if largely unspoken, strategy that is perhaps Brexit's most tangible early legacy," said The New York Times. "But it has come as a shock to people who voted to leave to make the country's borders less porous."

The reality proved "very different", said Jonathan Portes in The Guardian. Yet the migration statistics "reflect something that is rare indeed in the UK right now – a successful policy implemented efficiently and effectively and, even rarer, the crystallisation of a genuine 'Brexit opportunity'."

Northern Ireland

The Irish dimension was "another blind spot in the mindset of most English Leavers", said Reynolds. While Johnson effectively put a trade border down the Irish Sea, Sunak's Windsor Framework, concluded in February 2023, established notional "green" and "red" lanes to ensure a lighter touch for goods from Britain that would stay in Northern Ireland, compared with the tighter controls and checks on goods intended for the Republic.

"Irish backstop. Max fac. Settled status. Windsor Framework. Over the years, Brexit has spawned its own wide and weird lexicon," wrote Joel Reland of the UK in a Changing Europe think tank. Looking ahead to 2024, "'trivergence' is the next new word which could be on the tips of Brexit-watchers' tongues", he added, referring to the scenario where Northern Ireland "diverges from the regulations of both the EU and UK – creating three separate sets of rules and leaving itself adrift of both".

Regulatory divergence also left Northern Ireland politically deadlocked, with the DUP refusing to return to power-sharing at Stormont in protest at what it saw as the deliberate undermining of the union – a boycott that may finally be coming to an end.

What next?

Polls conducted over the past four years have shown a slow but steady move towards supporting a closer alignment with the EU. A recent YouGov survey found that around half of Britons (51%) now favour rejoining the EU, followed by 42% who said they would support joining the EU Single Market. By comparison, just three in 10 (31%) would support maintaining Britain's current relationship with its largest trading partner.

Keir Starmer has promised to seek a major renegotiation of Britain's TCA trade deal with the EU in 2025 if the Labour Party wins the next general election. He has, though, ruled out both rejoining as a full member or even returning to the Single Market.

As the Financial Times journalist Peter Foster observed in his 2023 book "What Went Wrong with Brexit", for whoever wins the next election, "fixing Brexit" will not be primarily about the exit itself, but about "putting the UK's house in order" – an imperative from which leaving the EU has "proved a colossal distraction at a crucial juncture".

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has agreed to restore power-sharing in Northern Ireland, ending two years of political deadlock.

In a press conference in the early hours of this morning, the DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said his party's executive had voted to end its boycott at Stormont after agreeing a legislative package with the Westminster government that addresses unionists' core complaints about the Windsor framework.

The DUP collapsed the Northern Ireland Assembly in February 2022 in protest at post-Brexit trading arrangements that it said undermined Northern Ireland's position in the UK. The impasse left civil servants to run the country "on a form of auto-pilot amid a fiscal crisis, crumbling public services, strikes and doubts about whether devolved government would ever return", said The Guardian.

Tuesday morning's breakthrough paves the way for Sinn Féin's Michelle O'Neill to become first minister (the first Irish republican to hold the top position), with a DUP member appointed to the less prestigious post of deputy first minister.

'About 10 things that could still go wrong'

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris, who presided over months of tense negotiations with the DUP aimed at restoring power-sharing, called the move "a welcome and significant step".

But for others in London, Donaldson's statement was viewed with a "touch of caution", reported Politico. "This is obviously good news, but this is only one step and there are about 10 things that could still go wrong," one UK official told the news site. "Put it this way, we were expecting a statement at 10.30pm and it didn't come until nearly 1am. That says something about what the people in the room think about the deal."

What looks to have finally swayed the DUP executive was not the issue of Brexit but rather the damage continued obstruction of democracy was doing to the unionist cause. "We must not allow republicans to perpetuate the myth that Northern Ireland is a failed and ungovernable political entity," Donaldson said, arguing that an empty Stormont fuels republicans' demands for a referendum on unification.

'DUP sellout'

There remains "deep divisions" within unionism, said the Belfast Telegraph. Donaldson's victory, "and possibly his leadership", said The Guardian, will "be tested in the coming days by hardliners who consider the deal a betrayal that will weaken the union, raising the prospect of a party split".

Around 50 protesters waving Union Jacks picketed Monday's meeting with signs reading "Stop DUP Sellout".

Mel Lucas, from the Traditional Unionist Voice party, told the Belfast-based News Letter that Jeffrey "seemed to be very angry in Westminster last week about other unionists holding him to account". 

"But he really needs to be angry with the British government for betraying unionist people and not having the unionist people as equal citizens in the UK," Lucas said.

Another prominent loyalist, Jamie Bryson, appeared to have had sources at the supposedly confidential gathering of the executive, during which he live-tweeted: "There's only one betrayal, and it is of the mandate given to the DUP."

Debate over the British government's controversial Rwanda bill has once again raised the question of whether a written constitution would help or hinder the process to allow the deportation of illegal migrants.

A written constitution is a "comprehensive" and "codified" document that "serves as the supreme law of the land, establishing the rights and responsibilities of the government", said The Lawyer Portal. An unwritten constitution "serves the same purpose, but is based on a collection of laws, customs and precedents" that have evolved over time.

The vast majority of countries in the world have some form of written constitution, with notable exceptions including New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Israel and, of course, the United Kingdom.

Pro: clarity

The late Lord Chief Justice, Lord Bingham, said of the UK that "constitutionally speaking, we now find ourselves in a trackless desert without map or compass". This is the "precise problem codification addresses", said Gopal Subramanium in Prospect. "When a constitution is codified, we know what it says. Each organ of the state – the legislature, the executive and the judiciary – has a clearer idea of the breadth of its powers" and the relations these organs have with each other and with citizens are "more easily discernible".

By contrast, unwritten constitutions are "open to ambiguity and can be subject to numerous interpretations", said the BBC. This lack of clarity has "exacerbated recent political crises in the UK", said Sionaidh Douglas-Scott on the UCL's Constitution Unit blog. The legal status of referendums, for example, has never been properly set out, leading to the seemingly endless constitutional crises in the years following the vote to leave the EU.

Con: inflexibility   

Supporters of an unwritten system like the UK's, which is made up of a vast array of different laws, customs and conventions developed over centuries, claim it offers "greater flexibility" and can "evolve and adapt to reflect changes in society", said the BBC.

Walter Bagehot, in his book The English Constitution that was first published in 1867, argued it was the very provisional nature of our constitutional arrangements that made them fit for purpose compared, for example, to the strict codification of the US constitution.

In the UK, the flexibility afforded by an unwritten constitution has come to be seen as an "advantage", agreed UCL's Constitution Unit, enabling the removal of hereditary peers from the House of Lords, the introduction of the Human Rights Act, devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the creation of the Supreme Court.

Pro: educative function

One "commonly cited benefit" to states possessing written constitutions is that such devices perform an "educative function, because citizens can easily consult and reference the documents", said Brian Christopher Jones in The Atlantic. Jones' recent book, "Constitutional Idolatry and Democracy", compares the respective merits of the UK and US systems. 

The American constitution is easier for lawmakers, judges and perhaps most importantly citizens to understand. US schoolchildren grow up learning parts of it by heart. It is widely available online and its physical form consistently lands on best-seller lists.

Being able to point to a constitution and assert its values is "empowering", agreed Subramanium, citing his own experience in India in which generations "understand the workings of its constitution, learning their rights and asserting them against successive governments".

Con: judiciary over parliament

Parliamentary sovereignty is commonly regarded as the "defining principle" of the British constitution, claimed UCL's Constitution Unit, and without a written constitution in place, statutes are the UK's "highest form of law", said Jones in The Atlantic.

In his 2019 Reith lecture series on the state of democracy in the UK, the former head of the Supreme Court and opponent of a written constitution, Lord Sumption, argued that calls for a single codified document are the wrong answers to the right question. All a written constitution would do, he said, was move the UK further towards legal constitutionalism, abrogating the powers of our democratic bodies in favour of an "increase (in the powers) of judges".

Jones' conclusion is that unwritten constitutions can perform "just as well as written ones", and that, for "all their grandeur, written constitutions do not produce better democratic outcomes and can sometimes entrench significant mistakes, rather than help facilitate resolutions to complex problems".

Pro: protecting rights

Perhaps the "most significant advantage of a written constitution is its benefit to the citizen", said Subramanium. The document represents the "embodiment of the contract citizens enter with their government" in which they agree to be governed in exchange for assurances their freedoms will be protected and their equality guaranteed.

Rights guaranteed by a written constitution are "usually beyond parliament's power to amend with a simple majority", said Subramanium, meaning "individuals and minority groups are thus protected from majoritarian and populist influence".

As the British philosopher AC Grayling noted, "a constitution not at the whim of any current administration is a sterner guardian of rights and liberties than a constitution malleable to partisan and passing interests".

Con: writing a written constitution

For countries like the US the constitution is a sacred document. But in the UK, which has survived for centuries without one, the formalising of a single written constitution would prove hugely complicated and controversial. It would likely take years, if not decades, of political wrangling and lobbying and would make debates around the primacy of EU law look small by comparison.

Setting out the arguments for and against, a report by the Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in 2015 noted that "any study of written constitutions around the world shows that they only come into existence after a successful invasion, after a revolution, or some appalling failure in the polity and breakdown in the way government and politics were operating".

Keir Starmer has been accused of a "Brexit betrayal" after promising to rewrite the UK's deal with Brussels.

Before holding talks with French president Emmanuel Macron, the Labour leader said he wanted to secure "much better" arrangements with the EU. This prompted accusations from one former Tory minister that he is "cosying up to the EU" and "unpicking Brexit", said the Daily Mail.

Starmer believes the existing deal is "far too thin" and thinks Brexit is "not the electorally toxic issue it was". Changing Boris Johnson's Brexit agreement could now be a "vote winner", said The Times. 

But Brussels has "played down the prospect" of a significantly improved trade agreement with the UK, so there are question marks over how much change is even possible.

What did the papers say?

Senior figures in Brussels have warned that the forthcoming review of the Trade and Co-operation Agreement is more about "housekeeping" than changing the UK and EU’s relationship, said The Times. Any move to renegotiate the deal would not be easy as it would need the backing of both the European Commission and the 27 member states.

Starmer has ruled out rejoining the EU single market or customs union and therefore has a "Brexit delusion", wrote Wolfgang Münchau for The New Statesman. His claim that a better deal is achievable in such circumstances is a "political lie" that will "almost certainly be exposed as such", he added.

The two "big" issues – Northern Ireland, and Britain’s associate membership of the EU’s Horizon science programme – have been "resolved", added the director of Eurointelligence, so "if your bottom line is that you do not wish to rejoin the single market and the customs union", there "really is not a lot more out there".

Starmer's self-imposed "red lines" have "limited" how far the UK's trading relationship with EU can be improved, experts told the Financial Times. "In most European capitals Brexit is yesterday's problem," the paper said, after a senior EU official told it: "There's little appetite to reopen the Brexit psychodrama in Brussels."

Anxiety over the domestic fallout could also hamper Starmer, who "shudders with fear" at any accusation that he might favour returning to Europe's customs union or single market, said The Guardian's Simon Jenkins. The Labour leader "quails at the thought of what a Brexit voter in a 'red wall' seat might say", he wrote.

What next?

The meeting with Macron in Paris is less about direct negotiations and more the latest stop on Starmer's "grip-and grin world tour", said the BBC's political editor, Chris Mason. "I am told by Labour folk that it is a 'getting to know each other session' rather than much else," added Mason. Nevertheless, it is a milestone in Starmer's ambition to renegotiate the Brexit deal.

But given the difficulties and seemingly limited wriggle room, said the FT, the UK side will have to "think carefully about a quid pro quo to unlock more flexibility from the European Commission on trade issues". To charm Brussels, London could pay into EU programmes, like the Erasmus student exchange scheme, or offer easier work visas for Europe's young people and students, it suggested.

Other "potential areas for deeper co-operation" include "diplomacy and security", it continued. London and Brussels could also work on "deeper cyber security and intelligence co-operation", as well as more agreement on renewable energy and carbon-pricing systems.

Britain could also try to negotiate some "improvements for individual sectors of the economy", such as a veterinary agreement to reduce checks on animal and plant products, which would benefit food and drink exporters.

However, no one believes any of this will be straightforward. The UK in a Changing Europe research group said Starmer risks "demanding more than the EU is willing to give", said The Independent.

Some experts warn that Starmer's aspirations will "quickly get bogged down in negotiations in Brussels" and cause political problems for him at home. But Mujtaba Rahman, head of European analysis at the Eurasia Group think-tank, told the FT that if Starmer "delivers consistent British engagement with the EU", based "more on shared values and less on domestic politics", that will "create goodwill, which will then underpin the dynamic between the two sides across the board".

Sales of tampons in the UK have fallen by 12% in the past five years, raising questions over the long-term viability of the menstrual product.

Growing concerns over their health and environmental impact are “turning women off the tampon”, said The Times, and with “talking about your time of the month more socially acceptable than ever”, women now have “other options”.

Why are sales down?

The trend became official in March, when the Office for National Statistics made changes to its “inflation basket” to reflect the changing habits of British shoppers. Tampons were replaced by sanitary towels because the latter are “attracting greater expenditure and are currently more representative of feminine hygiene products”, said the ONS.

There are several reasons for the decline, including concern over the impact they have on nature. “There’s no getting away from the fact that sanitary products are bad for the environment,” said The Times. Tampons and pads are the fifth most common product found in oceans, according to the European Commission.

On average a woman will dispose of 15,000 menstrual items during her lifetime that will end up in landfill, added The Times. Around 2.5 million tampons and 1.4 million pads are flushed down UK toilets every day – a figure that “doesn’t fit well with Gen Z’s priorities”, the paper said.

Are there health concerns?

Yes. Researchers discovered “forever chemicals” in the lining of period underwear, the wrappers of tampons and in other menstrual products, The Washington Post reported. The chemicals can “accumulate in the body over time” and “have been implicated in a number of serious health effects, including some cancers”, it said.

“The skin lining the vagina is one of the body’s most sensitive parts,” said The Times, “and chemicals can pass into the bloodstream without being metabolised.” Leaving a tampon in for too long be dangerous. It can lead to toxic shock syndrome, a bacterial infection that in severe cases can prove fatal.

Earlier this month, a Californian model had both of her legs amputated after becoming gravely ill with toxic shock syndrome caused by a tampon, reported The Mirror. However, such cases are rare.

What are the alternatives?

The Mooncup is a silicone device that is inserted into the vagina and can collect three times more blood than a tampon, said its British manufacturer. It should be rinsed with water after emptying it and put in boiled water between periods to sterilise it. “I would say that the biggest killer of the tampon is the menstrual cup,” Lisa Payne, head of beauty trends at the forecaster Stylus, told The Times.

There are also period pants, which are underwear with an absorbent lining that can go in the wash. Thanks to an absorbent black gusset “you don’t see red blood like you do on a pad”, a woman told The New York Times.

However, noted the paper, period underwear is “not for everyone” because of the cost, which ranges from $12 to $38 in the US, depending on the brand. In the UK, a pack of three period pants at M&S costs £20. Prices could fall if campaigners convince the government to cut VAT on them.

What about the price of tampons?

Questions were raised earlier this year over whether the removal of the so-called tampon tax – “trumpeted… by Rishi Sunak as one of the benefits of Brexit” – has “helped lower prices at all, amid concerns the saving is not being passed on by retailers to women”, said The Guardian.

Supermarket own-brand period products increased in price by as much as 57% last year, according to research carried out by The Grocer. Asda put the price of its non-applicator tampons up from 70p to £1.10 in August 2022, the same price as Sainsbury’s own-label tampons (up from £1). As a comparison, a multi-use Mooncup costs about £24.

Are there any innovations in tampons?

The tampon design, “a bullet-shaped cotton and rayon bundle”, has been “largely unchanged for almost 90 years”, said The Times. But now, the US has approved a new design that could “change the appearance of a product that’s looked the same for decades”, said The Guardian.

The design, patented by an independent company called Sequel, has “diagonal grooves that spiral down the product”. The makers say the product’s “helical shape better absorbs fluid”, which “leads to less leakage and a more reliable experience”.

The inventors believe that the new take on a familiar product could prove popular. “People don’t necessarily love their tampons”, they said. “They just have a system they’ve used since they first got their period.”

But ultimately “it all comes down to trust”, said The Times, “which, in the tampon’s case, could be hanging by a thread”.

An agreement between Britain and the European Union over the future of Gibraltar is reportedly "getting closer".

Despite "significant progress" made on issues related to the economy, trade and the environment, the nature of the relationship between the Mediterranean territory and the EU "remains unresolved after Brexit", said The Independent. Rules governing Gibraltar's border with Spain are understood to have been the "major sticking point".

Eurosceptic Conservative MPs have said that proposals for EU border guards to be posted at Gibraltar's airport represent a threat to British sovereignty and set a precedent for other British overseas territories.

 What is the status of Gibraltar since Brexit? 

Since the UK opted to leave the EU in 2016, Gibraltar – which voted 96% to remain – has been "in a state of nervous limbo", said The New European.

Eight years on from the referendum, the 35,000 or so inhabitants of "the Rock", the majority of whom identify as British and who vehemently rejected a joint sovereignty plan with Spain in 2002, "still have no idea what their future relationship with the EU will be", said the newspaper.

The territory was not included in the UK-EU post-Brexit trade deal and had been left outside the EU's customs union by the leave vote. A temporary "pre-deal" arrangement was introduced in 2020, which effectively allowed freedom of movement at the Spain-Gibraltar border to avoid disruption, while letting Gibraltar remain a British territory.

This is vital for Gibraltar's economy, said the Financial Times. The Rock is "as wealthy as it is cramped": a "freakishly overdeveloped tiny place not even 3 square miles in size" that relies on more than 15,000 cross-border commuters from Spain to "double the size of its workforce every day". Without the workers, the economy "would grind to a halt".

No agreement would mean a hard border between Gibraltar and Spain, which could subject commuters to long delays along a frontier just over a mile long. It would also wreak havoc on trade, as Gibraltar imports almost all of its goods.

 Why has progress been so slow? 

In principle, Spain and Gibraltar agree on a need for smooth cross-border relations, said the FT. But "bigger matters are at play".

Spain refuses to recognise British sovereignty over the territory, which was originally ceded to the UK "in perpetuity" in the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713. Spain's official position, both on the left and right, has always been that the British overseas territory belongs to Spain. Successive conservative governments have attempted to take at least partial control of the Rock, and the Spanish right has long used Gibraltar as a "whack-a-mole for energizing a nationalist audience", said US socialist magazine Jacobin.

What is the border plan? 

Talks have been ongoing for nearly two years to establish a common travel area between Gibraltar and the EU's Schengen zone, effectively making it a de facto Schengen member, which would remove the need for most controls at the border.

However, some Conservative MPs have talked of a "sellout" by the UK government, with Bill Cash, chair of the Commons' European Scrutiny Committee, recently warning that allowing checks by EU border guards at the airport would "erode British sovereignty to the point of meaninglessness".

EU immigration checks at the airport would be "utterly unacceptable", said The Telegraph in an editorial, "partly because the airport is a joint civil-military facility that doubles as a RAF station", making this "not just a matter of sovereignty, but also of control of a strategically significant British defence asset".

The fear, said The Independent, is that this "will see EU Frontex border guards decide who can enter the British overseas territory – and will give them the power to turn away British citizens".

There are also "wider concerns" about this treaty with the EU, said the news site. These include "implications of a dilution of British sovereignty in areas such as Northern Ireland and even potentially the UK bases in Cyprus, where pressure is mounting over land that is British sovereign territory".

Beano comics are among a shipment of British goods to be sent to Australia and New Zealand to mark the start of two new post-Brexit trade deals, noted Sky News. After the agreements between the UK and Australia, and the UK and New Zealand, came into force at midnight, the Business and Trade Secretary, Kemi Badenoch, said Beano comics signed by the comic'’s editor, Penderyn single malt Welsh whisky, Brighton Gin, The Cambridge Satchel Co. bags and Fever-Tree mixers will be sent as goodwill gestures.

Medieval stand-up comedy script discovered

A study of medieval comedy has shown that audiences were “entertained with edgy satire, bawdy nonsense and a story involving an absurd killer rabbit that wouldn’t look out of place in a Monty Python sketch”, said The Times. A manuscript, dating from about 1480, appears to show how an “anonymous minstrel dared to mock kings, religion, himself and — perhaps most bravely — his audiences”, as he “performed on the Derbyshire-Nottinghamshire border, probably at alehouses, baronial halls and boozy village fairs”, it said.

Vast plume suggests life beyond Earth

A huge plume has been seen emerging from Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons, has raised hopes of life outside our own planet. The satellite has has salty water and other conditions that leave scientists to believe that it could support alien life. “Enceladus is one of the most dynamic objects in the solar system and is a prime target in humanity’s search for life beyond Earth,” expert Dr Christopher Glein, told Earth.com.

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The bunting has only just come down from last week’s coronation festivities but Britain is already preparing for another big party: the Eurovision Song Contest 2023.

Liverpool is hosting this year’s competition on behalf of last year’s winner, Ukraine, which won with an entry from hip-hop stars Kalush Orchestra. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked to deliver a video message during the Eurovision final at Liverpool Arena on Saturday, to appeal to the world to continue supporting his country in the war with Russia.

But the Ukrainian leader was rebuffed by the contest’s organisers, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), over fears that the address would politicise the event.

Over on the political stage at Westminster, Tory Brexiteers are up in arms about a government U-turn on plans to remove all EU-era laws from the UK’s statute books by the end of the year. Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch confirmed this week that the Retained EU Laws Bill currently going through Parliament will no longer include a “sunset clause” that required Whitehall officials to choose which laws to save by the end of 2023.

Criticising Rishi Sunak for breaking his pledge to review or repeal all EU laws in his first 100 days in office, Jacob Rees-Mogg said: “Regrettably, ‘the blob’ has triumphed and the prime minister has abandoned his promise.”

To find out how closely you’ve been paying attention to the latest developments in the news and other global events, put your knowledge to the test with our Quiz of The Week.

1. Which Hollywood star has become a father again at the age of 79?

• Harrison Ford
• Al Pacino
• Robert De Niro
• Morgan Freeman

2. Experts estimate that how many of around two million Britons with long Covid are in need of specialist care?

• 20,000
• 200,000
• 400,000
• 500,000

3. A mysterious upcoming book that became a bestseller amid rumours that it was Taylor Swift’s memoir was actually written by which other music stars?

• BTS
• Jonas Brothers
• The Wanted
• O-Town

4. A new study found that which UK city is the “gloomiest” in the UK?

• Glasgow
• Bradford
• Blackpool
• Swansea

5. Polling suggests that what percentage of Americans think Joe Biden does not have the “mental sharpness” to serve a second term as president?

• 22%
• 45%
• 63%
• 80%

6. Newly released figures show that which UK airport was the worst for delays last year?

• London City
• Birmingham
• Heathrow
• Bristol

7. On what grounds has Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism of Antiquities criticised new Netflix docuseries Queen Cleopatra?

• The series was filmed in Spain
• The lead actor’s race
• Historically inaccurate costumes
• Too many episodes

8. Scientists in the Alps and the Arctic have discovered microbes that can eat what at cool temperatures?

• Sewage
• Pesticides
• Plastic
• Spilled petroleum

9. Who was named sportswoman of the year at the 2023 Laureus World Sports Awards?

• Iga Świątek
• Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce
• Katie Ledecky
• Alexia Putellas

10. Pupils at an independent school in North London have voted to make what change to their lunches?

• New option to order fast food
• Only vegan or vegetarian lunches
• Sixth-form pupils can have a glass of wine
• Adding dishes that include insects

1. Robert De Niro

The actor revealed this week that he and his girlfriend, martial arts instructor Tiffany Chen, were celebrating the birth of their daughter, Gia Virginia Chen-De Niro. He has six other children, whose ages range in age from 11 to 51.

2. 400,000

According to The Mirror, experts at the UK’s first long Covid clinic, at University College Hospital London, estimate that hundreds of thousands of patients are in need of specialist care for ailments ranging from severe fatigue to brain fog. But “so far only 100,000 have been offered treatment”, the paper reported.

3. BTS

The guessing game began last week when the book appeared on multiple bookseller websites under the name 4C Untitled Flatiron Nonfiction Summer 2023. But publishing house Flatiron Books has solved the mystery by revealing that the eagerly anticipated release is about the K-pop boyband and will be published in July under the title Beyond the Story: 10-Year Record of BTS.

4. Bradford

Research by Betway found that the West Yorkshire city was the least sunny in the UK, followed by. Blackpool and Aberdeen.

5. 63%

The Washington Post/ABC poll of more than 1,000 people found that 43% believed that 80-year-old Biden and Donald Trump, 76, are both too old to serve another term. If Biden is re-elected in 2024, he would be 82 when he takes office and 86 when his second term ends.

6. Birmingham

The airport was the worst for a second year in a row, with flights in 2022 leaving half an hour behind schedule on average. East Midlands Airport was the top performer, with average delays of just 13 minutes, while the UK average was 23 minutes, according to data from the Civil Aviation Authority.

7. The lead actor’s race

Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities released a statement emphasising that “Queen Cleopatra had light skin and Hellenistic (Greek) features”, and criticising Netflix for casting British actor Adele James, who “possesses African features and dark skin”. Find out more on the latest episode of The Week Unwrapped podcast.

8. Plastic

Many microorganisms can digest plastic at temperatures above 30C, but the discovery by researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute paves the way for a much more energy-efficient method of recycling.

9. Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce

The 36-year-old Jamaican sprinter beat a field that included swimmer Katie Ledecky, tennis star Iga Świątek and 400m hurdles record-holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. Lionel Messi was named sportsman of the year at the awards in Paris on Monday.

10. Lunches that include insects

North London Collegiate School will trial dishes such as Chinese-style noodles with teriyaki grasshopper, sweet chilli and lime crickets, and Mexican rice topped with buffalo worms.

The Bank of England’s chief economist has come under fire for urging British people to accept they are poorer.

Warning that inflation risks remaining doggedly high, Huw Pill told a Columbia Law School podcast that “somehow in the UK, someone needs to accept that they’re worse off” and “stop trying to maintain their real spending power by bidding up prices whether through higher wages or passing energy costs on to customers”.

He added: “What we’re facing now is that reluctance to accept that, yes, we’re all worse off and we all have to take our share.”

His remarks have been condemned as a “red rag to the bull” and “absolutely outrageous”, said the BBC. But was he right?

What did the papers say?

The interview will “surely go down as one of the most tin-eared”, wrote Ben Marlow, chief city commentator for The Telegraph, and has “rightly” provoked a “backlash from across the political divide”.

“Almost everyone in some form, and through no fault of their own, is markedly worse off than they were 18 months ago,” said Marlow, so “why shouldn’t people demand more pay if their cost of living has gone through the roof?” To ask for a pay rise is “an entirely normal reaction to seeing everyday life become so eye-wateringly expensive”, he said.

Writing for The Independent, Ryan Coogan, who was brought up by a single mother in “one of the most deprived areas of the UK”, said that “for me, for my family, and for the people I grew up around, ‘accepting’ that we’re poor has never been an option”.

“Throwing our hands up and saying ‘you got me, Huw, I guess this is just my life now’ is unacceptable,” he said. “Even if you can’t improve your lot in any meaningful way, you have to fight like hell to. Because if you don’t, what’s the alternative?”

Reporting from a community centre in Wolverhampton, the local authority with the highest fuel poverty rate in England, Jessica Murray of The Guardian said the economist’s “choice of language has riled those who come face to face with the reality of the cost-of-living crisis on a daily basis”.

Pill “isn’t going to win a popularity contest”, but he is right, said Ross Clark for The Spectator. “In an economy which is stagnant, where productivity is flat”, it “ought to be obvious that we can’t all have a real-terms pay rise”, he argued.

Clark added that “certain groups of workers” can have a pay rise “at the expense of others”, or “we can all have a nominal pay rise”, but inflation “ensures we cannot have the economic equivalent of a perpetual motion machine” because “if wages go up in a stagnant economy, prices will rise to match”.

What next?

Behind Pill’s remarks is a fear that inflation, rather than falling this year as previously predicted, might remain at its current level. Economists at the Bank of England are “worried” that “as workers try to bid up their wages to protect their finances from inflation and businesses raise prices to shield profit margins”, high inflation will “become a permanent fixture of the UK economy”, explained City A.M..

In March, inflation in the UK dropped by less than expected, to 10.1%. In contrast, annual price growth in the eurozone is 6.9%, and 5% in the US. This “extra stickiness” in the UK’s inflation is “linked to a few factors”, said the Financial Times. Energy prices have been “the driving force behind European inflation” and “the plunge in wholesale natural gas prices, and thus the decline in inflation, is filtering through faster in some EU countries compared with the UK” partly due to differences in how consumer energy prices are set.

Britain’s underlying inflation is higher than in many advanced economies, it added, “in part down to a unique set of factors causing labour shortages, including early retirement, sickness and a change in immigration rules post-Brexit”. Nevertheless, predicted the paper in a leader comment, “prior interest rate increases will increasingly filter through, weigh down demand, raise unemployment, and ease price pressures”.

“Barring another big energy price shock”, the UK’s cost-of-living pressures “should be easing over the coming year,” agreed Mehreen Khan, economics editor, and Oliver Wright, policy editor, in The Times. Inflation will “automatically drop from March” as “the rate of annual price increases will no longer include the sharp spikes in gas and oil prices recorded last year”.

However, they added, “even on current trends”, the Office for Budget Responsibility does not expect incomes to have recovered to 2019 levels until 2028 at the earliest.

“Pill’s comments about the UK being poorer are indisputably true,” they said, but the idea of accepting this is “out of step” with the Bank’s own analysis that “wage pressures will subside from the second half of the year”.

The Brexit process has taken a new step forward, this time in Northern Ireland. BBC News reports that British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and European Union leader Ursula von der Leyen on Monday announced an agreement to "fix post-Brexit problems" in Northern Ireland that left the region in a state of limbo following the United Kingdom's exit from the EU. The issue had long complicated relations between the U.K. and Europe, and Reuters reports that officials hope the agreement provides a fresh start for the two. "This is the beginning of a new chapter in our relationship," Sunak said at Monday's news conference. Why was Northern Ireland a point of contention over Brexit? What does the new agreement do? Here's everything you need to know:

What was going on with Northern Ireland and Brexit?

Northern Ireland occupies complicated political and geographic territory in both the United Kingdom and Europe. (This might be an understatement.) It is part of the United Kingdom — unlike Ireland, right next door, which is an independent and sovereign nation. Ireland is part of the European Union while the U.K. — after Brexit — is not, but Ireland and Northern Ireland share one big island as well as a long and troubled history. And after Brexit, the idea of putting up a hard customs border between Ireland and the EU on one side and Northern Ireland and the U.K. on the other proved to be knotty. As the BBC reports, officials were leery during Brexit of putting up "cameras or border posts" between Northern Ireland and Ireland for fear it would damage the 1990s-era "Good Friday" peace agreement that ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland and which had demilitarized the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. But of course, the whole point of Brexit was to re-establish a hard border between the U.K. and the rest of Europe.

So what was the Northern Ireland protocol?

At its most basic, it means that when the United Kingdom left the European Union, Northern Ireland kinda-sorta stayed in the EU while also still remaining part of the U.K., a neither-fish-nor-foul situation that made nobody very happy. "To avoid the need for a hard border with Ireland and to prevent goods flowing unchecked into the EU's single market, former prime minister Boris Johnson agreed to effectively leave Northern Ireland within the EU's single market for goods," Reuters explains. That meant that there was "effectively" a customs border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland — and that border worked both ways, The Guardian notes: "Products arriving into Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. are subject to checks and controls." It's as if there were a customs border between Texas and the rest of the United States.

So why is it being changed?

The Washington Post reports that unionists in Northern Ireland — the folks who like being part of the U.K. instead of reuniting with Ireland — felt the protocol "undermines Northern Ireland's place within the U.K." (And indeed, the Democratic Unionist Party has refused to participate in Northern Ireland's government until its concerns are addressed, leaving the region with neither an executive nor a legislative assembly.) Businesses in Great Britain didn't like it much either. U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had proposed creating a "green lane" and a "red lane" for those businesses — with the green lane being reserved for "trusted" firms that promised their goods were going only into Northern Ireland and not across the border into Ireland and the EU.

What is actually changing, then?

As our British counterparts at The Week U.K. report, the "green lane" system is indeed part of the agreement. And they quote Sky News reporting that "British products such as trees, plants and seed potatoes will be available in [Northern Ireland] and pet travel requirements have been removed." But the centerpiece provision is something called the "Stormont brake" — which the BBC reports gives the Northern Ireland Assembly the "ability to pull an 'emergency brake' if it disagrees with an EU goods law which 'would have significant, and lasting effects on everyday lives.'" That means the U.K. government could potentially veto EU laws in Northern Ireland, though "it's unclear what would happen" if the veto is exercised, and von der Layden stressed her hope the provision would never be used. The U.K. government's summary of the agreement can be found here.

What's next?

The New York Times reports the hope is that the agreement "could avert a potential trade war between Britain and the European Union and open the door to the restoration of Northern Ireland's government." But there are a few steps to take along the way. The U.K. Parliament will have to approve the deal, but it's not clear that Sunak's allies in the Conservative Party will back his play. Politico reports that the Labor Party is ready to support Sunak's agreement, "although an outcome that sees him rely on opposition support would be politically toxic for the U.K. prime minister." That may not be a problem: BBC's Nicholas Watt tweets that Tory MPs are "encouraged" by the deal. Meanwhile, the Democratic Unionist Party is expected to gather in the coming days to consider its response. If all goes well, the U.K. government document suggests that various parts of the agreement will be phased in over the next two years, give or take. For the moment, the future of Northern Ireland is still up for grabs.

Tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, peppers and citrus fruits are in short supply at UK supermarkets, with fears the empty shelves could last for several weeks.

The recent shortages have caused widespread concern, with photos on social media of empty supermarket shelves, from “customers of Waitrose, Morrisons, Waitrose and Aldi”, said the i news site. Some questioned the effect that Brexit might have had, while others mentioned overall rising prices in the country.

Poor weather conditions in Spain and Morocco “have been compounded by transportation difficulties and a lack of European glasshouse production as a result of the energy crisis”, said National World. These factors “have driven up wholesale food prices by half in some instances”, said the news site.

Paul Rowe, from Poupart Imports, which supplies independent retailers and UK wholesalers, told National World that the shortages could last for “several weeks”.

Poor weather has affected supplies...

Spain and Morocco, “known in the industry as Europe’s breadbaskets at this time of year”, according to National World, are the source of most of the UK’s fresh produce.

Warm weather in early January followed by “freezing conditions and extreme wind and rain storms” has hit crops in both countries, added the website.

Since Brexit, UK importers have “become increasingly reliant on Morocco”, said The Telegraph, as new trading arrangements have “slowed” the movement of produce from other European countries. But storms in Morocco have meant produce has not been able to be shipped to the UK as normal.

... and prices are rising as a result

Farmers in Britain have been “planting fewer vegetables… due to the rising cost of heating greenhouses”, according to the i news site.

Supermarkets have also been “unwilling to pay higher prices to cover the cost of producing fresh fruit and vegetables in the UK year-round”, farmers told the site.

Rowe told National World that “it [is] the wholesale price dynamics that [are] driving the shortages”. There have been some instances, he says, where growers have refused to unload their produce because UK supermarkets refuse to pay more for it.

Growing a tomato cost 27% more last year than it did in 2021, according to research by the National Farmers Union. This caused the cost of a kilogram of tomatoes to rise from £2.09 in January 2020 to £2.96 in February 2023, said the Office for National Statistics.

Similar spikes in costs “were found with other crops, including lettuce, broccoli and potatoes”, said i news.

How long will it last?

Tesco, Aldi, Asda and Morrisons have all introduced fresh produce rationings into their stores, the Independent reported.

Tesco and Asda now allows only “three items per customer” of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers at its stores. Additionally Asda has put rations on cauliflower, lettuce, broccoli and raspberries, said Sky News.

The shortages, Rowe told National World, will most likely last for a month, until “new crops start to come out of Northern Europe”. He recommended that customers try shopping for high-demand goods in independent retailers “where price is less of a factor”.

However, the UK will have a “difficult year” ahead, he said, as “many growers” are still “choosing not to plant vegetables due to uncertainties over return”.

Many British farmers have been planting wheat over produce, “as it’s less expensive to grow and lasts longer”, Jack Ward, chief executive of the British Growers Association, told the i news site.

Whether it’s climate or rising energy prices driving these shortages, Liz Webster, the Save British Farming chair, believes the government needs to take action.

She blamed Brexit and said “this disastrous Conservative government…has no interest in food production, farming or even food supply”, the Independent reported.

The “clock is ticking”, Webster said, for the government to lower inflation and provide subsidies to farmers so that they may continue to grow produce more regularly.

Therese Coffey, the environment secretary, denied that the government was in any way responsible, saying: “We can’t control the weather in Spain.”

UK zoos have been warned that breeding schemes for bison, rhinos, monkeys and other endangered animals are being harmed by Brexit. Previously, about 1,400 animals a year were transferred between British aquariums or zoos and those in Europe but red tape meant that last year, the number fell to just over 200, said The Times. Mark Habben, a director at the Wildwood Trust, said: “We’re in the middle of a climate crisis and an extinction crisis. Yet we’re being hindered by paperwork. It’s ridiculous.”

Oldest person says her secret is avoiding toxic people

The world’s oldest person has credited her longevity on “staying away from toxic people”, reported Sky News. Maria Branyas Morera, 115, who was born in San Francisco in 1907, has three children, 11 grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren. In 2020, she fought off Covid within days at the age of 113. In her Twitter bio she says she is “very old but not an idiot”. Writing on the social network, she said she had lived so long thanks to “lots of positivity, and staying away from toxic people”.

Mr Blobby auction winner backs out

The winner of an online auction to buy an original Mr Blobby costume has dramatically backed out just an hour after bidding £62,000 for the prized memorabilia. The outfit was originally listed on eBay for £39 but the price soared after the page went viral on social media. The seller, a former BBC employee who wished to remain anonymous, said they were not surprised when the winning bidder backed out. “I don’t think you can lose something you’ve never had,” they said in reference to the value of the winning bid.

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Six years on from the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union, the country finds itself contending with a cost-of-living crisis and plunging towards a recession.

In his Autumn Statement, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced tax rises and public spending cuts he said were necessary for the UK to give “the world confidence in our ability to pay our debts” as he sought to plug a fiscal black hole calculated by the Treasury to be worth some £55bn.

The UK is “not alone in its financial woes”, said Euronews, and like many other European nations, it is having to confront “the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, a supply crunch, soaring inflation and rising interest rates” as well as historically high energy prices due to the war in Ukraine. But some economists have argued that Brexit has been the major factor in worsening the country’s finances “and will continue to do so”, said the news site.

UK a ‘global laggard’

The extent to which Brexit is truly to blame for the UK’s economic stagnation is not “clear-cut”, said Rosie Carr, deputy editor of Investors Chronicle. Brexiteers “point out that labour shortages stem from the pandemic, not Brexit, and that higher borrowing costs and higher energy prices have nothing to do with Brexit”, while many EU countries are also facing their “own economic troubles”.

Nevertheless, the UK is a notable “global laggard” when it comes to its post-pandemic economic recovery, continued Carr. She pointed to figures from the Centre for European Reform that found that, while global price hikes in manufactured goods and commodities had the biggest impact on inflation, “in the final quarter of 2021 UK GDP was 5.2% smaller than if the UK had remained in the EU; that investment was 13.7% smaller and goods trade 13.6 % smaller”.

Meanwhile, research from the Economic and Social Research Institute released in October suggests that the impact of Brexit has significantly hindered trade from the UK to the EU and vice versa. The institute compared UK-EU trade to a “scenario in which Brexit had not occurred” and found that goods trade from the UK to the EU was 16% down on anticipated levels if Brexit had not happened, while trade from the EU to the UK fell 20%.

Michael Saunders, a former Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee member, told Bloomberg that the UK economy has been “permanently damaged” by Brexit. In reference to the Autumn Statement, he said that “the need for tax rises and spending cuts wouldn’t be there if Brexit had not reduced the economy’s potential output so much”.

Economy has ‘trundled on’

But while there is “no dispute” that the UK is facing “serious economic problems”, said The Guardian’s economics editor Larry Elliott earlier this month, many of these “predate the Brexit vote in 2016.

“Britain has not run a surplus on trade in goods since the early 1980s, and wages adjusted for inflation have barely grown since the global financial crisis of the late 2000s,” wrote Elliott. And the UK is far from alone in facing a cost of living crisis: “the annual inflation rate for the 19-nation eurozone currently stands at 10.7%, higher than the UK’s 10.1%”, while in the “US inflation peaked at just over 9% in the summer”.

Elliott added that while “all sorts of dire predictions were made for the UK economy at the time of the Brexit vote”, such as warnings that “house prices would tumble, unemployment would rise by 500,000 and the economy would sink into an immediate recession”, six years on “none of it happened. The economy has trundled on.”

And some frequently cited data, such as the view of the Office for Budget Responsibility that Brexit will reduce the UK’s productivity by 4%, bear closer examination, said economists Julian Jessop and Graham Gudgin in The Telegraph.

While it would be “odd to deny that the increase in trade frictions between the UK and EU has had any negative impact”, they argue that “it is not clear that there has been a significant drop in trade intensity, at least in the latest data, or that the drop that has happened is primarily due to Brexit”.

It is a “huge leap to assume, as the OBR does, that this is a permanent hit which will reduce the long-term productivity of the UK by as much as 4 per cent”, they added.

“The lack of evidence of significant economic harms from Brexit is particularly important because it was always likely that most costs would be upfront and relatively visible,” Jessop and Gudgin argue. “In contrast, the main upside of Brexit was always the increased freedom to develop distinctive economic policies, whose benefits would take longer to come through,” they added.

Boris Johnson became prime minister on the promise that Brexit would bring prosperity and pride. Did it? Here's everything you need to know:

How did Brexit come about?

The United Kingdom narrowly voted to leave the European Union in a 2016 referendum after a bitter campaign rife with misinformation and racism. The main cheerleader for the Leave camp was Boris Johnson, who claimed loudly, repeatedly, and falsely that Britain was sending 350 million pounds to the EU every week. Brexit, he said, would give Britons their money back — as well as let them set their own immigration policy, so they wouldn't have to accept so many asylum seekers or EU migrants. After negotiations with the EU over the terms of the exit dragged on for years, Johnson resoundingly won the prime ministership in 2019 on the pledge to "get Brexit done." Now he is leaving 10 Downing Street in a cloud of lies and scandal, and while Brexit is done, few are happy with the result. Britain's GDP per capita has grown just 3.8 percent since the referendum, while the EU's has leaped 8.5 percent. Companies are struggling to recruit skilled workers, and trade with Europe has slumped. "If you can't ship your goods into the biggest market on your doorstep," said Gyr King, chief executive of King & McGaw, a print company, "you have got to be shooting yourself in the foot."

What was Brexit supposed to bring?

In laying out his case for Brexit in The Telegraph ahead of the referendum, Johnson focused mostly on sovereignty issues, saying that up to 60 percent of new British legislation was being written in Brussels and that Britons must take back their country. He was long on stirring rhetoric and short on economic specifics. Other prominent Brexit supporters, such as then-Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, floated the prospect of the U.K. as Singapore-on-Thames, a low-tax and low-regulation haven that would thrive by attracting international business. The U.K., such supporters said, would strike its own, more advantageous trade agreements with the U.S. and other countries.

How much of that happened?

Not much. Yes, the British no longer are bound by EU legislation. But the Brexit deal that Johnson reluctantly backed tied British regulatory policy closely to that of Europe (because otherwise the EU wouldn't buy British goods) and generated costly red tape. In one of the U.K.'s four constituent countries, Northern Ireland, EU law still largely reigns, because the EU refused to jeopardize Irish peace by erecting a hard border across the island of Ireland. Instead, there is a customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of Britain, a rift that infuriates many Northern Irish. And because Johnson keeps trying to rewrite that provision of the Brexit agreement, the U.S. — which had taken the lead in writing the Irish peace accords — has refused to sign a major trade agreement with the U.K.

How is Britain's economy?

It's not in good shape. Immediately after the referendum, the pound fell 10 percent, and it has not recovered. That pushed up prices of imports and delivered what the Center for Economic Policy Research called "a swift negative shock to U.K. living standards." Things deteriorated further when the U.K. actually left the European single market in December 2020, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. The flow of goods snarled because of the loss of European truck drivers, and manufacturing took a hit because firms were shut out of EU supply chains. Just a decade ago, the average Briton was about as wealthy as the average German; now that Brit is 15 percent poorer than the German. Brexit Minister Jacob Rees-Mogg was ridiculed recently when, asked to name the economic benefits of Brexit, he resorted to touting the avoidance of a 2 percent hike in the price of fish sticks.

Surely there were other pluses?

Britain has indeed taken back control of its immigration policy, and it no longer pays dues to the EU. Some argue that immigration is now fairer, since EU members are no longer automatically favored — although immigration rates have remained steady, rather than dropping as promised. The U.K. has also adopted stronger polices than the EU on animal welfare, an issue dear to British hearts, and has banned the export of live farm animals. More generally, Brexit has had a significant psychological effect, restoring a sense of proud independence to a nation that never quite got over losing its empire. Still, that renewal of English patriotism has a dark side: The Brexit campaign demonized immigrants, and hate crimes have more than doubled since 2015. In a recent poll, just 17 percent of Brits said Brexit had made their lives better.

How will Johnson's departure affect Brexit?

The Conservative Party's race to replace Johnson as prime minister, pitting Foreign Secretary Liz Truss against former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, has taken shape as an ideological battle over Britain's post-EU future. It's become Tory orthodoxy to express no regret over Brexit, and Truss, the favorite, took some flak for having voted Remain. But she now supports the Singapore-on-Thames option, saying she would slash regulation. Sunak, by contrast, would spend on social services and raise taxes on corporations. Meanwhile, -the opposition Labour Party under Keir Starmer has adopted the new slogan "Make Brexit Work," vowing that if it took power it would make the most of what it calls a "poor deal." Other key Labour figures, though, including London Mayor Sadiq Khan, want the U.K. to rejoin the European single market. Brexit, Khan said, is "the biggest piece of self-inflicted harm ever done to a country."

A divided kingdom

Brexit has weakened the bonds among the U.K.'s four countries: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The new customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K. is a symbolic break between Belfast and London, and there's now talk among Northern Irish nationalists of holding a long-shot referendum on leaving the U.K. to unify with Ireland. Scotland is even more likely to hold an ­independence vote. Most Scots, 62 percent, voted to remain in the EU, and many want to rejoin. While Scottish voters rejected independence in 2014, in a poll last year more than half said they wanted another referendum. Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is currently battling in court to give them one. "Scottish democracy," she said, "will not be a prisoner."

This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, you can try six risk-free issues of the magazine here

UK officials have blamed French authorities for long delays at Dover that have left holidaymakers and hauliers stuck in six-hour queues to board ferries over to mainland Europe.

“In the early hours of the first day of the summer holidays, French border guards opened as few as four out of ten booths, leading to accusations that the disruption was deliberate,” The Telegraph reported. Brexit opportunities minister Jacob Rees-Mogg told the paper that “British holidays are being sabotaged by France’s incompetence” and failure to provide enough staff for French passport checks, which have been conducted in Dover since 2004 under the Le Touquet Treaty.

The resulting chaos on what was expected to be the busiest weekend for traffic crossing in more than two years “will hit the French economy and British families alike”, Rees-Mogg added.

‘Fake news’

French authorities “have hit back at claims they are to blame”, said the i news site. Calais MP Pierre-Henri Dumont described the accusations as “fake news” and said the delays were caused by Brexit and the requirement to stamp every passport. Dumont also pointed to a lack of investment in Dover’s port, which he said was three times smaller than its counterpart in Calais.

Port of Dover boss Doug Bannister initially sided with British politicians in blaming a lack of French border guards for the chaos, but later admitted to LBC that it was “absolutely true” that Brexit was ultimately to blame. In “a post-Brexit environment”, he said, the “transaction times through the borders are going to take longer”.

The Independent reported that “observations of cars at the border checks” indicated a typical time of 90 seconds for a family of four to have their documents checked, “probably three times longer than before the post-Brexit rules took effect”.

Kent Online reported that one of the vehicles in the queues this weekend was a truck driven by activists from anti-Brexit campaign group Led by Donkeys that was displaying a massive screen featuring footage of Boris Johnson, Rees-Mogg and David Davis promising free-flowing traffic at Dover.

In 2020, the Financial Times reported that the UK Cabinet Office had rejected a £33m proposal to double the capacity for French government passport checks at Dover, “raising the prospect of long delays for passengers after the end of the Brexit transition period”.

“Until a fully automated border system is operational,” said The Guardian, “passport stamps are now required at most entry and exit points, significantly increasing processing times.”

And the disruption at Dover “may get worse when new biometric checks are brought in as part of the new European Union entry/exit system (EES) for third party requirements”, the paper added. These checks, being introduced next year, may require people to leave their vehicles for biometric checks similar to those at airports.

The current delays are expected to ease in the coming weeks, “but the basic problem remains the road network in east Kent and the port infrastructure – which was specified and built with no thought that it would become a frontier as hard as those the EU has with Russia and Turkey”, said The Independent.

1. Six years ago today, I voted Leave – would I do the same again?

Sean O’Grady in the Independent

on saying sorry

Six years ago, writes Sean O’Grady, “I made a terrible, terrible mistake” by voting Leave in the referendum. “I thought Brexit would work, or at least could work and create the conditions to build a more competitive economy, and therefore a more prosperous one.” Writing in the Independent, he says “people like me understated how difficult life would be outside the EU, and overestimated the degree of freedom we could have in terms of access to crucial European markets as well as fast-growing economies around the world”. O’Grady “thought we could have our cake and eat it – keep most of what we liked about EU membership, and ditch the bits we didn’t want”. He concludes: “I’m sorry to say that, with rare exceptions, no one who voted Leave in 2016 properly understood what it would really entail to make it a success. Me included. I’m sorry.”

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2. Why we are ready to strike: a panel of workers respond

Nicola Jukes in The Guardian

on poor maintenance

Railway ticket office worker Nicola Jukes writes in The Guardian that the government “keeps spinning” that rail workers are on £44,000, but “some of my colleagues are on just above the national minimum wage, so I’m voting for a pay rise and for no changes to our conditions”. However, she adds, “the most important reason for me to put a yes on my ballot paper is the proposed loss of maintenance staff within Network Rail”, which she believes “will be the downfall of our railway”. Adding that she “nearly died in the Hatfield crash” in October 2000, she writes that “four people died needlessly that day because proper maintenance had not been carried out” on tracks. “So, Mr Grant Shapps, this is not just about our pay,” she says.

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3. Has Wimbledon simply forgotten Peng Shuai?

Kate Maltby for The i

on double standards

Kate Maltby understands why Russian players are banned from this summer’s Wimbledon tennis tournament. “The prospect of the Russian national anthem playing across the tennis fields while the Duchess of Cambridge hands the Wimbledon trophy to Daniil Medvedev would be a Russian propaganda coup nobody in SW19 wants to risk,” she writes in the i. “The problem for Wimbledon, however, is that once you discover you’ve got proud principles about standing up to international tyrants, you need to apply them consistently.” Maltby reminds us that Peng Shuai, China’s leading female tennis player, is still missing six months after publicly complaining that she had been forced into a non-consensual sexual relationship by a powerful Chinese politician. Yet China is not banned and is therefore “paying no price for what looks like a human rights atrocity perpetrated against a member of the international tennis community itself”, she writes.

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4. Basket-case Britain is the definitive proof lockdown was an epic mistake

Allister Heath in The Telegraph

on Covid consequences

“Why is anybody surprised?” asks Allister Heath in The Telegraph. “You can’t lock down an economy and a society, pay millions of people to do nothing, spend and borrow and print tens of billions of pounds, and expect there to be no consequences, no day of reckoning, no bill to pay.” He argues that Britain’s “inflationary tsunami”, the rail strikes, the chaos at the airports, the “incompetence, decay and decline,” can all be “directly traced to Covid and lockdowns”. He said we are “now paying” for furlough and other support schemes “via a vicious stealth pay cut worth 5-10% in real terms, and a multi-year 15-20% decline in the value of cash”. Heath wonders “what would have happened to support for lockdowns had voters been aware that payback would be so prompt” and that “[Boris] Johnson’s handouts were a loan with an extortionate rate of interest, not a gift?”

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5. ‘Choke lit’ bestsellers are a troubling trend

Laura Freeman in The Times

on literary violence

Laura Freeman has “noticed something odd” in her recent reading: “In the last two novels I’ve bought, the heroine is choked during sex.” She adds that: “This isn’t about literary merit. These may not be Very Nice books, but each is, in its own way, gripping. This isn’t about sex, either. It’s about violence.” Writing in The Times, Freeman calls it “choke lit”. She doesn’t want to be “prim and prohibitive” because “there’s no accounting for kink” but “the old British ‘slap-and-tickle’ seems to have become the new British ‘slap-and-throttle’”. She warns readers that “when choking goes wrong, it goes fatally wrong” as “restricting the airway can cause ‘euphoria’ and it can cause death” as consciousness is lost within four seconds. “Trigger warnings aren’t usually my thing, but I wish each of these books had a note about those four short seconds,” she writes.

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1. Princess Margaret sacrificed herself

Henry Oliver at UnHerd

on playing the celebrity sister

“Poor old Princess Margaret” died 20 years ago today, writes Henry Oliver at UnHerd. Despite being “trashy and appalling, rude and condescending, and, frankly, low brow” in the eyes of the “public intellectuals” who recorded anecdotes of her escapades in their diaries, “the elites found her irresistible”. Oliver argues that “living off the public purse makes you fair game for voyeuristic bitching” and “many intelligent people think it is acceptable, maybe even clever, to treat you like you’re an animal”. But Margaret “defies” the stereotype of “a selfish, useless celebrity”. She was “a great charity worker”, and there are plenty of stories that make her seem “not just nice but remarkably normal – the opposite of the character drawn by gossipy republicans”. “Like Kate and Meghan”, Margaret and her sister are “presented as stereotyped female opposites: the good wife and the wayward celebrity, the modest Queen and the flagrant Princess”.

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2. How space is changing the nature of war

Gabe Arrington and Justin W. Chandler at The Hill

on an important deal

“In January, the Air Force Research Laboratory changed the nature of warfare, and most people missed it,” say Lieutenant Colonels Gabe Arrington and Justin W. Chandler at The Hill. SpaceX was awarded $102m (£75m) to “explore point-to-point rocket cargo technology”, with an aim to deliver cargo or personnel “anywhere in the world within an hour”. The contract between the Vanguard Program and SpaceX “signals a historic revolution in the direction of military strategy”, though “the thought of rocket cargo delivery may seem novel to most”. The significance of the agreement is two-fold, the writers say. It indicates that “the Department of Defense (DOD) is ready to partner with industry at a larger scale with respect to space”, and it “signals the importance of ‘expanded manoeuvre in time and space’ on the future of warfare”, implying a “greater emphasis on strategic deterrence”. The US military “is not alone” in recognising that “the nature of warfare has changed”. China has been investing in similar areas, and has a “capital advantage over the current US marketplace”. The writers say that “as the nature of warfare changes, the relationship between industry and the DOD is now more important than ever”.

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3. We now have a ‘minister for Brexit opportunities’ – let that sink in

Tom Peck at The Independent

on a surprise promotion

“What, you may ask, could possibly do more to silence the nation’s incalculable rage about a prime minister breaking the law then lying about it for months on end, than a brand-new made-up job for Jacob Rees-Mogg?” asks Tom Peck at The Independent. Johnson’s mini reshuffle saw Rees-Mogg promoted to minister for Brexit opportunities and government efficiency. “Just pause and drink that in,” says Peck. Two years after the UK officially left the EU, the government has had to “create an actual minister to try and find something – anything – that’s good to say about it”. The promotion “must have come as something of a shock to Rees-Mogg himself”, who back in September 2018 “was out claiming that a no-deal Brexit would be worth £1trn to the British economy, a statement which he would have to disown before he’d even officially made it”. This is the minister who refused “initially at least, to let MPs vote from home”, and who made the “constant and repeated claim that Tory MPs don’t need to wear face masks because they are ‘convivial’ with one another and the virus doesn’t pass between friends”. And “they’ve put that man in charge of ‘government efficiency’”. Operation Save Big Dog “on it goes”.

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4. The politics of protest have been getting uglier for years but this is the first time we’ve had a Prime Minister who would be claimed as the patron saint of morons

Janet Street-Porter at Mail Online

on dirty tactics

We live in an “increasingly coarse, brutal world. But has Boris made it more dangerous?” asks Janet Street-Porter. Writing at the Mail Online, she says she believes in the “right to disagree”, but “tagging someone a paedophile-sympathiser when they are innocent […] isn’t a good look”. And neither is “accusing” your parliamentary “rival of turning a blind eye to one of the worst examples of sex abuse this country has ever seen”. Boris thinks he can “lie one day” and “apologise the next, but we know he’s just playing with words”. Street-Porter quotes the husband of MP Jo Cox: “words lead to consequences.” People “watch our leader and think the jokes, the buffoonery at the dispatch box and the gratuitous way he plays fast and loose with the facts mean he's a comedian”. But “crass behaviour […] is more catching than Covid”. With a prime minister “who is happy to turn to scummy tactics”, “why should we be surprised when protesters” follow suit “to get their voices heard”, she asks. And while it’s “tempting” to look to the US “and claim that Trump’s lies and rhetoric” are “infecting us here”, she disagrees: “it’s not true. We infected ourselves.”

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5. The main party’s stance on the cost-of-living crisis: Political Emissions

The Times View

on poor planning

“There is no question that soaring energy costs are a serious political issue,” says The Times. But much debate around the cost-of-living crisis “lacks seriousness”. Tory members of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group are demanding the government cut green levies and embrace further investment in fossil fuels, “effectively delaying the transition to clean energy”. On the other side, the Labour Party is “urging the government to levy a windfall tax on oil and gas companies”, with the aim of using the money to cut energy costs for poorer families. “Both proposals are misguided and likely to prove counterproductive,” says the newspaper. David Cameron’s government decision “to ‘cut the green crap’ by banning onshore wind farms, scrapping zero-carbon requirements on new homes and removing subsidies for home energy efficiency is now costing an extra £2.5bn a year”. The solution is that the current government can’t “repeat past policy mistakes”, and instead “a comprehensive plan to deliver on net-zero targets” is what’s needed. One fit to do the job relies on “vast amounts of investment, which can only come from the private sector”. A “serious plan” would include reforms to tax and benefits too, “but where are the serious politicians willing to confront this challenge?”

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Nigel Farage, former leader of the U.K. Independence and Brexit parties, and Andy Murray, a Scottish tennis player formerly ranked No. 1 in the world, sparred on Twitter after Farage tweeted in support of Novak Djokovic.

Djokovic, the Serbian tennis player currently ranked No. 1 in the world, won his appeal Monday and will be allowed to compete in the Australian Open. The Australian government attempted to deport Djokovic for violating the country's public health rules after he arrived in the country Wednesday without having first received the COVID-19 vaccine.

Farage has repeatedly expressed his support for Djokovic.

The spat began when Farage tweeted a video from Belgrade on Sunday captioned "In the trophy room with Novak's brother Djordje." The video showed the Brexit architect examining the trophies the tennis star has accrued over the course of his career, which includes a record-tying number of Grand Slam singles titles.

Murray fired back, accusing Farage of hypocrisy for hobnobbing with the Serbian athlete's family after spending "most of your career campaigning to have people from Eastern Europe deported."

Farage answered by tweeting that Murray doesn't "understand politics or the Brexit campaign" and is "filled with prejudice." He encouraged Murray to "[c]oncentrate on the tennis."

Murray got in the last word with a tweet that consisted entirely of the "Fishing Pole and Fish" emoji.

Social media users often use that emoji to indicate that someone is "fishing for attention."

It could, however, also be a reference to a viral March letter to the editor of the Yorkshire Post, which accused Farage of harming the British fishing industry.

1. The Johnson factor

Mujtaba Rahman for Politico Europe

on future relations

“The relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union was never going to be easy after Brexit – and so far, it sure hasn’t been,” says Mujtaba Rahman at Politico. Disagreements over the Northern Ireland Protocol and Anglo-French relations have “marred” the past year, and whether the next 12 months “will be better or worse really depends upon one question: the fate of the Prime Minister Boris Johnson”. The PM is currently “embroiled in his deepest crisis since assuming the top job”, and faces “mounting pressure on multiple fronts”. The UK’s “rapidly darkening domestic backdrop… has reduced Johnson’s stomach for a fight with Brussels even further”, says Rahman. If Johnson “doesn’t make it”, Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss could take his place. Sunak “would likely adopt a more pragmatic approach”, while the foreign secretary “would likely stick to Johnson’s hardball approach”. It’s clear that relations between the UK and EU “aren’t going to get better” with Johnson in charge, but “his departure doesn’t guarantee that they wouldn’t get worse”.

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2. Burnt-out and underpaid social workers can’t be blamed for every Arthur and Star Hobson

Vince Peart for the Daily Mirror

on protection and responsibility

Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson were “two innocent and defenceless children who died at the hands of those who should have loved them most”, writes Vince Peart at The Mirror. The child protection practitioner and independent social worker says that their “tragically short lives will have turned the public’s stomach sick with grief and anger”. And “as questions are rightly asked” about how their deaths could have happened, that both children were involved with social services “will be brought to the forefront of the debate”. There can be “no shying away from the fact” that in both these children’s cases “there were indeed missed opportunities for intervention”. But “social workers did not murder these children, and the blame cannot be laid solely at the feet of professionals”. The issues, says Peart, “are systematic and societal”, and as such “require systematic and societal responses”. If lessons are truly to be learnt, “then we must start by building up the social work profession instead of knocking it down”.

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3. The Tory grassroots will never forgive Boris

Madeline Grant for The Telegraph

on missed opportunities

“Since her departure Theresa May has enjoyed a post-No 10 rehabilitation of sorts,” says Madeline Grant at The Telegraph. She’s gone from “weak, unpopular Calamity Jane to unofficial Queen of the backbenches”, and “has been an articulate, effective thorn in the Government’s side” on “everything from lockdown to Afghanistan”. One can imagine May in the future “swanning about future Tory conferences as grande dame”. Grant asks: “when the time comes, will the Tory grassroots be so forgiving of Bozza?” The pandemic has certainly “dealt the PM a particularly terrible hand”. Even so, “he is arguably the first PM since Thatcher to have a meaningful chance to define his own form of Conservatism, yet ‘Johnsonism’ remains amorphous”. No other Tory leader in recent years has had “such a unique opportunity to implement vital reform or make conservatism palatable to future generations”. And equally, “none has squandered it quite so quickly”.

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4. The truth will come out on the Jan. 6 insurrection

Scot Lehigh for The Boston Globe

on ignoring messages

“The truth is dripping out about the events of the 6 January US Capitol insurrection,” says Scot Lehigh at The Boston Globe. For Donald Trump and his son, “and his Fox News sycophants, the drops are as corrosive as acid”. Text messages sent to and from former chief of staff Mark Meadows “help untangle the truth” of what was happening in the White House that day. “Meadows received frantic messages” from members of his administration and congress, calling for the president “to do something to stop the mayhem”. Even Donald Trump Jr, “not necessarily the most perspicacious observer abroad in the land, realised this was disaster”. Meadows’s own texts reveal he agreed with the president’s son “and was pushing Trump hard to do something”. It is now apparent that “Trump was aware of the violence and was being urged... to condemn it forcefully”. It should be obvious “why most of Trumpworld is stonewalling the 6 January committee: the truth is lethal to the former president”.

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5. The ‘West Side Story’ remake we didn’t need

Yarimar Bonilla for The New York Times

on the same old story

Yarimar Bonilla confesses that she never saw the original West Side Story. But writing in The New York Times, she recognises that for first- and second-generation Puerto Ricans living in the US at the time, the 1961 film “offered a recognition of the Puerto Rican presence” in America, despite “the dearth of actual Latino actors, the mishmash of Caribbean and Spanish culture and the deep stereotypes it trafficked in”. The filmmakers behind Steven Spielberg’s 2021 remake of the classic musical “stressed that this one would be different”, and there are many details that the film “gets right”. But even though the two-and-a-half-hour remake “is littered with symbols of Puerto Rico’s nationalist movements”, says Bonilla, “there is no recognition of how people who embraced these symbols have long been surveilled and criminalised by the federal and Puerto Rican governments”. If the director and his team are “truly committed to authentic Latino stories, they would do well to move away from trying to make old representations more palatable to a contemporary public”, and instead “focus on nurturing and supporting” Latino talent.

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Estonia has welcomed thousands of British businesses since Brexit in a huge boost to the technology hub’s rapidly expanding economy.

One of “a number of countries” that offer “digital nomad” visas, the country has seen its tax revenues “swell” as entrepreneurs look to “escape the tangle of regulations and financial obstacles of doing business in Europe”, The New York Times (NYT) said.

Through upping sticks and moving businesses to Estonia, companies “​​can take advantage of the country’s membership in the European Union and therefore gain something Britain has lost”, the paper added. Namely, “free access to the bloc’s giant single market of more than 400 million people”.

Virtual gains

Telling City A.M. that the country is “​​benefiting hugely” from Brexit, Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said in September that Estonia’s “e-residency services” served as a major draw, attracting “more than 4,000 British companies” since the UK formally left the EU.

Pointing out that the country now plays host to seven so-called “unicorn” companies – technology firms with a market value of more than $1bn – she continued that for a nation of “only 1.3m people, this is a lot”.

Kallas explained that Estonia prepared for Brexit by making the business environment as welcoming as possible for “our British friends”.

“When the United Kingdom decided to leave the European Union, many British friends took up our e-residency services,” she said. “It clearly increased after Brexit, even before actually, even when the vote happened, we saw a spike.”

Estonia “was the first country in the world to offer e-residency to people living abroad”, according to The Baltic Times. The service allows business owners to “create and manage” a company registered in the country “entirely virtually”.

Explaining that the country’s tax system, as well as its technology scene and digital infrastructure make Estonia attractive, Kallas added: “99% of companies were established online, it takes under 20 minutes to set up a company in Estonia, and to start operating”.

Companies registered in Estonia “pay 0% corporate income tax if they reinvest in their company”, City A.M. said. Kallas added the government is in a “fight” with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and G7 over the tax system.

“What I don’t understand is that not all countries take up our system; it’s the most competitive system out there”, she said, explaining that the additional business has raised “an additional €51m (£43.5m) in tax”.

For Estonia, the movement of UK companies has “reinforced the country’s reputation as a hub of innovation”, the NYT said, as well as redressing the balance after “an exodus of some of its brightest young workers after 2004, when joining the EU gave its citizens the right to live and work in Britain, then a member country”.

“Now the brain drain is in the other direction,” the paper added.

‘Shopping for countries’

Vicky Brock, a tech entrepreneur who leads a Scotland-based start-up, told the NYT that moving her operation to Estonia allowed her to become a “Brexit refugee”.

Explaining that she began “shopping for countries” that would make trading with the EU easier following the referendum, she added that she “didn’t really know where Estonia was but it shone out on all of those lists”. She plans to hire 30 staff in Tallinn, the Estonian capital, over the coming nine months.

David Fortune, whose company works with European police departments and border guards, told the paper that having served in the Yorkshire police force for 30 years, “I don’t think I’ve ever thought of myself as a digital nomad”.

He moved his business “not because we had a downer on the UK”, but because “it’s just about survival and was necessary to grow our business brand as we wanted it to grow”. Using the e-residency visa, he told the paper he had no plans to move out of the UK.

Amid staff shortages and an exodus of financial jobs from London, the UK “brain drain” is handing a “financial boon” to countries like Estonia, the paper said.

In other words, the “Brexit boost” may have so far landed on foreign shores, City A.M. added.

First it was milk, then fuel, and now UK consumers are struggling to stomach shortages of another everyday staple.

Walkers bosses have been forced to reduce production of the Leicester-based snack maker’s crisps – which are “purchased by nine out of ten UK households”, according to the Leicester Mercury – as a result of a computer glitch during a recent IT system upgrade.

A Walkers spokesperson said the botched upgrade had “disrupted the supply” of some products. “We're doing everything we can to increase production and get people’s favourites back on shelves,” the spokesperson added.

The company is prioritising the making of popular varieties “including cheese and onion, ready salted and salt and vinegar, as well as Quavers and Wotsits”, said The Guardian. But supplies of what Walkers described as “more niche” varieties are shrinking.

The Sun reported last month that PepsiCo, the US food and drink conglomerate that owns Walkers, had asked retailers to stop including its products in promotions, in a bid to avoid shortages. Checks by the newspaper found that Walkers crisps multipacks were already listed as out of stock or unavailable on the websites of supermarkets including Tesco, Ocado, Asda and Morrisons.

Supply chain problems have plagued multiple industries in recent months. The findings of surveys by the Confederation of British Industry suggest that supply shortages are at their worst levels since the 1970s.

The crisis has been exacerbated by manufacturing and shipping disruption resulting from the global pandemic, and by a shortage of HGV lorry drivers, supermarket shelf-stackers and farm workers owing to Brexit.

The supply chain issues are expected to continue in the coming weeks, with fears that Christmas will be affected. In September, farming assocation chiefs warned that Brits were likely to face a “national shortage” of turkeys as a result of Brexit labour shortages.

The possibility of having to go without Walkers crisps too has triggered (tongue-in-cheek) outrage among social media users. “I can tolerate no bog roll, petrol and all the other nonsense but a shortage of Walkers crisps is too much for me,” tweeted one snacks fan.

The Mirror reported that “opportunistic hoarders” are trying to cash in by selling packets of Walkers at inflated prices on eBay. A Leicester-based trader “is listing a 32.5g pack of Walkers salt and vinegar crisps for £6.89 that would usually cost about 60p”, said the paper.

But while crisp lovers are currently feeling the bite of the shortage, the long-term outlook is brighter. The company’s Leicester factory recently underwent a £14m upgrade that included the creation of a new storage facility. According to the Leicester Mercury, the new building is set to increase the factory’s storage capacity by 29%.

Walkers has also continued to stack up healthy profits “despite higher health and safety costs because of the pandemic”, said The Guardian. In 2020, the company turned a profit of £38m from revenues of £265m.

1. Stately homes are a refuge not a battlefield

Clare Foges in The Times

on disputed history

“The good old National Trust has been a tonic for millions of souls,” writes Clare Foges in The Times, but the 126-year-old organisation “now faces a battle for its own”. Ahead of a vote to elect its council, the charity has a “de-pinned grenade whistling towards it” in the form of a group of “heritage traditionalists” called Restore Trust, who present themselves as members “disgruntled at the trust’s capitulation to wokeness”, Foges writes. While many paint Restore Trust as being “old bigots beating against the tide of progress”, their “central charge”, that “the National Trust is in danger of losing sight of what it was created for” is “right”, she continues. The National Trust is intended to be “a custodian” of country houses, preserved for members of the public who have no country home, “not a campaigning organisation”. “Large organisations such as the National Trust talk often about changing their offer lest they look fusty and out of touch, but a lot of us are attracted to the trust experience precisely because it changes little,” writes Foges. “We do not want the trust to reflect the modern world but to be a refuge from it.”

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2. We shouldn’t let a few bad statues spoil our taste for public art

Jane Shilling in The Telegraph

on merit in mediocrity

Described as “dreadful” and “an insult” by critics, a new statue of “Greek diva” Maria Callas unveiled in Athens last week “was not met with universal acclaim”, writes Jane Shilling in The Telegraph. While the “monumental sculptors of the Renaissance or classical Greece and Rome may have felt that theirs was an honoured calling”, to be a public artist today “is to run a gauntlet of cruel scrutiny from the armchair critics of social media”, Shilling writes. But “the intention of public art is generally virtuous; the fact that so much of it is mediocre is not a reason to give up”, she continues. And while “an encounter with a meretricious artwork can sour your day as reliably as a badly cooked meal” one finds that “in art, as in cooking, the memory of the good tends to efface the bad”.

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3. For Uber and Lyft, the rideshare bubble bursts

Greg Bensinger in The New York Times

on falling unicorns

“Piece by piece, the mythology around ridesharing is falling apart,” writes Greg Bensinger in The New York Times. “Uber and Lyft promised ubiquitous self-driving cars as soon as this year,” he writes. “Heck, they even promised flying cars,” amid a litany of other pledges. “Well, none of that has gone as promised” and “now a new study is punching a hole in another of Uber and Lyft’s promised benefits: curtailing pollution”. While it might be “tempting” to “chalk up” many of these broken promises “to marketing and typical corporate chest thumping”, these companies have “skirted laws for years to help drive growth and along the way have made drivers pawns in their race to the bottom”. While it may be true that they offer a “useful service” in some aspects, such as “access to transportation in underserved areas”, it’s clear that “after years of bluster, it’s hard to believe them about much else”.

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4. The gap between reckless Brexit promises and reality will soon be too big to ignore

John Harris in The Guardian

on ‘a cruel deceit’

“What must it be like to be in the inner circles of this government, watching the economy bounce from crisis to crisis?” writes John Harris in The Guardian. “I wonder: in cabinet meetings and ministerial get-togethers, do they laugh at the apparent absurdity of it all, or anxiously exchange estimates of when the roof might finally start to fall in? After all, the central political fact of life in the UK could not be more stark,” Harris continues. “In England and Wales, the contrast between the realities of life outside the EU and what we were promised seems like some cruel deceit at the heart of a family or marriage: silently acknowledged and understood, but so far largely unspoken,” he writes. “Looking to the future, one big political question surely demands to be asked: what happens when some watershed point is reached, and the fact that people were conned becomes inescapable?”

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5. Treating viruses like atomic bombs would help prevent pandemics

Tom Tugendhat in the Financial Times

on valuable lessons

“The first atomic explosion revealed a power that transformed our world,” writes Tom Tugendhat in the Financial Times. “Covid-19 has exposed a similar shared risk – and the gaps in our defences,” says the Conservative MP, who is also the chair of the foreign affairs committee. “We need new global public health powers that can access sites around the world, perhaps modelled on the nuclear sector,” Tugendhat writes. We can learn “valuable lessons” from the atomic industry, he continues. “Scrutiny, peer pressure and the sharing of safety standards are the best protections we have.” While the pandemic “could have been worse”, the “alarm could not have been louder”, says the MP. “We need greater transparency if we are to prevent the local outbreaks of the future from becoming something deadlier.”

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1. The petrol crisis might look bad in the UK, but from France it looks even worse

Eleanor Margolis for the i newspaper

on watching from afar

“It’s easy to idealise other countries when yours is falling apart”, writes Eleanor Margolis for the i newspaper. Margolis has been watching the fuel crisis unfold from “the safe distance of France”, a place that “currently seems like a utopia”, with England looking “more and more like a kleptocratic failed state” every day. On a recent train journey from Paris to the Burgundy countryside, Margolis was “humbled to see entire train carriages full of masked people” – “something that, in London at least, most people seem to have given up on entirely”. This “plus France’s vaccine pass system” may well be why Covid rates are “around seven times higher in the UK than they are in France”, she adds. Britain is just so individualist, says Margolis, from “the refusal to wear masks, to the willing allotment of power to landlords and property developers”. After looking at pictures of Britons “in snaking petrol queues”, is it any wonder, Margolis asks, that “idealism, romanticism even, about France” is so hard to avoid?

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2. The army has skills that government clearly lacks

Andrew Hill for the Financial Times

on an ‘avoidable crisis’

The way you react when the government puts soldiers on the streets “depends on where you live and what you’re going through”, says Andrew Hill in the FT. When forces are deployed to help deal with natural disasters, such as the Bundeswehr in Germany during the recent flooding, it must have been “reassuring to see trained uniformed personnel helping out”, he says. But the government’s appeal to the army “to help relieve an avoidable crisis over a lack of petrol-tanker drivers” provokes a different response in Hill: it merely signals “that someone in the civilian chain of command messed up”. “The army, air force and navy offer qualities on demand that companies, and the government, should have built themselves: preparedness, resourcefulness, flexibility, decisiveness,” he writes. “The appeal for help is a reminder of how poor this government is at handling the predictable – indeed, predicted – consequences of its earlier decisions, notably Brexit.”

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3. The workers we depend on deserve better pay

Libby Purves for The Times

on the real key workers

If the past 20 months have taught us anything “it is who the real key workers are”, writes Libby Purves in The Times. Lockdowns reminded us “that most of those on whom the nation depends do not work cosily from home even in pandemics, and that they are not the highest paid”. Doorstep applause was also deserved for the “millions of people with unglamorous hands-on jobs” who “held the nation together”. “Nobody’s going to hold a victory parade for shelf-stackers or van drivers but we do need to address the question of low pay,” says Purves. “We need to address the matter of poor wages and how even working families feel great stress and hunger in a time of rising costs.” The government’s recent “pleading” for more HGV drivers “is a reminder that buying good human labour, whether at the wheel or in a care home, involves a fair price”. The “instinct to exploit” workers has run riot in the UK for years now; “the latest Low Pay Commission report tells us that over half a million workers get less than the legal minimum wage”. “Maybe the lessons of the Covid year and the HGV crisis will accelerate a move away from this contemptuous exploitation”, says Purves. “I hope so.”

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4. The Metropolitan Police must acknowledge its mistakes and return to tackling crime

Tim Stanley for The Daily Telegraph

on ‘grotesque’ policing errors

The Metropolitan Police made “two grotesque errors” in its handling of murderer Wayne Couzens, says Tim Stanley in The Daily Telegraph. The first was “to offer insulting advice on what to do if confronted by a lone officer”; while Police Scotland is introducing a policy where officers must offer a “verification check”, the Met “advised people to cry for help, flag down a bus or dial 999. The burden of safety thus passes from the cops to us, as if crime were beyond the Met’s control”, he writes. The second was for Cressida Dick to say that “on occasion”, there is a “bad ’un” on the force, Stanley adds. But Couzens “was a chameleon-like predator who was nicknamed ‘The Rapist’” and with a “history of sex crime”. Couzens’ arrest and sentencing “has opened up a debate about the low-level sexual assault that women have to navigate throughout their lives”, says Stanley, “but the proximate issue is that the police simply did not do their job – that if they had, Sarah [Everard] would still be alive”.

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5. At my first live concert in 18 months, songs about divorce have never felt so joyful

Rick Burin for The Guardian

on losing yourself in the music

On a recent Monday evening, “a mere 557 days” since Rick Burin’s last concert, he attended a gig by singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright at London’s Union Chapel. “The background music stopped. The lights dimmed. The hubbub cut suddenly to silence. And there was that single, shared moment of realisation, before the tumult commenced,” he writes in The Guardian. Though her new album, Love Will Be Reborn, is “about her divorce”, the whole audience was “so happy – Martha included”, says Burin, a writer and senior press manager at the Royal Albert Hall. “Wainwright exemplifies live music’s central appeal: its narcotic escapism and capacity for emotional release”. There is something “unexpectedly affecting” about live music, he continues. “We have lived too much in the real world of late, or perhaps not in it at all.” During Wainwright’s gig, the crowd “were lost in the music, and we could forget everything else”.

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Gas stations in parts of Britain are running out of fuel as drivers line up to fill their tanks in what the government and gas companies call an artificial run on gasoline. It is "panic buying, pure and simple," Brian Madderson, chairman of the Petrol Retailers Association, told the BBC. Several oil companies said in a joint statement that the pressure on supply was due to "temporary spikes in customer demand — not a national shortage of fuel."

Regardless, the PRA says two-thirds of its nearly 5,500 independent gas stations are out of fuel, and the others are "partly dry and running out soon." The British government responded Sunday night by temporarily exempting the oil industry from the Competition Act 1998, allowing gas suppliers to send fuel where it is needed most. On Saturday night, Britain announced that it will authorize 5,000 work visas for foreign drivers of heavy goods vehicles (HGV), or trucks. The visas will become available in October and be valid only until Dec. 24.

The government has also sent letters to nearly a million licensed HGV drivers who are no longer in the trucking industry, urging them to return to work, and ministers are weighing whether to deploy the armed forces to deliver fuel to gas stations. Britain lost 72,000 truckers and about 128,000 other European Union citizens when it closed its borders due to its exit from the EU, or Brexit.

The trucker shortage got especially acute after Britain completed its EU withdrawal in January, while the COVID-19 pandemic slowed training of new truck drivers. And it isn't just gas stations affected. "Countless industries in Britain have complained recently about lagging deliveries, with shortages of McDonald's milkshakes and roasted chicken at Nando's restaurants generating headlines," The New York Times reports. Critics said these problems were clearly foreseeable.

"We knew in particular that when we exited the EU, there would be a need for a backup plan to deal with the situation," said Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labour Party. Trucking companies also face pressure to increase wages and living conditions to address the labor crunch.

1. No, not everything can be blamed on Brexit

Iain Dale for The Telegraph

on the rush to blame

The Left continued to blame everything on Margaret Thatcher even decades after she left office, but the former PM has “received a reprieve”, said Iain Dale. “There is a new root of all evil to blame for every single bit of bad news going: Brexit.” Writing for The Telegraph, Dale accepted that Brexit has “caused some bumps in the road” but bemoaned the fact that “otherwise sane commentators rush like sheep to embrace every negative story and blame it on the fact we’ve left the EU”. Turning to the energy crisis, he said it has been caused by many things, “some outside our control (like Putin’s stance on the supply of gas)” and others “totally within our control (like green levies and the energy price cap)”. “Why is there a shortage of CO2? Well, it’s got naff all to do with the UK leaving the EU and all to do with increasing gas prices and green levies on the manufacturers of CO2.”

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2. Liz Truss should hug France and empower women

William Hague for The Times

on mixing briefs

“The opening week of the UN general assembly in New York is a prime test of your stamina, patience, recall and persuasiveness,” William Hague said. Writing for The Times, the former foreign secretary had advice for the new occupant of the post, Liz Truss, as she enters this “feeding frenzy”. Despite tensions over the Aukus deal, Truss should “hug France” because the Western alliance “needs to build its breadth as well as its depth”, he said. Truss “has a great opportunity, combining her role as she does with the post of minister for women and equalities” because “around the globe, the countries that least respect the role and rights of women are those most characterised by poverty, conflict or tyranny”. By being an “effective leader for girls’ education, preventing sexual violence and advancing the leadership of women, Liz Truss has the chance to advance one of the most vital causes of the 21st century”, Hague concluded.

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3. Rosie Duffield’s views on transgender people should have no place in the Labour Party

Harriet Williamson for The Independent

on gender identity

After Rosie Duffield, Labour MP for Canterbury, pulled out of her party’s annual conference, saying that she doesn’t want to be “the centre of attention” and fears abuse over her views on self-identification for trans people, Harriet Williamson argued that it is “completely unacceptable to trumpet prejudiced misinformation, as Duffield has been accused of doing”. Writing for The Independent, Williamson said that Duffield’s views are “not just outdated and embarrassing – they are actively harmful”. The MP has come under fire in the past for liking a tweet that said “individuals with a cervix” should be referred to as “women”, and another that described trans people as “mostly heterosexuals cosplaying [costume playing] as the opposite sex and as gay”. Williamson said that “if you deny the identity of transgender people, dismiss the existence of non-binary folk and agree with hateful and bigoted statements about trans people, as Duffield seems to do, your hot air about ‘actively fighting for all human rights’ is utterly meaningless”.

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4. Dump Covid vaccine religious exemptions. There is no Church of Moderna Disbelievers

The editorial board of the Los Angeles Times

on a convenient excuse

A Covid-19 vaccine mandate is worth “very little, if anything at all” if it includes exemptions for “sincerely held religious beliefs”, argued the Los Angeles Times. Given “how large a loophole religious exemptions create”, no one should be “remotely surprised” that thousands of Los Angeles employees are lining up to claim religious exemptions from the city’s vaccine requirement for its employees, added the paper’s editorial board. Police are prominent in this trend – “for the most part, these are personnel who come into close contact with the public on a regular basis, said the leader column. “They have an obligation to avoid harming the people they serve. Shame on them.” It concluded that: “Religious convictions – whether newly found as a convenient excuse or long held by sincere believers – cannot trump the importance of bringing the Covid-19 pandemic under control.”

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5. Boris Johnson’s military alliance in the Pacific is reckless post-imperial nostalgia

Simon Jenkins for The Guardian

on vacuous focus

“The Aukus defence deal between Britain, the US and Australia grows murkier by the day,” said Simon Jenkins. “Britain has no conceivable reason for adopting an aggressive position in the Pacific,” he wrote in The Guardian, adding that it is “all arcane post-imperial nostalgia”. The columnist said that “time alone will tell” where tensions between the West and China lead, “but for the west now to open a cold war with China must be beyond stupid, and for Britain especially fatuous”. He reminded us that it is half a century since Harold Wilson formally withdrew Britain from “east of Suez”. “[Boris] Johnson clearly aches to return, to prove that he can somehow punch above his weight and put Britain back on the world stage after Brexit.” However, this “vacuous” focus is misguided, suggested Jenkins, because “British diplomacy should now be concentrated on Europe, overwhelmingly so. One thing Brexit did not alter was geography.”

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Supermarket bosses have warned that the UK’s supply chain crisis could “cancel Christmas” as the industry is hit by a double whammy of staff shortages caused by Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Industry leaders are urging the government to ease immigration rules so that EU citizens who left the UK during Brexit can “return and help fill major gaps in the workforce”, reported The Independent.

Iceland boss Richard Walker told the paper he was “sounding the alarm now” over a chronic lack of lorry drivers because “we’ve already had one Christmas cancelled at the last minute and I’d hate this one to be problematic as well.”

Meanwhile, Steve Murrells, chief executive of the Co-operative Group, told The Times that food shortages are “at a worse level than at any time I have seen,” telling the paper that the crisis was a result of “Brexit and issues caused by Covid”.

From milkshakes to pigs in blankets

Several of the country’s favourite fast-food and restaurant chains have been hit by the crisis – with bakery group Greggs the latest to be affected.

“Not Greggs too”, complained users on social media site Twitter, as PoliticsHome revealed staff had reported a number of chicken product shortages across their menu, including “the chicken bake, the chargrill chicken oval bite, and several chicken-filled baguettes”.

The shortages come just days after McDonald’s outlets across England, Scotland and Wales announced they are facing a milkshake shortage, reported the Daily Mirror, with over 1,250 of its outlets unable to serve the drink due to supply-chain issues.

Last week, British favourite Nando’s was forced to close 50 of its restaurants due to a chicken shortage – also caused by a lack of lorry drivers and staff at their suppliers.

And Nick Allen, chief executive at the British Meat Processors Association, told LBC that the UK could be facing a shortage of pigs in blankets come Christmas-time.

"Some of the pig processors are having to cut down on how many pigs they are processing a week so that's starting to have an impact back on the farm,” he told LBC’s Nick Ferrari.

He continued: "We are cutting back and prioritising lines and cutting out on things, so there just won't be the totals of Christmas favourites like we are used to."

Temporary work visas for EU lorry drivers

Lobby groups from retail and transport industries have written to Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng to urge a review of plans not to grant temporary work visas to drivers from the EU to fill driver vacancies.

Logistics UK, which represents freight firms, and the British Retail Consortium, say that while Brexit and Covid-19 caused lorry drivers to leave the UK, “a temporary visa could lure them back”, reported the BBC.

The two groups have called upon the government to grant temporary work visas to HGV drivers from the European Union, provide funding to train new drivers, and improve Covid testing facilities so lorry drivers can be tested daily.

They warned that the country was facing a shortage of about 90,000 drivers, which is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains".

Analysis of the Office for National Statistics Labour Force Survey by Logistics UK suggests that 14,000 EU lorry drivers left jobs in the UK in the year to June 2020, and only 600 have returned this year.

However, the government has so far rejected suggestions to bring in EU labour through a temporary visa scheme, telling employers to “invest in our domestic workforce instead of relying on labour from abroad”, according to a government spokesperson.

The government has also announced plans to “streamline” lorry driving tests amid an estimated backlog of around 45,000 tests that were put on hold during the pandemic.

It has also relaxed rules over drivers’ hours so HGV drivers can make longer journeys, but only if it does not compromise driver safety.

Brexit is being blamed for staff shortages that poultry producers warn may lead to a lack of turkeys this Christmas.

The Independent reported this week that the restaurant chain Nando’s had been forced to shut 10% of its outlets as a result of staffing issues at its suppliers’ factories and a shortage of HGV drivers.

And now there is a crisis in the turkey sector. The British Poultry Council said its members reported that one in six jobs were unfilled because EU workers left the UK after Brexit.

The Guardian reported that the supply of turkey is already down by around 10% but could decline by as much as 20% by Christmas because bosses may be unable to bring in the usual number of seasonal workers.

Paul Kelly, managing director of turkey producer KellyBronze, said it would be “financial suicide” if companies hatched turkeys without enough workers to deal with them in time for the nation’s Christmas dinners. “Turkey after Christmas Day is worth nothing,” he said.

The situation is “hugely serious”, said Mark Gorton, managing director of Traditional Norfolk Poultry. “The big problem we’ve got at the moment is labour,” he told ITV. “We simply cannot find people to run our farms and run our factory.”

Ranjit Singh Boparan, founder of 2 Sisters Food Group, said Brexit had “acutely reduced available workers across the food sector” with entry-level jobs hardest to fill. He also blamed the soaring cost of ingredients, wage inflation and Covid-related absences.

However, the Unite union said that neither Brexit nor Covid were to blame for staff shortages. Instead, said Bev Clarkson, Unite’s national officer for food, drink and agriculture, the problem is the “terrible pay and working conditions that make the meat-processing industry one of the worst places to work in the UK”.

The issue of staff shortages at Christmas certainly predates Brexit and Covid. In 2018, The Guardian said “people don’t want to work in abattoirs any more”, leaving some 10,000 positions unfilled at slaughterhouses.

1. So Matt Hancock has a messy personal life – who doesn’t?

Victoria Richards in The Independent

on Westminster scandal

“Have you ever cheated on a partner? Has anyone ever cheated on you? Do you know anyone who’s cheated on their significant other?”, asks Victoria Richards in The Independent. “Chances are, everyone reading this will be able to answer ‘yes’ to at least one of these questions.” Turning to reports that Matt Hancock has cheated on his wife, Richards wonders whether these allegations really matter, concluding: “Not so much.” After a year of criticism, “there’s enough to lambast the health secretary about without diving into the gritty details of his relationships: his poor performance during the pandemic, his failure to boost Covid testing and ventilator capacity, the lack of procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE) for NHS and care staff”. However, when it comes to the details of Hancock’s personal life, “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”.

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2. Why are we letting a largely defeated virus change the nature of our society?

Fraser Nelson in The Telegraph

on pandemic milestones

“Test and Trace data for ‘amber’ countries shows that 99.6% of those returning test negative”, writes Fraser Nelson in The Telegraph. “So where, then, is the threat?” When the virus first arrived in the UK, “there was a clear justification for lockdown: without it, the NHS would be overrun, hospitals would reject patients, and this would threaten wider societal collapse”. But analysing hospital admission data, he says that “the vaccines work”, adding: “This could be quite a milestone: we might have just defeated Covid.” So “if Chris Whitty and Matt Hancock can no longer claim that the NHS is in operational danger, how can they justify keeping their draconian powers?”. “Should we now let a largely defeated virus change who we are as a people?”

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3. Britain and EU are learning a wary waltz

James Forsyth in The Times

on a new alliance

Boris Johnson once described Brexit as “the greatest apple of discord thrown into British public life”, writes James Forsyth in The Times. And five years after the EU referendum, “one thing that is not settled is what relationship the UK and the European Union will have in the years to come”. With signs of a “truce” in the trade dispute over Northern Ireland, an “optimist” might conclude the two sides “look as if they are learning how to waltz with each other”. He argues that both teams have learned that breakthroughs are more likely if they do not “escalate things”, adding that “Brexiteers” point to the fact that the EU has even fallen out with Switzerland, while “Eurocrats” highlight the “prickliness of Brexit Britain”. Five years after the life-changing vote, he adds, “there’s still time to make Brexit the beginning of a new alliance and not, just, the end of an old one”.

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4. No one should be penalised if they want to carry on working from home

Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian

on a gender divide

The dating app Bumble has given its entire workforce a week off, writes Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian, and if those workers have emerged from a “mentally and physically draining year of holding things together in a pandemic feeling frankly knackered, then they’re certainly not alone”. This opens the question, she says, of what happens next for workforces. The home worker’s “perennial fear of being excluded from some loop that they didn’t know existed is seeping anxiously back” and “may only increase when the ‘work from home’ rule is finally abandoned”. She identifies that those companies that are offering staff the freedom to choose whether they return to the office post-pandemic or carry on working mostly from home “risk inadvertently deepening the gender divide if it’s predominantly women with caring responsibilities who end up taking the home option”. Instead, companies and the government must “monitor very carefully the gendered take-up of home working and its impact on pay or prospects”.

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5. The secret of George Osborne’s success

Sam Leith on Unherd

on a busy CV

“Good God, I thought as the news broke yesterday morning, is there nothing the man can’t do?”, writes Sam Leith on Unherd following George Osborne’s appointment as chair of the British Museum. The former chancellor has managed such a portfolio of jobs because he is “the Right Sort Of Chap”, he adds, explaining that in Osborne’s world, you reach “a level of seniority by sucking up to the right people and getting in the right gang – and once you’ve made it, you’ve made it”. The “right sort of chap” is “part of the nepotistic, private-school-dominated establishment, in which your path is eased by knowing the right people and projecting the right front”. But this leads to a dangerous assumption, he warns, that “the Right Sort of Chap is the right person for the job, even if they’ve proved otherwise, time and again”.

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1. Working-class white children are struggling – but it’s nothing to do with ‘white privilege’

James Bloodsworth on CapX

on an educational straw man

“I grew up in something approximating a ‘white working-class’ home”, writes James Bloodsworth on CapX. “We just saw ourselves as ‘normal’, though we were keenly aware of the financial distinctions which placed some of our middle class neighbours slightly above us.” Despite having not “quite joined the middle class”, Bloodsworth says he has “done better than would normally be expected of someone from my background”. But in order to get there, he “had to first penetrate a thousand subtle and not so subtle class barriers”. The publication of a Commons Education Select Committee report yesterday has seen “the voguish term” white privilege blamed for why white working-class children are “falling behind”. But “it’s perverse to claim that ‘white privilege’ discourse is holding back working-class boys” as “white working-class children have been falling behind for years”. “Attempts to blame ‘white privilege’ discourse for the struggles of working-class kids are a flagrant attempt to stoke the flames of the culture war”, Bloodsworth adds. “It may generate headlines, but it will do little to help kids who grew up like I did.”

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2. Five years on from the Brexit referendum, the result is clear: both unions are losing

Timothy Garton Ash in The Guardian

on collateral damage

“Five years after the fateful referendum on 23 June 2016, what is the current balance sheet of Brexit?” asks Timothy Garton Ash in The Guardian. “Answer: two weakened unions, the British and the European, and bad-tempered relations between them. Lose. Lose. Lose.” While “the weakening of the British union is obvious”, many of “the negative economic consequences of Brexit have been hidden by the impact of the pandemic”. Meanwhile, “it is less immediately obvious that the European Union has been weakened”, but “levels of Euroscepticism are alarmingly high in core member states”. “These views are not a result of Brexit”, Garton Ash says, but “they are a product of concerns similar to those that drove many Brits towards Brexit”. “In the long run, we must work towards a Britain where a clear majority sees the point of being in the EU”, he adds. “And an EU that is doing so well that even the sceptical, cussed English want to rejoin it.”

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3. There is no point to the Liberal Democrats

Daniel Finkelstein in The Times

on powerless politics

“Last week the Liberal Democrats, against all the odds, achieved a stunning by-election victory in Chesham & Amersham”, writes Daniel Finkelstein in The Times. But while “the Conservative Party should take its defeat seriously… the Liberal Democrats should be altogether more sceptical of the significance of their victory”. “Their party was at a dead end the day before the by-election, and it was at a dead end the day after it, too,” he says. “Since its collapse at the 2015 general election it has been a waste of the copious amount of time and energy that so many intelligent, capable people have expended upon it.” The party’s problem, he adds, is that “they don’t stand for anything, they don’t stand for anybody, they can’t win and even if they could it would be utterly pointless”. “The party doesn’t know who it is for, preferring to be seen as the party of everybody while in reality being the party of almost nobody.” As it stands, “they are splitting the progressive vote and dissipating progressive energy”, he adds. “Perhaps that is none of my business, but nevertheless, and with genuine respect, I really think that they ought to stop.”

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4. Remainers who dismiss our new trade agreements as worthless don’t understand how trade works

Andrew Lilico in The Telegraph

on economic illiteracy

“When negotiations with the EU over a post-Brexit free trade agreement became tense, the media filled with stories of how having no free trade agreement with the EU would create huge turmoil and sustained recession”, writes Andrew Lilico in The Telegraph. “Yet when the UK’s trade agreements with Japan or Australia were announced... we are told that such agreements are worth at best 0.01-0.1% of GDP.” Noting that “the EU is less than half our trade”, he continues that “the notion that a trade deal with the EU is worth 100 or 1,000 times as much as a deal with anyone or everyone else… sounds like it has to be wrong”, adding: “And that’s because it is.” As “most of our trade is not with the EU... most of the value trading provides to our economy is not with the EU”, meaning the trade deals being signed “are all very much worth having, and very valuable to our economy”. “Don’t let misleading partial economic analyses tell you otherwise.”

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5. Sports used to lead social progress. Carl Nassib shows it’s now the other way around

Drew Goins in The Washington Post

on sexual diversity

“To listen to the video that Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib posted Monday night on his Instagram, you’d certainly think” sports was making progress on sexual diversity, writes Drew Goins in The Washington Post. “What’s up, people?”, he said in the video posted to social media, “I’m at my house here in West Chester, Pa. I just wanna take a quick moment to say that I’m gay”. However,“this gimme field goal of a coming out belies a wild fact: Nassib is the first active NFL player – ever – to come out as gay”. “If his historic announcement was casual, it’s not because football changed”, Goines says, “it’s because the world did”. “Once upon a time, sporting society helped lead the way in racial integration”, he adds. “Now, when it comes to sexuality, it’s the rest of society dragging sports along with it.”

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Closed venues and a year without gigs has almost silenced the live music industry.

UK Music’s annual Music by Numbers report found that in 2020 the industry’s contribution to the wider economy would plummet to about £3bn – down from £5.8bn in 2019. The report painted a “dire picture” for the industry and the hardest hit sector has been live music, which includes festivals and venues, The Guardian said.

Even though restrictions are now starting to ease, the music industry still has a number of major challenges to contend with, and not just the pandemic, but also the impact of Brexit.

#LetTheMusicMove

The UK’s withdrawal from the European Union has left touring overseas for British musicians and bands in limbo as they are no longer guaranteed visa-free travel in the bloc. Acts are facing “insurmountable financial and logistical barriers” and have called on the government to “save” EU touring, Sky News reports.

As part of the #LetTheMusicMove campaign, more than 200 artists – including Annie Lennox, Keane, The Chemical Brothers and Radiohead – want urgent action on the post-Brexit touring “fiasco”, says NME.

Five years to the day after the original referendum vote, the campaign is calling on officials to “support the future of the music industry, and mitigate the Brexit-related impacts of restrictions, costs and delays on European touring”.

The UK is the second biggest exporter of music in the world, and Europe is its most important overseas market, Access All Areas reports. Primal Scream bassist Simon Butler said it’s “essential” that Europe is part of the geographic working space. “To make it financially and logistically unrealistic to do shows and festivals will be halting the livelihoods and careers of generations of musicians.”

Insurance or bust for festivals

It’s not just touring in the EU that is causing concern for the British music industry. The future of UK festivals is also coming under the spotlight post-Covid.

Due to the pandemic, major music events including Glastonbury and BST Hyde Park have been cancelled for a second successive year and many more followed suit when the government announced that lockdown restrictions would be extended until 19 July.

Peter Gabriel has warned that this year’s Womad festival may have to be cancelled unless the government helps organisers get insurance, the BBC reports. Womad is scheduled to start on 22 July, three days after Covid restrictions are due to be lifted in England, and without insurance Gabriel said there is a “risk of losing everything”.

“Commercial insurance has run a mile, effectively, and you can understand why,” Gabriel told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “So if we’re trying to restore cultural life and normality we need a bit of help here. There’s too much uncertainty for most festival promoters to take the risk.”

‘Pushing live music off a cliff-edge’

A new report published today by the Public Accounts Committee has called on the government to offer urgent support to outdoor events organisers. Parliament’s spending watchdog has found that dozens of festivals are facing “devastating consequences to their survival” and there is confusion within government over how a £1.57bn post-Covid arts fund will affect the sector, The Guardian reports.

The committee’s 20-page report said that “festivals are making difficult decisions about whether to risk their survival by going ahead this summer”, but the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has “not modelled the cost of underwriting festival indemnity insurance”.

Experts have told the NME that the government is “pushing live music off a cliff-edge” and the future of the industry is being endangered by failing to publish results of recent Covid-19 pilot events or providing festivals with insurance.

1. The Times view on the Daniel Morgan inquiry: Institutional Corruption

The Times editorial board

on justice denied

“It is 22 years since the Metropolitan Police was branded ‘institutionally racist’ by Sir William Macpherson after his public inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence,” writes The Times editorial board. “To that badge of shame, the Met can now add another.” The 1,200-page inquiry report into the murder of Daniel Morgan, a private investigator killed with an axe in a London car park in 1987, “amounts to a damning account of police failure”, the paper continues. The most “damaging” of the report’s charges relate to “the extraordinary lengths to which the Met went to cover up its own mistakes”. Much of this subterfuge “took place on Dame Cressida Dick’s watch”, raising further questions over the Met chief’s leadership following recent scandals, “not least the grotesque failures of Operation Midland”, the investigation into what proved to be untrue claims of historical sex abuse. “Such institutional corruption has become an all too familiar feature of public life, as victims of the Hillsborough disaster and the postmaster scandal, who have faced similarly long waits for the truth to emerge, can attest.”

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2. Is the EU about to crumble?

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on UnHerd

on Nexit

Five years have passed since Britain voted to leave the EU, but now the bloc is grappling with the “existential question” of “which, if any, of the remaining 27 countries will be next”, writes Ayaan Hirsi Ali on UnHerd. “If you believe the bookies, the odds-on favourite is Italy”, but “it would be unwise to rule out the country sitting in fourth place: the Netherlands”. The Dutch, “who are notoriously frugal, have become increasingly frustrated with the frivolity of EU spending” over the past decade, Hirsi Ali contends. Indeed, newly published research reveals “a striking decrease of support for the EU” in the Netherlands. And while a majority still favours remaining in the bloc, “we forget now how unlikely Brexit seemed to most commentators - until the first, stunning results came in”, she writes. “Could watching a successful exit by the UK push the Dutch population further in this direction? Don’t rule it out.”

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3. Sorry, Biden. Putin honestly could not care less

Elena Chernenko in The New York Times

on Biden vs. Putin

“For a while, it wasn’t clear that this week’s meeting in Geneva between President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Biden would go ahead,” writes Elena Chernenko in The New York Times. Fears that Biden would “publicly lecture his Russian counterpart on democracy and human rights” looked set to scupper the talks - “yet the Kremlin eventually accepted the invitation”, Chernenko continues. “Why? Besides the chance to de-escalate tensions, there’s one very good reason: Mr Putin has nothing to fear from Mr Biden. Enduringly popular and freshly buoyed by the quashing of the opposition, Russia’s president has ample cause to feel secure.” So secure, in fact, that the Kremlin can be confident that “whatever the American president might say in Geneva - or his administration do, by way of sanctions - will not affect Mr Putin’s rule in Russia”.

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4. We must protect press freedom

The Telegraph editorial board

on unhindered journalism

“The hounding of BBC Newsnight journalist Nick Watt by a mob during an anti-lockdown protest in Westminster this week was disgraceful,” says The Telegraph editorial board. And “astonishingly, police officers at the protest just stood and watched”, the paper continues. While both Boris Johnson and Priti Patel may have condemned Watt’s treatment, “it counts for little” if police officers who witness abuse fail to intervene. Journalists should “be able to report the facts without fear or favour, not be intimidated by thugs”. While “it is welcome to see politicians defend the free press and its role underpinning our democracy”, their words “mean nothing if officers sit on their hands when they have an opportunity to act”, the paper concludes. “If police forces fail to understand their responsibilities, what is Ms Patel going to do about it?”

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5. British politics is still drunk on Brexit spirit, and Boris Johnson won’t call time

Rafael Behr in The Guardian

on different hymn sheets

“There is a simple reason why Boris Johnson and European leaders failed to find common ground over Brexit at last week’s G7 summit” in Cornwall, writes Raphael Behr in The Guardian. “They are not even talking about the same thing.” For Johnson, “Brexit is a matter of national character that cannot be described in legal document” and the “withdrawal agreement was a single-use tool for levering himself out of a tight spot” . But for Brussels, “legal texts contain the true meaning of a project that only exists in the real world as a set of rules to be implemented”. That difference of interpretation “will continue to cause friction because it is not a misunderstanding”, Behr continues. “Johnson knows that legal arguments over the Northern Ireland protocol favour the European position. He chooses not to care.” To concede that any part of the UK might be subject to European regulatory standards “would be to admit that a portion of sovereignty was conceded in the negotiations”. And “that would be a stain on his self-image as the man who made a clean break from Brussels. He finds confrontation more appealing, not least because he expects it to achieve more than compliance. Whether that is true depends on how you define achievement.”

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The UK has agreed its first international trade agreement negotiated from scratch since Brexit - but not everyone is delighted by the outcome.

Boris Johnson and his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison sealed the deal “over a dinner of Scottish salmon and Welsh lamb in Downing Street on Monday”, reports The New European.

Yet while Johnson and his team are celebrating the signing, MPs and trade groups are warning that Downing Street risks setting unwanted precedents for future negotiations with other nations.

What’s the big deal?

The new deal is aimed at giving UK and Australian food producers and other businesses easier access to each other’s markets - with Johnson apparently giving Morrison a taster of some of the produce that Britain can offer through Monday’s dinner menu choices.

The Tory leader hailed “a new dawn in the UK’s relationship with Australia” after agreeing the pact, which Downing Street said would mean that UK products ranging from whisky and biscuits to cars will be cheaper to sell to Australia.

The UK has “signed a long list of trade deals over the past year, but they have been rollovers of those the UK already had as part of the EU”, explains the BBC. This is the first to be created from scratch.

Australia’s Trade Minister Dan Tehan has welcomed the new deal as a “win for jobs, businesses, free trade and highlights what two liberal democracies can achieve while working together”. As Sydney-based broadcaster ABC News notes, the UK was Australia’s “most lucrative trading market” before the former entered the European common market in 1973.

The new deal is also viewed as an important step towards the UK becoming part of a wider Asia Pacific free-trade agreement.

But critics have raised concerns about the potential impact on UK food standards and safeguards to prevent farmers being undercut by cheap imports, triggering tensions between Trade Secretary Liz Truss and Environment Secretary George Eustice.

What do MPs want?

Johnson is facing calls to give Parliament “greater powers to scrutinise and approve the UK’s international trade deals”, reports the Financial Times.

A cross-party group of more than 20 MPs wrote to Truss this week “to warn that the government risks setting precedents for future trade policy without proper debate”, the newspaper continues. Currently, the 2010 Constitutional Reform and Governance Act means Parliament only gets to scrutinise them “once the ink is on the paper”.

Labour MP Hilary Benn, who previously chaired the Brexit Select Committee, has pointed to the problems over the Northern Ireland Protocol as an example of the dangers of rushing through international treaties. The Australia deal risks setting “a significant precedent” for future deals with larger markets, said Benn, who now chairs the newly formed cross-party UK Trade and Business Commission.

Bloomberg also suggests that opponents of the Canberra deal are less concerned about the details of this particular agreement than the model it sets for talks with “other countries with even mightier farming lobbies, including the US”.

“And yet,” says the New York-based news network, “the alternative is a slippery slope to a protectionism that Britain can’t afford now that it has struck out on its own. Brexit delivered control - but for a purpose.”

Tens of thousands of Brits living in the EU are in danger of missing the deadline to secure their right to remain under an agreement made in the Brexit deal.

UK citizens living in France, Malta, Luxembourg and Latvia must apply to remain in the countries before 30 June, however, “large numbers have not applied yet”, The Times reports.

“After the UK left the EU last year the bloc divided into two groups”, the paper continues, with “14 countries, including Italy, Spain and Portugal, introducing systems automatically granting post-Brexit residence rights”.

But “the remaining 13 require British citizens to apply”, the paper adds, with the EU-UK joint committee on citizens’ rights warning that of the 298,000 Britons living in the 13 countries, only 190,000 have so far applied to remain.

The Netherlands also requires Britons to apply to remain, but has extended its deadline until 1 October. Failure to apply before the June deadline could see Brits “losing all of their basic rights and ultimately see them deported”, the Daily Express says.

Michaela Benson, a professor of public sociology at Lancaster University, told The Guardian that there is now “only a month to go before a hard deadline, after which a lot of people could lose their rights”.

“We urgently need more communication – from the UK, the EU and member states – to get in touch, especially with hard-to-reach, vulnerable UK citizens who risk missing a vital cutoff point.”

“The ones to worry about are those who are just scraping by, perhaps in remote areas”, she added. “They are not likely to come forward of their own accord. There will also be homeless British people, sick British people, British children in care.”

“About 26,000 of France’s 150,000 Britons have not registered”, The Times reports, as well as “5,300 living in Malta, 1,700 living in Luxembourg and 800 living in Latvia”.

A joint statement released by UK and EU officials on the citizens’ rights committee on Friday said: “The UK and the EU recalled that EU citizens in the UK and UK nationals in France, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta and the Netherlands need to apply for a new residence status by June 30, 2021, in order to be protected by the withdrawal agreement.

“The UK and the EU also emphasised the importance of providing clear communications and comprehensive support to vulnerable or hard-to-reach citizens.

“Public and non-public bodies must also work to ensure that beneficiaries of the withdrawal agreement are able to enjoy their rights and entitlements, particularly when accessing benefits and services and exercising their right to work, rent and study.”

1. Baby boomers are building a grey utopia

James Marriott in The Times

on geriatric power

“If you are young, you are living in an old person’s world,” writes James Marriott in The Times. “The political revolutions of the Sixties were the work of the young. Today they are powered by the old,” he continues. “Brexit and the victories of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump were all driven by older voters,” writes Marriott. “The reason our present culture war grinds on so bitterly and so interminably is because it is a social revolution of the young frustrated by demographics and economics.” The real “social revolution” is our slow transformation into a gradually ageing society: one which could help to usher in “a sort of tranquil, grey utopia”. We are seeing an “‘oldquake’ equivalent to the youthquake of the Sixties; though this revolution is quieter, less remarked upon by the media and, presumably, involves less free love”.

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2. What a Wuhan lab leak would really mean

Ian Birrell in UnHerd

on a dismissed theory

“It has taken 17 months since the new coronavirus supposedly erupted, but the lab leak hypothesis has finally come in from the cold,” writes Ian Birrell in UnHerd. “But what would it mean if the lab leak hypotheses proved correct?” he asks. Of course, it would be “uncomfortable” for the Chinese Communist Party, “which would be guilty of overseeing arguably the biggest cover-up in history of an event that caused economic chaos, millions of deaths and misery around the world”, but it would also “shake science to its foundations for carrying out risky research” and then “collaborating in an epic whitewash”. And it would certainly “challenge a media that meekly accepted the establishment view rather than doing its job of asking difficult questions – a failure even more serious than the Iraq War intelligence debacle”.

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3. Dominic Cummings’s evidence has fired up cabinet tensions

Katy Balls in the i newspaper

on No. 10’s heir

Ahead of Dominic Cummings’s appearance at an explosive parliamentary committee hearing “aides in Downing Street were braced for a difficult day”, writes Katy Balls in the i newspaper. So “the colour and the detail – not to mention the length” of his long testimony “meant that this wasn’t the anti-climax No. 10 had hoped for”. It has certainly “stoked cabinet tensions,” Balls writes, with Matt Hancock emerging as “the most attacked whereas Rishi Sunak received the most praise”, leading to “whispers that Cummings could be hoping the chancellor makes it to No. 10, and wants to join him there”. For Boris Johnson, the “reasonable worst-case scenario is that these allegations linger in people’s minds – and the next time things go wrong for the prime minister, the public proves much less forgiving”.

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4. Why commuters won’t easily be lured back to the office

Joshua Chaffin in the Financial Times

on depressing commutes

“Every commuter has their lament,” writes Joshua Chaffin in the Financial Times. “What is different now is the wider circumstance. For the longest time, commuters have schlepped into the office because they had no choice.” The pandemic, however, has changed that. More amenities of the kind popularised by Google and Facebook may tempt some workers back, but it overlooks those who “care little about free candy or a ping-pong table at the office”. “For them – and me – the great disincentive to returning to the office is the commute,” writes Chaffin, who lives in suburban New Jersey and works in New York. He says that “my son, 11, told me that he did not feel he really knew me when I was rushing to and from the train each day”. “Soon the work-from-home movement may be crushed or co-opted, as most revolutions are,” writes Chaffin. “But for now, commuters have the power to demand change. They should use it.”

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5. Every Belarusian journalist I know is in jail or exile

Alexey Kovalev in The New York Times

on press freedom

“In 2019, I was invited to speak at the press club in Minsk, Belarus’s capital, by Yuliya Slutskaya, a celebrated journalist with 30 years of experience,” writes Alexey Kovalev in The New York Times. “This past December, she was detained for ‘tax evasion’. She is still in custody. Then there’s Marina Zolotova”, the editor in chief of Tut.by, Belarus’s most popular independent news site, also dubiously charged with tax fraud – “now in pretrial detention”. There’s also the journalist Yan Avseyushkin, who “spent 15 days in jail after a ‘trial’ that lasted less than a minute”. He has now fled the country. “Those are just the journalists I know. Belarus is full of similarly distressing stories,” writes Kovalev. “What’s happening is not just about the rights of journalists in one country; it’s also about the criminalisation of a free press in parts of the world where it is the most vital.” The international community has an obligation to “stand up to leaders who intimidate and silence journalists”, he continues. “It would be calamitous if the pressure campaign on Mr Lukashenko – targeted sanctions, boycotts and condemnation – were to fade away.”

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