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4 NEWS The main stories…
What happened
Election year
Jeremy Hunt’s announcement that the spring
Budget will take place on 6 March – earlier
than expected – prompted speculation that the
Government plans to call an election in May to
take advantage of voter goodwill created by any
new tax cuts. But senior Tories dismissed the
idea, saying that Downing Street was more likely
to delay the poll until the autumn, to give people
more time to benefit from those cuts. There was
talk of inheritance tax being halved. However,
the former chancellor Norman Lamont argued
that the Government should instead prioritise
raising income tax thresholds, as that would
benefit the “largest number of people”.
Some Tory MPs responded angrily this week to Sunak: bleak prospects?
the disclosure that Rishi Sunak held secret talks
with Boris Johnson’s former chief aide, Dominic Cummings,
on two occasions last year. Cummings claimed that the PM
had offered him a behind-the-scenes role preparing the Tories’
election campaign – a role he had declined. While No. 10
didn’t deny that the pair had held two meetings, it rejected
the claim that any job offer was discussed.
What the editorials said
Winning a fifth term after 14 years in power is a tall order,
said The Independent, and few expect the Tories to manage it.
Sunak is burdened with the “difficult legacy” of
his predecessors, and he has made errors of his
own, particularly in staking so much political
capital on his unrealistic pledge to “stop the
boats”. The prospects look bleak for the
Government, agreed The Daily Telegraph.
When the PM promised last January to reduce
the NHS backlog, there were 7.2 million people
on waiting lists; now, there are 7.7 million.
Debt as a share of GDP is rising, not falling.
The one blessing is that the Tories are now
at least debating how best to cut taxes.
All is not lost for the Tories, said the Daily
Mail. Inflation is falling and a report by
accountants PwC finds the UK’s outlook
is “far rosier” than expected. If Sunak can
convince voters that he has a credible strategy to get the
public sector working again, he’s in with a shot. Seeking help
from Cummings was a bad idea, not least because Sunak had
assured party members he’d have “absolutely nothing” to do
with the maverick former aide. But Sunak will certainly need
to take a bold approach to turn around his party’s fortunes.

What happened
Assassination in Beirut
Hamas’s deputy political leader was killed in
an apparent Israeli drone strike in Lebanon
this week. Regarded by Israel as the group’s
most senior military figure outside Gaza,
Saleh al-Arouri, 57, was one of seven Hamas
members killed in the explosion in the Beirut
suburb of Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold.
Analysts warned that the strike could put
pressure on the Iran-backed Lebanese group
to escalate its attacks on Israel, drawing it
into a wider regional war. Israel did not
confirm that it was behind the strike, but
said it was “prepared for any scenario”
afterwards. Tensions along the Israel-Lebanon
border had ratcheted up over Christmas, Arouri: killed by a drone
when Hezbollah launched scores of missiles
into Israel’s north, triggering threats of military retaliation.
In another sign of rising regional instability, the UK said
that it might join the US in launching air strikes targeting
the Houthi rebels disrupting trade in the Red Sea. The
Yemeni militia, which is also backed by Iran and supports
Hamas, has launched more than 100 drone and missile attacks
on vessels in the key shipping lane since the war in Gaza began
in October. On Sunday, the US – which last month launched
“Operation Prosperity Guardian”, a multinational taskforce
to protect vessels in the waterway – sank three
Houthi boats after fighters on board had tried
to board a Maersk cargo ship. Grant Shapps,
the Defence Secretary, said the UK could take
“direct action” against Houthi targets in the
Red Sea or Yemen if the disruption continued.
On Monday, the Israeli military said that it was
withdrawing thousands of troops from Gaza
for recuperation and training. However, Israel
insisted that this should not be seen as any
kind of retreat. Days earlier, PM Benjamin
Netanyahu had warned that the war would
go on “for many more months”. Last week,
Israel’s military expanded its ground operations
into refugee camps in central Gaza, and
fighting in the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis is ongoing.
According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health authority, 22,000
people have been killed in the Strip since 7 October. Aid
agencies say that humanitarian conditions there are continuing
to deteriorate, and that a lack of food, shelter and hygiene
provisions is exacerbating the spread of disease.

It wasn’t all bad A British Army

A farmer in Hampshire has
come up with an eco-friendly
way of getting rid of old
Christmas trees: she is feeding
them to her alpacas. “It’s a way
of disposing of a Christmas tree
without taking up landfill or
burning them,” explained Sue
Sears. “It’s also enriching for
our animals.” The alpacas eat
the needles, then shred the
wood, leaving very little behind.
Following an appeal, she
received 20 trees, and suggests
that next year, people offer trees
to alpaca farms near them.
THE WEEK 6 January 2024
medical officer
Storm Henk brought chaos
and misery to swathes of
known as “Polar the country this week, but in
Preet” may have Birmingham, spirits were raised
become the fastest by the actions of a man who
woman to ski alone braved flood water to rescue a
and unsupported to woman and her three-year-old
the South Pole. daughter from their partially
Preet Chandi, 34, submerged car. Liam Stych first
already holds two pulled the child out, through a
world records for smashed window. Then having
Antarctic trekking. Her latest feat, which has yet to be verified tied the car to a bridge, so that
by the Guinness World Records team, saw her cover 702 miles it wouldn’t be washed further
of Antarctic ice in 31 days, 13 hours and 19 minutes, in down the River Cole, he helped
temperatures as low as -30°C. She skied for 12 to 13 hours a day her mother out. Police referred
on average, while pulling a 75kg sled containing everything she to him as a “local hero”, but he
needed to survive. “I’m tired but so glad I made it,” Chandi said. said he only did what any
“I just kept taking it one step at a time.” decent person would do.
COVER CARTOON: NEIL DAVIES
 …and how they were covered NEWS 5
What the commentators said What next?
Technically, the election could be held as late as 28 January 2025, said Rachel Cunliffe in The Liberal Democrats have
The New Statesman. But that would mean campaigning over Christmas, which Sunak has called for an inquiry into
reportedly ruled out. That effectively leaves two options: a spring election or an autumn one. whether Rishi Sunak broke
Going to the polls on 2 May, when local elections are scheduled to take place across England, the ministerial code by failing
would have some advantages. It would avert accusations that Sunak was “clinging on” and help to reveal his meetings with
bring out the vote. Waiting until the autumn could also cost the party many votes as more Cummings. A Government
households come off their fixed-rate mortgages and have to renew at higher rates. spokesman said no rules had
been broken as “meetings
The case for a May poll is strong, said Henry Hill in The Guardian. In the local elections, with private individuals
the Tories are likely to lose many of the local councillors who make up their “most dedicated to discuss political matters
footsoldiers”. The economic situation could also worsen over the year as a result of global do not need to be declared”.
instability. But there are dangers, too, with a May election, said Isabel Hardman in the same
paper. “The Budget-as-starting-gun theory relies largely on that fiscal event going well.” And The Tories are planning to
as the Tories know to their cost, they don’t always do so, even when they include tax cuts. toughen up borrowing rules
in the forthcoming Budget in
In his Autumn Statement, Hunt proudly unveiled some tax cuts, while glossing over the stealth order to create a new dividing
taxes imposed by freezing tax thresholds, said Fraser Nelson in The Daily Telegraph. If the line with Labour, reports The
Tories repeat that trick in March, in the hope of winning a pre-election bounce, it won’t work. Daily Telegraph. Under the
Sunak would be better off holding the election at the end of the year, by which time some recent current rules, debt must be
benign trends should have become more evident. Migration, inflation, mortgage rates, waiting on course to fall as a share
lists and small-boat arrivals are now “on the way down”. If Sunak wants to campaign on “real of national income in five
achievements” rather than “illusory ones”, he should hold fire. Sunak has only been PM for little years. No. 10 officials want
more than a year, said John Curtice in the Daily Express, and he knows that election defeat will to tighten the measure to
spell the end of his political career. Unless there is a “dramatic change in the polls very soon”, shift more attention onto
he will have every reason to sit tight and “hope that something turns up before the autumn”. Labour’s borrowing plans.

What the commentators said What next?

The Israel-Gaza war has already set several records, said Devi Sridhar in The Guardian. It’s the The situation in the Red Sea
deadliest conflict for journalists in 30 years. It has caused “the largest single loss of life” for UN has already prompted five
staff in the organisation’s history. And it is proving particularly lethal to children: in November, major shipping firms to
roughly 160 were killed each day. But with conditions for Gaza’s civilians becoming ever avoid that route to the Suez
more desperate, the worst may be yet to come. Unless “something changes, the world faces Canal. Instead, their ships
the prospect of almost a quarter of Gaza’s two million population dying within a year”. In the are travelling an extra
meantime, Gazans are struggling just to make it through each day, said Amal Helles and Louise 3,500 nautical miles
Callaghan in The Sunday Times. In the refugee camps, parents are having to feed their children around southern Africa,
rotten food; in the north, people are “hunting stray cats and dogs” to eat. Yet Israeli tanks at an estimated additional
continue to advance deeper into the Strip, and there’s little sign of let-up in the aerial attacks. cost of £1.6m per trip.

The killing of Arouri is a win for Israel, said Amos Harel in Haaretz. Assuming Israel was Benjamin Netanyahu’s
behind the strike, he is the first senior Hamas leader to be killed by the IDF since the war began. domestic approval ratings
But we can expect it to elicit a “harsh response” from the Islamist group, and the fact that it took are plummeting, says The
place in Beirut could provoke Hezbollah into abandoning the relatively cautious approach it has Times of Israel. According
adopted in the war so far. The risk of a wider regional conflict is now all too real, said Simon to a recent poll, only 15%
Tisdall in The Guardian. Israel’s northern border is “the most dangerous flashpoint”; but Israeli of Israelis want the PM to
strikes on Iran-linked targets in Syria, and attacks by Islamist militants on US bases in Iraq, also stay in office after the war
pose risks to regional stability. Added to all this is the chaos unfolding in the Red Sea, said Mark ends. However, 66% think
Almond in the Daily Mail. Some 12% of global shipping traffic passes along this “critical route”. that Israel should not give
Further disruption to it could trigger sharp rises in the price of oil and consumer goods, fuelling way to US demands that the
global inflation. The US is taking action, but the Houthis are a formidable foe, armed with IDF reduce the intensity of
$2,000 “suicide drones” that the West can only destroy using $2m missiles. Averting this its bombardment of heavily
crisis looks likely to be a costly and time-consuming endeavour for the US and its allies. populated areas of Gaza.

THE WEEK
Editor-in-chief: Caroline Law
We’ve all been wishing each other a Happy New Year, but Britain Editor: Theo Tait
Deputy editor: Harry Nicolle
is not a very happy country at the moment. The Office for National City editor: Jane Lewis Assistant editors: Robin de Peyer,
Statistics has been using detailed surveys to gauge the national Leaf Arbuthnot Contributing editors: Simon Wilson,
Rob McLuhan, Catherine Heaney, Xandie Nutting,
mood since 2012. These reveal that, in spite of austerity policies, happiness levels slowly rose during Digby Warde-Aldam, Tom Yarwood, William Skidelsky
Editorial: Anoushka Petit, Tigger Ridgwell, Amelia Butler-
the 2010s. They peaked in 2019, then fell sharply when the pandemic struck. In 2021-22, there was a Gallie, Louis Foster Picture editor: Annabelle Whitestone
Art director: Katrina Ffiske Senior sub-editor: Simmy
bounce back, as life started to return to normal, but last year the gloom set in again. Overall well- Richman Production editor: Alanna O’Connell
Editorial chairman and co-founder: Jeremy O’Grady
being is now almost as low as in the first pandemic year. And we are not just unhappy, we’re worried
too: 27% of women say they suffer from “high” levels of anxiety, up from 22% in 2016, as do 20% of Production Manager: Maaya Mistry
Account Directors: Aimee Farrow, Amy McBride
men. Increasingly, governments see improving national well-being as their concern but, as James Business Director: Steven Tapp
Commercial Head, Schools Guide: Nubla Rehman
Kirkup noted in The Times, that presents Britain’s with quite a challenge. The cost-of-living crisis may Account Executive (Classified): Serena Noble Advertising
Director – The Week, Wealth & Finance: Peter Cammidge
abate, easing people’s financial worries, but poor health has a major impact on life satisfaction, and Managing Director, The Week: Richard Campbell
restoring public confidence in an NHS that has waiting lists of 7.7 million could take years. So it is SVP Lifestyle, Knowledge and News: Sophie Wybrew-Bond

reassuring to learn that individuals can make a difference. A recent study revealed that fleeting Future PLC, 121-
141 Westbourne
interactions with strangers (“greeting, thanking, conversing”, as its authors put it) have a remarkable Terrace, London
W2 6JR
impact on people’s levels of life satisfaction. This backs up research in August showing that bus
Editorial office:
drivers feel better when their passengers greet or thank them. It seems that if we 020-3890 3787 Future plc is a public !ǝǣƺǔ0ɴƺƬɖɎǣɮƺ ǔˡƬƺȸ Jon Steinberg

just remember to be a bit nicer to each other, we can all have a happier new year. Caroline Law
company quoted on the Non-Executive Chairman Richard Huntingford
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any form or by any means without the written permission of the publishers 6 January 2024 THE WEEK
6 NEWS Politics
Controversy of the week NHS facing a “storm”

Ukraine on a knife edge Junior doctors in England

began a six-day walkout
this week, the longest in
If its Western allies do not keep their promises, “Ukraine will NHS history. Stephen
lose” the war with Russia, said Jack Watling in The Guardian. Powis, the medical director
One example: in March 2023, the EU made a public pledge to of NHS England, said the
deliver a million artillery shells to Ukraine within 12 months. strike would force the
The number sent, so far, is around 300,000. “The price of this cancellation of thousands
of appointments, and that it
complacency is already being paid in Ukrainian blood.” Today,
came at the “very worst time
Ukraine’s armed forces are struggling to fire 2,000 rounds per of year”, when hospitals are
day; the Russians fire about 10,000. Ukraine is already losing, facing a “storm” of pressure,
said Richard Kemp in The Daily Telegraph. Its counteroffensive caused in part by a surge in
last year “failed”. Over Christmas, Russian forces seem to have flu and Covid. There were
taken the town of Marinka in eastern Donbas, “the greatest 3,620 patients with Covid
battlefield success” of the war since they captured Bakhmut in in English hospitals on 24
May. In recent days, Kyiv and other cities have been hit by one December, 59% more than a
of the biggest waves of aerial attacks since the invasion (see month earlier; and that week
Zelensky at a remembrance ceremony there were an average of 942
page 7). And the future looks “bleak”. Support for Ukraine in
patients with flu in hospital
the US has “hit a political wall”: $50bn in military aid has been held up by Republicans in the senate. each day, six times more
Likewise, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has blocked a €50bn EU aid package. than in the third week of
November. On Wednesday,
Is this the time for negotiations, asked James Hanning in The i Paper. The “wisest and most the doctors’ union, the BMA,
pragmatic heads in the West” have long argued that, against an enemy like Russia, it would come to signalled a willingness to
that eventually. It seems that “a priceless opportunity” has already been missed. According to one of return to talks, by saying its
President Zelensky’s closest allies, Davyd Arakhamia, Vladimir Putin offered a deal two months after members were not insisting
the invasion that would have preserved Ukraine’s territorial integrity – with the exception of Crimea on a 35% pay rise now, but
over “a number of years”.
– and guaranteed its security, in return for Ukrainian neutrality and a pledge not to join Nato. The
Ukrainians, with the encouragement of a gung-ho Boris Johnson, rejected the deal. It has been
reported that Putin is again looking for a diplomatic solution. Would this not be a better outcome UK soldiers on standby
Thousands of soldiers were
than “cheering Ukraine’s brave fighters and hoping somehow the Russians might be defeated”? placed on standby last week,
as Britain prepared to take
A return to diplomacy would be welcome, said Lawrence Freedman in The New Statesman. But the over the leadership of Nato’s
Ukrainians would have to be sure that Putin was negotiating in good faith, which has not been the rapid response force on
case so far. And Ukraine’s position is not as bleak as all that. As well as the setbacks, it had some 1 January. The Very High
notable successes in 2023, such as pushing back the Russian Black Sea fleet, and destroying a landing Readiness Joint Task Force
ship in Crimea last week. Both sides are at a stalemate. Russia’s “marginal” gains have come at a was created following
stupendous cost: it has lost an estimated 87% of the active-duty ground troops it had at the start of Russia’s annexation of
Crimea in 2014. The 7th Light
the war. The US could transform the situation in weeks, said Phillips P. O’Brien in The Wall Street
Mechanised Brigade Combat
Journal. Ukraine has shown that it can use long-range missile and rocket systems to destroy Russia’s Team – the “Desert Rats” –
ammunition supplies and vulnerable logistics systems; but the US has so far provided very limited will be at the core of the
numbers of such weapons. We have to ask the question: “Does Mr Biden want Ukraine to win?” 6,000-person unit.

Good week for:

Spirit of the age
Britain’s home-rental crisis
has become so pervasive
that it features in a new
version of the video game
The Sims. Gamers who buy
the For Rent “expansion”
pack can role play as tenants
at the mercy of killer
mushrooms, which sprout
from damp carpets and
eventually from the avatars’
own heads. A spokesperson
for The Sims’ creators told
The Guardian that they were
“always looking at how we
can engage with the more
challenging aspects of life”.
A cheese company that was
criticised last year for using
an image of the famous
Cerne Abbas Giant, minus
its manhood, has now
restored the figure to its full
glory. One happy customer
welcomed the change to the
Oxford Cheese Company
label as a “victory for
common sense”.
Frequent flyers, with news that soon, passengers arriving in the Poll watch
UK won’t have to present their passports at the border. Instead, Almost a quarter of adults
they will simply pass through “e-gates” using facial recognition in the UK say they’ve tried
software. Trials of the technology are due to start this year. and failed to make a GP
Sajid Javid, the former Tory chancellor, who was knighted in the appointment in the past
year. Of those, 21% have
New Year Honours List. Javid is leaving Parliament at the next
self-prescribed medication,
election. Others on the list included Dame Shirley Bassey, who and 14% have carried out
was made a Companion of Honour, and Jilly Cooper, who was treatment on themselves, or
made a dame. Liz Truss’s controversial resignation honours list, asked someone who isn’t a
announced the same day, included peerages for Tory donor Jon nurse or doctor to do so.
Moynihan and the Vote Leave chief Matthew Elliott. Savanta/Liberal Democrats
Just 9% of UK voters believe
Bad week for: that Brexit has had a positive
XL bully owners, as a ban on the breed came into force in impact on the NHS. 47%
England and Wales. It is now illegal to breed, sell or abandon think it’s had a negative one.
the dogs. Owners must apply for an exemption certificate by Opinium
1 February, and keep dogs muzzled and on a lead in public.
Eurostar travellers, after most trains in and out of London were Kemi Badenoch has
emerged as the Tory
cancelled on New Year’s Eve, owing to “unprecedented” flooding
grassroots’ favoured
in a tunnel in Kent. Officials blamed a burst pipe in the fire safety candidate to be the next
system. Around 36,000 passengers complained of having to leader of the party. 38% of
scramble to find hotel rooms after they were unable to travel. party members think she’d
Disney, after the studio’s earliest version of Mickey Mouse (from be the best candidate. Penny
Steamboat Willie in 1928) came out of copyright and into the Mordaunt comes second, on
public domain. Within days, horror video games starring the 23%, and Suella Braverman
third, on 14%.
beloved rodent had been released, along with the trailer for a
Conservative Home
live action slasher movie about a killer in a Mickey mask.

THE WEEK 6 January 2024

 Europe at a glance
Copenhagen
Shock abdication:
Denmark’s highly
regarded queen,
Margrethe II, who
has been on the
throne for 52
years, shocked the
nation this week
by announcing in
a TV address that
she is to abdicate.
Six-foot-tall, a
writer, costume designer and (until she
quit last year) chain-smoker, Daisy, as she
is affectionately known, transformed the
fortunes of the monarchy. When she came
to the throne in 1972, only 45% of the
population supported it; now more than
85% are in favour. The queen’s son will be
pronounced King Frederik X at a cabinet
meeting: in keeping with the slimmed-
down nature of the Danish monarchy,
there will be no formal coronation.
Warsaw
Tusk reforms: As a key part of his drive
to destroy the power base of the former
right-wing government, Donald Tusk,
Poland’s new PM, has forced the state
broadcaster, TVP, into insolvency. Tusk
accused the publicly owned TV, radio and
news agency of being a propaganda tool of
the Law and Justice (PiS) party, which was
defeated in elections in October: he says
that the fact it is now insolvent will allow
for a full audit and reorganisation. His
efforts will be fiercely resisted by President
Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally who has already
vetoed Tusk’s budget bill, as it includes
funding for a new version of TVP. Tusk has
also vowed to strengthen civil liberties: to
include abortion reform, protections for
LGBTQ+ rights, and the recognition of civil
partnerships – a reform recently demanded
by the European Court of Human Rights
but opposed by the last government.
Paris
France’s golden
boy: A rising star
of the French
hard-right,
28-year-old
Jordan Bardella,
is now the
country’s most
popular politician,
ranking 30th in
the Journal du
Dimanche’s annual popularity poll. The
fresh-faced president of the National Rally
(previously the National Front), who grew
up in a poor Parisian banlieue and talks
tough on immigration and crime, was the
sole politician to make the list of top 50
celebrities, mainly consisting of actors and
singers. He insists he has no intention of
challenging his mentor, Marine Le Pen,
to run for the presidency in 2027, but
few believe he will refrain from doing so.
Catch up with daily news at theweek.co.uk
Stockholm
Culture clash: Elon Musk’s electric car
firm Tesla, which employs 130 workers in
Sweden, has become embroiled in an ever
more heated standoff with Swedish unions
as a result of its refusal to grant collective
bargaining rights. What began as a strike
by Swedish mechanics has spread to a
wave of coordinated industrial action, with
dockworkers refusing to unload Tesla cars
at Swedish ports and electricians refusing
to service Tesla charging points. Workers
servicing Tesla products in Denmark,
Finland and Norway have also joined the
action. And a group of Nordic investors
in the firm, including some of Sweden,
Norway and Denmark’s big pension
funds, have urged the company to back
down, saying Musk’s position is at odds
with Scandinavia’s culture of industrial
relations. But Musk, renowned for his anti-
union stance, is refusing to budge, and
Tesla is now taking legal action
against some of the strikers.
Venice
Crowd control: To ease the pressure of
mass tourism, Venice’s city authorities have
now decided to ban tour groups larger
than 25 people, and to proscribe the use
of loudspeakers. The city receives about
30 million visitors a year, an influx that
locals complain makes life unbearable. It is
hoped the new measures will ease the flow
of pedestrians around the historic centre,
where thoroughfares are often gummed
up by large tour groups, and reduce
“confusion and disturbances”. Other
measures being taken to protect the city
are the rerouting of large cruise ships to
a nearby port, regulations to limit the
expansion of cheap souvenir stores and
a €5 entrance fee for day-trippers. Earlier
this year, Unesco threatened for a second
time to put Venice on its list of heritage
sites in danger, arguing that mass
tourism and rising sea levels could cause
“irreversible” damage to its fragile fabric.
NEWS 7
Moscow
Candidate banned: Russia’s supreme court
has upheld a decision to ban an anti-war
activist from challenging Vladimir Putin
in March’s presidential election. Moscow’s
central electoral commission had ruled
that Yekaterina Duntsova, a former TV
journalist who’d wanted to stand on
a platform of ending the Ukraine War,
introducing democratic reforms and
releasing from jail Alexei Navalny and
other political prisoners, could not run
due to “mistakes” in her application. She
has urged voters to back the opposition
candidate Boris Nadezhdin. Concerns over
Navalny’s safety, meanwhile, were partially
allayed this week when he was tracked
to a remote Arctic penal colony after a
near three-week absence from public view.
Kyiv
Missile strikes: In the days since Christmas,
Ukraine and Russia have been locked in an
escalating cycle of air assaults designed to
inflict damage away from the deadlocked
front line. On Friday, Russia launched its
largest single attack on Ukraine so far,
pounding Kyiv and other cities with drones
and missiles that killed at least 40 people.
Ukraine responded on New Year’s Eve
by shelling the Russian city of Belgorod,
killing more than two dozen people, the
deadliest attack on Russian territory to
date. On New Year’s Day, Vladimir Putin
warned that Russia would “intensify” its
assault and further missile attacks have
duly ensued, confirming fears that Moscow
has built up a large stockpile and, as it did
last winter, plans to target Ukraine’s energy
system. Air defences have also improved
on both sides, however: President Zelensky
this week lauded Western-supplied defence
systems for saving “hundreds of lives”.
6 January 2024 THE WEEK
8 NEWS The world at a glance
Augusta, Maine Caracas
Trump setback: Donald Trump suffered UK criticism: Venezuela’s leftist president, Nicolás Maduro,
a fresh legal setback last week, when the accused the British government of “an act of hostile provocation”
state of Maine followed Colorado’s lead last week, after it announced that a Royal Navy patrol ship is due
in banning him from taking part in the to arrive in the region as “part of a series of engagements”. The
Republican primary there. Maine’s announcement of the forthcoming deployment of HMS Trent
secretary of state, former Democrat to Britain’s former colony came just weeks after Caracas had
senator Shenna Bellows (pictured), said threatened to annex the disputed Guyanese territory of Essequibo.
that Trump’s name could not appear on President Maduro described it as “practically a military threat
the ballot owing to his actions around from London”, claiming it breaches the “spirit” of a deal between
the US Capitol riot of 2021. In so doing, Venezuela and Guyana not to use force to settle their differences
she cited the 14th Amendment of the US over the oil-rich region, which takes up more than two-thirds of
constitution, which disqualifies anyone Guyana. He also referred to Britain as a “decadent, rotten” state.
who engages in “insurrection” from serving in government. A week Officials said Venezuela would soon begin its own “defensive”
earlier, the state supreme court in Colorado had ruled Trump drills involving 5,600 soldiers on its Caribbean and Atlantic
ineligible on the same grounds. However, the supreme court in coasts; Guyana described the visit of the British ship as “routine”.
Michigan rejected an attempt to remove his name from the ballot,
on the grounds that it’s not the job of an election official
to police the eligibility of primary candidates, while
in California, the secretary of state resisted pressure
to do so. In California, “we defeat candidates at the
polls”, said its Democrat governor, Gavin Newsom.
The Maine ruling is being appealed in local courts, and
the issue is likely to reach the US supreme court, which has a
conservative majority. If it does, the court’s justices will be under
pressure to reach a decision before Super Tuesday, on 5 March,
when Maine and Colorado hold their primaries.

La Crosse, Wisconsin
Porn sacking: The chancellor of a
university in Wisconsin was fired last
week, after its governors discovered that
he had a sideline as a porn actor. Joe
Gow, 63, and his wife have made several
pornographic videos, which are available
on adult entertainment sites such as
Pornhub. Authorities at the University
of Wisconsin-La Crosse apparently
ruled that his conduct had caused the
institution “reputational harm”, but Gow
says that his dismissal violates his first amendment rights and the
college’s own rules on freedom of expression, and that he may sue.

El Paso, Texas
Migrant influx: A record number of migrants crossed the US’s
southern border in December, piling further pressure on the Biden
administration to curb the flow. According to a report by Fox
News, 302,000 people were documented attempting the crossing,
easily beating the previous monthly high of 270,000, set in
September. With officials in Texas sending the new arrivals
nationwide, immigration is becoming an increasingly fraught
political issue. According to a recent poll, 38% of voters
approve of Biden’s handling of immigration, down from 46%
in November, and Republicans in congress have been refusing
to approve more military aid for Ukraine unless Biden funds more
border controls. Last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
travelled to Mexico City for talks with Mexico’s President Andrés
Manuel López Obrador on ways of stemming the flow.

New York Cambridge, Massachusetts

Chatbot lawsuit: The New York Times is suing OpenAI and
Microsoft for billions of dollars, for allegedly using the
newspaper’s editorial content to train their chatbots. According
to the lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Manhattan, “millions”
of New York Times articles had been “scraped” from the internet
and used without permission to make the large language-model
chatbot ChatGPT smarter. The suit claims that when asked about
Gay resigns: Harvard’s president
stepped down this week after six
months in the job. Claudine Gay, the
first black person to lead the university and only the second
woman, had been widely criticised for her responses at a
congressional hearing into antisemitism on campuses. Asked if
calls for the genocide of Jews violated Harvard’s code of conduct,
© UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

news events, ChatGPT generates “near-verbatim excerpts” from
the paper; this allows internet users to bypass the Times’s paywall,
undermining its business model and threatening the viability of
independent journalism. It’s the latest copyright lawsuit to be filed
against OpenAI, and follows an unsuccessful effort by the paper
to negotiate a licensing deal with the tech firm.
she said it would depend on the “context”. The University of
Pennsylvania’s head made similar remarks, and resigned soon
after. Gay apologised and Harvard stood by her, but pressure on
her intensified after a conservative website claimed to have found
instances of plagiarism in her scholarship. Harvard said she’d
made “missteps”, but it decried the vitriolic abuse she’d received.

THE WEEK 6 January 2024

 The world at a glance
Jerusalem
Law quashed:
Israel’s supreme
court has struck
down Benjamin
Netanyahu’s
controversial law
that would have
rolled back some
of its powers.
The law – which
removed the
court’s ability
to void government decisions it deemed
“unreasonable” – was part of a package
of reforms that sparked months of protests,
exposing deep divisions in Israeli society.
Its supporters say the law is needed to curb
judicial overreach, but the court’s justices
ruled by a slim majority that it would harm
Israel’s character as “a democratic state”.
Pretoria
Genocide case:
South Africa has
launched a case
against Israel at the
International Court
of Justice in the
Hague, in which it accuses it of
committing genocide in Gaza. The
application cites Israel’s obligations under
the Genocide Convention, and accuses it
of both genocidal acts and of failing to
prosecute the “public incitement” to
genocide, a reference to statements by
Israeli officials advocating the wholesale
expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza. Israel
has described the allegations as a “blood
libel” and urged the UN court to reject
them. South Africa has long supported the
Palestinian push for statehood, likening
the plight of Palestinians to that of the
black majority in South Africa during the
Apartheid era, a comparison Israel rejects.
Tehran
“Spies” executed: Four people accused
of being “saboteurs” with links to Israel’s
intelligence service have been executed
in Iran. According to state-backed local
media, the three men and one woman
were arrested in May 2022 on suspicion
of committing “extensive actions against
the country’s security under the guidance
of the Mossad”. These included
photographing sensitive sites, kidnapping
members of Iran’s security forces and
stealing phones. In a video clip issued
by the Iranian authorities, the three men
are shown confessing to their alleged
cooperation with a Mossad officer in
Turkey. Iran and Israel have long been
engaged in a shadow war; Tehran has
accused Israel of being behind multiple
attacks and assassinations targeting its
nuclear facilities and scientists.
Dhaka
Yunus convicted:
The Bangladeshi
Nobel Peace
Laureate
Muhammad
Yunus has been
jailed for six
months, following
a trial that his
supporters insist
was politically
motivated. The
83-year-old – a pioneer of microfinance
banking whose work has been credited
with lifting millions out of poverty – was
accused of labour law violations, including
failing to set up a welfare fund for staff
at his firm Grameen Telecom. He has
long had frosty relations with Bangladesh’s
PM, Sheikh Hasina, whose government
has been accused of muzzling dissent
ahead of next week’s general election.
NEWS 9
Wajima, Japan
Deadly quake: The confirmed death toll
from the earthquake that struck Japan on
New Year’s Day reached 62 this week, and
there were warnings that it could rise as
landslides and poor weather continued to
hamper rescue efforts. The 7.6 magnitude
quake struck on the west coast of Japan’s
main island, sparking huge fires, flattening
hundreds of buildings, and causing large
waves that washed away fishing boats.
Thousands of people were evacuated
from coastal areas, and even after tsunami
warnings were lifted, many were advised
not to return home, owing to the risk of
severe aftershocks. A day after the quake,
a Japan Airlines passenger jet crashed into
a coastguard plane after landing at Haneda
Airport in Tokyo, and burst into flames. All
379 people on the Airbus survived, but five
of the six people in the smaller plane died.
Pyongyang
Fighting talk: Kim Jong
Un has told his generals
to start planning for a
nuclear strike on South
Korea, warning that war
could break out at any
time. He said Pyongyang
would no longer pursue
reunification with the
South, but would boost its
nuclear arsenal and build
three new spy satellites
to join the one the North
launched in November.
Analysts have said that
Kim’s rhetoric might
be partly a negotiating
tactic, in anticipation of
possible changes of
government in the
South and
in the US.
Beijing
Xi’s pledge: President Xi Jinping used his
new year’s address this week to promise
that China “will surely be reunified”
with the self-governing island of Taiwan.
However, he made no mention of a
military threat. Taiwanese voters are going
to the polls next week, and experts have
warned of mounting Chinese interference
in the election, including via information
warfare. Beijing has taken particular
exception to the frontrunner to become
president, the current vice-president Lai
Ching-te, whom it has characterised as
a dangerous “separatist”.
6 January 2024 THE WEEK
10 NEWS
Leaving the East End
David Jonsson is one of British
acting’s hottest new talents,
says Ed Cumming in The Daily
Telegraph: fresh from roles in
the banking drama Industry
and the romcom Rye Lane,
he became, over Christmas,
the first black actor to play the
lead role in an Agatha Christie
adaptation, the BBC’s Murder
Is Easy. But things have not, he
says, always been plain sailing.
Raised in east London by a
police officer mother and an IT
engineer father, he grew up in a
house full of music and books,
but at school, he got caught
up in fights – and at 14 he was
expelled. His parents’ response
was to send him to a new
school on the other side of
London, where he could do
drama and was able to reinvent
himself. It was just what he
needed. “I love the East End
and black culture,” he says.
“It is very close-knit: one for all
and all for one. But sometimes
it doesn’t make room for more
than what we know or what
we can see. Coming to a school
in west London, I’d get a
completely new sense of life.”
The original Mog
Judith Kerr’s children’s books
about a cat called Mog were
based on a real cat, also called
Mog – and this Mog was very
particular and totally indulged.
“She wouldn’t eat cat food, she
thought it was disgusting,”
Kerr’s daughter, Tacy Kneale,
told Radio Times. “She did like
syllabub, which is sweet and
has alcohol in it, and Dad used
to chop up a boiled egg and
put it in her bowl every
People
morning.” At Christmas, Mog
and their other cats were
served first. “We’d all sit there,
waiting. Dad would be carving
up roast turkey and stuffing
and green beans for one of
them. Mog was very fond of
green beans. And they’d each
get their little plate – and then
we’d get something.”
A tech millionaire at 22
Even as a child, Harry
Gestetner wanted to be an
entrepreneur. “On the weekends
when other kids wanted to
watch football I just wanted to
watch Dragons’ Den and build
businesses,” he told Hannah
Prevett in The Times. Aged 11,
he started a clothing brand,
which was going well until he
phoned a wholesaler, and they
realised how young he was.
“That kind of ruined things.”
After that, he sold pencils at
his school in London; then the
family moved to the US, and he
sensed a world of opportunity. Victoria Mary Clarke first met Shane MacGowan in a pub in north
At college, he launched a London in the 1980s when she was 16, says Tim Jonze in The
healthcare app; later he spotted Guardian. The story goes that he demanded that she buy a pint for
a gap in the market for a one of his fellow members of the Pogues, as it was his birthday. In
platform where young content response, Clarke suggested that MacGowan f**k off. “And he did
creators could make money f**k off, to the bar,” she recalls. “But we stayed watching each
more easily than on TikTok. other. I was watching him and he was watching me.” Four years
The result was Fanfix, which later, they kissed, and they remained together (more or less) for the
has just been acquired for a next 40 years, finally marrying in 2018. In the early days, she tried
reported $65m. Now, with a to change MacGowan – make him respectable. It never worked: “I’d
big “win” under his belt, the organise a dinner party, but it would end up being on the roof and
22-year-old is thirsty for new somebody would fall off. Or my dad would turn up and try to get
projects. His youth, he says, off with Sinéad O’Connor.” As his drug abuse escalated, MacGowan
has been an advantage. “It’s only became more chaotic: he’d paint himself blue, take 100 tabs of
a different risk calculation for acid in a day, set fire to hotel rooms. But though he created mayhem,
a 20-year-old college student he was a sweet man, she says – a sensitive soul who’d often tell her
than for a 47-year-old with how lucky he felt to be with her. Now, she can see that for all that
kids and a mortgage. So I’d say, she tried to change him, it was, in fact, he who changed her: made
don’t wait. You can’t learn the her less selfish and snobby, less obsessed with celebrity. “Over the
theory of entrepreneurship; years, just from being around him, I melted,” she says. “I began to
you’ve just got to go and do it.” feel the connection with people and the value of that.”

Castaway of the week Viewpoint:

Last week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs featured
Farewell
the cookery writer and broadcaster Delia Smith The Giant’s protuberance Camila Batmanghelidjh
“The Cerne Abbas Giant, carved on a CBE, founder of Kids
1 The Sound of Silence, written and performed by Paul Simon Dorset hillside, has attracted attention Company, died
2 Within You Without You by George Harrison, performed by 1 January, aged 61.
for centuries – unsurprisingly, since he
The Beatles is 180ft high and of obscure origins. Lee Sun-kyun, actor
3 Gnossienne No. 1 by Erik Satie, performed by Alexandre Tharaud Attention has focused on his 36ft-long who starred in the
4 Caruso by Lucio Dalla, performed by Luciano Pavarotti phallus. Suggestions about his identity Oscar-winning
Parasite, died
5* Kyrie: Call to Prayer by David Fanshawe, performed by the include a Celtic god, a Romano-British 27 December, aged 48.
Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, choristers of St. George’s deity and an MP. A new article argues
Chapel, Windsor Castle, and the muezzin of Muhammad Ali John Pilger, journalist
that the Giant is in fact the classical hero
Mosque, Cairo and filmmaker, died
Hercules: being of prodigious strength,
6 This Woman’s Work, written and performed by Kate Bush 30 December, aged 84.
he provided a landmark for the muster
7 He Moved Through the Fair, traditional, performed by Sinéad
of the Saxon armies. His club – the main Henry Sandon MBE,
O’Connor
© THE IRISH INDEPENDENT/EYEVINE

clue – is more than four times bigger Antiques Roadshow

8 Happy, written and performed by Pharrell Williams ceramics expert, died
than the phallus. I can’t judge who is 25 December, aged 95.
Book: Sister Wendy’s 100 Best-loved Paintings by right. But it is an interesting reflection
Sister Wendy Beckett on human nature to think that centuries Wolfgang Schäuble,
of speculation may have been wasted German politician,
Luxury: the Desert Island Discs archive died 26 December,
* Choice if allowed only one record
by staring at the wrong protuberance.” aged 81.
Charles Moore in The Daily Telegraph

THE WEEK 6 January 2024

 Briefing NEWS 13

The rise of the SUV

Fuel-hungry, carbon-heavy sports utility vehicles have conquered the world’s roads – but at what cost?

How do you define an SUV? polluting in the world. These vehicles

Sports utility vehicles evolved originally produce more emissions than the entire
from the US Jeep, which became a aviation industry, and have helped keep
popular off-road civilian car after the transport emissions rising at an average
Second World War, and from its British rate of nearly 1.7% from 1990 to 2022,
and Japanese emulators: the Land Rover “faster than any other end-use sector”,
and the Toyota Land Cruiser. In the says the IEA. Over this period, car
1970s and 1980s, manufacturers started engines have become markedly more
making traditional passenger cars that efficient, but thanks to SUVs, the gains
had higher ground clearance and four- have been wasted. In November, a report
wheel drive. The term “sports utility by the Global Fuel Economy Initiative
vehicle” was first popularised when found that emissions from automobiles
it appeared in a brochure for the Jeep could have fallen by more than 30% if
Cherokee, in 1974. Today it is used in vehicles had only stayed the same size.
preference to “off-roader” or “four-wheel
drive”, because such cars are often not Are all SUVs so polluting?
four-wheel drive, and can have little in The SUV is a broad category of car: it
the way of off-road capability; those ranges from the compact Nissan Juke
at the less rugged end of the spectrum, Many car models are now too big for parking bays (which weighs about 1.2 tonnes, not
such as Nissan’s Qashqai, are sometimes dissimilar to a hatchback such as the
referred to as “crossover SUVs”. All SUVs, though, are larger than Ford Focus) to the colossal Range Rover Sport (which weighs
an average car, and higher, with chunky bodywork and stylings about 2.3 tonnes). The Juke emits about 132g of CO2 per
that gesture towards the outdoor life. kilometre (about the same as many smaller family cars); but a
V8-engined petrol Range Rover Sport emits a whopping 261g
And how popular are they? per kilometre. In general, though, SUVs’ larger engines and bulk
Since 2010, their numbers have jumped nearly tenfold globally. mean that on average they have CO2 emissions 14% (16g/km)
Across the world, there are now an estimated 330 million SUV- higher than an equivalent hatchback. The increasing popularity
type vehicles on the roads today, out of perhaps one-and-a-half- of electric vehicles may help offset this in the future, but EVs
billion passenger cars in total – up from about 35 million in 2010. are even heavier than conventional cars, which raises energy
In 2022, SUVs accounted for a massive 46% of global car sales; and resource use, and micro-plastic pollution from tyres.
in Europe, the proportion of SUVs among new cars has risen from
8% in 2006, to more than half today. In Britain, six out of ten Why else are SUVs problematic?
of the bestselling models in 2023 were SUVs or SUV crossovers. Their sheer size is one issue. According to one 2022 study, cars in
They have edged out estates and saloons as the family car of the UK and EU are on average 15% heavier now than they were
choice in Europe, the US and large parts of Asia. For instance, in 2001. A Range Rover Sport is nearly five metres long and two
Volvo estates, once a favourite of the affluent middle class, are metres wide. An analysis by Which? this year found that more
being withdrawn from sale in the UK, in favour of SUV models. than 150 models of car are now too big to fit in an average UK
parking bay. One model, the BMW i7, sticks out by more than
Why are they so popular? half a metre in a standard bay. There are also safety concerns. The
Drivers are attracted by the high riding position, the feeling of US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety estimates that SUVs are
safety and being above the fray afforded by a large, solid car. Their 28% more likely to kill occupants of other cars; and, according
ubiquity has encouraged a sort of arms race: they make smaller to some studies, they’re twice as likely to kill pedestrians in
cars feel less safe. Space and comfort are also part of the appeal, collisions, owing to their size and height. Raised emission levels
particularly at the more expensive end also contribute to respiratory disease.
of the market. People like the sense of The Tyre Extinguishers
sporty freedom they afford, compared Since early 2022, a leaderless group of activists has What should we do about them?
with estates or minivans, even if in been prosecuting a guerrilla war on SUVs. The Tyre SUV owners already pay more road
practice they are seldom used on dirt Extinguishers, as they are known, set out at night, and tax in the UK, owing to their bigger
tracks or mountain roads. In large target “Chelsea tractors”, letting air out of their tyres, engine sizes and higher emissions.
part, though, the rise of SUVs is sometimes by inserting a dried bean or lentil into the Emissions zones keep older models
the result of a conscious decision valve. Once they’re finished, they leave a note under out of some city centres, and some
the windscreen wipers. One example reads: “Attention
by automobile companies to – your gas-guzzler kills. We have deflated one or more
councils charge more for parking
promote them. They command a of your tyres. You’ll be angry, but don’t take it large cars. But clearly, at the moment,
price premium, although they don’t personally. It’s not you, it’s your car.” The note goes this is not discouraging their
cost much more to manufacture: on to highlight the high emissions of SUVs, and lists purchase, and some campaigners
the result is a profit margin 10-20% some of the safety concerns about them. want the Government to go further,
larger on SUVs than on smaller cars. With a presence in up to 20 countries, including by hiking taxes or banning the
Consequently, car firms spend lots Germany, Australia, the US and the UK, the Tyre advertising of the most emissions-
of money advertising them. Extinguishers claim to have deflated the tyres of heavy cars – a measure already in the
thousands of vehicles since their launch, including 900 pipeline in France – or even banning
How polluting are they? on one night alone last year. Letting down tyres isn’t vehicles of certain dimensions. In
According to the International Energy a specific offence under English law; but it’s probably Washington DC, proposals have
Agency (IEA), SUVs consume about covered by the Road Traffic Act of 1988, which prohibits been made to charge owners of
people from “interfering with a motor vehicle”. Yet this
20% more oil than medium-sized doesn’t seem to be putting off the activists. “I’m happy
vehicles over 2.7 tonnes an annual
cars. Annual CO2 emissions from to piss some people off,” one told Nicholas Hellen in surcharge of $500 (£396). Such
SUVs reached almost one billion The Sunday Times – “and sometimes, hopefully, measures are likely to be fiercely
tonnes last year; if SUVs were a to change someone’s mind.” opposed in the UK, by both SUV
country, they’d rank as the sixth most owners and the automobile industry.

6 January 2024 THE WEEK

14 NEWS Best articles: Britain
We’ve got it wrong about migration, says Hein de Haas. We aren’t
being overwhelmed by “illegal” migrants or those claiming refugee IT MUST BE TRUE…
The lies our status: the vast majority of people moving from global south to
north do so legally – nine out of ten Africans coming to Europe
I read it in the tabloids

leaders tell us have passports in hand – and only some 10% are refugees. Nor
is poverty the spur: on the contrary, you need significant material
Three men who tried to rob
a cheque-cashing business
in Colorado last month were
about migrants and educational resources to make the trip. That’s why migration
increases as nations get richer and why most migrants come from
foiled, when their getaway
vehicle was stolen midway
Hein de Haas middle-income nations such as India and Mexico. No, the real through their heist. The
driver of rising migration to Europe and the US is labour demand: armed and masked men
The Guardian years of policies aimed at liberalising labour markets have fuelled realised the car was gone
the spread of “precarious jobs that local workers won’t take”. In when they emerged from
farming, building, cleaning and numerous other sectors, work “is Hi-Lo Cheque Cashing laden
with loot. They attempted to
being outsourced to a new class of servants” made up mainly of run away on foot, but two
migrant workers. And that’s the result of decisions made by policy- of the three were caught by
makers. The true migration crisis lies in the failure of our leaders police. One suspect is still at
to come clean about the fundamental choices that confront us. large. Police in Commerce
City described it as “an
Corrupt. Despicable. It’s easy to see why awarding a knighthood unexpected and ironic twist”.
to the Tory donor Sir Tim Martin, chairman of Wetherspoon, has
Why we should caused such a fuss, says Will Lloyd. The 6ft 6in pub landlord with
his “booze-red John Bull cheeks” and his pro-Brexit views is many
raise a glass to people’s idea of “a monster”. But they should reconsider. Unlike
Sir James Dyson and all those other pro-Brexit entrepreneurs who
Sir Tim Martin moved their tax domiciles overseas, Martin stayed put. In fact, in
2019 Wetherspoon paid £764m in taxes – “one pound in every
Will Lloyd thousand of government revenue” – and in doing so helped
preserve a vital part of Britain’s heritage: the pub. Pubs have been
The Times disappearing at a terrifying rate: more than two closed every day
in the first six months of 2023. Martin has stemmed that decline.
His Wetherspoons, imperfect as they are, have taken over a huge
range of historic buildings – ballrooms, banks, post offices – that
without him would be derelict. In towns and villages across the
land, Wetherspoons provide the “basic pub pleasures” that would
otherwise have vanished. “Few knighthoods are as well deserved.” A disgruntled customer has
parked a tank outside the
Britain, with its wealth of research facilities, is well placed to Basingstoke branch of
prosper in the 21st century knowledge economy, says Will Hutton. Wickes to persuade the firm
How to rescue Why, then, is our corporate sector dying on its feet? Why does our
stock market now rank just ninth in the world? The core problem
to refund him for his “poor
quality” kitchen. Paul
British firms is that our pension funds – a crucial source of business finance –
are investing in safety-first government bonds or in destinations
Gibbons, 63, had the
£25,000 kitchen installed
from doom overseas, rather than in British ventures. Starved of cash, UK firms
are curbing their ambitions, hoarding profits and ending up targets
in February, and says that
he has been beset with
Will Hutton for foreign takeovers. No great UK companies have been created problems ever since, from
in the past 20 years: instead, 50 firms that should have been in the mould to badly fitting units.
The Observer FTSE 100 are now foreign owned. But we’ll never break out of He borrowed the tank –
this “doom loop” unless the state steps in to incentivise investing a decommissioned
in UK Ltd. It must see to it that Isas only get tax exemption when British Army Abbot SPG
they’re invested in UK enterprise. It must ensure that the plethora – having wondered: “What
of all-too-small British pension funds join a consolidated fund and can I do to make people
so spread the risk of investing in UK growth stocks. The Tories are sit up and listen, and to
toying with that idea, but are wary of its “socialist” smell. Labour protect people from being
should have no such qualms. This is “a classic case where the state in the same situation?”
has to act decisively because the market can’t and won’t”.
“The world of Chinese chess
“If there was a prize for the saddest building in London,” says is in uproar,” reported Agence
France-Press. Last week,
Alan Rusbridger, “Buckingham Palace would surely walk it.” The
Yan Chenglong, 48, won the
A house fit for sprawling, chilly edifice stands like a “statuesque ghost ship” at
the end of the Mall, unloved even by the family for whom it was
national Xiangqi, or Chinese
chess, tournament, but he
MPs but not built: King Charles apparently prefers the more modest quarters
at Clarence House. If only there were a good use for it beyond
has now been stripped of his
title. Yan has been accused of
for a King hosting the odd state dinner and providing balcony photo ops!
Well, as it happens, there is. Let’s use it as our temporary seat of
cheating, using anal beads
equipped with wireless
Alan Rusbridger Parliament. The Palace of Westminster is fast falling apart: it has transmitters. These claims
suffered 44 fires since 2016; maintenance costs are now £2m a are unproven, said the
Chinese Xiangqi Association,
Prospect week. Refurbishing it while MPs and peers are in residence would
but what is clear, it stated,
be a hugely costly process, yet there are few suitable places to is that after his victory Yan
decant them to. Buck House would fit the bill, though. It’s near consumed alcohol and
civil servants in Whitehall and, with 775 rooms, has bags of space. “defecated in the bathtub”
The royal ballroom (659 sq m) is way bigger than the Commons of his hotel room – displaying
debating chamber (294 sq m); the Lords could easily be “extremely bad character”.
accommodated in the state dining room. What are we waiting for?

THE WEEK 6 January 2024

 Best articles: International NEWS 15

L’affaire Depardieu: France takes sides

“For several years, a smell of True enough, said Bertrand de
sulphur has surrounded the name Saint Vincent in Le Figaro (Paris).
of Gérard Depardieu,” said La But in Depardieu’s case, we have
Dépêche (Toulouse). In 2018, the gone straight from “complacency”
actor, who has played many “iconic and impunity to hysteria and
roles” over his long career, was vigilante justice. We must
accused of rape by Charlotte remember that he has not been
Arnould, an aspiring actress (who convicted of anything at all.
waived her right to anonymity). He Was it really a good idea, in the
is still under criminal investigation. circumstances, to take away his
Since then, 15 other women have Legion of Honour medal, as
publicly accused Depardieu of rape the 0culture minister, Rima Abdul
and sexual assault, mostly on film Malak, tried to do? To remove his
sets. The actor, now 75, has denied waxwork from the Musée Grévin
the accusations, but in December (France’s Madame Tussauds)?
his image took another blow with The actor trying to kiss co-star Isabelle Huppert in 2015 Justice should not “be exercised
the TV documentary Gérard blindly on social media, as in
Depardieu: The Fall of the Ogre. It aired footage of the actor a western where the bastards are hanged high and fast”.
on a trip to North Korea in 2018, repeatedly making obscene
comments to women and about women – even about a The support for Depardieu goes well beyond respect for
ten-year-old girl – and sexually harassing a female translator. due process, said Maud Vergnol in L’Humanité (Paris). It is
Many in film and TV said they would not work with him again. disgusting that the president of the republic should declare
In recent weeks, though, many prominent people have rallied to that a man facing criminal charges and multiple harassment
his cause. Before Christmas, President Macron condemned the allegations “makes France proud”. It’s the same old story: the
“manhunt” against him. And on 26 December, an open letter powerful protecting the powerful, while those who have been
in Le Figaro, signed by 56 French stars – including Charlotte “attacked” and “humiliated” are “told to smile and shut up”.
Rampling, Nathalie Baye and Carla Bruni – described him as Many hoped that the #MeToo movement had changed France
the victim of a “lynching”, a “torrent of hatred”. “Don’t erase – “a little”. But there was a strong backlash against #MeToo,
Gérard Depardieu,” they begged. which was dismissed as a puritanical witch-hunt by the likes of
Catherine Deneuve – and the same thing is happening again.
It is shameful, said Samira Sedira in Libération (Paris), that
this letter contained “not a single word” about “the extras, the L’affaire Depardieu has triggered wildly different reactions
dressers, the stage managers” who have testified to Depardieu’s across France, said Agnes Poirier in The Guardian. “It has even
appalling behaviour. The letter describes him as a “giant of felt at times like a generational war between old and young.”
cinema”, the “greatest of actors”, who “contributes to the Clearly, many feel that his crudeness “may be deplorable, but
artistic brilliance of our country” – as if that is a defence against it is not a crime”; that the cultural world needs its “sacred
sex crimes. “When we attack Gérard Depardieu, we attack art,” monsters”. But more than 8,000 artists, writers and others,
it claims. This is rubbish. The whole point is that Depardieu’s mostly younger people, have signed a new letter condemning
stature as an artist “allowed him to act with impunity for him and his defenders. Either way, Depardieu looms large in
years”. The artist, however “radiant” he may be, is still “above the French imagination; he has played Danton, Balzac, Rodin,
all a man, a citizen, an individual responsible for his actions”. Cyrano de Bergerac and Obelix. He will not be easily erased.

How’s this for a paradox, asks Rogé Karma. President Biden has called climate change humanity’s
UNITED STATES greatest “existential threat” and vowed to tackle it. Yet last year, the US “pumped out more oil than
any other country in history, producing millions more barrels than Russia or Saudi Arabia ever
To go green, have”. You might conclude from this that Biden’s green pledges are baloney, but the reality is more
complicated. The reason the Biden administration boosted the domestic oil supply was to bring down
keep pumping oil prices, which soared in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Had prices stayed high, the result
the oil would simply have been more oil production in countries with dirtier extractive industries, creating
worse damage to the climate. High energy prices would also reduce Biden’s chances of reelection
The Atlantic and fuel a populist backlash against the whole decarbonising agenda. Biden’s support for US oil
(Washington DC) production is essentially a “stalling tactic”. It’s designed to keep voters onside until clean energy, in
which his administration is investing hundreds of billions of dollars, becomes so cheap that people
switch to it voluntarily. The White House believes that the best way for it to address global warming
right now is by pumping out more fossil fuels than ever before. Weirdly, it’s “probably right”.

UNITED STATES Skiing in America has been ruined, says Gordon LaForge. On paper, it’s thriving: last year has been
the busiest season in history. Yet the sport has lost its romance, and become just a moneymaker for a
corporate duopoly. The rot set in a couple of decades ago when a private equity firm bought Vail and
The corporate Beaver Creek, two of Colorado’s finest ski areas. The company, which became Vail Resorts, is now an
duopoly that $8.14bn empire that owns no fewer than 41 resorts. In 2017, a rival private equity firm joined forces
with the owners of Aspen to create the Alterra Mountain Company, which has been snapping up all
ruined skiing the other resorts. Buying a season pass from either Vail or Alterra will set you back about $1,000 and
give you access to a huge number of ski areas. It’s a great deal – if you’re in a position to pay $1,000
Slate upfront for a whole season’s skiing. But if you’re just after one cheap day on the slopes, forget it –
(New York City) take your child and you’re looking at $800-plus for the day. The character of the mountains has
changed. High-end chains have replaced independent local retailers; jet-setters have displaced ski
bums. Vail and Alterra have turned skiing into “just another soulless, pre-packaged” experience.
Unless you move to Alaska, you’re now “stuck with the new ‘Pepsi or Coke’ of the ski world”.

6 January 2024 THE WEEK

 Health & Science NEWS 17

What the scientists are saying…

Why eczema sufferers itch
For those with atopic eczema, the urge to
scratch is almost impossible to resist, yet
it only provides temporary relief, while
further damaging inflamed skin. Now,
scientists have worked out the cause of this
infuriating itch, and identified a treatment
that has the potential to stop the cycle.
Eczema tends to occur in people with an
overactive immune system, and causes
patches of dry and cracked skin. It was
long presumed that the itchiness was a
by-product of the inflammation, but it now
seems it has a separate cause. “We found
that itching can be caused directly by a
bacterial pathogen – Staphylococcus aureus
– which is a very common microbe that’s
found on about 30% of people, mainly
in the nose,” said Isaac Chiu, associate
professor of immunology at Harvard
Medical School. Writing in the journal
Cell, the researchers explain that the
bacterium releases an enzyme that latches
onto a nerve in the skin, causing it to
release a protein that sends an itch signal
to the brain. They have found that an
existing drug blocks this signal, and believe
that with some modification, it could
provide relief to eczema sufferers.
Apes remember their loved ones
Chimps have prodigious memories: studies
have suggested that they can remember
the location of a single fruit tree among
thousands – and even what happens next
in a film they’ve seen before. Now research
has found they can recognise relatives and
familiars they haven’t seen for decades. For
the study, US-based scientists visited three
zoos in Europe and Japan, and showed
pairs of photos to 26 chimps and bonobos,
while tracking their eye movements. One
of the photos was of an ape the animals
had lived with for at least a year at some
Enjoying a game... on its own terms
point; the other was of one they’d never
met. The results showed that they spent
about a quarter of a second longer looking
at the familiar faces, on average, and
tended to look longer at the apes with
whom they’d had a positive relationship.
In one case, a bonobo named Louise
seemed to recognise a sister and a nephew
she hadn’t seen for 26 years. The findings
indicate that these animals have the longest
social memory of any creature other than
humans – and raise questions about how
being separated from their communities by
poaching or deforestation may affect them,
said lead author Dr Laura Lewis.
How to play fetch with a cat
It’s not just dogs that like to play fetch:
some cats do too – especially if they can be
in charge of the game. For a study published
last month, scientists at the universities of
Sussex and Northumbria surveyed 924
people who played fetch with their cats.
Almost all of the owners (94%) said their
pet began to play the game without being
trained to do so, indicating that the
behaviour was instinctive, rather than
learnt. The cats typically started to play
while still kittens. They were more likely
to initiate the game than their owners,
and tended to participate longer and more
enthusiastically when they had started it.
They also sometimes turned the tables,
dropping the object further and further
away, so that their owner had to fetch
it for them. Further research is needed
to determine how common it is for cats
to play fetch; but writing in the journal
Scientific Reports, the researchers suggest
that if you do have a playful cat, letting
it set the rules might lead to a more
harmonious relationship.
A warning about sneezing
Doctors have described the case of a man
in Scotland who tore a hole in his throat as
a result of trying too hard to stifle a sneeze.
The unnamed patient had been driving
when he felt a sneeze coming on, and had
closed his mouth and pinched his nose at
the same time, in an effort to hold it in.
This left him in excruciating pain, and
when he was examined by medics in
Dundee, they noted that his neck was
swollen and made a cracking sound
when they touched it; scans subsequently
revealed a 2mm tear in his windpipe.
The patient, who is in his 30s, was given
painkillers but did not need surgery; and
his trachea healed by itself over the next
four or five weeks. He appears to have
had a lucky escape. Holding both the
mouth and nose closed during a sneeze
can increase pressure in the upper airways
20-fold, and result in a burst eardrum or
even a bleed in the brain, noted his doctors
in the journal BMJ Case Reports.

The fate of Waterloo’s fallen Soaring obesity admissions

When Napoleon’s forces withdrew, defeated, The number of people admitted to
from Waterloo in June 1815, they left behind English hospitals with conditions linked
a battlefield littered with as many as 20,000 to obesity has doubled in six years, NHS
corpses; yet when archaeologists excavated figures show. In 2016-17, there were
the site, 200 years later, they found only two 617,000 admissions in which obesity was
human skeletons. What happened to the rest a factor. By 2022-23, the figure stood at
1.2 million. In 8,716 cases, it was the
has long been a mystery. A leading theory primary reason for admission (typically
is that the bones were gathered up in the for weight-loss surgery). Pregnant
1820s, and sent to England’s bone mills, women were most prone to obesity-
where they were ground down for use as related problems, accounting for
crop fertiliser. But while more intensive farming did create a market for bones at that 147,143 admissions last year. Arthritis,
time, and battlefields are likely to have supplied some of them, the authors of a new gallstones, breast cancer, heart disease
paper say there is no evidence of mass exports of human bones from Waterloo. and pain each accounted for more than
Instead, they argue that the bones were plundered from the 1830s, to cater to the 10,000, The Times reports. Admissions
soaring demand created by the sugar beet industry that had taken hold in the area. were more common in poorer areas:
ten times higher in Luton, one of the
Bones were needed to make “bone char” – a filter used to create the white crystals country’s most deprived boroughs,
that consumers preferred. The paper, in the Journal of Belgian History, describes than in Bracknell Forest, in Berkshire.
evidence of this practice found in French and Belgian archives; and the notion that One in four adults in England are obese,
human bones were used in the industry tallies with historic accounts, including as are 23% of ten- to 11-year-olds. It is
a newspaper report from 1879 promoting the use of honey as a sweetener, to avoid estimated that obesity-related illness
the risk of imbibing your “great-grandfather’s atoms” with your coffee. costs the NHS up to £19.2bn a year.

6 January 2024 THE WEEK

18 NEWS Sport
Darts: the stunning progress of a 16-year-old phenomenon
It takes place each year over the Christmas
period, and each year it “unfailingly seems
to conjure up a bizarrely enchanting festive
storyline”, said Tom Kershaw in The Times.
And this year’s PDC World Darts
Championship at Alexandra Palace has been
no exception. The event has been dominated
by the improbable emergence of a 16-year-old
phenomenon. When Luke Littler played his
first-round match a fortnight ago, he’d played
just a handful of professional matches and
was ranked 164th in the world. But since
then, the teenager from Warrington has Littler: sparkling brilliance
made “stunning progress” through the draw,
completing a series of crushing victories over far more famous
opponents – including, in the last 16, “his idol” (and five-time
world champion) Raymond van Barneveld. Littler sailed
through his semi-final tie against the world No. 8 Rob Cross
with a dominant 6-2 win, and will face the world No. 1 Luke
Humphries in the final. And given the sparkling brilliance of
his performances so far, hopes are high for him to clinch the
£500,000 title on Wednesday night.
Throughout the tournament, Littler has displayed the critical “X
factor” that marks out competitors of the very highest order, said
Jeremy Wilson in The Daily Telegraph. In Monday’s quarter-final
against Brendan Dolan, we saw this after just five minutes. With
the first set “finely poised at 2-2, Littler was left within sight of
a 170 checkout” – the highest possible finish
in darts. His opponent, however, was “way
back on 353”, so the “percentage choice”
would have been to leave himself an easy
finish on his next visit to the board. Instead,
he nervelessly landed two treble 20s followed
by a bullseye – even gesturing to the 3,200
capacity crowd after his first two throws, to
“ask what they thought”. He went on to
reduce Dolan to “darting rubble”, completing
victory in barely an hour, and recording – for
the third time in the tournament – a three-
darts average in excess of 100. Should he
go on to win the tournament, he would –
astonishingly – be its youngest-ever winner “by fully seven years”.
Although Littler is a “captivatingly new” figure for most of us,
darts aficionados have long been aware of his talents, said Aaron
Bower in The Guardian. He took up the sport “almost as soon
as he learnt to walk” – as revealed by a clip, which has recently
gone viral, of him “throwing darts in nappies”. By seven, he
was throwing on a standard-size board; by ten he was regularly
winning under-16 tournaments. The mechanised precision of
darts usually takes years to master, but Littler’s focus has been
so unerring – aside from the occasional Xbox break, he admits
to doing little apart from practising – he already plays like
a seasoned master. Whether or not he wins at Ally Pally, he’s
a truly “generational talent”.

Tennis: Emma Raducanu’s comeback victory

When Emma Raducanu stepped on to the court at secured victory on her fourth match point by
the ASB Classic in Auckland on Tuesday, she wasn’t “drawing the error” with an angled forehand.
just facing a determined opponent in Romania’s
Elena-Gabriela Ruse, said Stuart Fraser in The Times. It has been a long road back to fitness for Raducanu,
Having spent eight months away from the sport, who after her surgeries couldn’t even brush her own
following surgery on both wrists and on one of her teeth, and had to use a mobility scooter, said Molly
ankles, the 21-year-old also had to contend with McElwee in The Daily Telegraph. With her ranking
“inevitable rust in her game”. In view of this, the having dropped to 301, there is a sense that she is
2021 US Open champion will feel “extremely “starting from a very low base” – which may prove
pleased” with how she negotiated a tricky contest, something of a relief for a player who often appeared
which she won 6-3, 4-6, 7-5 after nearly two-and-a- “Starting from zero” to struggle with the pressures arising from her
half hours on court. Particularly encouraging was dazzling victory in New York. Before her comeback,
the fact that Raducanu was able to hit “powerful groundstrokes Raducanu declared that she felt “reborn in a way”, and claimed
off both sides”, with seemingly no discomfort in her wrists. And she is a better player than before. Although “questions still
she displayed impressive resilience when Ruse – the world No. remain” – will her body hold up and how long will she continue
134 – came back from 5-2 down in the third set to level the scores without a full-time coach? – what is clear is that the “second
at 5-5. Raducanu quickly refocused her efforts, and eventually phase in her young career” has got off to a promising start.

Wayne Rooney’s sad end at Birmingham Sporting headlines

Few spells in the annals of
football management have been
shorter or more inglorious, said
Charlotte Duncker in The Times.
Wayne Rooney was dismissed
by Birmingham City this week
after just three months – and
15 games – in charge. When he
arrived in October, Birmingham
were sixth in the Championship
table. Since then, they have Rooney: “a dud in the dugout”? has worked tirelessly in three
slipped to 20th place – just six
points clear of the relegation zone – and the
team’s record during this period (two wins,
four draws and nine losses) is the worst in
the division. Rooney’s brief at Birmingham
was to “bring exciting, attacking football to
St Andrew’s” – and he has complained in recent
days that he wasn’t given time to realise his
vision. The club’s fans, however, disagree:
during Rooney’s final match in
charge – a 3-0 defeat to Leeds
United on New Year’s Day –
they loudly chanted: “Wayne
Rooney, get out of our club.”
There’s no denying Rooney’s
dedication to becoming a
successful manager, said Ian
Ladyman in the Daily Mail.
Over the past three years, he
roles – first at Derby County,
then at American club DC United, and finally
at Birmingham. But his record has been
unimpressive: his spell at Derby ended in
relegation; he left DC after they failed to make
the Major League play-offs; and his time at
Birmingham has been disastrous. Rooney
was a wonderful player, but it’s hard to resist
concluding that he’s a “dud in the dugout”.
Tennis Andy Murray lost to
Grigor Dimitrov in the first
round of the Brisbane
International – ending his
hopes of being seeded at the
Australian Open. Rafael Nadal
returned with a win over
Dominic Thiem.
Football Liverpool are three
points clear at the top of the
Premier League after a 4-2
win over Newcastle. Aston
Villa are second, after a 3-2
victory over Burnley.
Cricket Australian opener
David Warner has announced
his retirement from both
Tests and ODI cricket. He
plays his final Test – against
Pakistan – this week.

THE WEEK 6 January 2024


Pick of the week’s correspondence
Junior doctors owe us...
To The Daily Telegraph
One of the two junior doctors
leading the present industrial
action within UK hospitals
is apparently considering
emigrating to Canada. As both
were trained in British medical
schools, they – and any of their
colleagues planning to leave
the NHS for opportunities
abroad – should be instructed
to repay the British taxpayer
for their medical education.
Most medical students pay
about £50,000 for their five-
year training, but the full cost
is more than £250,000. The
UK cannot afford to continue
with this unique subsidy.
Malcolm H. Wheeler,
emeritus professor of surgery,
Bonvilston, Vale of Glamorgan
...but we also owe them
To The Daily Telegraph
Junior doctors have become
seriously de-professionalised.
In the 1980s, as junior
surgeons, we worked very
long hours, but also enjoyed
the satisfaction of making
people better. We diagnosed,
operated on and managed
the post-operative course
of “our” patients, working
independently but within
the support structure of the
consultant-led “firm”.
The opportunity for that
satisfaction has gone. The
European Working Time
Directive remains a significant
cause of that loss. It turned
our junior doctors into shift
workers, and that’s not how
a profession works. And then
we wonder why they emigrate
or leave medicine altogether.
Learning medicine requires
long hours of hard work. If
young people can’t cope with
that, they should seek an
alternative profession. But we
have to get the buzz back into
the life of our junior doctors.
So, reinstate the old consultant-
led firm structure; it would be
good for all concerned, not
least the patients, who would
enjoy better continuity of care.
Patrick Loxdale FRCS,
Aberystwyth, Cardiganshire
WFH? Let the data decide
To The Times
As a taxpayer, I don’t regard
it as the duty of civil servants
to work in the office. That’s
a confusion of ends and means.
I do regard it as their duty to
O Letters have been edited
LETTERS 21
Exchange of the week our lower-paid workers
have been dragged into the tax
Time for a new national anthem? bracket, including pensioners
such as my wife, who is now
To The Guardian paying tax on a pension that
Tim Dowling kvetches nicely about the turgidness of God she contributed to with money
Save the King. But all national anthems are terrible – if not that had already been taxed.
from the musical point of view, then from the moral one. Rather than scrapping IHT,
They can be divided into three groups. First are the “Hooray the Conservatives should raise
For Us” songs, which are the epitome of smug national vanity. tax thresholds, which would
Next are the “Down With Everyone Else” songs, which are benefit far more people.
full of aggression. Finally, there are the “God Bless Whoever Matthew Biddlecombe,
Happens to Be in Power” ditties, full of flattery and toad-eating. Sampford Courtenay, Devon
We British, being a nation of born forelock tuggers, have
chosen the third category, perhaps because it’s simple and Spare me the choice...
nobody (least of all the poor monarch) believes we mean To The Guardian
a word of it. It would be a much worse world in which Dame Esther Rantzen has done
people habitually sang their national anthems sincerely. the country yet another service
J. Michael Cule, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire in raising the issue of assisted
dying. I well remember the day
To The Guardian when it was confirmed that
J. Michael Cule has never wandered further than the first I had “a motor neurone
verse of God Save the King if he believes it is about toadying. disorder”. I asked the doctor
In verse two, we attack our enemies and in verse six [generally how long he thought I had
dropped], quell the rebellious Scots. North of the border, we left and he said, “Everyone’s
are prepared to ditch the whole thing. different. Let’s wait and see.”
Margaret Squires, St Andrews, Fife The prospects seemed bleak.
In the event, my diagnosis
To The Guardian was refined and, 22 years later,
I agree that The Archers theme tune should be the national I’m still alive and able to find
anthem, but there’s no need to just hum along, as there are hope in my very restricted life.
words. They are as follows: “Rum ti tum ti tum ti tum, Rum I am grateful that, thanks to
ti tum ti taa taa, Rum ti tum ti tum ti tum, rum ti tiddly tum...” the law, I couldn’t be tempted
Very easy to learn, and no nationalism or xenophobia. to choose an early death on my
Barbara Williams, Sparsholt, Oxfordshire first frightening diagnosis. As it
should, the law provides a vital
deliver the services specified I encourage my clients to safeguarding function. So
effectively and efficiently. I approach it with curiosity, I have real reservations about
also expect these services to which in itself is a natural any proposals that seek to
improve continuously. antidote to ennui. legalise assisted suicide.
If the civil service can Feeling under-stimulated Michael Wenham, Wantage,
demonstrate that services is part of the ebb and flow Oxfordshire
are better delivered by staff of life, and if we go with it
working from home or on rather than distract ourselves ...of when to die
hybrid patterns, then I’m by reaching for some digital To The Daily Telegraph
happy for them to continue. soother, we can learn a lot Craig Heeley (Letters,
They must have the data to about ourselves and what it 27 December) tells us that
come to a more informed really means to be present. “surely only God has the right
decision on this than one based Hilda Burke, London to decide when He is ready to
on the preferences of civil meet me”. At present the
servants or the assumptions of A tax plan to win votes doctors decide when God will
ministers. They should publish To The Daily Telegraph meet you. Hopefully any new
the (anonymised) data sets they Why is it that some of your legislation will allow me to
have, so a more informed correspondents think that decide when I meet God.
view can be developed. abolishing inheritance tax will John A. Landamore,
Richard Copley, Skipton, be a vote winner for the Tories? Lutterworth, Leicestershire
North Yorkshire Currently, the tax
applies to less than
Embrace boredom 5% of UK estates; the
To the Financial Times latest figures show
Arthur Schopenhauer asserted that 41,000 were
that as humans we are liable to pay the tax
“doomed to vacillate between in 2022/-23. If the
the two extremities of distress polls are to be
and boredom”. Based on my believed, it is going to
experience as a therapist for take more than these
more than a decade, I can 41,000 to see Rishi
attest that he was on to Sunak returned to No.
something. When I work 10. In the meantime, “I’m sorry to trouble you yet again
with boredom, or indeed thanks to freezing the with internet issues.”
any “negative” emotion, allowances, many of © THE NEW YORKER
6 January 2024 THE WEEK
 ARTS 23

Review of reviews: out now in paperback

I’m Sorry You Lessons Tomorrow,
Feel That Way by Ian McEwan and Tomorrow,
by Rebecca Wait Vintage £9.99 and Tomorrow
Quercus £8.99 (£7.99) by Gabrielle
(£6.99) Ian McEwan’s Zevin
From its “snarky” 18th novel marks a
Vintage £9.99
opening sentence on departure, said The
(“On the whole, they New Statesman – in (£7.99)
enjoy a funeral”), that it’s about a man This “exhilarating”
Rebecca Wait’s whose biography novel may be the first
fourth novel is great closely resembles his to grasp that today’s
fun, said The Sunday own. Born in the late teenagers are “as
Times. The story of a dysfunctional 1940s, Roland Baines spends his early likely to bond over video games” as over
middle-class family (three adult siblings childhood in Libya and attends an English rock music or films, said The Guardian. It
and their “narcissistic mother”), it boarding school – but unlike McEwan, he tells the story of Sadie and Sam – who first
contains several “snort-worthy” set pieces, doesn’t become a famous writer. Sprawling meet as children, and later successfully
as well as an exceptional “gag about and thought-provoking, this novel “wades collaborate designing games. A bestseller
Peterborough”. Along with the wit, there’s into the mess of life”, said The Sunday on both sides of the Atlantic, this is an
“emotional insight”, said The Observer. Times. For a writer who has disappointed “absorbing” book exploring friendship
It’s a “masterclass in familial tensions”. recently, it’s a “full-bodied return to form”. and creativity, said The New York Times.

Original Sins Wise Gals Dinner with

by Matt by Nathalia Holt Joseph
Rowland Hill Icon Books Johnson
Vintage £10.99 £11.99 (£9.99) by Daisy Hay
(£8.99) Nathalia Holt’s “epic Vintage £10.99
This “devastatingly history” chronicles
the lives of five of (£8.99)
good” memoir
recounts how its the CIA’s first female The radical
author “swapped employees, said the publisher Joseph
a love of Jesus for FT. Despite doing Johnson was a “key
a love of Class-A crucial, often figure” in late 18th
drugs”, said The dangerous work for century London,
Daily Telegraph. Following his strict the agency in the years after the Second said the FT. Many of the great minds of
evangelical upbringing in Swansea, Hill World War, the women received little the age – Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas
won a scholarship to Harrow and then recognition, and were mockingly dubbed Paine, William Blake – attended his
went to Oxford – where he became the “Petticoat Panel” when they collectively weekly salons. A biography of
addicted to heroin. The themes of this demanded better pay. Featuring “eye- Johnson has long been overdue – and
book are not exactly original, said The opening tales of espionage” from Baghdad this one is “meticulous”. It’s altogether
Guardian. But it proves “propulsive” and to Moscow, this book is a “necessary a “delightful book”, said The Times – one
“brilliant” – thanks to Hill’s black humour corrective to the sexism and misogyny rife that gives its readers the “feeling of being
and his “lacerating candour”. in spy tales”, said The Observer. at a rather elevated party”.

Wrong Place Act of Ready for

Wrong Time Oblivion Absolutely
by Gillian by Robert Harris Nothing
McAllister Penguin £9.99 by Susannah
Penguin £9.99 (£7.99) Constantine
(£7.99) Robert Harris’s Michael Joseph
This “spellbinding” “propulsive” thriller £10.99 (£8.99)
thriller is both follows two of the
a “whydunnit”, and regicides – the men Before she was
a “time-travel trip who killed Charles I (along with Trinny
with a difference”, – who are on the run Woodall) a TV style
said The Sunday Times. It begins with Jen, in 1660s America, said The Spectator. guru on What Not to Wear, Susannah
a Merseyside lawyer, witnessing her “geeky Tracking them down is Richard Nayler – Constantine was a Sloaney 1980s It Girl
teenage son” committing a murder. She a man with “ugly personal reasons” for who dated the Earl of Snowdon and
then finds herself moving backwards in wanting to catch the parliamentarians. “hung out with Elton John”, said The
time, playing “detective in her own past” The historical details are spot on, and the Times. This “gossipy, filthy and bravely
as she investigates where her son went portrait of rancorous ideological division honest” memoir is a “rollicking romp”
wrong. “Messing with time travel isn’t for also gives the novel a timely feel, said The through her life. Constantine proves
the faint-hearted,” said The Observer. But Observer. As ever with Harris, you’re “in a riveting guide to her “eccentrically
McAllister pulls it off “with aplomb”. the hands of a master”. moneyed milieu”, said The Observer.

To order these titles from The Week Bookshop at the bracketed price, contact 020-3176 3835, theweekbookshop.co.uk

6 January 2024 THE WEEK

24 ARTS Drama & Podcasts
Dance: Edward Scissorhands
Sadler’s Wells, London EC1 (020-7863 8000). Until 20 January, then on tour Running time: 1hr 55mins ++++
Matthew Bourne’s tender At the performance I saw,
yet sharply comic dance Liam Mower was a
adaptation of Edward wonderfully “sweet, poignant”
Scissorhands premiered in Edward, and Katrina Lyndon
2005 and was last staged in was “adorable” as Kim. But
2014, said Sarah Crompton in the “whole cast sparkles” – as
The Observer. Now, a revival do designer Lez Brotherston’s
is touring the UK – and it is clever, sumptuous sets.
an “utter treat”. Bourne is
a “canny operator” when The production brims with
it comes to developing titles “wit, whimsy and mischief”,
with popular appeal, said said Marianka Swain in The
Lyndsey Winship in The Daily Telegraph – and is full of
Guardian. But his decision the “kooky comic details” that
to stage Tim Burton’s beloved help make Bourne’s work so
1990 film, about a lonely joyful. “Posters come to life,
synthetic boy, whose scientist as does the topiary.” And to
creator has left him with lethal Liam Mower as Edward: a “sweet, poignant” performance top it all, there is glorious live
blades in place of hands, was music, said David Jays in the
not just “shrewd marketing”. The material, with its outsider Evening Standard. Danny Elfman’s “signature romantic spookery”
protagonist, peculiar setting in the suburbs of 1950s America, and from the film score has been “gorgeously extended” by composer
“comic book-style exaggeration of plot and characters” perfectly Terry Davies. Full of honeyed chimes, circling voices and soulful
matches Bourne’s sensibilities as a choreographer – and it makes strings, it’s the icing on a very “plush” cake.
a warmly entertaining yet “bittersweet” show.
The week’s other opening
This “magical dance reimagining” tugs your heartstrings “almost Rock ’n’ Roll Hampstead Theatre, London NW3 (020-7722
to breaking point”, said Debra Craine in The Times. Brilliantly 9301). Until 27 January
performed by a cast of 25, Bourne’s choreography combines This is the first major London revival of Tom Stoppard’s “minor
“comedy and pathos, with droll mime and jaunty social dances” masterpiece” from 2005, about competing ideals in Cold War-era
and some big set pieces (a summer barbecue; the town’s Christmas Europe. Nina Raine directs with “clarity and verve”, and there are
ball). There’s also “swooning romance” in the tender moments fine turns from Nathaniel Parker and Nancy Carroll (Telegraph).
(real and imagined) between Edward and love interest Kim.

Podcasts... highlights of 2023

The dark days and cold nights of about midlife crises? Why were so
January make it the perfect time many more boys born than girls
to hunker down and catch up on in 1973-74? What can a nunnery
any outstanding podcasts you may tell us about dementia? It’s all
have missed from the past year. “fascinating stuff”. A pick of
A good place to start, said The the year for me was Movers &
Guardian, is Wiser Than Me, in Shakers, said Patricia Nicol
which the American actress and in the same paper. “A Parkinson’s
comic Julia Louis-Dreyfus talks support group might sound
to well-known older women heavy going.” But that’s
about their long and fruitful lives. definitely not the case with this
Jane Fonda, 86, covers “divorce, “sharply titled regular meet-up
funerals, fitness and working of six high-flyers” – including
with Katharine Hepburn”. former BBC journalists Rory
Isabel Allende, 81, discusses the Cellan-Jones, Mark Mardell and
attractions of blueberry cannabis An insightful Jackson documentary; and Poehler’s satirical podcast Jeremy Paxman – who “discuss
edibles. Rhea Perlman, 75, sounds their life-altering diagnosis with
“almost exactly as you remember from Cheers, only now she’s intelligence, warmth, caustic humour and brave candour”.
a grandmother”. A second highlight of 2023 was Political
Currency, one of the “most fun” political podcasts going. Among my highlights, said Reggie Ugwu in The New York Times,
Ed Balls and George Osborne’s double-act has grown into was Think Twice: Michael Jackson. This authoritative, ten-part
a “brilliantly gossipy take on world news, stuffed with some documentary series, presented by Leon Neyfakh and Jay Smooth,
absolute gems of insider titbits” (such as the time the Tories feared “earns its place alongside the most incisive deconstructions of
that their days might be numbered “because David Cameron’s son the most famous pop star who ever lived”. It combines extensive
pooed in Rupert Murdoch’s pool”). archival clips with dozens of new interviews. Lastly, to blow away
the January blues with gales of laughter, listen to Say More with
One of my favourite podcasts of the year, said James Marriott Dr? Sheila, Amy Poehler’s “hilarious, inspired and unscripted riff
© JOHAN PERSSON

in The Times, was Uncharted with Hannah Fry, in which the on couples therapy podcasts”. It features an outstanding cast of
mathematician explores “tales of data and discovery” in ten guest “couples”, including several Saturday Night Live co-stars,
episodes of just 15 minutes each. She goes to some “brilliantly and almost every episode of this “mould-breaking series” is
unexpected places”. For example: what can orangutans tell us “thrilling and hysterical”.
Stars reflect the overall quality of reviews and our own independent assessment (5 stars=don’t miss; 1 star=don’t bother)

THE WEEK 6 January 2024

 Film ARTS 25
“You’d need a heart of stone not to be touched” by One Life, which tells the extraordinary story
of Nicholas Winton, the “British Schindler” who helped evacuate 669 mostly Jewish children from
Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. After
the war, Winton virtually never mentioned his rescue effort, even to his family. It only came to public
attention in 1988, when he appeared in an episode of That’s Life!, in which Esther Rantzen asked
members of the audience to stand up if they owed him their life – and dozens of people sitting
around him silently rose to their feet. This “quietly affecting drama”, made with “simplicity and
heartfelt directness” by director James Hawes, does justice to that “overwhelmingly moving event”.
Winton is played in the 1980s by Anthony Hopkins and in the 1930s by Johnny Flynn, both of
One Life whom turn in performances that are worthy of “a remarkable and almost comically modest man”,
1hr 50mins (12A) said Ed Potton in The Times. The film also has a “secret weapon” in Helena Bonham Carter, who
plays Winton’s German émigrée mother, Babette. She is “formidable with a capital F, storming into
Moving drama about the London visa office in her fur coat and putting obstructive civil servants firmly in their place
(‘Sit down young man, I have something to tell you’)”. With its “syrupy strings and somewhat grey
the “British Schindler”
palette”, One Life does have “more than a hint of BBC TV drama about it”, said Hamish MacBain
++++ in the Evening Standard. But Hopkins is “superb”, imbuing every frame with “warmth and wit and
sadness and charming British eccentricity”. Anyone who doesn’t “blub their way through” the last
half-hour “should be checked for a pulse on the way out”.

Priscilla, Sofia Coppola’s film about Elvis Presley’s courtship of his future wife, Priscilla Beaulieu,
which started when he was 24 and she was 14, “will make for uncomfortable viewing for fans of
the King”, said Geoffrey Macnab in The Independent. The film presents Elvis (Jacob Elordi) “as an
insecure narcissist” who started to fixate on Priscilla (Cailee Spaeny) when they met at a party during
his military service in Germany, and who was unwilling to give her “any independence” once they’d
married. Adapted from Presley’s memoir Elvis and Me, the film is a “downbeat and dour affair, with
little of the exuberance” of Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 biopic Elvis – though Spaeny gives a “compelling
and moving performance” as a bright young woman “whose spirit is slowly crushed”.
“With the exception of the totally brilliant Lost in Translation, I’ve never really got on with the
Priscilla films of Sofia Coppola, and this modest antipathy continues with Priscilla,” said Matthew Bond
1hr 53mins (15) in The Mail on Sunday. “The drama feels flat and episodic”; and Elordi and Spaeny’s performances
left me cold. It’s “lushly styled”, said Adrian Horton in The Guardian, but provides “little sense”
Impressionistic portrait of of who its heroine was, and what she thought of the things that happened to her. “The real
Priscilla was, by all accounts, no wallflower.” But in “this absorbing yet frustrating film”, you
the teen fan turned bride
could easily mistake her for one. I found Priscilla “a little dull”, said Alistair Harkness in The
+++ Scotsman. “Neither a scathing post-#MeToo take-down of ‘the King’ nor a particularly deep
character study of a teenager groomed from the age of 14 to become his doll-like wife, it is,
instead, another of Coppola’s dramatically inert explorations of life in a gilded cage.”

Back in “Italian biopic mode”, Adam Driver has “dusted off his Dolmio Man accent from House
of Gucci” to play Enzo Ferrari in this handsome “but ultimately quite empty drama from the
veteran filmmaker Michael Mann”, said Kevin Maher in The Times. We first meet our “racing-
obsessed hero” in 1957. He has run his eponymous car business into the ground, and in order to
attract new investors, he desperately needs one of his drivers to win the “epic and lethal road race,
the Mille Miglia”. The race itself is powerfully depicted, but alas the film is altogether too
preoccupied with the impact of the death of Enzo’s son, Alfredo, from muscular dystrophy in
1956. Enzo is defined “solely in terms of parental grief. In short, he starts the film suffering
from parental grief, he negotiates his relationships in the shadow of parental grief, then he ends
Ferrari the film, after the Mille Miglia, with slightly less parental grief.” Driver, for all his talents, proves
2hrs 4mins (15) “unable to bring anything unexpected or challenging to this template”.
“As in a racing-car engine, there are lots of components in this film, and they all need to work
Stylish racing biopic in perfect sync, which occasionally they don’t,” said Brian Viner in the Daily Mail. Still, it’s
“tremendously stylish”, and for the most part Mann does a “fine job”: one crash scene is so
starring Adam Driver devastating, it caused a sharp “intake of breath” at the showing I went to. Elsewhere, the film can
+++ be “ponderous”, said Kyle Smith in The Wall Street Journal. But its third act is “thrilling”, and
Penélope Cruz delivers a “standout” performance as “the impassioned Signora Ferrari”.

“The unhappy union between the composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky (Odin Biron) and his wife, Antonina
Miliukova (Alyona Mikhailova), is the jumping-off point” for this “feverish” period piece from the
Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov, said Wendy Ide in The Observer. The film, which has only “a
passing acquaintance” with the facts of Tchaikovsky’s “turbulent life”, begins with his death, before
rewinding to the start of his and Antonina’s romance. It is a “punishing watch at times”, but its
ambition is “admirable”. Serebrennikov is an “extravagantly talented director whose opposition to
Kremlin ideology led to a two-year house arrest”, said Jonathan Romney in the FT. “But even while
laying siege to a national monument of male genius, Tchaikovsky’s Wife has the leaden institutional
feel of a prestige superproduction.” There is “a crazed magnificence” to its lavish evocation of the
Tchaikovsky’s period; yet there is “little real drama here, just flamboyant gesticulations at it”.
I found the movie a “chore”, said Robbie Collin in The Daily Telegraph. “Watching it feels like
Wife competing in a sort of arthouse cinema Krypton Factor, with a barrage of interpretative dance
2hrs 23mins (15) interludes, unflinching full-frontal male nudity, pulverisingly bleak mise en scène, and writhing
mental collapse.” One scene actually manages to combine all of the above. The film has an
Feverish period drama “expansive, 140-minute running-time”, and there are points when it is hard to work out exactly
+++ what’s going on in it, said Trevor Johnston in Time Out. “But with its intensely felt performances,
haunting winter lighting, and seemingly inescapable claustrophobia, it leaves a mark.”

6 January 2024 THE WEEK

26 ARTS Art
Exhibition of the week Impressionists on Paper
Royal Academy, London W1 (020-7300 8090, royalacademy.org.uk). Until 10 March
“Impressionism – at the Royal watercolours to turn the sky
Academy? Again?” That was “a heartbreaking blue”; and an
my first thought on hearing about early depiction of a “peasant
this latest show, said Alastair women with a face like a bereft
Sooke in The Daily Telegraph: elf”. Just as impressive is
I feared that its “overfamiliarity” Toulouse-Lautrec’s “explicit”
would risk inducing “narcolepsy”. sketch of a lesbian couple working
But I was wrong. Impressionists in a Paris brothel – a “raw yet
on Paper puts forward a “neat, sensitive” picture that brims with
clear argument”: that in the late empathy for his subjects. Such
19th century, technical advances highlights aside, the show is short
allowed good quality paper and on revelations: Renoir’s drawings
paints to be manufactured in of women, it turns out, “are just
quantity. This considerably as bland as his paintings”; and
improved the status of works even a pair of “dreamlike” Monet
on paper, hitherto rarely views of “surreally shaped seaside
appreciated as anything other cliffs” tell us nothing new about
than “preparatory” drawings. his art. The impressionists “did
From here on in, “they came to comparatively little important
be viewed on a par, almost, with work on paper. They really were
paintings” – and Paris’s artists painters or nothing.” And this is
exploited this to the full. Bringing largely a rather “damp” show.
together pictures by all of the
movement’s most famous names – True, the quality is “mixed”,
the show is subtitled Degas to said Jackie Wullschläger in the
Toulouse-Lautrec – as well as Degas’ After the Bath, Woman Drying Herself (1890-1895) Financial Times. Yet the best of
works from lesser-known talents, the works here, by Degas and
it shows how the impressionists and those who came in their Cézanne – the period’s “supreme innovators” – are real “pearls”.
wake took drawing in new directions, transforming the medium. The former, represented by 15 drawings, “stuns and dominates”:
Containing wonders aplenty, from Manet’s “rain-slickened” view in his “stark” 1869 pastel Beach at Low Tide, “you can almost feel
of a Parisian street to Odilon Redon’s view of “human-headed the damp sand”; the later After the Bath, Woman Drying Herself
flowers sprouting surreally from a vase”, it adds up to an is “a tumble of red hair”, “creamy pink towel”, and “brilliant
impressive exhibition “filled with delicious little surprises”. yellow chair”. Cézanne, meanwhile, creates watercolours that
abbreviate and reduce their subject to “translucent washes, white
There are a couple of “masterpieces” here, said Jonathan Jones paper left blank as part of the composition”. Overall, this is an
in The Guardian. Van Gogh provides several, including a “enjoyable” exhibition, in which 19th century Paris “comes to
landscape of Paris’s peripheral fortifications, in which he deploys us multi-faceted, direct and intimate”.

Where to buy… Rossetti’s diarrhoea

The Week reviews an
exhibition in a private gallery
Liorah Tchiprout
at Marlborough London
Liorah Tchiprout (b.1992) creates
figurative paintings that seem to
allude to the work of any number of
predecessors: Chaïm Soutine’s form-
shaking and expressive portraits; the
“kitchen-sink” style typified by 1950s
British painters such as John Bratby
and Edward Middleditch; and, perhaps
most instructively, Walter Sickert’s
weird, lesser-loved theatrical pictures.
This last evocation may not be
coincidental. Her latest show, Two
Eyes Wide Open at the Edge of Dawn,
consists of a large number of prints
and oil-on-board paintings of (mostly)
Last month, Dante
Gabriel Rossetti’s
painting Sibylla
Palmifera (1870)
went on show at
the Lady Lever Art
Gallery in Port
Sunlight near
Birkenhead. It was
commissioned by
the Liverpool
banker and
collector George
Rae, says Donna Ferguson in The Observer.
In December 1865, Rae had paid the pre-
Raphaelite painter a £300 deposit (the
equivalent today of around £30,000). Alongside
the painting is displayed a letter from Rossetti
Detail from She is All Traps (2023) explaining why, by August 1868, he still hadn’t
delivered it, and could not make a meeting with
than others, and there is, perhaps, rather his “exasperated patron”. The artist spares no
too little variation. Yet Tchiprout’s style, detail when it comes to excuses – notably
a prolonged bout of diarrhoea. “I have had
combining vivid backgrounds with an a constant diarrhoea and other troublesome
original and rough-hewn approach to symptoms,” he writes, telling Rae that “I started
© NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON

solitary women, whom the artist refers
to as “players”. Indeed, there’s a
pronounced staginess to these figures,
who are variously seen gardening,
striking moody poses or frozen in
contemplation. Some pictures are better
figuration, really sticks in the mind.
Prices range from £5,000-£15,000 for
paintings, £700-£1,500 for prints.
6 Albemarle Street, London W1
(020-7629 5161). Until 27 January
off this morning with Mr Leyland for Liverpool,
but when about getting into the trap felt so
giddy and unwell that I was obliged to return
to the house.” Rossetti would take a further
two years to complete the painting.

THE WEEK 6 January 2024

 The List ARTS 27
Best books… Adam Nicolson Television
The historian and author chooses his favourite books about Greece. Programmes
His latest book, How to Be: Life Lessons from the Early Greeks I Am Andrew Tate
(William Collins £10.99), is out now in paperback Documentary about the
notorious influencer, arrested
Greek Folk Songs translated was the master of slow travel, (Virago £16.99). In the in Romania last year on
charges of rape and human
by Joshua Barley, 2022 (Aiora dwelling and drinking in the Canadian poet-scholar Anne trafficking. Featuring unseen
Press £12.99). An anthology of riches of a Greek Ionia that Carson, Sappho found her footage and interviews with
the songs that have been sung can still be found, with flocks ideal modern translator. Some his fans and alleged victims.
and re-sung for centuries in the of sheep grazing in abandoned fragments are no more than Sun 7 Jan, C4 21:00 (90mins).
villages of Greece, full of love temples, fishing boats still tied a single word, others page-long
and revenge, adventure and up to 5th century BC quays. accounts of love and desire, Streets of Gold: Mumbai
brigandage, plus the landscapes but all glow in Carson’s Three-part series taking a look
of a forgotten pre-modern The Making of the Middle hands with the unadorned inside the gilded world of
world, in the most elegant Sea by Cyprian Broodbank, sunlight of the northern Mumbai’s super-rich. Mon
8 Jan, BBC2 21:00 (60mins).
and heartfelt translation, 2013 (Thames & Hudson Aegean 2,500 years ago.
by a young English poet. £24.95). A vast, brilliantly The Great American
comprehensive and penetrating Report to Greco by Nikos Buffalo The renowned Ken
Aegean Turkey by George account of the origins of Kazantzakis, 1961 (Faber Burns looks at how the buffalo
E. Bean, 1966 (out of print; Mediterranean civilisation. £9.99). The novelist and on the Great Plains were killed
available used). The best guide Never since Fernand Braudel memoirist tells the story of his in their millions in the 19th
ever written to the great Greek has a historian looked at this own family in the wild days of century, imperilling the future
cities on the Aegean shore of part of the world with such 19th century Crete and on into of the Native Americans who
Turkey, not entirely up to date an illuminating battery of the passionate years of his own depended on them. Tue 9 Jan,
BBC4 22:00 (115mins).
with the archaeology, but analysis and understanding. life. Reading Kazantzakis feels
brimming with a life-reviving like an intravenous insertion After the Flood New crime
empathy for one of the most If Not, Winter: Fragments Of into the life-blood of the thriller. When the body of an
creative places on Earth. Bean Sappho by Anne Carson, 2002 greatest of the Greek islands. unidentified man is found after
Titles in print are available from The Week Bookshop on 020-3176 3835. For out-of-print books visit biblio.co.uk a flood, detective Jo Marshall
must determine whether his
The Week’s guide to what’s worth seeing death was a murder. Wed
10 Jan, ITV1 21:00 (60mins).
Showing now Films
Mark Gatiss gave a startling performance as Parallel Mothers (2021)
John Gielgud in The Motive and the Cue, Penélope Cruz stars in Pedro
Jack Thorne’s “fascinating” drama about a 1964 Almodóvar’s acclaimed drama
production of Hamlet, at the National. Now he about the intersecting lives of
is reprising the role in the West End, along with two women who give birth on
the same day. Sat 6 Jan, BBC4
Johnny Flynn as Richard Burton and Tuppence
21:00 (115mins).
Middleton as Elizabeth Taylor (Daily Telegraph).
Until 23 March, Noël Coward Theatre, London Nomadland (2020) Oscar-
WC2 (themotiveandthecue.com). winning docudrama about a
middle-aged woman (Frances
John Craxton: A Modern Odyssey brings McDormand) who takes to life
together more than 100 works by the British on the road, joining nomad
artist who became captivated by Greek life in communities across the US.
the late 1940s, and eventually settled in Crete. Sat 6 Jan, C4 22:00 (130mins).
John Craxton’s Greek Fisherman (1946)
“Irresistible” (Observer). Until 21 April, Pallant
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
House Gallery, Chichester (pallant.org.uk). Comedian and actor Miles Jupp embarks on (2011) Stylish adaptation of
his first stand-up tour in seven years with On John le Carré’s novel about
Book now I Bang, based on his experience of surviving a a retired spy (Gary Oldman)
John Singer Sargent’s society portraits from the brain tumour. Starts 11 January in Epsom, then tasked with finding a Soviet
late 19th and early 20th centuries captured the touring until 22 March (milesjupp.co.uk). mole at the heart of British
spirit of an age, as well as that of his sitters, Intelligence. Wed 10 Jan, BBC1
often through opulent costume. See some of his Director Emma Rice takes on the dark tale of 22:40 (120mins).
most famous paintings – many of which rarely Blue Beard, brought to the stage with a dash of
travel – in Sargent and Fashion; 22 February- magic and music. 2-10 February, Theatre Royal
Coming up for auction
7 July, Tate Britain, London SW1 (tate.org.uk). Bath, then touring (wisechildrendigital.com).
Guitar enthusiasts can admire
The Mark Knopfler Guitar
The Archers: what happened last week Collection before more
Alice tells Chris about her romance with Harry. Later, without announcing himself, Harry calls Chris than 120 of the Dire Straits
to shoe a horse; Chris refuses to do any further work for Harry. After an unpromising rehearsal, frontman’s guitars and amps,
Alan and Usha’s “Gagricultural” Christmas Show is a triumph. Against advice and to Alice’s including custom-built
consternation, Chris gets Martha a pony for Christmas. There are celebrations as Alistair announces instruments and Fender
the appointment of a second vet nurse, meaning Denise can return to Ambridge. Fed up with being classics, are sold at Christie’s.
broke, Ed wants to retrain as a tree surgeon. After spending Christmas Day together, Alistair and
© ESTATE OF JOHN CRAXTON

25% of hammer price will go

Denise share a moment but are interrupted by a call from her husband. In The Bull on Boxing
Day, Lilian takes out her anger at Justin on Emma and Tracy. Kate and Brian meet Harry and have
to charities. Exhibition 19-30
differing opinions on him. Justin finally tells Lilian she’s the love of his life, and they make up. Brian January, Christie’s, 8 King
suggests that Kate moves in with him, confessing that he’s lonely. Following an awkward moment Street, London SW1; auction
with Paul, Alistair and Denise admit their true feelings but pull back, citing professional boundaries. 31 January (christies.com).

6 January 2024 THE WEEK

28 Best properties
Striking town houses

Berkshire: Cygnet House, Hungerford. Dating from the 1800s (with later additions), this attractive
house is within walking distance of the high street. Main suite with walk-in wardrobe, 3 further beds,
2 baths, kitchen, 4 receps, office, garage, garden. £1.15m; Knight Frank (01488-688547).

Berkshire: Hungerford. A rare opportunity to Cornwall: The Abbey, Penzance. A delightful

modernise a high-street townhouse. Main suite, landmark building. 6 beds (2 en suite), kitchen,
3 further beds, bath, kitchen/dining area, 2 receps, 2 receps, 2 self-contained apartments, gardens.
garden. £750,000; Knight Frank (01488-688547). £1.95m; Pritchard & Company (01608-801030).
Gloucestershire:
Priory Street,
Cheltenham. This
elegant end-of-
terrace Grade II
property has many
beautiful period
features, and is
situated in a sought-
after location
within walking
distance of the
centre of town.
4 beds, family bath,
kitchen/breakfast
room, 2 receps,
TV room, study,
conservatory,
covered courtyard,
rear paved garden,
private parking.
£850,000; Knight
Frank (01242-
246952).

THE WEEK 6 January 2024

on the market 29

Suffolk: College Street, Bury St Edmunds. Within the “Medieval

Grid”, this stylish, detached, Grade II period house has a delightful
courtyard garden. Main bed, 3 further beds, 2 showers, family bath,
kitchen/breakfast room, 2 receps, cellar, walled rear courtyard garden.
£725,000; Jackson-Stops (01284-700535).

Gloucestershire: Beacon House, Painswick. This remarkable

Grade I Georgian house dates from the mid-18th century. Main
suite, 4 further beds, family bath, kitchen/breakfast room, 3 receps,
study, office, wine cellar, gardens, private parking area. £2.5m;
Knight Frank (01285-882007).

Gloucestershire: Gloucester Lodge, Moreton-in-Marsh. Built of Cotswold stone

under a Welsh slate roof, this beautiful Grade II Georgian house has a main suite with
dressing area, 4 further beds, family bath, kitchen, 3 receps and a south-facing garden.
£1.1m; Hayman-Joyce (01608-651188).
West Sussex:
Lower Walls Walk,
Chichester. This
modern town house
is adjacent to the
Roman City Walls.
Main suite, 3 further
beds, family bath,
kitchen, 2 receps,
garden. £975,000;
Fine & Country
(01243-908077).

Dorset: St James
Close, Poole.
A handsome Grade II
house in the historic
Old Town. Main suite,
4 further suites,
kitchen, 2 receps,
office, courtyard,
parking. £1m;
Symonds & Sampson
(01202-843190).

6 January 2024 THE WEEK


What the experts recommend
The Small Canteen 17 Starbeck Avenue,
Newcastle upon Tyne (07816-524826)
The name of this restaurant “isn’t
whimsy”, says Jay Rayner in The
Observer: situated on a residential corner
in Newcastle’s Sandyford, it occupies
a space that used to be a sandwich shop.
But while its proportions are diminutive,
the “classic bistro” fare served up by chef
Sam Betts could hardly be more “rich and
generous”. A light and springy double-
cooked cheddar soufflé sits in a “lake of
chive-flecked, cheese-boosted béchamel”.
A slab of confit pork terrine – served
at perfect room temperature – has the
“thickness of a big Stephen King novel”.
Mains are similarly abundant: “fork-
tender” braised beef cheek on a “duvet
of mash” comes with roasted shallots
and “slabs of smoked bacon”; three
butternut squash ravioli, served with
beurre noisette, are “each the size of
saucers”. Everything is “bloody
marvellous”, and it’s surprisingly good
value too: starters and puds are £8; mains
are “around £18”. In fact, that’s my one
worry about The Small Canteen: can such
modest pricing be sustainable? I really
hope so, because it’s “one of the good
places”, and it “needs to survive”.
Claridge’s Restaurant Brook Street,
London W1 (020-7629 8860)
Over the years, the main dining room at
Claridge’s has played host to some of the
LEISURE
Food & Drink
Modestly priced and “bloody marvellous”
biggest names in cooking, says Grace Dent
in The Guardian: Gordon Ramsay, Simon
Rogan and New York chef Daniel Humm
have all had restaurants here. But its latest
iteration breaks the mould – for it is now a
“straightforward restaurant”, with a “low-
key” head chef in Coalin Finn. Don’t come
here expecting a 16-course tasting menu,
or dishes listed only by their component
ingredients. Instead, you’ll find a short
menu divided into clear sections, which is
full of “unchallenging yet pleasing terms”
such as steak au poivre and roasted
Norfolk chicken. Everything is well-judged
and delicious – from the “beautifully
dressed” seafood in the plateau de fruits de
31
mer to the stunning baked alaska for two,
which the staff set ablaze at your table.
This isn’t cooking to “ooh and ah over”.
But in a London restaurant landscape
“teeming with groundbreaking, puzzling,
horizon-expanding dining experiences”,
it is wonderful to be reminded of the
virtues of old-fashioned simplicity. From
about £80 a head à la carte, plus drinks
and service.
Kopitiam Unit 19, Suffolk House,
Summertown, Oxford (01865-454388)
You could walk past this “unassuming
Malaysian café” in Oxford “without giving
it a second glance”, says Tom Parker
Bowles in the Daily Mail. But that would
be a big mistake. For the food it serves
is “magnificent” – and eating here costs
barely more than it does at Pret. There
are two menus – one Chinese-leaning, the
other made up of “Malaysian classics” –
and my advice is to stick to the latter. An
establishment’s roti canai “always set the
tone of the lunch ahead”: here, they’re
“charred, just chewy and delicate as silk
handkerchiefs”. Everything else is “as
it should be”, including “mellifluous
chicken curry, cooked on the bone”, and
Nanyang prawn noodle soup, made with
a “rich and brooding” stock that has a
“deep crustacean grunt”. That you can
dine at Kopitiam and lunch on “serious
Malaysian food, for just over £15 a head,
makes me very happy indeed”.

Recipe of the week: root vegetable gratin

I suggest making this comforting vegetable gratin the day before you plan to eat it, and then reheating and serving straight from
the oven, says Blanche Vaughan. Like cooks and hosts, many dishes are more enjoyable when they’ve had some time to relax.
Serves 6 2 large Désirée or King Edward potatoes 2 large sweet potatoes 1 large celeriac
3 large parsnips 100g butter, melted 2 tsp finely chopped rosemary leaves 250ml double cream 125ml chicken or vegetable stock
3 bay leaves 2 garlic cloves, crushed sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Peel all the vegetables and rinse well • Preheat the oven to 180°C. In a
with cold water. If you have a vegetable- saucepan, combine the cream, stock, bay
slicing machine, this is its moment. leaves and garlic with half a teaspoon of
Slice each vegetable and keep separate salt and half a teaspoon of pepper. Heat
so that the colours are not mixed up. until simmering. Remove the leaves and
Alternatively, cut the potatoes, sweet set aside. Gently pour the liquid over and
potatoes and celeriac in half and slice around the sliced vegetables, allowing
across as thinly as possible by hand, it to sink slowly into the dish before
with a sharp knife. The parsnips may adding more. If you don’t need all the
be sliced across whole, in thin slices. liquid, any leftovers could be used to
• Choose a large enough ovenproof dish top up the dish during cooking. Drizzle
and brush with half the melted butter. In the rest of the melted butter over the
a small bowl, mix the rosemary with 1 teaspoon of salt and top and garnish with the bay leaves.
1 teaspoon of pepper. Start to fill the dish with the potato slices – • Place the dish on a baking sheet (as the cream may bubble
they should be arranged in concentric circles so that they slightly over) and bake for 1 hour-1 hour 20 mins (10-15 mins on reheat).
overlap one another. Add a sprinkling of the rosemary mixture. If the surface starts to colour too soon, cover with a piece of foil
• Cover the potatoes with half the sweet potatoes in the same and continue to bake until a sharp knife pierces the centre easily.
way; then the celeriac; then the remaining sweet potatoes; then The top should be golden brown all over, with a few crisp,
the parsnips. This final layer should be arranged carefully, with slightly burnt edges for colour. Remove the dish and serve,
beautifully overlapping slices, as this will top the finished dish. or cover tightly with foil until you are ready to serve.
© NASSIMA ROTHAKER

Taken from House & Garden – A Year in the Kitchen: Seasonal recipes for everyday pleasure by Blanche Vaughan, published by
Mitchell Beazley at £35. To buy from The Week Bookshop for £27.99 (incl. p&p), call 020-3176 3835 or visit theweekbookshop.co.uk.

6 January 2024 THE WEEK

32 LEISURE Consumer
The best… accessories for dogs The Good Vibes sweater
A machine-washable
knitted jumper made
Adjustable from 5% cashmere and
harness This is 55% wool, for style-
made from quick- conscious dog owners
drying, breathable Dog (£60; selfridges.com).
fabric and has ball
adjustable neck launcher
Drying gauntlets Ideal for drying
and chest straps Upgrade your game of
your dog’s wet, muddy legs and
(four sizes fetch with this tennis ball
paws, these double-layered mitts
available, £26; launcher, which comes with

SOURCES: EVENING STANDARD/THE DAILY TELEGRAPH/THE SUNDAY TIMES/T3/COUNTRY LIFE/THE GUARDIAN

are made from super-absorbent
pawsomepaws two balls and a carry strap
cotton (£21; dogrobes.co.uk).
boutique.co.uk). (£17; menkind.co.uk).

The Dog One – Crumb

shampoo bar Soap- and pet tag If
sulphate-free, this is someone
gentle on the dog’s skin, finds a dog
and creates only a little and scans
lather, which is easy to the QR
rinse out. An independent code on
UK retailer, Kind2 plants this smart
a tree for every order collar tag, it will send the owner’s
MalsiPree dog (£10; kind2.me). phone an instant GPS alert (£3/month;
water bottle With crumb.pet).
this leak-proof
Travel dog car-
bottle, you can Pet teepee Instead of a
seat bed Dogs are
pour water straight traditional basket, your dog (or cat)
supposed to be
into the attached might like to snuggle up in this
restrained in cars.
bowl (350ml £14, 75cm x 50cm teepee, which comes
This seat bed can be
550ml £16; amazon. with a comfortable cushion (£60;
buckled to a car seat,
co.uk). oliverbonas.com).
and the dog secured
with in-built leads.
The cover is machine
washable (from £64;
funnyfuzzy.co.uk).

Adjustable
Dog & Bay towel for pets dog collar This
Dock & Bay has expanded its leather and
range of quick-dry towels to rope collar is
include this one for pets, made by local
which comes in various artisans in
colours. Made of waffle Cape Town
fabric, it has pockets to and comes in six sizes. The tag can be
keep your own hands dry personalised with your phone number
(from £20; dockandbay.com). (from £85; chommies.com).

Tips... getting the right
amount of protein
OProtein is an essential component of
a healthy diet, vital for everything from
building strong bones and muscles to an
efficient immune system. It can also reduce
hunger pangs, promoting weight loss.
OHowever, too much can increase the risk
of kidney stones, cancer, diabetes and heart
failure, and impair calcium absorption.
OOfficial advice is that people need 0.75g
per kilo of bodyweight. It isn’t stored like fat
or carbs, so should be consumed daily.
OWe need more protein as we age. After
the age of 50, women in particular need
extra protein to keep muscle mass.
ORich sources of good-quality protein
include eggs, meat, fish, full-fat Greek
yoghurt and cottage cheese.
OIt’s important to get some from plant-
based sources too: nuts, spinach and other
leafy greens, mushrooms, soya, lentils and
beans are all good sources.
OIf you’re looking at protein bars or shakes,
opt for those with whey or pea protein.
SOURCE: THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
And for those who
have everything…
Dishwasher-safe and wireless, the
Glowstone smart mug will keep your tea
or coffee at a perfect 62°C for up to an
hour, and turn itself off automatically
when it is empty. Its charging plate can
also be used to charge some phones.
from £130; glowstone.tech
SOURCE: THE TIMES
Where to find... the best
ancestry DNA kits
DNA tests can give fascinating insights into
your ancestry, but be warned: they may
reveal secrets that you or other members
of your family find disturbing.
23andMe tells you where in the world your
ancestors came from, lists DNA relatives
from its database, and provides analyses of
your genetic vulnerability to conditions such
as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, if you wish
to receive them (from £99; 23andme.com).
Boasting an unrivalled consumer base of
more than 20 million, the Ancestry DNA
test is great for those seeking to build a
family tree. Like 23andMe, it offers links to
people with DNA matches, but you’ll need
to pay additional fees to keep your family
tree growing (from £79; ancestry.co.uk).
MyHeritage focuses on ancestry, with
results presented on a spinning 3D globe.
You can review DNA matches and build
a family tree supported by public records
including censuses and voter lists (from
£34; myheritage.com).
SOURCE: THE INDEPENDENT

THE WEEK 6 January 2024

 Travel LEISURE 33

Wonderful hotels to discover in 2024

From timeless classics to stylish new openings, here are six hotels that travel journalists recommend for this year

A country house in the Cotswolds Low-key luxury in Greece

Lucknam Park Wiltshire The Rooster
This elegant Georgian manor Antiparos, Greece
house at the southern tip of Sat in a remote valley
the Cotswolds has operated overlooking a wild
as a hotel under the same beach on the Greek
ownership since 1987. It’s the island of Antiparos,
place for a “truly spoiling” this wellness retreat is
weekend retreat, says the epitome of “quiet
Fiona Duncan in The Daily luxury”, says Anna van
Telegraph, with a Michelin- Praagh in the Evening
starred restaurant, traditional Standard. Its 16 low-slung villas are built from the honey-
decor and carefully tended gardens. Rooms are “lavishly coloured local stone, and are further “camouflaged” by beautifully
comfortable”, and there are also six cottages in the grounds. The landscaped gardens. Their soothing interiors feature “muted”
spa is superb, and has an “indulgently long” indoor pool and an shades and natural materials – “rough-hewn” marble, driftwood
outdoor hydrotherapy one. In the main restaurant, chef Hywel four-poster beds – and all have huge sun decks, outdoor rain
Jones draws heavily on local ingredients for his tasting menus, showers and plunge pools. The Mediterranean food in the airy
and there’s also a more informal brasserie. The hotel is within hillside restaurant is delicate and flavoursome, with most
easy striking distance of Bath, but there’s much to do on site too, ingredients drawn from The Rooster’s own organic farm, and
including tennis, riding and archery, and a playroom for children. there’s a “picturesque” yoga pavilion and an excellent spa.
Doubles from £375; lucknampark.co.uk. Doubles from £735 b&b; theroosterantiparos.com.

A remote Caribbean beach retreat The Grand Canal’s grand dame

Casa Chablé Mexico The Gritti Palace Venice
Caribbean beach resorts Built by the doge Andrea Gritti
don’t come more remote or in 1475, this palace on Venice’s
peaceful than Casa Chablé, Grand Canal has been a hotel
says Tatler. This new since 1895. It’s the city’s
addition to Mexico’s Chablé “ultimate grand dame”, said
hotel group sits beside Lee Marshall in Condé Nast
a stretch of “powdery” Traveller, and is like a museum
white sand in the vast of the city’s “decorative
and wondrous Sian Ka’an history”, with its silk and
Biosphere Reserve, a 35-minute speedboat ride from the town damask wall coverings,
of Tulum. New developments here are banned, so it occupies the “acres” of painted stucco, and gilded ceiling beams “from which
pleasingly petite footprint of an older nature retreat, and has just Murano chandeliers hang like elegant jellyfish”. Everyone from
ten rooms – five in the main house, and five in beachfront villas Churchill and Hemingway to Garbo and De Niro has stayed
with whitewashed walls and dark sapodilla wood floors. The here, and “you don’t need to book the airily magnificent Somerset
“shack-like” restaurant is overseen by Jorge Vallejo of Mexico Maugham Royal Suite to feel you have joined the club” – the
City’s Quintonil (ranked ninth on the list of the World’s 50 Best “entry-level” rooms are equally atmospheric. The Gritti Terrace’s
Restaurants). It’s a wonderful place to do very little, but there is view of the Salute church makes it one of Venice’s “finest
plenty to do if you want to, including birdwatching, snorkelling, breakfast spots”, and there’s a good restaurant and a wonderfully
and fishing. Doubles from £592 b&b; chablehotels.com. intimate bar. Doubles from about £675 b&b; marriott.com.

Home from home in the Highlands A serene hideaway in the Himalayas

Lundies House &BEYOND Punakha
Tongue, Scotland River Lodge Bhutan
Occupying a Victorian The tiny Himalayan
clergyman’s house beside the nation of Bhutan has no
Kyle of Tongue (a sea-loch shortage of luxury hotels,
on Scotland’s north coast), but this new one offers
Lundies House is one of the more carefully arranged
most beautiful hotels in the outdoor activities than
Highlands, says Antonia some. Its main lodge is
Quirke in Condé Nast a traditional Bhutanese
Traveller. Opened four years structure tucked away in woodland on the Mo Chhu River, says
ago by Anne and Anders Holch Povlsen (known for their efforts Tatler, with views over “vibrant green” rice terraces. There’s a cosy
to rewild large tracts of Scotland), it has just eight bedrooms, all bar-lounge filled with historic objects such as prayer wheels and
decorated in a “supremely lulling colour palette”. The “warm” arrow quivers, and a large swimming pool, a yoga pavilion and
communal areas have “the atmosphere of an intimate country a full spa. Guests stay in two small houses and six spacious tented
house”, and the dining room is “luminous”, its walls hand-painted suites, each with a bath tub and indoor and outdoor showers. The
with a “shimmering dreamscape of midsummer blossom”. Food is restaurant serves global dishes and gourmet spins on Bhutanese
“immaculately seasonal”, and there’s a natural pool for swimming classics, and activities include archery, white-water rafting, and
and a huge fire pit, beside which it’s a delight to sit, sipping on wonderful hikes to remote lakes and mountain-top monasteries.
Orkney gin, in the evenings. From £450 b&b; lundies.scot. Doubles from £725, full board; andbeyond.com.

6 January 2024 THE WEEK

34 Obituaries
French politician who helped create the European Union
Jacques Delors, who has died
Jacques
aged 98, was the president of
Delors
the European Commission
1925-2023
during its “most imperial and
self-confident years”, said The Guardian. He
was appointed in 1985, when the EU was still
a relatively small club known as the European
Economic Community, and over the next ten
years, he tirelessly promoted his vision for it as
a single regulated market for goods and services
across Europe, with no borders, a centralised
federal governing system, and its own currency.
The global economy, he said, was made up
of competing power blocs. “In order to face
American and Japanese challenges, we need
to be supranational.” Such was his significance
as an architect of the EU that his biographer
described it as the “house that Jacques built”.
But his push towards federalisation met with
fierce resistance, especially in Britain, said The Delors: driven by “euro-zeal”
Daily Telegraph. In 1988, he gave a speech to
the Trades Union Congress in which he asserted the need for
the “internal market” to benefit all citizens – which would mean
improving workers’ conditions. His talk of a “Social Europe” won The recession that followed put pressure on the EC. Realising
the TUC over to his cause, but it infuriated Margaret Thatcher,
and “fanned the flames of europhobia”. In 1990, he earned the
“distinction” of having the entire front page of The Sun dedicated
to him. Throwing its “populist weight” behind Thatcher’s view
that an unelected eurocrat was seeking to take Britain through
the “back door” into a federalist superstate, it printed its famous
headline: “UP YOURS DELORS” alongside a photo of two fingers policy disagreements with others in his party. Later, he described
in rude salute. Delors, however, seemed unperturbed: he reflected
that the British were “reticent” about integration. Despite their
disagreements, he respected Thatcher, and while she deplored his
efforts to extend the EU’s sphere of competence, saying they went
beyond what she believed had been agreed by the Single European (he once told a Greek commissioner that he was unfit to run a
Act, she twice voted for his reappointment – in 1988 and 1990.
Jacques Delors was born in 1925 in Paris’s working-class 11th
arrondissement, the son of a low-level employee at the Bank of
France who’d been wounded during the First World War. His
education was interrupted by the Nazi occupation, and he did not
attend one of the grandes écoles that typically produce France’s
Respected actor who found fame in The Full Monty
Tom Tom Wilkinson, who has died
Wilkinson aged 75, was one of Britain’s
1948-2023 most respected actors. Unflashy
and dependable, he had a
tremendous capacity to inhabit the characters he
played in more than 100 films and TV dramas,
said The Guardian, and even after achieving big
screen stardom, following his appearance in The
Full Monty (1997), he was careful to retain a
degree of anonymity. Some actors enjoy being
famous, he reflected. “Me, I don’t care for it at all.”
Thomas Geoffrey Wilkinson was born in 1948 in
Leeds, but spent part of his childhood in Canada
– which left him with a useful ability to switch
between accents. His parents had moved there in
search of a better life, said The Daily Telegraph. Wilkinson: honed his craft on stage The Daily Telegraph. He started to focus on film
That failed to materialise, however, so they
returned to the UK, settling in Cornwall, where they ran a pub.
When Tom was 16, his father died, and the family moved back
to Yorkshire. There, his life took a sharp turn when his new
headteacher decided to “make something of him” – by teaching
THE WEEK 6 January 2024
governing elite. Instead, at his father’s urging,
he took a job at the bank, and enrolled in night
classes in economics. In the years after the War,
he rose to become head of his department, and
was active in the Catholic workers’ movement.
In the 1960s, he taught economics at the august
École Nationale d’Administration, and worked
on modernising France’s labour laws. He joined
the Socialist Party in 1974, and in 1981 he was
made finance minister in François Mitterrand’s
government, said The Times. In that role, he
successfully shifted the party “away from
Marxist dogma”, and towards the centre.
By 1985, “his reputation across Europe was so
high that he was a natural choice” for the EC
presidency. Smitten by “euro-zeal”, he brought
a “sense of urgency” to the project, pushing
through the Single European Act – which
introduced majority voting on many issues –
in 1986, and then working on plans to remove
barriers to the free movement of people, money
and goods, some of which were enshrined in the Maastricht
Treaty of 1992, which brought the European Union into being.
that he’d moved “too far, too fast”, Delors kept a low profile for
a while. But soon he was back in the spotlight, unveiling a huge
spending programme to tackle unemployment. And when he
resigned in 1995, he expressed regret that he’d not done more
to bring about a common defence or foreign policy. That year,
he was urged to run for the French presidency, but refused, citing
this as a failure of nerve that he regretted. “I lack a quality that is
essential for a politician: believing in myself,” he said.
Hard working and fiercely disciplined, Delors could be abrasive
taverna), and was known for his rages. But he had great powers of
persuasion too, and few doubted his principles or his commitment
to what he perceived as shared European values. A man of modest
tastes, he and his wife Marie, who shared his strong Christian
faith, lived quietly in Paris. They had two children, one of whom
died of leukaemia in 1982, aged 29. Away from politics, his
passions included jazz and cinema. Marie died in 2020.
him table manners and taking him to the theatre.
“Having wandered aimlessly through school,
suddenly someone took an interest in me.”
He started acting at the University of Kent, then
won a place at Rada. Spotted by Richard Eyre,
he honed his craft at the Nottingham Playhouse,
in works by Shakespeare, Brecht and others, and
did a two-year stint at the RSC. He was twice
nominated for an Olivier for his stage work; then
in the early 1990s, he started appearing regularly
on TV, notably as Pecksniff in a BBC adaptation
of Martin Chuzzlewit. He played Mr Dashwood
in Ang Lee’s film of Sense and Sensibility, but it
was his role as the ex-foreman in The Full Monty
that “changed the trajectory of his career”, said
work, and was soon in demand in Hollywood,
where he appeared in everything from Batman Begins to Michael
Clayton (which won him the second of two Oscar nominations).
He had married the actress Diana Hardcastle in 1988. She
survives him, along with their two daughters.
 CITY 35
Companies in the news
...and how they were assessed
Aldi/Lidl: Christmas champs
In the run-up to Christmas, there were
hopes among the traditional Big Four
supermarkets that “the discounters” might
at last be “losing momentum”, said Daniel
Woolfson in The Daily Telegraph. Not a bit Seven days in the
of it. The cost-of-living crisis has delivered
another bumper season for German
Square Mile
chains Aldi and Lidl, which both enjoyed The price of oil jumped, heading back
“record festive sales” (up by 8% and 12% towards $79/barrel, as tensions escalated
respectively, year-on-year) – having poached in the Red Sea where Iran dispatched
“millions of shoppers from legacy rivals” a warship in response to the US navy’s
with the lure of cut-price treats such as sinking of three Houthi boats last
Wagyu beef and own-brand champagne. weekend. The shipping giant Maersk
Both reported that Friday 22 December was their busiest trading day ever. Shoppers said it would halt all transit through
the channel “until further notice”.
across the board were buoyed by easing food inflation, which fell for the eighth The Chinese manufacturing industry
consecutive month in December, said Jess Jones in City AM. Prices of wine, port and contracted for its third consecutive
sherry all trended downwards, giving further cause for merriment. Elsewhere in the month in December, upping the pressure
sector, the sense of foreboding was palpable ahead of new year trading updates, said on leaders to revive the economy. In
Alex Ralph in The Times. Retailers remain “among the most heavily shorted stocks on his new year’s address, President Xi
the London Stock Exchange”, with hedge funds “poised to profit” from any weakness. admitted that the world’s second-largest
Boohoo, Asos, Kingfisher and J. Sainsbury are among those in the crosshairs. economy was facing “wind and rain”.
UK mortgage providers delivered a new
X/Twitter: looming bankruptcy? year boost by slashing rates on deals.
There’s no stopping the valuation rout at X/Twitter, said Vlad Savov on Bloomberg. Even The country’s biggest lender, Halifax, cut
Elon Musk’s closest backers are running scared following a slump in the platform’s ad its two-year fixed rate, for those whose
old deal is ending, by 0.83 percentage
sales last year. The investment firm Fidelity, which helped Musk complete his $44bn
points to 4.81% – in a move likely to
purchase of Twitter, has cut another 11% off the value of its holding – meaning it now spark action from other lenders in an
reckons X is “worth less than a third of the price” the billionaire paid in 2022. Musk’s intensely competitive market. One
own antics haven’t helped, said Danny Fortson in The Sunday Times. In November, he mortgage broker predicted “a manic
told Disney chief Bob Iger and other advertisers to “go f**k” themselves, after they week of rate cuts”. Nonetheless, the
halted spending on X following his endorsement of an antisemitic post. The big question overall outlook for the housing market
now is how long the platform can remain solvent, said Richard Waters in the FT. Musk remained subdued. Prices are expected
has often used warnings of bankruptcy in the past “to motivate” staff at Tesla and to continue falling in 2024, while rents
SpaceX. “But this time, with X’s advertising tanking and attempts to create new sources continue to rise.
of revenue falling flat, there’s a good chance it will happen.” He may well be “reckless Tesla was overtaken by China’s BYD
enough” to think he can put X through bankruptcy “and still come out on top”. as the world’s biggest EV maker (see
page 38). HSBC announced plans for a
Microsoft: move over Apple? payments app, Zing, which will challenge
digital rivals Revolut and Wise. One of
“A decade ago, Microsoft was a company on its knees,” said Hasan Chowdhury Thames Water’s largest investors, the
on Business Insider – dependent on legacy products and facing “a struggle to remain pension fund USS, slashed the value
relevant”. But 2023 was the year of its “glow-up”. Having already conquered the of its stake by nearly two-thirds.
cloud under CEO Satya Nadella, the tech behemoth outpaced rivals with blockbuster Aviva boss Amanda Blanc was made
deals (notably the $68.7bn deal to grab gaming giant Activision Blizzard) and – most a dame on the New Year Honours list
significantly – positioned itself as “the most influential powerbroker in AI”. In the year and praised for steering the insurer
of AI, no Big Tech company “leaned into the trend” quite like Microsoft, said Samantha through “difficult years”.
Murphy Kelly on CNN. It made the running by commercialising and adding AI tools
such as ChatGPT into its suite of products well ahead of the competition. Under Nadella’s
leadership, Microsoft has re-emerged as a tech innovator, and “Wall Street has noticed”:
the stock jumped 55% last year. Microsoft ended the year “nipping at the heels” of the Mona Lisa moment
world’s most valuable company, Apple, said Keithen Drury on The Motley Fool. Will it The world’s longest established rare-
overtake it in 2024? Given Microsoft’s current momentum, “it’s hard to argue against it”. stamp dealer, Stanley Gibbons,
describes itself as “the home of stamp
DRJB Holdings: booming like Beckham collecting”. But a fatal fascination with a
rare stamp – dubbed “the Mona Lisa of
David Beckham headed to the Ritz to see in the New Year with his wife Victoria and the philatelic world” – appears to have
family, said Fay Leyfield in The Sun. The former Manchester United midfielder had every felled it, said Shares. The dealer, which
reason to celebrate. The latest accounts show that revenues at his “sprawling business began trading in 1856, borrowed heavily
empire” more than doubled to £72.6m in 2022, on the back of lucrative deals with from its largest shareholder, Phoenix
Netflix and Qatar’s World Cup, said Hannah Boland in The Daily Telegraph. Branding SG, to buy the prized 1856 1c Magenta
experts had cautioned against his decision to act as an “ambassador” in Qatar, owing stamp, from British Guiana, for £6.3m in
to its poor human rights and LGBTQ+ record, but the move looks to have paid off. Ditto 2021. But the plan to net £8m by selling
the foray into filmmaking, said the FT. The Beckham documentary series was a massive “fractional shares” in the stamp to
outside investors bombed – and Stanley
hit on Netflix, and his production company, Studio 99, also cleaned up on Amazon with
Gibbons went bust in December. The
a documentary on snooker player Ronnie O’Sullivan. In February 2022, Beckham sold a company has now been sold to Strand
55% stake of DRJB Holdings to Authentic Brands, for “hundreds of millions of pounds”, Collectibles in a “fast-track insolvency
taking a stake in the US group (which also owns the Hunter boots and Ted Baker brands) process”. Not quite licked, then.
as part of the deal. By contrast, Victoria’s fashion company “has never made a profit”.

6 January 2024 THE WEEK

36 CITY Talking points
Issue of the week: the economic outlook in 2024
Barring a big shock, rosier times are predicted – even in gloomy, grey Britain
It was a “dismal year” for the “dismal just right, there are big questions “about
science”, said The Economist: 2023 the quantity of the porridge”. US output
began with “prognostications of doom per hour is growing at only “half the
and gloom”, and ended up in a series of pace” achieved during the late 1990s,
“mistaken recession calls”, forcing many and reports of the death of inflation
economists to eat humble pie. Not only “have been greatly exaggerated”. The
did the US, the world’s biggest economy, possibility of “a fresh rise in inflation”
grow by an above-trend 3%, but it hasn’t gone away, agreed Larry Elliott
dragged others up with it. Recession in The Guardian. “A disruptive oil shock
has been avoided in most of the world, was the dog that didn’t bark in 2023.”
even if some countries, including Britain, But if recent attacks on shipping in the
have teetered on the brink – busting the Red Sea succeed in pushing oil above
widespread belief that inflation wouldn’t $100/barrel, all bets are off.
fall rapidly without a marked downturn.
When the US Fed took a “doveish turn” For Britons, the new year began with
in December – suggesting a fast cycle of less optimism than elsewhere. The FT’s
interest rate cuts this year – forecasters Goldilocks: but is there enough porridge? annual survey of economists predicted
were sent “scrambling to rewrite their that “grey gloom” would replace “black
outlooks” again. The talk now is all of a “goldilocks” outcome: gloom”. Almost all forecast that growth would stall, or at best
a rosy scenario in which the economy motors along at optimum hit 0.5%, in 2024. Still, “there are reasons to be hopeful”, said
temperature, neither too hot, nor too cold. the FT. First, the UK begins the year “with a more stable policy
outlook” than of late; it is one of the few major economies where
“Last Christmas, everyone and their grandma feared a recession,” an election will be contested “between two relatively centrist
Vincent Chaigneau of Generali Investments told The Observer. “A parties”. Secondly, businesses have adjusted to costlier EU trading
year later, they’re all worshipping goldilocks. Beware the pitfalls arrangements and are investing again, thanks to generous capital
of the consensus.” Quite so, said HSBC’s chief economic adviser allowances. Thirdly, wage growth and interest-rate cuts may
Stephen King in The Times – not least because goldilocks is “no bolster the economy. London remains the largest hub for startups
guarantee of a return to economic vibrancy”. Even if the US really in Europe, we’re world leaders in offshore wind… the list rolls on.
is undergoing an “immaculate disinflation” and the temperature is The UK’s “bearish outlook” might be tamed by the end of year.

The Footsie at 40: what the experts think Niche bets

O Unhappy birthday too simple to blame Last year provided “some big wins”
2023 turned out to be everything on that. The for traders “willing to dive into more
the best year for global two key factors behind esoteric markets”, said the FT. Here are
stocks since 2019 – the decline – the lack of some offbeat picks that paid off...
with the MSCI World a leading tech sector Turkish dollar bonds While elsewhere
Index surging by 22%. and the abandonment the “year of the bond” fell flat, Turkey’s
But it was “hardly a of equities by UK dollar debt delivered returns of around
happy birthday” for pension funds – had 16%, during a turbulent year for other
the FTSE 100, which been in train for years. assets – as investors “cheered signs
turned 40 this week, Another issue is the that the country would pursue a more
conventional policy course”.
said Chris Dorrell in FTSE’s “heavy
City AM. A late rally The FTSE in 1984: its “idyllic youth” weighting in Uranium The price of the element,
meant that London’s international mining known as yellowcake, hit a 15-year high
headline index ended the year 4% up. But groups”, which “drags on the index” when of $90 per pound – driven by energy
as it approaches middle age, “there are commodity prices are weak – as they have security concerns following Russia’s
been for most of the past decade. invasion of Ukraine and the drive
growing concerns about its relevance” in
towards net zero. “A few very noisy
an increasingly US-dominated landscape. bulls helped.” Investors reckon that
Today’s stagnant ennui is a far cry from the O Cigarettes and analytics the price has further to go.
excitement surrounding the Footsie’s birth Over 40 years, the Footsie’s constituents
in 1984, two years before the London have changed radically: of the original 100 Solana One of this cryptocurrency’s
Stock Exchange’s deregulatory “Big Bang”. members, “only a quarter are still present biggest backers was Sam Bankman-
Fried. But having suffered a 90%
As investment analyst Laith Khalaf of AJ in recognisable form”, said Nils Pratley in
collapse when his FTX collapsed,
Bell sums up: “an idyllic youth has given The Guardian. And some of those (Aviva, Solana – “once touted as the future of
way to an austere adulthood”. NatWest and Shell) have been through too digital finance” – roared “back to life”.
many corporate reorganisations to allow
O An excruciating lag for meaningful performance data. On that Hidroelectrica Few would have
You might call the underperformance of score, over the long haul, “cigarettes and expected a Romanian state-owned
renewables firm to top the year’s list
this “once-revolutionary index” a “very analytics” have won. The FTSE 100’s two of European IPOs. But Hidroelectrica’s
British disappointment”, said John Authers outstanding performers have been British oversubscribed $2bn float in July was
on Bloomberg. But the FTSE’s “excruciating American Tobacco and the data company Europe’s biggest since Porsche in 2022.
lag”, compared with both the US S&P 500 Relx (formerly Reed Elsevier), which have
and the MSCI world index, is quite a transformed £100 invested in 1984 into Cocoa Futures hit an all-time high as
extreme weather ravaged crops in West
recent development, dating from about £33,246 and £35,493 respectively, said
Africa, rising by some 91% during the
three years after the 2008 financial crisis. Patrick Hosking in The Times. Crucially, year. The market may be in “for an
The gap widened significantly after the both are “serial dividend-raisers”. That, aggressive downward correction”.
2016 Brexit referendum, but it would be over time, drags up your share price.

THE WEEK 6 January 2024

38 CITY Commentators
In a new year blow to Elon Musk, Tesla has just been overtaken
by Chinese rival BYD as the world’s best-selling electric carmaker City profiles
BYD has the – at least in the last quarter. It’s quite a “milestone”, says David
Fickling, but it won’t be the last chalked up by this upstart, which
The best CEOs of 2023
Sluggish growth, inflation,
whole world now has “the whole car industry” in its sights. To many, BYD is
still “a little-known car brand”, better known in the West for
fractious geopolitics and
toxic culture wars left many
in its sights being backed by the renowned investor Warren Buffett than
for “sightings of actual vehicles out on the road”. Its market
“corporate chieftains feeling
like tightrope walkers” in
David Fickling valuation remains just “one-tenth the size of Tesla”. Yet on 2023, said The Economist
almost every financial metric, it is either advancing on or But it was “a vintage year”
Bloomberg overtaking its American rival, “spitting out profits that have led for some. The shortlist of
to the best returns on equity” in the industry. It is now “setting its “superstars” who generated
huge value for investors
horizons well beyond China” – one in ten of its vehicles are sold includes David Ricks of Eli
overseas. The most substantive arguments against BYD are that Lilly, now the world’s most
it has “grown too far too fast” and that its cars are “more stolid valuable pharma, and Mark
than compelling”. That didn’t stop the Toyota Corolla becoming Zuckerberg of Meta, who
“the best-selling four-wheeler in history”. having “terrifying investors
in 2022 with his descent
Plenty of grand claims have been made for the 15% “global into metaverse madness”,
minimum tax rate” on multinational companies which, after then delighted them with
his “year of efficiency”. It
The dangers several years of negotiations, came into force in around 50
countries this week, says Matthew Lynn. “It will stop the race
was also a great year for
David Vélez Osorno of the
of a “global to the bottom”: putting tax havens out of business and ensuring
that companies pay their fair share, rather than “shuffling” profits
Brazilian “neobank” Nubank.

minimum” tax around the world. That’s the theory anyway. In practice, this new
tax is “a terrible idea” that “should have been killed off at birth”.
Matthew Lynn For a start, the world’s two largest economies – the US and China
– haven’t yet signed up. More importantly, it is “a monstrous
The Daily Telegraph intrusion on national sovereignty”. A defining feature of any state
is the ability to control its own affairs by setting tax rates. And
this looks like the thin end of the wedge. “Once the 15% floor
is established... we can expect politicians to find one emergency
or another to raise it to 20%, and then 25%.” And why stop at
corporation tax? We could soon have global green levies too, as
well as wealth and inheritance taxes. The UK should never have
signed up for this – “we should get out while there is still time”.

The luxury industry has proved “a rare bright spot” for Europe,
“at a time when the continent seems at risk of fading into The stand-out winner,
though, was Jensen Huang
Luxury has economic and technological irrelevance”, says The Economist.
No one does it better – ensuring that European companies have
(pictured) of the chipmaker
Nvidia, whose value soared
kept Europe been the main beneficiaries of “a remarkable two decades” in
which global sales have tripled to nearly $400bn. Even last year’s
past $1trn as it cemented
its position as “the power
afloat comparatively sluggish 4% growth was “nothing to scoff at”,
amid fears of a slowing global economy. Could Europe ever lose
behind the AI revolution”.
Huang, whose signature
Editorial its crown? It seems unlikely, given its unique blend of heritage, leather jacket is “as integral
artisanal skills and strategy. “Luxury firms have ridden high on to his public persona” as
The Economist the world’s continuing fascination with the old continent.” Thus Steve Jobs’ turtlenecks,
“reportedly shares the Apple
New York tends to lose top designers to European capitals – much founder’s intensity and
as Europe loses techies to Silicon Valley. Luxury champions also exacting standards”. The
deserve credit for reinforcing their dominance by steadily buying icing on the cake is that he
stakes in their suppliers – and each other. Enthusiasm for the is “adored” by staff, with
“horizontal integration” practised by behemoths like LVMH isn’t a 98% approval rating.
universal, but it has proved a necessary price for keeping Europe’s
multigenerational family businesses “at the ritziest end of luxury”. In Britain, there were a
handful of top performances,
If a year can be defined by a word or phrase, “cozzie livs” was said Ruth Sunderland in the
Daily Mail. Special mention
right up there in 2023, says Claer Barrett. The cost-of-living crisis goes to Stuart Machin and
“Cozzie livs”: is “responsible for putting a sizeable dent in our personal finances
– and this abomination in the dictionary”. It might sound like an
Archie Norman – the dream
team behind M&S’s revival.
a horror that’s Australianism, but its use originated in the UK among the “over-
mortgaged middle classes” who have resorted to selling second-
But when it came to packing
a punch, few rivalled Rolls-
here to stay? hand clothes on sites such as Vinted and Depop. After one buyer
asked an Instagram seller for a discount, the response went viral.
Royce’s new boss, Tufan
Erginbilgic, who “convinced
Claer Barrett “I can’t go that low, sorry babe… especially with the cozzie livs the City he could succeed
and all that jazz.” Goodness knows we needed a laugh as bills, where predecessors failed”,
and “tripled” the value of
Financial Times rent, mortgages, groceries and the tax burden shot up, but the the turbulent engine-maker.
cringe factor of “cozzie livs” only compounded the misery – Whether or not he can
particularly for those at the sharp end of the cost-of-living crisis. sustain such highs remains
“With inflation falling globally, there is hope that the squeeze on to be seen. But no one can
living standards could ease in 2024, which would lessen the term’s deny that “Turbo Tufan” got
chances of linguistic survival.” But don’t count on it. “My advice off to a phenomenal start.
for the Government? Beware the Genny Lex in 2024.”

THE WEEK 6 January 2024

 Shares CITY 39

Who’s tipping what

Shares for the year ahead
Agronomics
The Mail on Sunday
This cellular agriculture
firm invests in meat, fish and
dairy substitute makers –
using “clever scientists and
sophisticated technology”
to produce sustainable
top-grade food. A punt on
Directors’ dealings
Empire Metals Land Securities Group BT Group
The Mail on Sunday The Mail on Sunday
This early-stage explorer may Shares in Britain’s largest 135
have discovered a massive property firm, with shopping Director sells
titanium resource in Western malls nationwide, offer 130 160,000
Australia. The potential is “plenty of upside”. Vacancies
“immense” – titanium is an are down and lettings up, 125
“essential component of due to a smaller City office
daily life and military might”. footprint and greater West 120

an early-stage business in Not for the faint-hearted, End exposure. Yields 5.5%.
a growing industry. Buy. 9.5p. though. Buy. 9.3p. Buy. 705p. 115

Amazon Empiric Student Property Marks & Spencer Group Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan
The Times The Times The Times

SOURCE: INVESTORS’ CHRONICLE

After an overambitious
pandemic expansion, Amazon
has slashed costs to restore
profitability. Forecast-beating
sales and likely US rate cuts
bode well, as does its ability to
capitalise on AI. Buy. $153.25.
BAE Systems
The Sunday Times
The defence firm should
benefit from increased military
spending, amid continued
geopolitical uncertainty.
A £4bn contract to build
submarines for Australia
to counter China’s Pacific
dominance should keep it
busy. Buy. £11.11.
Carnival
The Sunday Times
The P&O Cruises and
Cunard operator rode the
pandemic-rebound wave
in 2023. Shares have since
slipped, yet robust US and
European demand suggests
there’s further to go. Raising
prices and paying down debt;
and stable fuel prices should
boost recovery. Buy. £13.13.
The property firm, which
endured a heavy sell-off amid
rapidly rising interest rates,
could be due a rerating.
An undersupply of student
accommodation could lead
to upgrades, or a takeover
bid. Buy. 94.5p.
Glencore
The Daily Telegraph
“Don’t be fooled” by falling
profits – the miner’s future
looks bright given strong
finances and improving
global economic prospects.
Its diverse portfolio includes
commodities central to
the energy transition, Yields
7.4%. Buy. 466.35p.
hVIVO
The Sunday Times
hVIVO runs fast-tracked
human clinical trials – testing
vaccines and antivirals for
clients including GSK.
Defensive and fast-growing,
with a £16.8m contract for
testing a drug candidate for
the respiratory virus RSV.
“More to come.” Buy. 23.75p.
Capex on the fibre-optic rollout
Food sales and stronger is falling, as is inflation, and
margins have sent the the telco is boosting margins
high-street stalwart’s profits via price hikes. But BT’s
“way ahead” of forecasts. The monopoly “isn’t what it used
improved clothing and home to be”, given competition from
Virgin Media and CityFibre.
arm, pruned product ranges CFO Simon Lowth has sold
and store modernisations are £200,000-worth of shares.
all bearing fruit. Buy. 272.4p.
Sage Group Form guide
The Sunday Times
This “home-grown tech Shares tipped 7 January 2023
giant” provides accounting, Best tip
HR and payroll software hVivo
to small- and medium-sized The Mail on Sunday
businesses. Not cheap, but up 157.5% to 25.75p
integrating AI into products
will put “new boosters” Worst tip
under shares. Buy. £11.73. XP Power
The Sunday Times
down 37.49% to £12.72
Tracsis
Investors’ Chronicle
Tracsis software is being
used by train companies – Market view
a volatile sector struggling “Our outlook for 2024 is for a
with industrial action – to gradual U-shaped recovery...
transform rail infrastructure Investors may have to step
back a bit to see the bigger
in the UK and the US. It
picture and look beyond
has limited competition, the noise and volatility.”
improving margins, and is Charles Schwab brokerage
“equipped to make further note. Quoted on Bloomberg
acquisitions”. Buy. 915p.

Market summary
Key numbers
Key numbers for
for investors
investors Best and worst performing
Best performing shares
shares Following the Footsie
2 Jan 2024 Week before Change (%) WEEK’S CHANGE, FTSE 100 STOCKS
FTSE 100 7721.52 7697.51 0.31% RISES Price % change 7,700
FTSE All-share UK 4220.90 4213.05 0.19% AstraZeneca 10788.00 +3.40
BAE Systems 1116.00 +2.40 7,650
Dow Jones 37743.65 37500.93 0.65%
Barclays 155.28 +2.30
NASDAQ 14819.51 15055.14 −1.57% 7,600
Tesco 293.10 +2.20
Nikkei 225 33464.17 33305.85 0.48%
Hang Seng 16788.55 16340.41 2.74% GSK 1479.80 +2.10 7,550

Gold 2078.40 2041.70 1.80% 7,500

Brent Crude Oil 76.35 81.59 −6.42% FALLS
DIVIDEND YIELD (FTSE 100) 3.78% 3.88% Smurfit Kappa 3052.00 –4.20 7,450
UK 10-year gilts yield 3.84 3.50 Frasers 886.00 –4.00
7,400
US 10-year Treasuries 3.93 3.87 Diploma 3450.00 –3.60
UK ECONOMIC DATA Kingfisher 238.60 –3.30 7,350
Latest CPI (yoy) 3.9% (Nov) 4.6% (Oct) St. James’s Place 658.80 –3.30
7,300
Latest RPI (yoy) 5.3% (Nov) 6.1% (Oct)
Halifax house price (yoy) –1.0% (Nov) FTSE 250 RISER & FALLER
−3.2% (Oct) Diversified Energy 1198.50 +9.60 Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan
£1 STERLING: $1.265 s1.155 ¥180.322 Bitcoin $45,218.86 Carnival 1266.50 –7.30 6-month movement in the FTSE 100 index
Source: FT (not adjusted for dividends). Prices on 2 Jan (pm)

6 January 2024 THE WEEK

40 The long read

The Miracle of the Andes:

a survivor’s story
In October 1972, a flight carrying a team of young rugby players struck a ridge and crashed deep in the Andes.
Chris Godfrey talks to one of the survivors, Nando Parrado

All Nando Parrado Andes”. Parrado, now

remembers is a deep black 73 and speaking over
hole and one recurring video from his home in
thought: “I’m dead. I’m Montevideo, Uruguay,
dead. This is death. It’s so didn’t see it that way.
black that this is death.” “I think it was the effort
Hours passed, maybe of a group of young people
days. Then, a new thought: who trusted each other
“I’m thirsty. I’m craving beyond anything that
water. If I’m dead, I cannot you can imagine. And the
crave water.” result is that we are alive.”
More than 50 years on,
His awareness increased. he recounts the events
Why was it cold? Why with a careful matter-of-
did his head throb? Then, factness. He doesn’t often
voices. Parrado opened give interviews, but he
his eyes. “I remember the wanted to speak in the
clear, beautiful faces of run-up to the release of
my friends,” he recalls. Netflix’s Society of the
“And they were saying: Snow, the second major
‘Nando, are you OK? film to tell the survivors’
Nando, are you OK?’ story, after 1993’s Alive.
I was not OK. ‘The plane The survivors of flight 571 weeks before their rescue
crashed.’” He looked In October 1972, Parrado
around. He was inside a mangled fuselage that had rolled onto was 22, just a regular middle-class Uruguayan man waiting to
its side. The damage was catastrophic: exposed pipes and cables, start university. He helped in his father’s hardware shop, tore
crumpled metal, shattered plastic, detritus everywhere. around on his motorcycle, chased girls and played for his school
alumni rugby team, Old Christians. “It was an exciting time.”
He pressed the side of his head, his hair clumped with clotted He’d known most of the team for more than a decade and had
blood, the edges of splintered bone. His friend Roberto Canessa already travelled to Chile with them for a match. When a second
explained that the plane they were travelling on had hit a trip was announced, he wasn’t going to miss it.
mountain three days before and Parrado had been unconscious
since. Parrado’s thoughts turned to his mother, Eugenia, and sister Their team captain, Marcelo Pérez, had chartered a plane to take
Susy. “They told me: ‘Nando, your mother is dead. Panchito is them to Santiago, Chile. Parrado’s father dropped him off at
dead.’” Francisco “Panchito” Abal was his best friend. He’d made Montevideo airport, along with his mother and younger sister.
Parrado give up the window Owing to bad weather, the flight
seat for him during the flight. touched down early in Mendoza
“Panchito was my brother. He “I saw the magnitude of the place we were in. in Argentina, where the team
lived two or three days a week It’s immense. It’s huge. And I said: ‘F**k. This is stayed overnight. The pilots
in my home, he used my clothes.” delayed for much of the next
Susy was gravely injured, lying going to be horrible. They won’t find us here’” day, but the plane was leased
on the floor by the cockpit. from the Uruguayan Air Force
and the law forbade it from being on Argentinian soil for more
“I crawled to where my sister was and I embraced her on the than 24 hours. They boarded at 2pm and took off shortly
floor. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t talk. She could only move afterwards. It was the worst time of day to fly over the Andes,
her eyes. She lost her shoes in the crash and her feet were purple. with the afternoon’s warm air rising to create atmospheric
Those are the images that I have. I stayed with her. I melted instability. “Today, I would never go near that aeroplane,” Parrado
snow with my mouth and gave her water because we didn’t have says. “A Fairchild FH-227D, very underpowered engines, full of
anything.” Parrado didn’t leave her side until the next morning, people, completely loaded, flying over the highest mountains in
when he staggered outside. What was left of the plane had South America, in bad weather. I mean, no way.”
stopped on the slope of a glacier. The eastern horizon offered
only snow-capped peaks and plunging valleys. In every other The plane took off from Mendoza on Friday 13 October, a fact
direction they were ensnared by mountains. “I saw the magnitude that wasn’t lost on the rugby team, who joked about the date’s
of the place we were in. It’s immense. It’s huge,” he says. “And unlucky symbolism. On board were 45 people – the team, friends,
I said: ‘F**k. This is going to be horrible. How are we going to family and crew, as well as a stranger who had paid for a seat so
get out of here? They won’t find us here.’” she could get to a wedding. Flying directly over the Andes wasn’t
possible. The plane’s maximum cruising altitude was 6,858 metres
Parrado was right – no rescue team found them. But in December (22,500 feet); Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the range, is
1972, 72 days after Uruguayan Air Force flight 571 struck a ridge 6,960 metres. Instead, they would follow a U-shaped route: 100
and crashed deep in the Andes, he and 15 other passengers did miles south, then into the Andes and over Planchón Pass, where
make it off the mountain alive. It is an astonishing tale of survival. the ridges are lower, before heading north to Santiago. The flight
At the time, newspapers christened the story “The Miracle of the should have taken 90 minutes. An hour or so into the flight, the

THE WEEK 6 January 2024

 The long read
inexperienced co-pilot misjudged
his position – most likely owing
to cloud cover or miscalculating
headwinds. He turned the aircraft
north too early and headed deeper
into the Andes. Unaware of his
error, he began the descent to land.
The Fairchild entered thick fog.
The steward told the passengers
to fasten their seatbelts. Severe
turbulence shook the plane. It hit
an air pocket and dropped what
felt like hundreds of feet. Panchito,
Parrado’s best friend, elbowed
Parrado and pointed outside to
the mountain, perilously close
to the wing tip. Parrado Parrado and Páez Rodríguez embracing family after their rescue
remembers only flashes: the
realisation they shouldn’t be that close, some shouts, the worried
faces of his mother and sister. Then the plane began climbing,
climbing, climbing, its engine screaming, its fuselage vibrating
violently. “I heard this sound, like an implosion,” Parrado says,
“like a Formula 1 car hitting a wall head-on.” The sky opened
above him. He was thrown forward in his seat. Then: “I died
without realising I was dying. I went into a very black piece of,
I don’t know what… of the universe?”
Parrado’s peers would later fill him in. The pilots had tried
to lift the plane over an
oncoming mountain, but the
belly smashed into the ridge. “One night, Parrado turned to a friend and
The wings broke away. The told him he was prepared to eat meat from the The most primal fear.”
plane’s left propeller cut
through the fuselage. The bodies outside. ‘I didn’t have any doubts’”
tail snapped off at roughly the
point where Parrado was sitting. The fuselage tobogganed down
the mountain at terrifying speed. When it stopped, the cabin seats
were flung forward, ripping through their anchors and folding
into one another, crushing several passengers.
Those who could immediately worked through the wreckage to
help the injured and the trapped. Pérez, the team captain, took
charge. Gustavo Zerbino and Canessa, both medical students,
did what they could; bandaging fractured bones with strips of
clothing and cooling them in the snow. They found the pilot,
trapped in the crumpled cockpit. Before he died, he told them
they had passed Curicó; they were at the western limits of the
Andes. Back in the fuselage, a makeshift wall was constructed
from suitcases, seats and plane fragments to shelter from the
blistering winds. They covered any holes with snow. Of the 45
on board the flight, 33 survived, and 32 huddled together on the
first night. Parrado was originally presumed dead, which turned
out to be a blessing. “They left me in the snow. They didn’t give
me any water. They didn’t hydrate me.” Neuroscientists would
later tell him that the cold and dehydration stopped his head
injury swelling and killing him. Eventually, one of his friends
saw enough life in Parrado to warrant pulling him closer into
the fuselage and the rest of the group.
From the moment he woke up, there wasn’t a single moment
Parrado didn’t feel close to death. The group were more than
3,350 metres up in the Andes, where temperatures can hit -35°C.
Blizzards raged constantly and the air was so thin, it was possible
to be out of breath just standing still. One wrong step could lead
to being hip-deep in snow. They had no coats, no blankets, no
specialist mountaineering equipment of any kind. What surprised
Parrado most was the unbearable thirst. “You need water
permanently. You dehydrate five times faster at that altitude than
at sea level. And there’s no water, so you have to eat snow.” It
was so cold it burned their throats and cracked their lips. The
nights were brutal. They punched each other’s arms to improve
circulation. They huddled together and sought warmth in
41
one another’s breath. They would
wake up with frost in their hair.
Hope dwindled. On the fifth
morning, three boys tried to climb
the mountain, crafting snowshoes
from cushions tied to their feet
with seatbelts. The challenge was
too great and they returned by the
afternoon. Susy died in Parrado’s
arms on the eighth day. At the time,
he felt very little. “I learnt that at
those moments my brain didn’t
react to anything that was outside
survival. I couldn’t cry. I didn’t feel
sorrow.” He buried her the
following morning.
Starvation became a real possibility.
Some had tried eating leather from torn bits of luggage. They
had crashed with the bare minimum: some chocolate, nuts,
sweets, crackers, fruit, jars of jam, three bottles of wine and some
liquor. Meals would consist of one square of chocolate, or the
equivalent. Parrado took three days to eat one chocolate-covered
peanut. After a week, he knew what had to be done. One night,
he turned to his friend Carlitos [Carlos Páez Rodríguez] and
told him he was prepared to eat meat from the bodies outside.
“I didn’t have any doubts. I had arrived at the conclusion of
my thoughts very clearly. No doubt. This is the only way out,”
he says. “Not knowing when
you’re going to eat again is the
worst fear of a human being.
When the conversation was
opened up to the group, the
debate lasted all afternoon. There were a few holdouts, but most
agreed with Parrado. A small group left the fuselage with some
glass to cut the meat off. Some pledged their bodies to the others
if they died. One of the boys, Roy Harley, had managed to get a
transistor radio working, and on day 11 they heard a broadcast
saying the rescue attempt would be called off. Everyone started
eating after that. “Everybody in that situation… you would have
arrived at the same thought. And it’s easier than you think.”
Parrado wanted to leave as soon as he knew the rescue team
wasn’t coming, but his injuries were too severe, the weather too
savage. Over time they learnt the rules of survival: how to look
for dangerous crevices, how to melt snow in bottles so that it was
warm enough to drink. “We started to acclimatise. You start to
learn. I started to learn how to walk in the snow. One month into
the ordeal we were mountain men and we knew what to do.”
What they didn’t know was that the plane sat near the base of
a couloir – a steep gorge in the mountain where snow builds
up. Just over two weeks after the crash, an avalanche struck.
Everyone asleep on the floor of the fuselage was buried. Roy
Harley had stood up after hearing the avalanche thundering down
the mountain; had he not, they would probably have all died. He
uncovered three others as quickly as possible, then they began
searching for more, wiping snow away from faces so they could
breathe, before moving on to dig for the next body.
Of the 27 people left in the fuselage that night, eight died. The
survivors were now trapped in a fuselage half-filled with snow. It
was dark. They couldn’t stand. Outside, a blizzard roared. After
a few hours, Parrado punched a hole in the aircraft’s roof with
a cargo pole, drawing in fresh air. They stayed like that for four
days, next to the bodies of the dead. “We didn’t know if we had
enough air. We didn’t know if we had two metres, four metres or
50 metres of snow on top,” says Parrado. They heard a second
avalanche that night, but it rolled over the buried plane. When the
blizzard stopped and it was safe to leave, they dug their way out
through the cockpit, working in 15-minute shifts. It took hours.
6 January 2024 THE WEEK
42 The long read
After the avalanche, Parrado knew the only
way off the mountain was to walk. The
following weeks were spent training, waiting
for the weather to improve and making the
necessary equipment: a sleeping bag from
sewn-together cushions, a sled crafted from
a suitcase. When Parrado ran out of holes on
his belt, he knew time was up. He says the
decision to leave was the most important
he has ever made. “I knew that when I gave
the first step to leave the fuselage I was not
coming back. This is a kamikaze expedition.”
On the 61st day, Parrado, Roberto Canessa
and their friend Antonio “Tintin” Vizintín
left the fuselage. Based on the pilot’s dying
message to them, they believed they just
needed to scale the mountain to the west and
then head down to Chile. Parrado had layers
(three pairs of jeans, three sweaters, four Parrado at 57: “I don’t think a lot about it” cars. Does he ever find his thoughts drifting
pairs of socks covered in a shopping bag,
rugby boots), an aluminium pole for a walking stick, a backpack
with three days of meat rations. Before he left, he told those
staying behind they could use his family if they ran out of food.
Parrado was the first to reach the summit. They had started
the climb at 3,570 metres; the peak sits at 4,600 metres. Any
joy he felt reaching the summit evaporated as he looked around.
Parrado realised the pilot’s mistake. No green valleys of Chile,
just ridges and peaks far off into the horizon. “We thought
we were five kilometres away; we were 80.” He made his life’s
next biggest decision: continue west. Day after day, they
struggled downwards. The harsh landscape began to soften.
They found a river, which they
followed. Evidence of human
life kept them going: signs “Eventually they found three men by a river. a miracle. I shouldn’t be here.
of camping, manure, cows. The men threw some bread to them”
Eventually they found three
men on the far side of the river.
The men threw some bread to them, then rode off to get help
from the nearest police station, ten hours away by mule.
Parrado and Canessa had hiked more than 37 miles in ten days.
When the helicopters arrived with a rescue squad, Parrado was
presented with maps. He traced their path. “They said: ‘No, no,
no, no, that’s Argentina. That’s 60 or 80km away from here.’”
He insisted his friends were there; the rescuers needed a guide.
Eventually, Parrado recognised the valley and the mountains,
then the fuselage. As the helicopter circled, the boys emerged.
The helicopter landed. Parrado opened the door and “three of my
friends jumped over me like dogs, kissing me and shouting. It was
a very surreal and emotional scene. It was their first spark of
being alive again.” They couldn’t all fit in the helicopter, so some
stayed one more night accompanied by rescue team members.
After the rescue, Parrado was reunited with his father and older
sister, Graciela, at the hospital. The nurses removed his clothes
– the first time he’d taken some of them off in 72 days – and he
looked at himself in the mirror. “I didn’t recognise myself.” There
wasn’t a trace of muscle. “I looked at my legs and there were
bones – knees and bones.” The boys’ experiences made them
celebrities overnight. “For six months afterwards, we were
surrounded by journalists everywhere we went.”
His gauntness made him instantly recognisable. Paparazzi
photographed him; strangers would approach him in the street
and shake his hand. Officials from the Catholic Church said the
survivors had committed no sin by eating the dead, but the
newspapers couldn’t resist sensationalising it. “Ethically,
religiously, there are a lot of things you can write about this,”
he says. “But it never bothered me. Never.” He speaks proudly
of the fact that the survivors’ foundation, Fundación Viven, played © Guardian News & Media Limited 2023. Society of the Snow
a significant role in getting the Uruguayan population signed up
THE WEEK 6 January 2024
to organ donation. “We donated our bodies,”
he says. “You could die, and you could help
the other ones to live. That was a fantastic
thing that we did together.”
It took Parrado the best part of a year to
recover physically. But he says he suffered
no trauma, never felt guilt and never saw a
psychiatrist. “I mean, we survived something
that is not survivable. We’re going to teach
the psychiatrist things that he doesn’t know.”
To him, his incredible feat is not the defining
part of his life. His life after is what matters.
He has a wife, Veronique, two daughters and
four grandchildren. He’s now on the verge
of retiring, bringing to a close a career that
has seen him run a successful television
production company, grow the family
hardware business and, at one stage, race
back to his traumatic time in the Andes?
“I don’t think a lot about it,” he says. “One thing that I can tell
you is that never, in 51 years, have I had a nightmare about the
Andes.” He does think about it when he’s making business
decisions. “When I have to take a decision, I say: ‘OK, this
decision compared to the ones I took up there, this is a joke!’
I mean, what could happen if I go wrong? Over there every
decision meant that if it was wrongly taken, I would die.”
Did the experience change the way he thought about death at all?
“You learn to live with death at a young age,” he says. “I’ve seen
my friends dying in front of me. I’ve seen them approaching death
without fear… they approached it with bravery,” he says. “But
don’t get me wrong. I love life.
Every time I breathe, it’s like
I shouldn’t be talking to you.”
Shortly after the boys were
rescued, the Uruguayan and Chilean air forces built a grave at the
site – a simple steel cross among some rocks. Parrado’s mother
and sister, plus all the others who died, are buried there. Parrado
has visited 12 times (“You must think that I’m strange or crazy!”).
It’s not an easy trek: two-and-a-half days on horseback followed
by a 43-mile hike on dirt roads. Up there, with the safety blanket
of satellite phones and guides and food, he’s struck by its
awesome scale and beauty.
He would never have returned were it not for his father. “He
had been back, before he died, 18 times in a row – 18! – to put
flowers on the grave of his beloved wife and daughter and my
friends.” On their first trip, his father brought the teddy Susy slept
with every night. “I said: ‘Daddy, why are you doing this every
year?’ He said: ‘People go to cemeteries to put flowers on the
grave of their dear ones – my cemetery is only very far away.’” His
father died in 2008, aged 92. He left a note instructing Parrado to
take his ashes to the crash site. On Parrado’s behalf, a family
friend did just that, burying him with his wife and daughter.
“Dad had said: ‘Pharaohs and gladiators and Roman emperors,
they had big monuments as graves. We have the whole range of
the Andes mountains.” Parrado returned one last time in 2006,
this time with his wife and daughters. They told him: “We want to
see the place where we were created, where we were born.” At the
site, his friend took a picture of Parrado and his family looking
out towards the mountain Parrado scaled. It is the only memento
he keeps of the Andes. “You can only see our backs, but the four
of us are there and that defines my life. When I left that place to
climb, I didn’t have that family. I have it now.”
A longer version of this article appeared in The Guardian
is available to watch on Netflix
 Crossword 43
THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1395 This week’s winner will receive
Two Connell Guides and three Week-branded items will be given to the sender of the first Week-branded items including
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Send it to The Week Crossword 1395, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email bag, as well as two Connell Guides
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ACROSS
1 Old music player placed in
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5 Bleat about black cake made
with rum (4)
8 You’ll find them in oceans?
Not normally! (6)
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10 Broadcaster on eastern
island (4)
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and lips are affected (10)
12 Wound is red and painful
revealing mistake (8,4)
16 What’s first for drivers but
last for gondoliers? (4,8)
18 Mineral water in London (10)
20 Game Venetian (4)
21 Abuse boss and it’s the end
of the line (8)
22 Fierce woman in scrap getting
stuck into fellow (6)
23 Back copper quitting Yorkshire
town (4)
24 Duplicate check on small
opening (8)
DOWN
1 Nuts and biscuits could be stuff
for the party (8)
2 Push southern coastal resort (5)
3 One working remotely blasted
a real dissenter (6,8)
4 Very little support given
to American city (5)
5 Some fat, say in oil company,
ends with extra investment (6,3)
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region (6)
7 A most unfriendly conclusion
on leg? Part of it (8,6)
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dividing part of east London (9)
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one line (8)
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informer (6)
19 Show cat missing in tabloid
newspaper (5)
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in terrine (5)

Name
Address
Clue of the week: Stand or stumble: too many drugs? (6, first letter T) Tel no
The Times
Clue of the week answer:

Solution to Crossword 1393

Restore your
ACROSS: 1 Masterstrokes 8 Echt 9 Protruding 10 Samosa 11 Kangaroo
12 Toscanini 14 Open 15 Aunt 16 Offspring 20 Free fall 21 Ambush
23 Bridgehead 24 Item 25 Percussionist

news-life balance
DOWN: 1 Meccano 2 Set-to 3 Explain 4 Stocking fillers 5 Raring
6 Kidnapper 7 Sundown 13 Contender 15 Air-drop 17 So-and-so
18 Nascent 19 Gateau 22 Blini
Clue of the week: Careless fielders at cover dropping ball (8, first
letter S) Solution: SLIPSHOD (slips + ho(o)d O = ball)
The winner of 1393 is Harry Jones from Truro

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