People who wreak havoc in towns and neighbourhoods may be jailed for breaching so-called respect orders, under new government plans to crack down on anti-social behaviour.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper described the orders as a "modernised version" of the Asbo, or Anti-Social Behaviour Order, introduced by Tony Blair in 1998.

Respect orders and curfews
Police, local authorities and social landlords would be handed the power to impose respect orders on "hooligans, drug users, street drinkers, fly-tippers, nuisance neighbours" and others engaged in antisocial behaviour, said The Times.

Offenders who breached a respect ­order would be committing a criminal offence and courts would be allowed to hand out unlimited fines, and order offenders to carry out unpaid work or keep to a curfew. The "maximum sanction" would be two years in prison.

Announcing the proposals, Cooper said that "too many town centres and neighbourhoods across our country are being plagued by antisocial behaviour". The new measures would make sure the "most serious offenders are dealt with before their behaviour can escalate and cause further harm".

But these orders are also a "boon for curtain-twitchers", said Josie Appleton for Spiked. They "heighten people's mutual intolerance" and "fuel their negative fixations on one another".

'Badge of honour'
The respect orders clearly signal the "return of the Asbo", said The Times, and may prove equally controversial. When the Asbo was launched in 1998, critics were divided over whether it was a "symbol of the Blair government's creeping authoritarianism" or a "godsend for communities blighted by a minority of nuisance neighbours", said Jon Kelly at the BBC.

If Asbos "ever were effective", said Ryan Coogan in The Independent, that "certainly wasn't my experience of them". They were "created to appease the scared middle-class electorate" who would "never set foot" in deprived areas where "shunned, angry kids" turned to crime because "they grew up believing they were already criminals by virtue of their upbringing".

For many, the Asbo "became a badge of honour", said Francine Wolfisz in the Daily Mail, and "more than half of those who received one would breach its conditions". Asbos had "little effect on their lives" and they went on to "commit more serious crimes" including burglary, rape and murder.

Doctors in the UK say they are increasingly concerned that a global shortage of ADHD drugs is leading to children going without medication and missing school, and to adults self-medicating with alcohol instead.

How common is ADHD?
It was long assumed that between 5% and 6% of children have ADHD, but "the rates, in practice, are often higher", said Sven Bölte, a professor of child psychiatric science at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet, on The Conversation.

Latest NHS figures show that 230,000 people in England are taking medication to treat ADHD, "including 110,000 children and teenagers", said The Times. But the true number affected by some form of ADHD "might be as many as 2.2 million", said the Nuffield Trust health think-tank.

Why the shortage in medication?
Five types of medicine are licensed for the treatment of ADHD in the UK, the "most common of which", said The Times, is methylphenidate, sold under the brand names Concerta and Ritalin.

Rising demand is a key cause of the shortages. Prescriptions have tripled over the past decade as the condition has become more widely diagnosed. The "main increase" in diagnoses is among "young women aged 25 to 40", said The Guardian.

Are we over-treating ADHD?
Part of the problem is that ADHD is currently treated as "something you either have or you don't", said The Economist. Treating diagnosed people as "ill" puts a strain on healthcare and special-needs-education systems, while forcing people to "fit in with normal", which can "cause anxiety and depression".

But this "binary view" of ADHD is "no longer supported by science". Researchers have realised that there is no such thing as the "ADHD brain". The characteristics around which an ADHD diagnosis is made – attention problems, impulsivity, difficulty organising daily life – span a "wide spectrum of severity, much like ordinary human traits".

For those at the severe end of the spectrum, "medication and therapy can be crucial for finishing school or holding on to a job", but for most people with ADHD, the symptoms are "mild enough to disappear when their environment plays to their strengths".

With "grimly fortuitous timing", said Carol Midgely in The Times, "Britain's Nuclear Bomb Scandal: Our Story" is airing on BBC Two as "Vladimir Putin's finger seems to be hovering close to the red button".

The "weighty" documentary shines a light on the nuclear tests carried out by the British government in Australia and the South Pacific between 1952 and 1963, and the "terrible litany" of illnesses and deaths that have plagued the nuclear veterans ever since.

As well as being a "well-told reminder of the catastrophic, irreversible devastation" wreaked by nuclear weapons, the documentary reveals the extraordinary "selective blindness" of the Ministry of Defence which continues to deny the link between the testing and ensuing health issues.

The UK's nuclear testing scandal should be added to the long list of "injustices where walls of silence and lies" have prevented the powerless from revealing their "whole truths", said Jack Seale in The Guardian.

This "calmly scathing" documentary carefully sets out the case, starting with the selection of the unwitting "human guinea pigs". Local people and British and Commonwealth servicemen and scientists witnessed 45 atomic and hydrogen bombs being detonated; many of them were stationed at blast sites so the effects of the radiation could be recorded.

The testing also had a devastating impact on the Indigenous Australians who lived near the testing sites, said Anita Singh in The Telegraph. In one distressing scene, local journalist Colin James visits the Woomera cemetery in Maralinga, where 22 stillborn babies and 34 infants who died before their first birthday are buried. "Officially, they died as a result of heatwaves."

But the "truth does have a habit of coming out eventually", said Midgeley in The Times. "Maybe, like the Post Office scandal, it will take a TV drama to help it on its way."

Winters of Discontent are coming
Mary Harrington on UnHerd
The "prissy authoritarianism, student-union self-righteousness, and vindictive taxation" of Keir Starmer's government has "plunged" Labour's ratings among voters, writes Mary Harrington. But "what difference" would another general election make? No matter "how many prime ministers we go through", both parties "remain committed to the beliefs and institutions" that "make change impossible". We need a leader who is "in tune with vox populi" and "will do whatever it takes" to "free us from this death-spiral".

Everyone should calm down about both chancellor and economy
David Smith in The Times
"Difficulties and unpopularity go with the Treasury territory," writes David Smith, but the "pile-on" against Rachel Reeves has been "silly and unedifying", and "mainly from people who do not know any better". Amid the "outbreak of mild hysteria" about the chancellor's CV and the economy’s performance, some people "seem determined to see the economy going to hell in a handcart". But "they should be careful what they wish for".

Rod Stewart shows that retirement is just for the middle classes
Anne McElvoy on the i news site
"Rod Stewart is playing Glastonbury next year at the age of 80", Donald Trump is taking "a second run at the White House" at 78, and Rupert Murdoch still runs his media "empire" at 93, writes Anne McElvoy. The "very rich" have discovered that the "secret to a long old age" is to "keep doing what you did, on your own terms, as long as your mortality and health permit". Of course, "let's not slog till we drop", but there's "no need to stop either".