What happened
A company tied to Conservative peer Baroness Michelle Mone and her husband Doug Barrowman has been ordered to pay nearly £122 million after a High Court judge ruled that it had breached a government PPE contract during the Covid pandemic.

PPE Medpro supplied 25 million gowns in 2020, which judges found had not undergone a validated sterilisation process, rendering them non-compliant. Of 140 gowns tested, 103 failed. The firm, set up through the government’s “VIP lane”, went into administration a day before the ruling and has until 15 October to pay damages.

Who said what
Mone struck a “defiant” tone after the ruling, said Ben Ellery in The Times. In an Instagram post that according to Ellery was “in keeping with the combative tone of her social media presence”, she said she had endured “enough” and described the past five years as “pure torture”.

What next?
The government is working with administrators to retrieve the funds, although Medpro’s accounts show limited assets. A separate National Crime Agency probe into potential offences linked to the contracts is ongoing. Meanwhile, political pressure continues to mount over whether Mone should resign her peerage.

What happened
Munich’s famous Oktoberfest festival remained closed for most of yesterday after police received a bomb threat following a deadly fire at a residential building in the north of the city.

The Theresienwiese festival grounds typically open at 10am, but the gates remained locked while officers conducted a sweep for explosive devices before finally re-opening to the public at about 5.30pm local time.

Who said what
Bomb experts were called in “after officers discovered explosive traps in a burning building” in the Lerchenau neighbourhood, said Sky News. The fire, in which an 81-year-old man was killed, is believed to be linked to a “family dispute”, but police said the suspect left a note before taking his own life that contained a “non-specific threat of explosives related to the Oktoberfest”.

What next?
A heightened police presence is expected following yesterday’s incident. In 1980, 12 Oktoberfest revellers were killed and more than 200 injured by an improvised explosive device placed in a bin by a neo-Nazi.

Can you put a price on friendship? Apparently you can – and it isn’t cheap. The rising cost of socialising, known as “friendflation”, is “becoming a serious pressure point” for many adult friendships, according to The Mirror. “Birthdays aren’t just a few drinks at the pub, they’re weekends away, lavish brunches or fancy dinners”, and “even going for a coffee is nearly a fiver”.

Socialising has “radically evolved” to have a “much bigger price tag”, Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, author of “The Sum of Small Things”, told the Financial Times. Today, the average cost of attending a stag or hen do is £779 a person, rising to £1,200 for a trip abroad, according to the insurance company Aviva.

The soaring cost of socialising can be traced back to the 2008 recession when “inconspicuous consumption” became popular, pushing consumers towards more “experience-driven” spending rather than showing off costly material goods. The pandemic intensified that cultural shift as people left lockdown determined to live “full lives” and increase their social activity.

Social media has played its part, too, with every get-together and holiday on full display online. “It just feels like everyone’s doing these things, so there’s that added pressure,” Lindsey Stanberry, editor of the personal finance newsletter The Purse, told the paper.

Money is still a taboo topic, and the “illusion of equality is integral” to maintaining a friendship, University of Kansas communications studies professor Jeffrey Hall told the FT. Many people won’t speak up when forced to spend and will stretch themselves to attend social events for fear of jeopardising their relationships in a culture where people are increasingly pressured to “demonstrate their friendship or allegiance” by spending money.