“There is no one more deserving of an exhibition of this scale than John Galliano,” said Anna Wintour in Vogue, as the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute announced that it will celebrate the work of the flamboyant and controversial designer.

The New York exhibition, due to open next spring, “won’t shy away” from “any of the darkness” in his past, she added.

‘Thorny choice’

He was caught making a series of racist and antisemitic comments, so it’s “an astonishing comeback”, wrote Zoe Sottile on CNN. It “resurfaces” the question that has “dogged” artistic and cultural institutions during the “past quarter-century” of reckonings: what do we do with “great artists who do bad things”?

This is a man who “once proclaimed my whole family – and millions like us – should die”, wrote Faran Krentcil in the New York Post. But the exhibit is still “a fine idea” because he has repented, his clothes are “extraordinary” and Jewish “scripture” calls us to “gaze at our former enemy and search for shared humanity”.

High fashion, an “explicit celebration of wealth inequality” has “never been the place to look for lessons on virtue”, wrote Dana Thomas in the New York Times. But his “rehabilitation” and “coronation” is a “terrible idea” because his “infamous antisemitic rants” were “not an aberration”.

In fashion, “addiction, provocation and eccentricity” are “seen as normal” or “necessary”, elements of the creative process, but Galliano’s “comportment” went “way beyond all that”. Not all “great creators” deserve a retrospective, and someone as “incendiary” as Galliano “certainly shouldn’t be the subject of one during his lifetime”.

‘Nostalgia is so now’

But he “apologised often” for his “outburst”, claiming he had suffered from alcoholism and drug addiction, wrote Craig Saueurs on Euronews, and “many Jewish leaders” have “accepted his contrition as genuine”. The Institute consulted the Anti-Defamation League and the Union for Reform Judaism and they “signed off” on the project.

The Met is “tapping into something very current: nostalgia”, wrote Isobel Van Dyke on Dazed. We “look back on the runways of the past” and “moan” that fashion “will never be as good again”. Perhaps it won’t but “either way”, Galliano is “the epitome of fashion’s nostalgia” because he’s a “creative genius”, so there’s “a strong case” for exhibiting his portfolio and “confronting his contributions” to “fashion history”.

Well, is it on or is it off? No one’s quite sure, said Al Jazeera (Doha). Two weeks ago, the United States and Saudi Arabia signed a multibillion-dollar deal allowing US companies to build and operate nuclear power plants on Saudi soil over the next 30 years.

But a day later, President Trump added a new condition, via social media: Saudi Arabia must fall in line with the UAE and other Arab nations that have signed the Abraham Accords, and recognise the state of Israel.

‘Reckless’ agreement

And that may prove a deal breaker, said David Frum in The Atlantic. Riyadh had been working towards this landmark pact for almost two decades. Thanks to the savvy of its de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), who ensured the private equity firm of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, would get its share of the billion-dollar nuclear licensing deals at stake, he almost got it over the line.

But now it must surely be in doubt, said Mohamad Elmasry on Middle East Eye. Riyadh has vowed it won’t normalise relations until Israel guarantees Palestinian statehood. And MbS has reportedly told US officials that hostility towards Israel is so great among Saudis in the wake of Israel’s devastating war in Gaza, that to sign a normalisation treaty would probably get him assassinated.

It’s obvious why the Saudis still badly want this nuclear deal, said Joseph Cirincione on MS Now (New York). It’s not, as they claim, to diversify their energy profile: that makes no sense for a nation sitting on an ocean of oil and blessed with the ideal wind and solar conditions for generating renewable energy – a far cheaper option.

No, the real reason is to gain atomic weapons to protect itself against its main foe: Iran. MbS has made no secret of his desire to build a bomb, and the deal would be a concrete step in that direction. Despite Trump’s claims to the contrary, it appears to permit nuclear enrichment on Saudi soil, thus enabling Riyadh to follow the likes of India, Israel and Pakistan in covertly enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels.

‘Guiding hand’

Who knows what’ll happen if this “reckless” deal goes ahead, said Mitchell Plitnick on Mondoweiss (New York). The “gold standard” nuclear-power pact that the US signed with the United Arab Emirates in 2009 required the UAE to forego the ability to enrich uranium, and obliged it to submit to International Atomic Energy Agency inspections: this Saudi deal has no such restrictions.

Which is why it would inevitably trigger a Middle East arms race, said Azriel Bermant in Foreign Policy. If the deal proceeds, Iran would openly seek its own nuclear deterrent, something it has so far officially forsworn. “It beggars belief that the US went to war against Iran to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon yet now acts in a way that is an open invitation for Tehran to weaponise.” And in a way that would also pour “proliferation kerosene” on Turkey and Egypt’s “smouldering nuclear ambitions”, said Matthew Kroenig and Henry Sokolski in The Wall Street Journal. Trump’s deal invites disaster.

Actually, the US is doing the right thing, said the Washington Examiner. The hard truth is that the “era of non-proliferation is coming to an end”: Pakistan and North Korea are both testing nuclear weapons. Given that sobering reality, better the US offer “a guiding hand” to the Saudis and oversee their nuclear agenda than let China or Russia fill the void.

Good or bad, the deal matters a lot to the US president, said Sharon Squassoni in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Chicago), so rumours of its death “are premature”. After all, it’s not some “spur-of-the-moment fantasy” cooked up by Trump. The same deal was also being considered under Joe Biden, and then too enrichment was a quid pro quo for recognising Israel.

The Saudis won’t do so, of course, given recent history, but they won’t have to. Although Congress can disapprove the deal once it’s submitted, the present Congress – due to adjourn on 18 December – is much less likely to do so than any freshly elected one. So the Saudis can “call Trump’s bluff by simply sitting back” and waiting for him to succumb to the pressure of the December deadline.

“Not so long ago he was ‘Britain’s next prime minister’,” said Sean O’Grady in The Independent. Today, Nigel Farage seems a rather deflated figure. For the first time in 15 months, some polls are putting his Reform UK party in second place to Labour. Last week, Reform came a distant second in the Greater Manchester mayoral election.

Farage’s own popularity has slumped to 32% – the lowest net rating of any major party leader. And he is currently trapped in an “end-of-the-pier show in Clacton” of his own making, as he prepares for next week’s by-election against Count Binface, Baron Von Thunderclap and other novelty candidates.

Operation Distraction

Meanwhile, questions continue to be asked about Reform’s finances and Farage’s acceptance last year of a £5 million gift from Christopher Harborne, which intensified last week when it emerged that he had, by then, discussed returning as Reform’s leader.

Desperate to change the subject, Farage announced “Operation Fortress” this week – a plan to use the Navy to force migrant boats back to France. It is a ludicrous idea, said The Independent. Paris has already warned that such pushbacks would violate French sovereignty and breach international law. That Farage came up with it shows how much trouble he and his party are in.

Let’s not get carried away, said Josh Glancy in The Sunday Times. “Reform is in a rut”, but Farage is still attracting “adoring crowds” in Clacton, and many polls are still putting Reform on 24%, neck-and-neck with Labour. Concern about migration remains a highly potent issue with voters. And when Andy Burnham’s honeymoon ends, as it surely will, Farage is likely to bounce back.

Under siege

Farage tends to perform best when his back is against the wall, said Tim Ross on Politico. His core support has only “solidified as a result of his recent difficulties”: his approval ratings have risen 13 points among Reform voters since May. They believe “the Establishment” is “intent on punishing the people’s champion” and is out to get Farage. They are standing by their man.

But Farage can’t rely on the diehards to get him to No. 10, said David Frost in The Daily Telegraph. There are not enough of them. He has achieved extraordinary things as leader, but Reform is now sitting on a plateau beneath the summit. There are “two possible routes up off it”. He could double down on immigration and the culture wars, which would shore up the base, but there is a ceiling on the number of voters who favour that tear-it-all-down approach. Or he could turn Reform into a broad-spectrum party, calling for deregulation, public-sector reform and tax cuts, to attract residual Tory votes.

But is Farage the man to lead that party, asked Dan Hodges in The Mail on Sunday. He is so divisive, some voters will do anything to keep Reform candidates out, and his brand is becoming more toxic. Reform needs to decide if it is a serious party or a “monument to one man’s folly”.

Andy Burnham has said his radical plans to devolve power away from Westminster will “increase the case” for a written constitution.

The lack of a codified constitution “disempowers” areas that have suffered from deindustrialisation and decades of neglect by central government, said the new PM. A desire for equal standards of living across England’s economically disparate geography must be the “cornerstone” of any constitutional settlement.

‘Crisis of trust between citizens and state’

The UK’s current unwritten constitution is made up of a “a vast and contradictory morass of legal statutes, court precedents, codes of conduct, scholarly opinions, treaties, traditions, gentlemen’s agreements and unwritten rules”, said George Monbiot in The Guardian. It is about “as easy to follow as a fishing line washed ashore after months at sea, bundled and ravelled in weed and tar”.

This “allows great scope for interpretation, which ruthless operators readily exploit”. Without a clearly defined constitution, there is nothing to stop a government with a safe majority from turning the UK in a “blatantly authoritarian” state.

Codification would help “redistribute authority”. But it would need to be debated “alongside the wider settlement on electoral reform, a regional second chamber and executive accountability”, said an editorial for The Burnham Programme, which tracks the PM’s plans for “national renewal”.

Constitutional reform is “unlikely to be a hot topic or a big vote winner at the next election”, said Lucy Jolin in the Cambridge University alumni magazine CAM. But while “it might sound very removed from the reality of our lives”, the process of agreeing a new constitution “could, in fact, be a tool to address a very obvious crisis that governments across the world are facing: a crisis of trust between citizens and state”.

‘Virtually nothing is off the table’

Recent crises – from Brexit to the attempted prorogation of Parliament by Boris Johnson to Covid – have put the UK’s constitution into the spotlight. But, “far from being inadequate, irrelevant or even damaging”, it has “performed adequately – if not admirably at times”, said Brian Jones in a 2023 paper for the Institute for Government and Bennett Institute for Public Policy.

If anything, the UK system does a better job of allowing and incorporating change than most written constitutions. These codified systems “either take items off the table or make it more difficult to update constitutions”, whereas “in the UK virtually nothing is off the table”. As such, it is better suited to adapting to “political, legal, economic and cultural change”.

The “flexibility” of the British constitution means Andy Burnham, “having never won a general election and with no mandate or manifesto to call upon, can simply announce a whole series of reforms to devolution in England”, said Lee David Evans, a historian of the Conservative Party, on UnHerd.

If the UK had a written constitution, where the “relationship between devolved and central authority was much more rigid, his recent policy announcements would be much more difficult – perhaps even practically impossible”.

When Michael Gove became education secretary in 2010, the UK’s scores in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa), which compares education attainment across 38 developed countries, were “at an all-time low”, said The Times. Gove used the data to “argue for urgent reforms” and introduced a new curriculum in England that emphasised core subjects.

Since then, the UK’s 15-year-olds have “climbed global rankings” in literacy and numeracy; they are now ninth among OECD peers for reading (up from 20th) and 11th for maths (up from 22nd). In the most recent Pisa assessment, the UK’s scores were all “above the OECD average”.

But Andy Burnham’s new education secretary, Lucy Powell, has blamed Gove’s school reforms for Britain’s youth worklessness crisis. Powell argues the “over-focus on academic outcomes” has “left too many young people behind”, said Gove in The Times, whereas “the truth is precisely the opposite”. Powell suggests she will overhaul the curriculum to focus on less academic subjects. “In other words: bring back stupid.”

‘Genuine’ success

I’m not saying England’s education system is “perfect,” said Stephen Bush in the Financial Times. But “the focus on a knowledge-rich curriculum” has led to “better outcomes for most pupils”. The proportion of children getting good GCSEs has “continued to climb”, but grade inflation has remained “relatively low”. England’s school system is a “genuine public policy success of the last 25 years”.

And the improvements “have been seen across the board”, said Amanda Spielman, former chief inspector of Ofsted, in The Spectator: for children who are both less and more academic, for disadvantaged and advantaged. There is “plenty of space” within the curriculum for teenagers to “take up technical and vocational subjects” – we have some excellent courses and qualifications on offer. But there is “nothing wrong” with expecting all pupils to study the core subjects too, “as would be normal in the countries whose technical education systems we look to and admire”.

Many people believed Gove’s “deeply unpopular” reforms were a “big step backwards”, said The Economist. But countries that “pressed on with more fashionable approaches” have seen their scores fall. Experts “downplay the importance of learning crunchy stuff”, but “more tedious methods” appear to “get better results”. The data comparing us to other developed nations gives us “good reason to think that England’s reforms are starting to bear fruit”.

‘Partial’ success

Comparisons with international averages disguise a “decline in national educational attainment”, said The Times. Our actual scores have “hardly risen”. England is outperforming Scotland and Wales, which “took a different approach to reform”, but overall the UK’s latest Pisa figures for science have dropped 14 points compared with 2009. Maths has dropped three, and reading has remained the same.

It’s the declines among OECD peers that have “pushed the UK’s schools up the rankings”. According to the OECD, the pandemic “caused attainment to drop globally”, which reduces the ability of the Pisa scores to “serve as an accurate barometer”.

And ultimately, “success is more than educational attainment”. According to the Education Policy Institute, UK students have “the second lowest average life satisfaction of 15-year-olds across all OECD countries”.

In 2019, PC Andrew Harper was responding to a call about the theft of a quad bike in Berkshire when his foot got caught in the tow strap of the suspects’ car as it sped off. He was dragged for 1.6km, suffering fatal injuries. The three teenagers in the car were later convicted of his manslaughter; the two who were passengers were sentenced to 13 years.

Dangerously close to capacity

After that, said the Daily Mail, Harper’s widow successfully campaigned for the killers of emergency workers to get mandatory life terms; but Harper’s Law doesn't apply retroactively, and last week it emerged that those two men may be released on licence early, under the 2026 Sentencing Act. It allows for all non-violent offenders, and violent ones jailed for less than four years, to be released when they've served 33% of their terms, and for those serving more than four years for violent and sex crimes to be released at the 50% mark. Only a few categories of serious offender are excluded, including those serving life terms.

Countless victims of crimes including rape and child sex abuse have been informed that their attackers are to be freed earlier than anticipated. Inevitably, they are appalled and feel betrayed, said David Shipley in The Spectator. Faced with a public backlash, Andy Burnham has paused the Act’s implementation. But it is not clear what he can do. Prisons in England and Wales have been dangerously close to capacity for years. No sooner had Keir Starmer come to office in 2024 than he was faced with warnings that the system was about to collapse, prompting a controversial early release scheme in which many offenders were let out at the 40% mark.

The system needs total reform

People blamed successive Tory governments for bringing in tougher sentences and raising automatic release thresholds, while failing to increase prison capacity: in 14 years, they added just 500 new places. Labour has pledged to create 14,000 more, but even if they manage that, these prisons won't be ready in time to avert a crisis – hence the new Act, which lowers release thresholds again. It also expands the range of offences they apply to, because releasing only non-violent offenders would not free up enough space.

Ultimately, the system needs total reform, said Ian Birrell in The i Paper. Owing in part to a “tough on crime” narrative driven by the media, our incarceration rate is higher than any other country in Western Europe. Yet there is no firm evidence that longer sentences deter crimes – let alone in jails rife with drugs but short on opportunities for rehabilitation or treatment for addiction. Countries like Norway have shown that there are cheaper, more effective ways of tackling crime, but will the public accept them? It will take a bold politician to break this cycle.

“You wait 30 years for a Royal Shakespeare Company appearance from Kenneth Branagh and then two turn up at once,” said Claire Allfree in The Telegraph. Having starred as Prospero in “The Tempest” earlier this summer, Branagh is back with an “energetic, charismatic, touching performance” as Lopakhin – the son of a serf who has become a successful businessman – in a new version of “The Cherry Orchard”, adapted by Laura Wade.

‘Broad comedy and pathos’

It’s a “star-studded” production: the cast includes the American film stars Helen Hunt and Bill Pullman. And it looks “beguiling”, said Clive Davis in The Times, with an “elegant set design” that “evokes an outpost of privilege facing extinction”. Unfortunately, the evening veers too wildly between “broad comedy and pathos”, while never quite finding a settled tone – or getting to the heart of the play.

In his final masterpiece – about the owners of a great Russian estate facing up to their financial ruin – Chekhov uses the metaphor of a doomed cherry orchard to “conjure a society on the cusp of seismic change, and a family splintered by inaction and marooned by personal grief”, said Sarah Hemming in the Financial Times.

‘Curious lack of urgency’

The orchard’s significance is conveyed through pretty prints of cherry blossom that contrast with the gnarled branches that clamber up the set; and the performances are heightened, “as if many of the characters are acting in their own personal drama”, aware that disaster is looming, yet unable or unwilling to meet the “demands of the moment”. The production is full of insight, and painfully truthful moments, but it fails to mine the play’s “heartbreaking depth”, and its impact is dulled by a “curious lack of urgency”.

Branagh’s Lopakhin is unusually amenable, said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian. When his class rage erupts, it is “arresting” – but then it melts away. Hunt is surprisingly “featureless” as the landowner Ranyevskaya; Pullman brings “charm and comic charisma” to the part of her brother, but it’s not enough to rescue a tonally soft-edged production that lacks a “magnetic centre to hold you”.

Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon. Until 29 August

“From today, Britain will value the hard hat every bit as much as the graduation cap,” wrote Andy Burnham in The Times. The prime minister’s new government has unveiled “fundamental changes” to England’s curriculum and education system.

From the age of 14, pupils will be able to combine technical subjects like manufacturing and AI with core subjects like maths and English. They will also be able to get experience with local employers, to give them a clearer pathway into work. “For too long, we’ve built a school system around the idea that there’s only one route to success: university, a degree, a desk,” wrote Burnham. But in “the age of AI”, practical and technical skills have “become more valuable than ever”.

‘Westminster will be less involved’

Burnham is “on a mission” to reduce the number of young people not in education, employment or training (Neets) – more than one in eight of the UK’s 16- to 24-year-olds: the highest level in more than 12 years. This overhaul “doesn’t actually do anything about Neets, in that it will not be of any benefit to them”, said The Times’ sketch writer Tom Peck. But in theory, it will help “prevent the emergence of the next generation of Neets”.

It also “gives Burnham a chance to distance himself again” from previous politicians, said Politico’s London Playbook. Because “we’ve heard this type of thing a lot over the last few years”. But the difference now, Burnham argues, is that “Westminster will be less involved”; the new routes will be shaped by local mayors, schools and employers.

It’s modelled on his Greater Manchester Baccalaureate, or MBacc, which he launched as mayor in 2024, said the BBC’s education correspondent Hazel Shearing. The MBacc “may well be scalable”, but “there will be challenges”. Will kids living in deprived areas, without thriving industries, have fewer options?

Neets ‘downstream of economy, not classroom’

I agree that England “has never built a technical education system worthy of the name”, said Joshua Vallance, vice principal of Trinity Academy, Brixton in Schools Week. But should children “begin sacrificing a broad academic education at 14” to get one? “As a Labour member and teacher, I think they should not.”

Telling kids to organise their curriculum around a “presumed occupational destination” means we “narrow their field of possibility before either they or we can know what they might become”. Plus, one of “the beauties of our education system” is “common academic entitlement”: that children at a Brixton academy “have access to the same knowledge as the children at Eton and Harrow”: a “great leveller in society”.

In Burnham’s system, more well-off children at independent or selective schools will still study languages, history and sciences “before deciding what to become”. Poorer children will be “asked to decide first”, with “fewer options”.

England’s education system isn’t perfect, but “the focus on a knowledge-rich curriculum” has led to “better outcomes for most pupils”, said Stephen Bush in the Financial Times. We’ve climbed international rankings in both literacy and numeracy, and the proportion of kids getting good GCSE results has risen while grade inflation stayed “relatively low”.

Unless John Healey “does something very radical in the Budget”, Burnham’s overhaul has to be “balanced by cuts elsewhere in the schools budget”, which imperils a “genuine public policy success”, but “to no good end”. Because the Neet problem is “not a consequence of our education system”: it’s “rooted in the labour market”.

Kids are “twice as likely to become Neet in the northeast of England than the southwest”, not because schools in the southwest are better at tailoring education to “the needs of local businesses”. The rate of young people who become Neets is “downstream of the strength of their local economies, not the curriculum”.

While New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has backtracked on a pledge to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he enters the city, those in the Big Apple remain split on the idea. Some believe Netanyahu is a war criminal who should be subject to the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant if he visits the United Nations in Manhattan this September. Others think it is hypocritical to focus only on the Israeli leader.

‘Not welcome in New York City’

Mamdani originally said he was looking into whether officials in New York City could arrest Netanyahu. But while the Israeli prime minister is a “war criminal,” New York City police officers do “not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant,” Mamdani said in a video on X. “I want to be equally clear, Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at large.” The federal government should “join the International Criminal Court and execute both this warrant as well as any warrant the International Criminal Court holds.”

These words could inspire New Yorkers to hold “larger demonstrations against Israeli officials and supporters during the U.N. General Assembly,” given that Netanyahu is “one of many foreign officials who have outstanding arrest warrants issued” by the ICC, Elizabeth Kim said at Gothamist. Talk of an arrest also “gave the issue prominence at a time when Mr. Netanyahu’s conduct of the war in Gaza has led two independent United Nations inquiries and humanitarian groups inside and outside of Israel to accuse him of perpetrating a genocide,” say Sally Goldenberg, Dana Rubinstein and Liam Stack at The New York Times.

Some Palestinian advocacy groups are still pushing for additional action to be taken against Netanyahu by New York City officials. Palestinians “welcomed Mr. Mamdani’s statement,” but “this has never been about one individual,” Nerdeen Kiswani, the co-founder of the pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime, said to the Times. Mamdani also admitted he “sympathized with New Yorkers who were ‘disappointed’ to hear that Mr. Netanyahu would not be arrested,” said Goldenberg, Rubinstein and Stack.

‘A selective approach’

Some feel the idea of arresting Netanyahu is unwarranted. Going after the Israeli prime minister presents a “selective approach to ICC arrest warrants,” said Zvika Klein at The Jerusalem Post. The U.N. General Assembly always “hosts the largest annual gathering of accused war criminals on Earth” who “arrive on diplomatic passports, sweep past the barricades on First Avenue, address the world from the green marble rostrum and fly home.” When the U.S. “decides a foreign leader belongs in a courtroom, it has tools,” but New York City is “not among them.” International law “survives on the belief that it applies to everyone, or it protects no one.”

Others consider a Netanyahu arrest even more risky. Lawmakers may have “advised the mayor that attempting an arrest could have subjected him and his collaborators to criminal liability,” said Paul Mauro at The Wall Street Journal. The law “explicitly states that ‘abducting’ any person who is ‘a foreign official, an internationally protected person or an official guest’ is a federal offense.” So if officials “discussed the logistics of such an operation with the mayor and either he or they took any action directed at making it happen,” they “could all have faced federal charges.”

“The most important Oval Office address since the Cuban Missile Crisis.” That’s how one Republican senator who had been given a preview of President Trump’s speech last week described it in advance, said Kyle Cheney on Politico.

Needless to say, the televised address failed to live up to the hype. Trump sought to give the impression that newly declassified intelligence had revealed “shocking vulnerabilities” in America’s election system and proof of Chinese interference in the 2020 election. But he offered no evidence for this, or for his claim that the “deep state” was working to actively suppress information about Beijing’s “sinister election meddling”.

Overblown panic

What makes Trump’s overwrought rhetoric about “election security” more ridiculous, said Steve Benen on MS Now, is that he has just fired all the remaining board members of the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission (EAC), a federal body created to help states fairly administer elections. How is that meant to improve matters?

Democrats are freaking out about the gutting of the EAC, said The Wall Street Journal. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called it “a brazen attempt to seize control of our elections before a single vote is cast”. This panic is overblown. The EAC only has a modest role, and its staffers can still perform its basic duties. Yes, Trump “is probably willing to do whatever he can to help the Republicans keep Congress” in November’s midterm elections, but the “comforting reality is that the ballots are controlled by thousands of different state and local officials” – not by the federal government.

Pushing the envelope

On the contrary, Trump’s opponents have every reason to be worried, said The Philadelphia Inquirer. For the past year, the president has been escalating his “election-tampering efforts”. He has called for the federal government to seize control of elections. He has pushed GOP lawmakers to redraw election maps in the party’s favour, while at the same time seeking to change rules to suppress the Democrat vote, demanding an end to postal votes, and signing an executive order that would require voters to show proof of citizenship. He has “rewarded election deniers” and worked continuously to sow distrust in elections. Who knows what else he’ll try. His attempt to overturn the 2020 election results showed he’s willing to “cross any line”. Let’s state the obvious: he’s “out to rig” the midterms.

In his first speech as Labour leader, Andy Burnham promised to deliver the “most significant change moment in our politics for 40 years”. Days later, on the steps of No. 10, he pinpointed a “series of wrong turns” taken in the 1980s, including the deindustrialisation of “large parts of the country” that “still haven't recovered”. Under Margaret Thatcher, the new PM said, “political power was centralised and economic power was privatised”; now we need a “circuit breaker” and a “new model”.

Undoing Thatcher’s ‘damage’

Many of the “familiar and formidable” problems Burnham faces can indeed be traced “back to the deindustrialisation associated with Thatcherism”, said Bill Keegan, senior economics commentator at The Observer. Placing reindustrialisation “as a central part of his economic strategy” would help Burnham “go some way to undoing the damage Thatcher wrought”.

There was lower growth in the 1980s than the 1970s, said Andrew Fisher, Labour’s director of policy under Jeremy Corbyn, in The i Paper. And any “proceeds of growth” were only felt at the top of society: “inequality increased by a third, homelessness grew and unemployment soared above three million. And that was just the immediate impact” of Thatcher’s “disastrous policies”: their legacy still haunts us today in “stagnant growth, higher utility bills, and in deep inequality consolidated by a grossly unfair tax system”.

To address all this, the new PM needs to set a clear direction from the top of government, said Jonathan Freeland in The Guardian. And, ironically, his “model” here has to be Thatcher. During her time in power, “even the most junior official, when confronted with a policy choice, knew what the boss wanted”: “crudely, less state, more market”. Burnham’s Day One attack on centralised political power and privatised economic power “effectively tells Whitehall” that this PM wants “the opposite”: “political power devolved, and a more active economic state, unafraid of public ownership”.

Playing ‘buzzword bingo’

In laying the ills of modern Britain on “40 years of neoliberalism”, Burnham is playing “fashionable buzzword bingo: deregulation, privatisation, austerity, financialisation, trickle-down economics”, said Kristian Niemietz of the free-market think tank Institute of Economic Affairs on City A.M. And he could not be “more wrong”: the UK economy today is “a million miles away from ‘neoliberalism’”. There may be “a sensible centre-left answer” to our economic challenges “but Burnham’s 1980s karaoke will not get us there”.

What we’re really faced with now is a “grotesque blend of the worst of Thatcherism with the worst of Blairism: bad aspects of ‘neoliberalism’ coexisting with bad aspects of bureaucratic statism”, said Jonny Ball in UnHerd. Our key utilities and critical industries are in the hands of profiteers, we’re “addicted to imported cheap labour” and our local and national management structures have amalgamated into a “public-private partnership blob”. Any “genuine saviour” will have “to topple” this “mongrel system we currently inhabit”.

And while the Left hope a “charismatic mayor with a warm smile” can “exorcise Thatcher’s ghost”, they shouldn’t lose sight of “the Reformist Right” that’s still praying “it will one day complete her unfinished revolution”.

For months, equity markets have been able to treat higher oil prices, higher government bond yields and vast AI costs “as separate problems arriving on different days”, said Stephen Innes on Investing.com. But Wall Street is now finally on “the collision course it had spent weeks pretending would never happen”.

The catalyst was the Strait of Hormuz, where the standoff between Washington and Tehran entered a dangerous new phase, pushing the price of Brent crude up by more than 10% to $85/barrel, the highest in four weeks. For investors, central bankers and governments, the spectre of an inflation shock that many had hoped was behind us has hoved back into view.

No shelter

“I’m left wondering why the smart money failed to hedge against what was always a highly probable breakdown of this fragile ceasefire,” said Andrew Ross Sorkin in The New York Times. “The interim peace deal was clearly resting on a knife’s edge, yet investors chose the comfort of short-term optimism over geopolitical probability. Again.” Iran isn’t the only conflict vexing the oil market, said Javier Blas on Bloomberg. “What matters for Main Street” isn’t the cost of crude, but of petrol, diesel and jet fuel. On that score, the concurrent escalation of the Ukraine War in recent weeks is troubling, given shortages in global refining capacity, in Russia and beyond.

The difficulty investors face is finding shelter from these geopolitical crises, said James Mackintosh in The Wall Street Journal. “In the old investment paradigm, government bonds acted as shock absorbers, with prices rising and yields falling when the economy takes a hit.” But that doesn’t work when shocks are inflationary – particularly “when government debt levels are so high”.

Challenge for Burnham

Bonds have suffered a painful sell-off on both sides of the Atlantic, with prices of benchmark ten-year UK gilts spiking above 5% for the first time since May. Bond yields have broadly tracked oil prices since the start of the Iran conflict, said Mehreen Khan in The Times. And, once again, the UK – highly exposed to global energy and food prices – is vulnerable. Andy Burnham’s economic inheritance as the incoming PM is suddenly looking much more troubling.

“Rising gilt yields eat into the government’s fiscal buffers” by raising the cost of servicing debt, and the unknown identity of the new chancellor is adding to the jitters in debt markets. Some investors are already voting with their feet. Asset manager Rathbones has slashed its gilts holding, as a hedge against potential “fiscal irresponsibility” – out of fear that Burnham “does a Truss”. Given an increasingly fragile fiscal backdrop, more may follow.

“Imagine the ecstasy Democrats felt when they first found Graham Platner,” said Carine Hajjar in The Washington Post. At last, a man who could help them win back the blue-collar vote: a charismatic, gruff-talking oyster farmer and combat veteran.

They were so excited to think his run for Maine senator might succeed, and deliver their party control of the upper chamber of Congress, that they dismissed a growing list of ugly revelations about him.

A gamble too far

That large Nazi tattoo on his chest? Platner didn’t know the skull motif had SS associations (though he apparently called it his “Totenkopf”). His history of bigoted comments on social media, and sexting of women? He’d been through a “dark period”, but had “grown”. The allegation of physical abuse from a (Republican) ex-girlfriend? Probably politically motivated. But a credible accusation of rape from a (Democratic) former partner finally tipped the balance – and, last week, Platner quit the race.

The Platner affair was a train wreck, said Perry Bacon in The New Republic, but that shouldn’t deter Democrats from seeking unconventional candidates who will make voters give them a second look. The party has to enlist support from outside its core base.

Platner was a gamble too far, but we know from the 2016 and 2024 elections what happens when Democrats run milquetoast candidates with “Republican-lite” policy platforms: they lose. The party needs new blood, said The New York Times. More importantly, though, it needs to define what it would do with power. It needs “a purpose” more than it needs charismatic outsiders.

Selected on ‘vibes’

The Democrats must take more care with recruitment, said Christina Cauterucci on Slate. Platner was enlisted by a political strategist called Daniel Moraff, solely on the basis of “vibes”. He had no track record as an official or an activist. There was minimal vetting. Voters wanted “real human beings”, Moraff insisted, not “vat-grown people”.

Yet the joke is that Platner’s rugged image is itself confected. He comes from an affluent family and attended a fancy prep school; his oyster farm’s main customer is his mother’s upscale restaurant. Genuinely working-class voters weren’t impressed by Platner: he polled poorly among them, and did much better among college-educated voters. This is a cautionary tale about treating “class signifiers” – a dense beard, tattoos and a grimy sweatshirt – as proof “of political merit”.

“Westminster is reeling” from the news that, it seems, Ann Widdecombe was murdered, said Tim Shipman in The Spectator. “At this stage it is the done thing to urge people not to jump to conclusions” – but “the leaping has already begun”. Nigel Farage declared on Saturday that it was “premeditated murder”; Reform UK clearly believes she was targeted because she was its migration spokesperson.

Targeted attack

Devon and Cornwall Police had declared on Sunday that there was “nothing to suggest” the killing was “politically motivated”. On Monday, though, there was an about-turn. Counterterrorism police took over the investigation; a 28-year-old man, who had reportedly driven 300 miles from his home in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, to her village on Dartmoor on the day she died, was arrested. The crime was described as a “targeted attack”, perhaps linked to extremism. If the police don’t know what happened, said The Daily Telegraph, it’d “be better for them to say so”. Official speculation and obfuscation only fuels “mischief”.

Once again, MPs found themselves considering the question of their own safety, said Chris Mason on BBC News. The veteran Tory Sir Bernard Jenkin, recalling the deaths of Jo Cox and David Amess, claimed that as a member of Parliament “you are more likely to meet a violent death than a member of His Majesty’s Armed Forces or a member of the British police forces”. MPs need to remain both “accessible and safe”. This, today, is a massive task. Farage believes the Royal and VIP Executive Committee, which is responsible for MPs’ security, has not taken his own safety seriously enough. And Widdecombe’s death suggests that not only the 650 sitting MPs, but also former members, may need help

‘Parasocial fixations’

Her death is shocking, “not just for its brutality”, said Mary Harrington on UnHerd. It’s shocking because it highlights “how much better, kinder and more trusting a country Widdecombe believed Britain to be, than the place we actually live in”. She was a traditional “British battleaxe”: a staunch conservative who never shied away from controversy, but was open, warm and courteous to those with whom she disagreed.

Britain, sadly, has grown “more fractured, skint, alienated and online” than the world she grew up in. “Parasocial fixations” on public figures are more and more common; harassment, and serious violence, often result. This baleful trend seems to have pursued Widdecombe to her home in a sleepy Dartmoor village – the last place on Earth, you’d imagine, “something so horrifying might happen”.

“The godfather of Chinese contemporary art”, Ai Weiwei is also an activist who has, over decades, “documented the failures and excesses” of the Chinese Communist Party, said Tim Smith-Laing in the Financial Times.

He has been imprisoned, kept under house arrest and, eventually, exiled. Earlier this month, for a one-off performance piece at his new show in Manchester’s Aviva Studios, Ai re-enacted a full 24 hours of his 81-day detention inside a replica cell.

‘Best at enormous scale’

“This is an artist for whom risk has real meaning. His courage and achievements are nothing short of extraordinary,” said Smith-Laing. So I walked into the cavernous hall where “Button Up!” is being held “ready to be moved and awed”. Instead, “I found myself mostly unmoved and underwhelmed”.

Everything is on a vast scale. The giant mural “History of Bombs” is made up of 3.5 million Lego bricks. The sculpture “La Commedia Umana” is a chandelier made from 2,000 pieces of glass, shaped like human body parts. The room is “like something out of Piranesi’s prisons: indescribably vast, its ceiling and far walls disappearing into darkness and simultaneously crammed and scattered with objects that were all out of scale”. But big art is not necessarily good art.

Ai’s art always works “best at enormous scale”, said Eddy Frankel in The Guardian. It’s most effective when “blown up, expanded, shoved in your face”. And, in this sense, the artist doesn’t disappoint. Spread across one wall is “a giant inflatable dinghy” filled with figures in lifejackets. It’s not a good-looking piece of art, “but it makes a point, and makes it loudly”: if you think you can ignore the refugee crisis, think again.

‘Heavy-handed’ symbolism

Elsewhere, “house-sized flags” sewn from hundreds of thousands of buttons represent the emblems of the multinational alliance – Britain, the US, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the Austrian-Hungarian empire – that invaded China in 1900. The flags hang heavy, as if “weighed down by history and its continuing impact”. “Not everything here is that good, sadly.” There are some questionable exhibits and, at many moments – with Lego bombs or the migrant boat on Hokusai’s great wave – “the symbolism is so heavy-handed it feels as if Banksy did it”.

Ai “has never excelled in nuance”, said Cal Revely-Calder in The Telegraph, and the work on show is certainly anything but subtle. Sometimes, this works: the most “affecting” thing here is a serene re-creation of a Ming-era temple, reconstructed in its entirety. But all too often the effects are “superficial and brief”.

Throughout, Ai rails against “the murky legacies of the West”, and his sallies on big topics such as “colonisation, refugees, war” are presumably intended to make the visitor “feel guilt”. Yet his work lacks any “second dimension”, and its worthy messages frequently come across as simplistic. “Meaningful politics seems to escape Ai Weiwei. So does meaningful art.”

Aviva Studios, Manchester. Until 6 September

Polls matter, but the stock market might be President Donald Trump’s favorite barometer of success. “Everybody’s profiting” when the markets rise, he said to reporters recently. But that’s not quite true. Rising stock prices are nonetheless a consolation for the president, and shaky market responses to controversial policies have spurred him to shift course on tariffs and war with Iran.

‘Economic pressure’

The president “considers market reaction a key measure of success,” said The Washington Post. The metric helped launch the now scuppered attempts to end fighting with Iran. Markets have reacted badly to surges in fighting — the S&P plunged Monday after the U.S. reimposed a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz — but “every time we talked about the possibility of peace, the stock market shot up like a rocket ship,” Trump said to reporters last month as he explained his attempts to reach a deal.

Most presidents “play down the idea that they are susceptible to economic pressure” when making foreign policy, the Post said. But Iranians decided that Trump’s devotion to Wall Street and its negative reaction to the Strait of Hormuz closure “gave them leverage” to take a harder line and extract concessions, Brookings Institution’s Suzanne Maloney said to the outlet.

Trump’s close attention to stock indexes “risks conflating the fortunes of ‌financial markets with the broader experience of U.S. households,” said Reuters. Roughly 40% of Americans “do not have money in the markets.” And the markets do not measure the health of private firms or small businesses that serve as the “backbone of the U.S. labor market.”

The stock market has grown by $15 trillion since the president began his second term, though that is mostly held by the richest 1% of the country. A poor response to Trump policies seems to matter mainly “when corporate or financial interests are at stake,” Groundwork Collaborative’s Alex Jacquez said to Reuters.

‘Not the litmus test’

The president’s new “Trump accounts” for newborns are expected to draw more young Americans into “long-term wealth-building” through stock markets, said Yahoo Finance. But the markets are “not the litmus test the American public wants” from the presidency, Ali Vitali said at MS NOW. Trump’s recent financial disclosures revealed “billions in wealth growth for the president and his sons,” but the voters “standing at gas stations” and paying higher prices at the pump probably find it “unfair.”

Stock investors have figured out to “pounce” when Trump shows signs of “buckling” on unpopular decisions, Katie Martin said at the Financial Times. Still, the bond markets that buy and sell federal debt are telling a different story about Trump’s policymaking. U.S. bonds have “never recovered from the drop in price” they experienced at the start of the Iran war. And there are signs that “large, conservative investors” are “reducing their exposure to risks around U.S. institutional credibility” and moving to Canadian and European bonds instead. That means American officials “will have to work a little harder” to keep attracting the bond investors they need to “balance the books.”

Incoming prime minister Andy Burnham has called for a “serious review” of MPs’ security following the death of Ann Widdecombe. Police said the Reform UK spokesperson and former Conservative MP died in a “targeted attack” in her home in Devon on 8 July but are still working to find a motive. A 28-year-old white British man has been arrested on suspicion of murder and a terrorism offence. “Politics has darkened in the last decade,” said Burnham, and protections for politicians may need to be “increased further”.

‘More dangerous than ever’

It is an “unfortunate statistical fact” that MPs are now “more likely to meet a violent death” than a member of the Armed Forces or police, Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin told the Commons on Monday. Others recalled the murders of Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016 and Conservative David Amess in 2021.

Reform UK has said its MPs are particularly at risk, pointing to 1,577 recorded threats against leader Nigel Farage since February, including 597 death threats, predominantly on X. Many MPs blamed social media for “contributing to an atmosphere where violent language and abuse had been normalised”, said BBC political editor Chris Mason. They said “it felt more dangerous than ever”. The death of Widdecombe highlights the “breadth of the challenge the authorities face in assessing the threat to those in public life”.

‘Increasingly perilous time’

There has already been a significant expansion of security measures for MPs in the decade since Cox’s murder. Personal protection has improved, while “security is visibly tight in Westminster, with armed police patrolling the parliamentary estate”, said The Guardian’s Alexandra Topping. But this has done little if anything to stop the scale of threats against MPs, having the knock-on effect of discouraging people, “particularly women and people of colour, from entering politics in the first place”.

In this “increasingly perilous time, criteria for granting protection to politicians, inside and outside parliament, must be more flexible”, said The Times. This will in all likelihood mean “more bodyguards, more cameras”, all of which cost money. “But if that is the price of democracy, then so be it.”

This article first appeared in The Week’s Politics Unspun newsletter.

“Here we are again,” said John Nugent in Empire. Since 2010, Disney has produced more than 20 remakes “adapting old, animated material into shiny live-action form” – more than one a year. But few have used source material so recent – “or seemed so pointless” – as “Moana”.

‘Shot-for-shot remake’

It is practically a “shot-for-shot remake” of the 2016 animation, which was a “high point” for Disney. Once again, we are in ancient Polynesia, as Moana, a spirited chief’s daughter, goes on an oceanic quest to save her dying island of Motunui, enlisting the help of the narcissistic demi-god Maui.

But whereas the animated version was “fun, funny” and had “fantastic music”, this feels “flat”. It barely counts as live-action, either: a good two-thirds or so is animated, with the CGI often retaining a “cartoon aesthetic”, in a way that feels “awkward” and jarring next to flesh-and-blood actors. At one point, a character marvels at a “sacred place” surrounding them, while pointing to what is plainly a green-screen studio.

‘Exquisite form of agony’

“You will wonder why they bothered to make a replica,” said Brian Viner in the Daily Mail, “except insofar that you won’t wonder at all.” Disney can “hardly be bothered to conceal the fact that their overwhelming priority is to generate dollars”.

There are, though, “flickers of warmth”. Catherine Laga’aia is “engaging” as Moana, and creates “a lively chemistry” with Dwayne Johnson, reprising the role of Maui.

Johnson’s performance is “oddly lacklustre”, said Kevin Maher in The Times, and his wig is ridiculous – he looks like a “demented extra from ‘Hairspray’”. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s songs remain catchy, but mostly the film provokes only “an exquisite form of agony”.

Netflix’s announcement last year it had green-lit a new adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s classic book series immediately ruffled feathers. Podcaster Megyn Kelly issued a stark warning for the streaming giant on X: “If you woke-ify ‘Little House on the Prairie’ I will make it my singular mission to absolutely ruin your project”.

Now, that adaptation has arrived and, unsurprisingly, not everyone likes it.

‘The reboot that nobody needed’

Few things offer a more “sobering barometer of the current state of our politics” than how the “Little House on the Prairie” reboot became a “battle in America’s ongoing culture wars” before a cast had even been announced or anyone had watched it, said Jason Kyle Howard in Politico.

It’s a “particularly striking example” of how popular entertainment is politicised “precisely because” the original – in this case NBC’s version from the 1970s – is seen as “decidedly non-political” and has been enjoyed by fans of “all political stripes”. Ronald Reagan famously loved the show.

Those of us who watched the original will remember it with “misty-eyed nostalgia”, said Anita Singh in The Telegraph. This is the “reboot that nobody needed”. Created by Rebecca Sonnenshine, who brought in female directors for each episode of the first series, it includes “sympathetically portrayed” Native American characters who “take up a lot of screen time”.

The basic story remains intact: the Ingalls family “head out west to establish a new life on the prairie”, navigating a series of challenges and dangers along the way. As viewers, we’re invited to “envy” the pretty scenery and simpler way of living; the production design “fits neatly into the Instagram aesthetic” and the women’s immaculate dresses have echoes of a tradwife fantasy. It’s hard to “shake the feeling” that the show has been made for an audience with “short attention spans and a desire for social media likes”.

“Netflix did indeed woke-ify ‘Little House on the Prairie,” said Rebecca Onion on Slate Magazine. It makes a “deep bow to contemporary concerns about the politics of the source material”. Among the Ingalls family’s new friends are a Black couple and a French Canadian woman who “wears trousers and practises free love”. The streaming giant’s take with its “sassy and resourceful Ingalls sisters” and “full cast of multicultural” friends feels “sanitised in a way that’s sure to annoy ‘Little House’ purists”.

‘Gentle but gripping’ new take

“Is this ‘woke-ifying’?” said James Poniewozik in The New York Times. “Call it what you want”, but failing to feature Native American characters would have been a “conspicuous choice in an era of rich Indigenous stories like ‘Reservation Dogs’”. Using multiple voices to explore the story’s “underlying conflicts” is the “most interesting aspect of a familiar series”.

The “worst people you know” will likely complain the reboot is “woke”, said Daniel Fienberg in The Hollywood Reporter. That’s because the Black doctor who featured only “briefly” before has been turned into a fleshed-out person with a “love interest and backstory”, and Indigenous characters have been introduced to “articulate the discomfort of being forced off their land in the name of Manifest Destiny”. If that makes it woke then “so be it”, but I’d like to point out the Ingalls remain the show’s “undisputed heroes” who are “fundamentally decent and empathetic people”.

Does the reboot get into the “racial-ethnic offences Wilder allegedly committed while writing her many books?” said John Anderson in The Wall Street Journal. “No.” But, like the books, it does explore the “well-founded fear that settlers had about the Native Americans around them, and the oblivious attitude of the pioneers toward the people they were displacing”.

Remaking the “beloved tale” was “always going to be a risk”, said Rebecca Nicholson in the Financial Times. But Sonnenshine has “navigated this potentially fraught undertaking with skill”. Cleverly, she lets audiences “take what they want” from the show, whether that means “indulging in the fantasy of living off the land or baulking at the show’s grittier truths”. Either way, it’s a “gentle but gripping” update.

Video assistant referee (VAR) technology was introduced to correct clear and obvious refereeing errors, but has since “morphed into something far greater”, said Kevin Baxter in the Los Angeles Times.

At the 2026 Fifa World Cup there have been more than 100 VAR interventions in matches up to the round of 16. Most of these reviews were technically correct, but many of the infractions have been “so imperceptible yet so consequential” as to raise questions over whether “allowing a game to be decided by electronic evidence of a touch detectable only through Nasa-level technology” is “violating the spirit of the game”.

‘Replay doohickey’

The tournament’s “most consequential actor” has not been a star player such as Lionel Messi or even Donald Trump, but the post of VAR, said Roey Hadar on MS Now.

The sad thing is that technology in football is a “great idea on paper”, but “the perfect has become the enemy of the good” and its use at this World Cup has “felt arbitrary, at best a minimal improvement over human judgement”.

Take Croatia’s last-gasp equaliser against Portugal, disallowed due to a contentious offside ruling based on data collected by a microchip in the ball which detected a slight touch by a Croatia player in the build-up to the goal. Or Egypt’s goal against Argentina, disallowed on VAR review for a perceived foul earlier in the play, leading goalscorer Mostafa Ziko to declare the match had been “rigged”.

This “baffling, deeply unpopular replay doohickey” was the equivalent of “getting stopped by a Swat team in Rhode Island and being told you were being ticketed for jaywalking in Oregon. In 1974”, said Jason Gay in The Wall Street Journal. VAR “doesn’t feel like a backstop”. It has become a “joy denial device” designed by “evil robots to rob wonder and suck the soul out of a beautiful game based on constant flow”.

Technology has “undoubtedly corrected mistakes that once shaped tournaments” but it “has not removed controversy” from football, said Clemente Lisi in Forbes. Rather, “it has shifted the conversation from whether referees saw an incident to whether technology was applied correctly and consistently”.

‘Line in the sand’

“In football’s history, it has sometimes required major incidents at big international tournaments to accelerate change,” said Adam Crafton for The Athletic. The back pass rule was introduced in 1992 to prevent goalkeepers from picking up the ball after a pass from a team-mate, and slowing down play by keeping hold of the ball, which reduced goals at the Italy World Cup in 1990.

Goal-line technology came in after Frank Lampard’s 2010 last-16 round goal against Germany was not given, despite the ball clearly having crossed the line. Now Fifa must draw a “similar line in the sand, ending once and for all the unfair and disfiguring use of slow-motion and freeze-frames”.

To improve the game, I would introduce a rule that VAR reviews must “conclude in a set short amount of time”, said Hadar on MS Now. For example, a 30-second limit from the first stoppage of play for an initial VAR verdict, then another 30 seconds for the referee to make the final call. “If the error is visible in that time, it meets the criteria of ‘clear and obvious’. If not, then it’s too inconclusive to change. Just keep the game moving.”

Christina Unkel, a former Fifa referee, said a majority of officials would prefer referees to have discretion to ignore or even overrule VAR if common sense and their understanding of the game suggest they should, just as judges have discretion to use common sense in applying the law.

The majority of decision-making on the pitch is “very subjective,” she told the L.A. Times. “I think everyone’s universally saying there are a lot of different kinds of decisions we do not want part of our game. Toenail offsides, hair follicle arguments.”

After rejecting four previous overtures as “highly opportunistic”, easyJet has rolled over, said Kate Duffy on Bloomberg.

Following a month-long siege, the British budget airline has agreed in principle to be bought by the US private equity investor Castlelake, for an improved offer of £6.90 per share in cash, or about £5.5 billion – assuming it can steer its bid around tough EU rules on airline ownership.

No longer ‘no-frills’

Shares in easyJet – a once-ground-breaking “no-frills” venture, founded by Stelios HajiIoannou and floated in 2000 – jumped on the news, said Gwyn Topham in The Guardian, partly because the latest offer allows current shareholders to remain invested under Castlelake’s ownership, “rather than being forced to divest when it delists”.

But the gloom among some City analysts was palpable. Kathleen Brooks of brokerage XTB said the potential loss of such “an iconic British aviation name” was “symbolic” of the “massive For Sale sign above UK corporates” due to their persistently cheap shares – and could encourage foreign buyers to pick off even more FTSE-listed firms.

Destination ‘largely the same’

Minneapolis-based Castlelake, an experienced aviation financier and leaser, is no sector fly-by-night. And it promises business as usual at easyJet, said Robert Lea in The Times. Despite recent travails – the airline’s stock was pummelled by the Iran conflict – the Luton-based carrier is supposedly on course to make £1 billion in annual profits.

Investors still aren’t pricing in a definite sale, said Lex in the Financial Times: one “unknown” is the view of “the orange airline’s forthright founder and 15% owner” Haji-Ioannou. But shares in European rivals rose. The nightmare for them was that easyJet would succumb to a more muscular, expansionist player. That its “destination remains largely the same” under Castlelake is a source of some comfort.

If you want to understand why voters have lost faith in the mainstream parties, “one name will suffice”, said Stephen Pollard in The Spectator: Shabir Ahmed. He was the ringleader of a Rochdale grooming gang that subjected girls as young as 12 to unspeakable horrors between 2008 and 2010. Ahmed alone was convicted of multiple child rape offences in 2012 and sentenced to 22 years in jail.

The dual British-Pakistani was stripped of his British citizenship at that time, and his victims were led to believe that he’d be deported after completing his sentence. But last week, Ahmed walked free from prison, having served just 14 years; and it turns out that he can’t be deported owing to a provision in the 1971 Immigration Act that prevents Commonwealth citizens who entered Britain before 1973 being removed. How pathetic. “The law could be changed in a day if there was the political will to do so.”

‘All very difficult’

Andy Burnham is among those demanding action, said John Rentoul in The Independent. The presumptive prime minister said he would ask the Home and Foreign Secretaries to review “all possible options” to remove this “vile criminal” from Britain, and the Government has indicated that it is open to changing the law.

Even if the law is changed, though, ministers would likely still face a challenge under the European Convention on Human Rights; and Pakistan would need to agree to take Ahmed back, which it has refused to do. The Home Office could try to force Pakistan’s hand by, say, threatening to restrict its citizens’ access to visas, but that would be quite a big step. Chances are, Burnham’s team, like Keir Starmer’s before it, will review the options in Ahmed’s case before “concluding that it is all very difficult”.

The real scandal

Officials in Pakistan insist that Ahmed, who arrived in the UK as a child, is our problem, not theirs, said Dominic Lawson in The Sunday Times – and they’re right. The real scandal is not that we can’t deport him, but that he was released after serving just two-thirds of his sentence.

As of 2020, such early release is automatic for the most serious offenders (other than those given life sentences), to help free up space in our overcrowded prisons (other offenders are typically released on licence at the halfway point). It didn’t matter that parole officers had, as recently as 2024, deemed Ahmed to be unrepentant and unsafe to be released. Ahmed should have been given a life sentence. Then at least he could have been let out only after satisfying a parole board that he no longer presented an unmanageable risk.

“The only thing more riling than a referee’s interference in a sports event is a politician’s,” said Sally Jenkins in The Atlantic. The red card issued against US star striker Folarin Balogun for “stepping on an opponent’s ankle” during the World Cup match against Bosnia-Herzegovina, was a “terrible call”. But Fifa’s regulations “couldn’t be clearer”: a red card means “automatic suspension for the next game”.

Instead, the tournament organisers “magically lifted” the 25-year-old’s suspension in time for the host team’s last-16 clash against Belgium on Monday, after a phone call by Donald Trump to “his good friend Gianni Infantino, the president of Fifa”.

The US president later thanked Fifa for “doing what was right, and reversing a great injustice”. The world governing body has given “such a feeble procedural explanation” for the reversal that the “entire sporting globe” is “incensed over the garbage-y scent of an inside job”.

A ‘balanced measure’

“Reviewing the legal consequences of red cards in football is nothing new in the modern game,” Mohammad al-Kamali, chair of Fifa’s disciplinary committee, said in a statement. The red card was “not overturned”; its effects were suspended “based on an explicit provision of the applicable regulations” in what he called a “balanced measure”.

Fifa’s disciplinary code allows the judicial body to decide to “fully or partially suspend the implementation of a disciplinary measure”, opting instead for a probation, said The Independent’s senior sports writer Kieran Jackson. Balogun has essentially received a “suspended sentence”, active for one year.

There is a “high-profile precedent”: Cristiano Ronaldo was banned for three games after his red card against the Republic of Ireland in November’s qualifiers. The Portugal captain had the latter two bans “suspended” too. But Fifa was “widely condemned for that decision”, too, which came a week after Ronaldo, who plays in the Saudi Pro League, visited the White House with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Still, no one can claim Trump “fails to advocate for American interests with a doggedness that borders on obsession”, said Nicole Russell in USA Today. I’m not surprised he made the call, nor should anyone be – this is just “Trump being Trump”: a World Cup red card was “never going to be the exception”. But Infantino “could have said no”.

‘Crossed a red line’

Critics say this latest episode is “symptomatic of deeper problems at Infantino’s Fifa”, said the Financial Times’ sports editor Josh Noble. They argue its decision-making is “increasingly designed to further political and commercial goals”.

European governing body Uefa said the decision to suspend Balogun’s ban “crossed a red line”. Sorry, but “we crossed that line a few moral galaxies ago”, said The Guardian’s Marina Hyde. Maybe when Infantino was “butching it out in the photocall at Trump’s Gaza Peace Summit For Ghoulishly Rapacious Businessmen”, certainly when he “inaugurated the auto-satirical Fifa peace prize and awarded it to Trump” just a few months before the war on Iran.

Even former Fifa president Sepp Blatter (who somehow managed to be cleared of corruption charges on appeal last year) is thundering that “red cards are not overturned by political phone calls”. Blatter suggesting Infantino is corrupt? “If irony could kill, we could be looking at a bloodbath”.

The US’s exit from the tournament “allows this rotten case to be quickly brushed under the rug”, said The i Paper’s chief football writer Daniel Storey. But it has “slipped a viper into the tent of football’s governance and started a civil war between Fifa and Uefa”, and all for the host nation to lose 4-1 to a “barely functional Belgium team”. During this tournament, the US national team had gained fresh admiration from supporters and new levels of interest from a “football-sceptic population”, but now that “reputation has been torched”.

Americans use air conditioning just about everywhere. Europeans, for the most part, do not. But a deadly summer heat wave that threatens to become the new climate normal has sparked a fierce debate about whether it is time for the continent to finally cool down.

The dispute has grown “especially heated” in recent weeks, said Yahoo News. “Millions” of visiting World Cup fans have kept cool in “American bars, restaurants, hotels and even stadiums” while their neighbors back home suffered Europe’s “worst-ever heat wave” without much relief. Just 20% of European homes have AC, mostly because northern Europe “rarely got hot enough to justify” the technology until recently, and electricity is “way more expensive” than in the United States. The air conditioning divide also “reflects deep cultural differences” highlighted by the warming climate.

‘Vast amounts of suffering’

Americans and Europeans have “very different ideas about physical suffering and sacrifice,” said Thomas Chatterton Williams at The Atlantic. Americans are “scandalized” by European reluctance to cool down, but Europeans are “much more willing” to see discomfort as “part of life.” The result is “far too much air conditioning on one side” of the Atlantic Ocean and “not remotely enough on the other.”

Air conditioning can “save your life” but also “drain your bank account and accelerate the apocalypse,” said Jonn Elledge at The New World. Running AC “adds to your carbon emissions,” especially if you are using “cheap portable air conditioning units” that people tend to panic-buy during a heat wave. The flip side is that most British homes overheat during the summer, with terrible effects on “health, productivity, hydration levels.” The electricity bills to cool your home will be high, but death or extreme discomfort is “also likely to impact your household finances.”

Europe’s resistance to air conditioning is “driving it insane,” Noah Smith said at his Substack, Noahpinion. The lack of AC is causing “vast amounts of suffering” and death as “punishing, brutal heat waves” become more frequent. The continent’s elites are reluctant to adopt air conditioning, partly from fears that doing so would “change European culture in strange and unacceptable ways.” But climate change is causing a “rise in preventable death” on the continent. If you think U.S. gun culture is a problem, “you should think that heat in Europe is an even bigger emergency.”

‘Frivolous sideshow’

Adding more air conditioning to Europe’s grid could create a “vicious cycle,” said Deutsche Welle. The electricity to power those devices is substantially “generated by polluting, planet-warming fossil fuels.” That “only makes the problem worse.”

The debate may seem like a “frivolous sideshow,” but it actually reflects Europe’s inability to make “quick, effective, wholesale transformation even in the face of vital threats,” said Rym Momtaz at Carnegie Europe. The climate emergency has been coming for decades, and the continent’s governments are not ready. “Why trust them to manage defense if they can’t properly manage a heat wave?”

So much for post-election talk of the Democrats moving towards the centre, said National Review. The party is now careering in the opposite direction. In the last year, both New York City and Seattle have elected mayors that are affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA); Washington DC is on course to join them.

And in three New York congressional primaries last week, the socialist candidates backed by New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, all trounced establishment Democrats. Even by DSA standards, these are “wild-eyed radicals”. The most extreme is Darializa Avila Chevalier. Her greatest hits include demanding “No more police at all – ever”; claiming that a world without borders or prisons is “possible, necessary, and the only moral way forward”; and insisting that “Israel doesn’t exist!”.

The triumph of Mamdani’s candidates was a “rout for the far-left over the Left”, said The Wall Street Journal – one that could have major knock-on effects for the Democratic Party and US politics as a whole.

‘Sewer socialism’

The lesson of these primaries, said Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times, is that Democratic voters are exasperated by the “cautious, compromising establishment”. With good reason. A candidate as “flawed” as Chevalier could only have won against a “complacent political machine that’s lost touch with the people it’s supposed to represent”.

This is basically a Democratic version of the Tea Party, the fiscally conservative political movement that pushed the Republican Party sharply to the right during the Obama administration. We saw something like this in Trump’s first term, when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and some other outspoken DSA members won political office; but that movement petered out during Biden’s presidency amid sectarian infighting.

Progressives now have a fresh opportunity to advance their agenda. They could succeed if they steer away from Chevalier’s rigid form of “academic Leftism” and embrace the more pragmatic, optimistic, community-based politics pursued by Mamdani: a “sewer socialism” tightly focused on voters’ everyday material concerns.

‘Dismal’ reality

Americans are certainly open to that type of politics at the moment, said Megan McArdle in The Washington Post. Many voters are unhappy with the status quo and are feeling the pinch as a result of higher interest rates and inflation. In a 2025 poll, 39% of respondents viewed socialism favourably (66% of them Democrats); 54% said the same of capitalism.

The problem for these socialist politicians, though, is that the same “dismal fiscal realities” fuelling discontent also constrain their ability to deliver dramatic change. Mayors can’t squeeze rich residents too much because cities are much easier to leave than states or countries.

Socialism has a hopeless track record, said Aubrey Harris in The American Spectator, but Republican politicians shouldn’t assume that they’re going to benefit from what one dismissed as the Democrats’ “Bolshevik revolution”. To win over voters, the GOP is going to have to come up with some creative solutions of its own to the affordability crisis. If and when it manages that, “the sudden rise of nouveau socialism will come to an end as swiftly as it began”.

Keir Starmer promised to give his successor as prime minister his “full and unequivocal support” but Andy Burnham must be wondering what Starmer’s definition of “full and unequivocal” is, following this week’s defence announcement.

Starmer announced a £15 billion increase in spending in his £298 billion Defence Investment Plan (DIP). Of the £15 billion, around two thirds will be raised from “efficiency savings” of quangos, and “cutting capital budgets across Whitehall by 1%”, said The Guardian.

However, £4.7 billion remains unfunded, with the Treasury saying it will be allocated in the next budget, creating a defence black hole for the next prime minister and chancellor.

As presumptive prime minister, Andy Burnham will “somehow need to find more money”, said the Financial Times’ editorial board, likely through a series of unpopular savings. Whether he can succeed where Starmer has failed on defence spending “will be a defining test” of Burnham’s premiership.

‘Dirty rotten trick’

Starmer has left the prime-minister-in-waiting a “series of unexploded bombs” in the DIP to resolve in the first months of his expected term, said political editor Steven Swinford in The Times. Numbers aside, there was an “even bigger bombshell”: no date was set for when a Starmer’s pledge to spend 3% of GDP on defence would be met, “or indeed 3.5% for that matter”.

It is “highly unclear” how reforming the civil service – which has “only got bigger” – and “breaking down operational barriers” will be achieved. Even if Burnham navigates Starmer’s legacy safely, it will have “significant fiscal implications for his own plans”.

This isn’t about Starmer acquiescing on defence, said John Rentoul in The Independent. It is about him “trying to blow up Andy Burnham before he’s started”. Starmer had promised in his resignation to work “dutifully” in the interests of the nation and oversee an “orderly transition”: “he didn’t mean a word of it”. This “dirty rotten trick” shows us in public what he has been feeling in private. He feels “betrayed” by Burnham, Wes Streeting and Shabana Mahmood, and has “no intention of making life easy for them”.

“Sir Keir Starmer hasn’t actually sewn raw prawns into the hems of the Downing Street curtains, but he might as well have,” said former Labour MP Tom Harris in The Telegraph. His “two-faced” and “spiteful” actions look “all the more distasteful” considering his upset over inheriting his own £22 billion black hole from Rishi Sunak’s government. “We expected more of Starmer.”

Burnham’s ‘call to arms’

If Burnham is “fazed” by this situation, he “isn’t fit to be PM”, said James Lyons, former Downing Street Director of Strategic Communications, in The i Paper. The near-£5 billion deficit he needs to fill is “peanuts” compared to the £1 trillion-plus that the Government spends. The problem could just “disappear” “at a stroke” with improved forecasts, much like the recent Spring Statement, where estimates for the figure needed to achieve it were reduced from £20 billion to £8 billion. “The bad news is that they could also go the other way.” For any chance of success, Burnham needs to “pick a small number of issues” and “stick to them through thick and thin”.

Now this is a “ding-dong political row”, said James Heale in The Spectator. The DIP’s financial commitments were listed in “vague, euphemistic terms”, meaning Burnham’s selection of a chancellor to resolve the £4.7 billion gap is “the most important decision he makes in the next few months”. Burnham has previously shown “little interest” in defence, but it is likely to be a “staple theme of his in-tray”. “He will need an experienced and effective chancellor by his side.”

The MP for Makerfield should see the DIP as a “call to arms” on public finances, said The Times’ editorial board. By arguing that his hands are tied, Burnham could use Starmer’s “political sleight of hand” to “spur him to take radical action on pensions and welfare” to make up the shortfall. Public spending is “out of control”, and if Burnham is to “break free he must attack the root causes”: high borrowing costs, welfare “profligacy” and the “triple lock”. No one will “challenge the edicts of the messiah”.

“The stratospheric rally has left tech stocks vulnerable to sharp reversals,” said Jack Pitcher in The Wall Street Journal. This week saw another, as investors worried about “higher interest rates, stretched valuations and the prospect that billions of dollars of AI spending will outstrip the expectation of blockbuster profits”.

The declines dragged Wall Street’s tech-heavy Nasdaq down by nearly 4% over five days to Wednesday, with chip-makers the worst affected. Sandisk and Micron – key members of a small group of memory stocks that have made “parabolic gains” – were among the biggest US fallers, both down more than 13%. But investors can't really complain: even after these slides, their gains this year are 727% and 269%, respectively.

Chip-wreck

The fulcrum of the latest “chip-wreck”, said Bloomberg, was South Korea’s chip-centric Kospi index, where big falls in SK Hynix and Samsung shares triggered a circuit breaker, bringing trading to a halt before panic set in. The country’s top financial regulator, Lee Chan-jin, indicated the sell-off might have been prompted by his approval of “a batch of high-leverage”, single-stock exchange-traded funds tracking chip-makers, said Louis Juricic on Investing.com.

At launch, those funds held combined assets of $3 billion; they have since swelled to roughly $9.1 billion, with 92% bought by retail investors. These are “high-risk products”, and their leverage component means they amplify, rather than merely tracking, underlying moves. Yet “despite consumer warnings, trading hasn’t cooled”, said Lee.

Long, hot summer

A similar defiant bullishness is evident on Wall Street. “People are looking for reasons to hedge, yet stay invested,” said Julian Emanuel of Evercore. Lisa Shalett of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management told The Wall Street Journal that, despite the volatility, “I’m more inclined to be a buyer in today’s market than a seller.”

Traders are bracing for a roller-coaster into summer, when liquidity typically dries up, said Sagarika Jaisinghani on Bloomberg. Goldman Sachs partner Bobby Molavi reckons the current market is similar to the final months of the dotcom era, when investors took sudden 5% moves in their stride. “What happens if 10% breaks”, and there’s “no floor in sight”?

“‘Toy Story 5’ – do we need it?” asked Deborah Ross in The Spectator. It’s been 31 years since the first film came out, and “one worries for the narrative integrity of characters when an IP is thrashed to death like this”.

The latest instalment, however, does at least bring the franchise up to date by addressing one of the “pressing dilemmas of modern childhood”: screen time, and whether it will be the end of toys (“Extinction... Not again!” cries Rex, the dinosaur).

‘Delicious touches’

Our favourite toys still belong to Bonnie, but while Bonnie loves them still, all the other eight-year-olds now play in the digital world. To help her make friends, her parents grudgingly buy her a frog-themed tablet called Lilypad. It does not, however, go to plan: Bonnie not only gets hooked on Lilypad (Greta Lee), she ends up being cyberbullied via it. So the toys contact Woody (Tom Hanks), who left Bonnie’s room at the end of ‘Toy Story 4’, to ask for his help.

The film contains some “delicious” touches – Woody now has a bald spot and a paunch – and it is “superb” to look at – but it does all “feel a little generic”.

‘Loses its nerve’

The plot is “amazingly timely”, said Nicholas Barber on BBC Culture, and may be a bit “triggering” for some parents: this is the only Pixar cartoon that dwells on a child being “crushingly lonely”. But compared with the “peerless” first three films, it is short on good jokes, and heavy on subplots: one of them, about 50 Buzz Lightyear toys making their way across the country, could have been scrapped altogether.

The film also “loses its nerve with its own big idea”, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian: the “creepy” tablet turns out to be capable of “self-sacrificial heroism”. “Really? At least Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bear, the villain from ‘TS3’, had the courage of his evil convictions.”

Andy Burnham may be on course to take over as prime minister in less than a month, but he “could wreck his administration before it begins with a poor choice of chancellor”, said The Times. If Labour hopes to drastically improve the economy, and curb borrowing and higher spending, it “must change course”. And “that criterion should immediately disqualify” the long-presumed frontrunner for the job, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband.

The prospect of Miliband in the Treasury is already angering the unions and spooking the financial markets, so attention is turning to former health secretary Wes Streeting. He surprised many in Westminster by backing Burnham this week, sparking rumours that he’s struck a deal in exchange for not contesting the leadership.

‘Divisive choices’

There are “good reasons” why Streeting “would be a shrewd choice”, said Gordon Rayner in The Telegraph. Unlike Miliband, Streeting is “part of Labour’s future rather than its past, and is someone whom the City feels it could do business with”. He is also “without doubt one of Labour’s best communicators” and has the skills to construct a Budget telling the story of “how Labour intends to improve lives”. He would prepare the country for what’s to come, rather than “pulling economic policies out of thin air” or conjuring up “supposed budgetary black holes to justify them”.

Both Streeting and Miliband “would, in their own ways, be divisive choices”, said The Independent. Streeting is “deeply distrusted by the left of the party” while Miliband’s “hard line on net zero policies have made him a controversial figure”. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood could “emerge as the compromise candidate”, with the added benefit of providing the new PM with an opportunity to “get her out of the Home Office so he could tweak the immigration policy”.

‘Bulging in-tray’

Whoever enters No. 11 “will have a bulging in-tray”, said City A.M. A new chancellor will have to battle “calls for greater spending on defence”, as well as “manage expectations” on easing employment taxes. The triple lock on pensions is also high on the agenda, while calls for new wealth taxes “risk infuriating investors”. On top of that are potential nationalisation plans for “major utility firms” like Thames Water, and, of course, the “continuing fallout” from the Iran war.

What began as a photo opportunity between two world leaders has spiraled into geopolitical acrimony. An escalating war of words between President Donald Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni over who asked whom to pose for a photograph at the recent G7 conference now threatens to impact material relations between the Trump administration and Italy’s right-wing government. As Trump rages on social media over the photo flap, Meloni returns to Italy with an eye toward next year’s national elections — and the benefits of being seen standing up to an increasingly unpopular American president.

‘Developing rift’ with origins in the Iran war

Meloni is “clearly irked” at Trump’s “suggestion that she ‘begged’ him for a photo” at the recent G7 summit, said NBC News. While the prime minister “didn’t respond publicly” to other Trump barbs this spring, the “most recent clash, by contrast, quickly escalated.”

Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani “abruptly cancelled a planned trip” to the U.S. after calling Trump’s comments “serious and offensive” to the whole of Italy, said The Associated Press. “Italy and I never beg,” said Meloni in a video response posted to social media over the weekend.

The “continuing exchange” between the two leaders has “highlighted a developing rift between the two countries” stemming from Trump’s war on Iran, said the BBC. Trump and Meloni once enjoyed a “close political relationship,” with Meloni the “sole European leader” to have attended Trump’s second inauguration.

The binational relationship has “grown strained in recent months over the war in Iran,” said Axios, particularly after Italy “denied U.S. aircraft permission to land at its bases” in March. Trump’s relationship with Europe more broadly “had long been fraying” over the war with Iran, his trade policies and threats to annex Greenland, said the Los Angeles Times.

Still, while Trump took a “warmer tone toward other European leaders” at the G7 meeting as they “aligned behind his interim agreement” to pause fighting in Iran, “tensions again were expected to be on full display” at next month’s NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey. Meloni’s pushback on Trump’s photograph claim is a “punctuation mark” on a growing trend among European leaders to speak against the Trump administration, said CNN.

Electoral opportunity ‘deftly utilized’

Meloni had been trying to “preserve some harmony” between herself and Trump “until this week,” said The New York Times. She has “sought some distance” from the president now, as their “friendship became a political liability among Italian voters.” Meloni is “doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity,” said Trump on Truth Social. Now that the U.S. has allegedly “defeated Iran militarily,” he continued, “she wants to be friends again in order to get her ‘numbers up.’ No thanks!!!"

Trump may be correct that Meloni’s furthering of this feud is being done with an eye toward domestic Italian politics, said Fox News. The prime minister “must have calculated” that a “public row” with Trump “yields no tangible consequences other than an increase in her domestic and international standing,” said Mattia Diletti, a political science lecturer at Sapienza University of Rome, to the outlet.

Trump’s story is nevertheless “very difficult to believe,” said MS NOW. Not only has he “peddled similar absurdities before,” but “he’s not at all popular in Italy,” leaving Meloni “no political incentive to be seen with him.” Meloni’s pushback to Trump comes as the premier “gears up for a reelection battle,” in which her “close relationship” with Trump has become an “increasing political liability,” said the Financial Times.

Meloni faced a “setback in her grip on power in Italy” in March, after her government lost a battle over justice reform, said Time. Critics saw that defeat as a “barometer of how Italians perceived her closeness" with Trump, and how they have been “troubled by Trump’s globally destabilizing actions.”

Meloni “deftly utilized the opportunity” presented by the president in his photography blame-game to “distance herself from Trump,” said the Financial Times. Italian diplomats are “now working in overdrive,” hoping to “limit the fallout or deter Trump from retaliating against Italy.” Meloni’s “international policy is in tatters,” said former Italian NATO Ambassador Stefano Stefanini to the outlet. In reimagining Italian foreign policy moving forward, she “has to be careful not to appear to flip-flop.” Italians will “remember her closeness to Trump, so she has to tread this very carefully.”

Three decades after Frank Skinner, David Baddiel and the Lightning Seeds first sang that football was “coming home”, the lyrics are being belted out again during the World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico.

In the Radio Times, Baddiel, one of the song’s co-writers, said that English people “feel, with this game, that essentially: it’s our ball” and that “football is ours. We codified it. We gave it to the world.” But critics say it is “mistaken” to claim that England is the home of football, said Sky News.

Scottish professors

The Dutch football legend Ruud Gullit has dismissed the “Three Lions (Football's Coming Home)” song as “arrogant”, saying England does not “own football”.

That chimes with the fact that the “English football public has a certain reputation globally”, said The Athletic. “There is an assumption of arrogance, of high expectations, of going into every major tournament presuming their team will win it.”

It’s also wrong to claim that England is the home of football, Hamish Husband, from the Scottish football magazine Tartan Army, told Sky News, because a group of footballers in the 19th century, known as the “Scotch professors”, were pioneers of the modern passing game.

Their new tactics were adopted by Scotland before spreading across Europe and other continents. “It was the travellers that worked the factories of the UK that took football to the world – not England”, he said.

A letter written by Reverend Samuel Rutherford in the 1600s, “holds the key to Scotland’s claim”, wrote Tom Burrows on BBC Newsround. He complained about people who gathered to play football on Sunday afternoons near Anwoth Kirk, his church. The site can “reasonably claim to be the earliest” game of football, said William Wyeth, a curator of history at English Heritage.

To bolster Scotland’s claim, archaeologists doing building works at Stirling Castle found a football behind a wood panel built in the 1540s. It was “made of pieces of leather sewn together, more like football that we know today”. Also, the first modern football club that’s “widely recognised as such” was founded in Edinburgh in 1824.

Footeball or football?

But the roots of the beautiful game may stretch back much further. More than 2,500 years ago, the Chinese played “tsu chu”, or “kickball”. The earliest reference to organised ball games in England comes in around 1174, said Simon Inglis on English Heritage.

But “we can’t be sure” whether these games in England involved “kicking, as well as handling, the ball”. A woodcut from 1612, which refers to “country swaines at footeball”, shows the players “using hands” as in volleyball. So was it called “footeball” because the “players played on foot, rather than because they played it exclusively with their feet”?

However, football’s “global spread” couldn’t have happened without the “evangelical efforts of British entrepreneurs, teachers, engineers, soldiers and sailors, who took the sport to Europe, South America and all corners of the Empire”.

On the charge of arrogance, yes, it’s true that people hear the song as a statement that England “view winning as the rightful outcome, and that anyone else winning is somehow wrong”, said The Athletic. But England fans themselves “simply do not see the song that way”. “The whole point of it is looking back on past glories and melancholy,” one fan told the outlet. “It’s not a triumphant song at all.” But “if English is your second language, I get why people would misunderstand it.”

Another long-standing England fan told the outlet she found the controversy entertaining. “I find it quite funny that people get upset about it,” she said. “I actually enjoy using the phrase just to wind up international colleagues!”

It’s funny what the pressure of a ticking clock can do to a prime minister, said Hannah Barnes in The New Statesman. Just a few months ago, when more than 60 Labour MPs signed an open letter calling for a social media ban for under-16s, Keir Starmer wasn’t convinced. His own teenage children, he told MPs, had benefitted from using social media.

But with a leadership challenge looming, the panicking PM has suddenly “latched” on to this popular policy. He announced this week that, from next year, under-16s would be banned from social media platforms including Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, X and Instagram. “I am not prepared to compromise on the safety and happiness of our children,” he declared.

Fencing the ocean

Strong rhetoric, said Christopher Snowdon in The Critic, yet this policy “has all the hallmarks of another government failure”. In Australia, a similar ban has proven almost totally ineffectual. Some 70% of parents whose children used social media before the ban say they still do so. Australia's e-safety commissioner, who is in charge of enforcing the ban, has said that it's like trying to “fence the ocean”.

There are countless reasons why blanket bans don’t work, said Chris Stokel-Walker in The Independent. You have to outwit 14-year-olds armed with VPNs, older siblings, and “group chats full of instructions”. Age verification is difficult. And even if you do get the kids off big social media sites, they “don’t suddenly take up whittling”. They move to darker, harder-to-regulate parts of the web: to Discord servers, private groups. “A serious government would force platforms to change their products”, as the campaigner Ian Russell has urged, so that they don’t pummel children with harmful content. “But this is a dead-duck administration grasping for a legacy.”

‘Multi-front’ battle

Besides, whatever happened to parenting, asked Daniel Hannan in the Daily Mail. Why use the “heavy hand” of the state, when the tide is already turning and most people now limit their kids’ screen time?

If only it were that easy, said Sam Leith in The Spectator. Like millions of other exhausted parents, I spend every day waging a “multi-front” battle against the screens: the iPhone and iPad, computer and PlayStation. I’ve set time limits, banned sites at the router, used third-party blockers. And yet still my children’s brains are being rotted by “AI slop, vacuous influencers” and silly videos, while I worry about far more damaging content. So, even if I have doubts about how it will work, I love the idea of the ban – like nine out of ten British parents consulted.

Until now, we’ve been fighting against the world’s most powerful tech companies almost totally unarmed, said Isabel Oakeshott in The Daily Telegraph. At last, the PM is giving us a “half-decent” weapon. Of course some children will get round the ban, as they do with underage drinking. But we haven’t abandoned the law on that, have we? I cannot wait to tell my teens “that lounging around on their screens is ‘literally illegal’”.

ITV has been accused of “unwitting sexism” after placing expert pundit Emma Hayes in a “bureau-meets-countryside-kitchen” set for its World Cup coverage, said The Times.

Hayes, the Londoner who is head coach of USA women and who won seven league titles with Chelsea, has been given an analysis slot during the new hydration breaks in World Cup matches and was in ITV’s Brooklyn studio for England’s victory over Croatia.

In “relegating” Hayes to using chalk and a blackboard, rather than the more customary interactive digital tools, on a set resembling a kitchen, ITV bosses have risked “reinforcing sexist stereotypes”.

Katie Bailiff, chief executive of charity Women in Film & TV, called it an “ill-conceived, damaging creative decision”, which has led to significant online criticism.

‘Intellect shone’

Hayes’ analysis has been “one of the triumphs of the tournament so far”, said Football365. ITV has “adroitly” leaned into her strengths by making the segment “as lo-fi as humanly possible”. Her blackboard insights gave “infinitely more value” than the “empty, lazy” cliches we are used to from the channel’s “tacticos”.

Her greatest asset is how “lightly she wears her vast and extensive knowledge”, digesting the game “without waffle or potential for bafflement” under intense time pressure.

The chalkboard set-up makes sense, said Molly Hudson in The Times. Hayes’ communication skills have helped her to the “pinnacle of the women’s game”. TV coverage is now “dominated by high-tech screens for analysis” by former players, so using the “classic prop for football managers” – especially one at the heart of the evolving game – is understandable. And she can add one more line to her “lengthy list of achievements”: she is the “woman who made hydration breaks fun”.

ITV has “bravely tried to innovate”, said Felix Keith in The Mirror. The BBC, who made the decision to broadcast from Salford, have “chosen to stick with what they know”, filling the time with back-and-forth between the commentator and co-commentator. But rather than copying their competitor, or using the breaks to “pump in another few minutes of adverts” like their American counterparts, ITV has given the stage to one of the world’s best managers to “educate us”.

Despite looking “a bit cheap”, the set had a “retro” feel and was “a bit of a throwback”, said Kathryn Batte in The Telegraph. It has been “genuinely refreshing” to see Hayes’ return after her absence from the 2022 men’s World Cup. ITV’s only failing is giving Hayes such a “short window” and not “maximising the air time of one of the best pundits at the tournament”.

‘Hung Hayes out to dry’

“Hayes’ ­intellect shone,” said The Times. But she was hampered by the ITV’s vision of an “old-school, retro, jumpers-for-goalposts vibe”. Without the “gizmos and graphics” afforded to her male colleagues, her “acute and informative” analysis was reduced to resemblances of “noughts and crosses”. “Lose the blackboard. She deserves better.”

Hayes is one of the “most decorated tacticians in world football”, said Louis Chilton in The Independent. But ITV’s decision to give her a “kitchen-esque backdrop” turned her insightful segments into “pure, uncut meme fodder”. The “inherently sexist optics” of positioning a female pundit in an “almost-kitchen” has “played into the hands of misogynist trolls”.

Hayes offers a “class of punditry that football sorely needs”. She stands alongside other established female commentators such as Karen Carney, Ellen White and Alex Scott who have bright careers in the field – “as long as ITV doesn’t put them in a kitchen, that is”.

“If you drew a Venn diagram of Emma Hayes’ critics and the fragile folk who cry ‘snowflake’ about others”, you would have drawn a circle, said Michael Hincks in The i Paper.

“The optics are awful from the World Cup broadcaster.” The lack of foresight to see that a “tinpot” chalkboard and kitchen setting would cause this much online furore is “naive”. It’s as if “someone ran to the nearest shop when realising drinks breaks equals more studio time”. The result is that ITV has “hung Hayes out to dry”.

When the “spine-tingling” trailer for Steven Spielberg’s “Disclosure Day” was released, many of us hoped that the great director would be delivering his “career-crowning masterpiece”, said Nicholas Barber on BBC Culture: a “profound last word” on aliens arriving on Earth, a topic that has obsessed him for years. Instead, we have a “flimsy, outdated car-chase thriller” that contains “no ideas about aliens that we haven’t heard before”.

Josh O’Connor stars as Daniel Kellner, a cybersecurity boffin who works for Wardex, a powerful US organisation that has for years been concealing proof of alien contact (yes, on one level it is “Men in Black”, but without the jokes). After stealing classified files, he becomes a fugitive pursued by Wardex’s sinister supremo (Colin Firth, “badly miscast”).

Instrumental to Kellner’s plan to expose Wardex is Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), a television meteorologist who suddenly finds herself able to speak to aliens. Her scenes are “fantastic”: Spielberg should probably have made the film about her powers and “ditched the rest”.

‘Signature elegance’

There’s plenty of the director’s “signature elegance” to enjoy, said Robbie Collin in The Telegraph; some scenes move “with such breathless lucidity it is as if he is beaming excitement directly into your brain”. But the plotting is “woolly and lopsided”, while the tone is “an awkward mix of solemnity and silliness”.

I enjoyed it, said David Sexton in The New Statesman – it’s “as brilliantly filmed as anything Spielberg has ever made”, with a “marvellous” performance from Blunt and a “terrific” score from John Williams (his 30th for Spielberg). It’s a “corker, a proper summer blockbuster” and “a prime example of the genre he originally created with ‘Jaws’”.

Apple introduced the iPhone to the world in 2007. That was the same year that birth rates around the world began to decline. And the two developments may be related.

“If your sex life is dead, you can blame Steve Jobs,” Brandon Vigliarolo said at The Register. Two new studies suggest smartphones are responsible for the baby bust. One study found the iPhone “caused as much as half of the fertility decline” from 2007 to 2011, said The New York Times. A second study of 128 countries found that teen pregnancies declined “once smartphones became a mass phenomenon.” It may be that people “began to socialize more on their phones and less in person,” or it could be that the technology “made pornography more accessible.”

Experts suggested caution is needed. Smartphones are just one “example of the kinds of social influences” that may have reduced fertility, said Wellesley College’s Phillip B. Levine to the Times.

‘Awkward, antisocial puppies’

Phones have “turned us into awkward, antisocial puppies who can’t handle eye contact,” said Lauren Veldhuizen at the National Review. The rise of smartphone technology has thus created a world in which “fewer people date and fewer babies are born.” Some might see the decline of teen pregnancies, in particular, as a positive development. But that would be true only if the decline were the result of an “increasing respect for the purpose of sex within the confines of marriage” instead of our increasing “inability to speak to one another.”

The media has glommed onto the new studies because of a collective mood of “total paranoia and doom about smartphones,” said Elizabeth Nolan Brown at Reason. The biggest plunges in the 2007-2011 study were among 15- to 24-year-old females, suggesting more girls and women are “avoiding unintended pregnancy at young ages.” The study’s time frame might also simply reflect the impact of the Great Recession. The research should be greeted “with some skepticism.”

Smartphones “short-circuit the deep-seated human need to have your kids keep you company,” said Noah Smith at Noahpinion. We are choosing to “forsake each other’s company to stare eternally into a black mirror.”

‘No easy fix’

Maybe smartphones first tarnished dating, but AI “might finish the job,” said Eric Levitz at Vox. Streaming and social media have helped us isolate from each other, yet online platforms could not discuss “your career anxieties, favorite Civil War battle or debilitating fear of iguanas.” Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and other artificial intelligence chatbots can. “Humanity may be scrolling its way out of existence.”

There is “no easy fix here,” said Axios. Politicians have proposed “baby bonuses, tax credits or better child care and parental leave policies” to solve the fertility crisis, all to no avail. “Perhaps the solution is that everyone toss their phones into the sea.”

England captain Ben Stokes and bowler Gus Atkinson will not take part in the Test against New Zealand at The Oval, starting on 17 June, after breaking curfew rules in a Chelsea nightclub following their victory at Lord’s, England Cricket announced last week. Sonny Baker and Jordan Cox will make their debuts as their replacements.

At a press conference at The Oval, managing director of England men’s cricket Rob Key “answered the myriad questions over this whole mess with the enthusiasm of someone in a hostage video”, said cricket correspondent Chris Stocks in The i Paper. And as Key was fielding questions “mere metres away from a row of kegs of beer, the irony was lost on nobody”.

Key confirmed that management were considering a ban on alcohol for a national side that has repeatedly faced allegations of booze-fuelled unprofessionalism.

‘Staggering stupidity’

One of Stokes’ strengths as England captain has been his “capacity to show the way”, said Harry Latham-Coyle in The Independent. Given the additional scrutiny around the team’s culture, it is “scarcely believable” that he would allow himself to end up in a boozy altercation at a Chelsea nightclub.

Coming on the heels of reports of excessive drinking at last year’s Ashes, as well as white-ball captain Harry Brook’s run-in with a bouncer in New Zealand, Stokes’ behaviour shows “staggering stupidity”. The leadership team made a vow that things would be different after the Ashes. “That promise has been broken at virtually the earliest opportunity.”

“I find this beyond staggering,” said Matthew Syed in The Times. Stokes’ actions are born out of “utter, crass and unforgivable selfishness”, the symbol of an English side that is neither “trustworthy” nor “mature”. There is something “seriously wrong with the culture” of the England men’s cricket team. For that reason above all, Stokes’ captaincy is “permanently and irredeemably untenable”.

It is “impossible not to feel sympathy” for Stokes, said Emma John in The Guardian. This is a man who recently celebrated his 35th birthday, had just won the first Test of the summer, had 10 days before the next game and has been “teetotal for the best part of a year” in order to manage his heavy workload. England cricket has a “tradition of shooting itself in the foot”, and the instinct to judge him “for the most meaningless of infractions” has felt “perverse”.

‘Lagging behind’

“Heavy drinking sessions are nothing new,” said cricket reporter Elizabeth Ammon in The Times. “Cricket and alcohol have been intrinsically linked since the sport was invented.” Some players believe that “natural talent is a shield”, protecting them from the effects of alcohol, while excessive drinking can also be a response to the “sheer mental toll of long, isolated tours”. But although the modern cricketer is typically more professional than previous generations, the sport is “still lagging behind” its contemporaries.

“The absurd affair captures a simple truth,” said Tim Wigmore, senior cricket writer at The Telegraph. “Cricket is less professional than other leading sports.” Top England cricketers can be earning in excess of £1 million a year – excluding personal sponsorship deals – but this “surge in salaries” does not reflect “comparable advances” in professionalism.

Naturally, the “sheer brutality” of Test cricket – spending “hundreds of days” away from home and 30 hours per game “under spectators’ glare” – demands a “release”. But international cricket has “not merely tolerated alcoholic excess” as a means of escape, but “celebrated it”.

“Does cricket still have a drinking culture?” said The Athletic. “Yes.” But the situation is “complicated and more nuanced than it sometimes appears”. The game is full of “alcohol-related anecdotes”, and social drinking is “deeply entwined” with the sport. Indeed, at the grassroots level, booze is the “lifeblood” of many clubs, with the clubhouse bar “often central to the community”. But admittedly, and “increasingly at the top level, a compromise has to be reached”.

Republicans will be cheering the release of the National Audit Office’s report into the royal family’s property arrangements, said A.N. Wilson in the Daily Mail. We’ve known for years that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was allowed to live at Royal Lodge, his 30-room former residence in Windsor, for a fraction of its market value. But we now know that he was also allowed to let the three cottages that came with it and “pocket the proceeds”.

‘Unfathomable’ deals

He is not the only member of the royal family to have enjoyed such a generous deal. His daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie, have never paid a penny in rent for their grace and favour homes in London, despite being non-working royals; King Charles foots the bill using his private wealth, but at a discount on the market rent of about 40%. Meanwhile, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, who pay a peppercorn rent for the “enormous” Bagshot Park, are also allowed to sublet parts of the house, and other houses on the estate. All this will go down very badly, when so many Britons are “feeling the pinch”.

Some details revealed in the report are “unfathomable”, said Jennie Bond in The i Paper. It’s quite wrong that any money Andrew made through this “private” arrangement did not have to be returned to the Crown Estate, which owns Royal Lodge and pays its profits to the Treasury. In other words, it’s “taxpayers’ money for public spending”.

‘Staggering’ royal estate

Actually, many of the arrangements in the report make sense, said Hannah Furness in The Daily Telegraph. It is right that retired working royals are looked after: Princess Alexandra, the late Queen’s cousin, who is 89, made a one-off payment of £670,000 to rent her house in Richmond Park in 1995, and pays an annual ground rent of some £1,500. Few would “want to see her evicted”. It is also hard to quarrel with most arrangements for the grace and favour apartments, which are provided to long-serving members of staff, who pay rent based on a combination of income and circumstances.

Still, the situation as a whole is certainly problematic, said Craig Prescott in The Sunday Times. This report only covers the Crown Estate and the royal household. The family also has a “staggering array” of other properties at its disposal, as part of the Duchy of Lancaster, the Duchy of Cornwall and the private estates of Sandringham and Balmoral. All this will rankle many, particularly young people, who are less likely to own their own homes and whose support for the monarchy is already in decline. It is “distancing the institution of the monarchy from the very generation it needs for its future support”. We need a slimmed-down monarchy, and fewer cosy deals for the extended family.

The World Cup kicked off this week – but in the days leading up to it, “no one seemed all that excited”, said Jonathan Lemire in The Atlantic. The tournament will feature 48 nations playing 104 fixtures in 16 cities across the US, Canada and Mexico, and will give a stage to “some of the most famous people on Earth” – from Harry Kane to Kylian Mbappé. Yet for many, it is “surrounded by angst”.

Ticket prices are “astronomical”. Fifa has introduced “dynamic pricing”, so a seat at the final could set you back $10,000, and demand for many matches has slumped. Prices for everything from parking to accommodation have been vastly inflated: Airbnbs near New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, where the final is being played, cost up to $17,000 for three nights. America’s relations with its co-hosts are strained, and there are fears of cartel violence in Mexico.

“Hanging over it all is the war in Iran, particularly because it was started by the guy to whom the tournament’s organisers recently awarded a peace prize.”

‘Maga World Cup’

This expanded World Cup will be the largest and most commercially driven in history, said Jason Burt in The Daily Telegraph.

Gianni Infantino, the Fifa president, wants “every match to be a money-spinning event” akin to the US Super Bowl: the fans are being treated like a “cash machine”. It’s also likely to be the “most politicised”. There have already been stories of Iranian players and staff struggling to secure visas; and progressives have voiced alarm that America’s immigration agency, Ice, is being used to provide stadium security. As for Donald Trump, he can be counted on to “hijack proceedings” in a cringeworthy way.

Some have already dubbed this the “Maga World Cup”, said Simon Kuper in the FT. But Trump might not see much benefit from it: all 11 of the US cities hosting games voted Democrat in their most recent elections, and there is a good chance of anti-Trump protests at matches.

Hard to mess up

But what of the football itself, asked US Women's National Team head coach Emma Hayes in The Guardian. The favourites for the tournament include Spain, France, Argentina and, yes, England; but much will depend on how well squads adapt to the stifling heat, games at high altitude, and having to play across four different time zones.

Before every major sporting event, “people foresee a nightmare”, said Will Leitch in The Washington Post. And then, when the games begin, everyone just enjoys them. Maybe some things will go wrong. But the World Cup is the one event that captures the interest of the whole planet. It’s hard to make a mess of it, “no matter how hard you might try”.

A few hours after the result of the Brexit referendum was announced, the then UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, appeared on ITV’s “Good Morning Britain”, said Laëtitia Langlois on The Conversation. To general astonishment, he said that a key pledge of the campaign – to divert the £350m that Britain was sending to the EU each week to the NHS instead – would “probably not be delivered”. Call it the start of a decade of national “Bregret”.

Many voters would dispute that summary, said Philip Aldrick and Dan Hanson on Bloomberg, though polls show a majority of Britons are now in favour of rejoining the EU. Economists, meanwhile, are still squabbling about how much Brexit has cost. Bloomberg’s latest estimate, of between 2% and 4% of gross domestic product, is conservative compared with some calculations of 6% to 8%. Cambridge University’s pro-Brexit economist Graham Gudgin puts the damage at 1%. Whatever the figure, the experience of UK businesses has been largely negative, rendering the promise of greater sovereignty a farce.

‘More red tape than ever’

Brexit hasn’t proved the “abject catastrophe” that some thought it would be at the time, said Jeremy Warner in The Daily Telegraph. You can point to some continuing success stories – the City of London is one – and there is “evident relief in the tech sector that the UK is not part of the oppressive regulatory regime the EU is establishing for AI”.

What’s more, there are plenty of other, unrelated reasons for Britain’s current malaise. But Brexit has meant “more red tape than ever” and – worse – has “acted like an energy-annihilating black hole”, inducing “a paralysing effect” on the economy.

‘Big bang’ reversal unrealistic

Some Brexiteer economists reckon that “over the years, the positives will build”, which they may, said Richard Partington in The Guardian. Some also argue that “Brexit was botched”, which is clearly true. But it’s also redolent of the “real communism has never been tried” response to the dystopia of Soviet Russia: it ignores the basic reality.

Meanwhile, the world has moved in a “Brexit-hostile direction”, said Martin Wolf in the FT. In 2016, the idea of “global Britain” was not quite as absurd as it is today, “with globalisation in retreat, the US unreliable, Russia at war in Europe and China even more autocratic and mercantilist”.

That said, a “big bang” reversal of Brexit is unrealistic. As Heraclitus said “you cannot step into the same river twice” – and another referendum would be “highly divisive and re-embittering”. The answer is to emulate Switzerland’s patchwork of treaties that cover the most important parts of the relationship. The UK must get close to its European partners again, “bit by careful bit”.

Presiding over America’s 250th anniversary celebrations should have been an easy win for Donald Trump, said David Frum in The Atlantic. “He is a showman, after all. He loves parades and extravaganzas.” But the president’s plans for Washington DC are shaping up to be “a fiasco”. They were set to include a series of concerts on the National Mall; but almost all of the acts scheduled to headline the 4th of July weekend have pulled out, complaining that what they’d been told would be a non-partisan event had turned into something else.

An irate Trump said that “instead of having overpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear”, he’d bring the “Number One Attraction anywhere in the World”: himself.

‘Threadbare’ celebrations

Celebrations will officially kick off this Sunday, Trump’s 80th birthday, with, of all things, a series of Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed martial arts bouts in an arena at the White House. Are Americans ready for this, asked Jack Crosbie in Rolling Stone: “bloody cage fights” on the South Lawn?

Back in 2024, a friend told me that he was voting for Trump in part because he couldn’t bear the thought of Kamala Harris and the Democrats presiding over the 250th anniversary. He had a point, said Jeffrey Blehar in National Review. Just imagine. “It would have been a year-long lecture with 4 July a day of solemn reflection and recrimination.” As it is, though, we’re still not getting much of a celebration, just another Trump rally, and some cage fights; even the remarkable collection of musical “has-beens and one-hit wonders” assembled – Vanilla Ice is the headliner – has begun to fall apart. While the semiquincentennial party will still be special to Americans, “it will feel far more threadbare than it has any right to be”.

Insatiable ego

It’s a shame, said Max Burns in The Hill. America’s bicentennial, in 1976, also came at a tense time. America was “only beginning to process the traumas of the Vietnam War”. President Ford had recently faced two assassination attempts in a month. Yet the country still managed to unite to celebrate.

Trump has ruined America’s 250th birthday by making it all about himself, with his vainglorious architectural schemes, his cage fights, his plans for a new $250 note bearing his image. His insatiable ego has made it impossible for anyone who isn’t a diehard Trump fan to enjoy what should be a shared cultural moment. “Oh, well – maybe we’ll get it right for the tricentennial in 2076.”

“Women are angry. Vexed. Livid. FUMING,” said Helen Coffey in The Independent. And women in Britain are "apparently the angriest in Europe”.

According to the latest Hologic Global Women’s Health Index, nearly one in four of us feel rage, compared with one in seven on the continent. The annual league table (based on polls of more than 76,000 women) revealed a “remarkable upsurge in fury”; rates of anger were 47% higher than the previous year, while levels in other European countries “remained fairly stable”. The UK dropped to its lowest-ever position, from 41st to 48th out of 142 countries in just a year.

This “fall from grace” of the world’s fifth-largest economy by GDP is “little short of a disgrace”. But given the medical misogyny, the crisis in women’s health and gynaecological care, significant gender pay gap, and relatively high rates of femicide, it’s “depressingly unsurprising”.

‘Lack of hope’ and profound pessimism

I might account for all that rage “all on my own”, said Deborah Ross in The Times. Only 27 of the 2,300 paintings owned by the National Gallery are by women – “you’ll be in and out in a flash”. Less than 3% of reported rapes result in charges. About a third of women have experienced sexual harassment or assault on public transport. Only 3% of venture capital goes to female founders. Male screenwriters have “sewn up all the television factual dramas”, so we are “spared a woman’s take on real events”. Care and domestic labour “still fall disproportionally on women”. Women are more likely to have their pain “dismissed by doctors”. Three women are still killed by men every week.

One in four women in England and Wales has also been raped or assaulted, said Emily Lawford in The New Statesman. Many have also been radicalised by Israel’s war in Gaza (and the government’s “apathy”), or the Jeffrey Epstein revelations.

Polling by Merlin Strategy for The New Statesman found that women aged 18 to 30 are 26 percentage points “less likely to feel positively about capitalism than young men”. They are also “much more pessimistic about the future”.

A “significant majority” feel isolated, ignored by the two main political parties, and fearful of Reform, but few seem to believe that voting Green will make a difference. And people they interact with online “reinforce their beliefs”; the femosphere both “reflects young women’s disaffection and perpetuates it, radicalising them further”. A profound “lack of hope” and pessimism has emerged over the past decade. “How could they not be angry?”

Lack of perspective on ‘how far their sex has come’

Actually, women in the West have never had it so good, wrote gender historian Zoe Strimpel in The Telegraph. They have an “overflowing cup”: the right to education, to choose whether to have children, to work, to keep our salary, and to “demand freedom from male coercion and violence”. A woman just flew past the moon, and “nobody even batted an eyelid”. Of course there are problems, and (sometimes violent) misogyny persists, but if Western women “want to make their mark”, there is very little stopping them.

These “furious young women”, with rights that women of the past “could only have dreamed of”, are channelling their anger into “false, often malign causes”, squandering their power. They seem to “lack any perspective on where they are now, and how far their sex has come”.

But “even those who are winning the game want to overthrow it”, said Jack Davey in The Critic magazine. The internet is “abuzz with the topic of ‘angry young women’”, but the ones I’ve met aren’t angry – they’re politicised. Gen Z women are “by far the most left-wing demographic in the country”; even the most privileged “want radical change”. That’s because, unlike young men’s problems, young women’s are “far less tangible”.

Most of these so-called “angry young women” are far more reasonable than the online caricatures, and “far more willing to compromise than polling would suggest”. But get used to them: angry young women are “here to stay”.

“Thirty years of hurt never stopped me dreaming” sang England fans in 1996. Another 30 years later, Three Lions supporters finally “have grounds to dream”, said The Telegraph. But not all football analysts believe the picture is so rosy for Thomas Tuchel’s men.

Gnawing hope

There’s a “familiar, gnawing, feeling growing inside all England fans: hope”, said ESPN, that this time, the Three Lions might just do it. There is “incredible depth” in the squad. Tuchel, England’s German head coach, has experience of winning some of the sport’s “biggest trophies” and his squad selection shows he is “clearly not afraid to duck away from making big calls”, nor “upsetting some of the bigger names”.

It’s not just Tuchel who has bags of experience. The “majority” of his squad can “call upon the muscle memory” of reaching finals in two of their last three tournaments. Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane play for Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, Arsenal’s Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka have “more Champions League knockout experience” than two years ago, and Marc Guéhi, “considered untested” at the Euros, has since moved to Manchester City and gained valuable European experience.

To win, a team “must suffer, have luck on their side and improve as the tournament progresses”, said Felipe Cardenas on The Athletic. England have the “attributes”, and Tuchel “understands the players”. This time, captain Kane “can lead England to the promised land”.

‘Back to reality’

“I don’t have a great feeling about England,” said Oliver Kay on The Athletic. “I’m just not convinced they have really taken shape under Tuchel yet”. He “needs something (and not just Harry Kane) to click”.

The trouble is that England are “always a Kane injury away from a full-blown crisis”, said the BBC. Yes, they became the first European side to win eight World Cup qualifiers without conceding a goal, but March’s friendlies – a “turgid” draw with Uruguay and defeat to Japan – “jolted everyone back to reality”.

“In 1966, I left Wembley convinced England would win again,” said Hunter Davies in The New Statesman, but that “won’t happen again in my lifetime”. I fear that “England lack flair”, because “today in the Prem”, coaches have become “obsessed” with set-pieces and are “guided by videos and boring stats”. This makes the players “nervous”, “too concerned about pushing the opposition at corners” and “scared to express themselves”. But “we all live in hope”.

Even England fans themselves don’t seem particularly convinced, going by new data from bookmakers. Only a fifth of England fans are backing the Three Lions to win the tournament, which places England “significantly behind” several European rivals when it comes to “domestic support for their national team”, said Anna Wise in The Independent. In Scotland, confidence “is even lower”: fewer than one in 10 bets placed there are backing the national side, “who are currently priced at 300/1 to win”.

How Kemal Atatürk – founder of modern Turkey, the man who transformed the decrepit Ottoman monarchy into a modern secular republic – must be “turning in his grave”, said Jonas Roth in Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Zurich).

Last week, Turkish riot police stormed the headquarters of the CHP, the social democratic party Atatürk set up in 1923, to flush out the party’s current leader, Özgür Özel. For three days, Özel and a group of party officials had barricaded themselves inside the building in protest at a highly controversial court ruling that had just ordered Özel to stand down, claiming there had been voting irregularities at the CHP party congress that elected him leader in 2023.

Using batons, tear gas and rubber bullets, the police rushed in to evict him; Özel emerged to address the cheering crowd outside and then led a march to the parliament building.

‘No longer unbeatable’

It isn’t hard to detect the hand of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan behind all this. For 13 years, from 2010 to 2023, the CHP under its former leader, Kemal Kılıçdaroglu, had proved an ineffectual opposition, losing every single election, local and national, to Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP). But under Özel, the CHP has been transformed into a political force capable of ending Erdogan’s 23-year rule.

So the fact that the judiciary, which Erdogan has made his tool, should now have ordered Özel to be replaced by the perennial loser Kılıçdaroglu, speaks for itself. The crackdown on the CHP began in earnest after it inflicted a “historic defeat” on the AKP in local elections in 2024, said Ecehan Balta in Xekinima (Athens). Holding Erdogan responsible for the economic crisis that had seen inflation rise above 80%, voters turned en masse to Özel’s party, which won 35 provinces to the AKP’s 24. This was a huge blow to the president, a sign that his political machine, for all its grip on state institutions and the media, was “no longer unbeatable”.

And, since then, hundreds of CHP officials have been arrested, notably Ekrem Imamoglu, the popular mayor of Istanbul, who was detained last March on the same day that he was chosen as his party’s next presidential candidate.

Hope not lost

What happened to Imamoglu was a travesty, said Raphael Geiger in Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich): he faces up to 2,352 years in jail, if convicted of corruption and espionage. But the dethroning of Özel is even worse. It “eliminates everything that remains of Turkish democracy”, effectively snuffing out “the faint hope” of a different government being elected.

Indeed Turkey, now lacking a genuine opposition, is closer than ever to “one-man rule”, said The Economist. Özel could try and found a new party, but without the “powerful brand” of the CHP behind him, he is unlikely to succeed. In any case, Erdogan is expected to call a snap election before the next scheduled vote in May 2028. In doing so, he would be exploiting a loophole which allows him to stand again if he doesn’t fully complete his current presidential term, which the constitution mandates should otherwise be his last.

All hope is not lost, though, said Dogan Ertugrul on Turkish Minute. Imprisoning your main challenger and sowing chaos in the ranks of their party is a sign not of strength, but of insecurity.

And these risky political steps could well backfire. Look at the Gen Z-led protests that have erupted across the country since Imamoglu’s arrest. They are still going strong and have Erdogan worried, said Giorgio Brizio in La Repubblica (Rome). On the same day police raided the CHP’s offices in Ankara, thousands of students and staff staged a demonstration at Bilgi University in Istanbul, a bastion of liberal thought that the president had just closed down. In scenes “unthinkable” until a few years ago, police burst onto the campus, targeting protesters with batons and pepper spray. Many of the students were arrested; but they stood firm, and soon after Erdogan issued a decree to reopen the university. The students’ victory is clear proof that Erdogan is not invincible.

Donald Trump just keeps winning, said The Washington Post – at least when it comes to Republican primaries. Last week, Texas’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, became the latest in a series of candidates to triumph in a GOP run-off on the strength of the president’s endorsement. He beat four-term incumbent John Cornyn to secure the nomination for the Senate seat in Texas that is up for grabs in the midterms.

Courting controversy

But this win could cost Trump dear. Republicans are now saddled with a “scandal-plagued” nominee, in Paxton, whose flaws may force the GOP to lavish campaign funds in what would, otherwise, have been a safe seat. And the party could even so lose Texas to the Democrats, which could in turn cost them control of the Senate, and thus bring Trump’s agenda “to a standstill during his final two years in power”.

Paxton is a menace, said Nicole Russell in USA Today. A serial adulterer who has been impeached by his own party over bribery and corruption charges, he “seems to court controversy everywhere he goes”. However, he appeals to some voters as “a culture-war Maga fighter”, and he’s up against a Democrat candidate, James Talarico, who, for all his “polished rhetoric” and mild manner, is equally polarising. Talarico's past comments – which include saying that “God is nonbinary”, and that the US-Mexico border should have a “giant welcome mat” as well as a “lock on the door” – won't sit well with many Texans.

Buyers’ remorse

“Texas has a long history of slipping out of Democrats’ grasp,” said Amanda Marcotte on Salon. The party hasn’t won a statewide election there since 1994. But even if Talarico falls short, Trump will regret endorsing Paxton. Cornyn now joins the ranks of outgoing, alienated Republican senators who have nothing to lose by criticising the president and frustrating his plans. Other GOP senators, meanwhile, are wondering whether it’s still worth sucking up to Trump. Cornyn, after all, had mostly been a loyal footsoldier – his only sin was being a bit slow to endorse Trump’s third White House run.

Republicans are in a tight spot, said David French in The New York Times. Defy Trump, and they risk losing their jobs; back him, and they court “electoral disaster” for their party. Serves them right for not doing their duty in 2021 and convicting Trump in his impeachment trial. “May history treat their failure with the contempt it deserves.”

The European Union could soon add a 28th member to its ranks, as Iceland is set to vote on potentially joining the bloc this summer. But not all Icelanders support EU membership, with polls split down the middle, and what happens in the referendum could have ripple effects on the international order.

‘Important for international security’

Icelanders will not be voting on whether to join the EU but on whether Iceland should resume negotiations about joining. If the referendum passes, a second vote would be held to officially make Iceland an EU member.

Icelanders are mostly at a stalemate on the issue. According to a recent survey “on behalf of the foreign ministry, 42% of Icelanders are in favor of reopening accession talks and 39% are opposed,” said The Guardian.

Icelanders who are in favor of restarting talks view joining the EU as “important for international security and an opportunity for better integration in Europe,” said The Guardian. There have been considerations for a while about Iceland joining the bloc, but the turbocharged referendum is “in part motivated by threats from the U.S., a longtime close ally of Iceland, to forcibly acquire its closest neighbor, Greenland.” The “international order that underpinned our security and prosperity for decades is under serious pressure,” said Icelandic Foreign Minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir to the outlet.

The EU has “intensified a rethink of its Arctic strategy since Trump’s rhetoric over Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory, reached a peak earlier this year,” said Mari Novik at the Financial Times. Iceland was previously at an impasse with the EU over regulations regarding fishing, a major industry in the country, but the organization could “offer Iceland a carve-out on fishing policy to accelerate the country’s potential bid to join the bloc.”

‘Half the country will be upset’

Not all Icelanders are eager to join the EU. Some feel the country is “locked in an existential fight for Iceland’s soul, where extreme measures might be justifiable,” said Elías Þórsson at Icelandic news magazine The Reykjavík Grapevine. Politics in Iceland “tend to be rather benign,” but there’s “something about the EU debate that stirs the pot" of public opinion. “About half the country will be upset with the result” of the referendum, no matter what side wins, according to polls.

Those who oppose becoming part of the EU hark back to a “well-known refrain in Icelandic political discourse” that the nation is “being betrayed, that some kind of treason is underway, that foreigners are being allowed to come and run everything in Iceland,” said political scientist Ólafur Harðarson to the Grapevine. Some feel that EU membership means “giving up Iceland’s sovereignty,” said Þórsson.

The aforementioned fishing industry may be what the referendum ultimately comes down to. Icelanders have “watched with alarm as Ireland, an EU member, has endured cuts to fishing quotas that have devastated its coastal communities,” said Amelia Nierenberg at The New York Times. And the citizens are fearful the EU could do the same thing to Iceland without a carve-out.

“People feel that they might be forced to pick a side,” said Eirikur Bergmann, a politics professor at Iceland’s Bifrost University, to the Times. And then there’s “really only one side to pick.”

“I came here to play tennis, not to put on a fashion show,” said Laura Siegemund, following her loss to Naomi Osaka in the first round of the French Open. “If other people want to do a fashion show, they can do that.”

Osaka came on court in a black corset and matching pleated skirt to face Siegemund. Though she eventually lost to Aryna Sabalenka in the fourth round in a landmark night session, Osaka’s “shimmering gold dress” became even “more eye-catching under the lights”, said The Guardian.

Known for her “elaborate” playing outfits, including a jellyfish-inspired outfit at the Australian Open, Osaka sparked concern that she may “serve as a distraction”. With Wimbledon around the corner, the tennis-fashion debate is likely to intensify.

‘Another language’

Osaka “really knows how to turn a tennis court into a catwalk” and has done so for years, said the Daily Maverick. Though her “court-ure”, which also included an Eiffel Tower-inspired outfit, has been labelled “problematic” by critics, her choice of fashion is “part of how she chooses to be seen”. For someone who has spoken openly about her struggles with anxiety, depression and public communication, her outfits have become “another language”.

The four-time grand slam champion has “never had average tastes when it comes to fashion”, said The Athletic. Her look at the Australian Open – a “dreamy, dramatic ensemble” that was meant to “evoke jellyfish” – “took over cultural discourse far beyond her match”.

Female athletes “don’t want to be known or judged for their outfits alone”, said The Independent, but with less prime-time coverage of their games than male players, it “can’t hurt to turn a few heads and garner extra attention using a bit of tulle and some sequins, right?”

I understand “how annoying it must be for Osaka’s opponents”, said The Times’ fashion director Anna Murphy. Her “ballroom skirt” and “spangled waistcoat” are “more usually seen in ‘Bridgerton’” and “Dancing on Ice”. I appreciate her angle: professional tennis “isn’t for the shy and retiring”, and if you’re on a rumoured $10 million sponsorship deal, “why not milk it”?

Wimbledon has indicated it will go along with Osaka’s “fancy-dress-adjacent thing”, provided what she wears is white. The restrictions are only on colour, not style, “so what’s it going to be for SW19? A snowman? A snowball? A snowballgirl?” But this sets a precedent that could turn the circuit into a “fancy dress party”, inviting others to follow suit. I am “not sure how even I, a fashion journalist, feel about that”.

Fashion ‘embedded’ in tennis

Tennis has “always been a runway” and fashion has “long been entrenched” in the sport, said the Daily Maverick. Osaka’s idols, the Williams sisters, used fashion as a “platform of empowerment”. Serena Williams’ “iconic” 2018 catsuit “became one of the most discussed outfits in tennis history”, while Venus’ “‘scandalous’ cabaret-inspired 2010 look” also “challenged conventions”.

Such pageantry has become commonplace in other sports too, with “paddock fashion” in Formula 1 and “tunnel walks” in US basketball. People are only noticing, and commenting, because Osaka is “using fashion as a form of self-expression on her own terms”.

Outfits worn by Osaka and Sabalenka have “crystallised how deeply luxury fashion has embedded itself in tennis”, said the Financial Times. “Indeed, the relationship between luxury and tennis isn’t new.” Many of the major stars will have a partnership with a high-end brand: Jannik Sinner and Gucci, Carlos Alcaraz and Louis Vuitton, Zheng Qinwen and Dior, British star Jack Draper and Burberry; the list goes on.

Professional tennis is a “visual theatre”, with increasingly viable commercial opportunities. Lacoste, Ralph Lauren and Rolex have all been “intertwined” with the sport, but there has been a dramatic shift in tennis’ “scale and visibility, both as a participatory sport and a spectacle”. Broader participation in the US (up by 54% since 2019, according to the US Tennis Association), and rising broadcast audiences mean tennis has become a “compelling stage” for marketing. Tennis offers a “rare opportunity to speak simultaneously to affluent buyers and aspirational young fans”.

Spencer Pratt is the latest entrant in the reality-TV-to-politics pipeline. Pratt made his name as the villain on “The Hills” during the late aughts. Now he is a contender to be the next mayor of Los Angeles.

Polls show Pratt “within striking distance” of incumbent mayor Karen Bass in Tuesday’s primary election, said CNN. AI-produced viral videos have powered his campaign, which is focused on “frustration with the city’s leadership” amid “overlapping crises” — wildfires, Hollywood’s decline, homelessness — that have left L.A. with “deep uncertainty about its future.” Pratt, who waded into politics after losing his home in last year’s Palisades fire, betrays little such uncertainty about his chances. “I’m for sure going to be mayor,” he said to Vanity Fair. The message and the messenger both remind observers of President Donald Trump, who last week endorsed Pratt’s campaign.

‘Shining a light’ on city failures

The novice candidate has “captivated a frustrated Los Angeles,” Susan Shelley said at The Orange County Register. Rather than running a vacuous vanity campaign, Pratt has been “shining a light on the visible failures of Los Angeles government.” Those failures have left the city residents mired in “crushing utility bills, unaffordable insurance, dangerous parks, unsafe sidewalks, homeless encampments” and other challenges. Pratt could be a mayor “who solves problems instead of preserving them to justify more funding.”

The reality star is “betting that infamy can be political currency,” Louis Staples said at The Atlantic. On “The Hills,” Pratt established himself as an “agitator” who found celebrity by “fighting with the other cast members and even with his own family.” That turned the show into “addictive viewing” plus taught Pratt a lesson about “narrative control.” TV stars and politicians both use tabloid leaks, social media and podcast appearances as part of a wide-ranging strategy to “influence how they’re perceived.” Pratt is a political newcomer, “but he’s been playing this game for years.”

Pratt is part of a line of mostly Republican stars who have “leveraged their reality TV fame into political careers,” Lorraine Ali said at The Los Angeles Times. Pratt and Trump can “push conflict, drama and personality” so far in the social media era that “no one will ask what exactly it is that you do beyond posting.” Pratt has accomplished that much. “But what about his ability to govern?”

‘Almost certainly toast’

Pratt’s strong polling probably “represents a consolidation of the small but very real conservative minority” of Los Angeles voters who see him as a MAGA candidate, Ed Kilgore said at New York. The city’s broader left-leaning electorate puts a “pretty firm ceiling on Pratt’s vote” that will make it difficult for him to win the mayor’s office in November. Instead, his candidacy “may be the best thing that could have happened to Karen Bass.” Pratt may well survive Tuesday’s nonpartisan primary election, but “he’s almost certainly toast against a Democrat in a general election.”

He’s a “thin, limpish, bespectacled 94-year-old grandfather” whose revolutionary days are long gone, said Daniel DePetris in The Telegraph, yet he’s a wanted man in the US for all that. Raúl Castro has been a dominant figure in Cuba’s communist regime since his brother Fidel seized power in 1959.

Cuba’s defence chief from 1959 to 2008 and its president from 2006 to 2018, he still wields great influence behind the scenes. So it’s quite something that the US attorney general has now charged him with a murder he’s said to have been involved in back in 1996 – the fatal downing of two civilian planes over the Straits of Florida.

The four victims of that attack, three of them US citizens, had been working for Brothers to the Rescue, an NGO dedicated to helping Cuban refugees and dropping anti-communist leaflets over the island. Castro is accused of having instructed his fighter pilots to “knock them down into the sea when they show up”.

‘Warning for a deaf regime’

You could see this coming, said Diario de Cuba (Madrid). The Trump administration has been demanding that Havana open up its economy and end political repression; yet despite heavy US sanctions and an oil blockade imposed in January, the regime has made no more than limited concessions – allowing Cubans in exile to found companies back home, for example. So the indictment of Raúl Castro is a “warning for a deaf regime”. And quite possibly an effective one.

The regime was badly shaken when, in January, Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro was captured by US forces in a surprise raid on Caracas. And US Attorney General Todd Blanche has hinted something similar might occur in Cuba. Asked how he intended to bring Castro to trial in America, he cryptically replied there are “all kinds of different ways”.

Bringing in Castro would be a major blow to the regime, said CNN (Atlanta). Regarded as his late brother’s “more disciplined and discreet” enforcer, Raúl Castro remains “the power in the shadows”. And his family holds immense economic as well as political clout: GAESA, the military-run conglomerate Castro founded in 1995, controls 70% of the economy on some estimates: Cuba’s tourist industry is just one of the sectors it dominates.

Markets empty, prices soaring

That economy is now suffering its “greatest crisis” since the collapse of its close ally the Soviet Union, said The Washington Post. The oil embargo has driven it to the brink. “Havana looks like a bombed-out city,” said Yunior García Aguilera on 14YMedio (Havana). Its buildings, crumbling from decades of neglect, are “split open like broken ribs”. With no petrol to run dustbin trucks, rubbish is being burnt in the streets. People wade through “toxic clouds”, side-stepping sewage and hopping over pot-holes. “Plastic, rotten food and patience are all ablaze.”

And with no imports reaching the island, Cubans have to eat what’s grown locally, said CiberCuba (Valencia). Which isn’t much. Rice production had plummeted even before the fuel crisis. Without fuel for crop dusters, tractors or irrigation, farmers have “reverted to using oxen, buffalo, horses, windmills, and solar pumps”. Markets are empty, prices are soaring. Most Cubans have begun skipping meals.

The US hopes such suffering will spark a “mass uprising” and cause the regime to implode, said Fabio E. Fernández Batista in El Salto (Madrid). But such is the repressive nature of the regime, that seems unlikely, which is why not a few Cubans now hope that “Saint Donald” will come to the rescue, even “if it means bombs falling” on their homeland.

And the US appears “increasingly willing” to seek regime change in Cuba through military means, said Nahal Toosi on Politico (Washington) – by an air strike or possibly even a ground invasion. The signs are all there: there’s been a reported spike in US surveillance flights off Cuba, and last week the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz was sent to the Caribbean. Some assume the ongoing failure of his war in Iran will hold the US president back. Don’t bet on it. It’s never a good idea “to predict what the capricious Trump will do”.

“Suddenly, say those who live there, the mood in Moscow feels very different,” said Adrian Blomfield in The Telegraph. Ever since Ukraine’s counteroffensive stalled in 2023, Russia’s capital had “exuded confidence. Its residents could either bathe in the patriotic glory of war or ignore it altogether”. But lately, “bombast” has given way to fear, and to a longing for the conflict to end; and this feeling became more acute this month, when Moscow and its wider region came under fire from a barrage of Ukrainian drones.

It was “one of the most sustained aerial attacks of the conflict” so far. Three people were killed; all four of Moscow’s airports had to close; an oil refinery and residential buildings were hit. “Muscovites listening to drones buzz overhead and air defences firing into the night” were given a “glimpse of life in Kyiv – and they did not like it”.

‘Completely unravelling’

Events have not been in the Kremlin’s favour lately, said the Financial Times. Ukraine has upped its use of long-range drones to target energy and military facilities deep in Russia. On the front line, Russia is “scratching out meagre territorial gains at a devastating human cost”: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently asserted that it is “losing 15,000-20,000 soldiers a month. Not injured. Dead.”

The Russian economy, meanwhile, is ailing: some analysts reckon that inflation is running well above the official 5.6%; and interest rates are at a punishing 14.5%. Vladimir Putin has tried to bury bad news by tightening state control over the internet, said Phillips Payson O’Brien in The Atlantic. Even so, videos have increasingly been circulating in which Russians express “shock at their capital’s vulnerability”. His long-standing narrative, that the conflict in Ukraine is a “special military operation” that needn’t trouble Russia’s elites or middle classes, is “completely unravelling”.

‘Most challenging period’

Putin’s calculus on the war in Ukraine has not changed, said Pjotr Sauer and Shaun Walker in The Guardian. He remains determined to “press on” in the (surely misguided) belief that Moscow can capture the whole of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region by the end of the year. Such “bravado”, however, is doing little to ease the disquiet inside Russia; and speculation is growing that Putin’s regime could be toppled from within.

There have been reports that Sergei Shoigu, the former defence minister, could emerge as a threat to his former boss’s grip on power. The likelihood of an imminent Kremlin coup may be remote; but there’s no doubt that, at 73, Putin is entering “the most challenging period of his long rule”.

Tony Blair has made “his most dramatic intervention yet”, said The Independent. In a 5,700-word analysis of Labour’s woes, the former prime minister decried the lack of a “coherent plan for the country in a fast-changing world”. Instead of changing leader, he argued, the party should “start with a policy debate” – from tax to net zero – to reoccupy the centre ground and revive the economy.

Many ‘will likely agree’

Blair may have left Downing Street nearly 20 years ago, but “as ever, he is worth listening to”, said the paper. His argument effectively boils down to “putting policy success – ‘delivery’ – above all else”. He is right that any discussion about the future “should first be about the ‘what’ rather than the ‘who’”.

Many members of the public “will likely agree with Blair’s overarching analysis that now is not the time to turn inward”, said Megan Kenyon in The New Statesman. But that doesn’t mean the party he led to three successive election landslides is likely to “welcome this intervention with whoops and cheers of gratitude”.

‘Maximum annoyance’

Maybe that’s because it “almost feels designed to inflict maximum annoyance on his party”, in terms of the content and the timing, said The Guardian’s Peter Walker. The Makerfield by-election is in just three weeks, and it “could shape Labour’s destiny for years to come”. Both Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham have accused Blair of failing to focus on inequality.

Many in the party agree with Blair’s assessment that this is a Labour administration “that has governed largely from its comfort zone and without a coherent plan”, said Stephen Bush in the Financial Times. Yet it is still likely to “decide swiftly that its problems are best solved by replacing Starmer with a more charismatic and natural politician” rather than having a “serious intellectual debate about what has gone wrong and why”.

This article first appeared in The Week’s Politics Unspun newsletter. Sign up here to receive an email recap of the biggest UK politics news of the week every Thursday lunchtime.